Chapter 3 Northwest Shepherding
In summer, the winding loess slopes are dotted with green, and sheep are leisurely eating grass.
Yue Ning, who was sitting on a slope reading a book, looked up at the sun and thought it was about time to go back.
She stuffed the book into her patched, worn-out schoolbag and stood up with the help of a sheep shovel.
The black dog squatting beside her stood up immediately when he saw her stand up.
Yue Ning scooped up a piece of dirt and threw it in the direction of the head sheep, and the black dog ran out to drive the flock away.
Yue Ning swung the whip, the sound of the whip breaking through the air, coupled with her shouting, the flock of sheep began to move forward.
She gets up at six in the morning to cut grass for the sheep and dry the fodder, then drives the sheep out, leads the flock over mountains and across hills, and drives the sheep back home before sunset in the evening. This is her daily routine now.
After walking up the mountain road for five or six miles, one slope after another, they arrived at the intersection of their production team. The radio loudspeaker at the intersection just happened to be playing the song "Singing the Motherland".
When Yue Ning met the members who were returning with hoes at the intersection, he greeted them warmly.
An old man said, "Yuening, you are really accurate in timing your time off work. You come back as soon as the horn sounds!"
Yue Ning said as he drove the sheep: "Uncle Youcai, what are you talking about? I still have a field of sheep grass to harvest after I come back. Logically, I should come back half an hour earlier. I am afraid that comrades like you who do not fully understand the situation and cannot look at problems realistically will think that I left early. So, I will harvest sheep grass after work, which is half an hour more than you. When calculating work points at the end of the month and evaluating advanced workers at the end of the year, you have to help me testify."
"Little girl, you are very eloquent." The uncle continued, "Seriously, the radio said this morning that the Central Committee issued a document requiring all right-leaning personnel to take off their hats. Once you take off your hats and wait for the policy to come down, you can return to the city and become a city dweller."
Yue Ning was smiling and was about to thank the uncle for his kind words, when a middle-aged woman appeared from behind and sneered, "Even if she takes off her hat, so many educated youth are waiting to go back to the city. For a 'bastard' like her, if she wants to go back to the city, she will have to wait in line for ten or eight years."
This woman is Tian Zaohua, the wife of Accountant Xu of the brigade. The second son of Accountant Xu is a fool, and no one is willing to marry a local girl, even if she is poor. As soon as Yue Ning's father passed away, Tian Zaohua asked someone to propose marriage to Yue Ning.
When Yue Ning's father was sick and couldn't go out to work, he needed money, so he overdrew a whole year's work points from the brigade. He originally thought that he was a strong laborer and would slowly pay it back after he recovered. But when he died, he left behind a fourteen-year-old girl. Yue Ning only had two or three work points a day, and a strong laborer had five or six work points. Not to mention that she was a little girl, when would she have to pay back these work points? She still had to make a living, how could she live without her father? Coupled with the identity of a "dog cub" who could be bullied by everyone, Tian Zaohua felt that her family's proposal of marriage was like taking shit out of her pocket, very safe!
Tian Zaohua told the matchmaker that as long as Yue Ning was willing to marry their second son, their family would pay back the work points her father owed. The Xu family had five strong laborers and twelve people, so paying back her work points was really a piece of cake. They also said that Yue Ning had lost her father and was having a hard time, so she should move into their house first and wait until she was 18 years old before consummating the marriage with the second son.
Being in such a situation and carrying such an identity, the proposal of the matchmaker and Tian Zaohua was taking advantage of others, but to be fair, they both got what they wanted. We all live in the same village, we will see each other every day, if you don't want to, just refuse!
However, Tian Zaohua didn't think so. She felt that the Xu family had offered such good conditions, but Yue Ning, a "bastard", refused to marry? Tian Zaohua was so angry that she told everyone that Yue Ning was born to be lonely, unlucky for her father and husband, and would be a widow for the rest of her life, so the Xu family didn't dare to marry her.
Yue Ning got angry when she heard this. She found an opportunity, secretly ran to the brigade office, and shouted on the loudspeaker: "Comrade Tian Zaohua promotes feudal superstition. She was born in New China, but her heart is still in the old society. The cannibalistic old society uses superstition to persecute women..."
