Chapter 1 The Sickly Beauty
Chapter One: The Sickly Beauty
In July 1978, the scorching summer sun beat down on this vast land in the southwestern border region.
Today is market day in Baisha Commune, and villagers from all around have gathered here. The minority and Han people share the market equally, and the noise is deafening.
Amidst the bustling crowds, eighteen-year-old Lin Su, a former educated youth, stood by the roadside eating a meat bun.
The steamed white dough is soft and fluffy. Take a bite and the juicy, oily scallion and meat filling bursts out, leaving a lingering fragrance in your mouth.
It was so delicious! Lin Su had never tasted anything so delicious since she transmigrated into the book. She wanted to swallow it in a few bites, but then she thought that it would be gone in no time, so she chewed it slowly.
As she was eating, she noticed a bright gaze directed at her. Lin Su looked up and saw a tall, upright man carrying a military-style duffel bag. He glanced at her as he passed by.
Lin Su glanced at him briefly and thought he was quite handsome.
But no matter how handsome he was, he couldn't compare to her meat bun. Lin Su lowered her head and took another bite.
After finishing the steamed buns, Lin Su planned to go to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy some things.
The supply and marketing cooperative was bustling with people, and the shelves were filled with all sorts of goods. She took out her crumpled banknotes and bought half a pound of brown sugar, a bar of soap, and other daily necessities such as toilet paper, packing them into her faded canvas satchel. When she came out, she was still holding a white popsicle in her hand, slowly licking it as she headed to the grain station to meet up with her comrades from the Seventh Branch of the Red Star Farm.
The spacious business hall of the grain station was bustling with activity, with long lines of people delivering rice, corn, and soybeans.
At the entrance, a handsome man carrying a bag glanced inside. Across the street, next to a jeep, a young man in a sailor shirt waved to him: "Boss, over here."
"I've been waiting for you to come back from Beijing," Xu Yaodong greeted him with a big grin, showing off his white teeth.
Zhou Yunqi strode over, opened the trunk of the car, and saw a suitcase, a plastic bucket, an enamel basin, and other items inside. He tidied them up and put his own luggage inside.
Xu Yaodong then asked with a smile, "Boss, what local specialties did you bring?"
Zhou Yunqi took out a pack of Daqianmen cigarettes from his pocket and handed it to him.
"Daqianmen cigarettes count too? Sure." Xu Yaodong took them, shook them, and said, "There are only a few left, give them all to me."
Zhou Yunqi didn't say much.
"Want one?" Xu Yaodong asked.
Seeing that he didn't respond, Xu Yaodong lit a cigarette for himself: "When you leave, take Hongtashan cigarettes with you, and when you come back, take Daqianmen cigarettes. How many times can those three Hongtashan cigarettes fetch when you resell them in Beijing?"
Zhou Yunqi said in a very calm tone: "What can three packs of cigarettes do? They're not even enough to give as a favor."
“You may not be interested, but you have connections in the cigarette business. Next time I go back to Beijing to visit relatives, can you get me a few more cartons so I can resell them?”
Zhou Yunqi glanced at him: "Aren't you afraid of getting arrested?"
"A few cartons of cigarettes aren't hard to sell? Just get me the goods." Xu Yaodong looked at his indifferent expression and said persistently, "We're both from Beijing, after all. Although I didn't come from a privileged background, we still forged a revolutionary friendship on the farm..."
Xu Yaodong was a chatterbox, going on and on. Later, he changed the subject and asked in a low voice, "How is your father's situation?"
Zhou Yunqi's tone remained calm: "We're going through the process."
"That's good. After you're exonerated, I'll ask your old leader to take care of you, at least get you back to Beijing, hehe, and take me with you."
Zhou Yunqi smirked and said, "Why go back to the capital? Isn't it good here? There's plenty of room for us to make a difference."
"It looks good. You've managed to lead our branch to a decent level, but it's still better in the capital. It's a waste of your talents to keep you here."
After a brief silence, Zhou Yunqi asked, "Whose luggage is in the car?"
Xu Yaodong suddenly remembered something: "I forgot to tell you, today the Sixth Division transferred a female educated youth to our division. That girl is also from Beijing. I remember mentioning her to you before, but I guess you didn't pay attention."
"She came here two years ago and is only 18 years old this year. She has been sick for half the time since she arrived. She is called a sick beauty by the locals. She is quite pretty, fair-skinned, delicate and frail. I just saw her. I don't know how her family could bear to send her here. Why didn't they just let her study in Beijing for two years until the college entrance examination resumed? Now the locals think she is a burden and have passed her around to our locals like a football."
“…” Zhou Yunqi looked up, “What’s your name?”
"Lin Su, the Su as in 'rustling leaves falling,' what an interesting name."
Zhou Yunqi frowned slightly. Before leaving Beijing, he visited an elder in the family compound of a machinery factory and heard that there was also a female educated youth surnamed Lin in the compound who worked on the same farm as him.
Where is she?
"I went shopping and should be back soon. Also, we have to wait for the accountant."
Zhou Yunqi nodded and said, "I'll go check out the market."
As I turned around, I nearly bumped into someone.
Lin Su subconsciously took a step back, looked up at the other person, and was surprised to find that he was the man who had just watched her eat the meat bun.
To be fair, his appearance is indeed striking.
He was tall and upright, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the hem tucked into the belt of his dark trousers. Because of his good physique, the shirt and trousers looked particularly stylish. His brow bone was well-defined, his facial features were smooth, and his skin was fair, so he didn't look like someone who did farm work... except that his eyes and brows had a somewhat cold and aloof quality, as if he were not approachable.
