"Ideals and Youth" - It turns out I also had a youth (14...)

Ye Xiqing was extremely gloating, but the system couldn't stand it anymore: "What's so great about taking pleasure in the inconvenience of caring for the elderly!"

"Don't you feel sad to see an elderly person who has worked hard all their life, only to find that they are not supported by their children and daughters-in-law in their old age?"

I don't think so.

"Human pleasure stems from two sources: wish fulfillment and deserved punishment. Who says pleasure can only come from positive things? I think negative things can be just as pleasurable."

system:……

"Zhou's father has worked diligently his whole life, what crime has he committed!"

Ye Xiqing smiled and said, "Isn't that enough of a crime?"

When he tasted the benefits of patriarchy, when he took his first bite of the blood-soaked bun from a woman's wounds, he was implicitly accepting the privileges of patriarchy and implicitly accepting that he would pay the price for them.

Judging the patriarchal system from Ye Xiqing's perspective, it is a poor-quality system of involution.

The reason it's called involution, not competition, is that it doesn't roll upwards, but downwards, inwards, regardless of cost or consequences. It even takes the potential gains for oneself as a last resort, as long as one can outcompete one's peers.

Humans go through three stages: youth, prime, and old age. But men are different; men only go through two stages: prime and old age.

How do they compete with women? Do they use their "advantage" of childbirth to compete with women?

That's great! Involution is effective because it works quickly, directly squeezing women out of the competition.

Has their life improved with fewer women competing with them?

No.

A system born from involution is bound to spiral downwards the further it spirals.

After men exclude women from the competition, those in power want to exclude those in lower positions. After those in power exclude those in lower positions, those who monopolize resources want to exclude those who do not possess resources.

The result is that a person's life becomes like this—

Women are the first to be squeezed out of the competition, becoming worthless. They are drowned at birth, die in childbirth, and their bodies are damaged from giving birth to too many children, making them unable to participate in labor. They are a "burden" on their families throughout their lives.

Once they gain social competitiveness, they will be forced to completely abandon the disadvantages of childbirth in order to acquire social resources because society despises women and childbirth.

If a woman's space is compressed to nothing, then the mother's space is naturally compressed to nothing; if the mother's space is compressed to nothing, then the child's space is naturally also compressed to nothing.

The mother, having lost all space, also begins to struggle internally, hating her daughter and doting on her son.

The daughter will suffer violence from her mother, perpetuating her fear, ignorance, cowardice, or extreme selfishness.

A mother who sacrifices her daughters at birth to gain male approval is, of course, extremely selfish. You can't expect a mother who favors sons and aborts female infants to be biased.

When a woman is supporting her unrelated in-laws, she suddenly becomes extremely selfless, willingly supporting two useless old people with no blood relation to her.

If a daughter-in-law is unwilling to support her parents-in-law, will her son?

Leaving aside whether boys who receive too much pampering can develop filial piety, society has also left no room for men.

Once the involution begins, it will definitely continue indefinitely; how could it stop at the point involving women?

If they dare not let women out and only lock them up at home, then the missing half of the pillar will surely tilt to one side.

In the end, the lower-class men did not get the complete cake they expected, which excluded women.

I've become like livestock; if I don't work, the higher-ups will whip me.

The high-ranking men, on the other hand, were constantly afraid of losing power, and were terrified that others would take away their power to not be livestock, but to enslave livestock.

So a person's life becomes a resentful mother, a child growing abnormally, a weary adult, a panicked old person, with no stage having the strength to bloom into a complete flower.

On this day, men realize that they too will grow old and weak, and begin to desperately promote filial piety. In feudal times, unfilial piety was even elevated to the highest level of crime, and was suppressed by bloody means.

But can a three-story building be built starting from the second floor?

Matter is conserved, and human time is fixed; if a period of time is cut off, it will definitely be made up for elsewhere.

The elderly's undignified later years begin with the loss of their space from women at birth.

If the world continues to develop according to the pace of women who can bear children, without treating women as resources to be used, forcing women to keep giving birth, or not to give birth at all.

