"Sis, sis, a few educated youths have arrived at the team headquarters," Da Zhi ran in, heading straight for the west room. The boy was covered in snow, as if he had been rolling around in it.

  "Brush off the snow before you come in. Your clothes will get wet," Daniu said, sitting by the kang, working on a hat. It had been a month since her st hunting trip, and she had just finished preparing the pelts.

  Da Zhi went out and came back shortly after, having brushed off the snow.

  "Sis, our team has educated youths too," Da Zhi said, then noticed the hat she was sewing. "Sis, is this for me?" he asked excitedly.

  Da Niu nodded. "It’s almost done. Try it on." She tied off the thread and bit through it with her teeth.

  "Let me try it," Da Zhi said, putting the hat on his head. "Sis, it fits perfectly." The hat was made from the skin of a roe deer, complete with ears, eyes, and a nose made from a piece of cowhide. It looked just like a roe deer’s head, with gss beads for eyes and a wool lining.

  "Take it off for now. I’ll attach the neck cover." The neck cover was made of wool on the inside and fur on the outside. Da Zhi didn’t mind the cold, so if it is just a scarf, he probably wouldn’t wear it. With the neck cover attached to the hat, he wouldn’t have a choice.

  Her needle flew through the fabric. "What were you saying about educated youths?"

  "A few educated youths have arrived at the team headquarters. I think there are five men and three women. They just got here."

  Daniu finished sewing the hat in a few quick stitches. "Put it on again and see."

  Da Zhi put the hat back on, covering both his head and neck. "It looks great. Sis, I’m going out to py."

  "Go ahead. Make sure your coat is buttoned up." The boy was always running around, never seeming to feel the cold.

  After Dazhi left, Daniu tidied up the sewing supplies on the kang. "Is your grandpa home?"

  "Fifth Uncle," Da Niu recognized the voice of Song Fifth Uncle. She got up to greet him. "Grandpa isn’t home. He went to the river with Third Grandpa to fish."

  "That’s fine. I can talk to you," Fifth Uncle Song said, not coming inside. He spoke from the outer room. "You know, a few educated youths have come to our vilge. The team headquarters isn’t prepared, and there’s only one room there that’s habitable. With the weather so cold, we can’t build a new house right now. We were thinking of having the three female comrades stay in your west wing. What do you think?" In these times, no family had much to spare, and after some thought, he realized the Ma family had two spare rooms.

  Seeing Da Niu hesitate, he added, "They won’t stay long—just until spring when the ground thaws and we can build a house. Also, they won’t eat with you. They’ll bring their own rations and cook separately."

  "Fifth Uncle, the food isn’t the issue. It’s just that our west room hasn’t been inhabited for a long time, and it’s really cold."

  Fifth Uncle Song thought for a moment. "Let’s go take a look."

  Daniu nodded and followed Fifth Uncle to the west wing. The wing had two rooms, with the livestock shed to the south and four small storage rooms at the back, which had no doors or windows and were used to store odds and ends.

  The two rooms in the wing looked decent. The southern room was the outer room, with a stove but no pot. The northern room was the inner room, with a rge kang. However, no one had lived in the room, and now it was filled with grain in the inner room and fodder in the outer room.

  The room itself was not bad, with a stone foundation and blue bricks on top—leftover from when the Ma family’s house had burned down years ago. The room had originally been prepared for Dakui, but after he joined the army, it was clear he wouldn’t be coming back. Last year, he was promoted, and even if he were to retire, he would at least get a job in the county. So, the room hadn’t been touched since. Ma Hongmei had thought that when Dali got married, the two little brothers could move into the west wing.

  The room was chilly, but their windows were made of gss, which was quite advanced for the time. "It's quite nice. I'll get someone to help clean it up, and once we y down a kang mat, it'll be ready for living.".

  Daniu nodded. "I'll heat up the kang. But, Fifth Uncle, we don’t have an extra pot at home. You’ll need to take care of that."

  "Alright then, I will get some industrial coupons and buy a new pot. When they leave, the pot will stay with you."

  Da Niu agreed. "That works."

  After Fifth Uncle left, Da Niu started moving the fodder and other items from the room to the storage shed at the back. Soon after, two aunties arrived—one was Fifth Aunt, and the other was her sister-in-w, whom Daniu should have called Sixth Aunt, though they hadn’t spoken much before. The aunt was quite shy and smiled at her before getting to work.

  The three of them cleaned the room thoroughly, moving everything out. Fifth Uncle sent his son over with a used kang mat, which they id down, making the room look more habitable. Seeing the empty kang, Daniu went to the storage shed in the backyard and found an old kang cabinet. Just then, DaYong returned, and the two of them carried it to the front yard. This kang cabinet had been used by her mother when she was a young girl. It was made of sturdy old wood, with four drawers at the bottom but no upper cabinet. Later, when her mother got married, she bought a new kang cabinet with tall drawers and a tall cabinet with painted gss doors. This old one had been left in the storage shed, gathering dust.

  When they brought it into the room, Fifth Aunt smiled. "You still have this? I remember your mother and I got our kang cabinets around the same time. Mine has already been chopped up for firewood."

  "My dad said the wood is good quality. He thought we could refurbish it someday, but we never got around to it. I think he’s forgotten about it by now," Da Niu said.

