Chapter 4: Of Noble Roots and Upright Character

Li Lanyong, as the son of the Party secretary, worked as a livestock keeper in the team, living quite comfortably. Yet he did not wish to remain in the brigade forever; he longed to join the army like his elder brother. Unfortunately, the recruitment quota had never been allotted to their brigade in the two recent rounds.

"Yimin, you're a teacher now, but you still wear those patched liberation shoes. Don't you ever think of replacing them?" Li Lanyong said with a laugh, sipping his soda.

"You know as well as anyone—no one else needs to explain it—the brigade hasn’t paid full wages for a whole year. Now even the junior high class is on the verge of closing. Besides, Comrade Li Lanyong, we must maintain a lifestyle of hardship and simplicity."

Li Lanyong gulped his soda, his Adam’s apple rolling intensely, and then let out a contented, low hum from his throat.

"My father feels truly sorry about this. I raised objections when they talked about dissolving the junior high class, but there’s nothing to be done—the root of the matter is simply that our brigade is too poor. Who knows when life here will finally improve?"

The Maiji Brigade originally had only a primary school class, but later a trend swept through the brigades to set up junior high classes. To solve Liu Yimin’s employment problem, and to keep pace with other brigades, Maiji Brigade, at the suggestion of his father Liu Fuqing, also established a junior high class. However, the funding came from the brigade, not the commune, so he was essentially a temporary teacher.

The monthly salary for a junior high teacher was only eight yuan. Additionally, the team credited him with three thousand work points per year, roughly equivalent to a strong laborer. Truth be told, eight yuan wasn’t enough for a life of abundance, but it was just barely sufficient—not so little as to leave him destitute.

But in reality, the brigade only paid him half each month, always promising the remainder would be given at New Year’s, which was just an excuse—they simply had no money left.

Establishing the junior high class had been a passing trend, and abolishing it was equally fleeting. His father Liu Fuqing had already told him about it before the wheat vacation started, feeling genuinely remorseful.

His mother, Yang Xiuyun, had a fierce quarrel with his father over the matter, but since it was the brigade’s decision, arguing was futile.

Liu Yimin himself felt little emotion upon hearing the news. The job as a junior high teacher was already of little use to him.

"No need to apologize. Do I look like someone bothered by it?" Liu Yimin patted his friend's shoulder.

"True enough. I believe you’ll get into college this time. When you go to college, and I join the army, we two brothers can both serve the country." Li Lanyong threw his arm around Liu Yimin’s shoulder, looking smugly toward the setting sun.

After a while, he pulled Liu Yimin to sit beneath the drying yard. Today he was in charge of watching the wheat laid out to dry—a task that was usually Liu Yimin’s, but since he’d taken leave, Li Lanyong filled in for him.

As a teacher in the brigade, Liu Yimin also had to join the labor during busy farming seasons. Especially during the wheat harvest in the north, there was a special "wheat vacation." Every year at this time, to coordinate with the brigade’s production tasks, schools gave ten days off, and students returned to their own teams to help with the harvest.

"Yimin, guess who I saw at the county supply and marketing cooperative the other day?" Li Lanyong took off his straw hat and sat in the shade.

Liu Yimin lay on the wheat straw, a foxtail grass between his teeth, his toes swinging lazily toward the sky.

"Who?" Liu Yimin shifted position, languid as ever.

"Zhang Meijia—the girl you liked. She’s a sales clerk at the cooperative now. When I went shopping, she acted so haughty, as if she wanted to look down her nose at me. And to think we were junior high classmates! Damn, she really looks down on people!"

Liu Yimin didn’t even lift his eyelids, his heart unmoved. Zhang Meijia had been a junior high classmate to both Liu Yimin and Li Lanyong, but Li Lanyong hadn’t gone to high school—he disliked studying and quit after junior high.

Back then, they attended junior high at the commune’s school. Zhang Meijia was the prettiest girl in the class. Liu Yimin’s connection with her was always one-sided. After graduation, those with connections were assigned jobs in units, factories, or joined the army. He had connections too, but only in the village...

"Yimin, if you get into college, you might still have a chance with her. But as things stand, you’d better forget about Zhang Meijia!"

"Don’t talk nonsense. I never even thought of it."

"Oh, come on. I know you too well. Even when you were in high school, I had my sources—people said you were always helping her, even fought for her, right? Honestly, I wish you two would get together. That way you could teach her a lesson for me. Just a sales clerk, but anyone would think she was the director of the county revolutionary committee. Her nose so high, she’s lucky no one hooks her up with an iron rod!"

"Give it a rest, I really have no such intentions!" Liu Yimin sat up and gave Li Lanyong a firm slap on the shoulder, signaling him to stop.

"Still won’t admit it?"

"In the future, we’ll be living in different worlds. Don’t try to force it. The world’s a big place—Zhang Meijia means nothing to me."

"Not the same world indeed. Sales clerk—such a prestigious job. I wonder how many connections her family pulled."

After grumbling, Li Lanyong’s expression grew somber. He picked up a straight, long stick and struck at the leaves overhead. Wherever the stick reached, leaves fluttered down.

"Sigh, who knows if I’ll be able to join the army this year?"

"You definitely will!"

"Really, Yimin? You think so too?"

"Of course. If the village gets a recruitment quota, it’ll be yours. Your father is an old Party member; before liberation he was a militia member, fought in the bandit suppression campaigns. They say he even took a bullet in the backside—is that true? I asked my father, but he wouldn’t say!"

Li Lanyong shot him a look, ignoring the question about his father’s wound, and replied, "Your father’s an old Party member too. He supported the front lines, fought bandits. Your uncle even sacrificed his life on the battlefield—he’s a famous martyr around here."

"But my father isn’t the Party secretary!" Liu Yimin said with a grin.

Li Lanyong’s father, Li Dashan, had joined the bandit suppression campaign in western Henan with Liu Yimin’s father, Liu Fuqing, back in 1949, following the troops into the vast Funiu Mountains for weeks. The village elders say Li Dashan’s bullet wound happened when he was injured and Liu Fuqing carried him back, only for the bandits to shoot him.

If you wanted to talk about revolutionary families in Maiji Brigade, theirs were the most prominent.

"If you want to join the army, I won’t compete with you for a quota," Li Lanyong said firmly.

"Such consciousness, comrade!"

"We’re brothers, after all!"

Their bond had always been strong—they’d been inseparable since childhood, climbing trees, chasing chickens, getting into all sorts of trouble together, even fighting at school as a pair.

It was usually Li Lanyong who got scolded, always the scapegoat between the two.