Based on the natural rate of female childbirth, an elderly person can be supported by at least two generations of young people.

Because of a little-known fact, the natural lifespan of humans can reach 60 years.

If women weren't forced to give birth as a disadvantage, and if they gave birth naturally, even if each woman only had one child, then when a grandmother is 60 years old, she could simultaneously have a 40-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old granddaughter.

With such a healthy population pattern, there will never be a family situation where the young are left without care and the elderly are left without support.

But why isn't that the case? Is there any way to figure it out?

Throughout history, when an old man sits on the highest throne of the emperor, can he use his power to make his son filial?

system:……

"But women get old too, and they go through the same process. What are you so smug about!"

"I'm not proud. Who would be proud in a crazy worldview? But seeing the suffering of people in a crazy worldview is actually quite enjoyable."

"Didn't I just say that human pleasure comes from only two things: getting what you want and getting what you deserve?"

"If you can't enjoy the first part, enjoying the second part is fine too."

"Ugh, this damn competitive society is making even my enjoyment point involuntarily involuntarily."

system:……

Having finally managed to escape, only to be forced back into the system space, Ye Xiqing happily began moving to her new home.

In those days, there was not much formaldehyde in the houses, so the house was aired out quickly, and the family moved out of Wu Guiyun's house where they were temporarily staying and then moved back in.

Looking at Ye Xiqing's newly built house, Bao Xiangchun exclaimed with delight, "Second Sister, your house is wonderful!"

Ye Xiqing smiled and led her and Xiaoying into the house: "From now on, we'll live in this room. That's your study. You can study in that room when you want to study, and watch TV in the guest room here."

"You must finish your homework before watching TV, understand?"

The two children jumped up immediately upon hearing this, "We know!"

In the past three years, the Bao family has also undergone new changes. Bao Xiangqiao's youngest sister has finished junior high school.

The Bao family was better off than most, and they were able to support her through junior high school. But it would be too much of a strain to support her further education. They thought that once she finished junior high, she should stop studying, find a job, and find a good husband, which would be better than continuing her education.

No way! Her Bao family has never had a college student before. Let her continue her studies.

Although the people of Dayushu Village were quite poor, poverty was common in that era, and the area was considered quite good.

The town has a road, and there are junior high and high schools.

The high school is one of the top high schools in the county in terms of college entrance examination pass rate year after year, which is quite good.

Ye Xiqing then encouraged Bao Xiangchun to take the exam in that field, and she would continue to support her.

Bao Xiangchun was only so old, she must have wanted to continue her studies with her friends. With hard work, she got into the high school in her town and moved into Ye Xiqing's house.

She will be a senior in high school in the second half of the year. There are no troubles at her second sister's house. Her second sister's family has also built a big house.

Oh, if only she had been born into my second sister's family.

Bao Xiangchun is getting old and has his own ideas, while Xiao Ying is simply happy.

She's going to junior high school soon, and Ye Xiqing bought her and Bao Xiangchun each a bicycle, but stipulated that she could only ride it on the road after starting junior high school. Now she can finally ride her bicycle everywhere!

Bao Xiaoying got a bicycle, and although she didn't intend to do anything good, she still wanted to come back after moving to her new home.

I went to the sink and turned on the tap. The water gushed out, and I was overjoyed.

They immediately called over Sister Xiaoyu and Aunt Xiangchun to come and see, and the group happily played in the water again.

Wu Guiyun followed behind, clicking her tongue in amazement: "It must have cost a lot of money, right?"

Because her mother was present, Ye Xiqing immediately said, "It's alright, it's alright, not much."

The newly built house still follows the common layout of five rooms in rural areas: a large rectangle with two doors.

There are doors and windows at the front, making it relatively bright. It's a place for living, and the doors to all the rooms are open, allowing people to walk from one end to the other.

In the darker part of the back, a special passageway is opened, connecting the two rooms with opposite doors, allowing access to all rooms from both the front and back.

Sometimes you can get to a specific room without going through a dwelling.

