Chapter 78
Sun Guizhi felt something was wrong when she hadn't seen her son for so long. She asked Sun, who was lying motionless on the kang, "Mom, do you think that since we were not at home, no one in the two rooms took care of my son and forced Zhiliang away?"
As soon as Sun Guizhi opened her mouth, she labeled everyone as a bad person. So the saying that one's mind determines one's vision is not for nothing.
Seeing that they had not come out of the house to serve the meal, Li Daya, who was urged by Liu Erzhuang to bring the meal over, happened to hear what Sun Guizhi said. She went into the house angrily and put the meal on the top of the cupboard, only to find that it broke with a bang.
Li Daya didn't even care about the porridge spilling out, and pointed at Sun Guizhi and asked, "Your family was arrested and sent to a study class. Who told us to take care of your children?"
"Well, you didn't say a word. Liu Erzhuang thought that he couldn't write two Liu characters with one stroke. He and Liu Sizhuang were brothers from the same mother, so he couldn't let your child go hungry. As a result, your Liu Hongjuan, who didn't learn good things but had to learn how to frame others, also went to the training class, leaving Liu Zhiliang alone at home."
"Baoling and I take care of the food and clothing every day, but you think we've driven people away. Tell me, did we hand the child over to the Red Team like your brother did?"
It was rare for Li Daya to speak such words, and her voice became so sharp that it could pierce into one's heart. Liu Sizhuang saw that his wife had offended his second sister-in-law as soon as she came home, so he went up and slapped Sun Guizhi in the face.
He thought that he had slapped Sun Guizhi, and when Li Daya saw that Sun Guizhi was beaten because of her words, she should at least stop him, or let him not be with Sun Guizhi. He could just go down the stairs and say a few good words to Li Daya, and the matter angry would be over.
Unexpectedly, Li Daya directly scooped out a bowl of the rice she had just brought, put it on the edge of the kang and told Sun to eat. She took the rest out the door and turned back to say only one sentence: "It is our duty to honor our mother, but Liu Sizhuang, you are only Liu Erzhuang's brother, it is not Liu Erzhuang's turn to honor you."
Even Li Daya was still not satisfied. When she met Xia Juhua in the afternoon, she complained: "Sister-in-law, how can there be such a shameless person?"
Xia Juhua felt that the Sun family's mischief was within her expectations, so she shook her head and said, "Let them make noises on their own, just pretend you didn't hear anything. You see, Baoling doesn't need to be angry about this. By the way, where is Liu Zhiliang?"
Where could Liu Zhiliang go? The moment he saw the four figures of the Sun family appear on the street, he ran to the firewood pile at the west end of the village and dived into a small hole that had dug out, wishing that no one would ever find him again.
For several months, Liu Zhiliang had imagined various scenarios of his parents and grandmother returning to Ping'an Village, but none of them were so vicious. He was a little relieved that it was Liu Hongjuan who was taken away by the Red Team instead of him, but he also felt a little regretful:
That day he heard his sister urging his grandmother to go to the commune to report Xia Juhua in exchange for his parents. If they could have been stopped, would his grandmother have avoided the same suffering for several months?
From the beginning to the end, Liu Zhiliang never regretted pushing Liu Hongjuan to the people of the Red Team - this sister was as troublesome as his mother, always thinking about bringing bad luck to others, as if she would gain a lot if others were unlucky.
The result is often that others are not in trouble but they themselves are, and then they start crying and making a fuss, thinking that others shouldn't bother with them, as if they are innocent.
How did he end up with such a mother and sister? At first, Liu Zhiliang hoped that the grandsons would return to Ping'an Village because his grandmother loved him the most and kept all the good things for him, unlike his second and third mothers, who shared the food equally among the children in the family and no one was allowed to eat more.
In the past few months, Li Daya and An Baoling were worried that the family members would be exhausted, so they thought of ways to make something good for everyone. Liu Zhiliang took turns eating at the two families, and sometimes he thought, how nice it would be if he was the son of the second or third mother.
Yes, the children of Erniang and Sanniang are not favored by grandma, and they can't get any of grandma's good things. But their parents are capable, and their two sisters make money by weaving mats, and they also go to learn to read from Liu Lizhu at night. Can his parents and sister do it?
