Su Chang’e said sourly, “You’ve got the wrong person. I’m Su Chang’e, not Su Rui.”

“Hello, Comrade Su. I’m Cheng Yi.” Cheng Yi glanced sideways with a hint of awkwardness. His companion shook his head.

Su Chang’e noticed the single lonely stripe on Cheng Yi’s shoulder and pouted, “What’s the matter?”

Cheng Yi and his comrade had been trying to find out if the woman in a photo they had seen was here. Someone had mentioned spotting her before, but now, faced with Su Chang’e’s sour mood, he decided to let it go.

As the two were about to leave, Su Chang’e suddenly called out, “Hey, I have something to ask you.”

Cheng Yi stopped and asked, “What is it?”

Su Chang’e said, “Do you know someone named Zhan Huan?”

She was so focused on her own question that she didn’t notice how tense Su Hongpei became behind her.

Cheng Yi shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

Su Chang’e asked, “Are you looking for someone too?”

Cheng Yi exchanged another look with his companion. After some thought, he asked, “The Comrade Su Rui you mentioned earlier—she’s a very pretty and ambitious woman, right? The one who was often seen working on road construction here?”

Su Chang’e replied, “I just said that name casually. I don’t even know who Su Rui is. Why are you asking about her?”

Cheng Yi felt embarrassed to admit that he had fallen for the woman in a photo at first sight. He had heard she had been around this area, so he took leave to come find her, only to arrive too late—by the time he got here, the road construction team had already left.

His companion, however, was sharper and noticed that Su Chang’e seemed to recognize the woman. After some thought, he asked, “Do you know the village beauty of Xiaoba Village?”

Su Hongpei quickly grabbed Su Chang’e’s arm and answered first, “My little sister has been called that before. It’s quite embarrassing, really.”

Cheng Yi’s eyes lit up. Flashing a big, healthy smile, he asked, “So her last name really is Su. Tell me, does she… does she have a partner  ?”

Su Chang’e was about to say that Su Rui was seeing a labor camp prisoner, but Su Hongpei stopped her and firmly told Cheng Yi, “Yes, she does. They’re doing well together, and I can’t disclose anything more.”

Cheng Yi had expected as much—someone like her was unlikely to be single. Though disappointed, he wasn’t too upset. “I understand. Thank you. We’ll be on our way then.”

“Wait,” Su Chang’e called out again. “Are you sure you don’t know Zhan Huan?”

Cheng Yi stopped and turned back. “I’m a new recruit, so I don’t know many officers’ names. But I did hear about Company Commander Zhan before. He wasn’t in our unit, though.”

“Ah, so he’s really a company commander, not a deputy company commander??”

“No, I saw Company Commander Zhan leading the team for recruitment. The Deputy Company Commander isn’t qualified to go.”

“A Company Commander Zhan? Got it. Thanks a lot.”

Su Chang’e didn’t catch the difference between “Zhan” (詹) and “Zhan” (战), thinking she had finally gotten news about Zhan Huan. She was instantly overjoyed.

It turned out Zhan Huan wasn’t just a deputy company commander—he was the actual company commander. That was even better than she had imagined.

***

Su Rui had no idea that someone had been asking about her or that someone was interested in her.

Even if they had been, Su Chang’e rejecting them on her behalf was nothing new.

She was attending a meeting at the village committee when a young man in his mid-twenties walked in, looking troubled. She initially thought he was a relative of Sister Zhao.

After Sister Zhao led the young man away to talk, Huang Bei leaned in and whispered, “Look, that’s the new Party Secretary of Qingnan Village. He’s a cadre sent from the city.”

Su Rui glanced at the man’s thin back and the gentle way he spoke. Immediately, she thought he wouldn’t be able to handle the troublemakers in Qingnan Village.

Sure enough, after he left, Sister Zhao sighed and told Huang Bei, “The people in Qingnan Village refuse to listen to him and insist on electing their own leader. He’s in serious trouble and came to ask for advice.”

Originally, the Women’s Federation office had only one room. Last week, they cleared out a small storage space to serve as Sister Zhao’s private office, while the other staff continued working in the main office.

Su Rui’s desk was against the wall, directly across from Huang Bei’s. Huang Bei liked to gossip from time to time, but Su Rui only listened selectively—if she found it interesting, she’d listen. If not, she’d shut it down. After days of being ignored, Huang Bei had stopped talking to her as much, probably out of annoyance.

