Chapter 53
◎High School Life Begins◎
Tangtang and Su Juesheng had already been to the county town many times, so they refused their parents’ kind offer to see them off. Besides, it was only September, so there was no need to bring thick bedsheets and quilts. They only needed to pack two sets of clothes for washing and some simple daily necessities. The two children carried their own luggage and rode the brand new, shiny bicycle to school.
Yuanlin County was not large, with a permanent population of about one hundred and fifty thousand. It was said that a few decades ago, it was a military stronghold. At that time, carts and horses came and went in an endless stream. The entire county had a heavy sense of ancient yellow sand. The moat in the suburbs was the main source of water for the residents of the city.
The wind blew past the red flag on the roof, making a “whooshing” sound. The common people lived and multiplied here.
The dormitory was an eight-person room with bunk beds and iron frames. She chose a lower bunk. It was probably the first day of school, and the dormitory was noisy. Tangtang moved a wooden box of clothes onto the bed. The box took up half the bed.
Inside, besides two or three sets of clothes for washing, a toothbrush, a towel, and a towel blanket, there was also a bag of white flour pancakes that her mother, Yu Juanfang, had made, as well as a kerosene lamp brought from home. For convenience, the lamp base, wick tube, and lampshade were all disassembled and wrapped in newspaper before they left. There was also a small pot for lamp oil.
Tangtang assembled the kerosene lamp, poured some lamp oil into the base, and after tidying up, she pushed the wooden box to the inner side of the bed so that it would not take up so much space. She could even write on the bed then.
The box was made of camphor wood. The copper-clad corners of the box were polished and shiny. If you got close and sniffed hard, you could still smell the unique, bitter fragrance of camphor wood. The dark red vermilion pattern could vaguely reveal its original color. The price of camphor wood was much higher than that of elm wood. This was the best box in the family, and her mother, Yu Juanfang, had specially emptied it for her to use.
The other girls in the dormitory were all packing their things. Tangtang had started school at the age of six, which was considered early. Many of the girls in the class had started school at the age of seven or eight, or almost nine, so the girls in the dormitory were also much older than her. Compared to Tangtang’s simplicity, the other girls’ wooden boxes were obviously much fuller, with shampoo, face cream, and hair oil. The girls had reached a flower-like age and paid much more attention to their appearance.
“Hey, which commune are you all from?”
“Hongqi Commune.”
“Then you must have attended junior high at Hongqi Commune Middle School?”
“Yes.”
Someone took the initiative to speak, and the few girls in the dormitory quickly became familiar with each other.
Tangtang and the others had started cooking for themselves in junior high, so they were already very familiar with school life.
However, Hongqi Commune was close to home, only a dozen li away. If anything happened, they could go home with a quick trip. But it was not the same at the county middle school. It was forty-seven or forty-eight kilometers from Yuanlin County to Yuhuai Village.
Overall, the adaptation was good.
There were about fifty students in a class, mainly composed of the children of cadres in the city and the children of farmers from various communes. They basically presented two distinct styles.
The children of cadres were obviously from well-off families, wearing very decent student uniforms. Some of the more well-off ones even wore a shiny watch on their wrists, which immediately set the scene.
The children of farmers, on the other hand, were obviously not used to it at first and were more reserved. Although the clothes they wore were basically new, they had an outdated feel compared to the children of cadres. There were more or less traces of physical labor on their bodies. They would not speak loudly, nor would they easily stand in a crowd.
Among the other classmates who had taken the primary school entrance exam with Tangtang and the others, besides Tangtang, Su Juesheng, Su Zitian, and Sun Xiangrong who were still in high school, the rest, Chen Manjin and Wang Dayun, had not continued their studies.
Tangtang was still deskmates with Sun Xiangrong. After starting junior high, Sun Xiangrong had started to grow taller. She was now almost the tallest among the girls. Her body and limbs were very slender, with a pair of long and narrow phoenix eyes. She was wearing a red floral dress. She looked at the front and said to Tangtang in a low voice, “There’s a half-day holiday on Sunday afternoon. Let’s go to the department store to buy some feminine products.”
