Courtyard Houses: From Bronze Compasses to Global Reach

Before dawn, a series of urgent whistles woke up Zhuxi Village.

Lin Yan tied his shoelaces, grabbed his camera, and rushed outside, just in time to bump into Captain Xiao carrying a loudspeaker. "Little Lin, keep up!" Xiao Ronggen gestured with his chin, then leaped onto the millstone in three quick steps. "All commune members, to the fields! Harvest and plant in a rush, snatch the grain from the jaws of death!"

Click!

Without a second thought, Lin Yan pressed the shutter. In the viewfinder, Xiao Ronggen's figure standing on the millstone looked exceptionally upright in the morning mist.

He followed the crowd to the edge of the field and was immediately stunned by the sight before him. The golden rice paddies were filled with figures bending over to harvest rice, the swishing sound of sickles cutting through the rice stalks echoing everywhere.

"Reporter Lin, over here!" Uncle Li, who was harvesting rice, straightened up and waved vigorously at him. "Take a picture of me and Old Wang, let's see who can harvest faster!"

Lin Yan ran over with a smile, squatted down, and lowered the camera very low. Click! In the viewfinder, two pairs of calloused hands gripped sickles, and rice husks danced in the morning light.

Moving to the threshing machine, several strong laborers pedaled even more vigorously. "Take a picture of this!" one man shouted, pointing to the spinning threshing drum. "Look at this grain, isn't it wonderful!"

Click! Lin Yan pressed the shutter, capturing the moment when the golden grains cascaded down like a waterfall, and the undisguised pride on the operator's face.

His camera was constantly busy—

I captured the nimble fingers of the "Iron Girls" as they planted rice seedlings; the seedlings were incredibly obedient in their hands.

I took a picture of Auntie Xi Mei leading the women carrying a porridge bucket across the field ridge; the steam from the pumpkin porridge blurred their smiling faces.

I took a picture of the kids from Shuisheng carefully carrying their water jugs, their little faces full of seriousness.

"Reporter Lin, you have to show us your photos once you've taken them!" someone shouted at him.

"Don't worry, I'll show you the first one after it's washed!" Lin Yan replied while changing the film roll.

It was completely dark when the gas lamps in the fields came on. Lin Yan changed to the last few rolls of film, leaned against a haystack, and adjusted the camera. Click—the torchlight cast long streaks of light on the film, and the figures of the workers appeared and disappeared in the night.

He saw Xiao Ronggen squatting on the edge of the field, checking tomorrow's plans by the light of a gas lamp, his fingers still wrapped in the duct tape from the daytime cuts. Click! He gently pressed the shutter.

As the last paddy field turned a vibrant green, the double harvest finally came to an end. Lin Yan touched the empty film reel, his heart heavy. These past few days, he had not only documented the event with his camera but had also become a part of the battle—helping to pass stalks of rice, braving torrential rains, and sharing a sweet potato with everyone else.

He stood halfway up the mountain, gazing at this land that had just weathered a major battle. His camera held not just photographs, but also the precious memories he had shared with Zhuxi Village. At that moment, he suddenly understood what "putting down roots" meant—not observing from a superior position, but truly immersing himself in this land, sharing the joys and sorrows of its people.

Working people are the most beautiful!

The "double harvest" campaign in Zhuxi Village has just ended. The golden piles of grain on the threshing floor carry the fragrance of the soil, and the villagers' faces are filled with a long-lost sense of relaxation.

But this sense of ease vanished the moment the commune's grain requisition team arrived a few days later.

Leading the group was Li, the clerk from the commune's grain station. He had a protruding belly, a notebook in his hand, and was followed by several burly young men with arrogant expressions. He didn't look at the actual piles of grain, but instead opened the notebook and read aloud in an unquestionable manner:

"According to the verified yield per mu, Zhuxi Village should deliver 158,000 jin of grain to the state this year."

"How...how much?" Old Party Secretary Xiao Ronggen seemed drained of all his strength. His body swayed, and his voice was dry and trembling. "Officer Li, are you sure you're not mistaken? Our entire brigade's harvest, at best, after drying and winnowing, is just over 80,000 jin! This 158,000...this means we have to use up all our seed grain, even our own rations, and it still won't be enough!"

Officer Li closed the notebook, a forced smile on his face, and said, "Old Xiao, this is in black and white the yield of your 'satellite fields,' which the commune used to guarantee the county's harvest. Now you want to go back on your word? This is sabotaging the national grain requisition quota. Do you think you can afford to wear that label?"

