Back to 1978

Chapter 35 I want to be a bachelor
Han Hongzhen pulled a cart loaded with firewood, buckets, pots, pans and stoves, and her mother-in-law helped to light the way with a flashlight. At two o'clock in the morning, the two of them appeared at the door of Team Leader Xie's house as requested, and saw a very unforgettable scene.

Under the moonlight, Comrade Xie Hushan, the new team leader of the sideline group of Team 3, was holding a peeled wooden stick in his hand, slashing and waving it at the air like a psychopath, muttering to himself:

"Take my sword, China's number one sword, the White Emperor's Holy Sword, follow me with the sword! Use your hips to push hard! Combine the two swords!"

Seeing him and Lao Meng standing together, asking the members of Team 3 to guess which of them was the fool, Han Hongzhen felt that as long as everyone was not blind, they would vote for this team leader.

"Why don't I go to Lao Wu's house and knock on the door and look for him again?" Seeing the two idiots' focused look, the mother-in-law whispered to Han Hongzhen:

"This... even setting up a stall at the market and watching over two idiots... can you do it all by yourself?"

"Uncle Wu said to listen to him first." Han Hongzhen put down the handlebars, straightened her back, and said to her mother-in-law: "Mom, give me the flashlight, you go back."

Seeing Han Hongzhen rushing over, Xie Hushan carefully put the holy sword in his hand back into his own yard, closed the door, and called Lao Meng to meet Han Hongzhen and her daughter:
"Auntie, why are you here? Go home and have a rest. I found a good job for you. You will be busy in the next few days."

"Hushan, do you want Lao Meng to go with you?" The mother-in-law asked with a complicated expression, looking at Lao Meng who took the flashlight beside her and shone the beam of light towards the moon.

Xie Hushan said he needed an extra person to do the work, so he found this stupid guy Lao Meng? Isn't this just adding to the chaos? He was not very smart when he was waving his stick and mumbling just now, and he found an even stupider guy to follow him.

What was Ma Laowu thinking? Did the third team fail? Was he planning to disband because of his wealth? Was he looking for two idiots to ruin the production team?

He is still playing with sticks at the age of 18, and his grandmother and aunt praise him like a flower and want to match him with their daughter-in-law?

Even though my daughter-in-law is a widow, she can't marry a better wife if she doesn't want to remarry, but she can't marry a fool who waves a stick in the middle of the night, right?
"Ah~" Xie Hushan glanced at Lao Meng and said to Han Hongzhen's mother-in-law:

"He can pull the cart, light the fire, fetch water, and clean up the dishes. It's not that Lao Meng can't work, he just has a childish temper. He can't do the same work all the time. Just let him play for a while."

After saying that, he called Lao Meng, took out two candies from his pocket and stuffed them into his mouth: "Go, pull the cart. You pull the first four miles and I'll pull the back five miles."

Lao Meng agreed and gave the flashlight to Xie Hushan. He walked over, biting a candy melon, tightened his belt, and picked up the handlebars. Xie Hushan sat down on the edge of the cart and called to Han Hongzhen next to him:
"Get in the car, what are you waiting for?"

"You want him to take us to Liushenzhuang? He will be exhausted!" Han Hongzhen was shocked. The firewood and water in the car were already quite heavy, and what about two more living people sitting in it?
"Then you walk slowly behind me." Xie Hushan didn't pretend to be hypocritical. He turned around and called Lao Meng to help Lao Meng light the road:

"Let's go, stay steady. If you dare to knock me down, you won't get any meat. I will have to execute you according to military law!"

Lao Meng pulled the cart and walked forward, as if there was nothing on the cart, and his steps were brisk.

Han Hongzhen followed the car for more than ten meters, and saw Xie Hushan looking at her as he walked with a smile on his face. Unable to bear the mocking look in his eyes, she finally lowered her head and jogged for a while, and sat on the other side of the car.

"Knowing that you won't be needed to pull the cart today, I changed my clothes on purpose?" Xie Hushan held a candy melon in his mouth, took one out of his pocket and handed it to Han Hongzhen, saying with a smile:

"It looks pretty good, and stronger than yesterday. Want some candy?"

Yesterday Han Hongzhen wore a set of men's blue work clothes. Although they were altered, both the top and the pants still looked very big and loose when she wore them. It was just that the work clothes were resistant to dirt and wear, so she didn't mind the wear and tear of the fabric when pulling the cart.

Today I wore a fitted short jacket with a slanting collar and fine-grained blue cloth with half sleeves, and dirt-resistant sleeves made of scraps of cloth on my forearms. I looked a lot prettier and neater than yesterday.

Han Hongzhen did not respond. After hesitating for a moment, she took the candy melon from Xie Hushan and put it in her mouth. Then she took out a lunch box from the car.
"Would you two like to eat some dry food to fill your stomachs? I made some wild vegetable-stuffed buns before going to bed last night, and I heated them up before going out. They're still warm now. Can I give you one?"

"You need to bring your own dry food to set up a wonton stall?" Xie Hushan was very shocked. In his opinion, the first three bowls of wontons cooked every day could not be sold to others, and he had to fill his own people's stomachs first.

"Those wontons belong to the team. Can we eat as much as we want?" Han Hongzhen opened the lunch box and handed Xie Hushan a piece of wild vegetable cake.

"Work with me, how can I let you starve? Put it away, put it away, wrap the wontons and cook a bowl for each of you, so you can eat something hot." Xie Hushan told them to eat the wontons, but he took the steamed bun and took a bite.

