The Ning family’s housing had been allocated by the work unit years ago. You entered into the living room, and a few steps further, there was a room on each side. When Ning Qiao was little, she shared a room with her brother—a curtain pulled across gave each of them their own space. Later, as the two children grew up and Ning Yang shot up in height, Chang Fangze thought about having Ning Zhiping go back to the unit to speak with the leadership and apply for a bigger place.
The paperwork was submitted, but housing was tight at the unit. Allocations had to be ranked based on seniority, years at the factory, and whether the household had two working spouses—there was always someone ahead of Ning Zhiping on the list.
At first, Chang Fangze grumbled about it, but there was no use fighting for it either. Then Ning Yang, being the sensible one, took the initiative and solved the big problem on his own.
Ning Qiao had poor health back then. Whenever she ran a high fever, she’d have to take leave from school and stay home to recover for ten days to half a month. She was also thoughtful of others and didn’t want to disturb her brother’s rest, so she would often stifle her coughs in the middle of the night and barely dared to turn over in bed. On Ning Yang’s side, he had to get up early for school every day and was also afraid of waking his sister. So he simply proposed moving out to sleep in the living room.
“It was that bed—Dad specially had an old carpenter make it for me.” Ning Yang pointed at the disassembled wooden planks still lying in the yard. “That’s the one.”
“I used to be so jealous when I came over to do homework,” Jiao Chunyu said with a shrug. “I went home and threw a fit, insisting I had to have a bed in the living room too.”
Jiao’s father was both amused and exasperated, and told her off-handedly that if she was that set on it, she could just marry into the Ning family—then she’d get to sleep in the living room. At the time, she was still a student, and her mother scolded her father for talking nonsense. Little did anyone expect that years later, she really did end up with Ning Yang.
Though after they got married, they moved into the unit dormitory, so she never did fulfill that childhood wish of sleeping in the living room.
Looking back now, Jiao Chunyu still felt she’d been pretty silly back then.
“Little sister was even sillier,” Ning Yang said. “Right after I moved to the living room, she wasn’t used to it. In the middle of the night, she’d sneak out with her pillow and make a bed on the floor next to me. I didn’t even notice until the next morning—scared me half to death, I jumped right out of bed.”
Jiao Chunyu was intrigued: “Did your parents ever find out? Did you get a beating?”
“They found out whether they wanted to or not,” Ning Yang said gloomily.
“Why?”
Ning Qiao looked a little embarrassed.
After sleeping on the floor all night, of course she’d come down with a fever again.
When Ning Zhiping and Chang Fangze came home, the young ones were standing nearby, chatting and laughing.
On any normal day, this warm scene would have brought an involuntary, knowing smile to the elders’ faces. But right now, they simply couldn’t muster one.
The moment Ning Yang spotted them, he walked over with the walnut cookies wrapped in oil paper: “Four cookies—one for Chunyu, one for little sister, half for me, and the rest for you, Mom and Dad?”
Ning Zhiping set his bag on the table, reached for the thermos, then let his hand fall back.
“Let me,” Chang Fangze said, helping him pour water.
Sensing the heavy atmosphere, Ning Yang thought for a moment: “Tell you what—I’ll split my half again, and you two can share it?”
Ning Zhiping: …
Jiao Chunyu cleared her throat quietly.
Apart from his sister’s share, he’d gone back and forth several times without ever thinking to cut her portion in half. Clueless as he was, at least he doted on his wife.
“Tch, we got there too late—there were only four left.” Ning Yang studied his parents’ unsatisfied expressions. “You can’t expect me to go without, can you? This bakery’s cookies are so fra—”
“Ning Yang!” Jiao Chunyu gave her husband a shove. How could he be so dense?
Ning Yang rubbed the back of his head.
Ning Qiao asked softly, “Mom, Dad—has something happened?”
The freshly poured boiled water in the enamel mug sent up wisps of steam, blurring the air.
Chang Fangze’s smile was gentle: “It’s nothing.”
“Well—” Ning Zhiping hesitated.
“Zhiping!” Chang Fangze interrupted urgently.
