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墨書 Inktalez
Su Chongliang, the homeroom teacher, stood at the podium, looking at Hu Ruoyun with a mix of pity and anger. "Think about your parents, bent over in the fields right now, cutting wheat under the blazing sun, sweating profusely as they toil away... and here you are, sleeping in class. What on earth are you thinking?"
Hu Ruoyun's mind was still ringing with the piercing words of Teacher Su. "Three years of middle school—aren't you enduring all this just to achieve good results this July, to get into a good high school, and to make something of yourself in the future? At such a crucial time, how can you just lie there sleeping? Doesn’t that hurt your heart?"
Cutting wheat?
The thought struck Hu Ruoyun like thunder.
Just last year, during his entrance examination, most of the wheat hadn’t even been harvested when they faced an unprecedented extreme weather event—first came fierce winds accompanied by torrential rain, followed by two weeks of continuous downpours. The unharvested wheat lay flat in the fields like a carpet, while the cut but uncollected wheat had begun to sprout.
The Grain Management Office hastily printed new quality inspection certificates, adding "Germination Rate" as a new criterion after "Impurities" and "Moisture Content."
It was this "Germination Rate" that caused the Quality Inspector at the Grain Management Office to change the rating system from last year's lowest grade three to this year's highest grade four, with a minimum storage standard of grade six. Farmers suffered significant losses, and Hu Ruoyun's family's ten acres of wheat were no exception.
As the thunderous thoughts echoed in his mind, clarity began to return to Hu Ruoyun.
Since he was going to end up at an ordinary high school anyway, what was he doing here? It would be better to go home and help his parents harvest wheat; perhaps he could even finish before the rain arrived and minimize their losses.
With that thought in mind, Hu Ruoyun raised his right hand. "Teacher Su, I have a headache. May I take leave to see a doctor?"
Su Chongliang looked exasperated, his disdain evident in his eyes. With a disappointed wave of his hand, he said, "Go on then... If you can't handle it, just rest at home for a few days..."
As soon as Su Chongliang finished speaking, Hu Ruoyun felt as if he had been granted amnesty. He quickly packed his things without paying attention to the murmurs from his classmates behind him and dashed out of the classroom. He ran to the dormitory and retrieved his old bicycle—a rickety thing that made noise except for its bell—and hopped on it, pedaling furiously toward home.
In just over ten minutes, he arrived home after covering six miles. Although it was already past ten in the morning, during wheat harvest season, his parents typically left before dawn with some flatbreads and a jug of water to work in the fields. As he entered the house and looked around, just as he had anticipated, there was indeed no one home; he knew without thinking that his parents had not yet returned for breakfast.
Hu Ruoyun rushed to the kitchen to start a fire, boiling porridge in a large pot. He fished out several pickled eggs wrapped in yellow mud from a clay jar, washed them clean with water, and placed them in a small pot to cook on low heat. Then, like the wind, he pedaled his twenty-eight bar bicycle to the village's farm machinery station.
In this era of rural life, there were no large combine harvesters in their area. The Rural Agricultural Machinery Station had recently received about ten simple harvesters that could be mounted on hand-pulled tractors. They resembled big scissors and could harvest three to four acres of wheat in an hour, but they could only cut down the crops; to thresh the grain, one would have to take it back to the wheat field for further processing. More importantly, the cost of six yuan per acre deterred most farmers.
Farmers generally believed that wheat was only two jiao per jin, and using this machine would cost six yuan for an acre, which didn’t seem worth it. They preferred to use sickles instead; after all, the strength of seasoned farmers was meant for farming and was not valued highly.
Inside the farm machinery station, an old man on duty watched the few harvesters parked idly with boredom. "These machines aren’t popular at all!" he thought.
Suddenly, he spotted a teenager pedaling furiously into the station on his bicycle. The old man quickly stood up and shouted, “Get out! Get out! Don’t play around here; can’t you see these are iron machines? If you bump into something, it’ll be your responsibility!”
Hu Ruoyun steadied his bike and wiped the sweat from his face. He pulled out a crumpled roll of banknotes from his pants pocket, damp from sweat: “I need a harvester for ten acres of wheat at Hu Qihua’s place in Hu Family Village. It’s the first house at the village east end; it’s easy to find. Please send a machine over quickly; here’s sixty yuan.”
At that time, sixty yuan was not a small sum. Hu Ruoyun wasn’t able to produce this amount just because he was wealthy.
Of that sixty yuan, forty-two came from selling the offspring of a pair of Eight-Point Black rabbits he had raised over four years. The other eighteen yuan was earned during the holidays when he took his younger brother and sister to collect cicada shells and dig for Atractylodes—both traditional Chinese medicinal materials—selling them for a few cents or dimes. It was money they had saved through their hard work.
His younger brother Xiao Hu, who was only in first grade, was extremely introverted and always seemed to carry a sense of melancholy. He rarely spoke and hardly played with classmates at school, lacking the liveliness typical of his age. In stark contrast, his younger sister Xiao Feng, who had just entered third grade, was full of energy—talkative and cheerful—climbing trees to find bird nests, wading into water to catch loaches, or poking hornet nests with sticks; there was nothing she wouldn’t dare try.
Despite their differences, both children relied heavily on their fourteen-year-old brother and listened closely to him.
The price for cicada shells wasn’t cheap, but they were so light that by the end of summer they could only accumulate a few liang. Atractylodes were heavier but cheap and difficult to handle; if not dug out properly while wet, they would spoil easily.
