Chapter 49 Sudden Changes in the Wind and Clouds

Caiyun used her farm-free time to teach Yulan how to spin cotton, do needlework, and read. She never expected that she, having never attended formal school and having only learned through literacy classes, could now become a teacher.

At first, Yulan tried learning to read from her older brother Yuqiang, but Yuqiang lacked patience and constantly complained that she was slow. In a fit of anger, Yulan quit studying with him.

After studying with her mother for just two days, Yulan could not only recognize the names of all four family members, but also the auspicious phrases "A Bumper Harvest of Five Grains" and "Flourishing Livestock," and she could write them as well.

"A Bumper Harvest of Five Grains" was the Spring Festival couplet pasted on the family's grain granary, while "Flourishing Livestock" was the couplet pasted on the pigsty. Yulan saw them every day while feeding the pigs; the pigs ate while she wrote, allowing her to work and study simultaneously without neglecting either.

Caiyun taught Yulan to read without any formal textbooks; she simply based her lessons on daily life, following the natural flow of things and building upon what was already there.

"Yulan, do you know what the six types of livestock in 'Flourishing Livestock' are?" Caiyun used this method to spark Yulan's interest in learning.

Yulan looked blank. "I don't know."

"The six livestock refer to pigs, cattle, sheep, horses, chickens, and dogs."

"Mom, I want to learn those six characters."

"The six livestock belong to the twelve zodiac animals. I'll teach you all twelve of them."

"What are the twelve zodiac animals?"

"They are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Once you've learned them, I'll teach you how to figure out everyone's zodiac sign in our family."

After returning from school, Yuqiang used firewood and scrap materials to practice using a saw, axe, and chisel. After practicing for a while, he became quite proficient with these common tools and even built a small wooden bench and a small square stool for the family.

Yuqiang loved catching fish the most and constantly pondered ways to make fishing tools. He gathered some bamboo, split them open, shaved them into thin bamboo strips, and crafted eel traps.

At dusk, Yuqiang slung more than twenty eel traps over his shoulder and went out with Yujun to set them.

With the climate warming up in spring, eels were mostly active in their overwintering grounds. Yuqiang placed the traps at an angle in ponds and ditches where water weeds were sprouting, keeping the tail ends above the water surface so the eels could breathe and avoid suffocating to death from lack of oxygen. Yujun was responsible for placing a few dead earthworms wrapped in gauze inside the traps as bait, and then plugging the tail end with grass to prevent the eels from escaping.

Early the next morning, the two boys went to collect the traps. Some traps were completely empty, while others contained several eels, netting three to four catties in a single night. After hoarding them for a few days, Caiyun would take them to the market to sell in exchange for some pocket money.

By noon, Yulan needed to cut pigweed. She knew the large pond had plenty of pigweed—not only shrimp grass, little goose grass, blackfish grass, but also water vines as well. However, the edges of the pond had already been completely harvested, leaving no choice but to go into the water to cut them. Yet the water there was quite deep, requiring her to take off her clothes first, so she went back to find Yuqiang.

"Brother, I can't reach the pigweed in the big pond. You should go instead."

"If you can't reach it, just take off your clothes and go in."

"Mom, look at my brother! Can I possibly take off my clothes and go in broad daylight?"

"Alright, your brother has to go to school soon. The two of us can carry your second uncle's big wooden tub and go cut it together."

"Right, Second Aunt isn't home. That's a great idea."

"Are you happy now?"

"Mm-hmm, let's hurry!"

The two of them carried the wooden tub to the large pond and climbed inside. Each sitting on one side, they used their hands to paddle forward through the water. Before long, they reached the middle of the pond. There was indeed an abundance of pigweed here, and they quickly cut a large amount until the tub was almost piled high.

On the way back, Yulan untied the bamboo pole fastened to her sickle and tapped rhythmically on the wooden tub with the blade from time to time, looking extremely happy.

Suddenly, a large carp leaped out of the water and landed right on top of the pile of pigweed in the wooden tub. Yulan immediately lunged forward to pin it down, but losing her footing, she tumbled headfirst into the water, flipping the wooden tub over in the process. Fortunately, Yulan had learned how to swim last year. With tremendous effort, the two of them managed to drag both the wooden tub and the pigweed up onto the pond embankment.

At that moment, the sky suddenly grew dark. Ink-black storm clouds surged from all directions, swallowing the entire sky in the blink of an eye. A fierce wind howled across the pond surface, whipping up layers of waves. Suddenly, a streak of lightning split the clouds, tearing a pale, jagged gash across the gloomy firmament.

Caiyun said to Yulan, "Hurry up, it's going to rain."

"Got it." The two of them hurriedly stuffed the pigweed into baskets, hoisted the wooden tub, and rushed back home.

