Chapter 2

Nie Mu

"What are you talking about kids from the city? Bah, you have no mothers, and children without mothers deserve to be beaten." Nie Xiaoqiang said as he threw a piece of earth and hit little Nie Weimin on the head.

Nie Weimin's lips were bitten blue from biting them, but he still protected his brother tightly and refused to let Nie Xiaoqiang kick him.

What Chen Lina couldn't stand the most was naughty children. She grabbed Nie Xiaoqiang's ear and said, "Whose child is this? He has someone to teach him but no one to take care of him. Why are you hitting others?"

Children are always afraid of adults. When Nie Xiaoqiang saw someone coming forward, he let go of Nie Weimin and ran away.

But the stubborn Nie Weimin pulled up his two younger brothers and ran away like the wind.

A woman in her fifties came over from a distant field. She saw Nie Weimin running over, grabbed him and started pointing her finger at him. “I told you not to run around. Don’t you need tickets for your shoes? You’ll get hungry if you run too much. Isn’t rice also food? Your father works hard outside to earn money to support you, and you’re still fighting outside. Who will help you sew your clothes when they’re torn, huh?”

"Mother-in-law, it was Nie Xiaoqiang who hit someone first."

"Nie Xiaoqiang's father is the brigade secretary. If your father is also the brigade secretary, I will let you beat him."

After all, so many years have passed, and Chen Lina left Qisi Township at about this time in her previous life. She can still recognize most of the people in her own village, but she doesn't recognize anyone from the neighboring village at all.

So, she did not recognize the woman.

But why did Nie Weimin call her "po"? In Qisi dialect, "po" means grandma.

Of course, Chen Lina has lived in Qisi Township for nearly twenty years, but she has never heard of a person like Nie Bozhao in Niejiazhuang on the other side of the river.

In the future, whenever people asked about Nie Bozhao and his family, he would say that they were all dead and no one was left. However, since his son was here, it proved that he still had relatives.

"Hey, isn't this the second daughter of Teacher Chen, your eldest sister? Is she at home? I heard that your engagement with Guozhu has been called off. It must be difficult for people of your background to find a partner nowadays, right?" the woman asked with a smile.

Chen Lina responded, but since they were strangers, they didn't talk much.

However, after meeting her at the riverside, when Chen Lina returned home, she found that the woman was sitting in her house again.

Her mother had spent half a day washing and stewing the pork head, and the woman was eating it piece by piece.

"Mrs. He, look, my son sent a telegram from the border four days ago. It will take three days and three nights by train, and half a day by car, and he will arrive in our hometown tomorrow. Your eldest daughter has to make preparations now. After all, he only has ten days of vacation, so he has to spend eight days on the road and two days at home. He has to leave after just seeing him." said the woman.

He Lan'er hesitated, "Mrs. Huang, my Lili still doesn't want to be a nanny. After all, she has three children, all boys, and it's not easy to take care of them. Besides, we haven't even seen what your eldest son looks like. I'm afraid it's not appropriate to take him away in such a hurry, right?"

"But your Lili used twenty yuan from my family. Sister He, twenty yuan is not a small amount nowadays. A worker's salary is only ten yuan a month." Sister Huang refused to give in.

"What if we really regret it and don't want to go?" He Lan'er gritted her teeth.

"Then return the money. You have to give me back the twenty yuan." Mrs. Huang's face changed and she refused to eat the pork head.

"Okay, let's think about it. When the eldest girl comes back, I'll ask her what she thinks."

"It's no use just asking, Mrs. He. No one's money comes from the wind. It's a deposit. You have to return it if the job doesn't work out." With that, Mrs. Huang got up and left.

He Laner sat there in silence for a long time, then slapped her thigh and said, "It's over, it's over. I don't have the twenty yuan to pay them back."

Chen Lina had just been persuaded to drop out of college and had just returned from the provincial capital. She knew nothing about what was going on at home, so she asked, "Mom, what's going on?"

"Isn't it your sister who is causing trouble?" He Lan'er was angry and helpless. "The one who just came is Huang Guilan, the mother of Nie Laoer from the neighboring Nie family. Doesn't she have an eldest son, Nie Laoda, who works at an oil base in the desert of the border? His ex-wife gave birth to three sons and died. Now there is no one to take care of them, so they are left in his hometown. Then, he wanted to take the children back, so he thought about finding a nanny from his hometown for the children, paying her five yuan a month to be a nanny for the three children. At that time, your sister had just divorced Wang Hongbing, so she said she was willing to go, and even asked Huang Guilan to borrow twenty yuan, saying that it was four months' salary in advance. Look, Huang Guilan came to find her. Either pay the money back or go to the border. She has to do one thing or the other."

