Chapter 3: Is That Really a Six?

Liu Xing knew it was definitely impossible to let the black calf stay in the cowshed like this. After furrowing his brow, he ran inside the house and fetched a bundle of dry mugwort, lit it, and threw it into the cowshed.

Mugwort was long obsolete decades later, but in the 1980s it was a powerful tool for repelling mosquitoes, so every household kept some in store.

Inside the cowshed, the air was heavy with dampness. The mugwort didn’t catch fire right away, but it didn’t go out either; instead, it sent thick smoke curling through the place, quickly enveloping the cowshed.

That was exactly the effect Liu Xing wanted. The dense smoke from the burning mugwort had insecticidal properties, so the hidden cattle flies in the cowshed were either killed or forced to flee, and it worked remarkably well.

After waiting a while and seeing the smoke had dissipated, he finally tied the calf to the wooden peg.

The black calf affectionately rubbed against Liu Xing’s arm, then slowly ambled into the cowshed.

With the cattle flies gone, the calf lay down and soon fell asleep.

Liu Xing breathed a sigh of relief and turned to leave.

By the time he returned home, the lamps had already been lit.

But his father, Liu Dazhao, was nowhere to be seen.

After asking his mother, he learned that his father had gone out to help clear the village irrigation ditches.

He was certainly eating outside at this time and wouldn’t be back until later.

Upon learning this, Liu Xing didn’t ask further and went to his room to rest.

Inside the room, Guazi had arranged all the wild strawberries she’d picked on the wooden table, eating one or two from time to time. Near the window, a black-clad boy doing homework eyed the scene with envy, wanting to join in but not daring to approach.

The reason for this was simple: Guazi wouldn’t allow it.

If anyone dared come near the table, she’d glare at them threateningly.

Liu Xing shook his head at the sight. “Liu Ye, did you make Guazi mad again?”

If Guazi wasn’t angry, she was usually very generous.

Liu Ye, his younger brother—the boy doing homework—was the fourth child in the family and currently a first-year middle school student with average grades.

Liu Xing had two older sisters: one already married, the other attending high school in the city.

Guazi lifted her little head at Liu Xing’s question. “Of course! I’m really mad right now. Mom told us to cut pig grass together, but he said he had homework to do. Hmph! Now I get to eat wild strawberries for cutting pig grass. Serves him right.”

“You…” Liu Ye was left speechless by her retort.

Liu Xing couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright, Guazi, Liu Ye didn’t mean to skip out on cutting pig grass. He’s got a lot of homework. If he doesn’t finish, he’ll be punished by the teacher tomorrow.”

“Really?” Guazi, hearing this, began to regret her behavior a little.

“Of course! Look at my homework—I probably won’t finish even if I write until ten tonight.” Liu Ye waved the thick notebook in his hand.

“Well… come over and eat wild strawberries with me! But you can only have six. The rest are for Mom and Dad.” Guazi raised her right hand, the five fingers gleaming under the lamp.

“My dear sister, that’s five, not six.” Liu Ye corrected her, exasperated.

“That’s right, you only have five fingers on your right hand, not six.” Liu Xing was so amused he almost laughed himself to tears.

Guazi didn’t care in the least. She looked at Liu Ye. “You talk too much. Are you eating wild strawberries or not? If not, forget it.”

“I’ll eat!” Liu Ye hurried to the table, grinning as he joined in eating wild strawberries.

As soon as he tasted the sweetness, his eyes crinkled up with delight.

Liu Xing smiled at the sight but didn’t sit down to eat with his siblings. He simply said a word and headed outside.

His father wasn’t home and his mother was busy cooking.

No one had fed the pigs in the sty, so Liu Xing had to take the opportunity to feed them now. If he waited until nightfall, it would be a hassle fumbling around in the dark.

This wasn’t an exaggeration, but a fact.

There was no light in the pigsty, and the path was difficult to walk.

Besides, the pig grass Guazi brought back needed to be chopped up with a knife, which was at least half an hour’s work.

Don’t be fooled by how much pig grass filled a whole sack; it wasn’t even enough to fill the gap between the two pigs’ teeth, but it was still much better than nothing. If it were winter, even one meal a day for the pigs would be a luxury.