A dwelling can be used to easily access different spaces by opening the doors, or to maintain privacy by closing both doors.

They opened several doors and spent a lot of money on them. Carpentry is still expensive these days, which made Ye Xiqing even consider learning carpentry.

The living quarters still use earthen kang beds for heating, and at this stage, it is impossible to completely get rid of the earthen kang beds for heating. However, Ye Xiqing also installed additional heating to provide heating for the three main rooms where people are active.

Although it has a five-room layout, this type of house has a low utilization rate of the house area. Two rooms need to be reserved for passageways, and the rooms with doors can only be used as kitchen rooms and storage rooms. Only three rooms can actually be used as living spaces.

Ye Xiqing turned the innermost room on the west side into a study, and also built a kang (a heated brick bed) and installed a lamp there, so that the two children could stay there in the summer.

Ye Xiqing divided the innermost room on the east side in half, turning it into a bathroom and a reception room.

Place the sofa, coffee table, and TV on the sunny side, and the bathroom on the shady side.

When no one is around, come to the guest room to watch TV; when there are other people, come here to discuss business.

While her two children are studying, she and Grandma Wang can also watch TV in this room without any disruption.

As for the bathroom, that's easy to understand; it's fully equipped with a flush toilet and washing machine.

Actually, you could also fit a water heater in there, since solar energy is already available these days.

However, the roofs of houses in rural areas are still supported by wooden beams, which is different from the cast-in-place concrete slabs of modern buildings. The ceilings are also made of sorghum stalks covered with white clay, which makes it difficult to waterproof and moisture-proof.

Let's wait until the ceiling technology is further improved before making any decisions. We can still use public bathhouses for a few more years.

Even so, it was extremely advanced for the villagers, and everyone who came to visit praised it highly, saying that they lived just like city dwellers!

Grandma Wang had already scolded Ye Xiqing for wasting money and buying all sorts of weird and strange things.

But after the water and electricity were connected, her quality of life improved dramatically, and Grandma Wang also experienced the benefits of her new life.

A sit-down toilet is so friendly to the elderly; anyone who has used one knows.

No need to bother throwing away swill when washing pots and rice; it just flows directly down the drain into the septic tank, which is very convenient.

The fertilizer pit took up a huge area of ​​land. Ye Xiqing only had two acres of land, and it was a pity that she couldn't grow vegetables with such a large area missing. Now, every inch of her land was extremely valuable.

Seeing how distressed she was, Ye Xiqing said, "Then you should divorce my dad, take Xiangchun with you, and transfer your household registration to me. When the land is converted to new land, I can get two more acres. It's better than feeling sorry for this small piece of land."

Ye Xiqing's family had a new round table, and a group of people were eating around it, along with Wu Guiyun and Cheng Xiaoyu.

Everyone was eating and doing various other things at the same time when they heard this and looked up at the same time: Huh?

The elderly woman, Wang, who was involved, immediately hit her with a pestle and said, "What nonsense are you talking about!"

It's not enough for you to get a divorce yourself, you want to drag your mother into it too!

Ye Xiqing replied seriously, "I'm not talking nonsense, I'm talking about reality."

"As your younger brother grows bigger, your family will eventually have to divide up the spoils."

"The two brothers are men, and they can't do without anything. What about the little sister?"

“The family’s resources are already insufficient. Why don’t you divorce my father now, Mom, and transfer my sister’s relationship to me? When it’s time to divide the land, I can get two more acres.”

“Go out and take a look, and you’ll see that the time it takes for the land to change is getting longer and longer. People from the countryside go out to work and never come back. Fewer and fewer people will be farming the land at home.”

"The day when there are no young people farming in the countryside, the land will not change easily. With the outside world developing so fast, that day will come soon."

"Anyway, you're all living here now and rarely go back, so what's wrong with changing your household registration to mine?"

"Changing the household registration in advance is like separating the family early. There's no loss, and you can even gain some benefits."

"What do you think is wrong with my suggestion?"

Everyone at the table: ...

No, how do you make such an absurd statement sound so reasonable...?