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Decades have passed, whenever he mentions the past of his divorce from his rural mother-in-law, Master Lin Maoxiang is still very guilty, he said that he was fortunate to find out in time that his conscience was lost, otherwise, he would have lived forever in guilt and self-blame in his life.
Master Lin Maoxiang is an old educated youth, he has lived in northern Shaanxi for a full ten years, about Master Lin's past and emotional life experience, but also from the time he went to northern Shaanxi to settle down as an educated youth.
In December 1968, the upsurge of educated young people going to the countryside to receive re-education for poor middle peasants was rising one after another, and Lin Maoxiang, who graduated from junior high school, also actively responded to the call of the state and returned to school to apply to settle down in the old revolutionary base area of northern Shaanxi to exercise his revolutionary will.
Soon, the school issued a certificate, and Lin Maoxiang and several good classmates took the relevant certificates of the school to the police station in the jurisdiction to cancel their Beijing household registration, and went through the procedures for settling in the queue in northern Shaanxi.
In mid-January 1969, 16-year-old Lin Maoxiang and his classmates left Beijing on a special train for educated youth, starting their arduous journey of going to the mountains and going to the countryside to settle down.
Image source network
After three days and two nights, Lin Maoxiang and his team came to Yan'an, the holy land of revolution in northern Shaanxi. After staying in Yan'an for one night, they took a car to Yanchang County, and the students assigned to Yanchang County at that time were basically students from Xicheng District. In the end, Lin Maoxiang and his nine Beijing educated youths were placed in the second production team of the Liujiayuan Brigade in Yanchang County, and everyone temporarily dispersed and lived in the villagers' homes.
Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei borrowed the old bachelor Liu Shuquan's uncle's house in the team, and Uncle Liu Shuquan had an extra finger on his right hand, because of this, he failed to marry his mother-in-law and beat the bachelor. At that time, Liu Shuquan was 51 years old, and he lived alone in a one-hole earthen kiln, and his family also had a cold kiln, in which a sheep and a few chickens were raised, and firewood and farm tools were piled up inside.
Uncle Liu Shuquan is very simple, kind and enthusiastic, Beijing educated youth came to his house to borrow, he was very happy, he cleaned the kiln in advance, and took the initiative to give the kang head to Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei, he slept on the kang tip. Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei borrowed from Uncle Liu's house, and also had dinner with Uncle Liu.
Don't look at Uncle Liu as a bachelor, but he can cook, steamed buns (dumplings) with noodles, paste cakes, and stew vegetables. The only problem is that Uncle Liu does not speak Mandarin, he speaks the northern Shaanxi dialect, which is difficult for Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei to understand. At present, it is imperative that the two of them try their best to solve the problem of communication with the villagers in northern Shaanxi.
On the morning of the second day when I came to Liujiayuan's brigade, Uncle Liu was making breakfast, Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei had just gotten up and had not washed up, only to hear someone in the yard shouting: "Six-fingered brother, six-fingered brother......" Uncle Liu patted the grass clippings on his body to welcome out, it turned out that Captain Liu sent half a basket of carrots and some potatoes (potatoes), he said to let Uncle Liu stew Beijing dolls to eat.
Captain Liu also took care of the educated youth from Beijing, and when he saw that Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei had gotten up, he asked them with a smile: "Isn't it cold at night?" After Captain Liu finished speaking, he smiled at the two of them, turned around and went home.
Seeing off Captain Liu, Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei asked Uncle Liu what Captain Liu meant by calling Brother Six Fingers just now. After a long time, Uncle Liu even said with a gesture, Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei finally understood, six fingers is the meaning of six fingers, which is Uncle Liu's nickname.
As soon as Captain Liu was sent away, Uncle Liu's house came to a fourteen or fifteen-year-old woman, who was carrying a basket of radishes and two pickle gnocchies, and she was still holding half a bowl of spicy sauce in her hand.
Seeing the woman, Uncle Liu greeted with a smile: "Lan Lan is here, come to the kiln and be warm." The woman saw that Uncle Liu was making breakfast, she put down the earthen basket, handed the spicy sauce to Uncle Liu, and helped Uncle Liu light the fire in the stove pit. After Uncle Liu made breakfast, she carried the empty basket home.
In the days that followed, the woman named Lan Lan came to help Uncle Liu cook almost every day, and gradually, Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei became familiar with that woman. It turned out that she was the second daughter of Uncle Liu's third brother's family, named Liu Chunlan, who was less than fifteen years old at the time, and Lan Lan was her nickname.