"Where is my sister? Where did she go?" Chen Lina asked.

Why didn't she remember that my sister wanted to work as a babysitter?

"Mom, sister, I'm back." As they were speaking, a woman's voice came from the yard.

He Lan'er was angry, and she pursed her lips and said, "Hey, isn't it coming?"

"Sister, Nie Lao Da's mother just came and told you to get ready to go to the border to work as a babysitter. How are your preparations going?" Chen Lina asked.

"Didn't I tell mom to turn it down? The border is a place with strong winds and sand, no water, and desert everywhere. I definitely won't go there. Why, mom hasn't turned it down yet?"

Sister Chen Lili came in as she spoke. She was wearing blue cool pants and a dirty navy blue velvet jacket. Her hair was tied up tightly and she had big dark circles under her eyes. She sat down on the edge of the kang as soon as she came in, breathing heavily.

"But you used other people's money, and Huang Guilan asked for more money," said He Laner.

Chen Lili fell down on the kang with a thud, biting her lip without saying a word. After gritting her teeth for a long time, she said, "Mom, I have already spent all the money. What should I do?"

"Twenty dollars, my girl. Your father only earns five dollars a month. That's not a small amount. Tell me, where did you spend the money?"

"Wang Hongbing had his legs broken by those young guards. He was hospitalized for ten days and spent all the twenty yuan. Fortunately, his legs were reconnected and he is not disabled." Chen Lili rubbed her stomach and asked, "Mom, do you have any steamed buns at home? I haven't eaten for two days. I'm starving."

"Mo, you still know how to eat Mo. Our family's monthly ration of food only has five kilograms of fine flour left. Mom is reluctant to steam Mo, and we only have compound flour steamed buns at home. Let's make two of them to fill our stomachs."

The so-called composite flour is made by mixing crushed buckwheat husks with high-grain flour and steaming it.

It's hard and tastes bad, and it makes my stomach uncomfortable after eating it. Eating it is not a big deal, but pooping it out is a real pain. In the future, it will be said that the anus is broken and the ground is covered with wounds.

But in this era, people are already short of food and clothing, and with this compounded situation, it’s almost impossible for ordinary people to get enough to eat.

"Then mom, please get it quickly. I'm really hungry." Chen Lili said, and then she collapsed on the kang. It was obvious that she was exhausted.

"What about Wang Hongbing? Aren't you two divorced? He is fighting his own battles. Why can you help him?" He Laner asked.

Chen Lili didn't say anything. She gritted her teeth and looked up at the sky. After looking at the smoke-blackened citrus for a long time, she said, "Those capitalist-roaders were persecuted every day, and they divorced me to avoid getting me implicated. Now that his leg is broken, how can I not take care of him?"

"Then you can't borrow money everywhere. Our family is already in financial difficulty. If you take on such a large debt, how can I pay it back?" He Lan'er became even angrier.

Chen Lili's husband Wang Hongbing divorced Chen Lili at that time because his aunt fled to Taiwan in 1949 and was labeled a capitalist-roader. However, the Chen family was a member of the stinking ninth class and was not much better off.

Chen Lina thought back to the past and realized that the revolutionary wave would soon reach Qisixiang. She and her sister would be criticized and subjected to both verbal and physical struggles. That kind of suffering almost tortured them to death.

After giving the eldest daughter a hard black bun, He Lan'er broke the other bun into two halves, gave half to Chen Lina, and chewed the other half herself. After thinking for a long time, she slapped her thigh and said, "Well, then Boss Nie will be back for two or three days at most, and Mom really doesn't have the money to pay off this debt. No, let's lock the door and go back to your uncle's house in Zhang County to avoid this debt first. What do you think?"

Chen Lili immediately sat up and said, "Okay, Mom, let's hide first. I really don't have the money to pay off that debt."

"Mom, this is not a good idea. If you owe someone money and then hide away, my dad will definitely not agree if he finds out." Chen Lina said.

She remembered that at this time in her previous life, He Laner had indeed locked the door and took her whole family to visit relatives at her uncle's house in Zhang County. The family stayed in Zhang County for half a month before returning. It turned out that it was to avoid debt.

"What can we do if we don't hide? Huang Guilan is well-known in the whole Qisixiang for being difficult to deal with. With our background and no money to pay off our debts, she will definitely eat our whole family alive. Just keep it a secret from your father and take him with you when you leave." He Lan'er said this as if Chen's father was a piece of luggage that could be carried away.

"How about I go and meet Boss Nie?" Chen Lina said, "If it really doesn't work, if my sister doesn't want to be a nanny, I'll go."

