Courtyard House: Rebirth of a Shopkeeper in 1937

Over the next three days, a timely rain quietly fell. As soon as the rain stopped, villagers began harvesting the early rice, and the fields gradually became lively again. From passersby, people learned that the situation in the city was becoming increasingly tense—many people had spontaneously taken to the streets to protest, and calls for fighting and donations to support the front lines were rising one after another. Affected by the fighting, grain prices had also begun to rise.

The village's small classroom was temporarily closed, and Tian Ding returned to his old house, allowing the eldest and second eldest brothers to fully devote themselves to the land preparation work. They also adopted Xing Bao's suggestion to make preparations in advance on the side closest to the road, reserving space for building a sunshade, and leaving a passage in the middle of the land that leads directly to the workshop corridor, which is convenient for future use and makes the layout more orderly.

The father also took the time to have an in-depth discussion with Captain Li about the details of tactical application. This explanation further solidified Captain Li's already strong desire to learn more, and he immediately pestered his father, asking for a few more days of practice so he could learn more practical skills. Everything was progressing as planned. Xingbao also quietly took out grapes from his spatial storage again for his family to enjoy; the tea no longer contained spiritual spring water, but only a single freshly roasted tea leaf. Because of the extremely small amount used, outsiders could not tell the difference between the tea and the previous ones.

Around noon, Qianjin practically ran into the kitchen, his face grim and somewhat frightening. He went straight to a stool by the counter and sat down. Before the brothers who surrounded him could even ask anything, Qianjin said without hesitation, "Xingbao, quickly pour me a cup of tea." After drinking the tea, he took a few books from his bag and handed them to his eldest brother. Only then did he stand up, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the room, and he raised his voice, saying, "Fellow villagers, please excuse me for taking a moment!" Once the noise in the room had subsided, he continued, his tone grave: "Yesterday, the Chairman officially announced: a full-scale war against Japan! The Chairman said that if war breaks out, regardless of north or south, young or old, everyone has the responsibility to defend the land and resist the Japanese, and everyone should be prepared to sacrifice everything!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Qianjin turned to his elder brother and said, "Yanbang, I won't stay any longer. I have to hurry to the township. This message must be sent to every village along the way." With that, he turned and left in a hurry, not daring to delay for a moment.

As soon as Brother Qianjin left, the main room erupted in chaos. The villagers began discussing the Chairman's declaration and the impending war. The peaceful atmosphere was replaced by tension and solemnity, and everyone's face showed worry for the future.

Father and Xingbao looked at each other, both knowing clearly that the battle scenes they had worried about a few nights ago were now a reality. In no time, many villagers who had come to hear the news gathered in the shop. Seeing that the crowd was growing, Father immediately instructed his second brother, "Go and invite Chief Wang over. We need to talk to him about this."

The second brother responded and quickly left, soon bringing Old Wang into the kitchen. The father hurriedly stepped forward and respectfully invited Old Wang to sit in the seat of honor. He then recounted to Old Wang, in detail, the news that the first brother had just brought—that the Chairman had given a speech and formally announced the full-scale war against Japan.

After a brief silence, Old Wang looked at his father and asked in a deep voice, "Dawei, in your opinion, how should our village deal with this?"

The father spoke solemnly, "War, in the end, cannot be separated from three things—money, food, and manpower. The villagers must prepare themselves mentally; the days ahead may not be easy."

Upon hearing this, the main room fell into an instant silence. Several villagers who were already struggling financially collapsed to the ground upon hearing the words "money, grain, and people," their legs giving way beneath them, their faces filled with despair.

Seeing this, Old Wang suddenly came to his senses and hurriedly shouted, "We're all from the same village, how can we just stand by and watch you give up! Quick, help them up!"

The villagers immediately rushed forward and hurriedly helped the few thin figures up, some even whispering words of comfort in an attempt to ease their panic.

At this moment, the father slowly spoke again: "Our township is not a major grain-producing area, so even if grain is requisitioned in the future, it probably won't be a priority. However, other changes are hard to predict at the moment, so we can only take it one step at a time and act according to circumstances."

Old Wang took over the conversation and said to everyone, "You've all heard what Dawei said, so there's no need to panic or worry too much. The township will issue an official notice in a few days. Right now, the most important thing is to stay calm and take care of your families. Everyone, please disperse. I will keep you informed as soon as I have any news."

Although the villagers still looked worried, they realized that panicking was useless after being comforted by Old Wang and his father. So they got up one after another and left the shop in groups of three or five, but everyone's steps were much heavier than when they came.