That evening, the production team held a general members' meeting. Wang Hongbing announced, "The responsibility farmland promoted by the provincial authorities has been deemed by higher-ups as contracting production to households and engaging in individual farming, which constitutes a directional error. Even worse, some believe this is a restoration of capitalism. The provincial authorities have swiftly issued a resolution regarding the correction of the 'responsibility farmland' method. The resolution states that implementing 'responsibility farmland' is effectively contracting out to households, which is fundamentally wrong in direction and must be resolutely and thoroughly corrected."

Taking a sip of water, he continued, "At present, the overwhelming majority of production teams in the entire province have already completed their corrections, and the county will soon begin comprehensive corrections. Now that the summer harvest is finished, the team committee has decided that starting tomorrow, all households' responsibility farmland, as well as each group's draft oxen and large agricultural tools, will be entirely reclaimed, completely restoring conditions to the state they were in before the responsibility farmland."

As soon as Wang Hongbing finished speaking, someone stood up and asked, "Is there an official document for reclaiming the 'responsibility farmland'?"

Then, another person asked, "Is this a unified arrangement across the entire commune?"

"How many production teams in the entire brigade have changed?"
……
"Please quiet down, everyone."

Hearing people whispering, Wang Hongbing deliberately raised his voice. "The reason we must do this now is to strive for the initiative. It is both to protect the team leadership and to protect everyone sitting here. At the same time, you can all redirect your limited fertilizer and funds to your private plots, because private plots will remain unchanged. Please understand and cooperate."

The meeting place fell into a brief silence, after which people began to murmur among themselves. "He just came back from the city; he might have caught wind of something."

"What Hongbing said makes some sense."

"That's right. He's a Party member, he loves to study, and he has a thorough grasp of policies."
……
After the meeting adjourned, Wang Hongbing felt a great sense of relief; he had finally persuaded the members to take back the responsibility farmland.

The "responsibility farmland" had just begun to improve Caiyun's life, but now that it was reclaimed, she had to consider the concrete problems facing her in the near future, especially the labor shortage.

There were four people in Caiyun's family, but she was the only laborer. Her eldest son, Yuqiang, had just graduated from primary school and would start the first year of junior high at Tangling School in September. Her daughter, Yulan, was already thirteen years old, and she calculated that it was time to let her start working. Yuqiang—wait, Yujun was only six and couldn't do anything. After the reclamation of the "responsibility farmland," they would have to live on work-point dividends. Earning work points and tending well to their private plot became the most important matters in the household.

When Caiyun returned home, she told her daughter, "Yulan, the 'responsibility farmland' has been completely taken back. We're going back to collective labor and recording work points."

"Then what about the rice seedlings we planted?"

"They all belong to the production team now."

"What about the peanuts we planted in our private plot?"

"The private plot remains unchanged; it's still ours."

"Without the 'responsibility farmland,' what should I do?"

"How about you come along with us to work?"

"Alright! I wonder how many work points I can get in a day?"

"We won't know until work points are evaluated at the end of the year."

"How many work points do you get a day?"

"It used to be eight and a half points, and I estimate it will be the same at the end of the year."

"What is the maximum number of points?"

"The maximum is ten points a day, mainly for strong laborers."

"Are there any women who get ten points?"

"Yes, but very few. I think when you grow up, you should be able to earn ten points."

"Then I'll be able to wear new clothes!"

"When we sell the two pigs you raised at the end of the year, we'll make you some new clothes."

"That's wonderful! Next Chinese New Year, I can wear new clothes, and I won't have to worry about Brother Tao going to sell his blood!"

"Brother Tao? Which Brother Tao?"

"You know, Brother Tao."

"He's going to sell his blood? What for?"

"He said that if I still don't have new clothes to wear by next New Year, he'll go sell his blood to make me a new outfit."

"Did you agree to that?"

"No! I told him that if he sold his blood to make me clothes, I'd burn them and refuse to wear them."

"That's right. He's still so young and growing; he must never sell his blood." At this point, Caiyun recalled the time when she was around that exact age and her leg was bitten by a mad dog—how Dazhi had pressed his face against her leg to suck out the poison. She felt that the emotions of childhood were the purest, most precious, and most nostalgic of all. She thought that for Yulan to have a big boy like that care about her so deeply was also a kind of happiness.

"When did he tell you that?" Caiyun asked Yulan next.

"During the Little New Year, when he came to watch the performance and saw my brother and Yujun both wearing new clothes. He asked me why I wasn't wearing any, and I didn't know what to say, so I suddenly started crying. Then he comforted me and told me that."

"He was probably just joking with you."

"No! He was serious!"

"Children aren't allowed to sell blood, and even if he wanted to, the hospital wouldn't dare accept it."

"Then I can rest easy!"