"You?" He Lan'er and Chen Lili asked in unison, "You are a college student, and you are so young, why are you working as a babysitter for others?"

"I don't agree. You just stay at home and wait for mom to bring Zhutou to Nie Guozhu to secure your marriage." He Laner said.

Chen Lina didn't answer this, but asked Chen Lili, "Sister, do you think the current struggle is serious?"

Need I say more?

Her ex-husband Wang Hongbing and she were a loving couple, but when they really started fighting, the guards asked them to expose each other. Wang Hongbing refused to expose Chen Lili, so he divorced her and released her. But he himself was broken by someone, and even then, the guards still thought that he had not received enough education and his self-criticism was not good enough.

"There is no revolution or fighting in the border areas. Sister, if we really want to avoid the revolution, we have to go to the border areas," said Chen Lina.

Being a nanny is one thing, but the oil field is a pillar industry of the country, and it was the least affected by the wave of the Great Revolution. And Nie Lao Da was in the oil field, so he was spared the heavy impact of the Great Revolution, which was what Chen Lina valued.

She felt that no matter what Mr. Nie was like, or whether the three children were easy to take care of, someone from her family had to go to the border.

The border was the best way for her family to avoid the Revolution. If she went there first and took her sister with her, maybe she could avoid the fighting for the rest of her life?

As for that Boss Nie, could it be Nie Bozhao? Otherwise, why would Nie Weimin call Huang Guilan "po-in-law"?

Or was she dazzled and saw it wrong, and that child was not Nie Weimin, but someone else's child?

After all, she had been married to Nie Bozhao in her previous life and had lived with him for more than ten years. How come she had never heard that his mother was Huang Guilan from Nie Jiazhuang?

He should be from Hongyan, the provincial capital, and his parents should be veteran revolutionary fighters.

"Lili, what do you think, should we meet or not?" He Lan'er said, "Anyway, you and Wang Hongbing are both divorced, so why don't you just go to the border? Maybe you can take us out with you. Mom has had enough of the compound flour buns. What if there's white flour in the oil field?"

What Chen Lili actually wanted in her heart was to let Chen Lina work as a nanny, but she couldn't say this in front of her mother.

After all, Chen Lina is good at studying and is the eldest child of the old couple. After thinking about it, she said, "Okay, then tomorrow, Lina and I will go to see Mr. Nie. We'll talk about it after we meet. What do you think, Mom?"

On the other hand, the old Nie family, the so-called eldest Nie, that is, Nie Bozhao, took a train for three days and three nights, and then took a long-distance bus for half a day, and finally arrived home in a dusty and dusty manner.

As soon as I entered the door, the three sons were standing by the wall.

"Call me daddy." said Nie's mother Huang Guilan.

"Hello, Dad." The three children said in unison. Of course, at a glance, they were washed cleanly. Although the clothes were old and patched, it was nothing serious.

Nie Bozhao looked at it for a long time, then suddenly reached out and touched the forehead of the eldest son Nie Weimin. The child responded with a hoarse sound and turned his head away.

Sure enough, there was a big bump on his head, which must have been caused by someone beating him.

Although she didn't say anything, Nie's mother saw that her son's brows were furrowed, which definitely showed that he was heartbroken.

These three children were sent back to the countryside by Nie Bozhao because he had no choice but to do so after his wife passed away half a year ago.

Nie Bozhao doesn't actually come to this rural hometown very often.

Huang Guilan was his biological mother, but she sold him to someone else when he was nine years old. Therefore, he grew up in the provincial capital and was not very close to the people in his hometown.

In addition to him, Huang Guilan has three other children, two boys and one girl. The second child has six little girls, and the third and fourth children are still in school. With such a long list of children in the family, Nie Bozhao was always worried that the biological mother would not be able to take good care of them and let the three children suffer.

Well, it has been nearly half a year since his wife passed away. Nie Bozhao was extremely anxious. He contacted some people and heard that there was a nanny willing to go to the border with him, so he took ten days off and came back to pick up his child.

"Mom, can I see the nanny tomorrow? I only have two days off, and I have to take the kids away the day after tomorrow," said Nie Bozhao.

Nie's mother, Huang Guilan, actually didn't want to find a nanny for her children at all. It was only because her son wrote to her repeatedly asking for one that she found Chen Lili.

Of course, she didn't have a good tone at this moment. "Mom has told me so many times that you should let me take care of your children and move all of us to the base. It would be so nice for the whole family to stay together happily. But you refused to listen and wanted to find a nanny. Well, I have found someone. Let's go meet her tomorrow."