Ning Zhiping patted his wife’s shoulder. “This is important. The whole family needs to talk it over together.”
With that, he turned to the children: “The notice to go to the countryside has arrived.”
Ning Yang and Jiao Chunyu suddenly fell silent, the smiles still hanging at the corners of their mouths frozen stiff.
After a moment of silence, Ning Qiao—the one most directly affected—lifted her eyes.
She said softly, “Alright.”
The walnut cookies her brother and sister-in-law had queued up to buy were Ning Qiao’s favorite.
She unwrapped the oil paper, set two of the cookies in front of her parents, handed one to her sister-in-law, and broke the remaining one in half to give to her brother.
“Qiaoqiao, you eat it.” Jiao Chunyu, being offered the same treatment as her in-laws, felt a little awkward and tried to push it back.
The cookie was crisp and crumbly. Ning Qiao cupped her slender, fair hand underneath to catch the falling bits. She took a bite, and the fragrance of sesame seeds lingered on her tongue.
She ate earnestly, chewing slowly and deliberately, her cheeks puffing out slightly—a stark contrast to the grim expressions on her parents’ and brother’s faces.
“What do you mean, ‘alright’!” Ning Yang was the first to explode, snapping at his sister.
Back when Ning Yang graduated high school, thanks to his excellent grades, his homeroom teacher had helped place him in a local industrial or mining enterprise.
But he’d also had classmates who were sent down to the countryside as educated youth.
“Being sent to the countryside—even tough, healthy kids can barely handle it. How could you go? The medical care and transportation in the countryside are terrible. I had a middle school classmate who fell and broke his thigh while he was sent down. Because there were no conditions to transfer him for proper treatment, he was laid up for months before he could even walk.”
Ning Yang’s voice was loud, no longer his usual carefree self. His tone dropped, startling Ning Qiao so much that she froze, the corners of her mouth turning down in a pitiful pout.
A barrage of reproachful looks came his way.
Ning Yang: …
Why was he yelling at his little sister? It wasn’t her fault.
“Little sister’s health is fragile—can we get a certificate from the hospital and submit it to the Educated Youth Office?” Jiao Chunyu asked.
Ning Zhiping shook his head.
In truth, the couple had been keeping this matter on their minds all along. Whenever any rumor or hint of news surfaced, they’d go around making inquiries. Their daughter was frail, but she had no organic illness. Especially at a time like this, when everyone was trying to pull strings to avoid being sent to the countryside, a mere headache or fever wouldn’t get you a medical certificate. No matter how unwell she felt, resting at home would eventually lead to recovery. If it were that easy a fix, he and his wife wouldn’t be this worried at all.
“I’ve heard that even educated youth sent to the countryside have a chance to be transferred back to the city,” Chang Fangze said, holding her daughter’s hand, her brow still furrowed. “When the time comes, she can be transferred back, or get recommended to a worker-peasant-soldier college—”
“The chances are slim,” Ning Zhiping sighed. “Never mind the production brigade—even for an entire commune, they might not get a single quota in a whole year. So many veteran educated youth are waiting for that opportunity. How could our daughter compete with them?”
That evening, the Ning family sat together for a long time, discussing the issue of Ning Qiao’s going to the countryside.
But in the end, they couldn’t come up with any solution.
It was an unsolvable problem to begin with.
It was getting late, and Ning Yang and Jiao Chunyu needed to head home.
After they left, Ning Qiao returned to her room, took out her washbasin, and was about to fetch water when she paused mid-step.
From a distance, she could hear her parents, brother, and sister-in-law speaking softly in the yard.
Ning Yang said, “Married people can’t be sent to the countryside. It’s my fault—I shouldn’t have gotten married when I did. Otherwise—”
Jiao Chunyu froze, her eyes reddening as she snapped coldly, “Ning Yang, what exactly are you trying to say?”
Chang Fangze took her daughter-in-law’s hand to soothe her and shot Ning Yang a reproachful glare, scolding him in a low voice.
Ning Zhiping also said a few fair words for Jiao Chunyu and berated his son for speaking without thinking. The young couple had been together for years—was he really supposed to just leave a good girl hanging, waiting indefinitely for a notice that might never come?
