1962
By the end of April, the days had already begun to grow longer, but the chill of northern spring still lingered stubbornly. Only the occasional patch of fresh green showing through the roadside grass hinted that spring had truly arrived.
In a small partitioned room on the second floor of the railway guesthouse, a heated brick bed just large enough for two people had only just been lit.
Tian Cuifen found her coat too warm, so she took it off and hung it on the rack by the door. Then she picked up the thermos with its woven bamboo casing from beside the green skirting board and poured a cup of hot water for each of the siblings sitting opposite her.
“It’s been more than five years since we last saw each other, hasn’t it? When we left, Wanhui was only this tall.”
She held a hand in front of her chest to demonstrate.
“Who would’ve thought he’d grow so much in the blink of an eye? I almost didn’t recognise him at the station just now. It’s a shame the kang at home collapsed. We’ve been rebuilding it these past couple of days, and there isn’t even a place to put your feet, so you’ll have to make do here at the guesthouse.”
That was what she said aloud, but inwardly, she wished more than anything that they would not stay at her house.
Better yet, she wished they had never come at all.
Back during the Land Reform, her husband, Old Li, had once worked as a bookkeeper at a shop counter, making the family’s class background rather sensitive. To avoid being implicated by his former employer, they had been forced to sacrifice their only son and arrange a childhood engagement for him with the daughter of Xia Laosan, the local militia company commander.
Xia Laosan was capable and upright. More importantly, his political background was impeccable.
Thanks to that connection, the Li family had passed through that dangerous period without incident.
And there was certainly nothing to criticise about the Xia girl’s appearance.
Xia Laosan’s wife had always been known as a village beauty. Xia Shao took after her mother. Even after spending an entire summer in the sun, her skin was still so fair and tender it seemed as though water could be pinched from it.
At the station just now, everyone had been dressed in blue or green with their hair in braids, yet Xia Shao had still stood out at first glance.
But no matter how pretty she was, she was no longer good enough for their Baosheng.
The Northeast was vast and sparsely populated, and after the founding of the People’s Republic, there had always been a shortage of workers there.
Old Li had connections. In 1957, he brought the entire family to the Northeast. He was now the accountant at a vegetable and non-staple food shop, while Baosheng had been recruited as a worker at a machinery factory.
The Xia family, meanwhile, was still scraping a living from the soil in the countryside south of the Great Wall.
If Baosheng could marry a city girl, who would willingly take a country bumpkin for a wife?
The problem was that Xia Laosan had once helped their family.
They could not be the ones to break off the engagement, or people would accuse them of being ungrateful and dishonourable.
So all they could do was drag things out.
Four years ago, when Xia Shao turned eighteen, they had not mentioned marriage at all. They had not even sent a single letter back home.
They had assumed the Xia family would understand the situation, realise their daughter was no longer a suitable match, and find her another husband themselves.
Who would have thought that, after seeing the Li family doing well, they would shamelessly cling to them instead and even send their daughter all the way here?
Three days ago, when the letter from back home arrived, Tian Cuifen and Old Li had lain awake for half the night.
Even now, she was still so angry her liver hurt.
If she had known things would turn out like this, they should never have written home after settling down to tell everyone they were safe.
Fortunately, Xia Laosan had died during the Three-Year Famine, and his wife was the sort who could not take charge of anything. The Xia family had only sent a half-grown boy along to escort the bride.
He would be easy enough to fool.
Tian Cuifen had said there was no room at home, and the two of them had actually believed her and followed her to the guesthouse.
She deliberately sighed.
“Your Uncle Li received the letter, so we know why you’ve come this time. It’s not that we’ve been deliberately putting things off. The truth is, your Brother Baosheng enlisted in the army. In order to qualify, he even changed his registered age to three years younger. His unit has rules saying soldiers can’t get married until they’re twenty-five.”
Li Baosheng was two years older than Xia Shao and was twenty-four this year.
But after reducing his registered age by three years, they would have to wait at least another four years.
Xia Shao had already waited four years.
If she waited another four, she would be twenty-six or twenty-seven—an old maid by rural standards.