Why couldn't my parents be like the second and third uncles, working honestly in the fields to earn work points? Why couldn't my mother be like the second and third aunts, taking care of her own family's affairs, instead of instigating grandma to ask for things from the other two families?
Liu Zhiliang couldn't figure it out. He only knew that the cousins from the two families looked down on his family and thought that his family was always taking advantage of them because of his grandmother. But could his grandmother always help his family take advantage of him?
My family was captured by the Red Team, and the second master and the third mother immediately separated from my grandmother. My grandmother must have cried as usual, but when I returned to Ping'an Village, the family was still divided.
It can be seen that if people don't want grandma to take advantage of them, grandma won't be able to take advantage of them at all, so how can their family live? When Liu Zhiliang thought of this, he didn't feel any light in his heart. He knew that his parents couldn't earn enough work points to feed the whole family.
Will I end up like my parents in the future? Liu Zhiliang vaguely understood in his little head that he would not have a good life if he lived that way. But how could he have a good life?
As he was thinking, Liu Zhiliang fell asleep.
He fell asleep in the firewood pile, but Pingan Manor was in turmoil: Sun Guizhi waited for Liu Zhiliang left and right but he didn't show up. Li Daya took the meal away without leaving any for Sifang, which made Sun Guizhi even more angry and she lost her mind. Liu Sizhuang didn't even try to stop her, as she ran to the yard and found Xia Juhua and howled.
The content of the howling was that Li Daya and An Baoling did not keep a good eye on Liu Zhiliang and forced her son away. Now they are missing and she must make Xia Juhua, the production team leader, give her an explanation.
Xia Juhua thought that the Sun family members would definitely not calm down after returning to Ping'an Village, but she didn't expect that Sun Guizhi would calm down so quickly. The cause was Liu Zhiliang, whom she had just discussed with Li Daya.
If she hadn't been the production team leader, it would be nonsense for Xia Juhua to say that she could be Sun Guizhi. But now she is the production team leader, and no matter how young Liu Zhiliang is, he is still a member of the production team, so she can't just ignore him.
But before that, he could have stopped Sun Guizhi from crying and stopped her from putting the blame on Li Daya and An Baoling: "How much money did Daya and Baoling take from you to have them look after your child? Is Liu Zhiliang three years old this year? Does he have to have someone following him around every day?"
"Sister-in-law, you are not only my sister-in-law, you are also the production team leader, you can't be biased." Sun Guizhi's useless provocations for several months were not wasted at all: "Zhiliang is also your nephew, you can't just ignore his life and death just because you are close to these two."
Xia Juhua impatiently called Chen Qiusheng over and said, "Tell someone to look around the village and go to Liu Lizhu's place to see if Liu Zhiliang is attending the class."
Chen Qiu Sheng first rejected Liu Zhiliang's statement in class: "That kid just wants to play every day and can't sit still at the pillar." Then he blew the whistle to call people.
The members who were checking the emergence of sweet potato seedlings with technician Lin came over and heard that it was Sun Guizhi who couldn't find her son and wanted to help look for him. They started to complain: "The teenager doesn't even have to do some work, but runs around everyone day. He is like his father, like his son."
Liu Sizhuang, who was also somewhat worried about his son, heard the complaints from others and his face became hot for a rare moment. He stepped forward and slapped Sun Guizhi again: "You spendthrift woman, how can you die if you don't make trouble?"
This slap did not make everyone less resentful. They dispersed unwillingly, shouting Liu Zhiliang's name in and out of the village. No one cared about Sun Guizhi who was knocked to the ground.
Cry on purpose, anyway, if Sun Guizhi doesn't cry, then Sun Shi will cry, this is a perfect mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship. Everyone in Pingan Village thinks so. Hurry up and find this little brat Liu Zhiliang, so that we can get down to business.
Liu Sizhuang didn't expect that no one would pay attention to his slap. His face was pale and ugly. Seeing that only Xia Juhua was looking at him, he approached her a little embarrassedly and said, "Sister-in-law, you see, I just came back from the training class. I don't know what work the team has assigned me."
