115. 115 Individual Development
As expected, the baby could not be found to have abandoned her parents, and she was too young to have been abducted. The police had no choice but to take her away and keep her at the police station for the time being.
"Um, what will happen to this baby?" Daya couldn't help but ask the policewoman holding the baby.
“If her life is no longer in danger and her parents don’t come looking for her, we will send her to a children’s welfare home.”
"Can we adopt her?" she pressed, her eyes fixed on the swaddled baby girl, not even glancing back as Er Ya nearly ripped her sleeves.
"Can."
"Sister, we should go, or we'll miss the last bus," Er Ya reminded her, pulling her sister's hand as they walked outside.
Daya watched longingly as the police carried the child away. She hesitated for a long time, walking slowly with her legs stiff and unwilling to bend.
"The bus is leaving, big sister and second sister, hurry up!" Xiao Hu jumped around anxiously, turned back and grabbed his big sister's other hand, pulling her forward, saying, "Big sister, hurry up, are you tired? You can rest once we get on the bus."
The closer she got to the car, the more nervous she became. Her heart was pounding. She felt as if the touch of her child still lingered on her body. Her front was bulging and empty, as if she was missing a child to wrap around her.
Er Ya walked faster and faster, wanting to push her sister into the car as soon as possible, afraid that she might make some crazy demands while she was out of her mind. Just as they were about to get around the back of the car, Da Ya shook off Xiao Hu's hand but not Er Ya's. She sat down in the snow and said, "I'm not going, I'm not going to ride in the car."
"Get up and talk. Have you forgotten what the doctor said about not catching a cold?" Er Ya pulled her up. Daya followed her lead and her buttocks lifted off the ground, but she still squatted on the ground, her hands tucked between her knees to prevent being pulled up.
"I want to raise the child I found," she said quietly, her head bowed.
"What? You want to go home? Then hurry up and get on the bus." Er Ya interrupted, trying to discourage her from saying it again.
"No, I want to raise the child I picked up." She shouted again. Seeing that there were vendors on the bus collecting money and selling tickets, she glanced warily at the two people standing in front of her, got up and ran away.
"Big sister, stop right there! Come back here."
No, the more they called her, the faster she ran. By the time Xiao Hu finally grabbed her, the last bus had already left. Da Ya, overjoyed, held her knees and panted heavily. Her exhaled white smoke, along with two other puffs of white smoke, dissipated in the snow with tire tracks.
The three siblings returned to the guesthouse where they had stayed for four nights.
"I don't agree with you raising that child," Er Ya said firmly. She looked at her older sister, who was fidgeting with the bedsheets and not saying a word, and asked, "You're almost thirty. If you raise another child, which man will marry you?"
“Fine, I won’t marry you. I don’t care. I’ll raise the child myself,” Daya said stubbornly.
Er Ya paused upon hearing this, swallowing her words of further persuasion, and asked thoughtfully, "You don't want to get married? You just want to raise a child?"
"Yeah, marriage is bad. You get beaten by your mother-in-law, you never get enough to eat, and there's always work to do. Men aren't good either. They have smelly feet, they snore, and when they rock the bed with me, it hurts, and the more I yell in pain, the harder they rock..."
"Stop! Don't say anymore, I don't want to hear this." Er Ya blushed a little when she heard these shameless words. She didn't expect her older sister to not want to get married. "But when you got divorced, didn't you go to that man's house every day?" she asked, puzzled.
Daya seemed a little embarrassed and said shyly, "I think I'm doing pretty well now. I live with you and Xiaohu. No one beats or scolds me. Xiaohu even helps me cook and feed the chickens. I get paid for washing dishes. I don't want to get married anymore. Thinking about getting married is a thing of the past."
Er Ya was speechless. She looked at her younger brother, who had become much more cheerful, and then at her older sister, whose thoughts had changed drastically. She had always thought that her older sister was still the same silly older sister, but now it seemed that all three of them had changed.
