VHBF – Chapter 97 The Village Bully Daddy (Part 8)

These days the times were bad. Even the once-a-year Winter Solstice passed in the village without any activities.

If it were a few years ago, back when every household cooked for itself, people could still grit their teeth and put together something decent—make some dumplings or the like. Even if there was no meat in the filling, cabbage and egg dumplings would have been good enough.

But now, that was nothing more than wishful thinking.

At present, the situation in Dahuai Village was far from optimistic. As far as grain was concerned, the communal canteen had already been economizing again and again, yet the rice and grain supplies were still visibly dwindling.

The production brigade had long since taken all the fine grain to the grain station to exchange it for coarse grain. In total, the amount of grain had increased severalfold, but without fine grain mixed in, the porridge scraped the throat going down—and damn it all, it was still thin and watery.

Even so, the commune members understood why things were being stretched so tight: it was all so they could hold on a little longer. This year at Winter Solstice, no one asked for much. They were just grateful that the canteen, for once, cooked the porridge a bit thicker, threw in a few handfuls of wild vegetables, and even used fish broth to make the vegetable paste. The fish had been caught by a few local hooligans—guys who were usually looked down on by everyone.

Hooligans weren’t all bad. They knew that their usual laziness was tolerated only because the villagers showed them forbearance, so they wanted to repay that kindness. Under Qin Yuli’s lead, a group of young men went to the river east of the Dahuai Production Team to catch fish.

The weather wasn’t too cold yet, there was no snow, and the river surface hadn’t frozen. The young men waded in and felt around, catching several plump fish.

The fish used for the soup were boiled until they fell apart. The bones were picked out, and the meat was cooked into the paste. So although this coarse-grain vegetable mush looked rather miserable, it actually tasted quite fresh. It suppressed that grainy flavor everyone had nearly eaten themselves sick of lately, carrying both the clean fragrance of wild greens and the savory taste of fish broth.

The commune members ate with great satisfaction, muttering that those hooligans had finally done something decent.

“Not gonna lie, Old Qin’s third son hasn’t caused much trouble lately. Ever since he got that daughter, he’s either taking care of the kid or working. Sometimes he even brings the child to the fields. Looks pretty legit, actually.”

“He’s a dad now—much more reliable. I’m thinking, should I hurry up and find a match for my son too? Once he’s got a kid, maybe he’ll settle down.”

“With times like these, you still want to take in a daughter-in-law? Bringing home one more mouth to feed will kill you. Sure, right now everyone eats from the big pot, but have you thought about what happens if the canteen runs out of grain and meals stop? One more person means one more starving mouth.”

That made sense. The older aunt stopped bringing it up.

Normally, as the year-end approached, winter was a time for happy events, but this year there wasn’t a single wedding in the team. Even births were rare—probably due to malnutrition.

Speaking of Third Qin from the Old Qin family, people couldn’t help noticing how strange things were. The canteen food kept getting worse, and even though it wasn’t the busy farming season and people weren’t doing heavy labor, everyone still found it hard to endure—sallow-faced, skinny, and lacking spirit.

But the Old Qin family was different. Thin they were, yes, but their spirits were high. Their eyes were bright, their voices full, as if they lived in a completely different world.

Old Wang, puffing on his pipe nearby, said quietly, “I told you all long ago—people need hope in their hearts. Only by staying positive do you have energy. The Old Qin family really deserves their reputation as the captain’s family; their ideological awareness is high. That’s good spirit right there!”

“You’ve got to never give up hope of living, no matter when. We should learn from them.”

This wasn’t the first time Old Wang had said such things. He loved to nag on about them. The others were used to it and just let it go, assuming the Old Qin family really was as he said—highly enlightened, full of drive, striding along briskly wherever they went.

So what was the Old Qin family doing right now, the ones everyone admired?

They had each brought back a big bowl of mush from the canteen. Then Chen Qiuhua went into the kitchen and took out a clay jar. The moment she opened it, the aroma of meat rushed out.

The children swallowed hard, eyes shining as they stared at the jar in front of their grandmother. “Grandma, meat!”

Pleased with herself, Chen Qiuhua used her homemade long wooden chopsticks to fish around in the jar and lifted out a slice of meat.

The whole Old Qin family stared at that glossy, sauce-coated slice, eyes practically glowing green, saliva endlessly swallowed.

There was no helping it. Anyone who had eaten coarse-grain mush for two or three months straight would react the same way upon seeing something so fragrant and appetizing.

Chen Qiuhua was thrifty and meticulous. Over the past two months, no matter how bad the canteen food got, she had only sliced meat once per month for an extra treat—just twice in total. Those two times were what had kept the Old Qin family going, giving them hope. The cured meat hanging in Chen Qiuhua’s room was like a carrot dangling before their eyes: whenever they felt they couldn’t go on, just thinking of the taste of that meat gave them strength to endure a bit longer—next month they’d get to eat meat again.

Before another full month even passed, Winter Solstice arrived, and the Old Qin family ate meat once more.

This time, Chen Qiuhua had deliberately made braised meat using soy sauce and precious spices like five-spice and star anise.

The meat was sliced, seasoned with the few spices they had, then she poured in a small bowl of soy sauce she’d wheedled from Auntie Zhu, added some water, and simmered it over low heat—from morning until evening. By dusk, the braised meat was done.

It was simple, but it was meat—tender, rich, and savory. Not just the kids, even the adults nearly lost control.

Qin Guoshu suppressed his urge to eat and said woodenly, “Mom, how come we’ve got meat again?”

