I feel right at home in the world of the courtyard house.

Huairou, located in the suburbs of Beijing, is not too far from the city center, but its environment, conditions, and living standards are completely different from those in the city. Especially in those days, the conditions in the countryside were harsh, resources were scarce, and the labor intensity was high. For young cadres who had grown up in the city and had never experienced hardship, this was undoubtedly a huge test.

The construction site of the irrigation canal was teeming with people, a dense crowd. There were villagers from nearby, cadres who had come to the countryside, and laborers sent by the commune. Everyone was carrying shovels, hoes, carrying poles, and wheelbarrows. The shouts, panting, slogans, and the creaking of the wheels mingled together, creating a noisy and chaotic scene.

Everyone is working diligently, not daring to slack off in the slightest. In this era, passive resistance, laziness, and shirking responsibility are very serious problems.

Chen Qing was among this group of people.

He wore a tattered hat, and his face, neck, and hands were covered in dust, sweat, and scratches. He was a far cry from the refined, clean-cut, and cultured man he once was as a technician in the steel rolling mill's technical department. His face was pale, his lips were chapped, his eyes were bloodshot, and he looked extremely exhausted. He had lost a lot of weight and looked haggard, as if a gust of wind could blow him away.

At that moment, he was gripping the handlebars of a wheelbarrow tightly with both hands. The wheelbarrow was loaded with heavy sand, bulging high and slightly deforming the wheels. His arm muscles were tense and trembling, his legs were shaking, and he used all his strength to take each step. His steps were heavy and he staggered. Several times the wheels hit stones, the wheelbarrow tilted, and he almost fell into the ditch next to him.

He gritted his teeth, panting heavily, his chest heaving violently. With each breath, his throat felt dry and painful, as if it were on fire. Sweat streamed down his forehead and into his eyes, stinging painfully, but he dared not let go to wipe it away.

"Hey! Chen Qing! What are you dawdling for? Hurry up and push this truckload of sand over there! Stop slacking off! How many loads have you pushed today? Do you want to get scolded? If you don't want to work, just say so!"

A rough, gruff shout, full of reprimands and dissatisfaction, suddenly rang out on the construction site, sounding particularly jarring.

The person who shouted was Zhang, the construction team leader.

Captain Zhang stood with his hands behind his back on a high place, his eyes fixed on Chen Qing like a hawk, never letting his guard down, his face full of impatience.

Upon hearing the reprimand, Chen Qing trembled violently. Without daring to pause for a moment, he pushed forward even more forcefully, staggering and almost collapsing from exhaustion.

For the first two days after he arrived in Huairou, things were actually quite easy.

When he first arrived at the construction site, everyone was very polite and courteous to him when they heard that he was a cadre from the Beijing Steel Rolling Mill and a technician from the city. The work assigned to him was relatively easy, mostly light and miscellaneous tasks, without any heavy physical labor, and no one deliberately made things difficult for him.

At that time, he was secretly relieved, thinking that going to the countryside was not as terrible as he had imagined, and that Li Jing'an was right, that he could go back safely after a few months.

But to his utter surprise, the peaceful days lasted only two days.

Not long after, he was temporarily reassigned to Captain Zhang's team.

From that day on, his nightmare officially began.

Captain Zhang acted as if he had a deep-seated grudge against him. From the very first day they met, he was full of hostility towards him, targeting him at every turn, making things difficult for him at every turn, and finding fault with him at every turn, never letting him have a moment's peace.

While others do light work, he has to do heavy work; while others work for half a day, he has to work for a whole day; while others can rest, he cannot; while others can slow down a little and no one will mind, but if he takes a breather, he will immediately be scolded, insulted, and labeled.

The dirtiest, most tiring, heaviest, most difficult, and least desirable jobs were all piled on his shoulders.

They carried soil, pushed sand, dug ditches, moved stones, cleared silt, and carried logs. They did whatever was heavy or tiring, working from dawn till dusk every day with almost no rest time. Even the time to drink water or catch their breath was compressed to the extreme.

