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

The truck rattled along the rutted dirt road, finally coming to a stop with a muffled roar at the threshing ground of the Hongshiqiao Brigade.

The educated youth in the carriage looked like potatoes tossed around in a sieve, swaying from side to side, their faces sallow.

Captain Ma jumped out of the passenger seat and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Everyone get out! We're here!"

Yang Yibai held onto the car door, feeling as if her internal organs had been displaced.

She had been holding back her anger the whole way, and was just about to complain that the road was harder to walk on than a washboard, when a gust of wind carrying yellow sand suddenly rushed over.

"Cough...cough cough cough!"

A mouthful of sand mixed with the earthy smell choked her, bringing tears to her eyes and causing her to cough violently, her pretty face turning bright red.

The villagers who ran out to watch looked at the girl from Beijing with no surprise, and a few boys even sneered on the side.

Just then, Zhang Dabiao's sidecar motorcycle came to a steady stop beside him.

He turned off the engine, took off his goggles, and nimbly jumped out of the car. Then he turned around and, as if holding a precious piece of porcelain, helped Mu Wanqing out of the sidecar. Erhei also jumped out, shaking off the dust.

Mu Wanqing patted the dust off her clothes. Apart from her cheeks being a little red from the wind, she was fine. Although the motorcycle was shaking a lot, the seat had been modified by Zhang Dabiao, so the shock absorption was quite good.

Otherwise, her body might not have been able to handle it on the second day of her marriage.

Seeing Yang Yibai's disheveled appearance, Mu Wanqing was stunned for a moment, and instinctively took the water bottle from her waist and handed it to her: "Yang Yibai, have some water."

Yang Yibai was coughing so hard she could hardly breathe when she caught a glimpse of Mu Wanqing's clean and refreshed appearance out of the corner of her eye. Looking at her own mouth full of sand and the onlookers' stares, a huge sense of humiliation welled up inside her.

She abruptly turned her head, dodging the water bottle Mu Wanqing offered, stubbornly wiping her mouth with her sleeve, and turning her head to the side.

Mu Wanqing paused in mid-air with her outstretched hand, then silently withdrew it.

Hey, we've already come this far, what's there to be sentimental about?

The performance stage of the Hongshiqiao Brigade was even more rudimentary than that of Balasu.

Four bare wooden pillars stood in the threshing ground, with a crossbar tied to the front and two unlit gas lamps hanging from them.

Even so, the audience was still packed with people. People from the neighboring village even crossed the sand dunes to come and watch the excitement. Children climbed up the mounds of earth beside the threshing floor, their eyes filled with longing.

The performance proceeded as scheduled, with clapper talk and short skits promoting the "Learn from Dazhai in Agriculture" campaign and highlighting good deeds and positive experiences within the team, drawing scattered applause.

When it was Mu Wanqing's turn to make her grand entrance, the sky was already getting a little dim.

She picked up an accordion; the wind and sand were still blowing, ruffling the hair on her forehead.

She took a deep breath and turned on the bellows.

The majestic and stirring prelude began, it was "My Motherland".

"A wide river flows, its waves surging, the wind carries the fragrance of rice blossoms to both banks..."

The clear, full, and emotional singing voice instantly pierced through the howling sandstorm and spread throughout the entire threshing ground.

There was no utilitarianism or calculation in Yang Yibai's performance; only pure, heartfelt love and pride.

The once noisy threshing ground fell silent instantly.

The villagers stopped talking, the children stopped playing, and everyone looked up, listening quietly.

In the first row of the audience, several elderly men listened, and their eyes reddened.

One of them, who had lost an arm, kept wiping away tears with his only remaining hand.

The song reminded them of the battlefield, their fallen comrades, and the country they had fought for.

Director Zhao of the commune happened to be passing by the threshing ground. He was just going to take a casual look, but he was immediately captivated by the singing.

He stood at the back of the crowd, listened to the entire piece, and his face was filled with shock.

When the song ended, thunderous applause erupted from the audience, more enthusiastic than all the previous performances combined.

Director Zhao walked over to Ma Erjin, patted him on the shoulder, lowered his voice, but kept his eyes fixed on the girl on stage holding the accordion: "Erjin, this girl is a talent! A real talent!"

But Ma Erjin didn't say anything—so what if she's talented? You can't give her a cadre status or a job.

Besides, her husband is a cadre, rich and capable—she's just here in the countryside for fun!

Whether someone is talented or not doesn't matter!

After the performance, the educated youth were dispersed to the homes of commune members for a "distributed meal".

Mu Wanqing and Tang Juan were assigned to the home of an old woman surnamed Liu.

The old lady was very hospitable, but her family's financial difficulties were also obvious.

Under the dim light of an oil lamp, the staple food served was two fist-sized, dark, bran-filled buns.

Tang Juan looked at the cornbread, her expression somewhat stiff.

Yang Yibai and two other female educated youths were assigned to another household, right across from them. When they saw the same kind of bran-filled buns, Yang Yibai felt a wave of nausea wash over her, and tears almost welled up in her eyes.

To maintain her demanding "performance," she closed her eyes and took a hard bite.

The rough texture, as if mixed with sand, stung my throat, and a sour taste shot straight to the top of my head.

She forced herself to swallow, but the cornbread felt like a stone stuck in her throat, neither going up nor down.

At Aunt Liu's house, Mu Wanqing calmly picked up a cornbread and ate it in small bites.

It did taste bad, but she had eaten worse things.

In those most difficult years, if it weren't for Zhang Dabiao's courtyard, she might not have even been able to afford this.

She calmly finished one, and even smiled as she thanked the uneasy Aunt Liu next to her: "Auntie, it tastes very good, thank you."

A hint of relief flashed in Aunt Liu's cloudy eyes.

Yang Yibai finally managed to swallow half a cornbread. When she looked up, she saw Mu Wanqing across the street had finished eating and was talking to an older woman from the commune, with a calm smile on her face.

That calmness stood in stark contrast to his current disheveled state.

She stared intently at the half-eaten cornbread in her hand, her fingernails digging deep into the hard shell of the bread, an indescribable humiliation and resentment growing wildly in her heart.

On what grounds?

Why?

During the tour in Hongshiqiao and several surrounding troupes, the days passed like stones being polished by wind and sand, wearing away everyone's glamour and sharp edges.

More than half a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

Every day was the same routine: during the day, they worked alongside the masses under the scorching sun, digging holes and planting trees until their backs were so sore they could barely straighten up; at night, they would perform on a simple earthen platform, shouting slogans that they themselves were starting to disbelieve.

The fine grains and biscuits that Yang Yibai brought were all gone in the first week of the tour.

For the rest of her days, she could only eat bran and drink murky, bitter water with everyone else.

Prolonged hunger and malnutrition caused her to quickly become haggard. Her already thin cheeks became even more sunken, her eye sockets were deep, and she looked as if all her energy had been drained away.

That evening, it was Fangliang Brigade's turn to perform.

The final performance was still the same fast-paced storytelling performance promoting the "Learn from Dazhai in Agriculture" campaign.

Yang Yibai, as the lead reciter, stood at the very center of the stage.

"With a crack of the bamboo clappers, let's not boast about anything else..."

She mustered her strength and pounded the bamboo clappers hard, trying to mask her weakness with a loud sound.

However, when she was halfway through reading, her vision suddenly went black, her mind went blank with a buzzing sound.

What was the next word?