Chapter 1

July, 1977, the height of summer

Late at night, Xu’s house in the Taoyuan Production Brigade of Weizhuang Commune

Xu Wen was sleepless

In the small, stuffy room, the sounds of the family coughing, grinding their teeth, and snoring rose and fell, bringing Xu Man to the brink of collapse

The incessant chirping of cicadas and frogs outside the window made her more and more restless

The cotton singlet she was wearing, which she could barely call a nightgown, was already damp with sweat and stuck to her body

Xu Wen rolled over to her left and lay on her side, her hand reaching behind her back and tugging down the clothes that were stuck to her back, her damp back loosened up a bit, but her senses had to suffer

This position is face to face with the seventy-year-old grandmother

Grandma is a chronic bronchitis, although the long illness did not become a good doctor, but practiced the ability to sleep with a cough and wheeze

Grandma had phlegm in her throat and was gasping for air with her mouth open, her hot breath accompanied by bad breath odor coming towards Xu, forcing her to roll over again and lie on her right side instead Face to mom’s back

Mom’s sleep was fine, at most grinding her teeth and saying a few words in her sleep, but Dad’s snoring on Mom’s right side was so subdued that Xu Wen was devastated

A new curtain was added to the right side of his father, and his brother and sister-in-law were sleeping on the other side of the curtain

The brother and sister-in-law are newlyweds, in this two-meter-long, three-meter-wide kang of earth, sleeping three generations of seven people, want to do something that can not be said can only wait until the dead of night

For example, now

Xu Wen almost despairing sighed softly, afraid of brother and sister-in-law found himself awake three people are embarrassed, do not dare to move, straight flat looking at the occasional thatched roof that will fall soil to the dawn of the day

Hearing the village chickens crowing, Xu Man lightly climbed up, simply wash up, rolled a change of clothes and put it into the satchel bag that her mother made for her to go to the production team

In the production team, plowing, tilling, sowing, and even pulling mills all depended on livestock, which were the most important labor force Not only was there a special barn for the animals, but two people were assigned to raise and care for them on weekdays

The barn was in the southwest corner of the production team’s headquarters, where several donkeys, mules, horses, cows, and dozens of sheep were kept, and were distributed according to need during the busy farming season

Xu Man was not a breeder; she was a high school student who had come for summer vacation to earn work credits and got a light job herding sheep

One of the keepers was Xu Man’s second uncle

The second uncle rubbed his eyes and took out a key to unlock the chain on the barn, helped Xu Man blast the sheep out, and asked her vaguely with a yawn, “Why are you going to herd the sheep so early in the morning, ask?”

“It’s cool in the morning, and the sheep eat happily When the sun comes up and they’re full I’ll be able to follow them back to hide from the sun” Xu Man took the whip for herding the sheep from Second Uncle’s hand and followed the sheep outside

Second Uncle re-bolted the door of the barn and nodded, “This is quite good! This daughter of yours has grown up to be white and clean, even better looking than that actress in the movies! She can’t get a tan! You have to take care of her”

Xu Wen smiled and didn’t answer In fact, she was the kind of person who couldn’t get a tan, and woke up early to take a shower

Recently, she liked to go to a wild cemetery to herd sheep

This cemetery was about two kilometers southwest of the Taoyuan production brigade, quite far from the other surrounding production brigades, and belonged to the unregulated area

There were two reasons why Xu Man could overcome his fear and enjoy this cemetery

One is that there are all kinds of wild grasses growing in the cemetery, which the sheep especially like to eat This piece of wilderness is particularly large, there are no crops around and no households, so she does not have to keep an eye on it all the time without fearing that the sheep will nibble the crops or spoil other people’s vegetable gardens

There is a small pond in a relatively hidden location She observed for a long time, this pond is about an abandoned pond has been unattended, which did not raise fish and did not plant lotus root, more rare is the bottom of the pond did not tie people’s water plants The water is very clear, a good place to bathe

Xu Man drove the sheep into the cemetery and let them move around on their own to forage for food, humming a little song to the pond behind the slope

Xu Man stripped off his clothes and jumped into the pond, sighing comfortably: it’s so cool!

After washing himself from head to toe, Xu Man began to swim around in the small pond

When he got tired of swimming, he dove headfirst into the pond and practiced holding his breath

Every time she was nearing her limit, Xu Wen was a bit excited, what if she could go back forty or fifty years after she passed?

She was an international student who had just graduated from a prestigious university, and had only just received an offer from a large domestic company On her way back to China to join the company, she met with a plane crash and crashed into the sea, and her soul was returned to the Xu family’s oldest three

The Xu family is the biggest warmth and support for her in this desperate situation

With the current popular words she is the Xu family’s favorites

Grandma’s surname is Song

Dad Xu Qiushi, mom Zhu Meizhen

The names of the four siblings in the Xu family are also easy to remember, and in order, they are Wang Wen Wen Che

Xu Wang is the eldest sister, already married

Xu Wen is the second brother, married less than a year

Xu Wen has an eight-year-old brother named Xu Che

The family was very nice, especially to Xu Man, but they were poor

But they were poor!

So poor that the seven members of the family were crammed into two dilapidated, low-rise, old brick houses

One serves as a hall and stove house plus a miscellaneous house, one used to sleep

Eat white bread are considered to improve life

Angry is, all soul wear so long she did not like the novel as born what powerful golden finger, only in this can not work can not make money in the era of earning points to eat a pot of rice

More difficult to endure is no Internet no cell phone computer, no TV set electric fan, even the phone does not have a life

To be exact, Taoyuan Village is still not electrified

Xu Man misses lying in bed blowing the air conditioning and playing with his cell phone, brushing short videos and calling for takeout, and sleeping until he wakes up naturally

Thinking about sleeping this, Xu Man nearly suffocated or unwilling to surface

A sleepless night is too torturous

Xu Man is surfacing and then hold on for a while between the tangle, suddenly heard a sound, did not wait for her to react, there is a person around her, forcefully hooped her waist and forced to fish upwards

Xu Wen’s brain lack of oxygen reaction slowed down a beat, waiting for the shoulders are floating out of the water, only screamed, raised his hand and heavily smacked the man who appeared out of nowhere, at the same time screamed: “Rascal!”

Lu Yuanzheng didn’t expect the underwater Xu Wen to be without an inch of clothing, abruptly turning his back to Xu Wen, the warm and silky touch still remaining in his palm, making the half of his face that hadn’t been slapped also hot, and for a moment he couldn’t care about explaining himself, and only said three words, “I’m sorry!”

No matter what the reason was, it was a fact that he had molested someone else’s lesbian

Xu Wen fell back into the water, only revealing his neck and above, covering his burning cheeks, staring at the man who appeared out of nowhere with shame and annoyance

The man’s back looked powerfully thin, wearing a blue and white seersucker shirt, revealing a cut of army green pants

He was very tall, and the water that was almost up to Xu Wen’s chest could only reach his waistline

Just early in the morning, why would this man appear here? She hadn’t seen a living person in the half month she’d been here putting out sheep