lcionline Chapter 177 The Female Educated Youth Surnamed Qin from Wangxingtun
Chapter 177 The Female Educated Youth Surnamed Qin from Wangxingtun
On the way back, Lu Zhiqiang chatted away with great interest.
“I heard it from my second aunt. Which of the women in the village doesn’t gossip? When they sit on the kang (heated brick bed) playing cards and chatting like that, we can’t help but hear it.”
Like Lijiatun, Wangxingtun had been visited by educated youth. Later, when the new brigade secretary, Xiong Daxing, took office, he began to work hard to manage Wangxingtun.
There was a mine near the village, and many of the men in the village worked there. There were many bachelors and widowers. When Secretary Xiong took office, in order to solve the problem of men in Wangxing Village getting married, he took a series of measures and eliminated all the bachelors in a few years.
Lu Zhiqiang muttered, shaking his head with regret, "It's such a pity about those female educated youth. They left their hometowns and ended up staying there."
Li Ju'an had heard of many similar stories. Not only in the Xing'an Mountains, but also in Yunnan, Sichuan and other places, this kind of thing was not uncommon.
He said, "As long as those female educated youths marry good men, Secretary Xiong will have done a good thing."
Lu Zhiqiang stared wide-eyed and said, "Li Ju'an, you really don't know. What good men can you find in Wangxingtun? Aren't they all sluts who seduce women and run away with their tails between their legs?"
There are many vagrants in Wangxingtun. It's no wonder there are so many bachelors; the men beat their wives, they're dirt poor, and they even like to send their wives to seahorse traders to pay off debts.
This matter spread far and wide in the Xing'an Mountains, so even matchmakers in the nearby villages avoided people from Wangxing Village and wouldn't introduce their daughters there. Every family cherishes their daughter; why send her to such a place?
Even Aunt Zhang, who works at the Postal Savings Bank counter, has a niece who is a local girl from Wangxing Village. Her family is determined to marry her off to someone from the village, introducing potential partners to nearby villages and counties, and absolutely not looking for someone from within the village.
So, over time, there were fewer girls and more bachelors in the village.
Lu Zhiqiang lowered his voice and said, "My second aunt told me about a female educated youth from the south who had a particularly hard life. I think her surname was Qin. She was beautiful and pretty and married a miner from Wangxingtun. The miner would go down the mine to work and wouldn't come back for months at a time. He didn't come back for three years, and no one knew if he was alive or dead. That poor educated youth was left at home with the man's father, who was over fifty years old. Their child was already one year old."
Li Ju'an almost spat out his water.
"The man hasn't returned in three years, and the female educated youth's child is one year old?"
He paused, then thought of the methods employed by village secretaries across the country. Through various maneuvers, the number of bachelors and widowers in the villages had decreased dramatically, and the secretaries deserved immense credit for this, having gone to great lengths to reduce the number of bachelors. Female educated youth, having left their hometowns and unable to return to the city, were forced into marriage through a series of maneuvers, only to live a life of misery.
He shook his head: "That Secretary Xiong really deserves to die."
Lu Zhiqiang lit a cigarette, exhaled a smoke ring, and sighed, "That's right, what a mess, damn it."
For Wangxingtun village, Old Xiong, the brigade leader, was a dedicated and hardworking cadre who cared deeply for the village. But for the female educated youth, alone and without anyone to support her, the prettier she was, the more miserable her life became. Forced incestuous relationships were not uncommon. She had no one to turn to when she was bullied.
"Let's go back and eat."
"Of course, how many unpleasant things like this happen? There are just too many unfortunate people in the world. That female educated youth surnamed Qin also suffered a lot."
The two men stubbed out their cigarettes, then divided the grain coupons, sugar coupons, cloth coupons, and other receipts they had taken from Zhang the Madman. After packing up their sacks of loot, they each went home.
Lu Zhiqiang jokingly said that the two of them are now in cahoots, doing all the dirty work together.
