Chang Fangze hadn’t slept soundly all night. She got up at the first crack of dawn.
With a soft creak, Ning Qiao gently pushed open her door.
She went over and linked her arm through Chang Fangze’s, her tone tender: “Mom, what do I need to bring for the countryside? Let’s start preparing early.”
Chang Fangze was momentarily stunned.
Ning Qiao took her hand and led her into her room.
The suitcase that had been her mother’s dowry—kept on top of the wardrobe—had already been brought down and set on the floor. The clothes inside the wardrobe had been neatly folded and sorted into categories.
“For farm work, I need to wear pants. These skirts aren’t practical, so I’ll pack them away and wear them again when I come home.”
“Qiaoqiao…”
“Winter’s coming soon, so I should bring my winter clothes and bedding first. When the weather warms up, Mom and Dad can mail me my summer clothes.”
Ning Qiao also set aside some textbooks and books, along with stationery and envelopes. The books were for reading after she went to the countryside. As for the stationery, she planned to write to her parents whenever she had time, telling them about interesting things that happened during her time in the collective—things they would enjoy reading.
With her actions and her smile, she soothed her mother’s anxious heart.
“Mom, since we can’t change it, we just have to accept reality.” Ning Qiao leaned against Chang Fangze’s arm, acting coquettish. “Don’t worry—I’m all grown up now.”
Chang Fangze’s eyes grew warm.
In a daze, it seemed her little daughter was still that soft, adorable child from years ago—and yet, in the blink of an eye, she had become a young woman.
“Oh, Mom.”
“What is it?”
“Can I buy a little extra face cream to take with me?” Ning Qiao asked. “Otherwise, my skin might crack.”
“So vain.” Chang Fangze gently tapped her daughter’s nose. “Come on, I’ll buy it for you.”
Chang Fangze was a regular at the supply and marketing cooperative. She handed the ration coupons to her daughter and let her pick whatever she liked.
The salesclerk recommended a flashlight, flicking the switch on and off to show its bright beam—quite impressive.
“This batch of flashlights just arrived. The countryside hasn’t been electrified yet, so having a flashlight for light at night is really practical.”
Ning Qiao took the flashlight and asked softly, “Mom, can we get this?”
“We can.” Chang Fangze’s worry crept back in. “But you’re going so far away on your own. Once it gets dark, please don’t go out—it’s too dangerous.”
Ning Qiao immediately distracted her mother by asking the salesclerk, “Do you have any fruit drops?”
Chang Fangze laughed and ruffled her daughter’s hair.
After all, the time to leave hadn’t truly arrived yet, so they didn’t bother picking through all the little odds and ends. They took the flashlight and face cream, and on their way to check out, grabbed a box of biscuits and a handful of candies.
Once they stepped out of the cooperative, Ning Qiao suggested they walk around a bit more.
Chang Fangze knew her daughter was trying to show her that after all this time of careful care, her health had improved—she wasn’t as weak or delicate anymore.
Mother and daughter walked along Jinghe Street. Across the road stood the Ancheng First People’s Hospital.
“You were a regular here when you were little,” Chang Fangze said. “The nurses all knew you. Every time they saw you, they’d come over and say, ‘Here comes the porcelain doll,’ and fight over who got to hold you. Your brother wouldn’t have it—he said his little sister was his to hold.”
“Brother was so possessive,” Ning Qiao said with a smile.
Ning Qiao loved hearing stories about her childhood and pestered her mother for more.
Just as the two of them were chatting and laughing, she suddenly stood on tiptoe and peered intently across the street.
From across the road, Yang Qingqing listened to the people around her grumbling about the educated youth.
“She just took a fall—now she’s making a fuss about coming to the city hospital, and we have to bring her all the way here.”
“So what if she’s on the state grain ration? Does that make her special? We wasted a whole day on this trip and got docked work points for nothing—who do we complain to? The brigade leader just thinks we’re young and easy to push around!”
“I can’t stand these city girls. So delicate, all of them, and so dramatic. She fell, didn’t even bleed, and she keeps whining about the pain. I bet she just doesn’t want to work and made up an excuse!”
At that moment, Yang Qingqing thought of her own delicate city-bred classmate.
It was just that Ning Qiao wasn’t being dramatic—she was genuinely coddled and cherished. Even if she was a bit delicate, she had every right to be.
Just as she was thinking this, someone nudged her elbow.
“Qingqing, why does that person keep staring at you? Do you know her?”
Following the gaze, Yang Qingqing spotted a familiar pretty face across the street.
Ning Qiao was beaming, her eyes sparkling brightly as she gave a small wave. Her voice was so soft it barely carried, delicate as always.
