Chapter 19

By the time she arrived, Lin Yun’s emotions had already stabilized a lot. She didn’t say much, only shouted a few times at a little boy: “Er Gouzi, what are you selling? Why don’t you come over here?”

The little boy heard someone calling him and walked up from the field embankment: “Aunt Zhao, I’m selling ice lollies. Do you want some? Seven cents each.”

“You’re a kid, the ice lollies on the street only sell for six cents. Why are you selling them for seven? Besides, we’re from the same village; you shouldn’t do something that takes advantage of your own people.”

“Aunt, theirs are just on the street, but I’ve walked all the way here. And they don’t come over here to sell. Do you want some? If not, I’ll head up.” He pointed toward the field above.

“I’ll buy three, a total of fifteen cents. How about that? No credit, I’ll pay now.”

The boy hesitated for a moment but agreed: “Alright, you’re my dear aunt, I’ll give it to you at this price. Don’t tell others.”

“Don’t worry, do you think I’d go against you?” She took fifteen cents out of her pocket and handed it to the boy.

“Give me two here, and save one for your brother Gangzi.”

“Aunt, don’t worry. I’ll give it to him when I see him later.” He took two ice lollies from his foam box and handed them to Zhao Lanxiu.

Zhao Lanxiu took the ice lollies and turned to give one to Lin Yun and Lin Yumei. “Eat up, after this, we still have work to do.” She said this and then turned back to continue working without saying anything else.

Lin Yumei, holding the ice lolly, looked very happy. “It’s the first time Mom’s ever bought us ice lollies. Gangzi and I are really lucky because of you.”

“Eat quickly, or they’ll melt,” she said.

Seeing Lin Yumei’s smiling face as they ate ice lollies made of saccharin and water, Lin Yun felt like she could still push through for a while.

By the time they finished planting the rice and returned home, it was already pitch black. Lin Yun collapsed into a chair and didn’t even want to move her fingers. She even realized it wasn’t just her fingers—she didn’t want to think at all. It felt like her body was still standing, but her body and mind were already asleep.

Staying up late? What’s that? Doesn’t exist. A centipede? Never heard of it. Earning money? Is it more important than sleep?

After all, she had to wake up around three in the morning again.

The next day, when Lin Yun and Lin Yumei went out, they didn’t see Lin Yonggang, but right now, she just wanted to get through this busy period and didn’t have the energy to think about anything else.

Lin Yonggang returned after finishing farm work in the morning. The four of them went home to eat, and that’s when he came back.

He called Lin Yun aside: “Sis, look what I got for you. I specially bought it for you.” He took out a pair of rain boots from behind him. If you looked at it with modern eyes, these boots were definitely ugly, but looking at the young man who was sunburned and dark-skinned, yet smiling brightly, Lin Yun nodded heavily: “I really like them!”

She didn’t ask how much the boots cost or how Lin Yonggang had managed to buy them at a time when everything needed tickets. But this gesture of affection was something she kept in her heart.

Lin Yun took the rain boots inside, and the other three in the family saw them, but nobody said anything. In the afternoon, Lin Yun wore those boots and continued working.

After the five of them worked hard, they finally finished planting all the late rice seedlings on August 4th.

But there were still many things ahead of them: drying the rice. Summer often brought heavy rains, and Lin Yun actually experienced a bit of what it’s like to fight against the weather. It was mainly guessing whether it would rain. If it did, everyone would need to quickly collect the rice from the drying ground. If it rained on the rice, that would be a huge loss.

By the time the rice was almost dried, Lin Yun could honestly say she felt like she had shed a layer of skin. Her skin was so dark she felt like she was glowing. No wonder so many people wanted a city residency, to eat urban food. Hard labor really wasn’t meant for people. After this experience, Lin Yun felt that the work she used to do was nothing compared to this.

For a long time, Lin Yun couldn’t recover. Even though the busy period of double harvesting was over, she still had to keep an eye on the sun-dried rice, raking it with a hand rake to ensure the rice was completely dry and even.

Lin Yun knew that the rice they were drying first was the one they would need to submit as public grain, so it had to be handled properly. If the grain station wasn’t satisfied, they’d have to do it over again. But it was the busy season, and there was no time to waste.

She understood that public grain was now calculated by the area of land, and in their area, each acre had to contribute about 150 pounds of grain. It had to be the best quality—no weeds, no small stones, and it had to be dry and plump. Otherwise, the grain station would reject it. Public grain was even divided into grades. If they submitted poor quality grain, once there were no better grains left, they would have to pay more in public grain.

Lin Yun knew their family had about four or five acres of land, so they would have to submit nearly 750 pounds of rice. But not all the land was used for rice. Based on the amount of rice harvested from this double harvest, they had a total of about 1,200 pounds, leaving just over 400 pounds after submission.

Even though there was still late rice, public grain had to be submitted three times a year. Even if they could keep 400 pounds each time, Lin Yun knew that a person would consume about 400 pounds of rice in a year. There were five people in their family, and without any extra income, they’d have to sell some rice to make money. No wonder most of the time they had sweet potatoes mixed with rice—there simply wasn’t enough to eat.

Thinking that their situation had improved quite a bit, Lin Yun went to find Zhao Lanxiu.

They didn’t communicate much normally. Even though they lived under the same roof, Lin Yun realized that nowadays, children and parents barely talked. Many parents felt like their children were their property.

“Mom, we should have some money now, right? Can we keep the rice this year instead of selling it? I really don’t want to eat sweet potato rice anymore. I can’t even look at it without wanting to throw up.”

“You’ve got it good now. When we were struggling, we ate tree bark. You’re just spoiled, picky about everything.”

“So why don’t you eat tree bark anymore? You still eat sweet potatoes and rice. You want to live a better life, don’t you? Since we all want a better life, my idea isn’t a problem.”

“Besides, we’ve got money now. Why keep living this hard life? What’s the point of earning money if we’re still living the same? Just maintain the status quo.”