Gu Daqiang turned around and explained to Huo Qianli and Mr. Cai who were somewhat puzzled, “In the past, when the bamboo forests were divided, bamboos did not grow near every household. Some households had none, while others had more. When divided equally, some people’s bamboo forests were right next to other people’s houses, so many households took knives and secretly chopped off the newly grown bamboo shoots to prevent the bamboos from growing and bullying their own houses. Then, when the owners of the bamboo forests saw that their bamboo forests could not grow, they came to make trouble and often beat them with hammers and cut off their houses.”
Mr. Hou was puzzled and said, "The owner of the house did nothing wrong. The bamboos have grown too much and affected the lighting. What's the big deal?"
Before Gu Daqiang could reply, an old man snorted, "What's the fuss? Bamboo is useful in every way. The leaves and shoots can be used as firewood, and bamboo can be woven into strips. Even if you cut it down and sell it directly, you can get one dollar for each piece of bamboo. One dollar in the 1980s, who wouldn't make a fuss!"
The white-bearded old man glanced at Mr. Hou and said, "You can ask them. Back then, brothers even fought with each other over these things."
Mr. Hou opened his mouth but said nothing in the end.
Gu Chengrong nodded, "Uncle Gui just mentioned burning firewood. At that time, people often quarreled when they went to collect firewood. Some people picked up other people's firewood, and some people went to other bamboo forests to pluck bamboo shoots. They often quarreled. I still remember one time, my son passed by and saw a big firewood in the middle of the road. He picked it up and took it home. As a result, the fourth grandmother saw it and insisted that it fell from her house when she was moving firewood. She brought a small stool and a cup of boiling water and scolded me at my door for the whole afternoon."
The villagers all laughed. They either knew about this or had experienced something similar.
Once the conversation started, the others also wanted to talk and were eager to try, but they didn't dare to speak.
Gu Daqiang said at the right time: "It's a tea party, everyone can speak whatever they want, who wants to speak first?"
A villager plucked up the courage to stand up and said, "In the past, the worst time of beating and cutting was when the paddy fields were filled with water, and the ridges were piled up and dug. There were fights every year!"
When he came up, everyone got courage and continued, "That's right. Once the People's Canal is released, those damn people with good terrain will build high ridges on their fields and block all the water. Those behind us will have no water to use. Fighting for that little bit of water will always lead to trouble."
"Digging the ridges of the fields is nothing. The most brutal thing is the land grabbing. Where is your boundary? Where is my boundary? A few dozen centimeters more can produce one or two more ridges of crops!"
"That's right. At that time, some bastards dug the roadbed secretly in order to make their own land bigger. The wide road was dug down by those bastards until it was only a little bit wider!"
"That's right, especially those newly dug corners. It's really hard to fight over them."
"Thinking back, those years were really hard. There was nothing left to waste in the countryside. Chicken manure had to be shoveled up and piled on top of the soil to make fertilizer. They said that Aunt Qin often went to other yards to step on chicken manure, and when her feet were full of it, she would come back home and scrape it off and save it!"
"Yes, that's right. I used to raise two sheep at home. I don't know who was unlucky enough to sell their wool for money, so anyone who passed by would pluck a handful when I was herding the sheep. Damn, my sheep is a native goat. The wool of other people's sheep is shiny black, but mine was bald after a short time. It looks like a leper!"
"There's no cow dung on the road. If it's still steaming, it's shoveled away and collected. There's not much in the pig pond (the place under the pigpen where feces and urine are collected) all year round."
"Speaking of which, I wanted to water the soil on the ridge, but it was too far away, so I went to Uncle Fu's toilet to borrow a load of manure. I returned it to him, but he asked me to pay him five cents for the difference! Uncle Fu, do you think this is a good thing?"
"Ahem, my life was better at home and I ate better then..."
There was a burst of cheerful laughter in the meeting hall.
A young boy who was attending the class with his parents on a weekend break pouted and said, "You guys are just bragging! It's not that exaggerated!"
His voice was not small, and it came right after the laughter, when no one was talking, so it was clearly heard by people nearby.
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