Struggle Life in the 1970s

On New Year's Eve, Chu Ye just opened the door and noticed that the weather outside was bad. Everywhere he looked was gray and the air seemed to have a layer of filter, carrying drizzle hitting people's faces. The clouds in the distance were also frighteningly low, as if they were going to smash the earth hard in the next moment.

A cold wind blew, and Chu Ye pulled her coat closer. She looked worried, and after thinking for a while she decided to ride her tricycle to the factory.

The factories were also on New Year holiday, and the entire park was quiet. Occasionally, a stray dog ​​would hear the noise and run out to howl a few times. The echoing sound seemed even more desolate. Chu Ye walked to the electric pole and listened to the radio talk about a lot of national conditions, and then the weather forecast. She finished listening quickly and walked back with heavy steps.

——A cold wave is coming.

She is not from the south and has never experienced this kind of weather, but she knows from previous conversations with guests that the pressure of the cold wave is no less than the heavy snow in the north. She must take it seriously and make plans early.

She did what she said. She quickly finished her breakfast, changed into light clothes, and used tools to pick up some dead leaves on the water surface. She also checked the oxygen pump and water pipes to make sure they were in good condition. After doing all this, she still felt it was not enough. After deepening the water volume, she went to the town again and ran around to several places before buying enough plastic sheeting. She couldn't handle it all by herself, so she paid more money and called a few people nearby to help build a simple frame in the water and spread the plastic sheeting flat on the fish pond.

After finishing all this, it was already early morning. After paying the workers and sending them away, she lay down on the bed feeling relieved.

I hope everything I did today will be useful, and I hope this cold wave won’t be that bad. I hope this is just her unfounded worry.

As she was thinking this, her eyelids felt heavy as if there were huge stones weighing thousands of pounds on them. In a daze, she saw the small alarm clock on the table. It was already one o'clock. That was the first day of the new year. She thought randomly, then she should wish herself a happy new year and all the best.

The next day, she woke up. Although she was extremely sleepy, her biological clock made her open her eyes early. She lay in bed for a while, then got up and opened the door. The weather was the same as yesterday. It even felt like the clouds had lowered a little. The trees and clouds in the distance seemed to be connected together, making her feel uneasy for no reason.

She hurried to check the fish pond, and when she saw that everything was fine, she breathed a sigh of relief. After all, today was the first day of the Chinese New Year, and she had to have a good meal no matter what. Last night, she was busy with the fish pond, and she didn't even have the customary dumplings on New Year's Eve in her hometown.

Just do it when you want to. She started to knead the dough and mince the stuffing. She mixed the three parts fat and seven parts lean pork with the blanched cabbage and chopped them all into foam. With a small spoon, she scooped and put a plump meatball in the white round dough. She put her hands together, and used her thumb and index finger to apply force, and a round dumpling was placed neatly.

After making enough for her, she boiled water in a pot. After a while, the dumplings floated to the surface of the water impatiently. At noon, Chu Ye had her first meal of the New Year beautifully.

In the afternoon, the original breeze somehow changed its temper, as if the gods in the sky were angry, making the leaves rustle and the branches bent, not to mention that the clouds on the horizon were also blown away, revealing the originally blue sky, making the air seem a lot better.

Even though she had added bricks to press the edges when she laid the plastic sheet yesterday, she still checked the fish pond in the distance. She was relieved only after making sure that everything was fine. Since there was nothing to do and there was nothing fun to do here, she took out the book that she brought from school to the factory and then from the factory to here. The pages of "Stray Birds" were curled up from reading it, but because it was given to her by Mu Jiajun, she could not get enough of it.

But the more she looked, the heavier her head became, as if the air was a drug and she became more and more sleepy. When she woke up again, she heard a strong wind blowing outside the house. The whole house felt like it was under the hammer of thunder. Chu Ye's confused brain even felt that the whole house was shaking. She wanted to move her arms, but found that her limbs were limp and her whole body was cold. Even with a thick coat on, she still felt air leaking through the joints of her bones. Afterwards, she guessed that she was probably having a fever.

Fortunately, she had her usual medicine box in the room. She bent down and took out a small iron box from under the table. She opened it and found some common medicines and some Chinese herbs that needed to be boiled given by customers. She took out the thermometer and clamped it under her armpit. The dim light bulb was also affected by the weather outside. The light was shaking, slowly lengthening and shortening the shadow. Chu Ye was about to fall asleep again. She pinched her thigh and forced herself to wait for five minutes. Then she took out the thermometer and looked at it carefully.

——39.3℃.

She was silent for a moment. As expected, it was probably because she was too active yesterday. She didn't get enough rest last night, and she was caught in the wind today, which led to the fever.

She found some antipyretic medicine and took one, then became concerned about the fish pond and forced herself to open the door.

All of a sudden, a violent storm swept in from outside, almost blowing her down. The rain outside was falling so heavily that it looked like there was a big hole in the sky. She looked towards the fish pond through the rain curtain, and vaguely saw the plastic sheet placed safely on the water surface. The heavy rain flowed down the tilted plastic sheet, and the bricks that were pressing it were intact and had not moved.