The last study session actually cured Liu Sizhuang's laziness? Xia Juhua looked at him with some disbelief and said, "You know that you have to accept labor supervision when you come back, so you can't slack off like before."
Such merciless words came out of Xia Juhua's mouth, who had always given in when she suffered a loss. Liu Sizhuang was surprised again, and his face became even more embarrassed: "Sister-in-law, I know everything."
"It's all right to know. No matter what the production team assigns you to do, you will agree, right? Also, from now on, just call me captain. If someone hears me calling you sister-in-law, they might think I didn't draw a clear line between us and am intentionally protecting you."
There was no way to chat anymore. Liu Sizhuang glared at Xia Juhua, and turned around and walked home without even looking at Sun Guizhi who was still sobbing on the ground. He had thought about going home to talk to his mother about how Xia Juhua dared to act like a production team leader in front of him, but halfway through the walk, he remembered that since Xia Juhua and her two sons separated from the old courtyard, his mother had never taken advantage of Xia Juhua.
"Found it, found it." Liu Qixi and Chen Shuanzhu shouted as they ran, "Captain, Liu Zhiliang fell asleep hiding in the firewood pile and didn't hear us calling him. Brother Qiu Sheng has called him back."
After hearing this, Xia Juhua let the two of them continue to play at the village entrance. Without even looking at Sun Guizhi who was lying on the ground with her mouth open in shock, she went back to the production team to discuss the spring ploughing with Technician Lin.
Technician Lin really has a lot of ideas in his head. Many of the technologies that Xia Juhua only heard of in the 1980s are now mastered by him, but he has not had time to test and promote them yet.
Xia Juhua believed that if it had not been for the drought this year, she would have been able to grow corn or wheat in high yields according to the method suggested by the forest technician. Xia Juhua had already tentatively asked the forest technician whether it was possible to grow castor beans in the northern plains.
The answer given by technician Lin was affirmative. It can definitely be planted, but because castor beans are not edible, in an era when people were focused on filling their stomachs, no production team was willing to plant them on a large scale. Therefore, castor seeds were hard to find, and only a few plants grew from seeds that were blown from the wild or brought by birds.
When Xia Juhua took out dozens of seeds she had picked out from the bottom of the warehouse, Technician Lin looked at them again and again as if they were treasures. After confirming that they were all good seeds that could germinate, he said, "Captain Xia, you don't know how useful castor oil is. It's a pity that you have too few seeds. If you had more, selling castor beans would be as expensive as..."
Technician Lin could not continue. He remembered that farmers now farmed not for economic benefits but to comply with the requirements of their superiors and to complete the public grain task first.
But Xia Juhua was still very happy: "If so, I want to plant these in our family's private plot. Instead of selling the castor seeds now, I would like to keep some seeds. When there are more, I can use the poles to grind them into hemp and make some hemp ropes for use." Needless to say, she would boil castor root water for Xia Long to treat rheumatism.
Xia Juhua knew that in a few years, the production team's land would be contracted to each household. She would plant a little more castor beans on her private plot every year. When the contract was implemented, she would be able to plant a large area of castor beans on the contracted land and sell castor beans and hemp ropes...
It's definitely more profitable than growing wheat.
It was not yet time to plant castor beans, but it was time to turn the soil. After a winter of preparation, the Agricultural Machinery Station, with the help of Director Zhang, had already recognized Technician Xue as a non-staff member of Pingan Village, and allowed him to drive his tractor to Pingan Village every day to report.
Technician Xue started to go back to the agricultural machinery station every night to fill up the fuel tank, and then drive the tractor back to Ping'an Village early the next morning.
Not only did he drive the tractor to Ping'an Village, he also brought the plow that was in the trial stage at the agricultural machinery station to Ping'an Village. After he and technician Lin encouraged each other, the tractor was replaced with a plow. Then, under the leadership of Chen Qiu Sheng, the two of them went to the plots of land that needed to be plowed that day.
Of course, it couldn't be just the two of them. The male members of Ping'an Village were already waiting in the fields, carrying new tools and shovels. A tractor could be used to plow the land and break up the turned-over soil, but the plow made by Technician Xue couldn't do that yet. Even ridge making had to be done manually.
