Writer 1978: I Need to Give the Literary World a Lesson

Chapter 16 It turns out it was the school's donkey

As dusk fell, the last wisp of cloud on the horizon finally disappeared. The air above the Liu family's house was filled with the rich aroma of cooking oil, making the neighbors, young and old, drool.

"How much oil did the team leader use to make those fried dough sticks?" A commune member leaned against the doorway of his kitchen, his nose pointing in the direction of the Liu family's house, greedily inhaling the air mixed with the aroma of oil.

"The captain's family has a happy occasion, but they've used way too much oil. Should we stop using it in the future?"

Fried dough sticks are one of the few good foods available in rural western Henan. In times when meat was scarce, they were the most tempting food. Oil is poured onto a griddle, and the dough sticks are baked until golden brown, with scallions mixed in.

It's fragrant with both oil and scallions when you eat it. It's delicious, but it uses too much oil. The Liu family doesn't make it often, and today Yang Xiuyun used even more oil than usual.

Adding a spoonful of lard to the stir-fried dishes made a huge difference in my life.

The family sat in the middle of the courtyard and enjoyed their meal. Yang Xiuyun picked up the still-hot flatbread, blew on it to cool it down, and quickly tore it in half, handing one half to Liu Fuqing and the other half to Liu Yimin.

"Yimin, try it and see how it is. There's definitely a difference with all this oil. Look how golden it is, it looks like it's dripping with oil," Yang Xiuyun said with a smile.

She watched as Liu Yimin took a bite and said it was delicious before smiling and tearing off half for herself.

“Yimin, your father and I don’t understand anything about being a writer. You’ll have to walk your own path from now on. We’re not asking for a lot of money, and we shouldn’t go against the policies,” Yang Xiuyun said worriedly.

Yang Xiuyun knew nothing about writers except the word "writer".

While they were eating, Li Lanyong and Li Dashan pushed open the door and walked in. Li Lanyong grinned widely, his lips almost unable to cover his teeth.

Liu Fuqing and his wife picked up the flatbread from the "row" and handed it to the two men, but they both waved their hands and refused to eat it. Li Lanyong patted his belly and said, "The filming crew ate at my house today, so I also got to enjoy a good meal."

"Paizi" is a container made of sorghum stalks. First, two sorghum stalks are crossed in a cross shape and strung together with needle and thread. Then, sorghum stalks are added one by one until they are all strung together. Finally, they are trimmed into a circle with scissors.

In rural areas, it is used to store foods such as flatbread and wrapped dumplings.

Whenever the film projection team came to the brigade to show a movie, the brigade would treat them to good food and drink, afraid that they wouldn't show the movie properly. Sometimes, if they were treated well, they would even add an extra free screening, but in reality, the brigade never did.

Li Dashan only asked that these people just obediently show the movies.

"Yimin, what kind of novel are you writing?" Li Lanyong asked curiously.

This is also what Li Dashan and Liu Fuqing wanted to ask.

"The novel is called 'Mr. Donkey'!"

“I know what a donkey is, Yimin. Are you writing about the donkey of our production team or the donkey of the commune?” Li Dashan asked.

Liu Fuqing immediately chimed in, "It must be our brigade's donkey. No one in the commune has ever seen a donkey before."

Liu Yimin reluctantly told them the story, saying that he found the inspiration in the abandoned Min G Primary School in the commune. After a long time, only Li Lanyong understood it.

Liu Fuqing and Li Dashan exchanged a glance. It turned out the description was about donkeys from a school before Liberation. They immediately found it uninteresting; if it were donkeys from the production brigade, they could chat and he could tell them which breeds and colors were the best. After dinner, Liu Yimin wanted to sleep, but Li Lanyong insisted on dragging him to a movie.
When they arrived at the threshing ground, the crowd had already packed them. However, as the Party Secretary and the team leader, Liu Fuqing and Li Dashan had already reserved seats in the front row.

Li Lanyong also found someone to save seats for Liu Yimin and his companion, and squeezed through the crowd to get to the inside.

"Make way!" Li Lanyong kicked the boy who was standing still in front of him.

The boy immediately turned his head and glared at him, his eyes filled with a fierce light, as if he wanted to attack.

"Wow, you've gotten quite bold!" Li Lanyong teased.

Several young men surnamed Li and Liu, who were nearby, noticed this and discreetly walked over. The boy, surnamed Han, was Han Deqiang, the son of Han Shaomin, the team leader.

The struggle between the three families was top-down, and the children also disliked each other, so they fought quite a bit.

Han Deqiang glanced at Liu Yimin with apprehension, slowly stepped aside, and shook his head at the few young men surnamed Han not far away.

The film projection team erected two wooden stakes in the middle of the threshing ground, tied a screen to them, and turned on the projector at a suitable distance. Before the film, a 10-minute news briefing was played, much like a modern-day CCTV news broadcast.

[News Brief No. 23, 1978: 1. The 1978 National College Entrance Examination will be held on July 20. Local admissions offices are called upon to do a good job in the examination work for candidates, earnestly implement the instructions of the Party Central Committee regarding political vetting, and not violate the political vetting policy. The head of the Party Central Committee affirmed the 1977 admissions results and criticized the view that "selective admission is to widen the three major differences."]

2. The Guangming Daily published a special commentator article entitled "Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth," which sparked a nationwide discussion.

3. my country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the issue of expelling overseas Chinese in Yunnan. China strongly protests against the large-scale anti-Chinese actions in Yunnan since early April this year.

4、3月16日，意大利总L莫罗被KB组织“红色旅”绑架。莫洛在绑架55天后于5月16日被红色旅杀害。

】

News briefings are not real-time, unlike the evening news broadcasts of later generations. Therefore, much of the news you see is from the past, with the most recent being almost a month old.

After the news briefing was finished, Li Dashan stood up and said loudly, "I also have some news from our Maiji Brigade. Liu Fuqing's second son, Liu Yimin, has become a writer. This is not only an honor for our Maiji Brigade, but also for our county revolutionary committee and Shiling Commune."

We should learn from Yimin, balancing revolution and study, and juggling both farming and calligraphy. I told you, there's so much ball, everyone go watch the movie!

The other people from the different brigades who came to see the movie were shocked when they heard this. The members of Maiji Brigade glanced at them smugly and thought to themselves, "They're so ignorant!"
"Is it really necessary? To make the whole world know?" Liu Yimin said helplessly.

"Come on, thank goodness my dad didn't say you wrote about the donkeys that schools raised before Liberation."

The chatter among the commune members was gradually drowned out by the sound of the movie. Everyone's attention was focused on the screen, watching the scenes of Japanese soldiers being blown up. Every now and then, bursts of laughter would erupt, followed by curses like, "You little devil, blown up!"

A war film, "Landmine Warfare," and a drama, "Chaoyang Ditch," are loved by people of all ages.

As the filming of "Chaoyanggou" was finished and the crew was about to disperse, the projectionists stood on stools and announced loudly, "To celebrate the emergence of a writer from Maiji Brigade, we'll show you another film, 'The Southern Expedition and the Northern War'."

(End of this chapter)