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墨書 Inktalez
The homeroom teacher, Su Chongliang, stood at the podium, addressing Hu Ruoyun with a mix of pity and frustration. "Think about your parents, bent over in the fields right now, cutting wheat under the blazing sun, facing the dirt and turning their backs to the sky, sweat dripping down like rain... And here you are, sleeping in class. What on earth are you thinking?"
Hu Ruoyun's mind was still buzzing, accompanied by Mr. Su's piercing words: "Three years of middle school—aren't you enduring all this for a chance to do well in July's exams, get into a good high school, and make something of yourself in the future? At such a critical moment, how can you just lie there sleeping? Doesn’t that hurt?"
Cutting wheat?
A thunderclap echoed in Hu Ruoyun's mind.
Just last year, during his entrance examination, most of the wheat had not yet been harvested when they faced an unprecedented extreme weather event—first came fierce winds accompanied by torrential rain, followed by two weeks of relentless 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 rushed to print new quality inspection certificates, adding "Germination Rate" as a criterion alongside "Impurities" and "Moisture Content."
It was this "Germination Rate" that caused the ratings from the Quality Inspector at the Grain Management Office to shift 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 thunder in his mind faded away, Hu Ruoyun began to think more clearly.
Since he was bound for 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 manage to get it into the fields before the rain arrived and avoid further losses.
With this thought in mind, Hu Ruoyun raised his right hand. "Mr. Su, I have a headache and would like to request leave to see a doctor."
Mr. Su looked helplessly at him, his eyes filled with disdain as he waved his hand dismissively. "Go on then... If you can't handle it, just rest at home for a few days..."
Once Hu Ruoyun heard Mr. Su's words, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He quickly packed his things without paying attention to the murmurs of his classmates behind him and rushed out of the classroom. He ran to the dormitory and pulled out his old bicycle—a rickety two-eighths model that made noise except for its bell—and hopped on it, pedaling swiftly toward home.
In just over ten minutes, he arrived home after covering six miles. Although it was already past ten in the morning, every year during wheat harvesting season, his parents would leave before dawn with some bread and a jug of water to work in the fields. As he entered his home, he found exactly what he expected: no one was there. It was clear that his parents had not yet returned for breakfast.
Hu Ruoyun hurried to the kitchen, lit a fire, and started cooking porridge in a large pot. She fished out a few pickled eggs wrapped in yellow mud from a clay jar, washed them clean with water, and placed them in a small pot to boil. After setting them on low heat, she quickly pedaled her twenty-eight bar bicycle to the village's farm machinery station.
In this era of rural life, there were no large combine harvesters around. The Rural Agricultural Machinery Station had recently acquired 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 only cut the stalks. To thresh the grain, farmers still had to take it back to the wheat field for further processing. More importantly, the cost of six yuan per acre made most farmers hesitate.
Farmers generally believed that wheat was only two jiao per jin, and spending six yuan to harvest an acre seemed unwise. They preferred to use their sickles instead; after all, the strength of seasoned farmers was meant for tilling the land and wasn't worth much.
At the Farm Machinery Station, an old man on duty watched the few harvesters parked idly with boredom. "These machines aren't very popular," he thought.
Suddenly, he noticed a young boy rushing through the gate on a 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 one, it's on you!"
Hu Ruoyun steadied her bike, wiping the sweat from her brow as she pulled out a crumpled roll of cash from her pants pocket. "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 east end of the village; it's easy to find. Please send a machine over—here's sixty yuan."
At that time, sixty yuan was not a small amount of money, and Hu Ruoyun wasn't exactly wealthy to have it on hand.
Of that sixty yuan, forty-two came from selling the offspring of a pair of Eight-Point Black rabbits that Hu Ruoyun had raised over four years. The remaining eighteen yuan was earned during a holiday when she took her younger brother and sister to collect cicada shells and dig up Atractylodes—both traditional Chinese medicinal materials—selling them for a few cents here and there. It was money they had saved through hard work.
Her younger brother Xiao Hu, who was just in first grade, was extremely introverted and always seemed burdened by some melancholy. He rarely spoke and hardly played with classmates at school; he lacked the liveliness typical for his age. In contrast, her 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 attentively to him.
Cicada shells were not particularly valuable but were so light that they could only accumulate a few liang over an entire summer. Atractylodes were heavier but cheap and difficult to handle; if not processed properly when wet, they would spoil easily.
The three siblings didn’t know how many hours they had sacrificed that could have been spent playing happily just to save up this less than twenty yuan. They entrusted all their savings to Hu Ruoyun for safekeeping.
The old man on duty finally realized that this sweaty boy with mud-streaked cheeks was there for business when he handed over the roll of bills. He hurriedly took it and began counting while responding, "I'll write you a receipt; hold on! I'll arrange it for you 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 his aching back while holding a sickle in one hand. He wiped the sweat pouring down his face with a grimy towel around his neck, his eyes filled with shock and disbelief: how did this "gold-swallowing beast" end up in my field?
Behind him, Hu Ruoyun had no time for detailed explanations. She hurried over to direct her 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 we'll head straight to the Wheat Field to haul the wheat!"
In Hu Ruoyun's grandfather's generation, there were no brothers or sisters. In rural areas, having fewer people at home meant less strength and made them easy targets for bullying. By her father's generation, it was just him and his brother, Second Uncle Hu Zhenhua.
Perhaps influenced by their parents and living a tight life, the two brothers lived cautiously in the village.
Her mother, Zhao Meirong, was the kind of person who counted every grain of rice before cooking. While she didn't handle major decisions, she took small matters very seriously.
Second Aunt's family had only one son, who was rather timid. The several daughters were raised like boys and had bold personalities; they ended up becoming the heads of their household. Though they could be sharp-tongued, they had good hearts.
At that 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 believe that this usually timid boy dared to take charge today!
In a neighboring plot of land, several men wielding sickles gathered to observe the Harvester's performance.
The neighbor to the east, Second Master Kuei, 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 "contrarian," someone who loved to argue and provoke others. When he spoke, one had to ponder whether there was an underlying meaning.
To the west, Woodzi, a former production team leader who used to bully Hu Ruoyun's father and Second Uncle, watched with a mix of envy and jealousy. The two brothers often found themselves assigned to clean out the Livestock Shed—a job 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 would even deliberately undercount their work points... After all, they couldn't read well enough to protest even if they understood what was happening.
Now Woodzi looked on with both admiration and resentment: "It’s fast for sure, but it costs money..."
Meanwhile, Aunt Kui continued bending over with her sickle, cutting stalks one by one as she teased her husband: "Look at that! Do you really want to 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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