Things at Home Weren't Going So Well

Liang Yong had been overjoyed when he saw his big brother give him a few more pieces of candy.

When Liang Xin said they weren't for him, he froze.

But when he heard the rest—that he could ask for more after they were gone—he cheered up again.

"Mm, got it, big brother!"

"Giddyup!"

The little fellow slapped his bare bottom hard, then ran off with one leg in front of the other, mimicking the two front and two back legs of a horse, his little dick swinging.

Liang Xin was left speechless by the sight.

Is that your new skill? I haven't seen you do that before.

But are you sure you're serious?

Fortunately, there was no television to watch these days, so he had never seen the bearing of the wandering heroes on TV.

Otherwise, if he imitated a wandering hero, a weapon would be indispensable.

He would definitely need a fairly straight little wooden stick at his waist.

A child with pants could at least manage it. At worst, he'd take a beating for poking a little hole in his pants, which would just about hold a stick.

But you haven't even got a pair of underpants. What are you going to do?

Tie a strip of cloth around your bare waist just to hold the stick?

That wandering hero you're playing would be a pitiful sight.

You wouldn't be playing a wandering hero. You'd be dragging wandering heroes through the mud!

Liang Xin watched his little brother ride away on his imaginary horse, then carried the cardboard box into the courtyard.

The courtyard had a rickety wooden gate, but no lock.

It was shut, but a gentle push opened it.

Climbing over the wall might have been easier, since it was only about a meter high.

Once inside, he saw neat rows of furrows in the courtyard, planted with many kinds of greens.

But there wasn't much of any one kind.

A few spots were planted with a little corn and other grain crops.

The land outside the village belonged to the collective. Only the small plot in the family's own courtyard belonged entirely to them.

Whatever it produced belonged entirely to them.

In later years, every family would have planted only vegetables in its courtyard, which would have been enough to feed them vegetables for most of the year.

But in this era, everyone went hungry.

So they had no choice but to set aside part of the garden for grain.

Whether they had enough vegetables to eat was less important.

They needed to fill their bellies first.

No, filling their bellies was too much to hope for.

First they had to keep from starving to death.

"These little cucumbers are nice and tender."

Liang Xin picked a little cucumber barely bigger than his thumb right off the plant and polished it off in two bites.

He was quite satisfied with it.

But if the original owner's mother had seen him, she probably would have been terribly pained.

Why couldn't he wait until the cucumber grew a little bigger before eating it?

What a waste!

Just like that, Liang Xin ate several little cucumbers in a row, all so tender they practically dripped juice.

Only then did he carry the cardboard box into the house.

Yes, not only was the courtyard gate unlocked, but the house door was unlocked too!

For one thing, people in those days were honest and simple, rather like a utopian society where doors were left open at night and valuables dropped on the road went untouched.

For another, everyone was poor. Even if someone really wanted to steal, there wouldn't be much to take.

Besides, even the occasional person with a habit of petty theft would go out at night.

Who would steal from someone else's house in broad daylight?

Besides, even if he wanted to steal during the day, the production team leader wouldn't let him!

Stealing was just a hobby; collective labor was a way of life.

If you ran off stealing instead of working in broad daylight, didn't you want your work points?

Liang Xin crossed the small kitchen, entered the main room, sat on the kang, and put down the cardboard box in his hands.

Well, the cardboard box was still empty for now.

He still hadn't quite decided what would be most reasonable to bring home!

"It's pretty much as I remember. We're poor, but Mom still likes things clean. There's hardly any dust on the kang."

Houses in those days were made of adobe, and the floors inside were bare earth.

So it was perfectly normal for the kang to be covered in dust.

But the kang in his home looked very clean. If he ran his hand over it, it would pick up almost no dust.

That was because it was wiped down with a damp rag every morning.

In the countryside, that counted as being very diligent.

According to Liang Xin's memories, the original owner's grandfather had once been one of the few people in the village who had received some schooling.

Back then, students still paid tuition and studied at their teacher's home.

Then they hoped to make something of their studies and earn an official rank through the examinations, leaping over the dragon gate like a carp one day and defying heaven to change their family's fate along with their own.

Unfortunately, his grandfather had a talent for studying, but not quite enough of it.

That was the most agonizing kind. Heaven gave him hope, but far too little of it.

So although Grandfather had studied from childhood, he had never managed to earn an official rank.

By the time the imperial examinations were abolished, he already had children, but he still hadn't passed the exam to become a xiucai. He was still only a tongsheng.

Yes, anyone who studied and took the examinations in hopes of pursuing the imperial examination path was a tongsheng as long as he had achieved nothing.

Even at eighty, if he hadn't passed the exam to become a xiucai, he was still called a tongsheng.

So Grandfather was a scholar without any formal standing.

He received no benefits at all.

The old man had studied for half his life, but before his studies could bear fruit, the world changed!

Everything he had learned was useless!

On top of that, during a special period, the Liang family, which had a little property, was classified as part of the landlord class. After the change, all their property was confiscated.

The old tongsheng, who had studied for half his life, was forced to take part in manual labor.

In those days, if a family could afford to educate someone, even if they weren't particularly wealthy, they were at least reasonably well-off.

The old man had never done that kind of work in his life!

So one could imagine how well he worked!

He certainly couldn't match a strong laborer, or even a weak one.

He could only earn the same number of work points as women and the elderly.

That was also why the Liang family was so badly off, below even the village average!