Under the fist

Chapter 5 The Mountain Guardian, His Ordinary Daily Life

Seeing that Lian Youming was staring at the old man in black, Wu Kui couldn't help but urge him, "Hey, Brother Lian, stop looking and go to the toilet, I can't hold it in anymore."

Lian Youming had no choice but to look away. "Has this forest farm of ours existed for a very long time?"

Without thinking, Wu Kui said, "Didn't you hear what the Party Secretary said? He said it existed before the founding of the People's Republic of China, but back then it certainly wasn't under our jurisdiction. It was either Chiang Kai-shek or some bandits."

As they walked and talked, they soon found a row of drafty wooden huts in the northwest of the forest farm; this was the men's toilet. The women's toilet was about twenty or thirty meters away, separated from them by a wooden fence covered with old slogans.

The forest was silent, the frost and snow speechless.

On the snow-covered ground, there were piles of felled timber and a large vegetable garden.

It's only been a short time since autumn began, but the weather has turned cold so quickly, with a sudden heavy snowfall.

"Brother Lian, what do you want to do when the forest farm assigns tasks later?"

Inside the toilet, Wu Kui, facing the cold wind from the bottom of the pit, stuck out his big, white buttocks, straining with all his might until his face turned red.

Lian Youming's stomach was also a little uncomfortable. He didn't know if he had eaten something bad. Now, when he was hit by the cold air, his stomach felt like it was churning. He immediately chose a latrine and squatted down.

"You can even choose this yourself?"

“What’s the big deal? It’s not like when the movement first started. Back then, we talked about hard work and struggle, but now we talk about making the best use of people’s talents and resources. Of course, we have to choose what we are good at. I don’t want to train donkeys again. But now that it’s getting cold, logging is definitely out of the question. Besides cleaning manure, we can only chop wood and carry water. Who knows, if there’s a few heavy snowfalls, we’ll have to go down there again.”

“My brother was sent to the countryside in Northeast China. He said that we could only stay here in spring and summer. If there was heavy snow that blocked the mountains, the educated youth would have to go down the mountain. But things are different now. Back then, they lived in tents and slept on the ground. Unlike us, we have heated kang beds. Roads have been built outside, so we will probably stay in the mountains and use the time to study.”

Wu Kui is a chatterbox; once he starts talking, he can't stop.

He paused slightly, then continued, "And before winter fully sets in, we'll definitely need to call people to go hunting in the mountains. They'll have to carry guns and patrol the surrounding forests, both to protect the forest farm and to drive away wild animals, and incidentally hunt some game and gather some mountain produce. Besides, we can't eat corn porridge and cornbread every day, can we? We need to grow our own food and hunt our own."

Upon hearing that he could finally hold a gun, Lian Youming immediately perked up.

He was already tired of playing with the slingshot in his bag.

Before he could ask any further questions, Wu Kui suddenly changed his tone, chuckling foolishly as if he'd thought of something amusing. "Hehe, we could also organize some cultural activities, and put together some programs with those female educated youth. You don't know, I even brought my accordion. In this freezing cold, in these years of hardship and struggle, I long for a deeply unforgettable and truly beautiful experience..."

In the end, Wu Kui clenched his fists, strained with all his might, his face turning blue from holding it in, but he still couldn't pull it out.

In contrast, Lian Youming, standing to the side, ejaculated profusely, his buttocks gushing out in a torrent of urine. It was a truly earth-shattering mess, with a biting cold wind blowing against his crotch. In the end, his legs went weak and his vision went black.

By the time the two of them walked out, trembling, it was almost dawn.

On the way back, Lian Youming glanced at the open space again, but did not see the old man in black again.

As the two walked outside the dormitory, they saw two identical young men carrying buckets, scrubbing the urine stains inside, with a militia platoon leader standing beside them.

Where have you two been?

The militia leader looked to be in his early thirties, with thick eyebrows, big eyes, and a short mustache just beginning to sprout on his lips. He was weathered, with dark skin and calloused hands.

Wu Kui was shy and introverted. He had been able to chat freely before, but now he was moving his lips and couldn't reply for a long time.

Lian Youming said, "I have an upset stomach, I need to go to the toilet."

