Ch 16: The Unfilial Children Trembles in Fear (QT)

In truth, Yun Xi knew about the land division even earlier than they did. After all, she worked at the city government. Whenever there were movements in the city, government employees were the first to know. She had even met the brigade leader when he came for a meeting.

At the time, the brigade leader had been a little worried, afraid that Yun Xi would secretly come to him through connections and ask him to manipulate things behind the scenes to assign land to her.

After all, six mu of land could produce quite a harvest. Even if Yun Xi worked and could not farm it herself, she could still give it to her children and grandchildren, one mu each.

Even if Yun Xi did not give it to her children, renting it to educated youths who could not receive land would still provide a stable income. What a huge advantage that was. It was practically a pie falling from the sky. No one would be willing to miss it.

But Yun Xi did not mention it at all.

While the brigade leader felt relieved, he also felt a little sorry for her and said,

“If you had gone to the city for work without transferring your household registration, you would have been able to receive six mu of land this time.

Back in the old days, if one person could own six mu of land, they absolutely wouldn’t have to worry about food or clothing.

If a whole large family lived together, the land belonging to men, women, old, and young all added up would be quite substantial.

Who could have expected the policy to suddenly change?”

Yun Xi smiled and said,

“Each has its own benefits. Only by taking an urban household registration could I become a regular employee, get a salary increase, and enjoy benefits like free grain, oil, and meat coupons. That’s why I’ve been able to live so well these past six months. I haven’t lost out.

Besides, right now, I only have to feed myself, and one full stomach means the whole household isn’t hungry. My salary is more than enough.

The village has limited good, high-grade land. With one less person like me, more good land can be divided among everyone else. We’re all fellow villagers. If everyone lives a bit better, I’m happy too.”

The brigade leader lived in the village and had spent his whole life seeing people haggle over every detail and love taking advantage.

Life was difficult. Sometimes people could fight over a single scallion.

Hearing Yun Xi say such a thing so suddenly, he immediately felt admiration.

This way of thinking alone was not something ordinary people could have.

No wonder she could succeed.

She was open-minded!

So the regretful, devastated Yun Xi the Dong family imagined did not exist at all.

On the contrary, when they signed for their land, they let slip a few smug and mocking comments while chatting with the villagers, laughing at Yun Xi for making such a fuss only to miss out on the land. This made the brigade leader look down on them greatly.

The brigade leader snorted coldly, looked sideways at the Dong family, and said,

“Sister Li has real ability. When she went to the provincial capital for training, she placed first. During the broken bridge rescue, she earned merit too.

I heard her salary has already risen to thirty yuan a month, and her unit even rewarded her with a bicycle.

In the city, not only can she receive grain and oil, but when she gives lectures at various units, those units all have to host her and feed her good food. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. They even stuff canned goods and pastries into her hands until she can’t finish eating them.

You think she cares about these few mu of land?

Sister Li is an impressive person who walked out from our village. Don’t listen to their nonsense and start laughing at or envying Sister Li.

Sister Li said that as long as she can eat her fill and not go hungry, that’s enough. She won’t fight us for land, so everyone can receive a little more high-grade land.

She has always remembered us. Isn’t it a great thing for us to have an older sister at the city government?

Everyone, isn’t that right?”

“Right! The brigade leader is right. Just like last time when Old Liu’s daughter-in-law had a difficult labor. Wasn’t it Sister Li who helped arrange everything?

Sister Li remembers us fellow villagers. We can’t take pleasure in her misfortune.”

“Exactly. And they’re her biological children too. What kind of people don’t hope their own mother does well? No wonder Sister Li recognizes another son and not you. If it were me, I’d break your legs directly. How could I let you run your mouths?”

“When the harvest comes from my fields, I’ll send Sister Li a few bags of vegetables, so she can eat fresh vegetables from our land, with the taste of home!

Later, when my son and daughter study in the city, I can ask her to help keep an eye on them. If anything happens, we can also ask Sister Li for help, right?”

“Right, right, right. I’ll send some too. Let’s all send together. This is our goodwill. We’re not asking Sister Li to do anything. We just want her to eat comfortably in the city and feel close to home when eating the vegetables we grow!”