“Alright.” Tangtang thought for a moment. Her toothpaste was also almost used up.
The department store was two streets away, about seven or eight hundred meters. On Sunday afternoon, the department store was crowded. The most popular items among the girls were the new vanishing cream, nail polish, and scented powder from the city. As soon as Sun Xiangrong stepped into the department store, she eagerly went to the counter.
Tangtang had never liked to wear makeup, and the nail polish from the city cost more than a yuan for a small bottle. In the production team, she only earned 24 cents a day. She was reluctant to spend this money.
Tangtang bought a tube of toothpaste. The frosted paper packaging was printed with a dark green tube. The price tag was pressed under the glass, fifteen cents a tube. She counted out the coins from the handkerchief wrapped around her money. Seeing that Sun Xiangrong was still choosing scented powder, she decided to look around this retail department a little more.
On the shelf to the left of the retail department, there was a stack of machine-made cloth shoes. The stitches on the soles were neat and dense, in circles. There were yellow uppers, blue uppers, and most were black.
“Cloth shoes…” For some reason, the image of Zhou Shunian’s lonely figure as he left on the train suddenly appeared in Tangtang’s mind.
I wonder how Brother Shunian is doing in Wanqiu.
…
The production brigade where Zhou Shunian was working as an educated youth was called Hegouzi Production Brigade. There were more than a dozen people working with him in the production brigade, forming a “collective household of educated youth.” In the adobe house converted from the production brigade’s warehouse, there were several wooden plank beds with old cotton quilts brought from home by the educated youth. Their luggage was piled in the corner. More than ten male educated youth were squeezed into the same room. The five female educated youth’s residence was next door, separated from them by only a wall. In this environment, the four words “private space” were undoubtedly a luxury for everyone.
The summer in Wanqiu was hot and stuffy. For more than half of July, the temperature was close to forty degrees, as if they had entered a steamer. The old cotton quilts on the wooden plank beds were soured by the heat, and the straw mats were covered with sweat stains. Mold crawled up the base of the walls. More than ten bare-chested male educated youth lay scattered on the wooden plank beds. The sound of bamboo fans swatting at mosquitoes mixed with the chirping of cicadas. It was so hot that they couldn’t sleep at all.
In the summer, they also had to put away two of the wooden plank beds to make room for the villagers to store their grain.
As for food, the educated youth were allocated rations in the production team according to their work points. The collective household had a firewood stove and simple cooking utensils. The educated youth took turns cooking. The staple food was usually cornbread buns, mixed grain buns, or mixed grain congee. The dishes were boiled cabbage, boiled radishes, or boiled potatoes. They were reluctant to even add a little more salt, let alone oil.
Zhou Shunian had been in Wanqiu since September 1972. He had been in Wanqiu for more than two years. The environment at the educated youth point was really too poor, and it really tempered one’s will.
Zhou Shunian got his meal. As usual, it was boiled potato stew and three sorghum buns. After returning to the dormitory, he found a letter by his pillow. It was probably brought back by a companion who had gone to the commune to pick up mail. It was from his former classmate and comrade-in-arms, Su Juesheng, from the army.
They didn’t correspond much. He was working as an educated youth in Wanqiu, and Su Juesheng was a soldier in the southern city. It would take at least a month for a letter to get from Wanqiu to the southern city, and a reply would have to wait for three months. In addition, life was dull and boring, and there wasn’t much to write about, so the frequency of their correspondence gradually decreased.
Zhou Shunian was not in a hurry to eat. He first opened Su Juesheng’s letter.
“Comrade Shunian:
Seeing this letter is like seeing you in person! I have learned from your letter the good news that you have been recommended to work at the Capital Machinery Factory. I am sincerely happy for you! Although receiving re-education from the poor and lower-middle peasants is a very glorious thing, glory is glory, but I also know in my heart: for someone like you who can speak both English and Russian, can recite physics knowledge by heart, can draw mechanical sketches, and has also self-taught higher mathematics, your ambition is definitely not on the field ridges. Now that you can go to the Capital Machinery Factory to work on a lathe, it can be considered that those worn-out textbooks have not been in vain!
