Chapter 78: Wei Dai Reading

By the end of March, spring had arrived, and wild vegetables started sprouting. The people from the pharmaceutical factory eagerly picked up the first tender vegetables shortly after they emerged. People from several nearby factories also joined in, turning the suburban hillside into a busy place, as if locusts had passed through.

However, there were only so many wild vegetables, and people feared depleting the supply, so they were like fishermen in a pond.

The local villagers were annoyed because they didn’t pick wild vegetables in such a manner. They preferred to wait until the vegetables grew taller.

Sure enough, the wild vegetables in that field were soon depleted, while the vegetables in the village fields remained lush and green.

Wen Jiajia finally had some free time and went to exchange her vacation time with Mr. Gao to start her short break.

“It’s the wild vegetable season now. Shall we go pick some wild vegetables tomorrow?” Sister Bao came to her house that evening and wanted to ask her to bring back a pound of white sugar tomorrow, but Wen Jiajia said she didn’t have work tomorrow.

Wen Jiajia shook her head and said, “No.” She was extremely exhausted during this period and needed to rest for two days before she could recover.

“The day after tomorrow, then. It looks like it will rain tomorrow too,” Wen Jiajia added.

Sister Bao asked, “How many days do you want to rest?”

Wen Jiajia smiled at the thought: “Four days.”

“Four days? That’s longer than the Chinese New Year holiday!” Sister Bao exclaimed in amazement. “Being a worker is hard work. The machines in the textile factory run from morning till night, and people standing next to them have to stand all day long.”

Wen Jiajia nodded, acknowledging that working in a textile factory was indeed hard.

Not long after Sister Bao left, Wei Dai came back with a bag of bones wrapped in dry lotus leaves. Wen Jiajia knew that he had bought them from his friend at the meat processing factory again.

“Why are you buying bones for no reason?” Wen Jiajia opened the bag and saw that it was ribs and spine. “Do you want to make sweet and sour spare ribs?”

Wei Dai pinched her cheek and circled her arm with his hand: “You’ve lost at least 10 pounds. Take advantage of the rest to make up for it.”

Wen Jiajia tried it on her wrist and found that there were indeed more fingers left. She was surprised and said, “It’s true!”

“Don’t be happy. You were never fat to begin with, but now you’re as thin as a skeleton,” Wei Dai said mercilessly. He put the bones in the kitchen cupboard and added, “Stew them tomorrow. Don’t add other things. Make the soup thick. This is the only way to nourish you.”

Wen Jiajia countered, “In fact, it is the meat that replenishes, not the soup or the bones.”

“Nonsense. When I came back from the mission, you kept making soup for me, all kinds of soup.”

“…”

This is impossible to refute.

Well, the pork at this time is quite fragrant—all black pigs that have grown up eating grains and grass. It’s really no exaggeration; just add salt and rice wine to stew together, and the stewed pork has no pig smell at all.

Night.

When Wei Dai came into the house after washing clothes, Wen Jiajia was already dozing off in bed.

It’s not summer yet, but it’s still cold at night, especially on the North Mountain side, which is still windy. When the windows are not closed, the wind blows violently into the room, which is no different from that in November.

Seeing Wen Jiajia curled up in the quilt with her feet uncovered, Wei Dai went to close the window: “You were clamoring to switch to a thinner quilt at this time last year.”

The cold wind died down, and Wen Jiajia lifted the quilt a little, poked her head out, and said, “Yes. Is it this year’s abnormal weather or last year’s? When I got off work two days ago, I heard from the villagers that the rapeseed harvest in the village might be reduced this year.”

Ah! Farmers depend on the weather for their livelihood.

No matter how hard you work, it will all be in vain if the weather doesn’t cooperate.

Wei Dai took out a book from the bookcase under his bed, opened the quilt, lay on the bed, turned to the folded part, and continued reading: “Just because the flowers have just bloomed, you can tell that the rapeseed harvest has dropped?”

“Old farmers have this ability. The old Party secretary of our village could always predict the harvest of crops in advance.” Wen Jiajia came over and saw that he was reading a book. She snorted and laughed, “Didn’t you say this is a poisonous weed?”

Wei Dai scratched his face, his eyes still on the book: “I need to see what the poisonous weeds look like; otherwise, how can I persuade you not to read them?”

Wen Jiajia replied, “You are really stubborn.”

What is he reading? *The Count of Monte Cristo*, the well-known revenge story by Alexandre Dumas.

Decades later, the same routine can still be seen in Long Aotian’s exciting novels: the protagonist is framed, meets a noble person, gets revenge, finds treasure, reaches the pinnacle of life, and travels the world in style.

No one can resist a novel with this kind of routine, not even Wei Dai, who always claims that all foreign novels except those of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin are poisonous weeds.

As soon as nine o’clock arrived, the power went out and the lights went out.

Wei Dai sighed silently, feeling quite regretful that he had not finished a few pages. He could not help but ask Wen Jiajia, “Where did you buy this book? Has this author written any other books?”

Wen Jiajia’s voice was filled with sleepiness: “Buy? There’s nowhere to buy books right now. It would be good if I could find a few picture books or classics like *Water Margin*, *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, and *Dream of the Red Chamber* at the scrap collection station.”

In the past, one could occasionally find one or two foreign books that were not too badly damaged. But after the events at the end of last year, the scrap collection station conducted a thorough inspection and all books with foreign characters had to be burned.