Liu Chunlan is a very cheerful and generous girl, the third grade of primary school culture, can sing Xintianyou, although she also speaks the northern Shaanxi dialect, but she pronounces the words clearly, Lin Maoxiang and the others can basically understand, not as hard as listening to Uncle Liu.
For more than a month before the Spring Festival, the team did not arrange farm work for the educated youth, so Lin Maoxiang and they went to the team for a meeting to study for half a day, and followed Uncle Liu to the hill to collect firewood for a few days, and the rest of the time was basically free to move. During that time, the biggest gain of the two of them was that they learned to speak some northern Shaanxi dialect with Liu Chunlan, and they were gradually able to understand what Uncle Liu said.
After the Spring Festival, the weather gradually warmed up, the snow in the ravines and ravines also melted, and the villagers began to prepare for spring plowing and spring sowing.
On the first day of participating in production labor, the cow dung is picked up from the cow pen, and the wet cow dung in the cow pen is picked up in the yard to dry. Two baskets of wet cow dung weigh 100 pounds, Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei carried two baskets of wet cow dung to the yard, and had to rest two times along the way, the members of the club can pick more than a dozen cow dung in the morning, Lin Maoxiang and they only picked seven times in the morning, and said that their shoulders hurt when they got home.
At noon that day, Liu Chunlan came to help her uncle cook on the fire, and heard Lin Maoxiang say that her shoulders were painful, so she went home and found two pieces of old cloth and some old cotton wool, and asked her mother to help sew two shoulder pads, and gave them to Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei early the next morning. For this, Lin Maoxiang and the others are grateful to Liu Chunlan from the bottom of their hearts.
After the spring plowing and spring sowing, the hoeing is all over the ground, and the winter wheat is also in the harvest season. Although the winter wheat sown by Liu Jiayuan's second team is not much, the wheat fields are all on the slopes of distant mountains, and they have to take advantage of the good weather to harvest them, and after harvesting the wheat, they will sow buckwheat, and the summer harvest and summer planting will be very busy, and the amount of labor is also very large.
During that time, the male members went up the mountain to cut wheat, and the female members had to dry the wheat in the yard, which was not easy. When Lin Maoxiang and the others returned to the yard with wheat from the mountain, Liu Chunlan, who was drying the wheat in the yard, would bring them a bowl of cold boiled water, and said with a smile: "Brother, you two go to the shade of the tree to drink some water to cool off." ”
During the busy farming period, Uncle Liu also tried his best to cook something delicious for Lin Maoxiang and the others, his family fed two old hens, Lin Maoxiang and the others ate a boiled egg a day, but Uncle Liu was reluctant to eat it. Sometimes steaming a few white breads, Uncle Liu also left them for Lin Maoxiang and the others to eat, and he himself ate black dough every day. Lin Maoxiang saw all this, and they always had a particularly warm and uncomfortable feeling in their hearts.
Later, the team played a new kiln for the educated youth, and established a young people's point, Lin Maoxiang and the others did not borrow it from Uncle Liu's house, and Uncle Liu often sent them delicious food, and the classmates who came to northern Shaanxi to cut the team were very envious of them, saying that they had a good uncle and a good sister.
In the winter of 1970, Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei participated in the conscription physical examination together, and they both passed the physical examination of the commune and the county, but Lin Maoxiang failed to pass the political examination, because his grandfather worked as a bookkeeper in Liubiju before liberation, and it is said that he still has shares, and became a capitalist after liberation. At that time, Liubiju had already ended the public-private partnership system and turned into a socialist system of ownership by the whole people. Lin Maoxiang has always wondered why his grandfather also lived like ordinary people, so why did he become a capitalist?
Film and television stills, the picture source is the Internet
When Wang Hongwei joined the army and left Liujiayuan, Uncle Liu wrapped mutton flat food (dumplings) for Wang Hongwei, and called Lin Maoxiang and them to his home to serve Wang Hongwei. That day, Liu Chunlan helped cook and also had lunch at Uncle Liu's house. In the nearly two years since they came to northern Shaanxi, Lin Maoxiang and Wang Hongwei had dinner with Liu Chunlan for the first time.
Seeing off Wang Hongwei, Lin Maoxiang felt lost and uncomfortable for a while.
Since Wang Hongwei enlisted in the army and left Liujiayuan, Lin Maoxiang felt that Liu Chunlan had become closer to him, greeted him with a smile when he saw him, and often sent him some delicious food. At the end of that year, Lin Maoxiang returned to Beijing to visit relatives for the Spring Festival, and Liu Chunlan also gave Lin Maoxiang a few jujube buns and a scoop of dried red dates.
