80s Transmigration: The Young Widow's Hustle to Riches-Chapter 203 - 199: Having a Meeting

Early the next morning, Li Xiangyang came to Yang Dingbang’s home. The two of them went to the Public Security Bureau, checked out a truck, and parked it in front of Lin Lan’s house.

The Yang family kinsmen all went to Yang Dingbang’s house to help load the usable furniture, as well as various pots and jars, onto the truck.

Lin Lan, Yang Liying, and a few others helped the old woman put the chickens, ducks, and geese into cages, which they then carefully loaded onto the truck.

The old woman gazed at the house she had lived in for decades, wiping away tears, reluctant to leave.

Yang Dingbang approached on his crutch and put an arm around his grandmother. "Don’t be sad. Yucai Road isn’t far from here. If you get homesick, we can come back for a visit." He paused before adding, "The chickens and ducks are already on the truck. Over there, we’ve built a henhouse, a duck pen, and a goose pen. We even started a vegetable garden. Living there will be just the same as living here!"

The old woman wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled at him. "Alright! Grandma isn’t sad. Grandma is happy. I never thought I’d get to live in a little Western-style house like a rich man, raising chickens and ducks and growing a small vegetable garden."

"That’s right! We’re off to our little Western-style house to grow vegetables!" Seeing his grandmother smile, Yang Dingbang breathed a sigh of relief.

Leaning on his crutch, he helped his grandmother toward the truck.

He Xianghua and a few other kinsmen were standing in the truck bed, steadying some large pieces of furniture.

Li Xiangyang helped the grandmother into the truck’s cab, then supported Yang Dingbang as he climbed in, before taking his seat behind the wheel.

The grandmother said to Lin Lan and the well-wishers, "We’ll head over first. You all can follow later."

"Alright!" everyone shouted back, smiling and waving.

Li Xiangyang waved to Lin Lan, hit the gas, and drove off.

After Yang Dingbang and his family left, Yang Meihua brought the mature pumpkins she had gotten from her parents’ home over the last few days to Lin Lan’s house.

This time, Yang Meihua had collected over a thousand jin of mature pumpkins.

’These pumpkins will last until spring at most,’ Lin Lan calculated. ’Before the next harvest, I’ll have to rely on Lin Guoliang and the others over in Shilian to source the pumpkins for my cakes.’

Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang spent the morning helping Yang Dingbang move. In the afternoon, after closing up her stall, her family went to Yang Liying’s house for dinner. Their Saturday passed in a blur of activity.

On December 31st, the Liu family held a wedding banquet for Liu Jinbao. The bride’s dowry was also delivered to their home.

Sun Xiuhua’s face fell the moment she saw the dowry, and she had to stop herself from cursing out loud.

Liu Jinbao, however, had no such restraint. He pointed at the few quilts and porcelain basins and immediately blew up, accusing the bride’s family of selling their daughter, not marrying her off.

The person from the bride’s family delivering the dowry retorted that if it wasn’t for the bride price and gifts they’d already received, a scoundrel like Liu Jinbao would have been a bachelor for life.

Liu Jinbao hit the roof, and if Liu Guozhi hadn’t stepped in, the two families would have come to blows.

Gossip spread like wildfire through the production team that day. The Liu family had reportedly paid a bride price of several hundred yuan, on top of the coveted "Three Rounds and a Sound." In return, the new bride’s dowry consisted of just a few quilts—not a single decent piece of furniture.

The bride’s family argued that their daughter was pretty and a middle school graduate. Her parents had raised her, so the money and the "Three Rounds and a Sound" were for them, as a show of filial piety.

Liu Jinbao clamored for them to return the bride price and threatened divorce, but Liu Guozhi managed to suppress the matter.

On New Year’s Day, the Liu family held the wedding banquet anyway, making the marriage official.

***

In the blink of an eye, 1979 was over, and Lin Lan welcomed her second year in this other world: 1980.

