Chapter 43: Fighting Heaven and Earth to Repair the Riverbank 2
At this time, Chen Youfu also ran over, shouting loudly: "No fighting, no fighting, we are all socialist civilized people, this is the new China, we can't fight!"
He shouted at the top of his lungs, but no one paid any attention to him.
If he had come earlier, perhaps he could have stopped them, but now the fight has already started. You give me a punch, and I will hit you back. No one wants to suffer a loss. You can't stop the rural man who is red-eyed in fighting.
Fubao saw her father, Gu Weidong, also inside, wrestling with a burly man from the other production team. She became even more anxious and couldn't help but shout, "Dad, Dad, stop hitting me—"
Who knew that as soon as she finished speaking, her mouth was covered.
She whimpered and quickly turned around, only to see that it was Xiao Dingkun who covered her mouth.
"What are you yelling about? Be careful!" Xiao Dingkun frowned and rebuked her in a low voice, "If those people hit you, they'll kill you."
Fubao was so anxious that he almost cried: "Brother Dingkun, my dad, my dad is fighting with someone."
Xiao Dingkun glanced over there nonchalantly: "Yeah, there's a fight going on."
He had read in a book that people in the countryside before liberation had fought over water canals, but he hadn't expected that they would now fight over the earth on the slope, and that it would be a group fight.
Xiao Dingkun raised his eyebrows, looked at it with great interest, and even whistled softly.
Fubao was so anxious that tears came to his eyes. Seeing his careless look, he stamped his feet in anger and said, "That's my dad, that's my dad!"
Xiao Dingkun replied directly: "It's not a kiss."
Fubao: "He's closer than my own father, that's my father!"
Xiao Dingkun had no choice but to push her down on the dirt bed and said through gritted teeth, "Little idiot, lie down here, don't move, don't make a sound!"
As he said this, he jumped up and jumped over the slope.
Fubao was held down by Xiao Dingkun and didn't dare to move for a long time. Later, when he heard the scolding from the other side, he quickly raised his head, hid behind the slope, and poked his head out of a corner to look over there secretly.
When Xiao Dingkun went over, Chen Youfu and the team leader of the other production team were trying their best to stop everyone. The members had lost their rationality, but the team leader had to remain calm, otherwise it would be difficult for the commune to say anything, and no one would be able to hold the position of team leader, and no one would have a good life this year.
But it was useless. How could a few people stop these angry men?
Chen Youfu roared heartbreakingly, "If you keep hitting me, I'll lose all my work points! My wife and children will starve to death!"
But no one listened, no one listened...they were already furious.
If you pull my hair, I'm going to kick you, that's it.
Besides, now that all the members have joined the fight, isn't that a case of the law not punishing the masses? Even though these are all old farmers and illiterate, they know the ropes. If they fight together, who will the police arrest? There's not that much land left in the cells!
Chen Youfu was so anxious that he almost knelt down: "Stop fighting, stop fighting!!"
He shouted until his throat was hoarse and he was completely desperate.
At this moment, Xiao Dingkun suddenly picked up a big iron shovel and rushed over.
Chen Youfu only felt a flash before his eyes, and the figure, strong and powerful, whooshed past his sight, just like a wild wolf just rushing down from the mountain.
When Chen Youfu saw who it was, he was stunned and stamped his feet in anger. "You old farmer, you're so ignorant! And you, an educated youth, are causing trouble for me?! Are you going to die?"
Xiao Dingkun, holding a shovel, entered the group of people beating them and shouted, "Stop it, everyone! Anyone who hits me again will be killed!"
His voice was cold and deep, like thunder, startling the people around him. Everyone stopped moving abruptly, but when they realized what was happening, they were immediately annoyed.
Why is a hairless kid yelling at us? Beat him, keep on beating him!
Of course Xiao Dingkun knew that no one would take his yell seriously.
A violent light flashed in his eyes, and he curled his lips in a sneer, looking at the man who was the first to raise his fist to hit someone. He was a farmer in his thirties, dark and strong, from the Taitou Production Brigade.
Xiao Dingkun raised his leg and kicked forward.
He just gave a kick and the farmer flew far away.
The farmer flew out like a kite, and finally landed on the soft soil slope next to him with a bang, and then slid down the slope.
The noise was so loud that everyone was stunned.
Xiao Dingkun had a sullen face and said nothing. Suddenly, he kicked again. A man standing nearby was startled and tried to dodge, but it was too late.