Money truly gives the poor courage.
“But how will you raise a child by yourself? You only have eighty yuan left from your salary. How will you work and earn money if you have a child? How will you raise a child without money?” Er Ya still didn’t want to agree. All she wanted was to bring her older sister out for treatment, and once she recovered, she could find a man to marry, and then she wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore. If she didn’t get married and had to raise a baby she’d found who was still breastfeeding, and something happened, the responsibility would fall on her again.
“I can bring my child with me to work. She sleeps while I work, and if she cries or is hungry, I can pick her up and comfort her. It won’t interfere with my work.” She paused for a moment, then continued, “My problem is that I can’t have children. If I had a child, I wouldn’t get treatment. I wouldn’t take medicine or spend money. I would save all the money to raise my child.”
Er Ya didn't know what to say. Her mind was a mess. On one hand, she felt that her older sister was right. She had raised Xiao Hu in the same way. She was able to raise a baby when she was a teenager. Now that Da Ya was almost thirty and could earn her own money, raising a child shouldn't be a problem for her.
But she was afraid of the worst. She was worried that the baby she had taken in might not be healthy, that the baby might develop health problems from being exposed to the cold in the snow, or that her older sister might fall ill. In that case, there would be no one to take care of the baby, and the burden of caring for both the big and the small baby would fall on her shoulders. She already felt the pressure of caring for Xiaohu.
“It’s good that you don’t get married. You can live with me.” Xiao Hu, who had been listening for so long, clapped his hands in agreement and said, “Then let’s take the baby we picked up back and raise her ourselves. I’ll play with her, teach her to read, and when she grows up, I’ll take her to school, just like my second sister took care of me.”
Er Ya glanced at him. He was still a lively child who only saw what was in front of him. She said helplessly, "Let me think about it some more. I'll go to sleep first. I'm sleepy."
In the end, Er Ya gave in. She had been worried about how to tell her older sister that she couldn't have children, but now that her sister had brought up the idea of raising a child without seeing a doctor or taking medicine, she simply went along with it and told her, "If you raise this little girl, you won't regret it. If you stop taking medicine, your illness won't be cured, and you won't be able to have children in the future."
Da Ya casually said that she wouldn't have children, and that was it. She said that having children meant getting married, and that living with Er Ya and Xiao Hu was better than living with a man.
“Then go to the police station to register and follow the adoption procedures.” Er Ya understood immediately.
She wasn't married, and neither was Da Ya. The child could only be admitted to being adopted, otherwise, they wouldn't be able to get the household registration. Besides, they couldn't hide it any longer; they hadn't been away for even a month, and they couldn't concoct a reasonable explanation that the child was their biological child in front of acquaintances, unless they went back to Pingqiu Town.
The little girl, Er Ya, was named Qiao Yuan, Zhang Qiao Yuan. If they hadn't missed their train in the snow and happened to save her life, a mother-daughter bond would have been formed. Da Ya picked her up quickly, calling herself "Mom" as soon as she was held in her arms. She adapted well to Xiao Hu, but Er Ya couldn't. Seeing her older sister's loving expression made her scalp tingle; it was too sudden, and she was a little unaccustomed to it.
Of the three siblings, Xiaohu knew more people in the village. He suddenly went away for half a month and came back with a baby girl. When people inquired and found out that she was adopted and that the adopted girl was a girl, they were not very interested and forgot about it after mentioning it briefly.
Su Yu only learned about this from the letter Er Ya wrote to her. After the New Year, she went directly from home to report to the Northwest Forestry Bureau instead of returning to the Northeast. Su Yu was also surprised to see Er Ya's amazement at her older sister's changes in the letter; her idea of only wanting to raise children and not get married was quite progressive.
She thought this was a good thing for Daya. Given Daya's situation, even if she married a man, he wouldn't be a very good man, and with the elderly behind him, and the man possibly being divorced with children, her life would not be as comfortable as it is now.
