Chapter 1 Stealing food
"Oh, you're so annoying"

"Why are you eating like a pig?"

The autumn harvest has just passed, and all the wheat fields have been harvested. The straw has been piled into haystacks, scattered neatly in the fields.

At this time, the sun was about to set and a breeze was blowing. Two young men and women were hiding in a haystack and studying each other's body structure.

"Xiao Ru, give me all today?" The young man raised his head. There was a light fuzz above his lips, indicating that he was still a teenager.

The girl's wheat-colored face was healthy and pink, and she looked about the same age, but her breasts were already quite large. "It's all your fault! It's inconvenient for me to work now!"

Although the girl was already dazed and flushed by the boy's superb skills, she still insisted on her principles. After a while, she pulled down her clothes and said, "No, my mother said that I can't even think about it until the day of marriage. A woman's body is the most precious! What's more, if I get pregnant by accident, how can I live as a human being?"

"It's the new China now. If it were two years ago, both of us would have been thrown into the pig cage."

"Let's go back quickly, shall we? Otherwise, my mother will come looking for us again."

"According to the country's newly promulgated marriage law, I still have to wait for several years!" Seeing the young man's somewhat lost expression, the girl smiled and gently stroked the young man's fair face with her hands, being careful not to let the roughness of her palms irritate the delicate skin on the young man's face.

"Won't it all be yours sooner or later anyway?"

".Okay, I'll help you with the old method. Are you satisfied now?"

"I don't know how you learned so many strange things in the capital. Did you not study hard?"

"Sigh~~"

The young man couldn't help but take a deep breath and caressed the girl with enjoyment, "I already got my diploma! Besides, even if you haven't eaten pork, you've seen pigs run! There are so many delicious and fun things in Beijing."

"You didn't go to any dirty place like that when you were studying in the capital, did you?"

"How is that possible?" "I know Chinese medicine, how dare I go to that kind of place? Aren't you afraid of getting sick?"

"According to rumors in Beijing, Emperor Guangxu of the late Qing Dynasty died of syphilis."

"Besides, in this new China, all those dirty places have been cleared out, so there's nowhere to go if you want to."

"Hmph," the girl snorted, "If you ever go to a place like that, I'll never talk to you again!"

After a while, the girl asked again tentatively: "You went to school in the capital and met many young ladies from wealthy families in the capital. Why do you still look down on a country girl like me?"

"Oh, what are you thinking about?" The young man laughed softly, "Can we really see the wealthy families in the capital?"

"Either they hire a teacher at home, or they go to a special boys' or girls' school. For example, Yuying Middle School is a special boys' school, and Beiman Middle School is a special girls' school."

"I go to a public school, Beijing No. 5 Middle School, where all the students are boys. Although there is no tuition, don't I have to rely on my sister for food and accommodation?"

"After all, my sister is married to him. Although my brother-in-law and his in-laws don't say anything, they don't need a bite of me to eat. They are very warm when we meet, but we can't be so ignorant, right?"

"Besides, my sister's in-laws are bannermen. Although they were not considered a wealthy family in the past, I won't tell you the rules here in detail. It's too troublesome."

"If I really marry someone like this, who will serve whom in the future?"

After hearing this reply, the girl was satisfied and continued to serve. After a while, she asked again tentatively: "In our countryside, we have fought against the local tyrants and divided up the land. Is it still the same in the capital? Hasn't your sister's in-laws' property been confiscated or anything?"

"Focus!" the young man replied unhappily, and after the girl continued, he slowly explained, "Not yet."

"But her family doesn't have any legitimate business now, and they live off their savings. They rely on rent to make a living. During the Japanese occupation, they sold their house on Old Gulou Street and moved to five shops on Gulou East Street. They live in the back and rent out the shops."

After a long time, the young man let out a long, comfortable sigh, "Oh~~~" and the haystack returned to peace.

There was a rustling sound of people getting dressed from the haystack, and two young people, a boy and a girl, came out. The boy was wearing a blue coarse cloth jacket and gray coarse cloth trousers with several patches on them. Although he was dressed so simply, he had bright eyes and a neat and tidy figure, and he walked with his back straight. The girl had beautiful eyebrows, big eyes, and double eyelids, and she was wearing a small slanted collar made of fine floral fabric and blue coarse cloth trousers, which also had several patches on them.

