Rebirth in a Courtyard: I Am a Little Hunter

In the backyard, Xu Damao's house was also completely silent.

Xu Damao's once slick, calculating face was now sallow and thin, his eyes bulging with hunger. He no longer went around boasting about the "worldly" things he'd seen showing movies, nor did he plot how to trip up Sha Zhu or anyone else.

He was always listless, and after work he would go home and lie down to conserve his energy. His once plump cheeks had sagged. Showing movies brought him very little benefit; he couldn't even afford to eat, so who would want to watch a movie? Therefore, he didn't show movies in the countryside very often anymore.

Sha Zhu's transformation is perhaps the most striking. This once robust cook, who could eat five steamed buns in one meal and seemed to have inexhaustible energy, now appears as if all his strength has been drained away. He still goes to work at the steel mill's canteen every day, but the canteen's conditions are not much better than at home.

Even the most skillful cook can't cook without rice, let alone in a year of famine. The staple food was coarse cornbread that made your throat ache or thin porridge that was so watery you could see your reflection in it. The vegetables were boiled vegetable stalks with hardly any oil.

Sha Zhu's hands, which used to be strong and energetic, were no longer as powerful as before. He worked silently, occasionally glancing up at the empty warehouse and his fellow workers who were queuing up and waiting anxiously for their meals. His eyes held a numbness that was a mixture of helplessness, sympathy, and his own hunger.

After get off work, he returned to the courtyard and stopped making a ruckus and throwing punches at the drop of a hat. Instead, he quietly slipped back to his room and closed the door. The rain was even more silent than before. At an age when she was growing, she encountered such a famine and became as thin as a bean sprout. Her face was pale, and she felt dizzy and lightheaded all day long. She was also attending school intermittently.

Even Liu Haizhong, who always loved excitement and was very particular about his "leadership style," completely shut up. His obese body was losing weight at an alarming rate, his loose skin drooped, and his once loud, official-sounding voice now sounded weak and breathless.

He no longer paced around the courtyard with his hands behind his back, no longer held his nominal "courtyard-wide meeting," and even his nagging and criticism of his second aunt and sons decreased.

Most of the time, he lay in bed, conserving his meager calorie intake. His dream of becoming an official seemed so distant and ridiculous in the face of overwhelming hunger. The Liu brothers, Guangtian and Guangfu, were so hungry that their eyes were practically blue, and they had long lost their drive to cause trouble.

Uncle Yan Bugui, the shrewd and calculating elementary school teacher, now uses all his intelligence to figure out how to keep his family alive under even lower food rations. He holds a magnifying glass and repeatedly studies every word on the food coupons and ration book, calculating the best allocation for every ounce of grain and every penny of oil.

His meals had escalated from "bland soup" to "pure water." A little bran, a few wild vegetables, and plenty of water, boiled into a porridge so thin you could barely make out the contents. He no longer cared for his few half-dead plants, nor did he ponder how to gain an advantage over others in terms of writing. The small eyes behind his glasses often revealed deep worry and fear of the future. The dignity of an intellectual, in the face of hunger, was incredibly fragile.

Yi Zhonghai was also gripped by immense anxiety. As an eighth-grade worker, his food ration was slightly higher than that of ordinary people, but it was still a drop in the bucket. What worried him even more was the situation of Jia Dongxu's family.

Jia Dongxu was the core of his retirement plan, but now, Jia Dongxu himself was so hungry that he was staggering, how could he have the energy to take care of others! However, this was also a good time for him to win people's hearts. He would give the Jia family a little bit of his own food every month, but that was really "a drop in the ocean", and his own physical strength was also declining rapidly.

He is a more calculating person, unlike Yan Bugui. He has a stronger desire for control. He wants to control Jia Dongxu, but he doesn't want to make too much of a sacrifice. This is what puts him in a dilemma.

Looking at the lifeless atmosphere in the courtyard, his sense of mission to "maintain the unity of the compound" had long been squeezed into a corner by his survival instinct. He also spent most of his time indoors, conserving his energy, and silently praying that this damned year of disaster would pass quickly.

The entire courtyard was shrouded in an eerie, suffocating silence. During the day, there was hardly a soul in sight; everyone stayed indoors, lying or sitting, minimizing any unnecessary activity.

Speaking became a hushed whisper, as if raising one's voice would consume extra energy. The children no longer ran and played; they either lay weakly on the kang (a heated brick bed), or stared blankly at the empty rice jar and the expressionless adults with their large, lifeless eyes.

Even the elderly ladies and young wives who usually love to visit each other and chat have lost their interest in gathering—chatting doesn't fill their stomachs, but rather consumes their energy.

Everyone remained silent, their eyes vacant or anxious as they stared at the slowly moving procession ahead, carefully protecting the empty cloth bags or baskets in their arms, as if they were their only hope for life.