Though it wasn’t yet late, workers and their families who were about to turn in heard the commotion in the yard and opened their doors to look.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing—did we disturb you? We’ll keep it down.”
Ning Qiao quietly watched her parents and brother force smiles through their worry, then lowered her gaze.
When her parents came back inside, Ning Qiao gently closed her door.
Outside, they were still discussing countermeasures.
Chang Fangze blamed herself for not having kept her job at the unit, otherwise Ning Qiao could take her place now.
“Fangze, it’s not your fault. Back then, I was sent away on assignment and couldn’t take care of the family. You were alone with two kids—your son was rambunctious, your daughter often sick. You simply couldn’t manage everything, so you listened to your family and gave the job to Fangya.”
Fangya was Ning Qiao’s aunt. Her parents rarely spoke of family matters, and only now did she learn that her aunt’s job had been given up by her mother more than a decade ago.
“There is actually another way,” Ning Zhiping said. “I could let Qiaoqiao take over my position. If I apply for medical retirement—”
Ning Qiao came out of her room: “No.”
“Dad, you’re a workshop director leading an entire workshop full of workers—you carry that responsibility. You’re still years away from retirement. How can you come up with this awful idea of faking illness to retire just for me?”
“And it’s the same for you, Mom. Even if you had a job now, I couldn’t let you retire early just for my sake.”
Chang Fangze was silent for a long while.
It wasn’t unheard of for parents to apply for medical retirement so their child could take over their position. A few years ago, when the movement to send people to the countryside first started, some people had done exactly that, and it had caused rifts among siblings. But now things were different from those earlier years. Personnel management at the work unit had become much stricter, and hospitals didn’t issue certificates so casually. As a unit leader, Ning Zhiping had no illness or ailment—there was no way an application for medical retirement to let his daughter take over would ever be approved.
Besides, as Ning Qiao had said, he led so many apprentices in the workshop; he still had a responsibility to bear.
“Qiaoqiao, you don’t understand,” Ning Zhiping said helplessly.
Ning Qiao’s gaze was clear and bright: “I do understand. Educated youth going up to the mountains and down to the countryside to receive re-education from the poor and lower-middle peasants—it’s an honorable thing!”
Moonlight streamed into the room. Ning Qiao’s soft black hair cascaded over her shoulders.
Her long lashes trembled slightly, and she lightly pinched the hem of her clothes with both hands. This time, she couldn’t cause any more trouble for her family.
If there was truly no other way, she was willing to go to the countryside.
…
Jiao Chunyu and Ning Yang walked with their heads down, the bicycle wheels rolling along the ground as they paced through the compound. Neither of them suggested riding.
After all these years together, this was the first time they’d had a real falling out.
Jiao Chunyu loved her little sister-in-law too, but that affection clearly couldn’t compare to the depth of love her husband and in-laws had for Ning Qiao. When Ning Yang had blurted out earlier that he shouldn’t have gotten married so soon, it stung, and she couldn’t help feeling wronged.
Once Ning Yang had calmed down, he finally began coaxing her with gentle words.
“Mom and Dad were right to scold me—I just don’t watch my mouth.”
“I was the one who brought up marriage in the first place. You’re so wonderful, and we’re so good together—how could I ever regret it?”
Jiao Chunyu kept her eyes forward and continued walking with a straight face.
“Really, I swear. If I had even a shred of regret, may I be struck by—” Ning Yang stopped in his tracks, resolute.
“Don’t talk nonsense.” Jiao Chunyu quickly grabbed his arm, glancing warily around. “That’s spreading feudal superstition!”
Ning Yang stole a look at her expression, then broke into a grin, flashing a row of neat white teeth.
Jiao Chunyu couldn’t help but laugh at him, despite herself. She sighed and said, “I know you’re worried about little sister, but we talked all night and still couldn’t find any other way. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
After a long pause, Jiao Chunyu said slowly, “Let little sister get married.”
Ning Yang felt as if he’d been struck by a thunderbolt—two little figures were duking it out in his head.
Send his little sister to the countryside? Or marry her off?
All terrible ideas!
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