After the villagers had gradually dispersed, the father turned to Captain Li, who had been standing beside him, and asked, "Captain Li, given the current situation, what are your plans?"

Captain Li stared blankly out of the kitchen, his eyes unfocused. After a moment of silence, he finally spoke with difficulty: "Let's wait two more days. There are some details about the tactical application that I haven't fully figured out yet, and I want to think about them some more. Besides, the official notice from the township should arrive in a couple of days, and then we can set off with the team, saving us the trouble of traveling back and forth."

After lunch, Xingbao didn't take his usual nap. Instead, he sat alone in the corner of the kitchen, silently calculating the time—today was the day the rice seedlings in his space were flowering, and he dared not slack off. When Guixiang woke up, she tried to pull him outside to play, but he politely declined. To ensure he didn't miss the crucial pollination opportunity, Xingbao would occasionally sneak into his space to check on the seedlings. Finally, by evening, the seedlings began to sprout and flower. He waited patiently, and once all dozen or so seedlings had entered the flowering stage, he carefully performed artificial pollination to ensure that each seedling would successfully bear fruit.

Having completed this crucial task for future breeding, Xingbao finally felt relieved and got up to play with Guixiang, a long-lost relaxed smile appearing on his face.

After dinner, as my mother was clearing away the dishes, she announced to the whole family, "Your maternal grandfather's family will start harvesting rice tomorrow. You all need to get up early and go help cut the rice."

"Mom, do I have to go too?" Gui Xiang tilted her little head up, blinked her eyes, and looked at her mother with a mixture of anticipation and uncertainty in her voice.

Her mother smiled and tapped her forehead: "Go, go, go. It'll be a good opportunity for you to experience farm work. Don't be naughty at home, or you'll bother me." Her words made the whole family laugh, and the heavy atmosphere that had been hanging over them for days due to the war dissipated a little.

Seeing that there was nothing else to do, the four siblings ran into their eldest brother's room and gathered around the table to look through the books that their brother had brought. Xingbao knew very well that only by exposing himself to these books from the outside world could he find a reasonable source for the knowledge he had brought from his previous life and avoid arousing suspicion in the future due to abnormal knowledge reserves. Therefore, he looked through the books very carefully and would ask his eldest brother for help when he encountered something he didn't understand.

The next morning, Xingbao and Guixiang got up even earlier than usual. Seeing that the two were full of energy, their mother sent them to the fields to deliver water to the family members who were working. The siblings each carried a jug of water, walked out of the house, crossed the corridor, and went across the road to their maternal grandfather's rice paddies.

As soon as we arrived at the edge of the field, we saw a yellow bucket placed there—a large wooden bucket with a diameter of over a meter. Its body was coated with tung oil, giving it a bright yellow color; it was a common tool used by local farmers when harvesting rice. My father was standing beside the bucket, his hands gripping freshly cut rice stalks, forcefully slamming them against the bucket's sides. With a few loud "bangs," the rice grains fell into the bucket. After carefully inspecting the rice stalks to make sure no grains remained, my father tossed the straw aside, then bent down, grabbed another handful of rice stalks, and repeated the slamming motion.

In the fields, Grandpa, Uncle, and several cousins ​​were all busy harvesting rice seedlings, and Sister Shanshan was among them. When Sister Shanshan first started foot binding, her gait became strange. Her father noticed this and went to her grandparents to persuade them, explaining that even generals nowadays disapproved of foot binding for women, arguing that it hindered work and caused women suffering. Thanks to her father's persuasion, Sister Shanshan escaped the ordeal of foot binding, and from then on, very few families in the village bound their daughters' feet.

Seeing his father's clothes soaked with sweat, Xingbao quickly stepped forward, handed him the water bottle, and said, "Dad, have some water and rest for a while." Guixiang, meanwhile, carried another water bottle and skipped and hopped to deliver it to her maternal grandfather and the others.

After his father finished drinking water, Xingbao stood aside and helped hand his father ears of rice; Guixiang was assigned to pick up the scattered ears of rice on the edge of the field, trying not to waste a single grain of rice.

Looking around, the rice paddies of the Long family and Uncle Youcai's family were bustling with harvesting activity. However, Uncle Youcai's family had more tools, with three yellow buckets alone. Fugui, Xiaohu, and Xiaohua, the children, were also helping to pick up rice ears by the field, creating a busy scene of harvest.