When he returned to Beijing to visit relatives, Lin Maoxiang bought Beijing pastries and cigarettes for Uncle Liu, as well as soap and candy for Liu Chunlan. After settling down and living in northern Shaanxi for two years, Uncle Liu and Liu Chunlan became Lin Maoxiang's closest people.
What frustrated Lin Maoxiang the most was the college entrance examination in 1975, Lin Maoxiang was recommended as a worker, peasant and soldier college student and successfully took the college entrance examination. In October of that year, a classmate who had a worse grade than him in cultural classes left northern Shaanxi and became a college student at a well-known university in Beijing.
That time he couldn't go to college, Lin Maoxiang was hit hard, and he fell ill all of a sudden. During Lin Maoxiang's illness, Uncle Liu and Liu Chunlan visited Lin Maoxiang at the Zhiqing Point almost every day, and Uncle Liu also paid for Liu Chunlan to go to the commune supply and marketing cooperatives to buy Lin Maoxiang wheat milk essence and calcium milk biscuits that no one in the village had ever seen. Under the careful care and guidance of Uncle Liu and Liu Chunlan, Lin Maoxiang lay on the kang for more than ten days and finally cheered up.
But less than two months later, Lin Maoxiang knew that he had fallen into a big disaster, and Liu Chunlan secretly told Lin Maoxiang that she was likely to have (pregnant). This frightened Lin Maoxiang, it really scared him that he had no master, and he wanted to cry without tears. Not only was he scared, Liu Chunlan was even more afraid, she said that if her mother knew about this matter, she would have to beat her to death.
The paper can't contain the fire, Liu Chunlan's mother quickly saw that Liu Chunlan was abnormal, she saw that Liu Chunlan vomited every day and didn't want to eat, so she felt that something was going to happen.
When Liu Chunlan was eighteen years old, a matchmaker proposed marriage to her, and she said that she didn't want anything. Later, when she saw that she was always with Lin Maoxiang, Liu Chunlan's mother scolded Liu Chunlan: "You are a dead woman, don't you dare to be embarrassed outside, no matter how high your heart is, Beijing students will not marry you a rural woman......"
After dinner that day, as soon as Uncle Liu walked into the courtyard of Liu Chunlan's house, he heard Liu Chunlan's mother beating and scolding Liu Chunlan: "You are a dead woman, your ancestors' faces have been lost to you, and you are still alive ......" Liu Chunlan's mother cried and beat Liu Chunlan with a broomstick.
Uncle Liu hurriedly broke into the earthen kiln, snatched the broom in Liu Chunlan's mother's hand and said: "Killing a doll can be used to top a ball, and the bell must be tied to the bell." "It's all your fault, you obviously know about this, why don't you teach it, you are Chunlan's uncle......" Liu Chunlan's mother choked up and complained about Uncle Liu.
Uncle Liu was also very uncomfortable, he sighed and said: "Complaining about the top ball, Mao Xiang is not a bad person in his later life, oh (I) talked to him, he said that a good man is a good man, and he promised to marry Chunlan......"
A few days later, Lin Maoxiang and Liu Chunlan received a marriage certificate, held a simple wedding, and lived in the empty kiln in the educated youth point. After getting married, Lin Maoxiang wrote a letter to his parents to explain the truth of the matter, and his parents replied and scolded Lin Maoxiang, the raw rice had been cooked into cooked rice, and Lin Maoxiang's parents had no curse to read.
In the early autumn of 1976, Liu Chunlan gave birth to a lovely girl, and Lin Maoxiang gave his daughter a nice name - Lin Aijing, he said that he was a Beijing educated youth and would always love Beijing. After the birth of their daughter, Lin Maoxiang's parents came to Liu Jiayuan and recognized Liu Chunlan as a daughter-in-law, and Lin Maoxiang's mother put the Dongfeng brand watch on her wrist on Liu Chunlan's wrist.
After the resumption of the college entrance examination, Lin Maoxiang did not go out to work, and he wanted to go all out to review his homework and prepare for the college entrance examination. When Liu Chunlan's mother heard that Chunlan's man was going to be admitted to university, she resolutely disagreed, she was worried that Lin Maoxiang would be admitted to university, so she didn't want Chunlan.
When the college entrance examination was approaching, Liu Chunlan's mother went to the educated youth point to look at Lin Maoxiang and didn't let him go anywhere, but Lin Maoxiang missed the first year of the college entrance examination.
