Settling In

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Settling In.

In Kindwater Village, the village chief had brought Comrade Wang Yang over in an Ox Cart to pick them up. They all put their luggage onto the cart.

The village chief looked like an old man in his fifties, but he was actually only in his early forties.

The hardships people of his generation had endured in those days were far beyond anything Lin Yuzhu could imagine.

The village chief was fairly amiable toward them. "Kids, get on!"

After greeting the village chief and introducing themselves, they all climbed aboard.

Once they were in the cart, only Wang Yang and Li Xiangbei chatted, while the village chief occasionally chimed in.

The sun was bright and warm. The three girls had long since leaned against one another and fallen asleep beneath its glow, sleeping deeply and sweetly enough to ease their exhaustion.

Lin Yuzhu was awakened by Li Xiangwan's pat. When he opened his eyes, he was still groggy and had not realized where he was. His blank look made Li Xiangwan chuckle.

By the time Lin Yuzhu had fully woken up, they seemed to have reached the village entrance. Quite a few curious children had gathered around to watch.

It was the busy farming season now, and the adults of every household were working in the fields. No one had the leisure to come look at educated youth.

Besides, several groups of educated youth had already arrived over the past few years, so they were nothing new to the villagers.

Some people had even been rather displeased to hear that more educated youth were coming to their village.

Those educated youth were all so delicate. They could get sick from doing a little work. What could they possibly accomplish?

They could not exactly let them starve to death in the village, yet they could not do much work either. They had come only to take a share of the villagers' grain for nothing. No matter how one looked at it, it was a bad deal.

There was only one ox in the village, and the village chief treasured it dearly. Bringing them as far as the village entrance was already quite generous.

In some villages, even when the entrance was still several li away, the village chief would make people get down and walk back on their own.

So Kindwater Village was already quite kind and righteous.

After they got down from the cart with their luggage, the village chief said, "Wang Yang, take these kids back to where you live. I need to take this ox back to the cowshed to eat grass."

"You kids rest today. Tomorrow morning, follow Wang Yang and the others to work."

They all nodded to show that they understood.

After saying goodbye to the village chief, Wang Yang said, "You came at a good time. In another two months, it'll be the autumn harvest. You can earn some work points and exchange them for grain."

"When I first arrived, it was winter. There wasn't much grain left in the village granary, and the little they gave the educated youth wasn't enough to eat. You still had to count on work points."

"Later, the village chief said we could use money to make up for work points. Only then did everyone get enough grain to fill their stomachs."

Lin Yuzhu understood after hearing that. It was essentially a disguised way of using money to buy grain. When everyone received money before the New Year, the villagers would not object when they saw the educated youth paying. That was a good thing, though life would be difficult for any educated youth who had not brought money.

Zhang Yanqiu knew that educated youth lived together and ate from the same pot. Since there was someone from her hometown here, she finally dared to ask, "Will all the grain be kept together and eaten together?" She felt a little uneasy. As a girl, she definitely could not eat as much as the boys. If the grain were all stored together, she would surely lose out later.

Wang Yang smiled, showing that he understood. "Everyone has their own grain bag. Keep track of it yourself. The grain distributed is all the same. Eat however much you take out to cook with everyone else. Basically, it's not easy to lose out that way."

Lin Yuzhu, Li Xiangwan, and Zhang Yanqiu all breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. Lin Yuzhu was somewhat surprised. He remembered that the plot had not gone this way. There had been disputes over meals, and in the end, everyone cooked separately with the people they were close to. It seemed there were still differences between the plot and reality. Lin Yuzhu and Li Xiangwan were both thinking the same thing: if they ate from one communal pot, how could they take food from their space to improve their quality of life?

They could not possibly take out good things to share every few days, could they?

Forget whether that was selfish or not. Even cadre families did not have many people who could bring out meat to improve everyone's meals every few days.

At this time, everyone lived frugally and endured hardship.

Ration coupons had been created to control how much people could buy. Even buying meat had to be split into portions. If they really brought out meat, they would not dare take out more than half a jin. Shared among everyone, each person would probably get only two or three bites, not even enough to taste the meat.

The two of them frowned and pondered in silence. As people who had once eaten so much pork that they grew tired of it, suddenly being unable to eat pork was something they could not bear.

It was hard to go from luxury to frugality.

The male lead had already begun to feel favorably toward the female lead, so he often watched her. Seeing her brows tightly furrowed, he asked with concern, "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

Warmth filled the female lead's heart. She shook her head. "No, I'm just a little tired."

Zhang Yanqiu watched the male and female leads with an unreadable expression.

Lin Yuzhu put away his thoughts and followed behind Wang Yang.

The place where the educated youth lived was actually a house left behind after an elderly villager with no descendants had passed away.

At the time, aside from the former landlords' brick houses, nearly all the village homes were earthen houses. They looked rather flimsy, but they were warm in winter and cool in summer.

Lin Yuzhu knew that earthen houses could be very sturdy if they were maintained regularly.

The Northeast did not have an especially high chance of torrential rains and floods. As long as the roof did not collapse under the snow in winter, they were fairly safe.