Su Rui didn’t mind at all. Gossip was fine to hear, but she wasn’t one to spread it.

Resting her face in her hands, Su Rui said, “The people in Qingnan Village have been spoiled by Guo Qingwang these past two years. They only care about taking advantage of others and have no sense of duty. Managing them won’t be easy.”

Sister Zhao patted Su Rui’s shoulder. “You’re absolutely right. Honestly, I don’t have any great advice for him either. I can only tell him to keep at it, work consistently, and do his best to mobilize the labor force in Qingnan Village. Hopefully… hopefully, he can win them over with virtue.”

Su Rui smirked. “Winning people over with virtue? That depends on whether they’re people or just ingrates.”

Sister Zhao shook her head as well, as if she had already foreseen the young secretary’s fate.

After lunch, Su Rui resumed her visits to the homes of elderly widows and orphans, checking their coal supplies, roofs, heated brick beds, and food stores.

These days, when she looked at her reflection in the mirror, even she felt like she had a kind and gentle demeanor.

By the twenty-eighth of the twelfth lunar month, she didn’t need to go to the village committee anymore.

Su Rui sat in the west room, sewing a quilt.

The sky looked like it was about to snow, so she had to hurry and finish it.

Outside, Su Li was chopping firewood. Su Rui got up, glanced outside, and sighed. She really needed to find a husband who would move in with them. She wasn’t strong enough to chop firewood, so her father had to do all the work.

“How are things going between you two? I haven’t seen you writing letters to Comrade Ye lately.”

Su Hongpei walked in with a basin of flour, preparing to let it rise overnight so they could make dumplings the next day.

Su Rui casually said, “Even if I write it, I can’t send it out. The heavy snow has buried the roads, and the postman isn’t coming.”

Su Hongpei suggested, “Then why don’t you ask Captain Fang to deliver it for you?”

Hearing Fang Chiye’s name, Su Rui’s heart tightened. She pretended to be focused on sewing the mattress and whispered, “I don’t want him to send it.”

Su Hongpei didn’t notice her younger sister’s unusual reaction. She couldn’t have imagined that ever since Su Rui last parted ways with Fang Chiye, she had been dreaming about him constantly.

She had thought they would see each other again soon, but in the blink of an eye, more than half a month had passed.

Su Rui took a big tea mug and gulped down half a cup of cold water, making Su Hongpei frown. “Aren’t you afraid of catching a chill?”

Su Rui peeled her lower lip and showed it to Su Hongpei. “I’ve got a huge blister.”

Su Hongpei was surprised. “How did you get a blister for no reason? Put some toothpaste on it?”

“No need,” Su Rui replied. She didn’t dare to say that it was because of Fang Chiye and Ye Chifang. Over the past few days, she had thought about it repeatedly and realized that she actually had no feelings for Ye Chifang. Instead, she had developed improper thoughts about Fang Chiye.

“I don’t want to continue seeing him,” Su Rui put down the needle and thread and said seriously to Su Hongpei. “Back then, I only agreed to it so I wouldn’t be harassed by that fool. But now, with the army stationed here and me being a cadre, I’m not afraid of them pestering me anymore.”

Su Hongpei disagreed. “Weren’t things going well before?”

Su Rui scratched her head. “…He’s a good person.”

Su Hongpei gave her a look. “…Don’t try that with me. Tell me the truth. Why this sudden change of heart?”

Su Rui’s face was flushed from the warmth of the stove, but she would rather die than admit that she had been dreaming about Fang Chiye for days. She quietly touched her chest. The emotions stirred up in the small wooden cabin still echoed inside her.

She knew very well that there was a huge gap between them, and Fang Chiye already had someone he liked. Even so, she didn’t want to keep someone in her heart while still being with another person. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“I just don’t have feelings for him,” Su Rui said. “I don’t like him.”

Su Hongpei didn’t want Su Rui to break up with Ye Chifang and spent the whole evening persuading her. In the end, she barely managed to convince Su Rui to at least maintain a correspondence with him and wait for him to bring up the breakup himself.

