Zhou Zhiqiang knew that he was taking his anger out on Zhou Chunping, but he just couldn't control himself.
After the family moved to the countryside, everyone except Zhou Chunping became a rural hukou holder. Zhou Zhiqiang didn't understand this gap when he was a child, but he understood it when he grew up.
There are some young people in Sanhe Town whose parents are state workers, so they benefit from their parents' influence and have their household registration in the town.
Back then, urban residents were guaranteed jobs by the state. What about rural residents? No matter how capable or talented you were, you could only farm in the village.
Zhou Zhiqiang saw that his classmates who were not as good as him when they were young were assigned to work in Sanhe Town when they grew up just because they had a town household registration. They sat in a bright office every day, had easy work, and earned more than ten yuan a month.
What about Zhou Zhiqiang himself? He worked in the fields with the production team every day, toiling away all year round and earning less than two yuan.
This huge disparity nearly drove Zhou Zhiqiang crazy. Sometimes, when a few classmates got together, they'd talk about how enviable those with household registration and jobs were. Zhou Zhiqiang would think to himself, "If his father hadn't gone crazy, he'd be the one those classmates envied."
Over time, Zhou Zhiqiang set his sights on Zhou Chunping's work.
Zhou Chunping himself still had a city hukou and worked at the Grain Administration Office. At the time, the policy allowed sons to take over their father's job, a practice known as "covering the shift."
This means that if the parents in the family have urban household registration and are employed, even if the child has rural household registration, when the parents retire, the child can transfer to urban household registration and take over the job of the father or mother.
In other words, when Zhou Chunping retires, one of the three sons and one daughter of the Zhou family can take over Zhou Chunping's job and become a state worker who eats commercial grain.
Zhou Zhiqiang had always assumed Zhou Chunping would give him this job opportunity. Of the three Zhou brothers, the eldest, Zhou Zhigang, was the accountant for Zhoujia Village, a job even those on a grain-producing diet couldn't match. The third, Zhou Zhixin, had a promising career in the military and certainly had no desire to come back and steal the old man's favor.
Zhou Zhiqiang considered himself the worst off. He had studied carpentry for two years, but only learned half the trade. He could make cabinets and benches for others, but he wasn't capable of making any other large pieces of furniture.
Normal families favor their children who are disadvantaged. Zhou Zhiqiang is not doing well, so this is the time when he needs the support of the elders! Besides, his mother, Wu Jinfeng, has always liked him. As long as she insists on letting him take over, even his father will give it more consideration. Zhou Zhiqiang thought.
As for Zhou Zhimei, a girl, how could she be as important as a son? His old man couldn't be so foolish as to leave such a good thing to his daughter and not to his son.
Zhou Zhiqiang didn't expect that the successful thing would be ruined by his sister Zhou Zhimei.
Zhou Chunping actually gave the opportunity to take over the shift to his younger brother Zhou Zhimei. Whenever Zhou Zhiqiang thought of this, he would get furious.
He doesn't care about this sister.
From childhood on, Zhou Zhimei had always been a slacker. She didn't study hard, loved dressing up all the time, and just messed around at school.
After graduating from junior high school, Zhou Zhimei refused to go out to work, and kept asking her parents to let her do some housework at home. When she was bored, she would find trouble with her sisters-in-law.
Her parents treated Zhou Zhimei like a treasure and even gave her the precious city household registration.
Bah! I've never seen a parent as unreliable as Dad.
In this village, which family doesn't leave good things to their sons and grandsons? To give the iron rice bowl to a person who has thrown away water, is his father's head filled with paste?
Zhou Zhiqiang hated his father even more.
His father, Zhou Chunping, was rich, but he rarely spent it. Apart from the ten-cent red envelope his father would give each of his brothers and sisters during Chinese New Year, they never saw his father's money.
It wasn't until his third brother joined the army and sent money back every month that Zhou Zhiqiang felt his life had gotten much better. Wu Jinfeng loved him very much and would occasionally give him a dollar and eighty cents as pocket money.
Zhou Zhiqiang is not grateful at all for spending the money that my mother leaks out of her hands.
He should have been a city resident, eating commercial grain, with his own monthly salary, free to spend as he pleased. Zhou Chunping and Wu Jinfeng had changed his life, so spending a few of their money now was only natural, Zhou Zhiqiang thought.
Zhou Chunping had no idea that his second son had long labeled him "unreliable." At that moment, Zhou Chunping was walking along the rammed-earth yellow mud road in Zhoujia Village, facing the smiling faces that greeted him, nodding and chatting from time to time.
Zhou Chunping has a high status in Zhoujia Village. Apart from the village chief's family, the Zhou family is also ranked high in Zhoujia Village.
When talking about Zhou Chunping, everyone in Zhoujia Village, young and old, would give him a thumbs up and praise him: What a capable man!
Zhou Chunping's ability is first reflected in that big tiled house.
The original owner of the tile-roofed house was a landlord. After liberation, the landlord's family either ran away or died, and the tile-roofed house naturally became empty.
Zhou Chunping, his wife, and three children, had come to Zhoujia Village to live with relatives, and they needed a place to live. Somehow, Zhou Chunping managed to buy this tiled house from the village's former Party secretary. They've lived there for over twenty years.
The tiled house is large and bright. It is located on the side of the road at the entrance of Zhoujia Village. There are seven or eight rooms in a row, facing north and south, and it looks very imposing.
Zhou Chunping's large tiled house stands out in the entire Zhoujia Village. Thanks to this large tiled house, the wives Zhou Chunping's three sons married were well-known for their virtuous and capable wives in the surrounding area.
Zhou Chunping is the only villager in Zhoujia Village who eats commercial grain. To be precise, Zhou Chunping is not a native resident of Zhoujia Village, but a city dweller.
Twenty years ago, Zhou Chunping brought his wife and children to Zhoujia Village, where he settled. According to the village chief at the time, Zhou Chunping was originally from the neighboring city of Daxing, but he responded to the national call to "return to the countryside" and brought his family to Yuyuan County, where his wife, Wu Jinfeng, came from.
At that time, Zhou Chunping's eldest child, Zhou Zhigang, was only seven years old, and his youngest daughter, Zhou Zhimei, had not yet been born.
After returning to the countryside from the city, Zhou Chunping and his family became exemplary figures in supporting national development. To protect the rural population from feeling discouraged, the town retained Zhou Chunping's urban household registration and arranged for him to work at the grain management office.
Wu Jinfeng spent many days grumbling about being transformed from a city dweller into a rural dweller. However, she was powerless to resist Zhou Chunping's decision to move, nor could she resist the town's decision. She had no choice but to put aside her feelings and become a rural dweller.
Wu Jinfeng's parents' home was over fifty miles from Zhoujia Village, in a small mountain valley called Xiaofenggang, so poor that even thieves wouldn't venture in. There were many bachelors there, and while the girls from the village longed to marry out, those from other villages were reluctant to marry in.
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