In early August, Cuihua excitedly brought the letter to the Tao family, saying, "He passed the exam! Fifth Brother has been admitted to the Medical School of Capital University!"
At the same time, the Tao family was looking at the admission notice that Tao Qing had brought back, which was none other than the relatively good Hebei Normal University in their province.
To be honest, Tao Qing, the third brother, is quite suitable to be a teacher. He is unambitious and his grades are not the best, but they are not bad either. He needs a professional with a high degree of stability to guide him.
Tao Qing was admitted to the history department, and his whole family was happy for him.
The Tao family did not see Cui Mei's admission notice because she had already received it herself and was writing home to share the good news.
“Cuimei found a job as a caregiver at the hospital. It includes food and lodging and she can earn some money. She said she won’t be coming back for the summer vacation. She will go directly to the capital to report for duty. She will write home after she settles down.”
The letter also included fifty yuan in cash, which Cui Mei and Cui Xiang, who worked in the kitchen, had saved up over the past two months. They gave it all to their eldest sister so she could use the money to buy some food and supplement the family's nutrition.
Logically, such a joyous occasion should have been celebrated in a grand way, but many people in the village starved to death this year, so everyone kept a low profile and didn't mention this enviable event. Even their own family members only dared to celebrate secretly.
However, the good news didn't stop there. A few days later, the postman delivered another letter to Cuihua's family.
The letter was written by Lao Liu Cuixiang. When everyone thought she would take the college entrance examination next year, she actually took the exam this year.
When the last letter arrived, she thought she hadn't passed the exam, but unexpectedly she received an admission notice for the Civil Engineering program at Hebei University.
Xiao Jiu knows why she's taking the exam this year: graduating earlier means getting a job sooner, which is better than being in a chaotic situation.
That's why Sixth Sister was so anxious to take the college entrance exam with Fifth Sister. Fortunately, hard work pays off. Although the school they went to was not as good as Cui Mei's, who had been preparing for a long time, it was still a pretty good university in the province.
The eldest sister and her family were overjoyed, tears streaming down their faces. "Great! This is wonderful! Our branch of the family finally has something to look forward to!"
The fifth and sixth children were the only two among their siblings who were able to go to school.
Although they didn't understand why a girl would choose civil engineering, Xiao Jiu thought it was a very smart choice.
Taking the exam in this era is especially safe and secure.
In August, several heavy rains failed to alleviate the drought, as the weather was simply too hot.
In these few rains, the land is like a thirsty person, gulping down the rainwater. The rainwater falls on the cracked ground and is absorbed within an hour or two. The rain comes and goes quickly, and even the torrential rain has not alleviated the drought on the land.
The villagers no longer wanted to go out, because they were so hungry that they didn't even have the strength to walk or talk.
Xiao Jiu saw more and more children suffering from ascites, and the elderly struggling on the verge of death. Some even went to the county town to beg during the day and staggered home at night.
While ensuring her own safety, she took out the food from her spatial storage and delivered it to each household in small, unmarked plastic bags.
If there are few people, give three jin; if there are many people, give five jin.
She did this secretly, without telling her family. Naturally, the Zhou and Tao families also received five catties of grain.
She knew that the grain couldn't save the entire village, but it could at least provide some relief.
This season's harvest failed, but maybe next season's crops can be planted!
Perhaps God heard the cries of the local people. After autumn arrived, the rain actually increased compared to the hot summer days. And with each rain, the weather felt cooler. When the drought on the land was finally relieved enough to allow planting, the people seemed to see hope and rushed into the rain to thank God for His blessing. Everyone present who saw that scene was moved to tears.
Taking advantage of the soil's natural moisture (the humidity of the soil suitable for seed germination and crop growth), the commune tried its best to gather all kinds of short-cycle grains for the surrounding people, such as potatoes, green vegetables, cabbage, radishes, spinach, and scallions. Winter wheat would not be planted until around mid-October each year, which meant that before that, even if they waited for it to mature, they would only have vegetables.
Even vegetables need a constant temperature; if the weather fluctuates between hot and cold, a reduction in yield is inevitable.
Even during the famine, the people still managed to grow vegetables at home because the rivers had dried up, but they could still scrape water out of the wells.
But what if you can't wait for vegetables to grow after planting them?
Some people eat the vegetables before they grow up, and if the seeds are not dried in time, the food supply will be cut off immediately. You don't have money to buy more vegetables, which is the root cause of why most families can't even afford vegetables.
In addition to potatoes and sweet potatoes, the Tao family and Cuihua's family also planted seasonal vegetables such as radishes, cabbages, and garlic in their vegetable gardens.
Because both families had wells, when they were living their own lives behind closed doors, neither of them would pick unripe vegetables if they had enough to eat. Sweet potatoes were planted in the spring, and they could eat sweet potato leaves all summer long, without even needing to plant any green vegetables.