Something happened at the end of last year when someone reported that staff at a scrap collection station were hiding things.

This staff member had some background. He was not the one who collected waste from door to door or stayed in the dirty waste collection station, but rather a small leader.

So this matter was initially suppressed. The whistleblower had a bad background, and there was no need to find an excuse to suppress it.

No one took it seriously, but on the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month, the leader’s wife stood up and reported again. She said his home not only hid antique gold bars that had been confiscated, but also many English books. He even kept a mistress who had a lot of jewelry, including gold rings, bracelets, and earrings that could fill a box, not to mention jade and gems.

This caused a big mess.

English books are not rare for ordinary people, but antique gold bars and jewelry are highly coveted.

So the scrap collection station had to provide an explanation and conduct a search, where they indeed found a lot of items.

Even if the leader was stubborn, he found it difficult to argue against the evidence.

Perhaps he just wanted to get rid of everything, so he started a chain reaction that implicated many people.

From small-time leaders to high-ranking officials, all of them were caught up in the scandal.

Countless items were copied from them, and at least a quarter were obtained from scrap yards. Naturally, scrap yards became targets, and any book with an English word in it, let alone English books, would be destroyed.

No wonder the atmosphere seemed off at the end of last year; it turned out that the upper class was fighting, which caused panic among the people below.

By the way, where did this book come from?

It was borrowed from Teacher Feng.

After getting to know Teacher Feng, Wen Jiajia had visited his home several times and gradually got to know him better.

Teacher Feng’s name is Feng Minghe. He attended a private school, as well as middle school and university, indicating that his family was well-off.

Logically, one might expect her family to have struggled during this time. However, her uncle and father were both martyrs, and her mother had been a military doctor who fought on the battlefield. With the protection of her family’s reputation, she was able to live comfortably even in these times.

Sometimes, people become a bit naïve when they haven’t experienced hardships themselves.

Because she was well-educated, her family had a collection of foreign novels. Once, Wen Jiajia and Teacher Feng bonded over their shared interest in literature, discussing Mitchell’s works and discovering that they were kindred spirits.

Teacher Feng even showed her his private collection of novels and was willing to lend her the original version of *Gone with the Wind*.

However, Wen Jiajia struggled with the original version, so she borrowed a pirated copy instead.

At that time, the well-known translated version of *Gone with the Wind* had not yet been published, but Teacher Feng had a copy of the version translated by Master Fu. Wen Jiajia had never read this version before, so it was quite new to her. Teacher Feng did not allow her to take it home, but Wen Jiajia managed to persuade him by using her watch as collateral.

Their borrowing and returning of books strengthened their relationship.

If it were someone else, Teacher Feng’s casual behavior of lending books might have led to trouble.

Out of concern for Teacher Feng, Wen Jiajia even “burned the bridge after crossing it” by informing Teacher Feng’s husband about the incident. As a result, Teacher Feng did not lend her any new books for the next week.

So far, Wen Jiajia had borrowed at least ten books from Teacher Feng and read them after finishing with Wei Dai.

It would have been fine if Wei Dai hadn’t looked at them, but once he did, he was hooked. It was like a fire on a pile of straw—intense and uncontrollable. Despite his stubbornness, he refused to admit he was attracted by the “poisonous weeds.”

Wei Dai sighed, tossing and turning in bed, eager to know the ending.

He felt an itch inside, a compulsion that made him want to scratch his whole body.

“Snapped—”

Wen Jiajia patted him on the back and said, “Are you going to sleep or not? If not, go outside to the yard by yourself.”

“Don’t be angry, go to sleep!” Wei Dai then hugged her and forced himself to close his eyes.

He had no doubt that his wife would kick him out of the room if he moved again.

The next day.

Wen Jiajia didn’t know when Wei Dai had gotten up, but when she woke up, he was gone, and the book was placed in a box under the bed.

Wei Dai had made the box himself; he couldn’t just roll up borrowed books like his own.

When she left the room, the sun had already covered half of the yard. She went back to the room and noticed the time on the bedside table—almost ten o’clock. It had been six months since she had slept in so late.

Wen Jiajia stood at the door, stretched, and let out a long breath: “It feels so good~”

Spring is here, with the earth singing, flowers blooming, and everything full of vitality. Even the wind carries the fragrance of grass and trees. Waking up naturally after a good sleep was truly refreshing.

She washed up and had breakfast, which consisted of steamed buns, pickles, and a plate of preserved eggs prepared by Wei Dai.

The smell of meat wafted from the kitchen, accompanied by a gurgling sound. Wen Jiajia walked in and saw that a clay pot was stewing pork bone soup.

The bone soup was becoming flavorful, and the aroma was tempting. With the smell of meat, Wen Jiajia nibbled on a steamed bun.

The bone soup in the casserole was ready around noon. Wen Jiajia didn’t need to cook and was satisfied after two bowls of the soup.

The sunshine was warm, adding to the comfort.

Wen Jiajia lay in the yard for a while. The gusts of wind made her feel cold, so she returned to the sofa.

She let her mind wander, enjoying the rare quiet time.

Then she accidentally fell asleep again. Fortunately, she was wearing thick clothes and covered with a blanket. Wei Dai also placed his cotton coat on the sofa, so she didn’t catch a cold.