Chapter Five

  Three years ago, a group of educated youth who were "sent down" to the countryside came to the village, making Tangbutou even more lively. Every detail of their lives in the rural area became a topic of conversation for this place.

  Sometimes the village officials' methods are baffling. The educated youth who went to the countryside and stayed for three years, had a quota to return to work in the city, but some of them lingered on until they returned to the city. However, those who were diligent and hardworking remained in the countryside. News came from Tangpu that the young model soldier voluntarily gave up his quota to return to work in the city and let someone else take it.

  When this topic reached the person involved, he was almost stunned. He wanted to find the village branch secretary to reason things out several times, but everything was dragged down by the halo on his head.

  This young man, Wu Wei, had a unique appearance and culture. In an era that emphasized revolutionary spirit, he was mature beyond his years, with no hint of petty bourgeoisie style. His hair was never allowed to grow freely, sometimes even shaved bald due to laziness. He wore faded Liberation Army uniforms, rolled up his sleeves and pants legs for farm work, wore a straw hat and went barefoot like the commune members, enthusiastically receiving re-education in rural areas. Yet no one expected that when it came time to return to the city, he wouldn't be included.

  Wu Wei thinks that this big head has grown up, since participating in the 'Great Link', he has been taking the lead, being consistent inside and out, actively throwing himself into this great revolution, for his ideals, at a young age, 'turning over heaven and earth, literary and military defense'. As soon as the 'Great Revolution' eased slightly, he immediately responded to the call, going up to the mountains and down to the countryside to receive re-education from poor and lower-middle peasants. He really can't understand, working hard and complaining in rural labor, but still having to endure unjust exclusion.

  It's infuriating to think about it, those lazy and slow followers were assigned work as they wished, sleeping in every morning, procrastinating on the job, pretending to study politics with a fake smile, stealing sugarcane when their mouths were hungry, digging up sweet potatoes when their stomachs were empty, that's how they behaved, yet the foolish team leader wrote in the evaluation comments that they were 'hardworking and selfless good youth'.

  It wasn't until later that it was discovered the village team had been causing trouble, those naughty guys made them nervous every day, and for three years they were a bunch of troublemakers who wouldn't be taken in by anyone, so they had to be driven out of the village.

  Wu Wei was very depressed, every day thinking about how to be a bad young man. He lay in bed pretending to be ill for three days, but unexpectedly the village branch secretary and team leader came to visit him one after another, and even called in a "barefoot doctor" afterwards. Looking back on it now is laughable. In the past, when those few "troublemakers" were unwell, the team cadres thought they were faking it to avoid work, and at that time he was glad he hadn't lost face like them. Now thinking about it, what they did was "wrong era, right thing". The new countryside isn't a labor reform camp, why must it accept this group of "undesirable" people.

  It seems that good young people are loved by everyone, but once the vast rural areas like you, it's a disaster. The uncertainty of this era, being advanced also needs to be weighed carefully, sometimes things don't go as wished and get the opposite result.

  Once a person's mind is unbalanced, they will have extreme behavior. That day, the production team was distributing sweet potatoes, and Wu Wei, who had bad ideas as a young man, wanted to put them into practice. He stuffed three people's worth of sweet potatoes into his own sack and calmly carried it back home.

  A woman saw that the sweet potatoes left behind were fewer, and knew that they had been stolen by someone else. She was so angry that she scolded loudly on the drying field: "Which sonless and grandsonless thief stole the sweet potatoes! You will not die a good death!" Someone secretly told her: "It's possible that Wu Wei stole them, someone saw him messing around in that place!"

  The girls were so angry that they jumped up and down with their eyes closed, shouting and scolding in the direction of Wu Wei's residence. The village branch secretary came over upon hearing the news and said very seriously: "You scolded Wu Wei, which is equivalent to slandering **'s policy of going up to the mountains and down to the countryside. You are qualified to be 'struggled against' for this. Why would he steal your sweet potatoes? Even if he took them, it was a mistake. Would a revolutionary youth with that kind of awareness want your few sweet potatoes?"

  The village branch secretary was very powerful at that time, and a few words made the women dare not breathe, standing stupidly in the sun. The village branch secretary said angrily to her: "Follow me, put the sweet potatoes in the basket!"

  The girls were carrying sweet potatoes and followed the branch secretary to the "educated youth camp". Wu Wei was cooking dinner, looking at the branch secretary and the girls coming in, thinking of laughing in her heart.

  Branch Secretary Wu smiled and said: "Wu Wei, you might have picked up the wrong sweet potato!"

