"We're giving you and your daughter a hundred yuan. This is Comrade Han Bin's death benefit..."
"Haven't you already paid it? We don't need it. We have money..." Sister Yang shook her head stubbornly.
"Comrade Yang Xiulan, this is a gesture from our farm headquarters. We failed in our duties by not sending anyone to Han Bin's hometown to find out about his family. We only mailed the money and his belongings back. What we paid went to his mother; this hundred yuan is for you and your daughter.
"You also need to think of Han Fang. After all, she still needs to go to school... Also, please leave us an address. We'll send Han Fang ten yuan every month for her upkeep."
"What about back home..." Yang Xiulan asked.
"Han Bin's mother is still there, after all. We'll keep sending money, but we'll reduce it to ten yuan too, until his mother... passes away."
There were policies governing benefits for martyrs' families, of course, but they also had to take the work unit's actual circumstances into account.
Yang Xiulan did not refuse again. She could run her stall every day, but the income was not steady, and she was bound to fall ill now and then. Han Fang had to attend school. Staying at the farm would solve that, of course, but she did not want to stay.
It was not just that she felt this place was not as good as Ma County. She had also heard about the Corps' policies while running her stall in Ma County, and Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia had discussed them over meals.
She felt that the Corps' policies had not been particularly good for a time.
She would go back to Ma County. But her income there was uncertain, and she