A century of poverty

Chapter 94 Settling Down Again

In the spring of the same year, Zhang Guozhi told everyone he met that they were going to fill a big pit and build a house.

I thought to myself, "Great! They have such courage." But when it was time to get the truck in, they didn't make a move for a long time.

Construction began after the Qingming Festival. However, it wasn't a large pit; the entire house is located in the southwest of the courtyard. It measures twelve meters east to west and eight meters north to south, with the front wall of the house overlapping the front wall of the courtyard.

This angered her parents-in-law. Her father-in-law said, "This house belongs to her, yet she still built it. Who did she consult with? She just cut into the yard and built three rooms..."

Mother-in-law: "What's there to discuss! They're so arrogant! They think they can just marry a disabled man like you and then they're in the right? If they want a pig's head, they'll have to offer up the pig's tail too..."

They were probably just talking behind people's backs, while the construction team continued laying steel bars and building foundation beams.

One day, after returning from selling fish, I said to Zhiqiang, "I saw a job posting on the market wall for a tailoring course, right after the '200' sign. The tuition is 40 yuan. The course lasts a month and is guaranteed to teach you until you learn. There are two classes a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I want to learn the morning class so I can sell fish in the afternoon."

Zhiqiang replied without hesitation, "Sure, let's go!"

The next day, I went to register for the cutting class. The instructor was a retired worker from a garment factory in Dalian.

On the third day of the course, quite a few people arrived one after another, both men and women. The room, which could hold more than twenty people, was completely full. My tablemate was an older woman who worked in a public institution. She had nothing to do at work and came to learn tailoring out of personal interest.

I ride my bicycle to study every day.

This year there has been an unusually heavy rainfall; for more than twenty consecutive days, it hasn't been sunny, and it's still drizzling.

The Liao River is swollen, and the high tide at its estuary is not receding, posing a constant risk of dam collapse. The municipal government and the city's military and civilians are working day and night on the dam.

In this critical moment, the government mobilized women, children, the elderly, and those with relatives in other places to evacuate the city and seek refuge with their relatives.

Through thick and thin, a month of learning tailoring has come to an end.

To protect the oil field, floodwaters were released from the north bank. The floodwaters overflowed the fishponds of all sizes in the drainage area. The fishermen made sure every trip was fruitless, and the two of us went to sell the fish when we returned. The fish sold exceptionally quickly, and the men, no longer constrained, indulged in a feast.

Finally, the stalemate of floodwaters subsided, and under the leadership of the newly established municipal party committee and government, Jinhai City achieved victory in the fight against the flood. People's lives and production returned to normal.

After the highway opened to traffic, I rushed home to visit.

Entering the room, I felt it was deserted; I couldn't see Grandma sitting on the kang (a heated brick bed) leaning against the quilt.

I asked my dad, "Where's my grandma?"

Tears welled in Dad's eyes: "Your grandma is gone."

"How did you die? What illness did you have?"

Dad: "On those two nights when it rained heavily, her old headache flared up. The pain was so bad that she passed away before dawn."

Tears streamed down my face. "Why didn't anyone tell me!"

My heart is heavy. Grandma has suffered so much these past years since Mom passed away. How could we ever be as good to her as Mom was? Dad raised us all, always worried about being looked down upon, building houses and furnishing them; he even delayed arranging my second brother's wedding for several years at a time. I hadn't even had a chance to properly care for Grandma after I got married, and now she's gone? I regret not visiting her more often and buying her nice things.

"Is my grandma in her eighties?"

Father: "At eighty-six, we didn't tell anyone. Flood control was in full swing, and nothing was convenient. We only told the brigade secretary, Gao Guozhu, and with his approval, we found your fourth sister and brother-in-law at daybreak, along with a few of us grandfathers. We used her wooden cabinet, covered it with a rain cover, loaded it onto the truck, and took it out for burial."

"Where is it buried?"

Dad: "Near the small red house on the south side of the county road, on the north or south side of the road, not far from your mother's place."

"My grandmother had such a hard life! She always said that after she passed away, this cabinet would be used, and it really came true. I want to go to her grave to see it."

Father: "I'll take you there."

I bought some yellow paper from Secretary Liu's shop on the bridge and went to my grandmother's grave to cry.

I got up and headed onto the county road to go home. As I walked north across the road, I looked east to see if there were any cars. I saw a family of three, two adults and a child, walking this way. I said, "Those two people with the child look like my third sister's family of three."

Father looked at him intently: "I'm not sure."

