109. 109 Struggling and Debating
When Er Ya returned to school, she first looked up the household registration policy. It was difficult to transfer household registration within the province, let alone transfer it across provinces. With this in mind, she went to find the teacher who had helped her a lot. This teacher knew about her family situation.
"You mean your sister's current household registration is agricultural?"
"Yes, she moved her household registration to the village after she got married, and she didn't move it back after the divorce."
"It's not easy. The central government restricts farmers from migrating to counties, towns, and big cities. From what I understand, those educated youth who went to the countryside back then, if they haven't passed the college entrance exam and returned to the city in recent years, their household registration is still in the countryside or the commune. The only thing they can barely get back to the city is a temporary residence permit. Your older sister doesn't belong to our area to begin with, so she can't even get a temporary residence permit. She's living here as an unregistered resident."
Er Ya picked at her fingers in silence, thought for a long time, and then asked, "What if she marries a local? I mean, forget it, it's pretty unreliable. She's kind of slow and can't have children, and I can't find her a good man."
"Don't even think about this method anymore. You have no connections here. Even if you marry a local, unless the man has connections, the woman's household registration still can't be transferred. After having a child, the child will still be registered under the mother's household registration."
Er Ya saw that the teacher was looking down and continuing to read, and knew that he was not interested in or did not like this topic. She awkwardly rubbed her hands and tactfully said goodbye and left the office.
As she walked to the corner and prepared to go downstairs, she heard the office door slam shut. Somewhat nervously, she wondered if her previous words had offended the teacher. She pondered this all the way to her dormitory without success and had to give up.
"Baozhi is back? How's the case going?" Minmin asked.
Er Ya recounted the experiences of several victims she had met. "The case is still under trial. The verdict hadn't been delivered when I left, and I don't know what will happen to those who were impersonated and sent to university." She sat on the kang (a heated brick bed), staring blankly at the wall, then turned and asked, "Do you think if their universities knew about this, they would allow them to attend?"
“If I were the university president, I would let them go to university and start from freshman year. They were already admitted and were already prospective university students,” Min Min said indignantly, adding that the person who took their place should also be imprisoned.
"I feel the same way; they're so pitiful." Their school registrations were stolen, and the person who stole them, fearing the education bureau would discover the deception, tried every means to keep those girls farming in the countryside, preventing them from taking the college entrance exam again. Just like that pregnant woman, forced into marriage by the village tyrant, if the police hadn't come knocking, she would still have continued to envy the village secretary's daughter who got into university, and then resigned herself to her fate.
They had been keeping an eye on the news in the newspapers, but half a month had passed and the verdict was still pending. Such a significant matter as the substitution of someone else for a university place hadn't been reported. Some couldn't help but ask the teachers, and classmates with connections were also trying to find out more. Er Ya, who was practically an insider, only knew the information from her roommate. She now spent her free time tutoring, and when she stayed at school, she either attended classes or ate and slept.
"The Education Bureau is thoroughly investigating this matter. Similar situations have occurred in other places as well. That's why the newspapers didn't report it, but word has leaked out. Anyone who heard the news is definitely keeping a low profile and behaving themselves."
Whenever the dorm discusses current affairs, Er Ya is always a listener; her knowledge comes solely from textbooks. From a young age, she's been preoccupied with survival and daily life, lacking the energy to follow national events. This has narrowed her perspective, and when she hears their conversations, she only thinks of worthless things, never daring to speak up. Just like her family matters, which always swirl in her mind, they always get stuck at the last minute due to legal loopholes and case discussions. Compared to the serious national affairs, what she wants to say seems like utterly trivial and vulgar nonsense.
*
After Er Ya left, Daya waited anxiously for her return every day for two months. Her father and Er Bao were sentenced to prison, and her mother would beat and curse her every day. Da Bao and Xiao Hu could run out to play and go to school every day, and they could both escape. Only she could not escape the beatings and scoldings.
"Big sister, did she pinch you again?" Xiao Hu gasped when he saw her pinch his waist after school. He lifted her clothes and saw that her waist was covered in bruises.