The militiaman nodded, then looked at the Yu brothers, Wen and Wu, and criticized them with a dark face: "Everyone else knows to look for the toilet, but you two insist on urinating in the bucket. If you're so capable, why don't you urinate on the bed? Every single thing in this room was left by our ancestors. You may not care about it, but plenty of others will. Since you like urinating so much, from today onwards, you'll be in charge of cleaning the men's toilet and emptying the latrine."

Yu Wen and Yu Wu wore bitter expressions, as if they wanted to cry but had no tears.

"And you guys, hurry up and wash up, then gather at the forest farm's canteen."

After saying that, the militiaman left without looking back.

Yu Wen, carrying the bucket, lamented, "Damn it, I never thought my burning passion for going to the countryside would be extinguished by a pee. Oh no, I'm going to smell like poop and pee from now on, how am I going to talk to those female educated youths now?"

Lian Youming had no interest in the two brothers; he was still thinking about getting the gun. When he heard that they were to meet at the canteen, he quickly washed up and headed towards the canteen.

When he arrived, there weren't many people in the canteen yet.

In the center were some tables and chairs, in the corner were large pots and stoves, and on the wall hung garlic, dried mushrooms, wood ear fungus, and some wild vegetables.

Since they are self-sufficient, they must cook their own meals.

Lian Youming looked around listlessly, his gaze shifting to the open space behind the dining hall through a window covered in cobwebs.

Beneath the heavy snow, four graves were overgrown with weeds.

Unlike what I saw last time, there were livestock being kept inside. A flock of hens could be seen hopping around on the snow, and there was a strong smell of pig manure wafting from not far away.

There are actually people in this place.

Could it be the person who secretly watched him practice martial arts that day?

"strangeness!"

Lian Youming found it increasingly strange.

This wasn't some urban area; it was deep in the Greater Khingan Mountains, a forest farm surrounded by primeval forests, teeming with predatory wild animals—bears, wolves, leopards, lynxes, and tigers were all possible targets. Yet, he noticed these hens were all plump and round, their nests overflowing with eggs, clearly indicating they had been raised for quite some time.

Upon closer inspection, there were quite a few, probably seven or eight.

"Ok?"

Suddenly, Lian Youming saw a girl of about fifteen or sixteen years old walk out of the earthen house. She was dressed as a hunter, carrying a homemade hunting rifle on her back, a hunting knife at her waist, and a basket in her hand. She was picking up eggs with her head down.

Just as Lian Youming was engrossed in watching, an old face with sharp eyes and a hawk-like nose suddenly appeared in front of the window. It looked fierce, old, and sinister, and with its black clothes, it was as if he had encountered a ghost in broad daylight.

"I go."

Lian Youming felt a jolt in his scalp and was thrown back four or five meters as if electrocuted.

The old man had a cold expression, as if he wanted to keep strangers away, but he didn't say a word, just stared at Lian Youming.

It turned out to be the old man in black who was practicing boxing.

Lian Youming took a deep breath, quickly took several steps back, and said nothing more.

Just then, Wu Kui's voice came from behind, "Brother Lian, why are you walking so fast? I can't keep up with you."

Lian Youming looked back and found that quite a few educated youths had arrived one after another.

He took one last deep look at the window before joining the group.

Shortly after, the militia platoon leader also came in.

There was no long speech. Once everyone had arrived, the man first introduced himself as Yang Dapao, and then efficiently assigned tasks to the educated youth.

The male educated youth were responsible for physical labor such as moving timber and chopping firewood, while the female educated youth were responsible for carrying water, cooking, grinding rice and milling grain, and taking care of the vegetable garden. Although it was autumn and snowed, some special vegetable varieties could still be grown.

In short, they are self-reliant and self-sufficient.

But to Lian Youming's delight, just as Wu Kui had said, the militia platoon leader was to select two educated youths to be in charge of guarding the forest farm, and they would also be armed.

The main reason is that the weather turned cold early this year, so we need to stock up on food for the winter in advance. With a gun, we can not only go hunting in the mountains in our spare time, but also collect pine nuts.

Upon hearing that they were going to wander in the mountains on such a cold day, the group of educated youth looked at each other, their eyes wide with disbelief.

"I."

Lian Youming couldn't wait any longer.

He was already quite conspicuous due to his height and physique, and now, by volunteering and shouting slogans like "We are not afraid of the cold and we will fight against nature," he immediately won the appreciation of the militia platoon leader.

"And I."

Surprisingly, another female educated youth came out. She was tall and slender, and far from being thin, she had a capable and efficient air about her. She was one of the female educated youth who had been sent to Kaoshantun with Lian Youming, and her name was Zhao Xiaozhi.

