Sweet Rebirth: The Little Healer

Hua Yusen drove the ox cart in a cheerful mood. Everything they were doing in Nianqiao Village now had the backing of an official document. Anyone who wanted to bully those elders would have to contend with the village—and all its people.

They had also used the city leadership to take down one of Zhao Liqiang’s running dogs, Zheng Delin, marking a major victory. Zhao Liqiang could no longer act so arrogantly. He’d be too busy scrambling to deal with inspections from his superiors and would have to keep a low profile for the next year or so.

After a moment, Li Guihua finally spoke up. ”Mr. Hua, that Zheng Delin has really taken a fall this time. Will he ever be put in a position of power again?”

There were injuries on Li Guihua’s face, and the bandages made her look rather frightening.

”Aunt Li, don’t you worry. Zheng Delin has reached the end of his road,” Hua Yusen replied. ”If Zheng Delin hadn’t gone down today, Zhao Liqiang would have had to take the fall. And a man as shrewd as Zhao Liqiang would never fall out with his superiors over a minor figure like that. Zhou Jianmin planned this out meticulously. It just so happened to coincide with your incident, so we handled both things at once for an even better outcome. The only thing is, you all had to suffer for it. Zhou Jianmin privately asked me to apologize to you on his behalf.”

Miao Dahai reflected for a moment before saying, ”That Zheng Delin really went too far today. He was too arrogant. We may have taken a beating, but we achieved a great deal. If a beating is what it takes to secure peace for Nianqiao Village, then it’s nothing. Now that we have the document from the city, no one can run rampant in our village anymore. That’s the most fortunate part of all this.”

”Exactly. If Zheng Delin is done for, then small-time crooks like Wang Dadan and Li Siming don’t stand a chance,” Li Guihua sneered. ”When we get back, we’ll post the document on the village notice board. We’ll make sure everyone understands what it says so we can stand up to any shameless attempts to disrupt our peace in the future.”

Hua Yusen could finally relax. At the very least, Nianqiao Village would be peaceful this year, without too many people coming to cause trouble.

Although he’d been beaten, Miao Dahai was in high spirits. He chatted with Hua Yusen the whole way back and found the conversation very rewarding.

It was eight o’clock at night by the time they reached the village. It was already dark, and they all went their separate ways to rest.

Early the next morning, Miao Dahai posted the document on the village notice board and called a meeting for all the commune members.

Dong Sanshu stood on a high platform and read the documents aloud. When he came to official jargon the villagers couldn’t understand, he would explain it again in simpler terms.

Once the villagers understood the document’s contents, they felt reassured and despised Wang Dadan and Li Siming’s past actions even more.

After the meeting, the villagers dispersed. The leaders of Production Team One and Production Team Two led their respective teams to get back to work.

Spring plowing was over, so the production team leaders had the villagers clearing the ditches in Nianqiao Village.

The silt from the bottom of the ditches made for excellent fertilizer. Dredging them not only improved irrigation but also provided a better habitat for the fish.

Every year after spring plowing, Nianqiao Village would clear out all the ditches in and around the village.

Though the work was exhausting, it allowed Nianqiao Village’s limited farmland to produce a much higher grain yield than other villages, and it also helped them raise plenty of fish. So, despite the effort, everyone was more than willing to do it. It was a tradition that had been passed down in Nianqiao Village for centuries.

Now, everyone worked during the day and attended mandatory study sessions at night. The village was filled with an atmosphere of fiery enthusiasm and progress.

It was in this atmosphere that Wang Dadan and Li Siming wrote their thought reports. In the past, Miao Dahai would have gone easy on them, seeing as they were all from the same village. However, the two had repeatedly colluded with outsiders to harm their own people, which left Miao Dahai furious. Even after they submitted their reports, he didn’t approve them right away and kept them locked up.

Half a month later, Miao Dahai and the village committee finally decided to release them. But they wouldn’t be allowed to laze around anymore; they had to complete their assigned tasks. If they failed to finish their work, they wouldn’t receive full pay. Without full pay, their grain ration at the end of the year would be small, and they would go hungry.

At first, Wang Dadan and Li Siming were extremely unhappy with Miao Dahai’s decision. After protesting a few times, they had Liu Lanhua go to the county for help again. But she returned with news that Zheng Delin had been removed from his post and imprisoned. After that, Wang Dadan and Li Siming didn’t dare cause any more trouble.

In fact, Li Siming’s backer had repeatedly warned him to remain calm and patient, not to act on impulse, and above all, not to reveal his identity.

And so, the two of them finally settled down, forced to swallow their pride and work. But they were used to slacking off and scheming, and they found the heavy labor unbearable.

But no one in the village sympathized with them. Everyone felt they had brought it on themselves.

Liu Lanhua and Wang Cuihua, especially, walked around with their tails between their legs. They no longer dared to run around trying to win people over and build alliances as they had before.

Even the village gossips knew that associating with someone like Liu Lanhua would only bring bad luck.

Nianqiao Village had won this battle. Despite the setbacks, they had ultimately triumphed, securing peace for the village in return.

After clearing the ditches, the village cadres led everyone up the mountain to harvest bamboo shoots, wood ear mushrooms, and other mountain delicacies. Once dried, these items could be stored for a long time before being turned over to the county in the fall.

Once they had collected enough to meet the quota for the county’s procurement station, the rest could be kept. It would either be divided among the villagers to eat or sold to shops, with the money distributed among the people.

Everyone worked with great enthusiasm, striving to make it a good year.

Zhao Nuanyue and Zhao Nuan Yang were both able to complete their tasks. The elders were still working with the livestock team, a job that suited them well since it didn’t require running all over the mountainside.

What made Zhao Nuanyue even happier was that the Little Red Carp had planted Dragon Wisdom Grass in the ditches near the Dragon King Temple. It was a plant that resembled water celery.

”Little Red Carp, is this the Dragon Wisdom Grass you mentioned?” Zhao Nuanyue asked, looking at it with curiosity. ”It looks so fresh—a vibrant yellowish-green.”

”That’s right. Not only is this aquatic plant fresh, but it’s also quite delicious,” said the Little Red Carp. ”I remember, three hundred years ago, the old village chief of Nianqiao Village prayed to the Old Dragon King. He lamented that for many years, the village hadn’t produced a single brilliant scholar, nor anyone who could pass the imperial examinations. He begged the Dragon King to bless the village with a few promising young talents. So that year, the area around the Dragon King Temple in Nianqiao Village became overgrown with Dragon Wisdom Grass. It happened to be a famine year with no food on the mountain, so the villagers ate the Dragon Wisdom Grass. Of the twenty or so children born that year, five of them went on to pass the highest imperial examinations.”