Now that she's raising a young girl without getting married, Er Ya faces a lot of hidden pressure. But if nothing unexpected happens, Er Ya will have two more close relatives. It's hard to say what will happen to Xiao Hu in the future, but given Da Ya's personality, she will definitely listen to Er Ya and has no bad intentions towards her.
Su Yu temporarily settled down in the desert, spending her days planting grass and burying straw stakes in the desert with her head wrapped in a scarf and wearing gloves. In her spare time, she would go out with an experienced guide who knew the way, recording the environmental changes and soil conditions. Every three days, a jeep would go out of the desert to collect drinking water and take everyone's letters home from the post office.
"Su Yu, your family sent you something. I see it's labeled as a camera," Engineer Lü called out, handing a box to Su Yu. He then took out two more packages from the carriage, which were also for Su Yu.
"Why did they send you so many things? Were they all sent by your family?" he asked.
"Yes, it's for my husband and two sons." Su Yu checked the letters with a smile, put the three letters in her pocket, and carried the package and box into her small house. The camera was something she had Ning Jin buy for her from the south. Packed with the camera were two thin cotton scarves and a jar of face cream.
Xiao Yuan and Ping An each sent their own packages. Xiao Yuan sent red sausage, chocolate, and other durable cooked foods, as well as canned goods. Ping An sent what he probably made himself: a sharp knife and a folding cane with a forked hem. According to his letter, he had heard that there were many snakes in the desert, and these two items were for his mother's self-defense.
Su Yu took two bags of red sausage out to add to her lunch, leaving the rest in the house for when she didn't feel like cooking.
"Why did you buy a camera?" Peng Li asked.
"Records, for our own viewing and for the outside world to see." Su Yu plans to take pictures of the desert scenery whenever she goes out in the future, the barren, the magnificent, and the scenes before and after planting trees and grass. Everything changes only when there is comparison.
“The grass we plant here doesn’t grow as well in a year as it does in a month outside. If we don’t promote ourselves and let outsiders know about our hardships, then in their eyes we’re just parasites who are just coasting along and getting paid. Many people don’t understand the situation in the desert, nor do they understand the difficulties of planting trees and grass. I plan to write an article every month with photos and submit it to the media to market ourselves and attract more people with aspirations to contribute,” Su Yu said.
Peng Li smiled and shook his head, not knowing what to say. In his opinion, writing articles and publishing them in the newspaper was either asking for credit or complaining. He couldn't do that anyway. But the camera had already been bought, and it was someone else's private camera. All he could say was, "Whatever you want. If you don't mind the trouble, then do it. You can keep the money from the selected articles."
It's not just about the royalties; she wants a lasting impact. These photos she took are evidence of her desertification control efforts. If any bastard dares to cut down the trees that she and her friends painstakingly nurtured, she'll ruin their reputation.
Su Yu kept her promise made before coming to the Northwest, scheduling time each month to return to the Northeast to see her son. Ning Jin often arrived before she did. The three of them complained that she didn't stay long enough, but her practice of taking time off for herself had already drawn criticism from her colleagues.
At the end of August, when Lao Lü drove out, Su Yu was all ready to hitch a ride out of the desert. She had just opened the car door when someone called out to her.
"Su Yu, we're stuck in this sandstorm all day. Isn't it bad for you to be away every month?"
"What's wrong with it?" she asked the fifth brother directly.
"What's wrong with that? We're all paid by the government, working ourselves to the bone every day, while you're here like a tourist, visiting relatives every month. If we all did what you do, what's the point of desertification control? We might as well just go out and eat and drink well every day."
