Chapter 15

The ox cart continued to move slowly. The middle-aged man glanced at the pale but bright-eyed little girl and gave her a thumbs up in his heart. The little girl looked delicate and weak, but unexpectedly she was very hardworking and was a good child.

Then the middle-aged man’s attitude softened a lot, and he took the initiative to say, “Mo Zhiqing, why don’t you come sit in the front.”

“Uncle, is it okay?” Mo Yutong couldn’t help but curl the corners of his lips and asked happily.

“Please sit down! It’s spacious here and there’s plenty of room.” The middle-aged man looked at her smiling face and spoke in a softer tone.

“Thank you, uncle!” Mo Yutong quickly held her backpack and moved to the front amid the envious or jealous gazes of the educated youth. This position was not as bumpy as in the carriage, and the educated youth behind her would not hear what she wanted to ask.

“Girls in the city are so polite…” The middle-aged man smiled and chatted with the girl about the commune while driving the car.

From the conversation, Mo Yutong learned that the middle-aged man’s surname was Yang, and his name was Yang Dashan. He was from the third production team of Pingshang Village, Tongzi Commune. Because he had been driving ox carts for the production team, everyone called him Lao Niutou, and rarely called him by his real name.

Pingshang Village? Mo Yutong vaguely remembered that her Mr. Yan seemed to live in a village called Pingshang.

His eyes immediately lit up, and Mo Yutong asked tentatively, “Uncle Yang, is there anyone with the surname Yan in Pingshang Village?”

“The little girl knows someone from the Yan family.” Yang Dashan couldn’t help but turn his head and look at her carefully.

He heard clearly when the group of educated youth behind him introduced themselves. The little girl was from Beijing. How did she know the Yan family?

What is Beijing? It is the capital, a holy place that people all over the country yearn for.

I heard that people there eat well, dress well, and use the best things. There are tall department stores, bicycles everywhere, and gardens to visit, but the entrance fee is fifty cents! Fifty cents! You could buy five catties of whole grains at the supply and marketing cooperative, but people in Beijing use it to see flowers and plants.

If the Yan family had connections in Beijing, how could they have suffered such a great hardship?

“My uncle was rescued when he was in the army. That person’s surname was Yan and he lived in Pingshang Village.” Mo Yutong began to lie with his eyes open.

“That should have happened more than ten years ago!” Yang Dashan sighed. This explained it.

“I’m not very clear about the details.” Mo Yutong said a little embarrassedly while fastening the strap of her backpack. She made up the story on the spur of the moment and did not have a complete story outline at all.

“The Yan family… Both parents are gone, leaving behind only three children. What a sin!” Yang Dashan could not forget the scene six years ago when the kid from the Yan family knocked on his door and begged for a bite to eat. Fortunately, his family had just gotten a pound of rice and made some rice porridge. His wife was kind enough to give him a bowl of rice soup, otherwise the two little ones… Oh! Yang Dashan could not help but sigh.

“Are they not living well?” Mo Yutong’s eyes were full of worry.

The difficulty that her Mr. Yan expressed with a smile and the difficulty that others expressed with sighs were completely different difficulties for her. The former only made her feel distressed, while the latter was full of heartache.

“It’s so hard for a child without a father or a mother!” Tongzi Commune was already poor and they could only get a few dollars a year, and the Yan family was even poorer.

Every summer, the boy from the Yan family would wear the cheapest old homespun vest and walk barefoot in the fields. In the winter, he didn’t even have a pair of cotton-padded clothes or cotton shoes. He only had a pair of rubber shoes with holes in them that didn’t fit his feet.

As for the two little ones, they could wear old clothes and go out to dig wild vegetables in the summer, but in the winter they could only stay in bed all day and dared not get out easily because they had no clothes to keep warm and were very cold.

Sometimes, when he saw that they were living in great difficulty, he would give them a few potatoes and cabbages to help them, but he really couldn’t give them much more. Every family was having a hard time, and no one had any extra things.

“Uncle Yang, is his family also in the third production team?” Mo Yutong once again felt the suffering of the Yan family from Yang Dashan’s sigh. She felt more and more uncomfortable in her heart, her eyes turned red, and even her voice began to tremble slightly.

“Well, if the little girl…” Yang Dashan originally wanted to ask the little girl to help them if possible, but when he thought that she was a girl, and if she got too involved with the boy from the Yan family, she would probably suffer a bad influence, so he had no choice but to swallow the rest of the words.

Perhaps the topic was too heavy, Yang Dashan did not continue the conversation, and Mo Yutong remained silent in deep sadness until the ox cart finally stopped in front of the office building of Tongzi Commune.

The commune secretary was not there, so the office director came out to receive them. After understanding the relevant situation and checking it with the application form, he filled in “agree to accept” and the year, month and day in the last column of each application form, and also stamped it with the seal of the Tongzi Commune Management Committee of Ming County, Yushi City, Sichuan Province.

“Dear educated youth comrades, please pay attention!” Office Director Ren Xiaohe clapped his hands and reminded them.

Seeing that all the educated youth stood at attention and looked at him, Ren Xiaohe continued with satisfaction, “This time, our Tongzi Commune has a total of twelve educated youth. You will be divided into the Pingshang and Xiangyang production brigades. The brigade secretary will then assign you to a production team.”

“Hello uncle, may I apply to join the third production team in Pingshang Village?” Mo Yutong quickly raised her hand. She didn’t want to go to the commune with so much trouble only to be assigned to another production team.

“You want to go to the third production team?” There was indeed a third production team in the allocation quota this time, but that production team was not suitable for a little girl, and Ren Xiaohe was a little embarrassed.

“Hello uncle, I know someone there and I want to go there.” Mo Yutong said firmly.

After thinking for a moment, Ren Xiaohe agreed to Mo Yutong’s request. After all, as long as objective conditions and policies permit, they will listen to the ideas of the educated youth to the greatest extent and adopt them within a reasonable range.

Since the little girl wants to go, let her go. I hope she can hold on and not come to the commune crying and making a fuss later.

So the educated youth who were originally supposed to be assigned to the third production team now had Mo Yutong added to the team.

Soon, Ren Xiaohe arranged for Xiangyang Village’s ox cart to pick up the educated youth from their village.

The remaining five people are the delicate and weak Mo Yutong, the military-like Ma Xinguo, the weird Tian Xiaomei, the gentle man with glasses Lian Haiguang, and the aloof and indifferent Liao Qingyun.

Fortunately, there were no two weird patients at the bus station, otherwise I don’t know how much of a headache I would have.

Afterwards, the five of them got back on Yang Dashan’s ox cart and headed towards Pingshang Village.

Every time the ox cart moved forward, Mo Yutong became more nervous. She arranged countless scenes of meeting Yan Mingli in her mind. The more she thought about it, the more excited she became, and the more she blushed. Her flying thoughts were so colorful that people could hardly look directly at them.

But she thought of so many possibilities, but she didn’t expect that before she met Yan Mingli, she met Yan Mingli’s younger brother and sister first.

On the hillside beside the road, a group of children ran down, their speed was so fast that Mo Yutong was stunned. But the more he looked, the more wrong it seemed. It seemed that there were two groups of people, two children in the front were running, and a group of children in the back were chasing them.