The girl and the boy checked each other's clothes. The girl touched her face again and felt that it was not so hot anymore before she took the boy to her home. The girl's face was full of envy: "Then your sister-in-law's family was considered a wealthy family in the capital in the past, right?"

"That's not the case. The families of the rich are the ones in Jinyu Hutong, Zeng's family in Qinlao Hutong, Kui's family in Madaren Hutong, Ji's family in Mahua Hutong, and the ministers' families in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At best, my sister's in-laws have some dealings with these families."

"Aren't they all gone now?"

"Then your sister's in-laws are better off than us in the countryside, farming. Can one shop support three generations? And they have five shops?"

“Is life so good in the capital?”

"I saw the steamed buns from Qingmingzhai and the roasted meat from Tianfuhao that you brought back yesterday. They smelled so delicious!"

"My father didn't allow us to eat the roast meat either. He just put it in the middle of the table we got from the landlord's house and said he would wait for you to eat it."

"Haha~" the young man was amused by the girl's words, "The steamed buns can still be kept, they are made of sesame oil and sugar. The roasted meat must be eaten quickly today, otherwise it will go bad and you will have diarrhea if you eat it later."

As the young man explained, the girl's eyes showed longing. When they arrived at the door of her home, the girl lowered her head slightly and asked shyly: "Deming, now that you have graduated, are you going to find a job in Beijing? Are you going to live in Beijing from now on?"

"Xiao Ru, do you want to live in Beijing in the future?"

"Of course I do! Who doesn't want to go to the city and enjoy life?"

The young man sighed slightly: "This time, I actually had a very good opportunity, but unfortunately I'm not from Beijing, so I didn't get a chance!"

"This year, several students from our school were admitted to Tsinghua University and Peking University. In order to stay in Beijing and get a job as a cadre, they did not report to the university and directly stayed on campus to become teachers."

"The president persuaded me to continue my studies at university so that I could contribute to the country. He also stressed that Director Bao of the Literature Department of Renmin University was very optimistic about me and said that I had a special talent for literature."

"Hey, I'm not stupid. I didn't know before and was really ready to go. But after seeing those classmates staying in school, I realized that after entering university, you will be assigned to a place across the country! It doesn't matter to me. If I am assigned to a hard place in a remote corner, won't I be suffering?"

"Hey, I'm not bad at studying. Just because I'm from a rural area in Hebei, I can't get a job as a cadre or a post at a university like mine. So I'd rather not go."

"College students are nothing more than cadre positions. How can they earn a dozen yuan more a month? Where can't I earn that?"

"I follow my sister to do tailoring work every night and can earn more than ten yuan a month."

The girl was a little worried: "Deming, you have offended the school principal, so how can you still gain a foothold in the capital in the future?"

"Well, they are just the principal and teacher of a school, what can that be?"

"Besides, I have very good reasons!"

"I want to study Chinese medicine, inherit the Chinese medicine skills passed down by my godfather, and become a famous Chinese medicine doctor."

The girl looked around and found no one around, then quietly held the boy's hand and said, "Well, Deming, you are so smart, you will definitely be able to stay in the capital smoothly!"

"My father said that you are a really smart person. You learn everything quickly and are a real scholar. If you hadn't gone to Beijing to study before, you would definitely be one of the cadres in your village."

The young man chuckled twice and accepted the girl's compliment.

After all, I am a college student from a rural background in my later life, and I did farm work when I was a child.

Especially when people are under great pressure in later life, they often watch videos about returning to rural life, which helps them to understand more about organic farming, such as raising earthworms, hatching eggs and raising chickens, making organic bio-fertilizer, silage feed, selecting good varieties, etc.

These technologies have been applied to rural planting and breeding in this era when the country has only been established for two years. It cannot be said to be a complete dimensionality reduction attack, but it can be said to be putting what we have learned into practice.

(End of this chapter)