Xingbao felt a pang of resentment as he watched everyone using simple tools like yellow buckets to thresh rice. He knew exactly how to make a threshing machine, which would greatly improve the efficiency of rice harvesting. However, the working principle of the threshing machine was related to his knowledge from his previous life. He couldn't conjure up a finished product out of thin air, nor could he explain the origin of the manufacturing method. He could only watch helplessly as everyone toiled away by manpower, feeling utterly frustrated.

It wasn't until the sun was high in the sky and the sunlight was becoming increasingly scorching that everyone stopped their work and prepared to return to the kitchen for breakfast. On the way, Xingbao had originally planned to take advantage of the break before breakfast to look in the rice paddies for any mutated rice plants, but when he saw the rice seedlings on the edge of the paddy field that were taller than him, he abandoned the idea—the seedlings were so tall that even if there were mutated plants, they would be difficult to spot in time, and with the harvest task pressing ahead, there was simply no time to be distracted.

That day, everyone ate at the kitchen. Although the staple food was still sweet potato rice, this time it was cooked dry, much more substantial than the usual thin porridge. Mother also specially stir-fried a plate of cured meat, its aroma filling the air, a treat for the hardworking family. After wolfing down their breakfast, the two families dug out their few straw hats and gave them to Xingbao, Guixiang, and the other children, as well as Sister Shanshan, to wear for sun protection. Then they hurried back to the fields to continue their harvesting work.

After several days of continuous work, the rice in the fields was finally all harvested, but the threshing work was not yet finished. Everyone had to carry the harvested rice ears to the drying ground and thresh them bit by bit with yellow buckets, a slow process, but there was no other way. While threshing, my grandfather also asked villagers who had oxen to help plow the fields, followed by the urgent transplanting of late-season rice seedlings. After more than half a month of busy work, all the harvested rice was finally dried and stored. The yield of the early rice was measured at a little over two and a half shi (a unit of dry measure), which, converted to modern measurements, is more than 320 jin (another unit of weight), considered above average for the harvest at that time.

The wolf-hunting team left the day after the rice harvest, along with the messengers from the township who came to deliver the notice. The notice from the township, in addition to reiterating the Chairman's declaration of resistance that "there is no distinction between north and south, or between young and old," mainly required all villages to do a good job in the "double harvest" work to ensure a good grain harvest and to stockpile supplies for possible subsequent battles.

Captain Li's previous obsession with tactical details was something his father had already seen through. Therefore, before his departure, his father simply patted him on the shoulder and said softly, "The general often says, 'Military tactics are ever-changing, just as water has no fixed shape; adaptability is the key to victory.' The road ahead is fraught with difficulties, take care!" Upon hearing this, Captain Li's eyes lit up, and he nodded solemnly, leading his team on their journey home, carrying his father's words of advice, as they headed towards the unknown future.

The busy harvest season finally came to an end. The brothers were tanned dark and their skin was red from the sun. Only Guixiang refused to step out of the shade of her straw hat. Although she didn't do much heavy work, she insisted on going out and returning with everyone every day, not wanting to miss a moment. Her small figure was busy along the edge of the field, adding a touch of liveliness to the scene.

Xingbao's strength is now comparable to that of an eight- or nine-year-old child, and he can grit his teeth and persevere through the heavy and tiring work during the busy harvest season. However, this is the first time he has been exposed to the scorching sun for such a long time. Every night when he returns to the kitchen, his hands are burning with pain. By the next day, the skin on his palms and the backs of his hands begins to peel, revealing the tender new skin underneath, which is excruciatingly painful to touch. His older brothers are not in much better shape. Their arms and necks, which are exposed to the sun, are either sunburned red or have developed a fine layer of peeling skin, all bearing the marks of their labor.

Fortunately, Xingbao still had the spiritual spring water. Every night before bed, he would secretly take some of the spiritual spring water and either apply it to the peeling skin or mix it with water for his brothers to drink. The nourishing effect of the spiritual spring water was remarkable. Before long, the pain on their bodies lessened considerably, and the peeling areas began to heal slowly, finally easing their suffering.

That evening, the family sat around in front of the door, enjoying the cool air. Looking at each other's tanned faces, and then at Gui Xiang's little face, which was much fairer than others and protected by a straw hat, they couldn't help but laugh. The fatigue of the past few days dissipated. Looking at the sunburns on her children, the mother said with heartache, "We've finally made it through this. Rest well for the next few days, and I'll make you some mung bean soup to cool you down."