Su Yu smiled, went inside, took out her work documents from a box, handed them to Lao Wu, and said, "Lao Wu, look at my job description! It's organizing, coordinating, guiding, and supervising the progress of planting trees and grass in sandy soil. If I were in a factory, I'd be a minor leader with a title; in a village, I'd be a technician. Have you ever seen a leader working in the fields or a technician rushing to harvest crops during the autumn and spring harvests? Except for my few days off, every single day I'm planting grass with you guys and then chopping straw to bury in the sand. When I'm doing all this work, why doesn't anyone come out and say, 'Su Yu, this isn't your job; you should just stand aside and watch.' When you were calling for the workday to end under the scorching sun, you didn't forget me. When the grass was planted and we didn't know if it would survive, I was the first one you called for. Am I getting paid twice?"
After Su Yu finished speaking, the scene fell silent. Old Lu broke the silence by scratching his head and saying, "Su Yu, come on, I'll see you out."
"Wait a minute, I haven't finished speaking yet." She snatched the work assignment certificate from Lao Wu's hand, folded it into a palm-sized piece of paper, put it in her bag, and looked around like a queen. She calmly said, "I have the same heart to serve my country and the same passion to combat desertification as you. Otherwise, I wouldn't have volunteered to come to the Northwest. But I am a college graduate. The knowledge in my head doesn't allow me to be just a laborer who buries himself in planting grass. What I need to do is to take overall control, make predictions and take preventative measures. When someone asks me which side of the sandy land, the west or the east, has higher humidity, which side has better soil, which side is suitable for planting sea buckthorn and which side is suitable for planting grass, I can give an accurate answer and take responsibility. The effort I put in is worth my three or four days of vacation every month."
After she finished speaking, she got into the car, seemingly unwilling to discuss the matter further. Old Lu, understanding the situation, also refrained from mentioning it. As usual, the two agreed that she would ride in his car into the desert again in four days.
Su Yu took her manuscript and two photos to the post office, put them in an envelope, filled in the address of the New Greenery newspaper, and dropped them into the mailbox. Then she took a bus to the train station and boarded a train bound for the Northeast.
When she returned, she was all smiles and greeted everyone warmly, showing no signs of the argument she had just had a few days earlier. If there hadn't been so many people present, they would have thought it was all a dream.
She continued to do things according to her usual plan, planting trees and grass as usual, chopping straw as usual, and burying herself in the house to write reports and papers as usual, as if the argument had never happened.
But it's still effective. At least now no one is making sarcastic remarks about her, and there are no more requests for her to help out. When she's writing her thesis, no one knocks on her door to ask if she's sleeping.
It's true that kindness is often taken advantage of, and if you don't show your strength, people will treat you like a pushover.
With trees covering the hillside, Su Yu had an unparalleled ability to assess plant growth. Small grasses and shrubs that failed to survive were promptly pulled out and replanted when they showed signs of death. She also accurately diagnosed whether the plants were suffering from water shortages or pests and diseases. Within a year, Su Yu had firmly established her leadership position.
One person's strength is ultimately limited. Su Yu first learned from Shu Manpo. Once she could make 70% accurate judgments without its guidance, she wrote down the techniques and taught them to her colleagues. She also sent a copy to Xiao Yuan so that everyone could learn together and then teach others. This way, she wouldn't have to keep taking advantage of her.
At the end of the year, the New Greenery newspaper published an article about the achievements in desertification control in Northwest China. The report was entirely based on Su Yu's submission, depicting the transformation from the barren sandy land at the beginning of the year to a green sea formed by scattered patches of green by the end. It was both heartening and laughable; the thin, weak seedlings looked truly pitiful. Some people commented that the results of a year's work were not as good as the growth of wheat seeds he had sown in a month, while others doubted whether those palm-sized seedlings could withstand the raging sandstorms.
Looking at the newspaper, the people in the desert cursed inwardly that the person who said that had been kicked in the head by a donkey. "If we transport the sand from here to his land and his wheat seeds sprout, I'll call him my great-grandmother." The fifth brother cursed angrily, "Damn it, he hasn't traveled much, but he talks big."
“Su Yu, do you think we should just stop submitting articles? They don’t understand. All the hard work we put in for a year will become something they consider dispensable,” Peng Li suggested.