My father and I crossed to the north side of the road, and the group of people drew closer: "Third Sister! Xiaolin!"

"Yes—!" they replied, quickening their pace. When they reached me, I saw that my third sister was wearing an old pink and red striped top, her face was pale, and the child was wearing an old floral jacket.

He asked, "What's wrong with you?"

Third Sister: "Don't say anymore, let's talk about it when we get home. I've been through so much disaster."

When I got home, I couldn't see Grandma on the kang (a heated brick bed), so Dad told me again about how Grandma had passed away.

I said we just came back from Grandma's grave.

Third Sister sat on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), her legs dangling, her head down.

My third brother-in-law stood leaning against the box, his elbows resting on the lid, looking out silently.

Six-year-old Linlin stood by the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed): "Our house was flooded, we have no home, we can't go back."

I asked, "Were you flooded?"

Third Sister wiped her eyes: "Thinking about it now, I still feel scared! The dike in our area was the first to open, and the water came down without warning. People were so scared that they hid on the roof of the house. We watched as the pigsty in the street was flooded, the pigs and chickens were washed away, and piles of firewood floated away."

The child was crying, the wife was yelling, and chaos ensued.

My third sister's house was located outside the national dike but inside the civilian dike. Fearing flooding, every house was built high up, more than a house taller than the street level. Pigsties were located at the base of the houses, while firewood stacks were in the street.

Carrying water or firewood back home required climbing uphill step by step, which was very strenuous.

Looking down from inside the house onto the street, it looks like the bottom of a ditch.

The vast tracts of fertile land outside the dikes were not part of the national territory and were not subject to grain requisition. Large areas of riverbanks were covered with lush vegetation for livestock grazing, so this generation of farmers was once very wealthy.

Father asked, "How are the crops?"

Third Sister: "The corn is just right to be boiled. We boiled all the corn around Fanggang that wasn't flooded during those days. There's no sorghum yet in the fields, and the corn has all gone bad. People go down to check the fields. If the pigs haven't been lost, they bring them back to feed the pigs. If there aren't any pigs, then they can't keep them."

Father: "So there's no harvest this year?"

Third Sister: "What else is there? After the water went down, the brigade said that the land outside the dam could not be cultivated anymore, and even if it was allowed, it couldn't be cultivated. The land that was flooded is not the same anymore."

Even if we allocated some land to the smaller teams inside, they wouldn't agree.

Third brother-in-law: "If the people inside aren't willing, what are they willing to do? Who would be willing?"

The third sister continued, "They said at the meeting that those with relatives should go to live with them, and those with friends should rely on them. They're allowed to move, anywhere is fine, the brigade will support them. Those who have somewhere to go are fine, but those who have nowhere to go will just have to wait and suffer poverty."

At this time, the autumn harvest was approaching, and the family was short-handed. Grandma had passed away, and Dad and Shuanglai were quite comfortable living in two and a half rooms. The arrival of Third Sister and her family of three was just in time to help the father and son with the harvest, assisted the family, and also helped prepare for their move.

As fate would have it, the family of Liu Shichun, the brigade accountant back then, were moving to Jinhai City after the autumn harvest, and his third sister took over the cultivation of the contracted land that they had relinquished. Da Liujia Village took them in, and Liuhe Farm registered their household registration. They could stay in two west wing rooms of the old seventh team in the Horse Factory compound.

They also used the disaster relief money to buy a donkey and tie it to a donkey cart.

At the same time, the third sister also introduced her younger brother to Jiang Xiaoyu, a girl from their area.

Su Zhiru and Zhang Guozhi, a couple from Qiaotou Village, had already built their house and moved in.

Su Zhiwei was given a family apartment by the railway and moved to the street. Three rooms in Daobei Jiayuanzi were left vacant.

Not long after, Su Zhiwei and his wife Hei Xingan arrived and went into the west room to tell the two elderly people, "Those three rooms have been sold. We'll write the paperwork today."

My father-in-law asked, "How much did you sell it for?"

Su Zhiwei: "Fifteen thousand."

The father-in-law didn't say anything; the couple simply told him and left.

About two hours later, Su Zhiwei threw a bulging cloth bag into his mother's arms: "Fourteen thousand five." The old lady hurriedly picked it up and tucked it under the mattress.

The next morning, Su Zhiwei came to pick it up, and his mother handed the cloth bag to her eldest son untouched.

A few days later, Zhang Guozhi was spreading the word everywhere: "Selling houses, purlin-style apartments, 18,000."

It was quickly sold for 17,500 yuan, and they moved back to their original east-facing room.