Seeing that no one else stepped forward, the militia platoon leader called the two men to an open space in the forest farm and tested their marksmanship.

But when Lian Youming saw the Hanyang rifle he received, the excitement in his eyes vanished instantly.

He weighed it in his hand, tested its texture, and then looked at the marks of knife cuts and fire. It was clearly an old object, probably older than his parents combined, with the rifling inside almost worn away.

"Is this a gun or a fire poker? It's probably not even as good as my own slingshot, just something to fool a kid."

Lian Youming had some doubts, but seeing the female educated youth loading bullets so skillfully, he couldn't back down and started working as well.

At the militia platoon leader's signal, the two men pulled the trigger, and two more shots rang out. Their bullets hit a wooden stake, sending up a cloud of snow.

The platoon leader chuckled, "Not bad."

But they couldn't take the guns yet. After waiting for a while, two people came, one old and one young.

The old man was a villager from a village at the foot of the mountain. He was a mountain traveler dressed like a hunter, with a goatee, carrying a homemade hunting rifle, and a pouch and a copper pot at his waist, filled with gunpowder and iron shot.

As for the younger one, she was a girl of about fifteen or sixteen, with a hunting knife at her waist and a homemade gun in her hand. A large, slick-haired wolfhound followed behind her. It turned out to be the same little girl who had been picking up eggs earlier.

The militia platoon leader instructed, "This is Shuang'er, the granddaughter of the old man who guards the mountain in that open area behind. She is usually responsible for guarding the forest farm. For the next half month, you two will follow them to familiarize yourselves with the surrounding environment of the forest farm. Each time you go into the mountains, you are only allowed to take five bullets from me. After firing a gun, you must bring back the spent cartridges for verification. If you lose even one, you will lose work points."

After explaining everything, the platoon leader assigned them to two villagers.

After everyone had finished making breakfast, had a bowl of corn porridge and two steamed buns, the female educated youth Zhao Xiaozhi followed the girl away, while Lian Youming, carrying his broken gun, followed the old man to the other side.

……

……

……

"Uncle Xie, are there really wild beasts in these mountains?"

Lian Youming followed behind the old man, looking around here and there.

The old man was called Xie Laosan. Despite his small stature, he was incredibly agile and had amazing eyesight. In just a short while, he had already caught two pheasants and three rabbits, all of which were now quite plump and fat.

Without turning his head, Xie Laosan said, "I'm not trying to scare you. Once winter comes, the wild beasts in these mountains become active. The person who was right in front of you a second ago might disappear in the blink of an eye, and by the time you find them, their heart and liver will have already been ripped out by wild animals."

Lian Youming followed behind, responsible for collecting the prey and assisting. "Hey, Uncle Xie, I see there's an empty space behind the canteen. Do you know who that person in there is?"

Xie Laosan first shook his head, but what he said startled Lian Youming: "That man has been there since I was old enough to understand things. Everyone used to call him the old man who guards the mountain. A few years ago, the Party Secretary saw that he was all alone, so he gave him a name and registered him at Shuang'er's house. But this man just wouldn't come down the mountain and stayed in the forest farm. In the end, Shuang'er moved up here too."

Lian Youming exclaimed in surprise, "Uncle Xie, you must be in your fifties or sixties, right?"

Xie Laosan replied, "Sixty-eight."

Lian Youming was horrified. "So, the person behind the dining hall must be eighty or ninety years old."

But Xie Laosan said mysteriously, "Not only that. That person was already in his thirties or forties back then, and I think he's at least a hundred years old now."

Lian Youming swallowed hard. "Didn't you guys investigate that person's background?"

Xie Laosan gave him a meaningful look. "You think it's normal for him to be safe and sound all alone in these deep mountains and forests? Years ago, Shuang'er's father was killed by a Siberian tiger while hiking in the mountains. But less than half a month later, the tiger was found in a ditch. Guess how it died?"

Before Lian Youming could respond, the old man said in a hoarse voice, "He was slapped to death. I heard there's still a handprint on his forehead."

Upon hearing these words, Lian Youming felt a chill run down his spine and his skin crawled.

Xie Laosan then said, "Have you ever heard a saying?"

Lian Youming looked up.

