Writer 1978: I Need to Give the Literary World a Lesson

Chapter 4 A Person with Impeccable Roots and Red Lineage
Li Lanyong, the son of the village secretary, worked as a zookeeper in the brigade and lived a comfortable life. However, he did not want to stay in the brigade forever and wanted to join the army like his older brother. Unfortunately, he missed the brigade's recruitment quota twice.

"Yimin, you're a teacher now, don't you know how to change your old shoes?" Li Lanyong said with a smile while drinking soda.

"Others may not know, but you don't. The brigade's wages haven't been paid in full all year. Now the junior high school classes are about to go out of business. Also, Comrade Li Lanyong, we must maintain our simple and frugal lifestyle."

Li Lan gulped down several mouthfuls of soda, her Adam's apple bobbing violently before she let out a low, satisfying moan.

“My dad also feels really sorry for you about this. I also brought up the issue of closing down the junior high class, but there’s nothing we can do. Ultimately, our brigade is too poor. I don’t know when things will get better for our brigade.”

Maiji Brigade originally had a primary school class, but later it became popular for each brigade to set up junior high school classes. In order to solve Liu Yimin's employment problem and to keep up with the other brigades, Maiji Brigade also set up a junior high school class at the suggestion of his father, Liu Fuqing. However, the brigade paid for it, the commune did not contribute any money, so he was essentially just a temporary teacher.

The junior high school teacher's salary was only 8 yuan a month, and the team also gave him 3000 work points every year, which was roughly equivalent to a strong laborer. To be honest, 8 yuan, while not enough to make him live a comfortable life, was at least enough to keep him from being too poor.

In reality, the brigade only gave him half of what he was entitled to each month, and kept putting off giving him the other half until the New Year. Ultimately, it was because the brigade was out of money.

The establishment of junior high school classes was a passing fad, and so was the abolition of them. His father, Liu Fuqing, had told him about this before the school's wheat harvest break, and when he did, his father felt quite sorry for him.

His mother, Yang Xiuyun, even had a big argument with his father over this, but it was just a decision made by the brigade, and arguing wouldn't solve the problem.

Liu Yimin didn't feel anything when he heard the news; the job of a junior high school teacher was no longer of much use to him.

"No need to apologize. Do I look like I'm in trouble?" Liu Yimin patted him on the shoulder.

“That’s right. I think you’ll definitely get into university this time. You can go to university and I can join the army. We’ll both contribute to the country together.” Li Lanyong put his arm around Liu Yimin’s shoulder and looked proudly in the direction where the sun was about to set.

After a while, he pulled Liu Yimin to sit down in the threshing ground. Today, he was in charge of watching over the wheat in the threshing ground. This was actually Liu Yimin's job, but he had taken the day off, and Li Lanyong took over for him.

As a teacher in the production brigade, he also had to work during the busy farming season. Especially during the wheat harvest, there was a special "wheat holiday" in the north. Every year at this time, in order to cooperate with the production tasks of the brigade, the school would give students a ten-day holiday so that they could return to their respective production teams to participate in the harvest.

“Yimin, when I went to the county supply and marketing cooperative the other day, guess who I saw?” Li Lanyong took off his straw hat and sat down in the shade of a tree.

Liu Yimin lay on the wheat straw, a blade of grass dangling from his mouth, his toes dangling towards the sky.

"Who is it?" Liu Yimin changed his posture, his body extremely languid.

"Zhang Meijia, that girl you like is now a saleswoman at the supply and marketing cooperative. Last time I went to buy something, she was so arrogant, practically looking down on me. And she's supposed to be a junior high classmate? Hey, what a damn jerk!"

Liu Yimin listened without even lifting his eyelids, his heart completely unmoved. Zhang Meijia was Liu Yimin's and Li Lanyong's junior high school classmate, but Li Lanyong didn't go to high school; he didn't like studying and dropped out after junior high.

When they were in junior high school, it was still the commune's middle school. Zhang Meijia was the prettiest in the class, and Liu Yimin's relationship with her was only one-sided. After graduating from high school, those with connections were assigned jobs in government units, factories, or joined the army. He also had connections, but his connections were in the village.
"Yimin, if you can get into university, you two still have a chance, but right now, Zhang Meijia, you can forget about it!"

"Don't talk nonsense, I never thought of that." "Come on, I know you too well. Even if you go to high school, I have my own informants. Everyone says you're always helping her out, and you've even fought for her, right? But I really hope you two can get together, so you can teach her a lesson for me. As a sales clerk, people who don't know her would think she's the director of the county revolutionary committee. With her nose so high up, isn't she afraid someone will hang her up with an iron hook?"

"Come on, I really have no such intention!" Liu Yimin stood up and slapped Li Lanyong on the shoulder, signaling him to stop talking nonsense.

"Still dare not admit it?"

"From now on, we're not from the same world anymore, so don't try to force your way in. This world is huge, and I don't even care about Zhang Meijia."

"They're definitely from different worlds. Sales clerk, what a prestigious job, I wonder how many connections their family must have pulled."

After muttering to himself, Li Lanyong's face fell again. He grabbed a long, straight stick and began to beat the leaves with it. Leaves fell wherever the stick struck.

"Sigh, I wonder if I'll be able to join the army this year?"

"Definitely!"

"Really? Yimin, you think so too?"

"Of course, if there's a conscription spot in our village, it'll definitely be yours. Your dad was an old Party member, a militiaman before Liberation, and participated in the bandit suppression campaign. I heard he even got shot in the butt. Is that true? I asked my dad, but he won't tell me!"

"..." Li Lanyong glared at him, not dwelling on whether his father had been shot in the buttocks, but said, "Your father was also a veteran Party member, he participated in supporting the front and suppressing bandits. Your uncle even sacrificed his life on the battlefield, he was a famous martyr around here."

“But my dad isn’t the Party Secretary!” Liu Yimin said with a grin.

Li Lanyong's father was named Li Dashan. In 49, he and Liu Yimin's father, Liu Fuqing, joined the army to suppress bandits in western Henan. They stayed in the vast Funiu Mountains for more than ten days. The village elders said that the bullet in Li Dashan's buttock was from a wound he sustained when he was being carried back by Liu Fuqing and shot by bandits.

If we're talking about who's the most successful, then these two families in Maiji Brigade are the best.

“If you want to join the army, I will definitely not compete with you for a spot if there is one available,” Li Lanyong said with certainty.

"Young comrade, you're quite conscientious!"

"We're brothers, what's the big deal?"

The two had always had a good relationship. They were inseparable since they could remember, climbing high and low, chasing chickens and fighting dogs together. They even fought together when they were in school.

However, Li Lanyong is often the one who gets scolded, making him the scapegoat between the two.

(End of this chapter)