This alone is enough to satisfy the members of Pingan Village: in previous years, tilling the soil had to be done by people using shovels, and the tilling was uneven and varied. Now, they just pat the soil clods, which is faster and more even than tilling the soil by people, and saves a lot of trouble!
It was because of the addition of the tractor that the women who were weaving mats in the yard were freed up. They no longer had to plow the fields and could focus on weaving mats. But they were very happy about it and decided to take turns inviting technicians Xue and Lin to their homes for dinner.
Both Xue and Lin understood the situation in Ping'an Village, so they didn't have the nerve to eat at the members' homes all the time. So from the first day they settled down in Ping'an Village, they took their one-month ration to Xia Juhua's home, declaring that they were both partners in Xia Juhua's family.
Unfortunately, just a few days later, when the land in Pingan Manor was almost turned over, Wang Caifeng's daughter was born. With an extra maid and a baby in the house, the two had to move from Liu Zhishuang's western chamber to the fifth master's house, and the food was taken over by Liu Daxi's daughter-in-law Chang Guihua.
Xia Juhua was naturally happy to have a granddaughter. No matter what any member gave her to help Wang Caifeng produce milk, she did not refuse it and agreed to treat everyone to a dinner when her granddaughter was one month old.
Wang Caifeng's mother came to deliver milk to her daughter. When she heard that her in-laws were going to hold a one-month celebration for her granddaughter, she asked Wang Caifeng in surprise, "Is what your mother-in-law said true or false? Does a girl need a one-month celebration?"
Wang Caifeng quickly waved her hands at her mother: "Mom, please keep your voice down. You can't call her a girl. You have to call her Lele. My mother-in-law hates to hear people call her a girl. She loves her granddaughter very much."
It's true, you gave birth to a girl and named her Lele, are you really that happy? Wang Caifeng's mother smiled as she thought, "Your mother-in-law is really different from others. Who doesn't want to have another grandson? I was afraid that she would be unhappy if you gave birth to a girl, but I saw the things she prepared for Lele, it's like she was expecting a granddaughter from the beginning to the end."
Wang Caifeng looked at the little sweater made of fine cotton cloth on the girl, the little gloves on her hands, and the little tiger-head shoes on her feet, and she couldn't hide the smile on her face: "Yeah, I think so too." In the past, when a baby was born, the family would wear the old clothes of the previous child. Only the mother-in-law prepared new clothes for the girl, and washed them several times.
"You must learn to cherish your blessings." Wang Caifeng's mother envied her daughter: "You gave birth to a daughter, and during the confinement period, you had chicken soup, millet porridge, and pig's trotters to chew. Others who gave birth to sons didn't eat as well as you. Otherwise, the milk wouldn't come in so quickly."
Wang Caifeng nodded again. She had already figured it out in her mind. Following her mother-in-law, she could eat well, dress well, and not have to endure any bullying. So why should she make her mother-in-law unhappy?
But someone wanted to make Xia Juhua unhappy. Liu Zhiquan's aunt, Liu Xiaoya, the only daughter of the Sun family, heard that her nephew had a daughter, so she finally went back to her parents' home, hoping to help her niece-in-law produce milk. As a result, she came to Xia Juhua's house with tears in her eyes.
For her only sister-in-law, Xia Juhua watched her grow up. When Xia Juhua married into the Liu family, Liu Xiaoya was just six or seven years old and had already started to be ordered by Sun to wash clothes for Liu Sizhuang.
Xia Juhua couldn't bear to see this, so she helped to wash the clothes while washing them, so that Liu Xiaoya could have a break. Children instinctively know who is good to them, and rural children are sensible early. Liu Xiaoya has the best relationship with her eldest sister-in-law.
Unfortunately, no matter how good her relationship with her eldest sister-in-law was, she couldn't stop her mother from treating her daughter-in-law as a jerk. When Liu Xiaoya was just sixteen, Sun arranged a marriage for her early in order to get the betrothal gift to find a wife for Liu Sizhuang.