"Yeah, I wish Mom hadn't lost her job, I wish she wasn't home." Daya sighed. Her mother doesn't go out now, she just lies at home sleeping all day, and when she wakes up, she finds everything unpleasant.
"Don't call her 'Mom,' she's just a poisonous spider."
"Who are you calling a poisonous spider? Who's the poisonous spider? I gave birth to you, raised you, and sent you to school, and now I'm a poisonous spider?" Du Xiaojuan had just come out of the house when she heard the ingrate's words. She grabbed his ear and pulled it up, spitting at him: "You heartless bastard."
“You’re the Poison Spider, and you’re the one in jail too. You beat up my eldest sister and forced my second sister away. If you hadn’t tried to sell my second sister’s admission notice, how could she not have come back?” Xiao Hu stood on tiptoe, holding the hand that was pinching his ear, and pinched his flesh with his pitted nails. He pinched her hard when she pinched hard.
"Pah, you poisonous widow." He spat at her.
Du Xiaojuan saw the hatred in his eyes. She remembered that Er Ya's eyes were the same when she was beaten at this age. A fire ignited in her heart. She released his ear, twisted his arm and pushed him to the ground. As she was about to kick him, she thought of him as her son and pulled her foot back. She punched Daya, who was screaming and trying to stop her, twice. After calming down a bit, she pointed at her son on the ground and threatened, "You brat, I think you've had too much of a good life and have become stupid. Don't go to school tomorrow either, or you'll become wild."
"Fine, I won't go then. I'm ashamed to have parents like you." He got up from the ground, pulled his older sister away, and wanted to continue cursing but was afraid she would get beaten, so he could only continue spitting in frustration.
"Come on, let's go out." After spitting out his saliva, he pulled his older sister out the door. When they passed the group of people sitting and gossiping in the alley, they didn't dare to greet them as enthusiastically as before. The two of them, like two mice, one big and one small, scurried to the edge of the washing embankment and sat down.
Daya glanced at her younger brother, whose face was flushed red, then got up and picked up broken tiles around them. "Here, you can skip them on the water."
Xiao Hu silently threw tiles and clods of dirt into the water, not in the mood for skipping stones. The two of them picked up and threw them back together, and the only sounds along the embankment were the water and the rustling of leaves in the wind.
"If she hits you again, hit her back, or run away. She's a convict's wife now, she has a lot of pride," Little Tiger instructed the clumsy older sister in a loud and assertive voice.
“She pinches and punches me a few times, and the more I run away, the angrier she gets.” They had just fought over how to address each other, and now Daya had learned her lesson. She stopped calling Xiaohu “Mom” in front of him. She lowered her eyes and said softly, “I can take it. But you should still go to school tomorrow. Your second sister only has ideas because she’s in school. Look at her, she can earn money even while in school. You should go to school.”
Xiao Hu shook his head. His classmates at school all knew about his family situation. They called him a bad seed and spread rumors that he was going to steal from them. His former friends all kept their distance from him, and even the son of the dismissed leader of the Revolutionary Committee looked down on him.
Da Ya thought he was arguing with his mother, so she stammered, "The tuition has already been paid. It's no use if she says she won't let you go to school. She's not a teacher at the school. Besides, your second sister likes to study, and she'll be happy if you go to school."
Xiao Hu pursed his lips and glared at her, angrily throwing a handful of clods of dirt into the water. He didn't say whether he was going or not, but said, "I really want to grow up. When I grow up, I'll go find my second sister."
Daya moved her lips, glanced at her younger brother, but said nothing.
The next day, Xiaohu still went to school with his schoolbag. As he was leaving, Du Xiaojuan sat at the door of the main room, shaking her leg and saying, "Didn't you say you weren't going to school yesterday? Tsk, did you forget after taking a nap?"
Xiao Hu paused for a moment, then hurriedly went out. On both sides of the alley, people were eating, bowls in hand. He felt ashamed and lowered his head as he walked through the alley. After turning a corner, he slowed down and finally sat down in front of an abandoned old house. He waited until the school bell rang. Like a drowning man climbing ashore, he leaned weakly against the earthen wall, staring at the blinding sun, letting tears stream down his face. Then he got up and ran towards school.
