“And eggs are such precious things! Erjun needs to use his brain for his studies. Mom saved those eggs to help him build up his strength…”
Lu Erjun and Bai Su’s fourth daughter, Guihua, were both in their third year of junior high school at the town’s secondary school.
Bai Su’s youngest daughter, Meihua, was also in her first year of junior high school.
The secondary school was more than ten li[1]A li (里) is a Chinese unit of distance equivalent to approximately half a kilometer in this setting. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3694781_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3694781_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); away from Heping Production Brigade.
Guihua and Meihua both boarded at the school and returned home once a week.
Old Madam Lu’s favoritism knew no bounds. If Lihua’s uncle hadn’t regularly sent money and ration coupons, she would have stopped Guihua and Meihua from attending school long ago.
Only her grandsons were allowed to eat steamed buns made from white flour and eggs. Whenever Guihua and Meihua went to school, all they could take with them were wild vegetable dumplings and coarse-grain steamed buns so hard they could practically break someone’s teeth.
As the eldest son of the Lu family continued lecturing her, Bai Su felt her anger rising.
She reached over, snatched the steamed buns and eggs from the bowls of the Lu family’s father and sons and Chunya, and distributed them among Lihua and her sisters. “Your eldest uncle and cousins don’t like eggs or white-flour steamed buns. You girls should eat more.”
Lihua and her sisters were dumbfounded.
Bai Su urged them, “What are you staring at? Eat!”
Ignoring the eldest son’s shocked expression and Lu Dajun angrily slamming down his bowl, Bai Su peeled the eggs herself and placed them back into the girls’ bowls.
When Chunya tried to snatch them back, Bai Su hurled a chopstick at her, her gaze murderous.
“From now on, if anyone dares snatch even a mouthful of food from Lihua and her sisters, I’ll hack them to death!”
Had their aunt gone completely mad?
They stared at the chopstick embedded in a crack in the table, still trembling from the force of the impact.
Remembering how fiercely she had attacked people with a sickle, the faces of the Lu family’s father and sons and Chunya darkened with anger. None of them dared make a rash move.
Lihua and her sisters finished their steamed buns and eggs with white rice porridge, then went off to work, burping contentedly. Only then did Bai Su ladle herself a bowl of porridge and rise with a smile.
“I’m full!”
“I’m going to feed Mom some porridge and show our dear mother some proper filial devotion.”
As soon as Bai Su left, the badly frightened Chunya finally came back to her senses.
“Do you think Auntie has been possessed by a ghost?”
“What nonsense are you talking about? If she reports you for spreading feudal superstitions, you’ll be dragged to the brigade’s threshing ground just like your grandmother and mother.”
The eldest son of the Lu family believed Bai Su had simply been pushed too far!
Just as the people in the brigade said, even a rabbit would bite when cornered.
Because of the plan to sell Lihua, she had completely fallen out with them.
His younger sister-in-law had always wanted to adopt his son Dajun, so Dajun was the only one who could keep her under control.
The eldest son glanced at his son, Lu Dajun. Furious that he hadn’t gotten to eat any white-flour steamed buns, Lu Dajun was eating his white rice porridge with pickled vegetables.
“Just wait and see. Let’s see how long she can keep acting so tough.”
Chunya still felt that something supernatural had happened to her aunt. Ever since learning yesterday that Lihua was going to be sold, the woman had seemed like a completely different person.
“Why do I have such a bad feeling about this? Auntie even said she was going to show Grandma filial devotion…”
Before Chunya could finish speaking, Old Madam Lu’s shrill scream came from inside the room.
The Lu father and son rushed inside and found Old Madam Lu sprawled on the floor after falling out of bed. Bits of porridge clung to her clothes, and her trembling hand pointed toward a cabinet. Meanwhile, Bai Su was calmly smashing open the cabinet door and pulling a stack of money and ration coupons from a hidden compartment.
The family’s money had been saved for Dajun’s marriage.
At the sight of this, Lu Dajun and his father could no longer restrain themselves. They lunged toward Bai Su.
As though she had eyes in the back of her head, Bai Su slipped through the gap between them and darted out of the room. The moment she reached the doorway, she put on a frightened expression.
“That hurts! Please don’t hit me! How are Mom and Sister-in-law supposed to recover if we don’t buy them medicine?”
When Lu Dajun and his father chased after her, Bai Su immediately crouched on the ground, covering her head with her arms and trembling all over.
