Back to 1978

Chapter 9 I really want the shit, but I don't want to give the money

Not every family in the production team had a bicycle. As the accountant of the third team, Zhao Shuli was also a team cadre. No matter how reluctant he was, he had to show his style. He pushed his own bicycle over first, and then went to borrow one for Xie Hushan. Although he did not ask why Xie Hushan wanted to borrow two bicycles, he kept reminding Xie Hushan to be careful when riding and not to break the bicycle. Wherever he went, he would rather spend two cents to park the bicycle and ask someone to help watch it, rather than be greedy and park it on the roadside to avoid it being stolen. For a rural family, a bicycle is a valuable item.

It was not until Xie Hushan patted his chest and promised to bring the bicycle back in good condition that Accountant Zhao left, looking back every few steps.

Under the division of labor arranged by Ma Laowu, the members of the third team went to work in the fields in groups. The huge bungalow of the third team in the village suddenly became quiet. Xie Hushan put his fingers in his mouth and blew a sharp whistle!

A dog barked in the distance, as if in response.

"Dahei! Go and find Han Laoer! Tell him to stop hiding! The reactionary Ma Laowu has been driven away, and Commander Xie is back and he won't steal food!" Xie Hushan shouted in the direction of the barking dog.

Before he finished smoking a cigarette, Han Hongbing showed up in the distance and walked towards Xie Hushan, accompanied by his family's big black dog that he had raised for seven or eight years. "Didn't I ask my third son to tell you not to come?"

Xie Hushan squatted down with a cigarette in his mouth, rubbing Dahei's dog face with both hands, and said to Han Hongbing with contempt: "Is it a big deal to collect manure? You are too scared to go to work, what a waste! Dahei, go home, when I have money, I will find you some beautiful lion dogs as wives, and tell everyone that a local dog can also marry a fairy."

Dahei wagged his tail and enjoyed Xie Hushan's caress for a while. When Xie Hushan told him to go home, he turned around and ran towards his home.

There aren't many things in this kind of rural countryside that a worldly time traveler like Xie Hushan would be interested in. At the moment, the thing he likes the most and wants to possess the most is probably the big black dog in Han Hongbing's family.

I don't know how Han Hongbing's father taught him, but Dahei can no longer be described as human. He is just like a human except that he can't speak. Through Dahei, Xie Hushan understands why there is an old saying that "a good man protects three villages, and a good dog protects three neighbors".

This dog can understand human language and can open and close the bolt of the courtyard gate by itself. During the day, when the members of Team 3 go to work, it acts as a non-staff militia for Team 3, helping to guard the house. If it sees that no one is at home and a chicken in the chicken coop accidentally flies out, it will be sensible enough to chase the chicken and bring it back to its own coop without biting it. When a member returns home and finds that a chicken is missing, he or she can just go to Han Hongbing's house to get it back.

When it sees the Han family or familiar members of the Third Team, it always shakes its head as if asking for a touch. However, if a stranger from another village comes to visit relatives or sell needles and thread, it will stare at the stranger. If a stranger dares to stand at the door of anyone in the Third Team for a while, it will immediately bark and yell at the stranger, threatening him to leave quickly.

This kind of good dog is liked not only by Xie Hushan but also by the whole Team 3, so Dahei is basically regarded as the team pet of Team 3. Whenever someone wants to breed a female dog, the first person they think of is Dahei, hoping that the puppies born will be as human-like as Dahei. When people mention that the puppies born by their own female dog are bred from Dahei of the old Han family of Team 3, the puppies will be more popular than any other dogs when given away.

This has also led to the fact that in recent years, Dahei's wives and children and grandchildren are spread all over the country, and the family is prosperous.

When the teacher at the village primary school criticized my sister Xie Yuxiu for not studying hard, the harshest thing he said was: Dahei from your team studied for three years and was able to get into junior high school, so why can't you?
Looking at the two bicycles in front of him, Han Hongbing asked Xie Hushan in confusion: "What do you mean? You don't have to lead us to collect manure? What are bicycles for?"

"Collect it." Xie Hushan looked at Han Hongbing, who turned around and tried to run when he heard him say "collect the manure". "Why are you running? I have the final say on how to collect it. I didn't ask you to go with me to collect manure now. Why are you running?"

Han Hongbing turned around with an impatient look on his face, patted the bicycle seat, and said unhappily: "You don't remember me when you have good things, but you can't forget me every time when you have such disgusting things. I wonder if there is something wrong with our revolutionary friendship?"

