Chapter 17: Jackrabbit

"I would rather live 20 years less than lose the chance to take over the big oil field."

"Drill 10,000 wells and produce 20,000 tons of oil."

Amid the loud and clear singing of songs, Nie Bozhao sat in the factory's Dongfeng truck and headed from the base to the No. 2 oil well.

With the increase in oil production, underground water seepage has always been a key issue. Nie Bozhao is now the hope of the entire oil field, and he leads the research team to overcome this problem.

In addition to his daily research at the unit, he often had to go down to the oil wells to conduct field surveys and extract nutrients for experiments.

"Engineer Nie, when you were in the provincial capital of Hongyan, you asked the staff to send over the files from Hongyan Women's Normal University, where your new lover Chen Lina studied." As soon as he walked out of the base gate, he was called to the office by Chief Engineer Wang.

It was early in the morning, and not only Chief Engineer Wang was there, but Secretary A, the Party Secretary of the Umayyad Mining District, was also there. Just looking at Chen Lina's file, it was an expedited telegram, and it was obvious that the two of them had been studying it for a long time.

"When Comrade Xiao Chen was in college, he filled in Russian as his hobby. He even entertained Russian scholars in middle school. Does this worker know about this?" Secretary Ah took a deep puff of his cigarette.

Among the cadres at the oil base, all of them are old smokers, and Nie Bozhao is simply a breath of fresh air.

There are a total of 56 ethnic groups in Greater China, 45 of which are located in border areas. Secretary A is also a member of an ethnic minority, but he was also one of the first group of people to come to Umayyi to develop the oil fields.

"I know. But she grew up during the Sino-Soviet cooperation period. How the Steel Was Tempered and Katyusha were all the rage in our country back then. She's very smart, so it's not surprising that she knows these."

"Nie Gong, what you have to help us solve now is the biggest problem of the entire oil field. However, apart from the border friction a few days ago, the leaders have also been criticizing the current political trend of the Soviet Union. You know this. Our oil field must pay special attention to this problem. So, new lover, can you still go back?"

Secretary Ah was still very hesitant.

"Okay, old leader, tell me, the situation above has changed, can we catch up? A few years ago, the Soviet Union was still the big brother, and my daughter followed the trend and named herself Zoya, just to keep up with the times. But now it has become stinking shit, and my daughter's name will make people laugh wherever she goes.

When Sun Gong died, he asked Nie Gong to swear in front of us that he would not marry for fifteen years. You were there at the time. You can see that he was a widower and was in a state of despair. Although Sun Gong was dead, we said privately that this was not a good thing to do. Oh, now he finally got married, and she is from the old family. The girl just likes to be more diverse.

I don't think it's a big deal. How about this? We live close to each other, and I'll monitor her for our mining area and make her a key target of surveillance. Do you think it's okay?" When Chief Engineer Wang heard what Secretary Ah said, he was unhappy.

"Nie Gong, what did you say? You are the one with the highest political awareness and cultural level in our entire oil field. We listen to you." Secretary A said with a smile.

Nie Bozhao smiled and gave up the cigarette that Secretary Ah offered him. "Old leader, if I want to be worry-free in the future, Comrade Xiao Chen will really help me take care of the children. So, I have a peace of mind. If anything goes wrong, I will take care of it, so you can rest assured."

On the other hand, Chen Lina, who got thirty yuan, returned home, still not unhappy.

And Nie Weimin, the young accountant appointed by the base, was following her around like a little tail.

"What are we going to eat for lunch?" The kid asked, licking his lips, probably because he was hungry.

Chen Lina had to clear the snow in the yard first. The two children played in the warm house. Nie Weimin, wearing her flowered cotton jacket, followed her like a little tail. "You have money now. That money belongs to the three of us."

"I am rich now, but we need tickets to buy things, and you have nothing at home now. Have you never heard of the saying that a good cook cannot cook without rice?"

This little yard is really nice. There is a vegetable garden at the back and it is quite spacious in the front with the road just outside the door.

However, there was nothing in the yard except a few withered grape vines at the base of the wall. It was really poor.

The snow was swept into the vegetable garden in the backyard. The three children were extremely hungry, especially Erdan, who kept shouting, "Mom, I'm hungry, I'm hungry."