"Hey, they don't understand, but others do. If they don't understand now, will they still not understand in two years? If we don't promote it, even if there are thousands of acres of towering trees here in ten years, they will only marvel: Wow, the trees are so resilient. They can sprout and grow in this barren sandy soil and grow so thick."
The others were amused by her sarcastic tone, but thinking about what she said, if one day their contributions were erased, they would be so angry that they would want to bang their heads against a tree.
The discussions among those who lacked knowledge about the desert continued, but those who knew about it couldn't help but step in to provide some information. Initially, the desert was heavily criticized, but now that the commotion has grown, some people are starting to praise it.
This attracted knowledgeable people, and the wages of those working to control desertification in the desert were raised for the first time. Su Yu also left a good impression on the leaders of the Forestry Bureau.
After that, Su Yu's submissions included interesting daily life stories, rare desert wonders, and descriptions of day-night temperature differences. Her relatable yet insightful descriptions allowed her to get published six out of ten times.
By the spring of 1985, Su Yu had been in Northwest China for three years. She had achieved significant results in planting trees and grass in the desert, and her two academic papers had passed review and entered the experimental verification stage. That spring, she was promoted to a section chief in the Northwest Desert Control Department. Faced with the choice of transferring back to the Forestry Bureau or staying on, she chose to continue working in the desert.
Now that the tree and grass planting is just making progress, she wants to develop the cultivation of cash crops, such as jujube, cistanche, aloe vera, lithops, and cacti...
Humans are damaging the environment, and the environment cannot improve without human intervention. Currently, those planting trees and grass are mostly environmental enthusiasts, but how long can their enthusiasm alone sustain this effort? Moreover, their numbers are small and insufficient to significantly transform the harsh desert environment. The economy is the primary productive force, and money is the most attractive factor. The presence of cash crops will attract people to cultivate them. To achieve good returns, the surrounding environment must be restored; a ripple effect is ideal.
By this time, Xiao Yuan and Ping An had graduated from their undergraduate programs a year and a half ago, and both were pursuing graduate studies. Ping An was the first to make this decision. He felt that he was still a bit dazed as he was about to graduate from university, and there were many things he didn't understand. He also liked the environment at the university, so he applied to continue his graduate studies at the same institution. Influenced by him and persuaded by Su Yu, Xiao Yuan also took the graduate entrance exam and went to the capital city.
Su Yu had the Trees Cover the Hill system, so she dared to go deep into the desert to do practical work after graduating from university. Xiao Yuan was not like her. Forestry was not a simple major. He would be at a disadvantage if he went out to work now. He might as well take advantage of his youth to continue his studies. Anyway, he was not tired of university life.
Er Ya is already working. She wrote to Su Yu saying that she regrets it a bit. She should have continued to pursue a master's degree like Xiao Yuan and Ping An. Some of her classmates went abroad to study, including Min Min. Min Min wrote to her saying that the legal system in foreign countries is more sound, and even sent her several books. The more she read them, the more she felt that she knew too little.
These women who came from Pingqiu Town and went to the Northeast and scattered to various places have all done quite well. She is successful in her career, Xiaoyuan is doing well in her studies, Erya is confused about the future but has also gained something, Daya has a daughter, Xiaohu's grades are also good, and Ningjin has made a fortune by being a middleman and taking advantage of his position as a driver.
Meanwhile, in an old house, a man was also scrimping and saving to buy newspapers. Under his bed were piles of newspapers published by the New Greenery magazine, and every single one contained Su Yu's submissions. In the sections praising Su Yu, there were his vicious curses. But all he could do was curse. He had been imprisoned in a labor camp for five years. When he came out, his wife and daughter had disappeared without a trace, his house had been sold, and he had no money left. In the end, he wrote to his parents to bring him back, but his body was ruined. Five years of high-intensity labor had broken his frail body, and his psychological problems made him hide even when he went to the toilet. He spent his days hiding in his old house in the countryside, farming to earn a meager living.
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