“You said the commune members were too rough with them and that you wanted to make them pay the medical expenses. How could you do that?”
“Mom and Sister-in-law were receiving ideological education because they’d done something wrong!”
“The members of our brigade are all good people. None of them used excessive force! Mom and Sister-in-law fell out of bed and injured themselves. I have to buy medicine for them.”
“Dajun! Your aunt knows this money was saved for your marriage.”
“But your grandmother and mother fell out of bed and hurt themselves. How can we not buy them medicine?”
“We’ll use this money to buy medicine for your grandmother and mother first. When Lihua’s uncle sends more money, I’ll save it up again for your marriage.”
It was just after breakfast, when everyone was heading out to work. The Lu family’s house stood close to a village path, so people frequently passed by.
As soon as Bai Su began shouting, the passersby noticed Lu Dajun and his father chasing her. They immediately stopped and crowded around the doorway, criticizing the two men from every direction.
“Look at that! The Lu family is still trying to extort money from us!”
“His wife and mother fell out of bed and hurt themselves, but he wants to blame us? How can someone be so wicked?”
“They only received ideological education yesterday, and today Lu Dajun and his father are already beating people! Clearly, their ideological awareness still isn’t good enough.”
“Dajun always seemed like a decent young man. How did he turn out so unfilial? Lihua’s mother is far too honest. After everything her mother-in-law and sister-in-law did to her, she’s still thinking about spending money on their medicine.”
“Educated Youth Zhao from the capital is such a beautiful young woman. If I were her, I’d never consider marrying someone like Lu Dajun, who looks respectable but is rotten inside.”
“We ought to have a proper talk with Educated Youth Zhao. She mustn’t marry into a family like the Lu’s…”
It was as though someone had them by the throat, leaving them powerless to fight back!
Once again, Lu Dajun and his father found themselves the targets of the brigade members’ accusations. Worse still, they heard people threatening to report them to the brigade leader so their family would have to undergo another round of ideological education. Others were even planning to persuade Educated Youth Zhao not to marry into the Lu family.
The father and son stopped dead in their tracks. They no longer dared snatch the money back, much less lay a finger on Bai Su.
Having suffered a crushing defeat without being able to do anything about it, the two men headed to the fields to earn work points, their faces livid with anger.
Meanwhile, Bai Su took the several dozen yuan and ration coupons she had found in Old Madam Lu’s hiding place, along with the white-flour steamed buns and boiled eggs she had secretly put aside that morning. She also wrapped the medicinal residue left over from the cattle medicine Old Madam Lu had forced her to drink in a piece of paper. Leaving the two women lying in their room, she picked up a basket and headed toward the town commune.
She hadn’t walked far when she turned onto the main road and heard the puttering rumble of a tractor approaching from behind.
Bai Su stepped aside to let it pass, but the tractor stopped beside her.
The handsome young man who had helped send her mother-in-law and sister-in-law tumbling down the embankment yesterday was sitting at the controls, holding the tractor’s steering handles with a piece of dried grass between his lips.
“Well, Auntie, what a coincidence! Are you heading to the town commune?”
Bai Su nodded. The young man immediately invited her aboard. “The brigade leader asked me to drive the tractor to the town commune to pick someone up. Hop on. I’ll give you a ride since we’re going the same way.”
Yesterday’s incident had caused complete chaos, but Old Madam Lu and her eldest daughter-in-law had successfully been taken away for ideological education, largely thanks to this young man.
He was the one who had swung his shoulder pole loaded with rice seedlings and knocked Old Madam Lu and her eldest daughter-in-law down the embankment. He had also spoken up for Bai Su in front of the brigade leader, praising him as a good cadre who served the people.
Thanks to his help, Bai Su had been able to attack the two women with a sickle and then have them sent to the brigade’s threshing ground for ideological education.
After climbing onto the tractor, Bai Su struck up a conversation with him. “Young man, I really have to thank you for what happened yesterday.”
“Why are you being so polite, Auntie? Have you forgotten who I am?”
As he drove the tractor, he chatted with Bai Su. “I’m that boy from the He family, He Yan. You know, the family living next to your maiden family’s home, near the brigade’s medical station. Back when Old Mr. Bai was still alive, he often went up into the mountains to gather medicinal herbs for my mother. I didn’t do much yesterday. I just told the brigade leader the truth.”
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