If he showed the slightest dissatisfaction, hesitation, or fatigue, Captain Zhang would immediately throw a whole host of accusations at him:

Passive resistance to work, resistance to reform, contempt for labor, disdain for farmers, bourgeois ideology, petty-bourgeois sentiment, insubordination, disruption of rural order...

Each hat he wore was enough to make him regret it.

Chen Qing had no way to express his suffering and nowhere to seek redress for his grievances.

He tried to protest, but Captain Zhang scolded him for his bad attitude and refusal to repent.

He tried to explain, but Captain Zhang took it as sophistry and making excuses.

He wanted to report the situation to his superiors, but he was afraid that Captain Zhang would turn around and accuse him of something even worse.

He could only endure it.

They swallowed their anger, endured humiliation, gritted their teeth and endured it all, swallowing all their grievances, pain, despair and resentment.

In just a few days, he was exhausted both physically and mentally, his spirit was on the verge of collapse, and his body was at its limit, on the verge of breaking down at any moment.

He couldn't understand what he had done to offend Captain Zhang, or why the other party was targeting him so relentlessly, torturing him, and suppressing him by any means necessary.

What he didn't know was that all of this was not without reason.

During breaks, everyone put down their tools, gathered in twos and threes, smoked, caught their breath, chatted, and relaxed a little.

A man who had a fairly good relationship with Captain Zhang took advantage of the break to sidle up to him, pulled out a cigarette, offered it to him, and asked in a low voice with a face full of curiosity, "Brother Zhang, I have a question for you, don't take it personally. Do you and that Chen Qing have some kind of grudge from the past? Or did he offend you? I see you keeping an eye on him every day, ordering him around without showing him any mercy. Why is that?"

Captain Zhang took the cigarette, took a deep drag, exhaled the smoke, glanced sideways at Chen Qing, who was leaning against a wheelbarrow not far away, panting heavily and almost collapsing, a look of disdain and indifference on his lips, and said in a low voice, "A grudge? Nothing of the sort. I didn't know him at all before, and I have no grudge against him."

The man was even more puzzled, frowning. "Then why are you always targeting him? I see he's a city scholar, physically weak, but he doesn't slack off at work, he's always working hard. And you're still so relentless, scolding him every day, forcing him to do heavy work every day. Isn't that a bit unreasonable?"

Captain Zhang sneered, "He's different from the other cadres who went to the countryside. The others came down to train, learn, and reform themselves; they came with a mission, they were good people. He's not. He made a big mistake and was sent down by the factory. He's a problem element, a bad element."

"How do you know so much?" the man asked in surprise. "Nobody's mentioned this before."

"I have connections in Beijing, I'm well-informed, and my information is spot-on," Captain Zhang said in a low voice, mysterious and serious. "I'm telling you this, but just listen and don't tell anyone. If it gets out, it'll cause a huge problem. This Chen Qing didn't just make an ordinary mistake; he almost leaked military secrets. It's very serious, a major issue!"

The man gasped in shock, his eyes widening in disbelief, his voice trembling: "My God! Leaking military secrets? That's a capital offense! Why wasn't he arrested and executed? At the very least, shouldn't he have been locked up and sent to a labor camp? How could he be sent to the countryside so easily?"

"The higher-ups didn't have enough evidence to prove he did it intentionally, so they couldn't sentence him to death or give him a heavy sentence. They could only send him to the countryside for labor reform and re-education by the poor and lower-middle peasants, giving him a chance to reform." Captain Zhang exhaled a smoke ring, his tone matter-of-fact. "The way I treat him, the way I boss him around, the way I demand so much of him, isn't because I'm against him, it's for his own good, to teach him a lesson, to make him remember that if you make a mistake, you have to be punished, you have to pay the price!"

The man suddenly understood, nodding repeatedly in agreement. His gaze towards Chen Qing instantly shifted from sympathy to wariness and disgust: "So that's how it is! I knew it! That's exactly right! You can't be lenient with this kind of person! You should teach him a lesson he won't forget! In my opinion, it's too lenient; he should be made to move stones, see if he dares to make such a big mistake again!"

