“Sun Kaicheng is busy. He said he has some projects, but we can’t ask him for details.”
"However, he brought a lot of things for Grandpa Zhou and the others, and I brought them all back with him."
"How's the village? I don't see anyone." I didn't even see the people chatting under the big tree.
“They’re all sitting by the river. The river is getting lower and the waterwheels won’t be useful anymore. Everyone’s worried. I don’t know what’s wrong, not a single drop of rain has fallen.” Qian Sanbao gets anxious whenever he thinks about this.
"How's the water on the mountain?" There's a stream on the mountain behind them, and the current looks quite rapid.
"The water level on the mountain doesn't change much, but it's too far away. It would be exhausting to fetch water from the mountain, and it would take a lot of physical exertion." Even if someone worked themselves to death, it probably wouldn't be of any use.
"What about the wells?" There are several wells in the village for drinking water, but they are never used for irrigation.
"The water level in the well has dropped quite a bit. If this continues, I'm afraid the well will dry up completely. You didn't see how dry it is at the foot of the mountain."
That area is where the villagers often hang out. There are few trees and it doesn't provide much shade. In this hot weather, and with no rain, it's bound to be dry.
"No one is starving, right?"
"Not yet, but the children and the elderly are starting to eat only half full, and they are eating well twice a day. We don't know how long this will last, so we have to be careful with our food supplies."
If able-bodied men didn't need to work, they wouldn't even have enough to eat. How could they just watch their elderly parents and children go hungry while they themselves go hungry?
"Do we have enough to eat?"
Qian Sanbao looked around and lowered his voice: "Don't worry, even if it's another two years, our family won't starve. But we won't dare to eat our fill. Everyone else is about the same except your family, which is just waiting for others to covet our food."
"Alright, we're home now. We can talk about it slowly. Everyone at home is waiting for you to come back."
After being out of sight for half a year, Qian Xiaodao was treated like royalty for the first few days, but after three days, his grandmother started to dislike him.
"Why do you just lie there all day? Can't you go out and talk to Gouzi and Erhua? You're even more cooped up than a woman in confinement."
No, am I not your favorite granddaughter anymore? It's only been a few days! And you're already starting to bother me?
Qian Xiao lay sprawled out on the cold kang, her limbs spread out in a starfish shape, so that the surface area in contact with the cool air was large: "Grandma! It's too hot outside, I don't want to go out."
The heat in Northeast China during summer is completely different from that in the South. In the South, it's humid and the sun isn't as scorching, but it feels like being in a public bathhouse. But in the Northeast, where there's so much water, the sun beats down relentlessly, and you can peel your skin after just a short time.
It's hot inside, but he's not sweltering in the sun. He doesn't know how to enjoy life. Why does she have to go out and face that scorching sun?
"Then you should go out for a walk. It's not good to lie on this cold kang all the time. If you let the cold air get into your body, you'll suffer."
That's the downside of Northeast China. Those kang (heated brick beds) need to be fumigated every few days in the summer, otherwise they get damp, which is really bad for your joints. Even after fumigating, it's still unbearably hot, making the rooms practically uninhabitable.
"Okay, I'll go out and take a look tomorrow. Grandma, how's the river?" The river changes every day, it changes so fast.
The old lady was worried when she talked about this: "The water level is dropping every day. If it continues like this, I think there won't be a single drop of water left in the river next year. What will we do then?"
Qian Xiao also became worried. Their village was considered relatively good, at least it had a river with a considerable depth.
Do you still remember the village of kidnappers?
"I remember, their village didn't have water?" That can't be. This river runs through several villages. Their village is downstream. If their village still has water, then the other villages must have water too.
Besides, when their village first built this waterwheel, other villages came to see it and followed suit, and I think they all built their own.
"No, that's not it. Do you remember? When the communal dining hall was established, the people in their village worked hard to build it. When the communal dining hall was disbanded, their village started to go hungry. They were thinking that they could just hold on until the grain distribution the following year. Who would have thought that the following year would be a bad year?"
"Of all the villages nearby, Guaizi Village is the worst off right now. They started going out to borrow food a long time ago. Their village chief even came to our village. That guy, he knelt down before your great-uncle as soon as he arrived. He looked so pitiful."
Qian Xiao sat up abruptly: "My great-uncle didn't lend out any grain, did he?"
No, not at all.
Qian Xiao breathed a sigh of relief. This was the worst time to back down; once she did, endless trouble would follow. There were so many pitiful people around; could anyone possibly pity them all?
Besides, they have plenty of mountains here, even if they don't have much else. As long as they are willing to work hard and use their brains, and as long as the mountains don't wither, people won't starve.
"However, we can't refuse to lend any money at all. We're all neighboring villages, so we have to show some consideration. Thank you so much..."
"Anyway, there's not much grain left in our proper warehouse, just a few bags of sweet potatoes and potatoes. After discussing it with the old people in the village, your great-uncle lent half of it to the village of Guaizi."
Qian Xiao knew what her grandmother meant by "thank goodness". Their village had a large population and therefore a lot of land. How could there be only a few bags of potatoes and sweet potatoes left? All the surplus grain was sent to that secret warehouse. She guessed that those few bags of potatoes and sweet potatoes were deliberately left out in the open to deal with people who came to borrow grain.
I've already opened the warehouse for you to see. This is all the grain we have. What will happen to our village if we lend it all out? When people come and see that we only have this much, they won't have the nerve to empty our pockets.
Things are a bit better now, but when the autumn harvest comes, the authorities will forcibly requisition grain, and grain requisition teams will come down to search for it. If the grain isn't hidden properly, the entire army could be wiped out.
Oh, and I should remind my grandfather to tell my great-uncle to make sure everyone hides the grain well, so that it doesn't get found like it was stolen. Otherwise, we'll just have to starve to death.
Fortunately, I had mentioned the issue of falsely reporting grain yields to my grandfather beforehand, otherwise I would have been in serious trouble.
Grandma Qian rubbed the needle in her hand on her scalp: "I wonder how your parents are doing?" The eldest son and his wife never write anything bad.
"It's not a big problem. My dad and his family live in the mountains. Life in the mountains is better than outside. Each family has been allocated land, not much, but they can grow some sweet potatoes and other crops to eat."
She didn't mention that she sent food to her grandmother every month as a subsidy, otherwise her grandmother would definitely scold her and tell her to take care of herself first.
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