The scene was deathly silent, save for the villagers' heavy breathing and suppressed despair.

Just then, Lin Yan, who had been observing coldly, silently raised the Leica camera on his chest.

"Snap! Snap!"

The crisp click of the shutter lashed through the silent air like a whip. He moved calmly, the lens aimed at Officer Li's arrogant face, at the empty granary that was about to be filled, and even more so at the villagers' faces, contorted with hunger and fear.

"What are you doing! Put down the camera!" Officer Li squinted at Lin Yan, his eyes wide with shock and anger.

"I am a journalist, and recording the facts is my job." Lin Yan's tone was calm, but his gaze was sharp as a knife. "You forcibly requisitioned grain based on falsely reported yields, disregarding the lives and deaths of farmers. This matter must be recorded."

"You've gone too far! Take the camera from me! Expose the film!" Officer Li roared in exasperation, completely dropping his pretense. The young men behind him pounced on him like wolves.

"Don't take reporter Lin's camera!" Xiao Ronggen suddenly stood up, using his thin body to block him.

"Protect reporter Lin!" From the crowd, Uncle Li, Father Shuisheng, and several other men rushed forward with red eyes, shoving each other with the grain requisition team.

The scene instantly spiraled out of control. In the chaos, Lin Yan deliberately took several blows from the shadows into his back. He groaned, stumbled, but clutched his camera tightly to his chest. His clothes were torn, leaving him looking quite disheveled. This was exactly the effect he wanted—the other party's crimes of violently resisting law enforcement, assaulting a reporter, and seizing evidence had to be proven!

"Good! Very good!" Lin Yan steadied himself, wiped his mouth, and said, "Uncle Xiao, don't worry about me. Just take care of yourselves." He looked at Officer Li and suddenly smiled happily: "I have bad news for you! You're in big trouble!"

Lin Yan's words were like a drop of cold water falling into a hot oil pan. Officer Li was stunned for a moment, then flew into a rage: "Still being stubborn even when facing death! Tie him up and take him back to the commune! And all these troublemakers who dared to obstruct grain requisition—write them all down!"

Several burly men stepped forward and roughly twisted Lin Yan's arms. Lin Yan did not resist, but turned around and shook his head at Xiao Ronggen and the villagers who wanted to rush forward, signaling them not to fight. He obediently let himself be pushed and shoved away from the threshing ground, the Leica camera still clutched tightly in his arms.

After Lin Yan was taken away, Zhuxi Village fell into even deeper despair.

"It's over...it's all over..." An old man slumped down beside a haystack, muttering to himself, "Reporter Lin did it all for us...what are we going to do!"

"It's all my fault! If I hadn't been so talkative..." Uncle Li pounded his head, filled with remorse.

Xiao Ronggen seemed to age ten years in an instant. He forced himself to arrange for a few clever young men to secretly follow him to the commune to gather information, while he himself paced back and forth in the brigade headquarters like a caged beast. He wanted to go to the commune to demand the release of the people, but the thought of Officer Li's arrogant face and the accusation of "sabotaging grain requisition" made his steps heavy and rooted to the ground. A deep sense of powerlessness enveloped him and the entire village. They weren't afraid of hardship or sweat, but they feared this oppression where they had nowhere to speak their case and nowhere to seek redress.

Lin Yan was taken to an empty office in the commune.

"Stay put! We'll deal with you after we've consulted with our superiors!" A young man shoved him inside and locked the door from the outside.

The room contained only a broken table and a few benches. He carefully inspected the doors and windows, then calmly sat down on a bench and slowly removed the film from the camera, replacing it with a new roll.

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At the same time that the conflict occurred on the drying ground in Zhuxi Village, Lin Yan's consciousness had already traversed thousands of miles to clearly transmit the scene and instructions on the ground—the arrogance of Officer Li, the despair of the villagers, the chaos of grabbing for cameras, and the punches and kicks he deliberately endured—back to Beijing, and also told Lin San about his idea of ​​making this matter bigger.

Inside the courtyard, Lin San was quietly wiping the porcelain in his study. When the young master's plan entered his mind, his hand suddenly stopped moving.

With a grim face, he strode into the inner room and activated the secure hotline that led directly to the central command. The call was answered quickly after one ring.

"This is Lin San." His voice was calm, yet carried a sense of impending doom. "Please immediately transfer me to Deputy Director Wang Bingzhou. There is an emergency concerning the security of national strategic material supplies, and we need to communicate with him immediately!"