Li Ju'an, however, didn't take it seriously. After all, Zhang the Madman and his gang of moneylenders weren't good people; they did shady things and harmed people. If they searched Zhang the Madman's documents, even if he felt wronged, he would have nowhere to complain.
“Zhang the Madman isn’t a good person, and neither am I. He’s just unlucky to have run into us. Let’s teach him a lesson.”
Lu Zhiqiang grinned, showing his big teeth, and gave the coarse grain coupons and fine grain coupons a big kiss, agreeing.
Li Ju'an led his hunting dogs home.
Before he even reached the yard, Tiechui was already excitedly barking, which called out to his mother, Song Lanhua, and his sister, Li Xiao, who came out of the house.
The strongest bond is still that of family.
On this trip home, Li Ju'an's dog sled was loaded with meat. He also sold the tiger and wolf skins at the county market.
He also sold wolf teeth and tiger teeth, and even went to the herbal medicine shop to sell parts that could be used as Chinese medicinal herbs. He sold the tiger claws, tiger penis, tiger bones, and tiger blood separately. The remaining wolf and tiger meat couldn't be sold, and the price wasn't high, so he simply brought it home to keep for himself.
Keeping meat is also a way to prepare for the New Year.
And now he's the dog commander of the dog gang, with eight hunting dogs under his command: Big Tiger, Flower Ears, White Egg, Black Tiger, Flower Girl, White Mastiff, Iron Hammer, and Little Steel Cannon. Among them, White Mastiff is the largest and has the biggest appetite. If you don't feed dogs meat, how much food would they consume?
He could bury the leftover meat in the snow to freeze it, and then feed the dog the tougher parts of the meat.
Li Xiao held the bag and happily chatted with him, sharing stories of his playful antics with the village children.
He listened with a smile, burying his catch—two red deer and their hides—in the snow in the yard to make specimens. When the month was up, he would dig up the specimens and hand them over to the head of the forestry station.
Besides the money promised by Leader Chen, the forest farm would also offer to buy the rare and valuable leather pelts. What excited him most was the promise from the top leader that he could be affiliated with a state-owned enterprise and get a driver's license with the signature of an experienced driver. This was something that money couldn't buy.
The aroma of my mother, Song Lanhua, stewing meat was already wafting from the kitchen.
It smelled like stewed tiger meat and stir-fried mung bean jelly. My mother was a very good cook. If someone else stewed tiger meat, the pot would have a sour and fishy smell as soon as it was boiled, but my mother would add potatoes and spices to stew it together. The rich aroma of meat wafted out of the kitchen, carrying the wonderful flavors of potatoes and meat, completely without any fishy smell. It smelled so good that you would take a deep breath and close your eyes.
"Brother, let's dig together. The sooner we finish burying it, the sooner we can have dinner," said Li Xiao excitedly.
My little sister has become so sensible, and as her brother, I'm filled with mixed emotions and immense joy. She's truly my little darling.
He then thought of what Lu Zhiqiang had just said about the female educated youth. The female educated youth surnamed Qin from Wangxing Village, through Secretary Xiong's machinations, was married into a miner's family in the village, only to be sexually assaulted by her father-in-law and forced to endure that kind of life every night. As her brother, the thought of his younger sister being forced to leave her hometown, alone and vulnerable to abuse made his fists hard.
He gently turned his younger sister Li Xiao's slender shoulders and looked at her earnestly, saying, "Sister, promise me you won't marry far away. You must marry a man who is satisfactory to you, from a respectable family, and who respects you, right under my nose."
Eight-year-old Li Xiao couldn't understand any of this, but she just smiled happily and said, "Okay, okay, Lu Wenqian said that her brother told her the same thing."
All brothers in the world feel the same way: who wouldn't want their sister to live a smooth and peaceful life? If some scoundrel or abusive man were to kidnap their sister, or if she were to be cheated on, they would chase after that bastard to the ends of the earth and shoot him dead.