Back to 1978

Chapter 3 Chicken Lighter
On a night in late summer of 1978, Xie Hushan, holding a burning gourd stem in his mouth and with a look of pain on his face, carried his Type rifle, nicknamed "Old Uncle", and patrolled among rows of bungalows in the moonlight.

Tonight, the Zhongping Village Production Brigade is showing an open-air movie, and it's the imported tear-jerking movie that you never get tired of watching, "The Flower Girl", which is said to be enough to make you cry two handkerchiefs wet after watching it once.

Except for the elderly who were unable to move or were used to going to bed early, most of the people in the production team rushed to the threshing ground of the brigade early to reserve seats. As the militia platoon leader of the third team, Xie Hushan and his three companions were responsible for patrolling the house while everyone was watching the movie to prevent thieves from taking advantage of this opportunity to break into the house, ensuring that everyone could enjoy this rare time of rural cultural entertainment with peace of mind.

The reason why Xie Hushan had such a painful expression on his face was not because he couldn't go to the movies, but mainly because the three companions around him were still talking loudly as if no one was around, completely ignoring what they were discussing at the moment, which was completely unrelated to the questions Xie Hushan asked them.

The question that Xie Hushan asked the three of them to help discuss was how a person, without a letter of introduction, national food coupons, or money, could start from the Zhongping Production Brigade of Zhongping Commune, Bingyang County, Yaoshan City, Zhili Province, and go all the way south to eventually successfully reach Guangzhou, or even Hong Kong Island.

The issue these three guys were discussing at the moment had become: if the Russians in the north were to take advantage of the situation in Laoshan to cause trouble for our country, how would the young basic militia platoon of the third production team of the Zhongping Production Brigade, with their own weapons and dry food, complete a thousand-mile forced march, infiltrate the enemy's rear, and launch guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines.

The question he asked himself was how he could go to the capitalist society to make money and live a life of luxury, but these three guys wanted him, the militia platoon leader, to take them to the artillery tower of the Mongolian puppet army behind the enemy lines.

Yes, Xie Hushan is a time traveler. Although this body is that of an 2024-year-old young man, in fact, this guy is a 1978-year-old old man in his heart. For some reason, he in traveled through time and space to a rural youth with the same surname but a different name in Yaoshan City, Zhili Province in .

He didn't understand why he traveled through time to Yaoshan City in 1978. In his previous life, he was born in Hong Kong Island, grew up in Guangzhou, studied in Shanghai, and started a business in Pengcheng. He had basically lived in developed cities in the south for years. Not to mention having been to Yaoshan City, he had hardly even heard of it.

Moreover, although he had traveled to Zhongping Commune for almost two months, he still felt unable to adapt to the rural life of this era. It was not that his body was unable to adapt to the farm work or militia training of the production team, but the original owner's body had long been accustomed to this intensity of exercise. The main reason why Xie Hushan could not adapt was in personal enjoyment. For example, rural life was too boring, the food at home was too bad, there was a shortage of non-staple food, no Internet, no computers, no mobile phones, not even bicycles, let alone cars.

The most important thing is that he has been eating coarse grains for so long and is very greedy. He really wants to eat meat, the fatter the better. However, in 1978, before the New Year's Day when the production team slaughtered pigs and distributed the meat, it was difficult to realize this wish that was almost insignificant in his previous life.

In his previous life, Xie Hushan always complained that meat and fish were too greasy, had to drive when going out, never put down his cell phone, and never stopped talking about girls. After just three days in this era, he wanted to slap himself a dozen times. He regretted why he had left so many delicious foods uneaten in his previous life, and often ate light seasonal vegetables on the pretext of rejecting greasy food, which made him unable to dream of meat and fish in this life.

The other members of the production team could optimistically accept a life of eating meat only a few times a year because they had not yet enjoyed a better material life. But Xie Hushan, as a time traveler, was different. He had eaten, seen, and played. As the saying goes, it is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but it is difficult to stop prostitution.

