Rebirth in 1972: Redemption in Changbai Mountain

The night was as dark as ink. Zhou Rui carried the body of Old Man Lang, stepping over broken tiles and beams, and arrived at the nameless Taoist temple that had long been swallowed up by time.

The ruins lie silently, bathed in the frost-like moonlight, which illuminates the vines on the broken walls, giving them a faint green hue.

He didn't stop, but turned into the barren slope on the east side and dug a pit in the soft soil.

The body was buried about three feet deep, without a coffin. He was simply wrapped in two old door panels from his home, which was the last bit of dignity he could give.

He knew that Hongxing Town would be in an uproar tomorrow.

A demon and monster who was being denounced vanished overnight. Did he escape? Did he die? Nobody knows for sure.

But Zhou Rui didn't care. Once the coffin was closed, everything was over. When a person dies, it's like a lamp going out; all the fame and sins in the world should be buried with the earth.

After he finished, he walked to the old well next to the Taoist temple.

The well is full of water and is slowly overflowing from a gap on one side.

The well walls were covered with a thick layer of moss, like a velvet blanket, and the moonlight shattered into thousands of silvery scales on the water's surface, swaying gently.

He stood still, stared for a moment, but neither reached out nor took anything.

He didn't touch any of the reward that Old Man Lang had promised, including the gold and silver jewelry, antiques, and jade.

If someone from the Lang family comes looking for it ten or twenty years later, he will return it to them in its original form.

If no one cares, let them rot away in time along with the well, the soil, and the moonlight.

He sighed, turned and left without stopping.

He sighed, not because of the financial loss, but because... there was no one left to negotiate with him.

The thick wad of banknotes in my cellar, pressed at the bottom of a box, is like a pile of unclaimed numbers. I don't know what to buy with it, or who to buy it from.

"Yang Ping, I envy you so much! You can go home for the Spring Festival this year. How many work points will you get this year?"

At Zhou Rui's house, Yu Sitian tugged at Yang Ping's sleeve, filled with envy.

This year, the paychecks were distributed early, and several former educated youths managed to scrape together enough money for train tickets home, and they are all preparing to go back.

She has only been working in the countryside for a year now, so she hasn't earned any work points or per capita pay, and can only watch helplessly.

"Only forty?" Yu Sitian counted on her fingers.

"My home is over 2,000 kilometers away. This money isn't even enough for a one-way ticket. At the rate I'm earning work points now, it would take me three years to save enough for the fare home."

"You still need to save it up yourself?" He Wei chimed in, "Your dad's the manager of a big factory in Shanghai. He can just send over a month's salary, and you'll have enough for a train ticket, right?"

Yu Sitian's smile faded, and she sighed, "I want to go back too, but my dad wrote to me saying that things are chaotic in Shanghai and that I absolutely shouldn't go back this year."

She only dared to say these things to a few close friends, like Lin Qiuyue. In crowded places like the educated youth settlement, she wouldn't dare utter a single word.

"Sigh, I want to go back too. But my dad says Shanghai is in chaos right now and tells me not to go back."

Yu Sitian sighed. She only dared to say these words to Lin Qiuyue; she wouldn't dare reveal a single word about them at the educated youth settlement.

"Let me tell you, Wang Jianguo, the leader of the educated youth team in the next village, is borrowing money from everyone he meets to buy a ticket to go back. He's incredibly shameless."

"You absolutely must not lend him any money. This guy borrowed money from three educated youths in the team last year and hasn't paid back a single penny. He turned around and used the money to exchange for food coupons so he could eat all the food himself."

"Especially Qiuyue, your family is the richest, I'm afraid he'll have his eye on you."

Lin Qiuyue continued her needlework, smiling and shaking her head: "Don't worry, with Dahuang and Maomao in the yard, he can't get in."

Yu Sitian nodded vigorously, her head bobbing like she was pecking at rice: "That's right, Mao Mao is such a big dog, and Da Huang is so fierce, everyone would have to go around them."

Yang Ping lay down on the warm kang (heated brick bed) and stretched.

"I'm so bored. Where did Little Rice Cake and Little Goose go? Without two soft little babies to play with, I'm getting sleepy staying in the house."

"Xiao Yan'er has been taken home by Sister Xinghua. Her mother misses her daughter, so how could she let you guys hold her every day?"

Lin Qiuyue laughed at her: "Little Rice Cake, Zhou Rui took her away early this morning, and we haven't seen her since."

"By the way, is the firewood ready at the educated youth settlement? Don't let it be like last year, where the kang (heated brick bed) couldn't even get warm."

"We're planning to go tomorrow. As for the male educated youth, who knows?"

The girls were chatting happily inside the house, while Zhou Rui, holding Xiao Niangao, stepped into Chen Datou's courtyard for the first time.

Chen Datou's house looked dilapidated from the outside, but it was very clean inside, obviously someone had cleaned it.

Zhou Rui could guess with his eyes closed that Zeng Ping must have come to clean up.

There are many new things in the house.

A new enamel basin, a new thermos, and a few pieces of newly made furniture in the corner.

There was an open can of fruit on the table, and Xiao Niangao was scooping it out with a spoon, getting her face covered in syrup.

It seems Chen Datou has made a lot of money; otherwise, even if he wanted to invite someone before, he wouldn't have been able to afford it.

"Ruiwa, do you think I should set up two tables for my wedding and invite the villagers over?" Chen Datou's dark red face gleamed, and for the first time in over a decade, the dilapidated house felt warm.

"Who are you planning to invite? Your Chen family or those lazybones from the village?" Zhou Rui didn't answer directly, but asked a question in return.

"I won't invite any of the Chen family members," Chen Datou shook his head vigorously.

"When my parents passed away early, they never even brought me a handful of rice. So please, just ask you and a few of my old buddies who used to slack off with me."

"My suggestion is to do nothing. Just have Grandpa Zhao issue a letter of introduction and go to town to get a marriage certificate." Zhou Rui gave his answer without even having to think about it.

"What I mean is, don't hold any banquet. Just have Grandpa Zhao write a letter of introduction, and you two can go directly to town to get your marriage certificate. That's the easiest way," Zhou Rui said without hesitation.

"Why?" Chen Datou asked anxiously, sitting up abruptly as if he had been pricked by a needle.

"Other people's weddings are all big celebrations, with betrothal gifts and proposals made in person. I'm not doing anything. Isn't that unfair to Zeng Ping?"

"Do you think you're marrying a nobody?" Zhou Rui shook his head.

"Zeng Ping used to be a wife of the Zhao family, and she remained a widow in the Zhao family for ten years."

"Although the Zhao family hasn't fed the mother and her two children a single meal all these years, do you really think those stubborn old fogies in the Zhao family would be happy if you were to marry them off in a grand ceremony with betrothal gifts?"

"Why shouldn't they be happy?" Chen Datou retorted, "Did Zeng Ping eat a single grain of rice or a piece of meat from the Zhao family?"

"Just because the house where the mother and her two children lived for ten years, and the property certificate is in the name of the Zhao family."

Zhou Rui tapped his knuckles on the table: "Just look at Zhao Gensheng and Zhao Xiaoni, now they're surnamed Zhao. Now that you've married Zeng Ping, are you planning to have the two children change their surname to Chen?"

"Of course!" Chen Datou nodded so hard his head almost hit the table. "I married Zeng Ping, so I treat Gengsheng and Xiaoni like my own children. It's only natural that they change their surname to Chen."