Accountant Xu reacted and rushed in to drag her away. But the little girl was as strong as an ox, and she was like a stone, firmly occupying her seat, calling materialism and feudal remnants one after another. Accountant Xu had no choice but to pull out the speaker wire. Yue Ning saw the brigade secretary and pulled him to ask for justice.
Accountant Xu was in a dilemma. He knew his wife's mouth, so if she talked in private, it wouldn't be a big deal. But now that Yue Ning had made a big deal out of it, it became a serious matter.
He apologized to Yue Ning immediately, and then pulled Tian Zaohua over to make amends to Yue Ning. Only then was the matter settled.
From then on, Tian Zaohua hated Yue Ning.
Hate it if you want, Yue Ning doesn't care. If this woman goes too far, she will take her ideological report, sit in front of the brigade secretary, and start self-criticism, self-reflection, self-education, and criticize others at the same time.
Accountant Xu and the brigade secretary were in the same office, so how could Accountant Xu sit still? He immediately went out to find his wife and scolded her, asking her not to provoke Yue Ning.
Tian Zaohua couldn't help it. If she didn't nag Yue Ning, she would feel uncomfortable all day long.
Yue Ning glanced at Tian Zaohua with his big black eyes: "You know the policy has changed. I have taken off my hat, so why are you still talking about 'bastard'? We are all comrades. If you continue to do this, I will go find Accountant Xu and have a good talk with him."
When Tian Zaohua heard Yue Ning mention her man, she twitched her lips and said, "She gave birth to him but she didn't teach him."
"Whether I was taught by my mother or not is not the key point. The key point is that I was born and raised in New China, and I was taught by the Party..." Yue Ning reasoned with her.
Tian Zaohua wanted to continue, but was pulled away by someone beside her: "Let's go, let's go, you can't win against her."
Yue Ning was still looking at Tian Zaohua's back as she was dragged away. Her next-door neighbor Aunt Chunmei asked her, "Yue Ning, the higher-ups came to talk to you the day before yesterday. Did they follow up?"
Yue Ning shook his head: "What could be the next step? I just came to ask about the situation."
The day before yesterday, someone from the county came and called her to the brigade. He asked her some basic questions about her and then there was no further news. Does anyone know what happened?
She drove the sheep into the sheepfold. A few disobedient sheep refused to go in. She pulled the older sheep and carried the younger sheep. After closing the fence gate, Yue Ning touched the black dog's head and let it squat at the door of the sheepfold.
"Yue Ning."
Hearing the shouting, Yue Ning turned around and raised his arm to wipe the sweat off his head, only to see the women's director of the brigade, Li Qiaomei, walking towards them with two people.
Yue Ning saw two people behind Li Qiaomei. The woman had her hair tied up, was about forty years old, had a pale and plump face, and was wearing a peaked lapel suit. Next to her was a young man in his twenties, with a baby face, slightly plump, wearing a khaki suit and white flared pants.
Few outsiders come to mountain villages like Xiaoyanggou. The villagers thought the two men were dressed strangely, so everyone came over to watch.
"Ningning." The woman saw her, walked over quickly, and held Yue Ning's hand: "You've grown so tall?"
Yue Ning asked doubtfully: "Who are you?"
"Did your father ever mention his master?"
When she mentioned this, Yue Ning remembered it.
Before liberation, my grandfather went to Hong Kong to make money and left my father in Yuecheng, where he learned cooking from my grandfather's senior brother, Luo Changfa, the chef of Fuyunlou. This master taught my father everything he knew. Later, when the country was closed and my father lost contact with my grandfather, Luo Changfa also treated my father as his own son. Yue Ning called Luo Changfa "Grandpa Luo".
When they, father and daughter, came to the northwest, during the most difficult years, when everyone kept their distance from them, Grandpa Luo still wrote to my father from time to time, sending him food coupons and cloth coupons.
Her father used the cloth coupons to buy her a piece of cloth and asked a village aunt to make her a new dress. That was the happiest moment in her memory.
But later, my father received a letter from Grandpa Luo’s son, who said that because of their family’s involvement, Grandpa Luo suffered a lot, fell ill and died.
