Chapter 86 Farm
Ye Xiushan quickly put down the watering can, stuck to the door edge, and peeked from behind the door at Bai Wei who was being led into the farm gate by a group of people wearing red armbands.
Bai Wei walked leisurely with a calm expression, as if the people around her were just air.
Director Jia brought Bai Wei to the breeding farm in Qing County for renovation, mainly because it was not far from Xiahe Village. He wanted to deliberately annoy the Ye family.
"I've already discussed this with the factory manager. You'll need to study and reform yourself here. When you understand everything, you can leave!"
After Director Jia said that, he swaggered into the house with the factory director to have tea, and threw Bai Wei to the man with the red armband and took her to the cowshed.
His words just now were very clear. When the Ye family bows their heads, Bai Wei can go out. Let's see who can do more!
There are always people working on the farm, mainly responsible for cleaning up the pig, cow and sheep manure in the farm, cleaning the pig pens and other dirty work.
Their range of movement is also restricted, and they are only allowed to move around the cowshed on the farm.
There are now two people living in the straw shed next to the cowshed. Originally there were three people. The man was rehabilitated two days ago and returned to Jinshi. There happened to be an empty straw nest in the straw shed for Bai Wei to sleep in.
"Hiss, it's really cold today. It would be great if we could have a mutton hotpot."
An old man with wild, greasy white hair squatted at the door of the straw hut, watching the sheep in the sheepfold and smacking his dry lips from time to time.
"Also, the mutton hotpot. I'll give you plenty of goat shit eggs later."
In the grass nest in the east, there was a ragged middle-aged man wearing torn cotton pants. With a move of his thin lips, he ruthlessly shattered the old man's fantasy.
The old man turned around with a look of disgust and complained about his unromantic roommate.
"Ban! I'm not saying anything bad about you, but look at what a mess you are. When I first met you ten years ago, you were dressed in a suit, leather shoes, a watch, and a vest. You looked like a real gentleman, with your hair combed like a dog licked it, and you kept talking about Bolsheviks and Lavoisier. How did you fall to the point where you're talking about sheep shit? The world is really going downhill, and you're still a top student at Cambridge. Tsk tsk."
Ban Chen closed his eyes and rested, ignoring the old man who was scolding him. Everyone was sleeping in the grass nest, who would still remember Lavoisier?
After complaining about the former nobleman Ban Chen for a while, the old man continued to count the sheep in the sheepfold with envy, imagining the taste of the mutton pot in his mind.
"This one is fat, it looks like a good sheep. The one on the right is also good, its fur is really smooth. Hey~ why is there a girl over there?"
Old man Jiang squinted his eyes and looked carefully. At the other end of the sheep pen, two people with red armbands were chasing a girl towards them.
Ban Chen opened his eyelids slightly, wondering why people were still being arrested in this day and age. Hadn't they all been rehabilitated?
Two red armbands escorted Bai Wei to the straw hut and pushed her inside.
"You will be reformed here from now on, and then you will go pick up cow dung!"
After saying that, the man with the red armband explained something to the person in charge of supervising the farm's transformation, and left the farm with Director Jia.
Bai Wei looked around the cold and damp straw hut. The cold wind was blowing in from all directions, and the feeling inside the straw hut was no different from standing on the street outside.
There were three or four pottery bowls on the ground and three haystacks beside them. The man on the haystack was covered with a shiny black quilt. The quilt looked as thin and hard as cardboard. There was not even a decent stool in the palm-sized room.
She looked around and could only find a stone to sit on like the old man at the door.
Bai Wei had just arrived and sat stiffly at the place farthest away from the two disheveled guys.
Old man Jiang was quite interested in talking to her.
"Girl, why are you arrested at this time? What did you do?"
Bai Wei saw that his attitude was quite friendly, so she said cautiously, "I offended Director Jia of the Revolutionary Committee. My family used to be capitalists, and my husband's family here were poor peasants. We recently divorced, and that's why he arrested me."
"Oh, you're a capitalist, so how can you and this guy named Ban get along? He was also a capitalist more than ten years ago."
Old Man Jiang motioned Ban Chen to get up and chat together, but Ban Chen waved his hand to indicate that he was not interested.
"Tsk, how boring! A grown man is just lying there like an old hen sitting on brooding eggs every day."
Old man Jiang turned around and saw Bai Wei looking a little uneasy. He thought she was afraid and comforted her.
"Girl, let's ignore him. This farm is pretty good. I can't say it's that good, but it hasn't made things difficult for us. Every day after picking up manure, you see, just like that guy named Ban, he just finds a place to rest."
Bai Wei looked around for a while, then looked at the old man's mouth, the down-and-out capitalist lying on the haystack in tattered clothes. Thinking of her family, she finally couldn't help but burst into tears.
"Mom, Dad, Uncle, where are you? Mom! I want my mom!"