In fact, Xie Hushan didn't just want to run away at the beginning. He also thought about trying to make some money to improve his life. However, he had no impression of the countryside. The only thing he could think of was that he had read half of an online novel before he traveled through time. In that book, the protagonist traveled through time to the countryside and became a rich man by catching loaches or eels. Xie Hushan had no experience of living in the countryside, but he thought the book was quite realistic when he read it. Now that he had traveled through time to the countryside, with no other way out, he also wanted to replicate the experience of making a fortune by selling fish in the book.

As a result, the cruel reality told him that all the ponds he saw in the surrounding villages were sideline businesses of various production teams and belonged to collective property. If he dared to fish in them, he would be charged with stealing collective property.

There was a small river nearby but no one cared about it. Xie Hushan gave up a day's work points and ran around the river, squatting and fishing for a whole day, but he only caught five small fish as long as his little finger. There was no need to sell them, so he thought about improving his own meals. His grandmother at home was reluctant to add oil to the cooking to remove the earthy smell of the fish, and the finished product was not as good as the pickled salted eggs with oil oozing out of the rice.

After passively adapting to the life in the production team for a few days, he realized that the means of making a fortune in the novel were unrealistic. In the rural production team, let alone whether anyone was willing to waste extremely precious cooking oil to cook smelly river fish, it was simply impossible for him to find enough fish without being discovered by others. If there was money to be made from selling fish, the production team would not have caught the fish raised in the fish pond and distributed them to each household every year. Instead, they would have transported them to the city to exchange for money as soon as possible. The production team leaders of each team knew which would make the members happier, distributing money or distributing fish during the New Year.

Let me put it this way, in Zhongping Village, Xie Hushan didn’t even know where to find wild grass to cut and sell.

In Zhongping Village, the first thing children from every household do after school is to carry a basket and a small sickle to look for wild grass everywhere. The reason why they are so enthusiastic is because the wild grass can be sold for money. Each production team will buy one hundred kilograms of dried wild grass at a price clearly marked as one yuan, and the grass will be used to feed the team's large livestock. If they want to try to sell it at a high price, they can also try their luck at the big market held every five days. If they are lucky, they can meet a production team that is in urgent need of high-quality fodder to feed their livestock, and they can offer a price one cent higher than usual at the big market.

Cutting grass and selling it for money was one of the few ways in which the production team allowed its members to generate income without delaying production.

The problem is that for every 100 kilograms of hay, at least 300 kilograms of wet grass must be dried in the sun. As a result, as soon as the grass near the village grows long enough to be cut, it will be quickly cut by the children who are eager to generate income for their families. Now, if a child wants to cut a full basket of grass, he must walk at least four or five miles. There are often scenes of two children fighting over the same piece of grass. Moreover, even weeds cannot be cut at any time. In rural areas in the north, they can only grow as they are cut in summer and autumn. Once the weather gets cool and the grass leaves turn yellow, you have to wait until next year to cut the grass.

Go to the city to make a living? It was even more impossible. The word "rural household registration" would firmly imprison Xie Hushan in Zhongping Village. Of course, he could go to the county town or the city with a few companions at any time to broaden his horizons and see the world, but he couldn't stay in the city for a long time, because he needed a letter of introduction to stay in a hotel and food coupons or grain to eat in a restaurant.

It was only after he felt that all the opportunistic ways he could think of were unsuccessful that he came up with the idea of ​​a thousand-mile solo journey across most of China.

The destination was naturally Hong Kong Island, which was in the golden age of capitalism at the time. He was familiar with that place.

However, the most important obstacle standing between him and Hong Kong Island at this moment was how to get Zhongping Commune or Zhongping Production Brigade to help him write a letter of introduction to Yangcheng or Pengcheng.