This person was also kicked out.
"You fucking bastard—" A sturdy man next to him was dissatisfied and rushed over to beat Xiao Dingkun.
The burly man was half a head taller than Xiao Dingkun and his body was wider than Xiao Dingkun. He looked as strong as a small mountain.
When the people in Pingxi Production Brigade saw this scene, they all thought it was not good and that the young man was going to suffer.
Chen Youfu slapped his thigh and said, "Oh my god, it's over. This is going to be a disaster!"
When Gu Weidong saw this, he rushed over with a shovel to help.
However, the next scene shocked everyone.
When the strong man rushed in front of Xiao Dingkun, Xiao Dingkun dodged, and then there was a dazzling moment. When everyone could see clearly, everything was over.
Xiao Dingkun pinned the burly man down under his feet and stepped on his back. No matter how the burly man struggled, his feet remained motionless.
The thirteen-year-old boy, bare-armed, sweat beads on his chest gleaming in the sunlight, his short hair flying. His brows furrowed, his eyes cold and fierce, and he asked in a gruff voice, a voice unique to young men, "Who dares to fight again?"
Just five words were spoken lightly, and no one dared to take a step forward.
After a moment of stunned silence, the people of Pingxi Production Brigade suddenly shouted like thunder, while the people of Taitou Production Brigade were frightened, looked at each other, and retreated one after another.
After nearly despairing, Chen Youfu looked at this scene and rushed over: "Alright, alright, no more fighting! Dingkun, put him down. This is all a misunderstanding. Let's talk it out!"
The captain of the Taitou Production Brigade also rushed over with his cadres.
The cadres from both sides arrived, the fight stopped, and a light breeze from the mountains blew, and everyone calmed down.
After calming down, some people regretted it.
How did it happen?
Xiao Dingkun let go of the burly man, who glared at him fiercely, pointed at him and said, "Just wait, you kid, just wait!"
While saying wait, he hurriedly backed away.
The people in Pingxi Production Brigade burst into laughter.
A fight was settled, the Pingxi Production Brigade won a great victory, and Chen Youfu finally breathed a sigh of relief.
After breathing a sigh of relief, he looked at Xiao Dingkun and said, "You're really good, kid!"
Now, he suddenly understood why none of those educated youth dared to mess with Xiao Dingkun!
To say that he is a ruthless guy is an understatement. When Xiao Dingkun fights, he is really fierce, just like a wolf in the mountains.
Xiao Dingkun single-handedly forced the Taitou Production Brigade to retreat, shocked the two production brigades and stopped the fight between members, thus avoiding more serious consequences. Chen Youfu was very grateful for this.
He knew in his heart that without Xiao Dingkun, everyone would be finished, and he would be even more finished!
But I know in my heart that this is not a pleasant thing to say.
You, Xiao Dingkun, got into a fight, didn't you? You even kicked two big guys up the hill and then stomped them under your feet.
Chen Youfu was really anxious and angry about this matter. He felt that he could not let Xiao Dingkun be a hero and then suffer injustice, so in this "Report to Pingxi Production Brigade and Taitou Production Brigade", he racked his brains for the wording, and finally went to Taitou Production Brigade to find the brigade leader several times. Both sides, based on the principle of calming the situation and trying to make a big deal out of a small matter, tried to blur the seriousness of the matter as much as possible and beautify the situation at the time.
Finally, Chen Youfu's report concluded: "...the conflict between the Pingxi Production Brigade and the Taitou Production Brigade can be characterized as a contradiction and dispute within the proletariat. Both sides have now reconciled and expressed their willingness to unite and help each other progress, and to jointly make their due contribution to the realization of the four modernizations of socialism..."
When mentioning Xiao Dingkun, he thought over and over again, revised the draft several times, and finally wrote: "Comrade Xiao Dingkun has grown from a student to a self-reliant member of the production team. He has integrated himself into the poor peasants by devoting himself to labor in the vast rural areas. He has made decisive decisions and played an important role in mediating the contradictions among the peasants..."
After saying so many clichés, he revised it several times and then ran to see the team leader of the Taitou Production Brigade to take a look. After the two sides agreed on it, he submitted it.
After it was submitted, the person who looked at the report was Li Mingshuan.
After reading it, Li Mingshuan raised his eyes from the report document and looked at Chen Youfu.