Xia Wanhui immediately frowned.
Seeing that, Tian Cuifen made her tone even more apologetic.
“I know Xia Shao isn’t young anymore. If this drags on any longer, people will start gossiping. But your Brother Baosheng insisted on going. Your Uncle Li and I couldn’t stop him.”
“If it really won’t work, then if you find someone suitable, you can arrange another marriage for Xia Shao. We’re the ones who failed to think things through properly, so our family certainly won’t object.”
People in the countryside married young.
For a woman, twenty-two was already considered rather old, let alone twenty-six or twenty-seven.
Even if the Xia family could endure the gossip, Tian Cuifen would have other ways of dealing with the situation in another three or four years.
Xia Shao surely could not wait until she was thirty or forty.
Sure enough, this time Xia Wanhui did more than frown.
His entire expression changed.
“Why didn’t you say so earlier? My father wrote two years ago asking about the marriage, and you didn’t even reply…”
Xia Wanhui shot to his feet.
He was about to say more when Xia Shao tugged lightly on his arm.
She had barely spoken since they arrived, keeping her eyes lowered the whole time, as though intimidated by being in a completely unfamiliar place.
When Xia Wanhui looked at her, she even shook her head.
He stared at her for a long moment before sitting back down in a huff.
Tian Cuifen knew it.
Xia Shao was exactly like her mother—timid and afraid of trouble.
Back then, her daughter Laidi had bullied the girl plenty, ordering her around and making her do this and that.
When had Xia Shao ever resisted?
She had never even dared let out a fart in protest.
As long as Tian Cuifen could send these siblings back where they came from, that was enough.
In fact, Xia Shao being like this made things easier.
Pretending she had not heard Xia Wanhui’s complaint, Tian Cuifen took a food bowl covered with a plate from her cloth bag.
“These buns were made this afternoon. You two get some rest early. Tomorrow I’ll buy your tickets and send you back home.”
As soon as she left, Xia Wanhui sprang back to his feet and began pacing anxiously around the room.
There was an old saying: a man lowered his head to take a wife, while a woman held hers high when marrying off a daughter.
If the family had not truly run out of options, they would never have taken the initiative to send Xia Shao here.
Xia Laosan had been a capable man all his life.
When others earned ten work points, he could earn twelve.
But no matter how capable he was, he could not withstand three years of famine, when each person was allocated only twelve jin of grain a month.
For the first two years, there had been almost nothing to eat.
Sweet potato peels, elm bark, wheat bran, corn cobs…
Everything that could possibly be ground was thrown onto the millstone and mixed into what little grain they had.
Xia Laosan had a big appetite.
One day, he ate too much ground corn cob at once. He became unable to pass stool and died.
Once their father was gone, the family had only their eldest brother left as a fully grown labourer.
Life became much harder for the younger siblings.
Xia Wanhui was still better off because their mother secretly slipped him a little extra food.
But Xia Shao was a girl.
If she drank even one extra mouthful of gruel, their eldest brother would rap her with his chopsticks.
After being starved for so long, she finally reached her limit.
During the spring planting season, she secretly ate some of the corn the production team had set aside as seed.
But to stop birds from digging the seeds out of the soil and eating them, all of that corn had been soaked in pesticide.
By the time Xia Wanhui heard the commotion and ran over, Xia Shao was already unconscious, white foam spilling from her mouth.
The barefoot doctor in the production team forced five or six bowls of mung bean water down her throat before barely managing to save her.
The corn kernels she vomited back up were still completely whole.
Corn kernels were so hard.
If she had not been driven half-mad by hunger, who would swallow them whole?
That time, Mother Xia had truly been terrified.
And since she could not control her eldest son, all she could do was send her daughter away to escape the situation and marry into a family in the Northeast.
But after travelling such a long distance, they discovered that Li Baosheng had actually gone off to join the army.
Where was Xia Wanhui supposed to find another husband for his sister on such short notice?
Besides, if she could not even wait a few years for a man serving in the army, it would not sound good when people heard about it either!
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