Xie Hushan rode a bicycle first: "Let's go, Chief of Staff Han, ride your bicycles, Commander Xie will take you to the county town, and check the market of manure by the way."

"What the hell is a big inspection? Besides, can't we just ride one bike? You carry me on the way there, and I carry you on the way back. Why do we need two bikes? They are very expensive. If they break, we have to repair them." Han Hongbing also jumped on his bike and chased after Xie Hushan and asked. Xie Hushan bent over and pedaled the bike very fast: "Nonsense, there must be a purpose of riding two bikes. Maybe when we enter the county, we will have to split up. Then there will be only one bike. Who rides and who walks?"

The county seat is 37 miles away from Zhongping Village. The young man was energetic and strong, and he rode to the county seat in less than an hour. Bingyang County is not big. Except for the east-west Tuanjie Street and the north-south Jiefang Road, the two main roads are asphalt roads. The rest of the roads are mostly dirt roads and have not been rebuilt yet. People walking on the road can stir up a cloud of dust. Only a few roads with heavy traffic are paved with fine ballast.

The post-earthquake reconstruction work has not been completed yet. It is common to see piles of building ruins or debris from the demolition of dilapidated buildings on the roadside, making the county town look a bit dirty, messy and dilapidated.

Although Xie Hushan and his companions were not from the county town, they had come to the county town during the slack season and were familiar with the place. When they asked a passerby on the road about the manure pond, the passerby pointed to the north and said, "Go north and follow the smell!" Whichever road is smelly these days leads to that place!
The two men easily found the place by following the method of smelling the way that the other party had told them. Before they got closer and actually saw the manure pit, they could already smell the pungent odor. In addition, the horse-drawn carriages of various rural production teams that came to collect manure had been lined up at least 200 meters away on the roadside, and new horse-drawn carriage convoys joined from time to time. There was no other way, as various rural production teams would use this time period to apply farmyard manure to the land and add some nutrition to the crops, hoping to produce more grain in the subsequent autumn harvest.

"Uncle, what's the price of manure this year?" Xie Hushan asked a driver who was squatting on the side of the road to rest his legs and lighting his pipe with a match.

The driver took a few puffs on his pipe, then looked at Xie Hushan and said, "What's the price? It's the same as last year, five yuan a cart. Damn it, the extra grain grown from collecting manure and applying fertilizer, when the money is calculated, the manure seller still makes the most money! After working hard for a year, you can only get a few pounds of grain!"

"How many trucks will your team collect this year?" Xie Hushan asked again.

The driver waved his hand and pointed at the large trucks on the roadside: "Six trucks came today, and we plan to collect 20 trucks, so you have to queue up again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow."

"Thank you, uncle." Xie Hushan said thank you, turned around and pedaled his bicycle away from the manure pit, and did not stop until he could no longer smell the stench.

Han Hongbing came over and asked, "Aren't you going to ask the dung spoon?"

The workers from the sanitation bureau who were responsible for selling feces from the manure pit were called feces shovelers by the production team members who came to the city to collect feces.

"What the hell are you asking?" Xie Hushan took out a cigarette, lit it, and drove away the faint stench: "Our team collected 30 cars last year, and we plan to collect 30 more this year. At 5 yuan per car, that's 150 yuan. What can't we do with this money?"

"You have to collect it in the end. If you think it's too expensive, go and build a relationship with the dung shovelers. Haven't you seen that many dung collecting trucks on the roadside have peanuts or sweet potatoes hanging on them? Those are tributes to the dung shovelers. If they are satisfied, they can secretly give you a few cents off for each truckload, and they can also tell you which pit to collect dung with good quality." Han Hongbing saw that Xie Hushan had no intention of returning to the manure pit, so he began to persuade him.

He felt that this matter, which concerned the production within the team, could not be sloppy and had to be done, so he advised Xie Hushan to go back to the manure pit to find out the situation. Although Han Hongbing also disliked the dirty job, it was his buddy who was so stupid as to accept the job, so he had to bite the bullet and help his buddy finish the job.

Xie Hushan blew out a smoke ring and handed the cigarette he had taken two puffs of to Han Hongbing: "Chief of Staff Han, now I have a question."

"What's the problem?" Han Hongbing took it and took a sip.

Xie Hushan looked at Han Hongbing and said word by word: "I really want the feces, but I don't want to give you the money."

(End of this chapter)