  They wiped the kang cabinet clean, revealing its dark, polished surface. Upon closer inspection, Da Niu noticed the origin of the wood—it was made of walnut, a high-quality material. If left for a few more decades, it might even become an antique.

  With the kang cabinet pced on the kang, the room was almost ready.

  As they were finishing up, a few people came in—Fifth Uncle and three young women. Daniu gnced at them and noticed their different outfits. One wore a military-green coat, her face fair and clean, clearly a city girl from a well-off family. The other two wore homemade cotton-padded jackets, but all three looked distinctly different from the locals—they were unmistakably city girls.

  "Let me introduce you. This is Ma Shun, the eldest daughter of the Ma family. This is Xie Yun from Beijing, and these two are from Harbin—Zhang Xiaoran and Li Feifei."

  Xie Yun was the girl in the military coat, and surprisingly, she was from Beijing.

  Daniu nodded and greeted them. "The room is ready, Fifth Uncle. We just need the pot, and the kang hasn’t been heated yet."

  "I’ve sent someone to buy one. It’ll be here soon. Shun, could you arrange a meal for them tonight? I’ll bring over the grain," Fifth Uncle said.

  "Sure," Da Niu agreed. One meal wasn’t a big deal.

  By the time everything was settled, the rest of the family returned home. They were surprised to see the three newcomers, but it wasn’t a big issue.

  The old man who had gone ice fishing with Third Grandpa had actually caught two catfish, so for dinner, they had catfish with cornbread.

  The meal lifted the spirits of the three young women, who had been cold, hungry, and uncertain about their future.

  "Shun, where do we fetch water from?" Xie Yun asked Da Niu after dinner.

  "We have a hand pump, but it’s too cold now, so we’ve dismantled it. We pump water every morning. For now, you can take water from the vat in our room. I’ll have my brother bring over a vat for you. You can pump a vat of water every morning, and that should be enough."

  "Thank you," Xie Yun said with a smile.

  "No problem. It’s not easy for you to come here. Make sure to keep a pot of water on the stove at night and heat the kang. It’s too cold here to sleep without heating the kang."

  "Got it. Luckily, Xiaoran and Feifei are from the north too. I wouldn’t know how to manage otherwise," Xie Yun said, relieved.

  Daniu watched her leave and sighed. Life wasn’t easy for these girls. She remembered Zheng Sen, whom she had met before—he was also from Beijing.

  The next morning, Xie Yun saw Daniu working on the hand pump and came over with a bucket. The other two girls from her room were nowhere to be seen.

  The most valuable thing in the Ma family’s old house might have been this well. It had been dug over a hundred meters deep, reaching the aquifer, and the water was clear and sweet.

  Daniu reassembled the hand pump and expined to Xie Yun, "In winter, we dismantle the pump after use to prevent it from freezing. If you run out of water, just take some from the house." She poured hot water into the pump’s opening and started pumping. Soon, water gushed out, and the more she pumped, the more water flowed.

  Dayong and Dazhi carried buckets of water to the backyard, where there were two small water vats. Since there was no well in the backyard, they had to carry water from the front yard. "Hey, why are you two still home? Don’t you have school today?"

  "Sis, we’ve finished our exams," Dazhi said, sniffling. The boy had finally caught a cold from all his running around.

  "Oh, right. It’s January already—time for the holidays."

  "Dayong and Dazhi are so capable. My younger brother is older than them, but he doesn’t know how to do anything."

  "There’s a lot of work at home. If they don’t help out, my mom wouldn’t be able to manage," Daniu said with a smile. Her younger siblings were all helpful, and her two younger sisters could even make their own cotton-padded clothes.

  Speaking of sisters, the youngest, Meizi, would start school next year.

  The three female educated youths ate with the family for two days before starting to cook for themselves. Life wasn’t easy for them. The rations they received were barely enough to keep them half-full. The vilge cadres suggested that families with extra supplies could help out, so they received pickled vegetables, salted vegetables, and soybean paste from various households, along with some dried mountain goods stored from the previous year. With these contributions, they managed to get by.

  Although they lived in the same house, Daniu didn’t interact much with them. As the New Year approached, she and her mother worked together to make cotton shoes for several elderly people. Her mother made the uppers, while Daniu made the soles. They used yers of wild boar hide, glued together and then nailed. The boar hide was thick and tough, making the work quite borious. But once finished, the soles could st for years, and the uppers could be repced if they wore out.

  On this day, the mother and her daughters were making shoes in the backyard, while Xiaocui and Meizi were pying with a skipping rope nearby. Daniu, gncing out of the corner of her eye, noticed two people coming from the front yard; the one in front was Dayong, and surprisingly, the one behind was Lin Li (Lin Li will be Li Li from now on).

  Daniu furrowed her brow. "He is from the forestry center."

  Her mother stretched her neck to look. "I hope nothing happened."

  Daniu put down the awl in her hand and stood up to go out and greet them.

  "Comrade Ma Shun," Li Li said as soon as he saw her, "several educated youths have gone into the mountains and haven't returned for a day and a night."

  Daniu's heart sank. Being in the mountains for a day and a night at this time of year could mean trouble.