"Comrade Xiao Chen, if you don't have rice, you can eat instant noodles. We have instant noodles." Nie Weimin still remembered that when Uncle Xiao came with a few packets of instant noodles, he also asked Aunt Yao to put them away.

I don’t know why, but the three kids get hungry so quickly that their stomachs rumble even before noon.

"If you are poor, don't go to your relatives. If you are hungry, don't go to the radish field. Who told you to eat so many radishes in the morning?" Chen Lina asked with a smile.

After sweeping the yard clean, Chen Lina took off two old gloves, put her hands on her hips and looked around. She felt that this finally felt like home.

"Okay, we'll have instant noodles for lunch, but not the way you eat on the train. Mom will make you something better today."

Actually, it was nothing. Mr. Xiao brought three packets of instant noodles, cooked some cabbage leaves in them, and then cooked the tomato left over from yesterday. He cooked it directly and gave each person a bowl. It was already very delicious for these children.

"Comrade, I live on your left. Can I come in?" At this time, a middle-aged woman wearing a headscarf and a skirt was standing at the door.

Chen Lina immediately asked Nie Weimin, "Comrade Nie, who is this?"

"The old Kazakh lady, we call her Hamama, but my grandmother doesn't talk to her." Nie Weimin said bluntly.

"Why?"

Comrade Xiao Nie blushed and stopped talking.

Actually, it's because of the neighbors. Day Huacai always steals the grapes from Hamama's house in the middle of the night, picks other people's onions, carries the cabbages piled at the foot of the wall, and even secretly digs other people's coal from their yards.

The base relies on coal for heating throughout the winter, so whose coal it is is very important.

Because of this, Ha Mama's son Ha Gong caught Huang Huacai in the middle of the night and beat him up, and thus the feud was started.

Although Mama Ham doesn't speak Chinese fluently, it's still understandable.

She actually gave Chen Lina two rapeseed flowers that were hard to find in the border areas, and then gave her three eggs. "We are neighbors, let's be good friends!"

"Oh, thank you, Mama Hama, we are friends. Fifty-six ethnic groups are like fifty-six flowers. We, Han and Hama, are one family." Chen Lina was very happy.

With these two rapeseeds and three eggs, one for each child, Chen Lina cooked a pot of instant noodles. The three children each held a bowl and rushed to grab the noodles.

Sandan had short legs and ran the slowest, so he stood on a stool and started picking noodles for himself.

"Comrade Xiao Chen, don't you want to eat?" Although Nie Weimin was on guard, he did not forget that the cook was still busy.

Oh, it was too much to handle. The kitchen needed to be cleaned, the big bathtub needed to be sprinkled with seeds, and there were a bunch of grape vines scattered all over the yard. Chen Lina didn't know what to do with them.

"Oh, I'm not hungry, you guys eat first." Chen Lina said.

Sandan jumped up suddenly and rolled up the enamel bowl. "Then we can eat after mom comes."

This little guy can't even speak clearly, but he has two big round and cute eyes and is very kind.

"Mom has some leftover biscuits from this morning. This bowl of noodles is for the three of you to eat. Remember to finish all the eggs."

Erdan grabbed Sandan's hand and immediately started to dig noodles into his own bowl. Chen Lina, on the other hand, heated up the leftover cakes from the morning, made herself a bowl of mutton soup, and went out with a kitchen knife, thinking about how to clean up the grape racks in the corner.

Mother Ham, who was tall and strong and wearing a skirt, was living next door. Seeing Chen Lina at a loss as to what to do when cleaning up, she came over to help.

"This branch needs to be buried. Bury it." She gestured.

Chen Lina couldn't understand, "Why bury it?"

"Grow, grow grapes next year, sweet!"

Chen Lina remembered that when she traveled to Turpan last year, she seemed to have heard the tour guide say that grape branches should be buried and racks should be built next year before they can produce grapes. But if the branches are exposed and frozen to death, the new buds that sprout the next year will not produce grapes. Even if a few grapes grow, they will not be sweet because the sugar in grapes is obtained by absorbing nutrients in the ground all winter.