Yang Qingqing’s eyes lit up: “Wait here! I just ran into an old high school classmate!”
Seeing her dash across the street, Jiang Hongmei curled her lips.
So what if this Yang Qingqing had gone to high school in the city? Big deal that she still had classmates in town!
Yang Qingqing had been one of Ning Qiao’s close friends during high school. After graduation, one had returned to her village to earn work points, while the other stayed home waiting for a job assignment.
Yang Qingqing politely greeted Chang Fangze.
Knowing the two girls would want to chat, the older woman said she’d go ahead to buy a scallion pancake, leaving them some space.
Ning Qiao pulled out her box of biscuits and asked how Yang Qingqing had ended up in the city.
Back in their school days, Ning Qiao had always liked sharing snacks with her. Yang Qingqing didn’t stand on ceremony and took the box with both hands: “It looks delicious!”
The biscuits were crispy and fragrant. Yang Qingqing munched on them, her eyes narrowing in satisfaction, and explained, “One of the educated youth in our village got shoved by someone while coming down from the mountains. She fell and made a fuss about seeing a doctor. I heard her father is a big shot in Shanghai—some kind of leader—so the commune’s educated youth office was afraid of being held responsible and borrowed a tractor to bring her to the hospital.”
“Good thing they did. The doctor just checked her out and said she might have hit her head hard enough to cause some bruising or something—they want to keep her for observation. She gave us some money and ration coupons to buy food.”
“Everyone says these educated youth are so high-maintenance, but honestly, I think it’s a good thing she made a scene. A head injury is no joke. A few years ago, a kid in our village snuck off to play at the reservoir. The ground was slippery, he fell, and hit the back of his head. He seemed fine at first, but by the next day, he was gone.”
“That’s what the old saying means—the crying child gets the candy. If you make a fuss, at least you get checked out. Otherwise, who’s going to care about you? Qiaoqiao, thank goodness you’re not one of the educated youth. Someone as quiet and honest as you—going somewhere unfamiliar all alone—you’d definitely get taken advantage of. It’s terrifying.”
Ning Qiao was stunned: “Is it really that scary in the countryside?”
“Of course it is! The educated youth in our village have to work the fields and carry grain sacks under the blazing summer sun—their faces and arms get red and peel. In winter, they wrap themselves in layer after layer and still can’t keep warm.”
“You light kerosene lamps to go draw water from the well, work in the dark, eat coarse grains all year round, and if someone gets a bigger share of grain, the villagers start fighting over it. And even in summer, bathing is a pain—everyone lives rough. The educated youth just can’t handle it…”
“I’ve heard our village is one of the better ones. The conditions for educated youth in more remote areas are even worse!”
No one knew better than Yang Qingqing what the village’s educated youth were up to from dawn to dusk. Once she got started, she chattered on without pause, talking while eating. At first, when they’d just arrived, they were full of passion. But the harsh environment and back-breaking labor didn’t leave any room for adjustment. And so they started hoping to return to the city or get recommended for college—but those hopes never materialized.
Most of the locals were decent, but they still tended to resent the educated youth. And if the youth at the commune weren’t even united among themselves, life became even harder.
Her brother had said the countryside was tough—that one educated youth broke his leg and couldn’t even get to a hospital. Ning Qiao had listened cautiously, thinking she just needed to be careful.
But now, the whole idea of going to the countryside suddenly became terrifyingly real. She stared blankly.
“And the ones who don’t perform well get punished.”
“Being assigned to clean the ox sheds is one of the lighter penalties. There was this educated youth in our village who refused to date the brigade secretary’s son. She offended him, so he had her hauling manure. Those buckets are heavy and stink to high heaven. I felt so sorry for her watching it, but nobody dared speak up for her—they were afraid of being dragged into it.”
Ning Qiao’s brow was knitted tight, and it never eased.
“Qiaoqiao? Qiaoqiao?” Yang Qingqing waved her hand in front of Ning Qiao’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“I—I’m being sent to the countryside too.”
“Cough, cough, cough—”
Yang Qingqing choked on biscuit crumbs, tears streaming from her eyes, her face red. She stared at Ning Qiao in utter disbelief.
On the way home after parting with Yang Qingqing, Ning Qiao was still in a daze.
Chang Fangze had bought her daughter’s favorite scallion pancake, but the girl had been out for hours and was tired—and after that frightening conversation, she had completely lost her appetite.
Seeing her daughter’s pale little face, Chang Fangze’s heart tightened again.
Back in the staff compound, quite a few aunties came up to ask about Ning Qiao’s situation regarding the countryside.