“Yes, exactly. When the time comes, we’ll all send things together.”

The Dong family simply could not understand.

Were they all sick in the head?

They actually wanted to go give things to Yun Xi?

Wasn’t she just driving and managing logistics at the city government?

What could she help them with?

They really were a bunch of people who had never seen the world. They even wanted to curry favor with an old woman like Yun Xi.

Fine, let them go.

Once they discovered Yun Xi could not give them any benefits, they would start cursing. Let’s see whether the brigade leader would still say Yun Xi was the pride of the village then.

Because of the land division, Yun Xi once again became the focus of discussion in the whole village.

Quite a few people felt that Yun Xi was open-minded.

In truth, the villagers had encountered many unfair things before. Even when they suffered losses, they could only accept it, with nowhere to seek justice, because the other side had connections and channels.

For example, Yun Xi was now with the city government, had saved the mayor’s family, and was so capable that she gave lectures everywhere. If she truly wanted this land, she could manipulate things behind the scenes and transfer her household registration back. Aside from the people handling it, how many people knew Yun Xi had an urban household registration?

There were many ways to operate such a matter.

They knew someone who had two household registrations, one in the city and one in the countryside. In any case, the records were kept on paper. Under normal circumstances, the two sides would not exchange information, and no one would know.

Then that person could enjoy both the city and countryside benefits.

Of course, doing such a thing required very strong connections. It was not something everyone could do.

This time, Yun Xi had not thought at all about using connections to get land or returning to take advantage. They felt that Yun Xi’s way of conducting herself was truly generous.

Compared to the Dong family’s gloating appearance, it made them feel even more that Yun Xi refused to acknowledge them because their character was too poor.

Originally, after the land division, some families had thought the Dong family’s conditions were decent and had considered introducing matches to Dong Zhiyong and Dong Zhizhi. Now all of them retreated.

Whether conditions were good was secondary.

Poor character definitely would not do.

So the Dong family returned to being isolated. When people ran into them on the road, no one even greeted them.

What could the Dong family do?

They could only fantasize about living better and better after receiving land and hope that Yun Xi would get into an accident while driving, be fired by her unit, become homeless, and return to beg them.

However, in the short term, they would not be seeing Yun Xi.

What faced them now was the hardship of farming.

In the past, when they earned work points through collective labor, they could still dawdle and slack off. Now the land belonged to their own household. If they did not work hard, they would suffer losses. Of course they had to work from dawn until dark.

In the past, many tricks for farmwork had been pointed out to them by Yun Xi. Now that they were without Yun Xi, they forgot this and that. They did this badly and that badly, becoming the subject of many village jokes.

This increasingly highlighted Yun Xi’s competence and their uselessness.

Several of them argued that their strengths did not lie in farming, but no one listened to that.

If a countryside person could not farm, then show some ability and go find work.

If you were useless at everything, then shut up and work properly.

The group was exhausted and miserable.

In just half a month, their appearances matured quite a bit. Even Dong Zhizhi’s face became rougher.

Then, when they thought of how they worked themselves to death yet ate so poorly, while Yun Xi had handed her godson one hundred yuan with a single move of her hand, their hearts grew even more unbalanced.

They also began muttering that Yun Xi’s division of the family had been unfair.

Back then, they had thought Yun Xi had spent all the money buying the job. Later, they learned that her job had come from saving people. So hadn’t Yun Xi embezzled the money herself?

And the fifty yuan Dong Zhiyong had given Yun Xi too. Since it had been stolen from the old accounts, after it was returned, it should have been divided equally among everyone.

There was also the family’s grain.

After Yun Xi left, they had never found all that grain in the house. They had been borrowing grain to eat for the past six months. Who knew how much Yun Xi had swallowed for herself?

However, no one believed these words at all.

Their family had already lost all credibility.

People simply listened to it as a joke and left it at that. The brigade leader even told them to stop spreading rumors. If they could not produce evidence, they should shut up.

Where would they find evidence?

They could only swallow this grievance in frustration.

