Chapter 14 "Who doesn't want to go back to Shanghai?...Tell me..."
The rest of the morning flew by in a flurry of activity and reconstruction.
Shu Ran did not teach any new content. Instead, she had the children practice the characters for "hand" and "work" repeatedly next to the newly built, shorter adobe desks.
Ayman was drawing most diligently. Adil still hadn't started drawing, but he didn't cause any more trouble either.
Shu Ran checked her watch; it was time to let the class end. She had the children line up and called their names one by one before dismissing them.
"Stone!"
"arrive!"
"Be careful on the road, and be diligent when helping with chores at home this afternoon."
"Yes! Goodbye, Teacher Shu!" Shi Tou answered loudly and was the first to run out of the shed.
"Spring grass!"
"arrive……"
"Little girl, hold Chuncao's hand and walk together."
"good!"
"Ayman, Adil!"
Ayman timidly responded. Adil snorted in response, took his sister's hand, and quickly left without looking back.
Shu Ran watched their small figures disappear on the dirt road leading to the company compound and sighed softly. The road ahead was still long.
After all the children left, the shed fell silent instantly, leaving only lime powder on the ground and the children's childish handwriting.
The dull pain in her lower back made Shu Ran lean on the podium for a while before she could gather her things, twist the broken door that was practically useless with a wire, and head towards the company canteen.
She then realized that she hadn't had a drop of water since morning.
There weren't many people left in the cafeteria; the peak dining time had passed. Shu Ran walked to the window and handed over her enamel basin.
The chubby chef, seeing it was her, quickly picked up a large iron ladle, reached all the way to the bottom of the bucket, and scooped out a full ladle of soup—more than the usual amount for male employees. He slammed it into Shu Ran's bowl with a "clatter," then turned away without even looking at her and went to do other things.
Shu Ran stared at the overflowing rice in the bowl, paused for a moment, then realized what was going on. She picked up the bowl and found a corner to sit down.
She had just sat down and taken a couple of sips of soup when a figure sat down opposite her with a bowl in hand.
"Comrade Shuran, what a coincidence. You don't look well. You must have had a tough morning..." It was Zhou Wenbin. His eyes behind his glasses held concern, along with a melancholy born of shared suffering.
Shu Ran swallowed the fried dough in her mouth and mumbled a reply: "Yeah, it's alright. The children... are a bit disorganized since they're new to this."
“Sigh,” Zhou Wenbin sighed heavily, leaning forward slightly and lowering his voice, “I heard about it all this morning when I was taking soil samples in the field. That roughneck Zhao Weidong was slamming his fist on the table and cursing in his office, and he even said your… teaching point was worthless. And that Zhou Qiaozhen, she’s always gossiping.”
He shook his head, his tone filled with indignation and bewilderment. "Tell me, what kind of situation is this? We answered the call and came to support the border regions with great enthusiasm, wanting to use what we've learned to do something, and what's the result? We're met with obstacles everywhere! We simply can't reason with these... these people! All they care about are hoes, shovels, and work points! How could they understand the meaning of knowledge, science, and education?"
He became more and more excited as he spoke, and his voice rose slightly, attracting the attention of people at the next table.
He quickly lowered his voice, adjusted his glasses, and looked at Shu Ran with eager eyes: "Comrade Shu Ran, have you ever considered... that we might have come to the wrong place? Or perhaps, this road is simply impassable!"
Shu Ran paused, holding the spoon, and looked up at Zhou Wenbin.
Zhou Wenbin leaned closer, his voice barely audible, "I...I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Shanghai is our home! The life, the work environment, the people who understand us there...What's here? Salt flats, endless manual labor! Shuran, we have to find a way! Find a way to leave here! Go back to Shanghai! Even if...even if it comes at a price, even if we have to pull some strings...it's still better than staying here! We're both educated and from Shanghai, we can work together to find a solution! We can also look out for each other! What do you think?"
His eyes were full of anticipation.
Shu Ran's heart skipped a beat. Returning to Shanghai... the exquisite and convenient life of the 21st century flashed uncontrollably through her mind, bringing with it a strong longing.
She suddenly felt that the fried dough in her hand had lost its flavor.
Looking into Zhou Wenbin's eyes behind his glasses, which yearned to escape, Shu Ran felt as if she were seeing another possible version of herself.
If... if she hadn't taken over this dilapidated shed, hadn't faced those children... would she, like Zhou Wenbin, be scheming day and night about how to escape this sandy land?
She lowered her head and stirred the soup in the bowl. After a while, she finally looked up.
“Technician Zhou,” she looked into Zhou Wenbin’s eyes, “soil improvement here…is it difficult? The salinity is so high.”
Zhou Wenbin was taken aback, not expecting her to ask this so suddenly. He then smiled wryly and said, "It's more than just difficult! It's practically... sigh, even a skilled cook can't cook without rice! The equipment is rudimentary, we're short-handed, and all the higher-ups care about is the result..."
Shu Ran interrupted him: "But someone has to do it, right? Just like this saline land, someone has to improve it and try it. Otherwise, it will always be saline land."
She paused, looking towards the shed in the distance. "Who wouldn't want to go back to Shanghai? Clean beds, no more smelling of livestock sheds, no more struggling with saline-alkali soil, and no more having to put up with Zhao Weidong's attitude." She gave a bitter smile. "To be honest, I dream about it."
Zhou Wenbin's eyes lit up: "That's right! Then what are we waiting for? Let's think of a solution together..."
"How can we go back? What can we bring back?" Shu Ran lowered her voice, her eyes sharp and clear. "Without a legitimate reason, without strong connections, without a performance good enough to transform us, even if we run away, we'll be sent back by the checkpoint! Pretending to be sick? Trying to pull strings? Do you believe that as soon as we show even the slightest sign of trouble, Chen Yuanjiang will be the first to target us?"
