Chapter 290

The best thing about Prof. Dai’s return was that there was someone to do the dishes at night.

He also baked a cake, using the gas oven that Zhang Ma had always said she wanted to use but hadn’t gotten around to cooking a big meal with.

Zhu’s mother and daughter stood in the kitchen like they were looking at a Western mirror watching Professor Dai bake the cake, and while he was doing it, he complimented that the gas oven was very good, better than the ones he had seen in England.

“Probably an American brand.” Prof. Dai said.

Zhu Yuyan curiously went to look at the oven, where it was blazing!

It turned out that the gas oven at this time was also very primitive, completely unlike the later electric oven, which also burned a fire underneath the oven’s chamber first, and the cavity for the fire was made of gas – this was its most advanced part.

No charcoal or firewood was used!

The oven comes with a thermometer that tells the cook if the oven is up to temperature.

Once the temperature is reached, the gas is turned off, and the fire in the lower chamber goes out, so there is no need to clean up the charcoal ashes – it is really advanced.

Technology is the light of the lazy.

Ms. Zhu called out to Ms. Zhu to stand away from her: “Don’t get too close to me, I’m afraid I’ll burn you again.”

Ms. Zhu stood away from the stove, and said with a hard mouth: “I won’t be scalded, the stove cavity is wrapped around the fire.”

The temperature has reached 200 degrees and is still rising steadily.

Ms. Zhu stared at the thermometer for a long time.

I’m a little bit back to the school laboratory feeling.

Alas, she really misses school.

When the temperature arrived, Prof. Dai turned off the gas and waited for the temperature to drop a little before opening the oven door and putting the cake embryo in. He also used the leftover dough to cut a few cookies and used a fork to make flower shapes.

Second Miss Zhu was impressed and said, “I can use this oven to bake cookies in the future too, how much money can I save!”

Immediately, Zhang Ma called out, “But forget it! Little Ancestor, you’d better go and buy it! Save those few dollars and burn your hands again.”

Zhu Yuyan, conscious that someone is on her side since Prof. Dai came back, pulls Prof. Dai and replies, “What do you say, if I can do it myself, I’ll do it myself, isn’t it good to learn more skills?”

This is the contemporary young woman ah.

Prof. Dai laughed and said, “Forget it, if you’re not good enough, you’ll burn the house down again and have it roasted for you to eat.”

Mrs. Zhang said, “Look, no one is on your side, don’t be nosy.”

Ms. Zhu’s enthusiasm has been dampened.

Su Chunjun came back to see Prof. Dai was naturally very surprised, but also more worried, sent away the Chen driver, he quickly asked Prof. Dai: “Did it go well? Did anything happen?”

Prof. Dai said, “Let’s talk about it after dinner later.”

The dinner was sumptuous.

When Zhang Ma saw Professor Dai come back, she specially made many home-cooked dishes, and Professor Dai ate happily and comfortably. There were also cake biscuits for snacks after dinner, and everyone moved to the small living room with a fireplace to talk.

Note: The fireplace, too, burned gas.

Two rows of small gas stove-like eyes burned small flames ranging from blue to orange-red, whirring in the fireplace.

It was still quite warm.

Everyone sat around on the sofa, each with black tea and cake, quietly listening to the story of Professor Dai’s line of work.

When Prof. Dai left it was quiet, no one knew.

Ms. Zhu was the only one in the house who knew.

After all, the two slept in the same house, it was impossible to hide it even from her.

The luggage was packed by Professor Dai himself.

Why did you hide it even from the people in the Little Red House?

It was actually because both Professor Dai and Ms. Zhu felt that Zhang Ma and Second Miss Zhu didn’t have a talent for keeping secrets.

The old lady loved to worry, and the children loved to make a lot of noise, so they just kept it all a secret.

Only after the people left did Ms. Zhu tell her family what Professor Dai had gone out for.

He actually went out to do a material transfer.

There are too many things in the school, it is not realistic to take all of them with you, and it is impossible to really pull a car all the way to transport things, that would have to find how many workers laborers ah.

So some particularly valuable instruments or large pieces of machinery, by the generation of professors to find a place to transport away to hide, a small part of the information and books are all the way to take away, how much can bring how much, the rest of the less important books either in this last time to find a good home for them to send out first, or can only stay.

Principal Tang was planning to take them all with him. But after a group of idealists had ordered their belongings over, they calculated the cost of taking them away …… again

It was still this method that saved more money.

Principal Tang tapped the board.