The previous two times, everyone had only gotten three to five thin slices. Chen Qiuhua had brushed off her eldest son, saying she’d brought cured meat back from her natal home. Qin Guoshu had believed her.

Chen Qiuhua’s natal home was in the neighboring Hongtu Production Team. Because the area produced red clay, there was a red-clay base there supplying bricks to higher-level units, directly under the county’s brick factory.

Even though the red-clay base wasn’t large, it supported many people in the Hongtu Production Team. Development there was good, and the living standards of its members were much better than other teams—some were even better off than town residents.

The Hongtu villagers walked with confidence: they had land and red clay, and didn’t fear going hungry.

Chen Qiuhua’s family was part of the Hongtu Production Team. The Chen surname was a major clan there; it was essentially a clan-based village. The Chen family had status and influence, with plenty of able-bodied men. Two of her nephews worked at the red-clay base digging clay; her elder brother was a minor cadre, quite impressive. And her nephew’s wife worked as a clerk at the village supply-and-marketing cooperative. The whole family was solid.

Chen Qiuhua had married into Dahuai Village partly because everyone in her own village shared the same surname, making it hard to find a suitable match. When she looked outside, she immediately took a liking to Old Qin.

Young Old Qin had been quite the catch—good genes in the family. He was tall, well-built, honest, hardworking, and steadily ambitious.

Chen Qiuhua had a sharp eye. So what if the conditions weren’t great? With looks like that and a temperament she could manage, he was a good match.

And so she married over.

Back to the point: the Chen family had a solid foundation, and every time Chen Qiuhua returned to her natal home she could scrounge up quite a bit. It made sense that Qin Guoshu believed his mother’s story.

Now, though, Chen Qiuhua couldn’t be bothered to keep lying to her eldest son anymore. You’ve eaten the meat—twice already, three times counting today. I’ll tell you the truth; what can you do about it?

After hearing the whole story, Qin Guoshu felt terrible. He stood there dumbfounded.

“…”

Then he muttered blankly, “No wonder every time I passed Mom’s door, I smelled meat… so that’s why…”

So that was it. He really was a big fool.

Earlier, when he smelled that aroma, he’d never dared imagine there was meat hidden at home. He thought it was just his cravings acting up after having eaten meat once—a hallucination. He never expected it wasn’t a hallucination at all… his mother really had the guts to stash meat away!

After learning the truth, Qin Guoshu’s first reaction wasn’t anger, but sudden enlightenment. He slapped his own head. “I’m so stupid!”

“Of course you’re stupid—thinking about feeding thousands of people when you don’t even have a bite yourself. Can you really handle that?”

“Let me tell you straight: this meat was brought back by your third brother to honor his parents. You’ve eaten it already. If you dare tell anyone, I’ll say you, the brigade leader, openly led us in stealing meat!”

Qin Guoshu: “……” Ruthless! Was she really his own mother?

That settled the matter of the meat. For Qin Guoshu, it became a source of both pain and pleasure—enjoying the meat while being wracked with guilt, feeling he’d stolen from the people, chipped away at socialism, and failed as a good team leader.

That Winter Solstice meal, the Old Qin family happily ate coarse-grain mush with braised meat, feeling as if they’d come back to life. Yinyin was still young, and the canteen’s coarse-grain mush scraped the throat and was hard to digest, so she didn’t eat it. As usual, she had soaked rice paste instead.

After the meal, Yinyin ran back to her room and brought out her treasured white sugar cakes and milk candies to share with her older brothers and sisters.

Last time, Uncle Chen had bought her a jin of them; the bag of milk candies had about twenty pieces. She usually couldn’t bear to eat them, only breaking off a tiny bit now and then to hold in her mouth and taste the sweetness.

The rest had been stored away by Chen Qiuhua in Yinyin’s little treasure chest. Since it was a festival today, Yinyin wanted to share her good things with her siblings.

The twins and Da Hua and Xiao Hua had eaten the sugar cakes before, but the milk candies hadn’t been opened then, so they hadn’t tasted them.

They’d seen Yinyin eat this kind of milk candy before and heard it was a rare, expensive treat in the city.

They’d been thinking about it ever since. But since their sister hadn’t offered, they didn’t dare ask—afraid of getting beaten. Even their little uncle had said those candies were given to their sister, not bought with family money; they belonged to her, and they weren’t allowed to demand them or fight her for food.

All four pairs of eyes shone as they looked at their sister, silently praying she would open the milk candies today.

Under their gazes, Yinyin first opened the oiled paper bag with the sugar cakes, pinched out two pieces, broke each in half, and handed them to the twin brothers and Da Hua and Xiao Hua.

After they took them, Yinyin reached her little hands toward the unopened bag of milk candies.

The twins and the Hua sisters watched nervously. Yinyin struggled for a long time but couldn’t tear open the packaging, making the others anxious.

Bai Mian and Hei Mian rubbed their hands, eager to help. “Sister, let us do it—brothers are stronger!”

In the end, the twins each earned a flick on the forehead from Chen Qiuhua, but they happily held two milk candies and hid them in their pockets. They decided not to eat them yet—saving them to take to school and eat there!

The sugar cakes were sweet too, with a milky flavor—delicious!

Everyone thought life would just keep dragging on like this, scraping by until the canteen ran out of grain, with survival left entirely up to heaven.

But after Winter Solstice, things took a turn. That day, not only the commune but even the county sent leaders down. Guided by commune cadres, they headed straight for the Dahuai Village Production Team.