  "Really?" Wu Wei feigned surprise, and at this time he couldn't say that he had stolen it. He patted his forehead intentionally and said: "I said that this time the sweet potatoes would be divided so much to me, and I ended up carrying them all the way back home!"

  The village head looked at the women with a slanted eye and said, "Isn't that right? I said it was mistaken! If he stole from your family, why did he put everything here?"

  The girls looked embarrassed, stuttering and replied: "I was wrong to blame him!" The branch secretary did not stop, taking the opportunity to educate her: "In the future, when encountering problems, investigate clearly before speaking! If you make a fuss on the stage, I will let you review at the village meeting!"

  The girls nodded in agreement and carried their own baskets away. The branch secretary didn't have time to linger either, so he bid farewell and left immediately.

  Wu Wei sat on a simple wooden bed, looking at a pile of sweet potatoes, feeling annoyed. A good young man had been doing well for three years, but occasionally did something bad and others wouldn't acknowledge it.

  When people's minds are floating, they will use a playful and disrespectful attitude to treat life. Although every day they go out to work with the villagers, they no longer have their former enthusiasm. They can get by with perfunctory work and slack off when they can. In the current team, he is the number one old-timer, with the title of group leader. Several times he tried to decline but was unsuccessful. The urge to leave the countryside has made his spirit almost collapse.

  These village cadres, who grew up in rural areas since childhood, cannot feel the appeal of young people returning to the city at all. They even thought of cultivating him as a member of the party branch of the production team. In fact, Wu Wei also knew that these elders were good to himself, but the statement of "taking root in rural areas" was just a smoke bomb released during meetings, and he desperately showed off his self-image in front of people, just wanting to leave rural areas quickly. He didn't want to continue wearing the halo of "advanced youth", feeling that this halo had dragged him down, wanting to become an ordinary person with seven emotions and six desires, so that he could live freely without self-restraint.

  In the village, there were some bad habits. The young men would often watch outdoor movies or make "salted pig hands" in the fields without being supervised by the crowd, which made the girls scream. When I first arrived in the countryside, I discovered such things and seriously reported them to the brigade secretary, requesting that they be rectified. Later, I learned that this behavior had its roots and was almost a rural custom! They said that if a girl hadn't been pinched by a man, it meant she wasn't attractive. Some girls would even intentionally squeeze to the front during outdoor movie screenings to provoke them. Wu Wei always struggled against such bad habits, and although he couldn't control the young men in the production team, he could still exert influence within the informed group. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during study meetings, he emphasized that they must not do such things. If someone was found to have already done so, everyone would criticize them together, and after criticizing, they would treat it as a new trend of internal contradictions among the educated youth. They would have heart-to-heart talks until their thinking was thoroughly corrected before letting go.

  Now, those who used to make mistakes have left, leaving only one team leader still here on guard. In the informed troops, those who are not allowed to return to the city for a long time will be ridiculed by new educated youth.

  Wu Wei encountered such a situation, and he was stirred up by a group of people's astonished eyes, making him at a loss for what to do. Those old educated youth who had already started working came back to their hometown on Sundays, and their proud and arrogant expressions made Wu Wei feel like he had nowhere to hide.

  Especially those who were later than Wu Wei and had received his criticism and education, they didn't care about politeness in front of others, causing trouble and making Wu Wei not dare to return to his residence.

  One Sunday evening, Wu Wei was worried that those idle old educated youth would come to "vacation" again. He hid in the fields and didn't dare to go back. The anger in his heart made him want to find a way to vent it out. He even thought extremely, he'd rather go to jail than stay here again.

  In his sentimental mood, he spotted a fairly attractive young woman from the neighboring village, carrying an exquisite bamboo basket, walking on the small path between the fields. The extremely timid Wu Wei vowed to be a bad guy and thought of giving this woman a "salted pig hand", if she shouted or went to the branch secretary to file a complaint, he would become a young man with a problem of style.

  Wu Wei really did that, taking advantage of a sugarcane field by the side of the road, when the young woman walked over, he reached out his hand and touched her chest.

  The young woman was just startled when she was attacked, she didn't shout or cry out, but softly said: "How embarrassing to be seen! You're so sunny, aren't you afraid I'm old?"

  Wu Wei was stunned, he couldn't believe that he had bumped into **, and went up to hug her around the waist, then put her down on the ground.

  The young woman didn't shout either, but instead lay on the ground and asked: "Are you a educated youth from this village? I saw you once at a *** ideology performance!"