The army is currently holding a “technical innovation competition.” I signed up for the ordnance repair group and deal with various mechanical military equipment every day. My hands are full of oil, which reminds me of the “smell of dry grass in the production team’s pigsty” you mentioned in your letter. Yesterday, I was dismantling and repairing an old lathe. I studied the mechanical sketch you drew before for half the night. Hey, I actually figured out the trick—sure enough, even if we are hundreds of li apart, our brains can still work together.
You mentioned in your letter that your recommendation materials included your deeds of being named a “firefighting hero.” Although it was mentioned in passing, I can also imagine the danger. I want to say that young people should not be too arrogant sometimes and should still pay attention to safety.
I presume that when you receive this letter, you will be setting off for the north soon. I wish you a safe journey. When you have established yourself in the factory, I hope you will write to me and tell me about the new things in the factory. Let’s compare, through our letters, who is doing better on our respective “front lines”!
By the way, my younger brother and sister are already in high school. My little sister, Tangtang, has been asking me about your situation recently. She wants to know if you are doing well in Wanqiu. Can you send her a letter to let her know about your recent situation?
Sincerely,
Revolutionary salute!
Su Juesheng
October 1974, from a certain military unit in the southern city”
Behind the Hegouzi Production Brigade, there was a large primeval forest. This forest was a precious forest resource of the country, and there were even forest rangers specially assigned to patrol the mountains. Three months ago, after the beginning of summer this year, there had been no rain for three months, and the weather was hot and dry. Zhou Shunian couldn’t sleep, so he came out of the dormitory to cool off and happened to see a fire in the distance.
Zhou Shunian urgently woke up the nearby villagers, organized everyone to use carrying poles to carry wet quilts to beat the fire, and used tree branches to draw a firebreak at the edge of the fire scene. In addition, he also risked his life to rush into the mountains to rescue two forest rangers. By the time the fire brigade arrived, he had already led the villagers to successfully control the fire.
To save people, Zhou Shunian’s arm was burned with a string of blisters. The forestry bureau estimated that if the fire had burned into the core area, thousands of cubic meters of timber would have been lost. The firebreak that Zhou Shunian had drawn had just blocked the fire. The local county revolutionary committee specially issued a commendation order, and it was also reported in the newspaper.
It happened to be the time when the Capital Machinery Factory was recruiting workers. The machinery factory specially reserved a spot for the firefighting hero.
After reading Su Juesheng’s letter, a rare look of relaxation appeared on Zhou Shunian’s face.
Hearing Su Juesheng mention Tangtang, the image of a little girl in a goose-yellow dress with pigtails appeared in his mind. When she looked at people, her eyes were always sparkling with a smile.
More than two years had passed in a flash. Zhou Shunian and Tangtang had not been in contact. It was kind of this little girl to still remember him.
He took out a pen and paper from his handbag, sat at a simple table, and began to write a letter to Tangtang.
After writing the letter, he carefully folded the letter paper, put it in an envelope, and planned to send it to Tangtang when he left for the capital tomorrow.
After doing all this, Zhou Shunian finally remembered the food he had brought back. He vaguely finished a bowl of potato stew and three sorghum buns and began to pack his luggage for the capital.
He didn’t plan to take the bedding, bedsheets, washbasin, or rubber shoes. He would leave them for his educated youth companions. Zhou Shunian only packed two sets of clothes for washing and a few books he often read.
While packing, he found a pair of black cloth shoes wrapped in yellow paper at the bottom of the box. The stitches on them were crooked, and the edges were not cut neatly. This was what Tangtang had made and given to him when he left Yuanlin County.
Zhou Shunian was stunned for a moment, his throat rolled, and in the end, he still chose to pack the pair of cloth shoes into his handbag and take them with him.