On the morning of January 2nd, a work group from the municipal government arrived at the Lexing Team’s First Squad. Accompanied by the commune leaders, they were there to oversee the implementation of the household responsibility system.

The work group, commune leaders, team cadres, and representatives from the Second and Third Squads, the Construction Team, and other production teams all sat together in the Lexing Team’s meeting room, along with member representatives. The First Squad was the pilot project, so the others were there to observe and learn.

The meeting room was about the size of a primary school classroom and had a similar layout: a large blackboard, a row of wooden tables, and long wooden benches for seating.

The benches were already filled with the household heads and members of the First Squad, along with some members from the Second and Third Squads and the Construction Team. Team members who couldn’t fit inside crowded around the doors and windows, peering in.

Lin Lan sat with Yang Liying and Yang Meihua, listening to a comrade from the work group read out numerous documents and lecture at length on the importance and benefits of the household responsibility system.

As she listened, Lin Lan was reminded of the past, of having to hand over the public grain levy twice a year. ’Once for rapeseed, and once for rice. The rice had to be dried until it was bone-dry, so crisp it would crunch between your teeth. There could be no sand, no grit, no impurities at all. Every grain had to be plump and golden, not a single shriveled one in the bunch, and it couldn’t have the slightest off-smell.’

’The rapeseed had to be dry, plump, and free of impurities to be considered acceptable public grain.’

’Half of the grain we submitted went toward the agricultural tax; the other half was handed over to the state for free.’

’I remember my family of four,’ Lin Lan thought. ’Not counting our private plot, we had over four mu of fields. We had to hand over a thousand jin of rice and several sacks of rapeseed. And every time, we had to bring an extra hundred jin or so, just in case they decided to make things difficult for us.’

’You handed over your best grain and kept the inferior stuff for yourself to eat.’

’Hybrid rice had high yields—a good harvest could bring in a thousand jin per mu. Conventional rice yielded less, maybe seven or eight hundred jin per mu on a good year. And that was in the plains with fertile soil. In places where the land was poor, you couldn’t even get that much.’

’Handing over the public grain was never easy. It was graded, and not everything you hauled to the grain station would pass inspection. If an inspector said your grain wasn’t up to standard, your only choice was to drag it all the way home, dry it again, and haul it all the way back.’

’Some team members lived too far from the commune’s grain station, making the round trip a multi-day ordeal. Their only option was to dry the grain in the station’s courtyard. That was fine if the weather held, but if it turned bad... you wouldn’t even have the tears left to cry.’

’Back then, the grain station workers held all the power over the team members handing in their grain, and they lorded it over them with an air of superiority.’

’Luckily, my parents were quick-witted. Every time we went to pay the levy, they’d secretly slip the workers a pack of cigarettes. Our grain always passed, and if we were lucky, it would even be rated first-grade.’

’I’ll never forget those grain station workers. The way they acted toward the simple, honest team members—so high and mighty, so bossy—was no different from the villainous landlords treating tenant farmers in the movies.’

’It’s 1980 now. There are still more than twenty years to go before the agricultural tax, state levies, and all the other miscellaneous fees are finally abolished.’

’For the next two decades, farmers will have to pay the agricultural tax, the levies, and an ever-increasing number of miscellaneous fees. For families stuck in old, rigid ways of thinking, life is going to be just as hard as ever.’

Thinking of all this, Lin Lan suddenly felt she didn’t want this rural household registration anymore. ’Grain isn’t even that expensive. Wouldn’t it be great to just earn money and buy it instead?’

"Lin Lan, Liu Guozhi is going up to speak!" Yang Liying said, nudging her. "What were you thinking about? I called your name and you didn’t even hear me!"

Lin Lan snapped out of it. "Sorry, I was spacing out."

Yang Meihua lowered her voice, her eyes twinkling with amusement as she teased, "Don’t tell me you were just sleeping with your eyes open?"

Lin Lan smiled and shook her head. "No, just thinking! Let’s listen to what Liu Guozhi has to say."

Yang Meihua nodded, and they all turned their attention to the front of the room.