Volume One, Chapter 17: Publicly Denounced

The door was pulled open, and Jiang Yingli slipped inside. The room was pitch dark, with not a single light, but her eyesight was excellent. There was no bed, nor were there stone slabs on the floor; he simply laid a thin layer of straw on the muddy ground to sleep.

Suppressing the ache in her heart, she bent down to retrieve items from her basket: bed sheets, quilt covers, cotton padding, incense, dried noodles, a razor, toilet paper...

Looking at the pile of things on the makeshift bed and the person still endlessly pulling items out, Liao Zhilun stopped her.

"Is your basket a treasure chest? If you take out any more, my place won't hold it all."

Jiang Yingli glanced at the bed, saw that it was almost full, and reluctantly withdrew her hand.

"Uncle, when do the Red Guards usually come?"

Struggle sessions forced all team members to attend, as a warning, so they generally didn’t come during busy farming periods.

"It depends on their mood. If they're in a bad mood, they come to amuse themselves with us."

Sometimes seven or eight times a month, sometimes only two or three. But at least the members of the First Production Team wouldn’t throw stones or rotten vegetables at him; they just watched.

The two chatted for a while longer before Jiang Yingli prepared to return to the village.

Just as she stepped out of the shed, she heard chaotic footsteps racing toward the cowshed, accompanied by flickering candlelight.

Her heart clenched. She leapt atop a tree trunk, hiding among the dense leaves overhead.

Liao Zhilun turned pale at the commotion, stepped out of the cowshed, and saw that Jiang Yingli had already left. He breathed a sigh of relief.

At least she hadn’t witnessed him in such a sorry state.

He closed the door. By then, a crowd wearing red armbands stood before him.

"Well, today you don’t need us to drag you out? Take him away!"

Someone immediately stepped forward, twisted his arms behind his back, and hung a wooden plaque around his neck, dangling over his chest.

On the plaque were three words: "Old Stinking Scholar."

He was hauled onto the grain drying platform, forced to kneel. The shrill clang of a triangle echoed in his ears as warm yellow lights began to shine from the darkness of the team quarters.

One by one, people, frowning and draping on clothes, made their way to the platform, grumbling, "Why are you here again? We still have work to do! Who will answer if we miss the farming season?"

"Exactly! I was dreaming about eating duck! Now look, the duck I was about to eat has flown away!"

"So troublesome. Honestly, the Liaos are less of a nuisance than you lot!"

The captain of the First Production Team was a pale-faced scholar, looking weak and impatient as he wrapped his coat around him.

"You students have nothing better to do than torment us?"

The Red Guard leader retorted confidently,

"Captain, you’ve misunderstood. We barely come to your team as it is! This old stinking scholar can’t be allowed to live well, lest he develop rebellious thoughts!"

"If you keep doing this, you’ll breed rebellion even faster!"

A disgruntled female voice muttered nearby, as the Red Guards on the platform began the denunciation.

The leader recited his supposed crimes one by one, but every charge was baseless.

He then began whipping him, each lash cutting into flesh, the red marks slowly spreading across his back.

Liao Zhilun gritted his teeth, silent and refusing to confess.

Seeing his stubbornness, the leader whipped harder, jaw clenched, raising the whip high, venting his anger.

Jiang Yingli slipped away from the crowd, summoned her little beast in a dark corner.

"See the whip in his hand? Burn it!"

A ball of orange flame fell from the sky, landing squarely on the whip, which instantly caught fire along with the leader's hand.

The young man screamed, dropped the whip, and frantically tried to extinguish the fire. The junior Red Guards rushed to help, but the crowd was so packed he was shoved to the ground, getting stomped on his face and back several times before the fire went out.

"Heaven's punishment! Heaven's punishment!"

A ghostly female voice echoed, throwing the group into chaos.

"It's a ghost!"

"Don’t say such things! That’s all feudal superstition!"

"If it weren’t for these Red Guards coming at this hour, nothing like this would have happened!"

"We—we'd better go!"

"Let’s hurry, it's so unlucky!"

The crowd scattered in an instant. The Red Guards quickly dragged their unconscious leader away.

The whip, burned to ashes, was swept away by the wind. Liao Zhilun removed the wooden plaque from his chest, gazed at it for a moment, then raised it high and let it drop. The plaque shattered into pieces, the crack echoing sharply through the silent night.

Watching Liao Zhilun return to the cowshed, Jiang Yingli reined in her emotions and headed back to the Fifth Production Team.

She closed her door and rested, but less than half an hour later, she heard the sound of cow hooves outside—Uncle Ding was coming to lead the cattle.

She rubbed her temples and got up.

That fire would only keep them in check for a while. Her uncle couldn’t go on living like this. She already had a plan in mind.

The person registering the team had now been replaced by a young man from the village who had attended junior high. Jiang Yingli was also reassigned from canal work to loosening soil in the fields.

By coincidence or fate, she was paired with Aunt Ding, who took good care of her, always asking if she was tired or needed a break.

Though her circumstances were pitiful, the young people in the production team felt Jiang Yingli was just playing up her misery.

Yes, she had lost her parents, and had a thankless foster brother, but that had nothing to do with her ability to work the fields.

"Aunt, why is it she can rest after hoeing for half an hour, but we can’t?"

Jiang Yingli sipped the sweet water Aunt Ding handed her, sitting leisurely on the field ridge.

Aunt Ding ignored the speaker, the unruly son of a widow, whom no one could control.

The team tended to look after such poor farmers, but Aunt Ding despised those who took advantage and then complained.

Seeing no response, the man marched forward to grab the bowl from Jiang Yingli’s hands.

Yet, though he grasped the rim, he couldn't budge it, as if it was nailed to her hand.

Jiang Yingli watched as his fingers dipped into the water, which spread a muddy yellow hue across the surface.

Seeing him dare to grab directly, Aunt Ding yanked his hand away with a slap, and the bowl fell to the ground, spilling the sweet water onto the red soil.

"What are you doing?"

Jiang Yingli’s eyes reddened as she carefully picked up the bowl, as if heartbroken over the lost sweet water.

"I barely had a few sips, and now it's all gone..."

Aunt Ding was also upset; the sweet water was specially made for Jiang Yingli, the sugar brought back from the city by her son.

With such a frail body, and no meat or fish to nourish her, all she could offer was some sugar water.

She hadn’t drunk a single mouthful herself!

"Son of a widow! Are you ignoring discipline?"

"She's lazy! Someone sits around and still gets work points. I don’t think it's fair!"

"A grown man staring at a young girl every day, have you no shame!"

"Aunt, honestly, he’s right. I’m not convinced either."

Other young team members chimed in, leaving Aunt Ding embarrassed.

Seeing Aunt Ding’s discomfort, Jiang Yingli put down her bowl and stood up, looking at the widow's son. "Do you dare to compete with me?"

The man hadn’t expected her to be so assertive, but naturally refused to back down, lifting his chin, "Compete in what?"