Zhou Yunqi looked over and saw that the girl's steamed bun had been replaced with an ice pop. She took a bite and was chewing on the ice. She opened her big, dark eyes and looked at him, smiling, "Sorry."
Xu Yaodong leaned over and said, "Xiao Lin, you've bought everything."
“Yes, Brother Dong,” Lin Su replied.
"Come, come, this is Director Zhou from our Seventh Branch Farm. He's also from Beijing. From now on, the three of us will be fellow townsmen."
Zhou Yunqi narrowed his eyes, nodded at her, and then said, "I'll be right back."
After the chewed ice shards melted, Lin Su felt a cool sensation in her mouth. Looking at the tall figure behind her, she asked in confusion, "Brother Dong, is he also from Beijing?"
"He's a capable man from Beijing. He's not only the head of the Seventh Farm, but also the head of the farm's sugar factory. He just returned from visiting relatives in Beijing."
"So amazing..." Lin Su couldn't help but be surprised, after all, he didn't look that old, at most twenty-four or twenty-five.
But there's no need to be alarmed. At its peak, the number of educated youth in Yunnan Province reached nearly 130,000. Some of the educated youth with outstanding abilities were promoted to management positions, while those with technical expertise could become doctors, teachers, accountants, and so on.
Xu Yaodong said, "That's right. After his reform and expansion, the sugar factory has improved its production efficiency and profitability. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had the chance to ride in this car."
"Mmm." Lin Su nodded repeatedly.
According to the general farm configuration, only the main farm is equipped with jeeps, branch farms only have tractors, and below that are the production teams, which are not equipped with their own transportation. In addition, the sugar factory is also equipped with a jeep, but sugarcane has a crushing season, and sugarcane only matures at the end of the year. The production cycle is from November to May of the following year. During the non-production cycle, there is less work at the sugar factory, so he has time to go back to Beijing to visit relatives.
Lin Su obediently asked Xu Yaodong, "What is the full name of the factory manager?"
“Zhou Yunqi, you can call him the manager, or you can call him Brother Zhou, but I usually call him Boss.”
"Oh, which Yun Qi?"
"The cloud in white clouds, the Qi in Qilian Mountains."
Lin Su murmured, "Zhou Yunqi, that's quite a name."
"How so?"
There seems to be a line of poetry that says, "The clouds are dense, or the rain falls from the abyss."
Xu Yaodong was taken aback for a moment, then laughed and said, "Oh, she's a talented woman who understands poetry."
“No,” Lin Su smiled, “I just vaguely remember hearing that phrase.”
In reality, Lin Su was only 18 years old, a freshman in college, who was transported to this world by an accident. After her high fever subsided and she recovered her energy, she realized that this was the world of a period novel. The female protagonist in the book was a female educated youth from Shanghai who was about to be admitted to university and return to the city to deal with the awful people.
As a colleague of the female educated youth, the original owner didn't appear in many scenes, and when she was mentioned, it was only briefly when she was sick.
Lin Su felt that if she returned to the city, she would have to face that awful mother and daughter. After her father passed away, her stepmother made her stepsister take over the job that originally belonged to her and sent her to the countryside. While the mother and daughter lived a life of luxury in the capital, she was stuck here eating pickled vegetables, drinking porridge, and gnawing on cornbread.
But to be fair, given the original owner's frail health, revenge was out of the question; survival was the priority. When Lin Su transmigrated, the original owner was suffering from a persistent high fever and was on the verge of death, missing her college entrance exams. Everyone thought she was doomed, but she miraculously survived.
After resting for a few days, Lin Su asked the head of the Sixth Farm if she could transfer there. The head, having learned that several educated youths had recently left the Seventh Farm, transferred Lin Su, this hot potato, there instead. After that, the Sixth Farm no longer took responsibility for her fate. Only then did Lin Su ride the Sixth Farm's tractor to the commune, where she met Xu Yaodong and the others.
She had made up her mind that no matter what, she would survive until next spring.
The policy for returning to the city will be released next year.
After waiting for a while, Zhou Yunqi returned and said, "Let's get in the car first. The accountant is still at the supply and marketing cooperative and will be here soon."
He opened the driver's side door and instructed Xu Yaodong, "I have a bag of shortbread in my luggage. Take it out."
Xu Yaodong sat in the back seat, leaned over to rummage through the trunk, and then took out a bag of Beijing specialty shortbread. He grabbed a few and gave them to Lin Su: "Have a taste. You haven't had this kind of candy in a while, have you?"
Lin Su nodded and accepted the candy: "Thank you, Manager, thank you, Brother Dong."
"Have you gone back to Beijing to visit your family?" Xu Yaodong asked.
"No, I only get a chance to visit my family once every two years, and I often take leave, so I don't have any leave to visit my family."
Xu Yaodong asked again, "Boss, do you want some?"
Zhou Yunqi sat in the driver's seat, the window rolled down, his slender fingers resting on the window, and said, "I'm not eating it. An elder insisted on giving it to me."
Xu Yaodong left a few candies for the accountant and put them back in his luggage bag. After sitting down, he said, "By the way, boss, Xiao Lin said before that your name comes from a poem, what was it again?" He looked at Lin Su.
Lin Su said, "The clouds are dense, or rain falls from the abyss. I've forgotten which poet wrote that."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Yunqi paused noticeably, turned his head to look at Lin Su in the back seat, his eyes revealing a sharp glint.
Lin Su was startled by the sharp look in his eyes, wondering if he had said something wrong.
The man quickly looked away and said in a low voice, "Wang Anshi's."
Looking at his tense profile, Lin Su swallowed, her mouth full of taffy, and said, "Oh."
...
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