In the college entrance examination in the summer of 1978, Liu Chunlan's mother looked at Lin Maoxiang every day, and she saw that Lin Maoxiang was going to the county to take the college entrance examination, so she hugged his leg and didn't let him go out. As a result, Lin Maoxiang missed the college entrance examination in the second year. For this reason, Lin Maoxiang was so annoyed that he slept without eating or drinking and covering his head for two or three days.
In the spring of 1979, Lin Maoxiang finally waited for an exciting news, and the educated youth who had settled in the queue could return to the city, his hometown, and he could return to Beijing. But when he went to the relevant departments to go through the procedures for returning to the city, he learned that the educated youth who married a local farmer could not return to the city for the time being, and the superiors did not have this policy. Director Li of the Educated Youth Office is a good friend of Lin Maoxiang, and he secretly told Lin Maoxiang a way to return to the city, as long as he divorces his rural mother-in-law or fake divorce, he can return to the city.
After returning from the Commune's Educated Youth Office, Lin Maoxiang had no smile on his face, and his face was long, just like the donkey in the team. During that time, Lin Maoxiang did not go out to work, either dropping things or hitting dolls, so angry that Liu Chunlan secretly cried several times.
Half a month later, Liu Chunlan wiped her tears and said to Lin Maoxiang: "Her eldest (father), if you really want to go back to Beijing, I will go to the commune to divorce you, you pull your face like this every day, and I feel uncomfortable ......"
In this way, Liu Chunlan didn't tell her parents or her uncle, so she secretly went to the secretary of the brigade to open a letter of introduction for divorce, went to the commune and Lin Maoxiang to go through the divorce procedures, and Lin Maoxiang returned to Beijing smoothly.
When I got the news of Liu Chunlan and Lin Maoxiang's divorce, Lin Maoxiang had already left Liu Jiayuan and returned to Beijing, Liu Chunlan's parents were almost angry, and Uncle Liu was so angry that Uncle Liu scolded Lin Maoxiang for being a pig and a dog.
After returning to Beijing, Lin Maoxiang never dared to tell his parents about his divorce, he said that when the work was arranged, he would go back to northern Shaanxi to bring his aunt's doll to Beijing.
In order to let her son join the work as soon as possible, Lin Maoxiang's mother went through the retirement procedures a year and a half ahead of schedule, and let Lin Maoxiang take over the post and become a statistician in the power supply bureau.
Knowing that Lin Maoxiang had returned to Beijing to participate in the work, Wang Hongwei, who worked in the Public Security Bureau, was very happy, and insisted on pulling Lin Maoxiang down to the restaurant to pick up the wind and dust for him and celebrate his smooth return to Beijing. But when Lin Maoxiang told the truth about his divorce from Liu Chunlan, Wang Hongwei was so angry that he lifted the table in the restaurant, saying that he had no such unkind and unrighteous friends from now on, and even abandoned his mother-in-law and doll.
After a while, Lin Maoxiang's parents saw that their son had not returned to northern Shaanxi to pick up his aunt's doll, so they asked him when he planned to return to northern Shaanxi.
Lin Maoxiang lay at home and slept for a day, thinking about the kindness of Uncle Liu and Liu Chunlan to him back then, thinking about his cute doll, and then thinking about Wang Hongwei's angry eyes, Lin Maoxiang beat his head hard and shed tears of remorse. At this time, Lin Maoxiang realized that he had made an unforgivable mistake and abandoned his knotted wife and biological doll, what a sin!
After dinner that day, Lin Maoxiang asked his mother: "Mom, how can you solve the household registration and work after Chunlan and her mother are married?" I have a pension, and your dad and you both have salaries, and the three of them can't support her two by earning salaries......"
Image source network (film and television stills)
Four and a half months after returning to Beijing, Lin Maoxiang returned to Liujiayuan in northern Shaanxi and knelt in front of Uncle Liu. Uncle Liu wiped away the tears on his face, choked up and said, "You can change your mind and be a good man, get up, I will lead you to meet Chunlan's parents, with me in front of you, they won't embarrass you......"
In this way, Lin Maoxiang took Liu Chunlan's mother and daughter back to Beijing. Although it took many years to get a hukou, the final outcome was relatively satisfying.
After telling his own experience of knowing the past and emotional life, Master Lin Maoxiang shed tears, he said that whenever he remembered the past when he divorced Liu Chunlan in order to return to the city, he felt guilty and blushed.
If a person wants to live a down-to-earth life and live with peace of mind, he must not do things that are worthy of his conscience. If you do something that is worthy of your conscience, you will never live in peace for the rest of your life.
Author: Grassroots Writer (Narrator: Mr. Lin Maoxiang)