Chapter 33: Adorable Cousins

Yang Chunsheng winnowed the grain for a while before handing the task over to his wife. Wang Zhaodi, feeling much less burdened today than the previous two days, picked up the wooden winnowing shovel and began to work. Watching his mother toil, Yang Xingwu was overcome with emotion; he had not expected to witness this primitive method of threshing and winnowing after so many years. Seeing his mother’s movements slow down, he quickly ran over to take the shovel from her hands.

From the afternoon threshing until the winnowing was finished, the sky had gradually turned dark. It was June 8th, close to the summer solstice, and the days were growing longer, which provided the villagers with ample time to thresh and winnow their wheat. Once finished, Yang Chunsheng called everyone over to load the wheat into bags from the cart. Most of the bags were old urea sacks. Yang Xingwu retrieved a pile of yellow bags from the rack cart, while his sisters, Xiaohong and Xiaolan, held them open as the family filled them with the winnowed wheat.

They filled twenty-five bags in total, though the last one was only half full. They also collected several bags of chaff, which would be excellent for feeding the chickens. Seeing this, Yang Chunsheng counted the bags several times to be sure, and a look of gratified relief finally spread across his face.

"Not bad, not bad at all! This is a bountiful year!" Yang Chunsheng said, beaming.

Yang Xingwu was curious. "Dad, how can you be so sure?"

Having worked hard for three days, the joy of a good harvest had washed away much of Yang Chunsheng's fatigue. In high spirits, he posed a math problem to his son. "Let me test you! Each bag holds about 110 jin. There are 24 full bags, and for the half-bag—I’ve weighed it—let's count it as 40 jin. Once dried, the wheat will lose about ten percent of its weight. How much wheat is left?"

Yang Xingwu thought this was simple enough; was his father really trying to test a high school student with this? He quickly provided the answer: "2,412 jin!"

Yang Chunsheng was taken aback. "Really? Are you sure you didn't miscalculate?"

"Dad, how could I? I'm good at math. Without the moisture loss, it would have been 2,680 jin..." Yang Xingwu stopped mid-sentence as the realization hit him.

The wheat produced from six mu of land, after drying, would amount to 2,412 jin—an average yield of 402 jin per mu. This was undoubtedly high-quality wheat! In the early eighties, any wheat yield exceeding 400 jin per mu outperformed 70% of the land. Even in prime fields with perfect water and fertilizer, the maximum yield was only about 500 jin.

Yang Xingwu finally understood why his father was so excited. His father had hoped for a good harvest, but hearing the actual figure calculated by his son was a pleasant surprise. Yang Xingwu walked his father through the calculation once more, explaining each step clearly, which only made Yang Chunsheng happier.

The family spent the rest of the time hauling the wheat back to the courtyard to stack it. It took three trips to finish. Freshly threshed wheat could not be stored immediately; it required several days of exposure to the scorching sun to meet the requirements for long-term storage. Buoyed by the harvest, Yang Chunsheng brought out some treasured loose spirits to share a few small cups with his two sons. After the drink, Yang Chunsheng slept soundly that night.

The next day, the family slept until the sun was high in the sky. With the threshing done, the main task remaining was drying. Yesterday, Yang Chunsheng had taken his eldest son to help his own father harvest wheat until noon; it had taken two and a half days to reap ten mu, which was a respectable pace. Today, his father’s side was mainly focused on drying, with threshing starting in the afternoon. Since their own family had little to do besides drying, they finally got a rare, good night's sleep.

After breakfast, Yang Chunsheng loaded the family into the cart to take the wheat back to the threshing floor. First, they swept away the dust with large brooms, then poured the wheat from the bags onto the ground, spreading it out with wooden rakes to let the sun do its work.

Yang Chunsheng left his youngest daughter in charge of guarding the wheat to keep the birds away, and instructed Yang Xingwu to go home, rest, and study. The college entrance exam was less than a month away; the same date next month would be the final day of his exams. Fearing he might hinder his son's progress, Yang Chunsheng insisted that Yang Xingwu focus on his studies once the main work was finished.

Yang Xingwu nodded immediately. For the past half-month, with the exception of the last few days, he had been waking up early to memorize his books. As a village boy facing this starting line, he knew well that only by enduring the bitterness of study could he avoid the bitterness of life in the future. Working alongside his family over the past few days, exhausted to the point of oxygen deprivation, had made the harvest feel like a nightmare. And this was only after half the wheat had already been reaped; if he had to handle all twelve mu like this, the level of fatigue would be far more than just doubled. After all, life wasn't a math problem that only cared about the result, ignoring the exhaustion endured along the way. Yang Xingwu felt this deeply; he knew this exam was his golden opportunity to leap over the dragon's gate, and he had to seize it to rise.

Back home, Yang Xingwu began to review. After studying and having lunch, he felt drowsy and took a nap. In the afternoon, he woke up and continued his reading. When he grew tired, he would stroll through the small courtyard, exploring the vegetable garden for "treasures." He picked a yellowing tomato, wiped it off with his hand, and ate it right there. He noticed the small melons his mother had planted were already the size of glass marbles; he would probably be able to eat them when he returned next month.

After resting for a while, he returned to his books. By evening, he went to the threshing floor and was puzzled to find no one there. After waiting a moment, he saw his younger brother pushing a cart wheel, running back and forth, followed by two little ones—his younger sister included.

A rack cart, as the name suggests, is a frame mounted on these wheels. When the frame is removed, the wheel becomes a toy for children, who push it all over the village. The wheels were the most valuable part of the cart. Now, one of the family's wheels was being pushed around by his cousin, while his sister pushed the other through the village, returning every so often to check on the wheat.

Seeing this, Yang Xingwu called out, "Xiaohong, Xiaohu, Xiaobao, Xiaofeng, come here!"

Xiaohong, who had just pushed the wheel to the threshing floor, saw her second brother standing there. She initially wanted to turn around and run, but upon being called, she reluctantly rolled the cart over. The other three children, however, were less hesitant. Hearing the call, they immediately ran toward Yang Xingwu, shouting, "Second Brother! Second Brother!"

They were so loud it made Yang Xingwu laugh. A pair of small hands reached out toward him, and a voice asked, "Second Brother, do you want to eat some mulberries?"

Yang Xingwu looked down to see the child’s palms filled with mulberries, bright red and truly inviting.