  Wu Wei's mind went blank for a moment, it seemed that he was indeed stuck with this place. He sighed and said: "It seems that I will not be able to leave this damned place in this lifetime!" With no other choice, he helped her up from the ground, waved his hand and let her go on her way.

  The young woman couldn't understand such behavior and walked away with a backward glance every three steps.

  Wu Wei looked at the receding back, spat on the ground and said softly: "I'm a 'tong zi ji' after all, if I have to give it to her, I'll also give it to my elder sister!"

  The spirit is broken, and people are like walking corpses, without positive thoughts controlling their behavior, and the ** will come out to make trouble. Mid-Autumn Festival, all the educated youth returned home for a reunion, Wu Wei did not dare to return home, he was worried that if he went back like this, he would also be scolded by his parents, others have returned to work in the city, and his parents will definitely suspect that he is not working hard enough, being scolded by his parents at such an old age is absolutely unbearable.

  He hid in his room all day, not daring to come out, alone and not wanting others to know. The village's women's work leader, Qing Jie, learned that Wu Wei hadn't returned home for Mid-Autumn Festival and quickly asked her daughter Fengzhi to send over some mooncakes and persimmons!

  Fengzhi originally had nothing to do and liked to go to that place to play, her mother asked her to send mooncakes, she was very happy to go, and hastily arrived at the 'Zhiqing' camp, knocking on Wu Wei's door.

  Wu Wei didn't open the door, he lay motionless on the bed. Fengzhi knew he was inside and ran to the window at the back of the house to call out. Wu Wei was careless and hadn't noticed that the window wasn't closed, so Fengzhi saw him and had no choice but to open the door.

  Fengzhi brought a small basket of autumn fruits into the room. She was also one of the top beauties in the village, around twenty years old, not very tall, but with a slender figure, and could be considered a "iron girl" of her time. The only drawback was that she didn't have an exotic look, her pretty face always gave people a rustic feel. For many years, she had been wearing a short athletic hairstyle, and when she was happy, she would burst out laughing with a silvery voice. As long as the weather was hot, she loved to wear a sports shirt, and if you paid attention to that area, anyone could feel her full and firm breasts tempting people. Her confident appearance thoroughly intimidated the restless young men in the village, and among her female friends, she would always say proudly: "I've never been touched by those rascals!" With her figure and charm on display, others wouldn't doubt that she wasn't charming enough, but rather, those rascals didn't dare to get close to her! However, today at the youth 'concentration camp', Wu Wei's excellence made Fengzhi's usual confidence greatly discounted.

  The room of the 'Zhiqing Camp' was simple and crude, like a comprehensive unit. It was about twenty square meters in size, with all daily activities such as eating, drinking, defecating, and sleeping taking place inside. Near the entrance was a small stove made of bricks, on which was hung a wooden cabinet issued by the 'Zhiqing Office'. Below it were piled many firewoods, opposite to which were placed two large bamboo baskets, with several carrying poles standing in the corner. At the other end of the room, under the window, was placed a simple desk, on which stood a self-made lamp made from four toothpaste caps stuck together on a rhombus-shaped organic glass plate. On one side of the desk was a simple wooden bed, and on the wall hung a yellowed portrait that had been smoked by cigarette smoke, which could only be identified as a picture of receiving Red Guards on the city tower after careful observation. The only empty space in the room was in front of the bed, which was also the typical layout of the 'Zhiqing Camp'.

  Wu Wei showed the usual enthusiasm for these Mid-Autumn Festival fruits and ate a few without hesitation. Feng Zhi sat at the other end of the bed, showing no intention of leaving. She appeared very confident in front of the young men from her village, but not so natural in front of Wu Wei. After all, he was educated, handsome, and from the city. He could sing model operas on stage and provide strategic advice for the village's production off stage. At meetings, he could give speeches without needing a script. It could be said that this young man had all the advantages of his era.

  Wu Wei was only interested in the mooncakes and ate several in one breath before remembering that there was a little girl sitting next to him. He picked up one and handed it to Fengzhi, saying: "You have one too!"

  "I've eaten at home and I'm full!"

  "Then I'll eat persimmon, it's embarrassing for me to eat alone!"

  Fengzhi took one, peeled the skin and ate it quietly. She saw Wu Wei looking unhappy and got up to leave. Wu Wei was bored and had no way to pass the time, so he said to her: "The moon is rising, shall we go to the canal?" Fengzhi did not refuse, nodded and said: "Okay, I have nowhere to play too! I'll wait for you on the small bridge by the canal!"

  Of course, two people can't walk out of the village side by side. If they are seen, it will be the first news at Tangpu tomorrow.