There was no choice—food and clothing were scarce in rural areas in the 1980s, and thriftiness was the norm.

That explained why pigs raised throughout the year never grew very big, barely reaching a hundred-some jin. The root cause was simply that the pigs were never fed enough.

By the late 1990s, this phenomenon gradually disappeared, thanks to the arrival of feed for pigs.

But pork from feed-fed pigs could never match the flavor of pigs raised on pig grass—that was wishful thinking.

Yet now, Liu Xing found feeding pigs with pig grass a headache, because if the pigs didn’t grow, the job of cutting pig grass would fall to him and Guazi.

As for his brother Liu Ye, he was too proud for such chores.

He always managed to find an excuse to get out of it.

If pressed too hard, he’d even run away from home, leaving the family searching anxiously.

The reason for this was all thanks to the influence of their second sister, Liu Ziran, who claimed that staying home to cut pig grass and herd cattle led nowhere, and that only by studying hard and leaving Xiaoshi Village could one have a future.

On the surface, there was nothing wrong with this idea, and the family agreed.

But since everyone ate from the same pot, it wasn’t right to always dodge the hard work.

Second sister Liu Ziran had been admitted to the city’s No. 8 High School with excellent grades, and she was still among the top students in her second year. No one dared criticize her for not doing chores, since she only came home on weekends and spent the rest of the week in the dormitory.

But Liu Ye…

As Liu Xing chopped the pig grass with all his might, he shook his head.

He could only describe his brother this way: he never learned the good habits, only picked up the bad ones. His grades were only above average, and in the memories of his previous life, he dropped out after junior high.

The reason was simple: he couldn’t keep up, and the better students discouraged him.

Of course, that setback did some good. Liu Ye finally saw himself clearly and stopped being lazy, but his years of proud solitude meant he had little to say to Guazi or Liu Xing.

When he grew up, he went out to work.

It wasn’t until he’d married and started a family that he came back home.

By then, Guazi was already married, and Liu Xing himself was working with his wife along the coast.

A reunion among the siblings was truly rare.

But Liu Xing knew the root of everything was the family’s poverty.

If they didn’t go out to make a living and ease the family’s burden, someone might truly starve.

Thinking of all this, Liu Xing was filled with emotion.

In his heart, he swore that since he’d been reborn, he would change the family’s circumstances. At the very least, he wouldn’t let his siblings have to wander far for a living, growing as distant as strangers in the end.

When he finished chopping the pig grass, Liu Xing collected his thoughts, went to the corner of the main room, scooped two ladles of rice bran into a wooden bucket, mixed it with the pig grass on the ground, then carried it to the pigsty.

The two pigs in the sty were already famished. At the sound of footsteps, they scrambled to their feet, and one almost jumped out of the sty.

But as soon as a bucket of feed was poured onto the ground, both pigs calmed down, crowding around to devour the food.

Liu Xing watched for a while. Seeing that the manure in the corner looked “healthy,” he patted the dust from his clothes and returned with the empty bucket.

Don’t underestimate what he’d just done—that was the mark of an experienced pig farmer.

If a pig’s droppings didn’t look healthy, it wouldn’t be long before it fell ill.

In the rural areas of the 1980s, pigs were mostly free-range. If they got sick, there were no veterinarians to call; they either died or survived on their own.

That was why most sick pigs died, and only a few pulled through.

It was one of the reasons pork was so expensive in the 1980s and 1990s, and the greatest sorrow for many farmers—after a year of hard work, they pinned their hopes on a pig in the sty for a good New Year.

Some even hoped to sell it for a good price to cover a year’s expenses.

But while the dream was beautiful, reality was cruel.

Many farmers, after painstakingly raising a fat pig, found that after selling and paying off debts, they didn’t even get to keep the money from the pork.

Some might say that’s impossible—pork was expensive back then! But Liu Xing could tell them: pork was pricey, but the money never made it into the farmers’ pockets. As for where it went, most people knew well enough.

That’s one reason why raising pigs and chickens never made farmers rich—though more important was the lack of technical know-how.

——

New book release. Please recommend and add to your collection.