Bai Wei has never dared to see the labor camp in these years. She was afraid that her family was living in such an environment, afraid of seeing the miserable people there, and afraid that her family would also become so embarrassed thousands of miles away.
"Don't cry, girl. Oh, be quiet. Don't attract the supervisor."
Old Man Jiang was frantically trying to coax Bai Wei, asking her not to make too much noise. If the supervisor saw them, they would all be in trouble.
Ban Chen lay in the haystack, looking at Bai Wei, who was lying on the wet and cold mud ground, howling and banging her head against the ground, venting her grief and anger. Old man Jiang tried hard to cover her mouth, preventing her from crying out loud. He seemed to see his own family through her.
More than ten years ago, despite his mother's objections, he forcibly sent her and his younger brother away, and stayed here alone to pursue his ideals.
He was right. He firmly believed that his country would become strong one day. He was stubbornly waiting for the arrival of that prosperous era. But he was also a human being. He hoped that his family could live an easier life. He would have to bear all the hardships on the road ahead by himself.
Seeing Bai Wei's pain, Ban Chen, who had also lost contact with his family for more than ten years, felt a sense of empathy.
Ban Chen lifted the torn quilt, turned over and sat up from the grass nest, and said to Bai Wei calmly, as if saying to himself, "Wash your face when you've cried enough. Save your energy for work later. Only after you finish your work can you eat. Only after you eat can you live to meet them. Trying hard to survive is the only thing you can do now. This is not a place for you to cry."
Bai Wei stopped crying and lay in the mud without struggling anymore. Apart from some sobbing, she was completely motionless, as if she had lost her soul.
Old Man Jiang saw that the child had no experience. In this day and age, the children of capitalists could still be raised like this. It seemed that her poor peasant family must have treated her well, which was a blessing.
"Okay, girl, you'll feel better after crying. I'm an old man, and I cried when I was first sent down. From now on, you will follow me, Lao Jiang, and the old class. Come on, get up and sit down."
Old Man Jiang gave up his stone pier and considerately laid some straw, placing Bai Wei at the door. He then dug out their only earthenware pot from the pile of firewood at the door, intending to light a fire and boil some hot water for Bai Wei.
"I'll go wash the dishes."
Bai Wei picked up the broken pottery bowl on the ground and consciously helped Old Man Jiang. The man surnamed Ban was right. She had to work hard to survive to have hope.
Someone helped him, and Old Man Jiang grinned.
"Well, good, the girl is considerate. That guy named Ban has been around for more than ten years and still can't change his master's temper. He has no sense of judgment at all."
Ban Chen glanced at him, then silently got up and went out to chop wood.
Old Man Jiang was satisfied this time. "That's pretty good."
“Gulp gulp~”
The water in the clay pot boiled
Old man Jiang looked around for a while, then called Ban Chen to keep watch, and then secretly took Bai Wei and squatted under the railing behind the cowshed.
"Uncle Jiang, what are we doing?" Bai Wei squatted on the ground and asked old man Jiang nervously. This didn't look like a good thing at all.
"Shh~" Old man Jiang signaled her to be quiet
He quickly dug out the oil paper hidden under the cow dung with his hands. It was a small package, about the size of a fist. Although the oil paper was wrapped with a layer of straw, it was still sticky with a little cow dung.
Bai Wei couldn't accept it and turned her head slightly.
Old Man Jiang nonchalantly patted the cow dung on the oil paper and said to Bai Wei, "You won't be able to stand the smell at first, but you'll get used to it after a few days of picking up cow dung. Think of it as civet coffee, it's not much different. Let's go back."
There was a bag of cheese in the oil paper. Old Man Jiang broke off one-third of it and asked Bai Wei to hide it in her hand. He quickly wrapped the oil paper and restored the cow dung pile to its original state.
Bai Wei hadn't eaten for almost a day since she was captured by Director Jia yesterday. After drinking some hot water and eating a piece of cheese given to her by Old Man Jiang, she finally felt some strength.
Old Man Jiang smacked his lips, savoring the milky taste in his mouth, and said to Ban Chen with nostalgia, "Old Ban, when can you secretly make some more? The little we have is only enough for one meal."
"Wait until you steal the milk."
"Oh, that's difficult."
Seeing Bai Wei looking puzzled, Old Man Jiang explained, "Even though life is so hard, we have to have something to eat, right? Meat is hard to come by, so we can just secretly squeeze some cow's or goat's milk. Your classmate is a top student who graduated from the Chemistry Department of Cambridge University, so he made some cheese for us."
Cambridge. Bai Wei hadn't heard about that world for a long time. Her uncle had taken her to Cambridge for a trip when she was young. Everything seemed so long ago, as if it were something from her previous life.
Just as I was thinking about it, a voice came from somewhere outside the straw hut.
"Sister-in-law, it's me, Xiushan."
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