Su Rui also thought her sister made sense. That man was a reformed prisoner. If he was pushed too hard, who knew what he might do? So she reluctantly took out a piece of stationery and coldly wrote about the weather and the New Year, making her tone even frostier than the winter itself.

She didn’t know when the postman would come, but once the letter was dropped into the mailbox, Su Rui threw herself into the New Year celebrations.

This year, Xiaoba Village was lively and festive. They no longer had to share their collective pigs with the people of Qingnan Village. At noon, they ate dumplings while listening to the cheerful Spring Festival songs on the radio, filling the entire village with joy.

For the first time, Wanzi and the other half-grown children finally had New Year’s money to buy firecrackers. The village was filled with the sound of popping firecrackers.

…

After the Lantern Festival, the first day back at work was anything but pleasant.

“Why does the literacy school have to be built next to Qingnan Village? It’ll take us two hours to get there,” Su Rui stared at the document issued by the commune, trying to make sense of it.

Sister Zhao said helplessly, “During the New Year, Qingnan Village elected a new secretary, Wu Dan. He and his people cleaned up their old three-room house and offered it as a literacy school. This way, the commune doesn’t have to allocate funds for building a school, so, of course, the leaders agreed.”

“How many people can fit in three rooms?” Su Rui frowned. “At most two hundred. That wouldn’t even be enough for Qingnan Village itself.”

Sister Zhao said, “I discussed this with Secretary Wu, suggesting that both villages contribute money to build a school in a central location. We could even involve Yi Wang Village to expand it. That way, it would be big enough to serve as a village primary school even after the literacy classes end.”

Su Rui didn’t need Sister Zhao to say more—she already knew that Wu Dan would likely oppose the idea just to go against Xiaoba Village.

Since the literacy class’s location had already been decided, they had no choice but to proceed. Before spring arrived, they had to mobilize illiterate and semi-literate people to join the program.

Su Rui participated in the mobilization efforts. However, when the literacy class started, another problem arose.

Led by Aunt Song, a group of women went to attend the class, only to find that the doors of the three classrooms had names pasted on them. Even though they couldn’t read, they knew those names were seat assignments. When they asked people from Yi Wang Village, they learned that registration was required beforehand. Without it, they weren’t allowed to attend.

“But no one told us we had to register,” Aunt Song and the others returned from Qingnan Village and went straight to the village committee to complain to Sister Zhao. “They even said late registration means we can’t enroll. I asked if we could sign up for the next session, but Wu Dan said the next literacy class is already full. Sister Zhao, isn’t this just a way to keep us out so we can’t learn and improve?”

Wanzi ran inside, bundled up in a thick cotton coat, and angrily reported, “The kids from Qingnan Village called me a dumb illiterate and said I’d be one for life. I can count to a thousand and do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division! They don’t know anything but nonsense!”

“Come with me to the township,” Sister Zhao said, grabbing a heavy coat from behind the door. She turned to Su Rui and said, “I have to report this to the authorities.”

Su Rui quickly got up and buttoned her coat, fuming. “Qingnan Village is being completely unreasonable.”

Huang Bei sipped her tea and said lazily, “They’ve always been like this. It’s nothing new.”

Outside, the world was frozen, and the north wind sliced against their faces like a knife.

In the distance, soldiers’ shouts echoed—it must have been a winter training drill. The energy was overflowing. Su Rui wondered if Fang Chiye was leading them. With his strong build, he was definitely giving them a tough workout.

She shivered at the thought, climbed onto the donkey cart, and wrapped herself in a thick quilt. “Do you think complaining to the township will work?”

Sister Zhao replied, “Even if it doesn’t, we still have to try. At the very least, the leaders need to know what kind of people Qingnan Village is.”

Su Rui thought about it and agreed.

When they arrived at the township government office, they found many people already gathered outside, all seeking help for their own issues.

Su Rui stomped her feet against the cold, waiting outside for ages before finally accompanying Sister Zhao inside. They found the Revolutionary Committee official they were looking for, but he was incredibly busy.

After listening to their complaint, he simply said, “Their procedures are all in line with regulations. It’s difficult for higher-ups to intervene. There will always be some dissatisfaction in grassroots work. You’ll just have to bear with it.”

After waiting half a day, those few words were all they got. By the time they returned to Xiaoba Village, Su Rui was fuming.

She was determined to find a way to slap Qingnan Village in the face!