Three Small Compartments

This program was produced by Tomato Listening.

Episode 9: Three Small Compartments. Wang Yang borrowed a rag, scrubbed the straw mats clean, and hung them out in the courtyard. Once they dried, they could be laid out.

Only then did the three of them take a break before starting to figure out the sleeping arrangements.

Both Li Xiangwan and Zhang Yanqiu disliked the heated wall. It had not been whitewashed and looked grimy.

Lin Yuzhu did not mind. Once winter came, that heated wall would be a treasure, so she chose to sleep beside it.

Zhang Yanqiu liked the spot by the window. She thought it was brighter and would make her feel more open-hearted.

Li Xiangwan and Lin Yuzhu did not see it that way. If someone came in at night, the spot by the window would be the most dangerous.

Neither of them said so, and naturally, no one competed with her for it.

Just like that, Li Xiangwan slept in the middle. She carried secrets with her and wanted a space of her own for them.

But in this era, never mind whether she could get a place of her own in the village—if she did, as a young woman, would she dare live alone?

Common legal knowledge had not yet reached every household, and there were still crooked-minded, bold people in the village.

How many female educated youths had been harmed back then?

For female educated youths, setting up a household alone was not a wise choice.

At first, some educated youths had been scattered among different farming families. They brought food with them and ate alongside the local residents.

Male educated youths were not much of a concern. At most, differences in living habits caused some inconvenience.

Female educated youths were different. After a while, some cases came to light where they had been harmed by the families hosting them.

Later, in order to protect the educated youths, the organization had villages build housing for them. The lucky ones even received housing subsidies. Village chiefs did not want trouble either, so over time, whenever there were vacant rooms in a village, they were reserved for the educated youths.

Besides, these educated youths had no idea when they would be able to return to the city. They could not stay in villagers' homes forever. As for setting up a household alone, Lin Yuzhu did not even consider it.

Li Xiangwan was no fool either. She took a small stack of dark blue homespun cloth from her luggage and said to the other two, "Do you want to use this cloth to divide the kang?"

Their kang faced the doorway. If someone opened the door to go out in the morning and forgot to close it, it would be easy to expose themselves.

In Lin Yuzhu's opinion, it was very necessary to hang curtains around the kang.

Southerners cared greatly about privacy. Even among the same sex, they would be embarrassed to bare themselves before one another.

Seeing Li Xiangwan take out so much cloth, and knowing she had even specially bought dye to color it, Lin Yuzhu could tell she had prepared for this long ago.

Lin Yuzhu also had secrets of her own, so she naturally agreed. Having something to cover them was better than having nothing at all. The lighting would certainly be worse, but what could they demand from a communal dormitory?

Homespun cloth was not easy to buy in the countryside, and it cost money too. Lin Yuzhu had no nerve to take it for free. She pulled out fifty cents and handed it to Li Xiangwan. "I think we do need to use the cloth as a screen. Forget whether we need to avoid each other's eyes—there are boys in the other room too, and the kang entrance is not covered."

"This curtain makes it pretty easy for us girls to accidentally expose ourselves. Even if we hang a curtain over the door, someone has to lift it whenever they go out."

"This earthen house only has two rooms, plus a kitchen. Whatever everyone does, they basically do it in the kitchen."

"The kang entrance faces the kitchen. How could that possibly be convenient?"

When Zhang Yanqiu saw Lin Yuzhu take out fifty cents, her expression paused, and displeasure flickered in her eyes.

In her view, they only needed everyone to be a bit more careful. Besides, they all slept on the same kang, so surely they would not leave her out by herself. Still, she reluctantly took out fifty cents.

Li Xiangwan did not stand on ceremony. She took the money and put it in her pocket.

They would be living together for a long time. If she started out being overly generous and let them develop the habit of reaching out to her whenever they needed something, what then?

In her previous life, she had also made friends from ordinary families. Later, she discovered that while those friends acted affectionate toward her on the surface, they had many grievances against her behind her back.

Because they split restaurant bills evenly, they complained that they still had to pay when eating out with her. Her family was so well-off—how could she have the nerve?

From then on, she understood that in some people's eyes, if you were better off, you should naturally contribute more.

She sneered inwardly. Now that she was here, she naturally knew to keep a low profile. More importantly, she could not gain a reputation for being too generous.

Clearly, Li Xiangwan had come fully prepared. She had even brought nails and rope.

There was certainly no wire available to string up anything at this time. Having rope was already quite good.

The girls fumbled around without any plan, while Li Xiangbei benefited from his childhood friend's help. He only had to unpack his luggage. When he came over after finishing, he took over the task.

Wang Yang and Li Xiangbei were responsible for hammering in the nails, while the girls threaded rope through the sewn curtains.

Once they had all worked together to finish it, their little earthen kang had been divided into three small compartments.

The kang was not small. Even after spreading out the bedding, there was still extra space, so it did not feel so cramped.

After this, Zhang Yanqiu was quite satisfied as well. Who would not want some private space? The kang cabinets were placed crosswise, so each of them had a side to open. It was perfect.

The sun outside was scorching, and the mats had already dried completely. The three girls brought them in and spread them over the kang. Only then did it look clean, and they all felt much more comfortable.

After looking at the earthen house for a while, it started to seem more pleasing to the eye.

Wang Yang and Li Xiangbei went to the village chief to collect food for the four of them, while the girls gradually took out their luggage and put it away. They could not leave it lying outside and in everyone's way forever.