After all, without a letter of introduction, I couldn't stay in a hotel or buy a train ticket. I had no choice but to sleep on the streets and beg for food along the way. I had to walk slowly towards Hong Kong Island, risking being treated as a migrant and sent back. If I really had to walk and beg for food all the way south, Hong Kong Island might have returned to the motherland in 1997, and I might not have been able to reach Guangdong Province.

As for carving a fake seal and writing a letter of introduction for himself, Xie Hushan had never considered it. The risk was too high. During these thousands of miles, even if he only met a serious police officer and the other party made a phone call to confirm the authenticity of the letter of introduction, he would have to go into the classroom and work on the sewing machine.

"Yes, go south. I mean, if I want to go south, how can I go without a letter of introduction?" Xie Hushan spat out the gourd stem in his mouth, stopped and looked at the three people, and emphasized again: "Go south!"

As a childhood friend of Xie Hushan, Han Hongbing, the "chief of staff" of the militia platoon of the third production team, heard Xie Hushan's crazy words and said in confusion: "I say, for such matters, can't you just go to the brigade and ask? If you don't ask, how do you know whether the brigade can issue a letter of introduction? Didn't someone in our county go to Hong Kong Island with a letter of introduction before? I don't know if it's true, but he made it sound very convincing anyway."

Xie Hushan stared at Han Hongbing in disbelief, finding his words a little unbelievable. In 1978, although he learned from the newspapers that the country was already trying to promote reform and opening up, that was only manifested in some very small-scale pilot verifications. For example, some rural areas in the suburbs of Yanjing allowed production teams to arrange for farmers to work in the city without delaying production, or proposed relevant policy ideas in national newspapers to let everyone brainstorm and discuss and research. That was all. It was like standing on the shore and just reaching out to try to understand the temperature of the river water. It was far from crossing the river by feeling the stones.

At least Xie Hushan, who was in the rural area of ​​Yaoshan City, only 200 kilometers away from Yanjing, could not feel any changes. According to the information he got from reading newspapers in the production team every day, it would take at least a few years before some specific policies could be introduced for popularization in rural areas across the country.

But now, my childhood friend actually said that someone in the county might have been to Hong Kong Island? And with a letter of introduction?
"How do you know? Who went?" Xie Hushan moved closer to Han Hongbing, put his hand on his shoulder, stared at Han Hongbing and asked.

"Just this spring, our county held a militia competition. You, Commander Xie, won first place in the militia men's bayonet combat. After the competition, the second place winner was dissatisfied and asked you to go to the grove to spar with him and have a friendly match. As a result, you broke two of his teeth. It seems that guy has been there before." Han Hongbing put a dry cigarette rolled up with newspaper into his mouth, lit it with a match and took a deep puff.

Xie Hushan searched the original owner's memory in his mind and shook his head suspiciously: "Why don't I remember him saying that he had been to Hong Kong Island? I just remember that he was not convinced and jumped around with me, and finally I beat him up."

"Nonsense, you are so fierce. You beat someone up and walked away without even looking back. Should I help you to comfort him and do some ideological work on him? Besides, after all, we all train hard to defend the motherland. We are comrades-in-arms anyway. So after you left, I pulled him up and asked him to smoke a cigarette. I forced myself to listen to his bragging, lest he get dissatisfied and hit you with a club when you were alone." Han Hongbing took a few puffs of the cigarette, and then continued:
"That guy is from Baijiaying Commune in our county. He said that he escorted a batch of goods last year with letters of introduction from the county import and export trading company and their commune. He took a special car, or something? It was a train. It stopped and started on the road for nearly 20 days, and finally delivered the goods to a train station at the border between Hong Kong Island and our side. He also said that the train station where he unloaded the car was full of people selling foreign things from Hong Kong Island, but the people there had a heavy accent and he couldn't understand them. I don't know if it's true or not, but that's what he said anyway."

Xie Hushan frowned and thought for a moment, then asked, "Think about it again, what else do you have to say?"

"I'm in no mood to listen to his bragging carefully. He's just being polite because you're afraid he'll come after you later!" Han Hongbing said impatiently, rolling his eyelids.

