Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

"Not for me, but for everyone!" Yang Yibai raised her voice, pointing around, "Zhao Weiguo, Liu Yuanchao, Zhu Hongqi—they're all starving too!"

Zhao Weiguo quickly waved his hand: "I didn't! I can eat chaff, I can still eat chaff."

Liu Yuanchao nodded in agreement: "Yes, yes, we can live on bran. I'm easy to feed."

Yang Yibai was stunned.

"You—!" she trembled with anger. "Aren't you still my childhood friends? I've grown up with you since I was little! Aren't you going to stand up for me?"

Zhao Weiguo coughed awkwardly: "Yibai, it's not that we don't want to help you, but Wanqing's things belong to someone else..."

Yang Yibai pointed at Mu Wanqing, her voice as sharp as a knife.

"That's called selfishness! Petty-bourgeois thinking!"

Mu Wanqing slammed the needle and thread down and stood up.

"Yang Yibai, that's enough."

"Who are you calling 'enough'?"

"I'm talking to you." Mu Wanqing took a step closer, her voice not loud, but every word struck like a hammer blow. "You dragged me to this godforsaken place, I tolerated it. You're always being sarcastic, I tolerated that too. And now you want to steal my things?"

"If I'm willing to give it to you, you can take it; if I'm not, you can't take it!"

"Who stole it? I'm talking about a unified distribution!"

"Shared equally?" Mu Wanqing sneered. "You've finished your own food, and now you want to share mine? When you were eating milk biscuits and milk candy, why didn't you think of sharing the hardships? When you were eating white flour buns with Zhao Weiguo and the others, why didn't you share with me?"

Yang Yibai was speechless.

Mu Wanqing continued, her voice trembling, "Your father is a cadre, your mother is a capitalist, you've always had a good life, of course you can't stand this hardship. But why are you taking your anger out on me?"

"Why should I? Do I owe you something?"

Liu Yuanchao muttered quietly in the corner, "It's just..."

Yang Yibai suddenly turned to him: "What did you say?"

"I...I didn't say anything." Liu Yuanchao shrank his neck.

Yang Yibai turned her head, her eyes red-rimmed: "Fine, you wait, I'll get my dad—"

She suddenly stopped.

It felt like someone was choking me.

Her father is under investigation.

She has no "father" to look for.

Yang Yibai squatted on the ground and burst into tears.

It wasn't the kind of quiet sobbing; it was a real, heart-wrenching cry.

"You think I wanted to come here?" Her voice was hoarse, her face streaked with snot and tears. "My dad's under investigation, my mom's a capitalist, what am I supposed to do? Where can I go? What can I do!"

She looked up, her eyes bloodshot: "I'm going to drag you along too! Why should you, with a mother like that, have a fiancé like Zhang Dabiao?"

"Why is your fiancé both rich and talented? Why can you sing those songs? Why can your songs be used in textbooks and movie theme songs?"

"Why are you doing better than me?"

Yang Yibai broke down and confessed.

Mu Wanqing looked at her, her lips moving slightly.

She wanted to say—I'm not doing well.

She wanted to say—my adoptive mother came from the Eight Great Hutongs, and I was pointed at and gossiped about since I was a child.

She wanted to say—I'm even worse off than you.

But she didn't say it.

Because she met Zhang Dabiao.

She just stood there, watching Yang Yibai cry, a complex mix of emotions welling up inside her—hatred, pity, and a touch of bitterness.

"I neither steal nor rob," Mu Wanqing said softly. "I couldn't choose my adoptive mother's identity. But what bad thing did I do? Why should you bully me just because you want to?"

The two looked at each other.

No one spoke again.

Zhao Weiguo and the others squatted in the corner, their hands covering their heads.

[Damn it, what kind of mess is this? Each one is worse than the last. I'm stuck in the middle, and it's wrong to take sides.]

Outside the window, sand and dust rustled against the window paper.

Just then—

A sound came from afar.

"Boom boom boom—"

That wasn't a donkey cart, that wasn't a truck, it was—

"Motorcycle?" Zhao Weiguo was the first to react and stood up abruptly.

Everyone perked up their ears.

The sound grew closer and closer. On the silent yellow earth, the sound was as loud as thunder, shaking the plaster off the walls of the mud-brick houses.

"Who would ride a motorcycle here in the middle of the night?" Liu Yuanchao ran to the door and looked outside.

In the pitch-black night, a lamppost swayed and moved forward on the yellow earth.

Closer. Even closer.

"Huh?" Zhao Weiguo's eyes nearly popped out when he saw the outline of the vehicle clearly. "A sidecar motorcycle?"

"Which leader came down for an inspection or something?"

The commotion was quite loud, and the older educated youth all came out, puzzled. They hadn't received any notice recently, and it wasn't time for supplies to be replenished. Who would ride a motorcycle here in the middle of the night?

The road from the county town to here is not easy to travel.

"Who?" Zhu Hongqi asked.

Zhao Weiguo didn't answer. He hadn't seen clearly either, but there was a dog barking in the sidecar, which was stuffed full of bags and packages, and he could also hear the sounds of chickens, ducks, and geese.

The back seat was also crammed full, and the person riding the bike—

Wearing a gray-blue cadre uniform, carrying a large bag, with a dog-skin hat on his head, and covered with goggles and a mask, he looked travel-worn, like a scout who had just returned from the battlefield.

Facing the light, they couldn't see clearly in the middle of the night.

The motorcycle braked suddenly at the entrance of the educated youth settlement, sending up a cloud of yellow dust as high as a person.

The man jumped off the vehicle, his legs buckled, and he almost knelt on the ground—after being jostled on the sandy road for four or five hours, his legs were no longer his own. He steadied himself by holding onto the handlebars and limped into the yard.

"Wanqing!" he called out, his voice hoarse like sandpaper grinding iron.

"Is this the Balasu Youth Brigade?"

"Is Comrade Mu Wanqing, who came from Beijing, here?"

Mu Wanqing stood at the door, completely stunned.

[That sound?]

She thought it was a dream.

All the educated youth turned to look at Mu Wanqing—were they looking for this girl?

The person approached, taking off their hat, glasses, and mask as they went.

The dog had already pounced over, jumping around Mu Wanqing, constantly nudging her with its head, and barking incessantly.

"Erhei?"

She saw his face—it was dark, thin, his lips were chapped and peeling, his eyes were bloodshot, and his head was covered with a layer of yellow sand.

But he was smiling.

"Wanqing, I'm here!"

On his sly face was that smile she knew so well—his eyes were squinted into slits, and the corner of his mouth was twisted to the right, like a weasel that had stolen a chicken.

"Surprised? Unexpected?"

It was Zhang Dabiao!

"I've been looking for you for days!" he muttered as he walked. "You have no idea, I traveled from Beijing to Yulin County, and then from Yulin County to Balasu, asking and searching all the way. It's been almost ten days! My Changjiang 750 is almost falling apart from all that riding..."

Zhang Dabiao was still rambling on and on.

Mu Wanqing's tears welled up instantly.

She rushed over and buried her face in his arms, crying like a child.

"Why are you so late... Why are you so late...?"