Chen Youfu smiled: "This is what happened."
Li Mingshuan threw the documents directly on the table: "Stop giving me this fake trick, what's going on!"
Chen Youfu's smile suddenly froze.
Li Mingshuan took out a cigarette from his pocket. Like everyone else, he smoked an eight-cent economy cigarette. He handed one to Chen Youfu and said, "Go ahead."
Chen Youfu had no choice but to explain what had happened: "Hey, these are all veteran farmers. They've gotten angry, and there's nothing we can do. I can't tell who's leading the charge. Besides, the two production teams haven't been causing trouble anymore and have reconciled. I'll report it to the higher-ups. Who do you think should be arrested? There's nothing we can do about it!"
The law does not punish everyone...
Li Mingshuan thought about it for a while and frowned in difficulty. It was not easy to do grassroots work. The people in the dozen or so production brigades in this area were tough and such group fights had happened before liberation. They had happened for fights over canals and land.
If we have to conduct a thorough investigation now, it will not only delay spring plowing but also the construction of dams, ultimately causing panic among the people.
Chen Youfu smiled nervously, "It really can't be helped. The people involved in the brawl were basically the strongest laborers from our Pingxi Production Brigade. If we really checked every one of them, our spring plowing this year would be ruined. By autumn, we'd all be starving."
Li Mingshuan nodded gravely after a long pause. "This matter has passed, but we must strengthen the ideological work of the members in the future. We will consider sending an ideological specialist to strengthen the members' learning, and require every member who participates in the dam construction to write a ideological report. At the same time, you must also strengthen management and report any situation to the higher authorities in a timely manner."
When Chen Youfu saw that he had escaped, he felt as if he had been pardoned. He nodded repeatedly and finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Li Mingshuan thought of Xiao Dingkun and said, "You have to pay attention to Xiao Dingkun. He's young, capable, and educated from the city. You need to strengthen his ideological work and not let him go astray. You have to train him to be a successor to socialism."
Chen Youfu now felt nothing but gratitude and admiration for Xiao Dingkun, and upon hearing Li Mingshuan's words, he breathed a sigh of relief. It would be best if the higher-ups didn't pursue the matter, and he also hoped to be grateful to Xiao Dingkun for not letting him be implicated.
After Li Mingshuan finished talking about Xiao Dingkun, he mentioned Gu Weidong again: "He went to the city. You can ask him to tell everyone about his experience. In addition -"
Li Mingshuan hesitated for a moment, but still asked, "How is Fubao from your production team now?"
When Fubao was in the Nie family, she was despised and abused. Li Mingshuan was naturally heartbroken when he heard about it. Now Fubao has gone to the Gu family. Although Fubao said last time that the Gu family treated her well, he is still not at ease.
It's not easy for an orphan girl, and Li Mingshuan has always been concerned about her.
But he was the secretary of the commune and worked alone. His wife and children were not around, so it was impossible for him to take an orphan girl in and raise her. He could only let Chen Youfu make good arrangements for her.
When Chen Youfu heard Li Mingshuan mention it, he quickly said, "Fubao, she's living a good life now. The Gu family has been lucky recently, even catching a piglet at the beginning of the new year. Fubao isn't even old enough to go to school yet, but she spends all day in the mountains cutting grass for the pigs with the other kids from the Gu family. I see her smiling every day. Gu's parents love her, and her grandmother likes her too. They dress her up beautifully, and she doesn't look like a kid from the countryside at all."
Li Mingshuan nodded, relieved: "That's good."
………………
Chen Youfu finally breathed a sigh of relief after he had settled this major matter. Thinking of what Li Mingshuan had said about strengthening ideological education, he quickly used a loudspeaker to call all the men, women, young and old in the production team over, and gave them a good lecture, saying that this matter was very serious and that the higher-ups would investigate. When the time comes, they will send people to arrest the people and put them in handcuffs and shackles. This scared the group of old farmers so much that they all said they would never dare to do it again.
After Chen Youfu had finished scaring people, he began to say that after what he had experienced, they could consider not pursuing this matter for the time being. Only then did everyone breathe a sigh of relief and feel grateful to Chen Youfu.
Through this incident, Chen Youfu greatly improved his status in the production team. From then on, his words were final and no one dared to ignore his words anymore.
But that’s a story for later. Currently, everyone has spread the word, and everyone knows how powerful Xiao Dingkun is.