After tasting it, he said to Han Hongzhen:

"You don't have to pull the cart to my door anymore. Let Lao Meng pull the cart to your house. You have to stay away from my grandma."

Han Hongzhen didn't understand why this guy suddenly said such a thing after eating a piece of bun: "What's wrong?" "My grandma must have liked you. You cook delicious food. If she knew, she would be more willing." Xie Hushan said expressionlessly.

Han Hongzhen was full of confusion: "What does it mean to fancy me?"

"What do you mean? I don't understand. My grandma is looking for a wife for me. My family is poor, but she doesn't want to find a girl from the poor places in Xishan for me. She wants to look for one near Zhongping Village. She thought you were a good choice yesterday."

"I'm married." Han Hongzhen glared at Xie Hushan with her beautiful almond-shaped eyes: "What nonsense are you talking about."

The inadvertent look of anger made Xie Hushan feel that his grandmother had a very good vision.

Speaking of grandma, Xie Hushan was convinced. At such an old age, she never went out to visit friends and relatives. Last night, when she was having dinner and talking with the uncles and aunts at the same table, she had already grasped Han Hongzhen's detailed information.

This made Xie Hushan suspect that the old ladies in the village might have a secret intelligence organization, using unknown top-secret techniques to pass on all kinds of gossip and intelligence information in the village.

Han Hongzhen, a native of Hanjialou, five miles away, is a relative of the Han family of Zhongping Village, just five generations apart. She is twenty-one years old this year. She is strong-willed, down-to-earth, upright and capable.

She married Wu Jinzhu from Zhongping Village in 1976. They had just registered their marriage and had not yet held a formal wedding banquet.

The husband was busy painting their new house, so he called his father-in-law and his own father for help. After a tiring day at work, the three of them drank some wine at night and slept soundly. As a result, an earthquake occurred that night, and the three of them did not wake up and were buried.

They were two pretty good families, but the earthquake left only three widows, especially Han Hongzhen, who became a widow without even a wedding ceremony.

Under the persuasion of the women's director, her mother remarried and moved to another village with her underage brother, and she lived with her mother-in-law.

My mother-in-law had one leg amputated and was unable to participate in production labor. Han Hongzhen found Ma Laowu and offered to help her mother-in-law do a side job by setting up a stall selling wontons. This way, the two of them could earn some money for the team, so that they wouldn't be laughed at for shamelessly taking advantage of the team when dividends were distributed at the end of the year.

Her mother-in-law, Aunt Wu, was a nice person and treated her like her own daughter. The two of them depended on each other and fell in love. She didn't want to delay Han Hongzhen, so she asked the matchmaker to find another family for her. She didn't want her to stay with her and suffer as a widow. But Han Hongzhen was reluctant to leave her mother-in-law behind, and told the matchmaker that she would have to take care of her mother-in-law even if she got married.

Originally, many unmarried young men had feelings for her, but hearing this scared many of them away.

After all, her mother-in-law only has one leg and is not considered a labor force, so she definitely needs help and relief. In the eyes of most people in rural areas, once a woman gets married, she should worry less about her parents' home. What's more, Aunt Wu is not Han Hongzhen's biological mother, but just her ex-mother-in-law.

Grandma had already expressed her opinion at the dinner table, and wanted someone to ask Aunt Wu about her opinion. In her opinion, the Han family was a big family, and if her grandson married a girl from the Han family, he would have someone to help him in the future when he had problems. Besides, since she was three years older, she knew how to be caring.

As for the issue of widows and second marriages, it was not within grandma's consideration at all. In grandma's words, if Han Hongzhen was getting married for the first time, with her looks and personality, and considering Xie Hushan's family conditions, even if he asked a matchmaker to propose marriage, the matchmaker would be speechless.

There is no new house, so the young couple has to work hard to earn work points as soon as they move in. They don’t have any help from their parents. How could anyone be willing to send their beautiful and capable daughter to work like a slave?

"I'm not kidding. Don't show your face in front of my grandma. She doesn't care whether you are a widow or not. She sees a girl from our village and thinks she is suitable for me." Xie Hushan ate his steamed bun and persuaded him seriously:
"You better be careful. Your mother-in-law will ask you about me in the next few days. You'd better make up some shortcomings of mine, otherwise your mother-in-law will be easily persuaded by my grandmother. My grandmother is not an ordinary person. She is definitely Zhen Huan from Zhongping Village. Her heart is all on me."

"She is willing, but I am not. What are you thinking? You are not that old, but you are so lustful and eager to get married." Han Hongzhen thought Xie Hushan was just making small talk with her and snorted.

Xie Hushan said sincerely: "I really don't want to get married. It is very immoral to lock a shared bicycle like mine. But my grandma doesn't understand what this means, so it's useless to tell her."

"..." Han Hongzhen looked at Xie Hushan, not understanding what he meant by locking the bicycle.

"From your clear eyes, I know that you are just like my grandmother, you don't understand either." Xie Hushan looked at Han Hongzhen's blank look and said:

"Just understand that I want to be a bachelor for the rest of my life."

"Why?" Han Hongzhen didn't understand, how could there be people willing to be single for their entire lives?

Xie Hushan looked up at the night sky and said seriously, "Because if a man has a wife and then has an affair with his wife, he will be easily beaten, but if a bachelor has an affair with his wife, everyone feels that this is understandable from a psychological point of view."

(End of this chapter)