The old man said with deep emotion, "People say that there is no true Buddha in the world, but when the true Buddha is right in front of you, how can you see him with your ordinary eyes? In those places that ordinary people cannot see, there is another world... Where there is a world, there is a true Buddha."

For some reason, meeting the old man's gaze and hearing his mysterious words, Lian Youming inexplicably said, "Martial arts!"

Martial arts are the key to entering that world.

Xie Laosan gave a half-smile, as if he had experienced something, and then uttered four words with a complicated expression, "Easier said than done."

The two remained silent, each seemingly preoccupied with their own thoughts, and wandered around the mountains until three or four in the afternoon.

As the sun rises and the snow melts, although a trace of green remains in the vast mountains and forests, it is hard to conceal the desolation.

The two had a good harvest. Lian Youming also caught a lot of prey, but not with a gun. Instead, he used his slingshot and hit the target nine times out of ten, which earned him repeated praise from Xie Laosan.

Just like that, more than half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and it was already late autumn.

Life in the forest farm was monotonous, tedious, and arduous. As the weather grew increasingly frigid, even though it didn't snow, frost and icicles formed in the mornings and evenings.

Unlike the educated youth who settled in rural areas, these people were nominally educated youth sent to support the border regions by the Production and Construction Corps. However, the educated youth movement was coming to an end, so they could no longer truly go down to the Production and Construction Corps. Even so, they were still led by Platoon Leader Yang and managed in a semi-military manner.

Platoon Leader Yang probably knew that the sports meet wouldn't be over for long, and with the weather getting colder, the management of the group became much more relaxed. Moreover, the food was excellent; large steamed buns and big pots of stew were cooked every few days, plus meat brought back by the hunters – it was quite good.

As for work points, they remain the same.

However, as the weather turned cold, many people couldn't stand it anymore. They either stayed in their dormitories and didn't want to move, or after work, they would sneak into Lian Youming's dormitory, where a group of people would huddle together on a kang (a heated brick bed) and wait expectantly.

What are you waiting for?

Wait for Liu Dabiao to perform Tianjin-style fast-paced storytelling.

Yu Wen and Yu Wu, two local bullies from Beijing, chimed in and made a ruckus.

If they had free time, other educated youth could also showcase their talents, which served as a small comfort and spiritual nourishment for everyone.

The situation wasn't much different for the female educated youth. Some of them hadn't even had a proper winter before their hands and feet developed chilblains. The scabs were stuck to their socks and they couldn't take them off, causing them to cry every day from the pain.

Although there were barefoot doctors in the forest farm, they mostly used folk remedies, which were completely ineffective.

Lian Youming's work is relatively simple. When it gets cold, he goes out to hike in the mountains in the morning, and at noon he either chops wood and carries water or helps others carry logs.

Before it snows, we need to send out the felled timber.

There's no need to load them onto a vehicle. You just need to use a wire rope to pull the felled logs to the southwest corner of the forest farm. There's a steep slope there, and the logs can roll down to the foot of the mountain where villagers will collect them.

Besides that, after work, while the dormitory was noisy, Lian Youming would find a quiet place to study the kung fu on the brocade, especially the Golden Bell Cover. Whenever he had free time, he would practice the poses according to the movements on it.

After some time of pondering, he discovered that the Golden Bell Cover had absolutely nothing to do with the Shaolin Temple, nor did it contain the mysterious internal energy found in martial arts novels. Instead, it was based on the twelve meridians of the human body, and mastering each meridian was equivalent to breaking through a barrier.

However, Lian Youming still found many parts of the text too obscure and dared not speculate wildly. He simply followed the muscle movements on the human figures and tried to manipulate them with his mind whenever he had free time.

Unexpectedly, his appetite increased significantly, and the stiff muscles in various parts of his body gradually loosened up.

Also, Lian Youming didn't know if it was just his imagination, but he always felt that the old man guarding the mountain was often elusive, as if he was secretly observing him.

But as time went on, seeing that the other party didn't do anything unusual, Lian Youming became too lazy to pay attention to them. After all, a few glances wouldn't cost him anything.

And so, though life was ordinary, it was fulfilling.

Before we knew it, it was already the end of October.

Lian Youming also thought that he would end his life on the mountain in this fulfilling and hard-working daily routine. If he remembered correctly, the sports meet would end in the autumn of 1980, and then they could return to the city.

But unexpectedly, on the last day of October, something unexpected happened at the forest farm...

(End of this chapter)