In theory, the old courtyard had several strong laborers and a lot of dividends every year, so it was not necessary to use Liu Xiaoya's marriage to exchange for Liu Sizhuang's betrothal gifts. However, Sun Shi thought that the maid was only useful for this one thing, so the more benefits she could get, the better.
Before getting married, Liu Xiaoya went to the shed and cried for a long time in front of her sister-in-law. What could Xia Juhua do but advise her to live a good life after getting married and not to worry about her parents' home all the time.
Liu Xiaoya listened to her eldest sister-in-law very much and only went back to her parents' home once a year on the second day of the Chinese New Year. The New Year gifts she brought were neither more nor less than those of others. Neither Sun Shi nor Sun Guizhi could find fault with their gifts.
However, every time she came back, she would find an opportunity to meet her sister-in-law and even give money to Xia Juhua, but Xia Juhua refused. Liu Xiaoya's husband was six or seven years older than her. He was honest and hardworking, but he was not good at the production team and only earned eight cents per work point. After Liu Xiaoya got married, she gave birth to three children in a row. You can imagine how hard her life was.
Xia Juhua could imagine how much trouble Liu Xiaoya had to prepare things to help Wang Caifeng produce milk. So when she saw her coming into the courtyard empty-handed and crying, she thought she was anxious because she didn't bring anything. She grabbed her hand and led her into the main room, smiling and asking, "Why are you crying? Are you afraid that I won't give you food?"
"Sister-in-law..." Liu Xiaoya finally let out the tears she had been holding back: "Why is mother getting more and more confused as she gets older? Now she doesn't make any sense at all. I heard that when Caifeng gave birth, she happily brought a chicken to help her produce milk, but who knew that mother..."
Sun Shi didn't feel any psychological burden for seizing the things Liu Xiaoya brought. Xia Juhua didn't even have the energy to argue with her. She could imagine what she would say to Liu Xiaoya:
It's nothing more than that he is thinking about others instead of his own mother. I heard that he didn't even go to see his own mother after she went to school, and he even had the time to help his nephew's wife produce milk after she gave birth to a girl.
It is not worth getting angry about things that can be imagined. Xia Juhua held Liu Xiaoya's hand and comforted her: "You still don't know what she is like after all these years, it is not worth getting angry with her. I will tell Zhiquan and his wife later that it is not you who forgets them, who let them have such a grandmother."
After that, I was afraid that Liu Xiaoya was still worried about not bringing the food to her house, so I asked her, "Is there enough food at home? Has your production team started farming?"
Talking about life at home, Liu Xiaoya smiled a little: "The three children at home can help a little, and we can get by together. We are close to the mountains, and his father secretly reclaimed a piece of wasteland in the mountains, and I also raised a few chickens there."
Speaking of chickens, he felt distressed again: "Originally, they were just right for producing milk for the phoenix, but..."
When Liu Zhiquan and his brothers heard that their aunt had come, they all went into the house to talk to her. They happened to hear her say that she felt sorry for the chicken, so Liu Zhiquan hurriedly said, "Don't worry about her, aunt. My mother has prepared a lot of things for her."
Liu Zhishuang also asked with a smile: "Aunt, why didn't you bring your cousins? They won't have time to come after the crops are planted."
Seeing her two nephews joking around with her without any reservations, Liu Xiaoya felt more relieved and her smile deepened: "They do want to come, but it's not easy for them to take leave from the production team, and they have to help your uncle with some work in the mountains."
Just now, when Liu Xiaoya mentioned that they were opening up land in the mountains, both Liu brothers heard it. They asked Liu Xiaoya in a low voice that there were many people in their production team opening up land in the mountains. They still told her in a low voice not to say too much when they returned to the old courtyard, lest someone with ulterior motives heard it and reported it, and Liu Xiaoya would offend the entire production team.
Listening to the two sons giving serious instructions to their aunt, Xia Juhua felt amused and comforted: Ping'an Manor kept the secret for leaking fans, and this has also trained these two to be much more cautious.
Liu Xiaoya said angrily, "Why would I go back to that courtyard? I'll stay with your mother tonight, but I have to go back early tomorrow."
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