The three siblings didn’t know how many hours they sacrificed that could have been spent happily playing just to save up this less than twenty yuan. They entrusted all their savings to Hu Ruoyun.
The old man on duty finally realized that this sweaty boy with mud-streaked cheeks was there for business when he saw him handing over a roll of various banknotes. He quickly took it, counting as he spoke: “I’ll write you a receipt; you take it with you. I’ll arrange everything right away!”
As the Harvester mounted on the Hand-Pulled Tractor roared into the wheat field, Hu Ruoyun's father, Hu Qihua, struggled to straighten up, one hand gripping a sickle while the other pressed against his aching back. He wiped the sweat streaming down his face with a grimy towel around his neck, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief: How did this "gold-swallowing beast" end up in my field?
Hu Ruoyun, rushing over, had no time for explanations. He directed his parents, "You don’t need to worry about this. Go home and eat. There are salted eggs in the small pot and porridge in the big pot. After you finish eating, grab the Donkey Cart and let’s head straight to the Wheat Field to haul in the Wheat!"
In Hu Ruoyun's grandfather's generation, there were no brothers or sisters. In rural areas, having fewer family members often meant being less assertive and more susceptible to bullying. By the time it reached his father's generation, only Hu Qihua and his Second Uncle, Hu Zhenhua, remained as brothers.
Perhaps influenced by their parents and living under tight circumstances, the two brothers lived cautiously in the village.
His mother, Zhao Meirong, was the type who counted every grain of rice before cooking. While she didn’t manage major decisions, she took minor matters very seriously.
The Second Aunt's family had only one son, who was rather timid. The several daughters were raised like boys and had bold personalities; they effectively became the heads of their household. Though they could be sharp-tongued, their hearts were not unkind.
At this moment, Hu Qihua and Hu Ruoyun's mother Zhao Meirong looked incredulously at their eldest son, who should have been preparing for high school at school. They couldn’t fathom how this usually timid boy could muster the courage to take charge today!
In a neighboring plot of land, several men wielding sickles gathered to observe the Harvester at work.
The Second Master Kuei from next door nodded in approval: "This thing cuts fast! At this rate, it would take five or six people two days to finish this field, but it’s nearly done in just a couple of hours!"
Second Master Kuei was known in the village as a notorious contrarian—someone who loved to argue and provoke others. When he spoke, one had to consider whether there was an underlying meaning behind his words.
To the west lived Woodzi, a former production team leader who had once bullied Hu Ruoyun's father and Second Uncle. The two brothers often found themselves assigned to muck out the Livestock Shed—a task that was both exhausting and filthy. After a day’s work, they would smell so bad that no one could stand close to them; he even shortchanged them on their work points… After all, they didn’t know much about reading and writing; even if they understood what was happening, they wouldn’t dare speak up.
Now Woodzi watched with a mix of envy and jealousy: "Sure it’s fast, but it costs money..."
Behind him, Aunt Kui continued to bend over with her sickle, cutting away while teasing her husband: "Look at that! What are you staring at? Would you really spend that much money?"
Woodzi's Wife's words dripped with bare, stinging sarcasm as she shouted at her husband, "Hurry up and get the sickle! Look at how hard others are working—can't you do a little less on our land? Stop pretending to be so important; you're just relying on that fancy gadget..." Her words were a thinly veiled insult.
Hu Qihua and Zhao Meirong lived their lives with caution, often bullied by this couple. Now, they felt a sharp pang of resentment rising within them, but they dared not confront the couple directly. Instead, they turned their frustration towards their son. "Your mother and I aren't old yet! When did it become your place to make decisions about these big matters? Life is already tight as it is; why do you have to show off here? This is just asking for trouble!"
In front of outsiders, Hu Qihua always maintained a stern demeanor as he reprimanded Hu Ruoyun, "What do you think you're doing? When did this family start letting you call the shots?"
At that moment, all Hu Ruoyun could think about was the storm expected to arrive tonight and the continuous rain forecasted for the next two weeks. Unable to explain himself, he steeled his resolve and said, "Dad, let's not talk about that now. We need to focus on working!"
He then turned to Second Master Kuei and Woodzi. "Second Master, Uncle Dezi, you should use the Harvester to gather the Wheat too. It’s going to rain tonight, and we’ll have over two weeks of gloomy weather ahead..."
Even if there were tensions in the neighborhood, one couldn't just stand by and watch another's crops suffer. In these times, crops and harvests were a farmer's lifeline.
Second Master Kuei wiped his forehead under the blazing sun and chuckled, "Son, life isn't easy for me either. I might as well just work hard... If it rains, that would really be disastrous!" He then returned to his own fields.
Woodzi merely snorted dismissively before walking away without looking back. Upon returning home, he was unsure how to explain things to his wife. That fierce woman shot a glance at the roaring Harvester and deliberately raised her voice, "A little brat thinks he’s something special! How much money do we even have? Acting like he's all that just because he has a Harvester... Pfft!"
In the blink of an eye, the Harvester had already toppled more Wheat than Hu Qihua and Zhao Meirong could manage in half a day. By the time the couple hurried back home after hastily scarfing down a couple of bowls of rice and loading up their Donkey Cart, nearly ten acres of Wheat had been flattened.
Hu Ruoyun grabbed the Donkey Cart and began loading Wheat onto it with a wooden pitchfork.
Inside his mind, thoughts churned like a tempest: If he truly had foreseen the future, then tonight would bring a storm followed by two weeks of relentless rain! Could such a thing really happen?
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