Every rural household had a small courtyard, each laid out in its own orderly way. Some even built wooden sheds to store farm tools and firewood.

Some households also built Chicken coops and doghouses in their backyards. Usually, there would be pigpens there as well. If everything in the yard was not properly arranged, it would look terribly filthy and messy.

Fortunately, the educated youth's house had a relatively clean yard. But when Li Xiangwan and Zhang Yanqiu saw the old, dilapidated earthen house, their faces both turned pale, and their hearts grew even more bitter.

They knew life in the countryside would be hard, but they had not expected to live in a house that looked as though it might collapse at any moment.

Lin Yuzhu had long been mentally prepared and could bear it fairly well, but the other two girls were close to breaking down.

Moreover, the country paths were all dirt roads. After walking this far, their originally black cloth shoes were covered in a layer of dust, and their trouser cuffs had become gray as well.

They were all girls who liked to be clean. Their emotions were a complicated mess now, and they probably would not recover anytime soon.

There were three other educated youth living here as well, two girls and one boy. The girls were timid and did not dare sleep in the room where the old person had lived. There were only two rooms for sleeping, one for the male educated youth and one for the female educated youth. The earthen house opened directly into the kitchen, without even a sitting room. If guests came, they had to sit in the kitchen.

The three educated youth were still at work and had not returned yet.

Wang Yang led the four of them inside. The girls looked at the packed dirt floor, hardened by constant trampling, and no longer knew what to think.

Lin Yuzhu was somewhat surprised too. He could not help covering his face. "Sigh, what a harsh era."

In those days, only offices might have cement floors. Most ordinary city homes had floors paved with red bricks—the same red bricks used to build houses, not floor tiles.

Back then, no homes were truly clean. Usually, people could sprinkle water on the ground to settle the dust.

If a place was not kept clean, there would be an enormous amount of dust indoors.

That was why there were not many people in that era whose clothes and skin were spotless. In the countryside, though, paving the ground with bricks was out of the question. Every household had dirt floors. Once people got used to them, the packed earth was very solid and actually did not raise much dust.

Seeing their poor expressions, Wang Yang smiled. He sighed inwardly. Had he not been just like this when he first arrived? Now that he was used to it, it was nothing much. He just did not know when this life would ever end.

When Lin Yuzhu entered the room where they would be staying, the first thing he saw was a large heated brick bed. In the middle of the bed stood a heated wall that nearly reached the roof.

Lin Yuzhu was originally from the north, and his family had lived in a single-story house for a time when he was young. Seeing signs beneath the bed of a separate fire channel, he knew this heated bed had to be fired independently.

With winters in the Northeast this cold, the people's ingenuity was on full display.

Usually, rooms had both heated walls and heated brick beds. A heated wall was generally shared by two rooms, so when winter came, it could warm both rooms at once, much like radiators in an apartment building. To save firewood or coal, the heated wall and heated brick bed were connected to the household stove.

The heated wall then had an opening leading to the roof, which was the chimney they could see.

If it was properly heated in winter, the room would be especially warm. A warm bed, a wife, and children—that was a wonderfully comfortable life.

However, some heated beds were not connected to the stove and could only be fired separately. Their room appeared to be one of those.

Looking more closely, the room was quite large. If it relied only on the heated wall by the door, it might not be warm enough in winter.

And if they built a heated brick bed near the door, it would probably fit only three or four people.

The boys lived on the other side of the heated wall. That room was small. Apart from the heated bed, there was only a passageway. Add a table for the water vat and thermos, and it would be packed to the brim.

Anyone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies would feel distressed, perhaps even collapse, at the sight before them. The girls' heated bed could sleep only five people. The heated wall naturally could not run crosswise, and the middle section against the two windowless walls could fit only two people.

It seemed someone had already claimed that spot, because there were belongings placed on the bed cabinet.

The villagers also had a clean and tidy side: every household's heated brick bed was kept very neat.

At this time, more particular households would spread a layer of newspaper over the bed, then lay down straw mats, sweeping it clean every day.

Along the wall beside the bed, there was a row of bed cabinets for storing quilts and clothes. Firewood was worthless in the village, so practically every household had cabinets made.

However, Lin Yuzhu and the others had just arrived, and no one had been maintaining this heated bed. They had to handle everything themselves, so it looked somewhat dirty and messy.

Li Xiangwan and Zhang Yanqiu were still in shock and could not come back to their senses for a long time.

Lin Yuzhu set down his luggage and looked over the things on the heated bed. A straw mat, half rolled up, had been placed on it. There were also clumps of dirt and dust on the bed. They definitely could not lay the mat down directly like this; they would not be able to sleep, and it would raise dust.

"Let's put the straw mat on the table and sweep the bed."

"Also, did either of you bring enough newspapers?"

"We'd better lay a layer of newspaper over the bed before spreading the straw mats."

Only then did the two come back to their senses and nod repeatedly.

Luckily, Zhang Yanqiu had brought newspapers. This was not the time to fuss over who had not brought any. After sweeping the bed clean, the three of them climbed onto it and spread out the newspapers together.

There was no glue or tape in those days, so they could only overlap the newspapers and weigh them down. The people's ingenuity was on full display.