Three small bags of grain, each weighing ten pounds: one bag of rice, one bag of flour, and one bag of cornmeal. The team leader had originally planned to give each family thirty pounds of cornmeal, but the old village chief, a more considerate person, saw that the families were so vulnerable to the slightest blow and asked the team leader to switch to rice and flour, so that they could recover first. Otherwise, if they fell ill before starting work, the team would be held responsible.
The team leader loudly told these people the future requirements. The main idea was to work hard and not cause trouble. If you cooperate with me, I won't make things difficult for you.
After hearing what the team leader said, the group of people sent down to the countryside breathed a sigh of relief. Ever since they had been subjected to the struggle session, they hadn't dared to relax for a long time. They had been gritting their teeth and holding on every moment, not knowing when this would end.
After arranging housing for the relocated personnel, the team leader summoned several people to the production team's warehouse to collect pots, pans, and utensils for cooking, and then neatly stacked the firewood. Originally, the team hadn't cared about this, but Director Jiang had previously instructed the production team to treat these people well, stating that they were all leaders and professors, and they would surely have some capable relatives, subordinates, or students. If they came to visit the village later, they would be held accountable if the village treated them poorly, and the team couldn't afford to do so, so they had to treat them well.
These small aluminum pots used for cooking are actually second-hand goods that Shui Shui bought on Xianyu. Two of them are too new, so Grandpa Wu specially found a brick and knocked them a few times, and used tiles to scratch the surface of the pots, and deformed them a little before they can be used, otherwise it will cause some unnecessary trouble.
Among the group, a thin, pale-faced man in his fifties was hunched over, coughing violently. He had been coughing non-stop since arriving at the cowshed. The team leader had just asked the county official, concerned that he might have an infectious disease. The official said he was simply experiencing health problems from the recent harsh persecution, not a contagious disease.
Before leaving, he also told the coughing man to go into the house to rest and take good care of himself. Health is the capital of revolution. Without a good body, how can one carry out the revolution?
The coughing man felt like he was dreaming. He had died the previous night, without a single relative by his side. He was emaciated, his ex-wife and all their children gone. He had died at the age of sixty-five. Then, early this morning, he inexplicably came back to life, still on the road to Xiangyang Commune where he had been exiled.
When he found out he was alive again, he nearly died of fright. Being a materialist, he dismissed the idea of rebirth as pure nonsense. As a mischievous child, he'd secretly read books like "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," "Youyang Miscellaneous Notes," "Records of the In Search of the Supernatural," and "Taiping Guangji" from his grandfather's bookshelf. He dismissed them as mere fantasies and strange stories. While in college, he'd met some friends abroad who seemed to understand witchcraft, and he'd thought of them as the kind of magic we see back home. But this personal experience completely redefined his understanding, convincing him that there are indeed things in the world. While overjoyed, he thought of his betrayed ex-wife and his heartless children, and wondered what the point of living was.
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