It wasn't until April, when Su Yu and Xiao Yuan returned to school, that Er Ya heard the news and went out of the school gate to take the tram. As she walked towards the back of the tram, she saw Ping An. She sat down on the other side of the aisle and asked, "Ping An, are you going back too?"
"Mm." Ping An nodded. Seeing that someone else was getting on the bus, he moved to a seat further inside. He was blocked by the person in the middle, and the two of them naturally stopped talking.
"Oh, you came by the same bus?" Xiao Yuan heard the knocking and came to open the door.
"Did you soak in soy sauce? You look like you've changed your skin." Ping An punched him on the shoulder. "You've gotten stronger too."
"Remember to close the door, Er Ya, so that Xiao Hei and Xiao Hua don't run out." Xiao Yuan turned around and said, then turned back and complained, "Sigh, it's too sunny and windy in the desert. I can't wrap my face with a headscarf like Mom does. I've already gotten tanned and wrinkled in less than two months."
"Where's Mom? Mom, oh, it's your fault for not being careful. I don't think Mom is that much darker." Ping An went into the house and looked for his mother first. After chatting warmly for a while, he finally had a chance to chat with Xiao Yuan.
"You two go to your room and talk, you're making a lot of noise." Seeing that Er Ya had something to say, Su Yu sent the two young men away.
Ping An snorted, rolled her eyes, and asked, "Is there anything you want to eat? I'll go to the restaurant and buy it."
"Just buy whatever I like to eat, I want to eat everything." After the two of them left, she asked Er Ya, "How have you been lately? What was the police's verdict on the case of someone impersonating another to get into university? I haven't heard anything about it in the newspapers or on the radio."
“The investigation is still ongoing. People in our town have already been arrested, and the Education Bureau is investigating other areas. There are no results yet, but my dad and Erbao have already been locked up, and my mom has lost her job.” She briefly recounted what had happened during this period. “As for how many years my dad and others were sentenced to, I don’t know. Uncle Ning might know more about it.”
Su Yu nodded and asked, "Is there anything else you want to say?"
"Yes, I want to bring my older sister out with me, but I've looked up the household registration policy and asked my teacher, but it seems like nothing will work. Her household registration can't be transferred, she can't join a relative's household, and I'm currently registered under a collective household registration, so I can't get married, and I definitely can't transfer my household registration when I look for a job." Er Ya looked at her hopefully, "Aunt Su, do you have any other ideas?"
“If you can’t move from the countryside to the city, have you tried moving from the countryside to the countryside? How much money have you saved? You can go to the farms and villages here and ask around. Buy an abandoned house or a plot of land of about ten square meters in the countryside. Don’t ask for the land or any other rights. First, ask the village chief. If the village chief agrees, he can take you to the police station to get a relocation certificate.” Su Yu stared at Er Ya and continued, “If that doesn’t work, and Daya is also eager to escape your mother, then bring her over without changing her household registration. Anyway, with her education, she can’t find a job. Once she comes, rent a small house for her to live in. Settle her down first and then slowly look for opportunities to make money, like harvesting crops on a farm, or washing wool in a family workshop. If all else fails, there are small restaurants in the alley where she can wash dishes. The wages are low, but it’s enough for her to eat and drink.”
Er Ya laughed, "Auntie, you always have a way. It seems like nothing can stump you. I've been worrying about this for two months and I still don't have a clue."
That's because I know the future trend. In the early 1980s, there were people who went to Northeast China to make their way in the Northeast. In a year or two, factories were built on a large scale in the South. At that time, the phenomenon of "leaving the land but not the hometown" will become very common. People will have their household registration in the countryside but live in the city.
"So what do you plan to do?" Su Yu pressed.
Er Ya's mind was a little confused. She looked away, not daring to meet the eyes of the person who had always been open and honest with her. "I... I'll just rent a small place and bring my older sister over first."
“Okay, that’s convenient. We don’t need to go through any procedures or get any proof. We just need to hide when they check on unregistered residents.” Su Yu nodded and didn’t ask any more questions.
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