Her words were cruel, but true. Zhou Wenbin opened his mouth, wanting to refute, but couldn't offer any compelling evidence.
Shu Ran leaned back in her chair resignedly, her tone calm: "Here, teaching is the only straw I can grasp. A teacher's status, a fixed salary, a grain ration. This elementary school..."
She gestured towards the shed with her lip, "It was approved by Chen Yuanjiang, it's an assignment from the organization. As long as I keep it running smoothly and don't cause any major trouble, and teach the children to recognize a few words and sing a few songs, at least... I'll have a legitimate job here to make a living, and if I perform well, even if Zhao Weidong doesn't like it, he can't do anything to me openly."
A complex emotion flickered in her eyes, and her voice lowered: "As for those students... I admit, that's not why I'm staying."
She looked at Zhou Wenbin, her eyes honest: "So, Technician Zhou, it's not that I don't want to leave, it's that I simply can't leave right now. Staying to teach is the only way for me to survive and, at least, to live a slightly more comfortable life. At least, it's a little better than clearing land and digging ditches. As for the future? We'll talk about that after I've established myself, figured out the ways of the world, and accumulated enough capital." Her eyes held a slyness and anticipation.
Zhou Wenbin fell completely silent. He realized that this capitalist's daughter was far more pragmatic and knew better how to protect herself than he had imagined.
Zhou Wenbin slumped back in his chair, picked up his bowl of soup, took a sip, and said nothing more. He knew that their paths had ultimately diverged.
Shu Ran didn't say anything more and silently finished the food in her bowl. The two pieces of mutton were very substantial and replenished her exhausted strength.
Just as she put down her spoon and was about to get up, she caught a glimpse of Chen Yuanjiang carrying a bowl of rice towards her out of the corner of her eye.
He walked past Shu Ran and Zhou Wenbin's table without glancing at them, as if he hadn't seen them, and strode away from the cafeteria.
Shu Ran's gaze followed his retreating figure as he disappeared through the doorway.
The pain in her lower back reminded her of his words. She stood up, nodded to Zhou Wenbin, and left the cafeteria.
Instead of returning to her dormitory for a midday rest, she headed towards the infirmary in the corner of the company, which had a wooden sign with a red cross on it.
Pushing open the wooden door of the clinic, the furnishings inside were extremely simple: an old wooden table, two chairs, a medicine cabinet painted white, and a simple treatment bed covered with a white cloth.
A young woman wearing a white coat and with two braids was standing with her back to the door, tiptoeing as she rummaged through the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.
Hearing the door open, the girl turned around.
She had a fair, oval face, her skin roughened by the frontier winds, but her eyes were curved, exuding the gentle grace of the Jiangnan water towns. However, at this moment, her brows were slightly furrowed, showing a hint of anxiety.
Upon seeing Shu Ran, she paused for a moment, then her eyes lit up instantly.
"Shu Ran?! It's you! It really is you!" the girl exclaimed in surprise, rushing over in a few steps and grabbing Shu Ran's arm to look her up and down.
"Oh my god! I just heard from the people in the company that a teacher from Shanghai named Shu Ran has arrived. I thought it was just someone with the same name! I didn't expect it to really be you! I'm Junjun! Xu Junjun! From Uncle Xu's family at the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Factory. We used to play together when we were little! Remember me?"
Shu Ran was a little stunned by the sudden enthusiasm and the barrage of information.
She quickly searched through the original owner's memories.
Uncle Xu? He seems to be the head of a pharmaceutical factory that the original owner's father's textile factory cooperated with; their relationship was fairly good. Xu Junjun... The image of a little girl a few years younger than the original owner, who always followed behind her, came to mind.
"Xu... Junjun?" Shu Ran tried to make her expression natural, with a hint of surprise at a long-awaited reunion. "It's you! I really didn't expect to run into you here!" She looked at Xu Junjun's white coat and said sincerely, "Are you working as a sanitation worker here?"
“Yes!” Xu Junjun nodded vigorously, pulled Shu Ran to sit down in a chair, and started talking like she had opened a floodgate, “I signed up to support the border regions right after graduating from nursing school, and I’ve been assigned here for almost a year! The conditions here… sigh, you’ve seen it yourself! There’s a lack of medical care and medicine, a lack of everything! I was just looking for gauze, and we’ve used up the last bit, I’m so anxious!”
As she spoke, she frowned again, but quickly relaxed, looking at Shu Ran with bright eyes, "But it's so good to see you! Finally, someone who can speak our hometown dialect! Tell me, how is Shanghai now?" Her eyes revealed her homesickness.
Shu Ran inwardly groaned. How much could she possibly know about Shanghai in the 1960s? She could only give a vague answer: "The changes... are quite significant. I haven't been here long either."
She cleverly changed the subject, pointing to her lower back, "Jun Jun, I accidentally bumped my back this morning, and it hurts a bit. Officer Chen asked me to come and check if there's anything wrong with my bones."
"You bumped your back? Let me take a look!" Xu Junjun said immediately with concern, "Come on, lie down on the bed, lift your clothes up a bit." She helped Shu Ran lie down on the simple medical bed.
Xu Junjun carefully pressed and examined Shu Ran's lower back. "Does it hurt here? How about here?... The bones should be fine, it's just a muscle contusion, and it's a little swollen."
She breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll rub some medicated wine on you to improve blood circulation and remove blood stasis. Be careful not to overexert yourself these next few days, and get plenty of rest... Uh," she thought of Shu Ran's work and smiled helplessly, "I'll try my best!"
A note from the author:
----------------------
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