Xie Hushan raised four fingers and said, "Chief of Staff Han, Beidaihe, four, as long as you remember, the platoon has decided to give you four Beidaihe cigarettes, no lie."

"Even if you give me four boxes, I can't remember anything. I'm not familiar with that guy, and we're just being polite. We're just friends who light cigarettes for each other..." Han Hongbing heard Xie Hushan's promise of benefits, and then he tried to recall it. When he muttered about lighting cigarettes, his eyes suddenly lit up:
"Oh, right, the guy didn't use matches to light his cigarette, but a nice-looking kerosene lighter. It was better looking than the Spark kerosene lighters sold in our city. He said he bought it from the railway station with the escort subsidy. It looked like it was made of copper, but he didn't want to let me touch it. He also said that the thing had a foreign name, something like... something like Chicken Explosion? That's right, that lighter was called Chicken Explosion!"

The other two companions were discussing the war behind them. When they heard the word "chicken explosion", they couldn't help but join in the fun and said, "What a lousy name! Who would dare to buy a lighter of this brand and put it in their trouser pocket? Isn't that like hanging a small grenade on your crotch?"

"Maybe the factory manager is using the shortcomings as a brand. Have you forgotten that the products of our commune glass factory are called Nan'an? Every craftsman praises them. They are really damn difficult to install."

"Chicken burst... Chicken burst... Zippo? Zippo!" Xie Hushan muttered a few words and suddenly his whole body was refreshed. In 1978, a rural youth from Zhili Province could never buy Zippo in his own province, and he could not even have heard of this brand. What Han Hongbing said just now proved that the guy whose two teeth were loosened by him was not bragging. He had been to Hong Kong Island. Even if he had not set foot on Hong Kong Island, he was probably only one step away from Hong Kong Island.

However, the militiaman who ranked second in the county's competition went to Hong Kong Island, so why couldn't I, who ranked first, participate?
"Let's go, Commander Xie, and get some cigarettes from your house?" Han Hongbing saw that Xie Hushan was a little dazed, so he deliberately stretched out his hand and waved it in front of him and asked.

Xie Hushan came back to his senses, put on a serious face and angrily scolded the other party: "You are definitely talking nonsense to me. Which brand of lighter can have such a crappy name as Chicken Blast? If you want to trick me into smoking cigarettes, you should at least give it a credible name. So, in view of Han Hongbing's bad behavior of deceiving his comrades, I will make new arrangements for the anti-theft and anti-theft security work of our team during the movie screening in my capacity as the platoon leader of the core youth militia platoon of the third team and the captain of the core youth production assault team. I will take the two of them to continue patrolling, and Chief of Staff Han will be responsible for going to the wheat field to secretly coordinate one box of cigarettes that the commune projectionist put on the movie projector. After the coordination, I will forgive you for lying to your comrades and still give you four cigarettes."

"Good man, I was the one stealing again? I stole it myself, so I can divide it into four pieces by myself?" Han Hongbing looked at Xie Hushan with wide eyes and asked speechlessly.

Xie Hushan protested dissatisfiedly: "Don't keep stealing. How can smoking be considered stealing? It's coordination! And this is for the health of the projectionist. We hope he smokes less, takes care of his health, and serves the people for a few more years. Go! Go for a run!"

"You used the same excuse last time when you asked me to take away Special Envoy Lao Feng's cigarettes!" Han Hongbing finally resigned himself to his fate and turned to walk towards the wheat field, saying as he walked:

"Wherever the commune projectionist shows movies, he is always offered cigarettes to persuade others to show more movies. But in our village, he not only shows movies to everyone, but also asks them to leave some benefits. Our team asked you to be responsible for the anti-theft security during the movie showings. We have found the right person. If there are really thieves who are so ignorant, let alone stealing things, if they just pass by and take a look at our team, you will be forced to plow two acres of land for us."

(End of this chapter)