Dad felt so guilty about this that he was too embarrassed to write to them again.
When Dad knew that he didn't have much time left, he wrote to his senior brother, hoping that he could take care of Yue Ning, but Uncle Luo didn't reply. Dad thought that the situation was too tense and his senior brother was really powerless.
Before he died, her father held her hand and told her over and over again: "Ningning, you must live."
Even though she promised her father that she would live well, he still couldn't close his eyes. It was not until she stayed by his side and dozed off in a trance that she recovered her memories of her past life.
Yue Ning then discovered that she had traveled from the 21st century.
In her previous life, she was a successful Cantonese chef with her own catering empire and was known as the Queen of BBQ.
With these memories, she told her father that she had the ability to survive, and would definitely survive, and would take him home, back to Yuecheng. Only then did her father close his eyes.
Yue Ning also understood that Grandpa Luo treated her father as his son, but her uncle and aunt might not think so. They stayed away from their father and daughter and did not want to be implicated. This was also human nature. So she did not reply at that time. Even when her father died, she sent a telegram to her uncle, but he did not reply. She could understand from his perspective.
She was surprised that the Luo family came all the way here.
"Grandpa Liu?" Yue Ning asked the wrong question deliberately. Although she was extremely poor and could not be cheated by the other party, she still kept her guard up.
The young man frowned: "What Grandpa Liu? My grandfather's surname is Luo, and his name is Luo Changfa."
Seeing that he said the correct name and said that Grandpa Luo was his grandfather, although Yue Ning left Yuecheng at the age of five, the father and daughter would go to the county photo studio to take pictures every few years and send them to Grandpa Luo. Grandpa Luo would also send pictures of their family and talk about their family situation in the letter. Carefully identifying the young man, he was still a teenager in the photo and didn't look like the person in front of him, but she could recognize the woman as Grandpa Luo's daughter-in-law Zhang Lifen.
"My last name is Luo. Maybe there's something wrong with my accent?" Yue Ning looked at the young man and asked, "Are you Brother Guoqiang?"
The woman looked at the young man in surprise: "Ningning was only five years old when she left Yuecheng, right? Do you remember your brother Guoqiang? Do you remember me?"
"Aunt." When he was a child, Luo's father always mentioned her. How could Yue Ning not remember her? Dad was not willing to gossip about other people. He once mentioned that Uncle Luo's wife Zhang Lifen was very fussy. If he returned to the city, he would try not to bother Uncle Luo, so that the couple would not quarrel over her.
"Ningning, do you still remember me?" The person in front of him cried with joy. She gently touched Yue Ning's face, "It must have been difficult for you to be alone these years. When your uncle heard that you could take off your hat, he immediately asked us mother and daughter to come here and take you back to Yuecheng, so that your father can rest assured."
They came all the way to take her back to Yuecheng? And it was announced not long ago that people like them took off their hats.
The father and daughter lived in this mountain village. Although the village was poor, it was also simple. The city was very different from the mountain village in those years. Uncle Luo did not dare to contact the father and daughter. It was reasonable for them to protect themselves first and then help others. Yue Ning felt ashamed for judging others by his own standards and not thinking from Uncle Luo's perspective.
She said quickly, "Aunt, brother, don't stand there, come in and sit down."
At this time, Aunt Chunmei looked at Tian Zaohua, snorted, and said with a smile: "Tian Zaohua, just now you said that Aning would have to wait ten or eight years before returning to the city. Look, isn't there someone coming to pick her up?"
Yue Ning was about to welcome his aunt and brother Guoqiang into the house when he saw Tian Zaohua rolling her eyes: "Don't be so eager to get back to the city. I heard from the educated youth that unless your parents are willing to retire early, where will you get a quota to go back to the city?"
Tian Zaohua's tone was harsh, but she was telling the truth. It was indeed very difficult to return to the city now.
"Who told you that returning to the city would mean your parents have to retire early?" Zhang Lifen turned her head, her eyes rolling up to the sky, and snorted, "Do you know what kind of restaurant is Fuyunlou in Yuecheng? Do you know what Ningning's uncle does in Fuyunlou?"
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