The staff and families of the school had already taken advantage of the influx of stragglers to leave before the New Year, and it was only after there were fewer people in the school that Prof. Dai secretly left to transport the machine away.

How?

Principal Tang confessed, let’s say he was being petty.

He’d like to believe that anyone willing to move with the school is a good person, but it’s better not to test human nature.

Prof. Dai was burdened with the responsibility of getting these thousand dollar machines out of the city, and the responsibility of finding a safe place for them.

Prof. Dai took these treasures back to his hometown, Xu Jiatun.

Xu Jiatun is a township, ten miles and eight townships are surnamed Xu, the earliest can be traced back to the Ming Hongwu years, because the township has a Ming Hongwu period left the pagoda.

Prof. Dai’s family was not native to Xujiatun, so it is not known when he came here or why.

The people of Xujiatun made their living by farming, although no amount of farming could fill their stomachs.

There was an oil mill in Xu Jiatun.

The proprietor of the oil mill was a large landowner, owning almost one-third of the land in all the villages.

His family rented the land to the farmers at a 50% rent.

However, when it came time to pay the rent, this was not how the rent was calculated.

What the oil mill collects is of course used to extract oil, and the land his family rents out is mostly used to grow rapeseed. When it was time to pay the rent, the farmers would give all the harvest to the oil mill, which would first subtract the rent, then calculate the money for the remaining rapeseed according to the 20% oil yield, and after subtracting the labor cost, the farmers would finally get only one tenth of the ground yield as income.

The farmers then take this one-tenth of their income to buy rice, grain and salt.

Is this one-tenth of the income enough for a family’s rations and expenses for a year?

Definitely not.

In the following year, the farmers would have to farm again, and what would they do if they had no money? Then they had to plant seeds on credit from the oil mill.

On the premise that this was the case year after year, generation after generation, all the farmers who planted the land owed money to the landowners, and they could not leave the land, but could only continue to plant here.

Prof. Dai said with complexity, “That yearly note of indebtedness was actually the rope around the neck of the peasants, making them in effect slaves.”

He realized at a very young age that in fact the peasants could never pay off the arrears of the landlord’s family.

Unless the sky was the limit.

If one honestly farmed the land, the arrears would only roll up more and more.

Zhu Yuyan: ”I see. That’s why even the children of peasant families are willing to study and take the Xiucai exam!”

For farmers, supporting their children and grandchildren to study for the Xiu Cai exam was the only chance for the family to turn around. So this was not a whimsical, daydreaming endeavor. On the contrary, the reason why every peasant family smashed their pots and pans to provide a scholar was precisely because they were incomparably more sober than all the other peasants around them.

All the landowners are doing the same thing, so it can’t be said that the oil mill is extraordinarily wrong, and they are just following the methods of their ancestors.

And the Xu family oil mill were very good people, the young proprietor of the oil mill said to him, “My grandfather told my father, and my father told me, and they said that my oil mill was with the people here, and that we were all on the same rope. ”

The young young proprietor did not yet understand what that meant, but already knew that he had to be good to the farmers who planted their land.

Every year, no matter how many debts were written down and how much money the farmers owed, the oil mill never called in the debts, and every year, as usual, they sent seeds to the farmers, and at the end of the year, no matter what the harvest was, whether the year was good or bad, they would give everyone enough money – to ensure that they were not biased.

Prof. Dai once went with the young proprietor to settle the family’s accounts, and he found that the young proprietor’s bookkeeping was not about how much the family had harvested, but rather about how big the family’s land was, and how many men and women were working on it. As long as the land was the same size and the number of people was the same, he would write down the money of the family as the same.

The young proprietor was still a little fat, shook his head and said: “Father said, this is called not to suffer from a lack of equality. If the money is paid out differently then, there will definitely be a fight, alas. ”

When there are weddings and funerals, the owner of the oil mill has to come to the door, giving red packets for red events and white packets for white events.

If someone in the family is sick, the oil mill will also send money and medicine.

If there were orphans, widows, or elderly people who had no one to support them, the oil mill would give them some money to settle them down.

If someone in the village is involved in a crime, a robbery, a murder or a fire, the oil mill will also take the family along with them. The oil mill would also bring in the strongest members of the family and the village’s youth to arrest the murderers.

Prof. Dai feels that the owner of the oil mill is in fact like the county magistrate of Xu Jiatun, who is in charge of a little bit of everything.

The owner of the oil mill also truly understands the fate of the oil mill and the peasants who are dependent on each other.

He would be sold to the Xu family, not because of the Xu family’s trickery, but because his parents had given birth to too many children and simply couldn’t afford to feed them anymore.