Whenever their days were hard, they would think of Yun Xi.

It was as though Yun Xi could make their lives miserable without even returning home or showing her face.

Dong Zhiyong and Dong Zhizhi were considered not young in the village anymore. With their high standards and low ability, they had not been able to find partners. Fortunately, after the land division, there was finally an opportunity.

The educated youths did not belong to the village and could not receive land, so their lives were miserable.

The siblings had rooms to live in, each had six mu of land, and both had gone to school, giving them some common language with the educated youths.

Educated youths who could no longer endure bitter days came to meet them.

Not long after, Dong Zhiyong married a good-looking female educated youth. She was good at speaking and loved smiling.

Dong Zhizhi married the eldest among the educated youths, a steady man who knew how to care for others.

The siblings were both very satisfied and began living lively lives like this.

After spring arrived, the villagers sent Yun Xi some bean sprouts grown on the kang, scallions, and other things. In passing, they mentioned the marriages of her two children.

In their view, Dong Zhiyong and Dong Zhizhi were truly improper.

They had angered their old mother. Even if they had to cry and beg, they should have begged her to come back.

How could they make decisions on their own and get married?

What kind of thing was that?

Yun Xi was also surprised after hearing it.

This was something she truly had not known.

But after asking which two educated youths they had married, she smiled.

That female educated youth was indeed good-looking. She had only been there for two years, and several young men had already taken a fancy to her, but she had refused them all. Either she disliked that family for having too many people, or she disliked that family’s mother-in-law and sisters-in-law for being fierce.

Now she had suddenly married Dong Zhiyong. Yun Xi guessed she had valued the fact that the Dong family had already divided. She would not need to deal with sisters-in-law or a younger sister-in-law, and there was no mother-in-law above her. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. As for Dong Zhiyong, he had his own room, his own land, and some savings in hand. He looked decent and was sweet-tongued. If she could control him, it would be better than marrying anyone else in the village.

As for the eldest among the educated youths, he had been there for eight years and was ten years older than Dong Zhizhi!

He was indeed good at handling matters and was careful and good at taking care of people. But the reason he had not married all these years was that he had always been thinking about returning to the city.

Now, he probably felt there was no hope of returning to the city. Seeing the villagers all receive land, he decided to marry Dong Zhizhi, who had no family burden and was still fairly pretty.

Under the current policy, once they registered their marriage and transferred their household registrations in, they could receive land.

Of course, if such outsiders divorced and left, they would have to return the land to the village.

With land, they could live their days together with the Dong siblings.

To put it bluntly, there were benefits to be gained. What they valued was not the Dong siblings themselves.

Yun Xi smiled because she suddenly remembered that in another half a year or so, the college entrance examination would be restored.

The Dong siblings had each found an educated youth, and both were educated youths whose hearts were restless and always flying outward.

When the time came, who knew what kind of trouble would break out?

They still wanted to see her become a joke.

They should first see whether they themselves would become jokes!

During her day off, Yun Xi wanted to go to the waste station to look for some old books to read, so she called Xiao Zhang along.

When she saw textbooks, she bought them all for Xiao Zhang.

“No matter what you do, learning knowledge is the most useful.

Pick all this knowledge back up. In the future, if there’s an even better opportunity for advanced training, maybe you’ll be chosen.

Look farther ahead. We’re not only competing with the people around us. We also have to compete with people from the provincial capital.

Learning more is never wrong.

Sister Qin’s husband is a high school teacher. Later, I’ll say hello. If there’s anything you don’t understand, go ask him. Bring two bottles of canned food and be sweet with your words, got it?”

“Got it!”

Xiao Zhang had no real interest in textbook knowledge, but he did not resist it either.

What he liked was how Yun Xi arranged and worried over things for him. It was as though he had finally received a long-overdue motherly love.

So he listened especially well, hugging the books and answering cheerfully.

Yun Xi was also quite happy.

Her godson was rather considerate.

Wasn’t this where the comparison came in?

When the college entrance examination was restored, she would let everyone see how promising the child she carefully cultivated could be.

Then they could look at those ingrates and see how they were nothing without her!

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