Captain Zhang waved his hand. Although he was targeting Chen Qing, he had his own bottom line and didn't really want to push him to his death: "That won't do. He's just a fresh graduate, very weak. He can't lift heavy things. If you really make him move stones, he'll collapse from exhaustion on the construction site in less than two days. I'm just teaching him a lesson to behave himself, not trying to kill him. If someone dies, I can't bear the responsibility."

The man nodded repeatedly, his face full of admiration: "Captain Zhang is indeed very thoughtful, sensible, and principled. I admire him."

After chatting for a few more minutes, the two returned to their posts and continued working.

Chen Qing was completely unaware of this and continued to silently endure inhuman torture.

He was unaware that he was being maliciously slandered, and that he had been falsely accused of "leaking military secrets."

All he knew was that he was about to give up.

The physical pain, the mental oppression, and the endless torment drove him to utter despair.

That evening, after work, it was already pitch black.

Dragging his almost broken body, Chen Qing slowly made his way back to the simple mud-brick dormitory. His bones felt like they had been taken apart and put back together, every muscle was in excruciating pain, and every breath was filled with exhaustion and pain.

He collapsed onto the cold bed, not wanting to get up, move, or face the sun the next day.

After a sleepless night, tossing and turning, he finally made a decision.

He wants to go back to Beijing.

He was going to the factory, to the leaders, to find a different place to work in the countryside, a different production team, a different team leader. He was willing to go to a more difficult, more remote, more distant place, as long as he was no longer with Team Leader Zhang and no longer had to suffer this inhuman torment.

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking, he forced himself to find the construction site manager. He told him he wasn't feeling well and wanted to rest for two days.

The person in charge was a kind-looking middle-aged man. Looking at Chen Qing, he said, "Your condition is really not good. If you continue like this, there will be problems. How about this, I'll approve two days off for you. You should rest and regroup."

Chen Qing felt as if he had been granted a pardon, and thanked him repeatedly, almost bursting into tears.

The construction site was deserted; everyone had gone to work. Chen Qing quickly packed a few changes of clothes, tucked his meager savings into his pocket, and eagerly set off on his journey back to Beijing.

Shortly after he left, Captain Zhang finished taking attendance and discovered that Chen Qing was not present, which immediately enraged him.

He thought Chen Qing was deliberately slacking off and skipping work, so he stormed to Chen Qing's dormitory in a rage, only to find that Chen Qing was already gone and some of her luggage was missing.

Captain Zhang immediately turned around and found the site manager: "Chen Qingren hasn't come to work! Did he run away? Or is he hiding and slacking off?"

The person in charge paused for a moment before realizing that he hadn't informed Captain Zhang yet. He quickly explained, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, Chen Qing isn't feeling well and is in very poor condition. I've granted him two days off so he can rest and recuperate."

Captain Zhang frowned, his tone tinged with doubt: "Are you asking for leave to rest?"

"He's just taking a couple of days off to recuperate." The person in charge paused, then asked, somewhat puzzled, "Didn't you go to his dorm to check on him?"

"I didn't have time," Captain Zhang casually replied, though his mind was racing.

He paused for a moment, then suddenly looked up at the person in charge, speaking as naturally as possible: "By the way, I have a relative in the city who hasn't been feeling well lately, and I haven't had a chance to ask about them. There are no phones in our village, so it's inconvenient to contact them. Could I use the phone on the construction site to make a brief call and ask about the situation? Just a few words, it won't take much time."

The person in charge didn't think much of it, nodded, and pointed to the office next door: "Yes, the phone is over there. Go ahead and use it, but be careful to keep your calls short. It's company property, don't misuse it."

A barely perceptible smile appeared on Captain Zhang's face as he quickly nodded, "Okay, okay, thank you, leader. I'll only be here for a little while, I'll be done soon."