If the Xu family’s oil mill refused to buy him, then his parents would take him to the city and sell him. If they couldn’t sell him, they would throw him away.

This kind of thing was common in the village. Sometimes when we were herding donkeys and pigs in the mountains, we could see dead children, and there were even more by the river, all of whom had been thrown away by their parents.

Prof. Dai not only didn’t hate the oil mill, but also treated it as his home.

Ms. Zhu asked: “The family are good, right?”

Prof. Dai smiled and said, “All good, all quite good.”

His real parents had died. The young proprietor had become the proprietor, and the old proprietor of the oil mill had also passed away.

The young proprietor was now a dark, thin, black-looking little old man with gray hair and a smile. When he saw him come back, he was so happy that he ran out of the house and hugged him and laughed, pulling him into the house, calling out to his two sons to bring their grandchildren to kowtow to him and recognize him, saying that he was an uncle and letting his little grandchildren call out to him as an uncle and grandfather.

He also met his brother. After his parents died, the young proprietor took in the last remaining child, naming him Yusheng.

By then he had returned to his country and was teaching at the university, saying that he would never marry in his life. The young proprietor took his brother and said, “I raised him for you, so take him as your son from now on.”

Yusheng was already fourteen years old and a bit shy and timid.

The young proprietor said that Yusheng was not as smart as Professor Dai: “I let him study with my grandson’s teacher after I got him back, but he is not as smart as you were at that time.”

When the young proprietor heard that Prof. Dai had gotten married and had two more daughters, he happily pulled his three grandchildren together and said, “Is there anyone you like? I’ll send you a son-in-law!” Then he sighed, “If I had known that you would have two daughters, I would have had one more son, now that these two are married, it’s not suitable.”

Prof. Dai honestly said, the two daughters are young and beautiful female college students, the young proprietor’s three grandchildren are not suitable.

The young proprietor’s family married early, gave birth to a son early, the sons married early, so even the grandchildren are embraced.

The young proprietor asked him, “When are you going to have grandchildren?”

Prof. Dai thought for a moment and said, “If it’s quick, I’ll have it in two or three years.”

The young proprietor laughed and said, “I thought you wouldn’t have a chance to hold a grandchild in your life, but I didn’t expect you to have everything so soon. Good good good.”

Prof. Dai asked how the situation in his hometown was now.

The young proprietor sighed: “Alas, how can it be good?”

All the people in the field have run away from the arrest of Ding, and the oil factory has been exploited by various parties for several times.

The young proprietor: “The family’s donkeys, cows, and pigs are long gone. Now the family only raises chickens and ducks, so they can eat meat.” He stretched out his hands, both hands are full of calluses, “I am now heaven and earth.”

The oil mill is still open.

The young proprietor: “They are pointing at us to make kerosene, last year paid four thousand kilograms of kerosene, good guy, a team of soldiers guarded my gate, the road out of the village are blocked tightly, paid the oil before withdrawing.” He pointed to the intersection and said.

“Our family is better than everywhere else, and can still live. Xu Si’s family, who owns a cloth workshop, had their entire family hanged long ago.”

The young proprietor narrowed his shrewd little eyes and asked him with a smile, “It’s not easy out there either, is it? Did you come back for something?”

This called for Professor Dai, who couldn’t open his mouth, to open his mouth.

The young proprietor, hearing that he wanted to hide something, thought for a moment and said, “Hiding is also possible. If you can get into the water, just sink into the river. That river bank is very deep, there are several big holes, and outsiders don’t know where they are.”

The oil mill was short of tarpaulins.

The young proprietor took his whole family, men and women, to work together, and Professor Dai brought in the machines, all wrapped in tarpaulins inside and outside, and sank them all in one trip to the hole in the center of the river.

Then he came back.

The young proprietor sent him to the main intersection and watched him go.

The young proprietor: “This trip, I’m afraid I won’t come back, right? I won’t be able to see you again until the day I close my eyes. It’s good to see you one last time, let’s go.”

Prof. Dai cried uncharacteristically, grabbed the young proprietor unable to speak, and finally knelt at his feet.

The young proprietor fished out a small bag containing two pieces of silver and shoved it to him, “There’s not much money left. Take it with you.”

Prof. Dai also brought back a bag of gold, shook his head and said, “I have, I have.”

The young proprietor: “You have you can’t spend it on yourself. What I give you is mine, keep your own.”

His chest still held the two pieces of silver now, already calling his chest simmering hot.