He did what he said. He picked up a hoe from the corner and followed Mama Ham and the other two to tie up the branches and bury the branches.

Mother Ham was tall and strong. She used a hoe to cut up the hard frozen soil and used the coal ash from the corners of the wall to bury the grape branches.

"My mother hates Mama Ha. Humph, you are still friends with her. I hate you." After entering the house, the two children went to bed, but Nie Weimin was still awake.

He was just like a little guard, fully alert, and the only thing missing was to put his two eyes on Chen Lina.

"Why does your mother hate Mama Ham?" Chen Lina asked.

"Harbin Institute of Technology and my grandmother had a fight, and Hamid's mother always liked to watch my house from the top of the wall," said Nie Weimin.

"Neighbors are bound to have friction, but if your grandmother fights with someone, what does it have to do with you or me? I have decided to be friends with her from today on.

If you don't want to see her, just don't come out when she comes. I am also friends with Chen Tiantian's mother. It is my freedom to make friends. You have no right to interfere. "Chen Lina said.

"You can be friends with Aunt Chen, but you can't be friends with Mama Ham. I have to take care of this because I don't like Mama Ham." The guy got stubborn and his face turned red with anger.

"Forget it, Chen Tiantian's mom and I won't be friends anymore. Let's just close the door and not have any friends. We can just live our own lives." It's so fun to tease this kid.

Nie Weimin was really scared. "No, Chen Tiantian's mother will give her tomatoes and apples."

"Ha, didn't the eggs that your mother gave you make your belly full?"

"But she and my mom had an argument, I remember it, it almost came to a fight."

Chen Lina thought to herself, oh my, this Sun Gong must have a bad temper. It was probably because of her influence that Nie Weimin was so prejudiced against Mama Ham.

After thinking for a while, she said, "How about this, I'll give you a handful of walnuts from my hometown, and you return the favor to Mama Hami, and I'll give you a handful of peanuts, and you return the favor to Mama Chen Tiantian, and then we'll close the door, live our own lives, and never make friends again."

Nie Weimin thought about it, took the walnut, and ran away.

It was only about three in the afternoon, and Nie Bozhao had actually returned. Seeing his son running out in a flowered cotton jacket, he asked Chen Lina, "Why is this kid running?"

"He returned the favor and also said that he would no longer have any contact with Mama Ham from now on." Chen Lina said with a smile.

Although they were neighbors, it was Nie Weimin's first time to return to the neighbor's house. Because the two families had a bad relationship, he hesitated for a long time before entering the other person's yard.

"Big Egg, come here, come in quickly." Mother Ham's smile was very kind. She was not like the man-eating old monster that grandma always said. She took the walnut and laughed for a long time. She also pulled Nie Weimin and said a lot of Hamid in gibberish, and gave him two bags of grapes.

The old mother was so enthusiastic that Nie Weimin's face turned red.

Nie Weimin was thin-skinned, so naturally he did not say anything about breaking off the friendship from then on, and he returned without any further ado.

He was not shy about it. After returning, he took out all the dried grapes and gave them to Chen Lina. "Comrade Chen, these are given to you by Mama Ham."

Chen Lina carefully collected the grapes and added walnuts and peanuts. These would be good condiments for making porridge in the future, which would be better than eating plain porridge all the time.

"Is there no noodles at home? What are we going to eat tonight?" asked Nie Bozhao.

Chen Lina rolled her eyes at him and said, "We've finished three packs of instant noodles, but we still have mutton. If you can't find anything else, we'll just have to eat with our hands tonight. Oh, and we also have radishes and cabbage, which will keep you full."

Although mainlanders love to eat mutton, they cannot eat it three times a day like the indigenous frontier people, such as the Kazakhs.

Nie Bozhao smiled and stretched out his hands behind his back, holding a fat and big wild rabbit.

"Forget about the mutton. Why don't you stew this wild rabbit tonight?" Nie Bozhao held the rabbit ears in his hand and put them on the chopping board.

"Big rabbit?" Sandaner started crying. "Rabbit, you can't eat rabbit."

Nie Weimin was having a silly moment at this time, and after all, there were plenty of these things in the Gobi Desert.