Lin Yuzhu and Zhang Yanqiu's bedding was clearly old stuff their families had sent them, while Li Xiangwan's was obviously new.

Zhang Yanqiu was a little surprised. She knew Li Xiangwan came from a worker's family, but she had not expected her parents to dote on her so much. She felt both envy and jealousy.

Lin Yuzhu sighed. Mother Lin was far better than Li Family's parents.

When Li Xiangwan left home, she had brought nothing except a few pieces of clothing. She had bought this luggage herself while in Beijing.

So sometimes, when viewed from another angle, there was really nothing to envy.

Just then, the system reminded her again that the radishes had matured and been harvested. Did she want to continue planting White Radish?

Li Yuzhu silently thought, Continue planting.

Yet her expression remained calm, without the slightest sign of anything unusual.

Unpacking was not complicated. Before long, it was nearly time to knock off for the morning, and the three of them had finished. They folded their bedding and put it into the wardrobes, settled all their luggage, then the three girls finally left the room to inspect the food.

In this era, grain was packed in cloth sacks. None of them had brought any, so they could only borrow sacks from the village for now. When they went to town, they would have to buy grain sacks themselves or use work points to settle the cost with the village.

After the four of them marked and stored their own portions of food, the remaining three educated youths gradually returned from work.

There were two female educated youths. One was Zhao Xianglan, from West Lake. She and Li Xiangwan could be considered half-fellow townspeople, so the two later got along quite well.

The other female educated youth was Wang Xiaomei, from Hunan.

Lin Yuzhu remembered her. She loved spicy food and always wanted to add more chili whenever she cooked, making it hard for everyone else to get used to. They had had plenty of conflicts over it before. She wondered whether that would happen this time.

The other was He Yuanfang, a man who looked honest and simple. Lin Yuzhu could not help glancing sideways at him.

If she remembered correctly, he was not as honest as he looked. In the book, he was not the respectable sort at all and rather liked peeping at female educated youths. So hanging curtains was indeed necessary. You never knew what was inside someone's heart or who was truly a good person.

Since it was their first meeting, everyone naturally greeted one another with smiles. No one could tell whether the others were good or bad.

When Zhao Xianglan and Wang Xiaomei entered the room, they found it completely transformed. Wang Xiaomei immediately said, "Oh my, who brought so much homespun cloth? Is there any left? Put some up for us too. It doesn't look right for only one end of the kang to have curtains, does it?"

Wang Xiaomei's Mandarin was poor. Having spent two years in the Northeast, her speech carried both a Northeastern flavor and her hometown accent, sounding rather strange. Her words made Li Xiangwan frown slightly. "This cloth did not come for free. From what you're saying, you want to take it without paying. It's all used up. If you want more, you'll probably have to buy it at the market."

Wang Xiaomei looked a little unhappy. She had been here for two years and inevitably felt superior to the newly arrived educated youths. Hearing that there was no more cloth, she muttered, "If you ask me, since we all sleep in one room, putting these up is unnecessary. Better to use the cloth as a curtain for the door. If everyone is a little careful, no one will expose themselves. I could save the leftover cloth to make something else."

"We're all women. What are we afraid of seeing each other for?"

Lin Yuzhu was somewhat surprised by Wang Xiaomei's words. Never mind whether Wang Xiaomei considered the homespun cloth valuable—her attitude of not minding seeing everyone naked was rather bold.

She had once read a discussion post about the differences between southern and northern bathhouses.

Northern bathhouses were large open rooms without partitions. Everyone bathed in the same room and could see one another perfectly clearly. Whether someone had a good figure or not could not be hidden at all.

In the South, on the other hand, they had private rooms, so southerners placed enormous importance on this matter.

Lin Yuzhu clicked her tongue. Clearly, not every mindset could be divided simply by North and South.

In Li Xiangwan's eyes, Wang Xiaomei was rather thick-skinned. She ignored her and turned directly toward the kitchen.

Lin Yuzhu shrugged. There was no way she would take down the cloth, and she followed her out.

Zhang Yanqiu did the same and went out with them.

Seeing that none of them paid her any attention, Wang Xiaomei looked embarrassed. She spat toward the doorway. "Pah! So prissy, copying the capitalists' ways and wasting national resources!"

Those words were rather harsh.

Zhao Xianglan tugged at her. "We're all educated youths sent to the countryside. Why make things like this?"

Wang Xiaomei snorted and pouted. "We're all in the same room, but they put up curtains while we didn't. Won't people laugh at us?"

"It makes us seem poor and uncouth, while they're the only ones who are delicate and afraid of being seen. We're supposed to be careless and unafraid of being looked at? Who from the village would even come here?"

Zhao Xianglan glanced at Wang Yang and the newly arrived Li Xiangbei, who were splitting firewood in the courtyard.

Then she looked at Wang Xiaomei and stopped trying so hard to persuade her. "You're already causing conflict the moment you arrive. Won't people think the two of us are petty and intolerant? If you want to be angry, be angry by yourself. I need to go out and see what we're making for lunch."

Wang Xiaomei stomped her foot. "Traitor!"

They were not familiar with one another to begin with, and a small quarrel among the girls was not easy to notice. The boys had not sensed anything.

The village had distributed cracked corn, not whole kernels but corn ground down to the size of rice grains.

It was quite filling when cooked into porridge, though it took time and had to be simmered for a while before it softened.

If they wanted to save firewood in winter and were reluctant to cook it long enough, it would feel rough in the throat and taste unpleasant.

There was no shortage of firewood in summer, so they naturally cooked it until soft. It tasted quite fragrant.