There were no secrets among neighbors—within just one day, the news had already spread.
Chang Fangze answered them honestly, without any attempt to hide it.
When they first heard that the Ning family’s delicate young daughter was being sent to the countryside, quite a few workers and their family members had been eager to see the drama—how could a pampered young lady possibly endure that kind of hardship? But now that the Nings themselves had openly acknowledged it, there wasn’t much left to say. Mother and daughter were already worried enough, so all they could do was offer comfort.
“I’ll go back and make dinner—we’ll catch up later,” Chang Fangze said, lacking the energy to linger.
Ning Qiao said her goodbyes to the uncles and aunties and headed toward home.
Two figures approached from the opposite direction—Director Lin’s wife, Yu Cuiman, and her son, Lin Guangmin.
Lin Guangmin gazed silently at Ning Qiao.
She wasn’t smiling, yet the corners of her lips seemed naturally upturned, sweet and endearing.
Yu Cuiman gave her son a discreet glance. As the wife of the factory director, she carried herself with pride and expected to be treated with deference wherever she went. Throughout the entire staff compound, Chang Fangze was the only one who never flattered her when they met—always maintaining an attitude of neither subservience nor arrogance.
Between the two women, there seemed to be an inherent rivalry. Yu Cuiman coolly averted her gaze and tugged at Lin Guangmin’s arm: “Let’s go.”
This little scene didn’t escape the notice of the more gossip-prone aunties in the compound.
Director Lin’s son wasn’t even trying to hide it—the moment he laid eyes on Director Ning’s daughter, his gaze would instantly stick to her face like glue!
Behind their backs, the women exchanged frantic glances, covering their mouths to stifle giggles and whispering among themselves.
“Last night, I was woken up by the sound of a bicycle being pushed through the compound. I came out to see what was going on. And guess what I overheard?”
“It was Ning Yang and his wife—they were talking about marrying off their little sister. Said that way, she wouldn’t have to go to the countryside.”
“Putting aside whether Ning’s girl can physically handle life in the countryside—being sent down as an educated youth to who-knows-what godforsaken village… I heard that a few years back, some female educated youth, seeing no hope of returning to the city, ended up marrying local farmers and settling down there. If they didn’t end up with a decent man, life was absolutely miserable. Since that’s the case, Director Ning’s family might as well just marry her off directly and save themselves all that trouble.”
Ning Qiao was distracted and didn’t catch what the family members were saying. Her head was full of the scenes Yang Qingqing had just painted of life in the countryside.
Hauling manure, hauling manure, hauling manure…
It was only now, belatedly, after receiving the notice to go to the countryside, that the young girl finally began to feel real fear. The corners of her mouth drooped.
She’d spoken too boldly earlier—was it too late to take it back?
Meanwhile, Chang Fangze’s eyes gradually brightened at the chatter in the compound.
Pretending not to hear would have been awkward, so she took out her keys and opened the door, her heart racing.
At the same time, the conversation in the compound continued.
“Finding a match isn’t that easy, you know.”
“Isn’t there one right here?” someone teased, glancing meaningfully at Lin Guangmin’s retreating figure.
Lin Guangmin stopped in his tracks and turned back to give Ning Qiao a long, deep look.
The more Jiao Chunyu thought about it, the more she felt that finding a suitable match for her little sister-in-law as soon as possible was the right course of action.
According to policy, educated youth sent to the countryside had to meet several conditions.
Factors like being from a non-only-child family, having a junior or senior high school education, and being born into a worker’s family were all things they couldn’t change. That left only one last condition.
The applicant must be unmarried.
Ning Yang understood all this reasoning, but he found it hard to compare which was more infuriating—sending his sister to the countryside or marrying her off.
He couldn’t even picture his sister getting married. He grumbled, “Little sister is only eighteen!”
“I was only eighteen when we started dating,” Jiao Chunyu shot back with a sideways glance.
Ning Yang: …
That was different—he was a good man. But what about his future brother-in-law?
The guy wasn’t even a shadow on the horizon yet, and the brother-in-law was already bristling with hostility.
“From now on, don’t bring this up again. Don’t let Mom and Dad know—keep it to yourself.” Ning Yang thought it over and still wasn’t reassured. He gritted his teeth and added, “Especially don’t let Mom find out!”
At that very moment—
Chang Fangze felt like a cloud had lifted to reveal the bright moon. She could hardly wait for her husband to come home from work.
Wasn’t getting married far better than enduring hardship in the countryside?
Her son and daughter-in-law were clever—they’d actually come up with such a good idea.
They deserved praise!
Leave a Reply