He can eat and play. He doesn’t think it’s a big deal. “Just eat it. Dad, bring something alive next time, okay? We can play for a while and then you can eat.”

"Rabbit likes to dig holes, so you're not allowed to keep them." Nie Bozhao simply and straightforwardly rejected his son's request.

Chen Lina took the hare and pointed outside the door, saying, "See? Mix the ashes with the snow and sprinkle them evenly on the vegetable garden. They will be good fertilizer in the spring of next year, and our vegetable garden will surely grow well. I'll stew the rabbit for you."

"Comrade Xiao Chen, don't you need me to help you clean the rabbit skin?" It was a wild rabbit, shot to death, without even removing the dirt or fur.

Originally, when Sun Gong and Huang Huacai were there, all these jobs were done by Nie Bozhao.

If he didn't take action, Huang Huacai would cook the rabbit hair and meat into a pot and serve it to him, which would be smelly and fishy.

Another time, when he was working at an oil well, he and the frontline workers there caught two big fat fish and stewed them without cleaning out the internal organs. They made the fish smell fishy and stinky. They knocked on Nie Weimin's head to force him to eat the fish, and if the child refused, they would punch him.

From then on, Nie Bozhao had a shadow on cooking and eating.

It also forced him, an engineer in an oil base, to fend for himself every day when he got home.

Chen Lina carried a rabbit and held a knife in her hand, walked out of the yard, and wandered around somewhere.

When I came back, the rabbit had been gutted and its internal organs removed, and all its fur had been ripped off.

Then she heated a large pot of water, washed the rabbit, and brought the water to a rolling boil. Then she stewed the whole rabbit and a few small hazel mushrooms she had found in the kitchen in the pot.

As soon as the pot was opened and the aroma wafted out, Erdan was already overwhelmed by the fragrance.

"Mom, when can we eat rabbit?"

"This big fat rabbit has tender meat. It won't take long."

"Can I have a taste first?"

"No, look at your round belly. If you eat more, you'll become a fat boy." Chen Lina said teasingly and patted his chubby little butt.

Erdan patted his round belly and cried out, "Mom, Aunt Yao is so nice. The food she cooked is so delicious."

"They still call you Aunt Yao. Do you want me to give them a beating?" Nie Bozhao asked as he sprinkled ashes on the ground in the backyard.

Chen Lina smiled and said, "No need. Aunt Yao is not always abusive. These two will be troublemakers in the future and must be disciplined harshly. But I will be Aunt Yao, and it is enough for your son to walk on the right path."

Nie Bozhao stopped the shovel in his hand and said, "Comrade Xiao Chen, why do I think what you said is so weird? What do you mean they will all be troublemakers in the future? I think they are good people."

"Your grandson Gong has a very bad temper, right? Her grandmother has the worst relationships with people. She probably offended everyone in the entire family community before she left, right?" Chen Lina changed the subject. She didn't want to bring up a topic that would make Nie Bozhao sad so early.

As a man, you should at least have some dignity. Nie Bozhao felt guilty. “How can it be as exaggerated as you say?”

"To put it bluntly, in this kind of family area, everyone knows each other, and there are always a few good friends who help each other and take care of each other. Your family has not had any guests for several years. Is this exaggeration?"

"How did you know? But whose family member came to our house and made idle talk?" Nie Bozhao felt that Chen Lina was really amazing. She had only been here for one day, but she should have already uncovered all his secrets.

"Sister Wang from Chen's family is on our left, and the old mother from Harbin Institute of Technology is on our right. They are the closest two families. I don't even dare to enter your house, let alone others. Harbin Institute of Technology's old mother is still storing so many dried grapes. Look at the grape racks in her house, and the pile of dead branches at the foot of your wall. If they are really close, why do you have grape vines growing in your house, but you can't eat a single sweet grape?"

Nie Bozhao had thick eyebrows and big eyes, and his eyebrows were curved when he smiled, and he stopped talking.

He had a keen eye and thought to himself that Comrade Chen's excellence was probably due to the long-term teaching of his pen pal.

Of course, this was also due to her own intelligence, but it was a pity that if she knew the whereabouts of her pen pal, she would probably be very sad.

Come on, let’s keep it a secret for now.