Why is Xiao Dingkun so powerful?
Wang Fugui stood on the podium with his bowl of rice in his hand. He sipped a mouthful of porridge and began to speak with saliva flying everywhere, gesturing as he spoke.
"He kicked Wang Dahei from the Taitou Production Brigade and sent him flying!"
"He kicked again, and Li Dachui, the man who produced the earth at the top of the platform, flew away!"
"He just broke it and hammered it like that, and you didn't even see what happened. Hey, guess what?"
Everyone around grinned and laughed: "What's going on?"
Wang Fugui put down his bowl with a bang, stood up, and stepped on the well platform. He ruffled his hair with a triumphant look, his head held high and his chest puffed out. "He just stood there and said, 'Who wants to fight again?' With just those few words, the people in the Taitou Production Brigade were all dumbfounded! They were all dumbfounded! They were so scared that they peed their pants!!"
The story was told in a rhythmic manner, just like an opera, and everyone around gave Xiao Dingkun a thumbs up, praising him repeatedly and showing great admiration for him.
"This young man is so young, yet he has such great abilities!"
Xiao Dingkun became famous, and from then on, whenever he went to work on the embankment, he would receive the attention of the members along the way.
Xiao Dingkun, however, remained the same as before, with a cold expression on his face, as if he saw nothing. He continued to do what he was doing and didn't say much.
Chen Youfu saw it and secretly gave him a thumbs up, saying, "Good job, kid. You're calm and have the demeanor of a great general."
He intended to promote Xiao Dingkun, so he tried to get Xiao Dingkun to be his scorekeeper. The so-called scorekeeper was responsible for recording how many work points each family had earned. It was a good job, not tiring and easy, and the government would provide paper and pens, which was very beneficial for someone like Xiao Dingkun who loved reading.
But Xiao Dingkun just glanced at him and said, "I won't do it."
He didn't explain why, didn't give a reason, and wasn't even bothered to give a perfunctory response. He just said three simple words: I won't do it.
Okay...you are too arrogant!
Chen Youfu had no choice but to let Xiao Dingkun do as he pleased.
Everyone in the production team said Xiao Dingkun was arrogant, except for Gu Weidong. He came back one day in high spirits and said excitedly, "Xiao Dingkun is a very nice guy. He talked to me today. I told him about my cotton wool business, and he helped me analyze the prospects for the business and gave me a lot of suggestions! Don't look at his young age, he is really thoughtful."
However, after he finished speaking, the dinner table suddenly fell silent.
His brother and sister-in-law looked at him in surprise, as if they had no idea what he was saying.
Gu Weidong was stunned for a moment, then suddenly understood.
He lowered his head and continued to drink his porridge.
There was a sound of sniffing in the room.
At night, Gu Weidong lay on the big kang and whispered to his mute wife.
"My brothers and sisters-in-law would never agree. They think it's enough to just work honestly on the land and earn work points. Weaving straw mats and selling baskets is a low-cost business, but collecting cotton wool requires capital, so they definitely won't agree."
"But I want to do it. There are so many businesses and opportunities out there, why should I dig for food in the fields? The educated youth are like princes and generals, and they are born with different talents. It means we can't just accept our fate. If we don't eat commercial grain, can we only rely on that little piece of land for the rest of our lives? I've seen it outside, and I know how people in the city spend money and how they make money. I'm itching to try it!"
Gu Weidong understood his brother and sister-in-law. After all, they were farmers who had rarely been to the city in their lives. For them, the idea of taking money out of their well-off lives to start a business was something they had never thought of.
How can I spend the money I got on those things? What if I lose it?
Every penny is money, and it would be painful to lose it.
But he wouldn't give up if he wasn't allowed to try. It was clearly an opportunity to make money, so why shouldn't he just do it? What if it worked? Then he wouldn't have to worry about his children going to school, and he might even be able to eat yellow cornbread every day, and meat and eggs every other day.
Although the family situation is better now than before, Gu Weidong feels helpless when he sees the greedy looks in the children's eyes when they mention eating eggs.
Liu Guizhi raised her head and looked at Gu Weidong.
The hazy moonlight shone through the window onto the kang, shining on the old blue printed quilt and also on the man.
The farmer had a strong chest and a rough, hard chin, with a few faint stubbles of beard visible. He frowned and looked very worried.
After being a couple for ten years, he understood what she meant.
No matter what he does, she will support him because he is her man.
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