After receiving their items, they quickly lowered their heads and left, not daring to glance at what others held, nor allowing others to glance at what they held. A deep unease and a lingering sense of despair permeated the silence.

The courtyard house, once filled with the warmth, noise, scheming, and affection of everyday life, seemed to have been ripped from its soul. The gray brick walls appeared even more somber, and the withered grass under the eaves trembled helplessly in the bleak autumn wind.

Even when sunlight shone in, it appeared pale and weak, unable to dispel the heavy gloom of hunger that shrouded every door and window. The air no longer held the aroma of food, only a faint, lingering musty smell and a weak, feeble aura.

People are filled with anxiety, yet powerless to feel it. Even this feeling of anxiety requires energy to sustain it. They are like small boats tossed about in a storm, battered by hungry waves, clinging tightly to the gunwale, using their last bit of strength to keep from sinking completely.

All conflicts, calculations, grudges, and affections temporarily recede into the background, or are even forgotten, in the face of the instinct for survival. To live on, to endure, becomes the only goal and the only hope in everyone's heart.

The east courtyard seemed no exception. Wei Chen's door was often closed, so quiet it was as if no one lived there. Only a careful observer might notice that Wei Chen still went to and from get off work on time every day, his pace slightly slower than before, but still steady. His face was a little pale (at his current level, changing his complexion was easy), but deep in his eyes, he seemed to retain a calmness and clarity different from the others in the courtyard.

But this subtle difference went largely unnoticed under the immense pressure of survival that permeated the entire facility. Everyone was trapped in their own cages of hunger, with no time to think about anything else.

As night falls, the courtyard houses are plunged into darkness early. To save precious kerosene or electricity, many families don't even turn on their lights and go to bed early, hoping to temporarily forget the torment of hunger in their dreams.

The cold autumn wind swept through the empty courtyard, whistling mournfully, adding to the desolation and despair. This was a courtyard house silenced by hunger, a tiny microcosm struggling and adrift in the torrent of time, a corner of suffering in its darkest hour, waiting for an unknown dawn.

Time flies like water.

The trivialities and backstabbing of the past now seem absurd and distant illusions. The iron fist of reality, cold and hard, shatters all pretense and falsehood, leaving only the most primal and cruel question of survival, standing before everyone.

The newly posted notice on the outer wall of the grain store was like a cold iron weight, smashing into the already calm abyss of despair in the courtyard. It didn't stir up ripples, but rather a devastating cold wave that was enough to drown the last glimmer of hope.

The notice was written in neat, yet harsh handwriting, black ink on white paper, stamped with a bright red official seal, rustling in the bleak autumn wind. The content was simple, yet dizzyingly complex—the monthly grain and non-staple food rations for all city residents would be reduced starting next month. Detailed rules were attached.

The crowd queuing for food froze for a moment in front of the notice, then erupted into a low, suppressed murmur, a sound that was a mixture of disbelief, shock, deep-seated panic, and a kind of almost numb despair.

No one dared to make a sound, as if the long hunger had exhausted even the strength and courage to protest. People just stared intently at the cold numbers, their fingers unconsciously twisting the equally thin and fragile food coupons in their thin pockets.

The news, like a cold wind carrying a plague, swept through the streets and alleys of Beijing at lightning speed, and naturally, it also found its way into the long-silent courtyard house of Nanluoguxiang.

The first definite news came from the neighborhood office. Director Wang sent an officer to each courtyard to inform the heads of those courtyards that they would be attending a meeting at the neighborhood office that afternoon. When Yi Zhonghai, Liu Haizhong, and Yan Bugui received the notice, their hearts sank simultaneously. A meeting at this time could never be good.

The afternoon meeting room in the neighborhood was filled with smoke, the atmosphere so heavy it seemed you could wring water out of it. Director Wang's face was even more somber than the sky outside the window. She held the documents issued by her superiors and read them aloud, line by line, in a dry and heavy voice. With each line she read, the faces of the elderly men and women sitting below paled a little more, and their backs hunched a little more.

"...In light of the current severe situation and the instructions from higher authorities, in order to ensure the basic stability of the capital and overcome the difficulties, the monthly supply standards for grain and non-staple foods for urban residents are hereby adjusted as follows..."

Director Wang's voice was flat, yet it cut like a dull knife: "For urban residents, the monthly ration for adult heavy manual laborers will be adjusted from 35 jin to 32 jin; for light manual laborers, from 32 jin to 28 jin; for government officials and general residents, from 27 jin to 24 jin... The standards for students, children, and the elderly will be lowered accordingly..."

The proportion of refined grains (rice and flour) supplied will be uniformly reduced to 15%, with the remainder being coarse grains and substitutes... The monthly supply of soybean oil will be reduced from three ounces to two ounces (with exceptions for those with special work permits)... The planned supply of meat, eggs, sugar, and other non-staple foods will be suspended until the situation improves and further notice will be given...

A series of suppressed gasps and coughs came from below.