She felt relieved, but she finally felt a severe headache. She covered herself with the quilt, curled up and fell asleep.

When I woke up again, the sky was bright and everything around me was eerily quiet, as if the noisy wind and rain that made me panic last night were just a dream when my head was groggy.

She pushed open the door and was instantly shocked by the view outside. All she saw was transparent ice and thin snow. There were countless frozen water droplets on the branches, leaves, and under the eaves. Even the ground under the door and the eaves was covered with a layer of ice. The ground, which was yellow in the past, was now covered with a thin layer of snow. It is not accurate to call it thin snow. It is not soft and easy like the snow in the north. It can instantly become thin when you step on it. The snow under your feet seems to have been frozen as soon as it fell from the sky to the ground. A thick layer of snow can hit people.

She walked to the fish pond with a trembling heart, but walked slowly in the few steps. In her mind, she was already praying to the countless gods in the sky for blessings, hoping that her fish would be safe.

She squatted down, took a deep breath, prepared herself, and then lifted a corner of the plastic sheet.

——She saw countless dead fish, their eyes lifelessly embedded in their heads, and their densely packed white bellies like a layer of foam on beer.

"Boom——"
Something exploded in her brain and her limbs felt like they were not her own. She stood up with difficulty and felt her head swelling. She ran to the side in disbelief and opened the lid to see that a group of sea bass were floating on the water with their bellies exposed. She clenched her fists and forced herself to run to the fish pond in the distance. Everything was the same.

Even on the way back, she heard some villagers talking together. They were native locals, and it was still strange for them to see such a scene so early in the morning. She even vaguely heard them say that they hadn't seen such a severe cold wave in more than ten years.

Finally, she walked back in a daze. Although the snow and ice around her were incredibly beautiful, she only felt a bone-chilling cold, even colder than when she had a fever yesterday.

It was useless to check the machine, and it was useless to install plastic sheeting overnight. She had clearly made all the preparations. She knew that the cold wave was coming early on, and she did everything she could, but it was useless.

God slapped her hard in the face, letting her know that all her efforts were in vain. She was suddenly filled with grief, and she sat down under the eaves with her legs weak, covering her face and sobbing.

Why is it that no matter what she does in this life, she is always pushed into the abyss when she sees hope? She didn’t do anything evil in her previous life, so why should she be treated like this in this life?

The road ahead is long, how should she cope with it? It took her a year and a half to get to where she is today, and when she finally stabilized, God destroyed everything again.

She still owed Han Zhao a lot of money. Pan'er and Xiaoya would have to work with her after the New Year, but she, she had nothing.

In this deserted place, she burst into tears, crying out all the grievances and unwillingness in her heart. Her cry was so sad that the listeners couldn't help but feel pain in their hearts. They took back the words they were about to scold, and their gray-blue eyes were full of heartache.

Then, a pair of hands with distinct finger bones gently fell on her head, and the man sighed, "Don't cry."

Chu Ye, immersed in grief, did not realize that there was someone standing in front of her. The touch and voice were so light, like floating clouds in the sky, she did not care at all.

Then, the man squatted down, as tall as Chu Ye who was sitting under the eaves. His hand slid from the top of her head to her ears, and then to her side face which was only slightly exposed. His other hand also came up, and with both hands he gently lifted up the little face of the person in front of him. He saw that her eyes were terribly red and swollen from crying, and the strands of hair on her forehead were wet and stuck to her skin. Her mouth was slightly open, and she hadn't reacted yet with tears in her eyes.

Mu Jiajun took action, holding her cheeks with both hands, and wiped her tears from the corners of her eyes with his thumbs.

"Why have you become stupid? Don't you recognize me?" Mu Jiajun said softly, and the words he wanted to blame her for leaving without saying goodbye when he came to her were now completely forgotten.

The blur in Chu Ye's eyes was wiped away, just like a dusty mirror that suddenly reflected a human figure, but it was precisely because of this that she couldn't believe it.

I couldn't even feel my heart beating. My brain was blank and only numbness remained.

"What about this?" Mu Jiajun looked at her stupidly, with the corners of his lips slightly curved. Unlike his previous smile that looked like a big puppy, this time his smile was very clear, like a gust of wind.

As soon as he finished speaking, his lips fell down. The originally slightly cold kiss became hot the moment of contact. Chu Ye wanted to escape with some discomfort, but she ignored the big hand firmly on her cheek. She had no way to avoid it.

The fresh scent of soapberry filled her nostrils, instantly igniting the memories that had been deliberately hidden in the past. The grievances she had suffered flooded her heart, and she couldn't help but want to cry.

But the man was fascinated. After passing the red lips, he grabbed the pearly teeth. The two hot little tongues entangled endlessly. For a long time, Chu Ye had difficulty breathing and patted Mu Jiajun's shoulder weakly.

The man left slowly, still unsatisfied, and then pulled the silver thread, full of lust.

(End of this chapter)