Not only were all the pumpkins, winter melons, and various beans that were growing outside stolen, but even the vines were pulled up and eaten. These were the first to suffer. Then came the tree bark and leaves in the village. When everything edible was eaten, people were so hungry that they even dug out and ate the newspapers used to paste the walls of their homes, because the paste used to paste the newspapers was made with wheat flour.
In terms of timing, it's already September, and many grain crops, even if planted, cannot be harvested once the weather gets cold.
So the only thing that can be planted is some vegetables before it snows; even if potatoes are planted, the harvest depends on the weather.
As for winter wheat seeds, the common people certainly don't have them; the commune has to find a way to get them.
After waiting for what felt like forever, just three to five days later, the first batch of seeds finally arrived, and the people's commune finally had something to do.
But when the work bell rang again, very few people had the strength to move out and work. Even the team leader didn't have the strength to stand and talk, so he leaned against a tree stump and asked the members who had come to call the members who hadn't come.
"What are they still shouting for? Don't they know that you only get work points by working? But you have to be able to get out of bed first. There are plenty of people these days who don't even have the strength to walk."
She didn't give grain to everyone; at least not to the other three branches of the Zhou family.
She didn't give any to the village team leaders or the accountant either.
She didn't give money to anyone who didn't get along with their family or who had a bad character.
Those who received the grain tacitly kept quiet, and no one told anyone.
The situation was the same in Xihe Village and other villages as well. In the end, the commune had no choice but to find a way to allocate grain to the people.
First, we need to open the canteen so that everyone has the energy to work. Otherwise, once the soil moisture evaporates, the seeds won't sprout, and this winter will inevitably be even more difficult.
In early September, they received letters from their older siblings. The letters arrived one after another, all saying that they had safely returned to school and not to worry.
Cui Mei has arrived in the capital and will begin military training on August 25. The household registration, grain ration and other documents she submitted when she reported for duty were all handled by Cui Hua in the village and then personally delivered to the city by Cui Ju. Cui Xiang's documents were also sent with her.
Cui Xiang's letter arrived two days earlier than Cui Mei's, since they were in the same province and the mail delivery was faster.
That year, Cui Mei was fifteen years old and Cui Xiang was fourteen. In order to miss that time, the two sisters were really going all out.
The reason why Cuixiang did not follow the old path of her previous life was because her wrist was injured when she was abused, and she could no longer flip the wok.
Cui Mei, having studied medicine for a longer period, might utilize her knowledge from her previous life to continuously advance her skills, shorten her study period, and enter the hospital earlier.
When the various production teams started working, the city also experienced a shortage of food, leading to several incidents of people breaking into homes to steal food, injuring, and even killing.
The winery, which had been shut down for too long, had to implement a shift system because the workers were struggling to make ends meet. It is said that the few orders they received were actually assigned to them by their superiors. It's not easy for them!
Tao Changyi, a skilled worker, went back to work at the factory first, while Cuilian and Zhao Lingli were still waiting for news.
In any case, the rains that fell in autumn did save many lives.
Fortunately, the weather is gradually returning to normal with the changing seasons. At least the rain that has been held back for a year will start to leak out from time to time, depending on the condition of the ground.
Where there are many elderly people, there is a lot of gossip. Based on the information provided by the grandparents, the small gathering will occasionally help families in need.
That day, Sister Cuihua went to Donghua Town to sell sweet potato leaves and returned with a piece of news that she found complicated.
The wicked old lady of the Tang family had actually starved to death more than a month ago, before it even rained.
He smelled terrible when he was discovered.
How could she smell bad!
Because the eldest son's family, who should have lived with her, had a wall built across the courtyard, dividing one home into two.
This is the ancestral home, the largest one. The old lady was biased and gave it to the eldest son, thinking that following the eldest son would bring her good fortune. But what happened?
He got up in the middle of the night to find something to eat, but he slipped on her phlegm and hurt his back. He called for help all night, but the neighbor ignored him.
In such hot weather, how can someone survive being exposed to the scorching sun all day?
At first, she was still cursing energetically, but later she fell asleep in a daze. When it got light, the neighbors had all gone to the city to beg for food, so they wouldn't notice her. She was usually mean and sarcastic, so the neighbors pretended not to hear her. She didn't eat or drink anything all day in the sun. When night came, she knew there was noise from next door, but she couldn't move and her mouth was too dry to call out.
Rather than saying she starved or died of thirst, it would be more accurate to say she died as retribution for the sins she committed in her life.
"I heard that when they were handling the matter, the uncles and elders beat up the eldest son's wicked bunch, and the villagers also despised them, hurling nasty insults at them, forcing a few of them to dig up the old lady's grave and carry her body..."
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