Chapter 33

The anger of the people was silent, repressed.

They could deceive themselves when Ye Qingshui’s well struck water in seven days. But when even the neighboring Second Brigade managed to get water in just three days, it became intolerable.

Even though the village now had access to one water well, alleviating some of the thirst from the drought, the workers’ fury only grew deeper in the face of fruitless labor and feeling deceived. The team members, filled with rage, threw away their digging tools and, carrying hoes, surrounded Ye Laoliu and He Fang.

Their eyes were cold and indifferent as they looked at Ye Laoliu.

“Captain, can this well really bring out water?”

Ye Laoliu, used to the team’s obedience, had never faced this kind of interrogation before.

“W-why wouldn’t it?” he stammered, face flushed.

“If it can, then go dig it yourself! Dig all you want!”

“Ye Shuiya digs a well and gets water in seven days. The Second Team gets it in three. It’s like they’re drinking water the way they dig wells. But we work ourselves to death and don’t get a drop? And you still claim there’ll be water? Have you no shame?”

“I say these educated youths are unreliable. We ought to go ask that Qingshui girl instead.”

“Pah! Seems like Uncle Liu’s so smitten by that pretty young girl he doesn’t even know where north is anymore.”

The crude and unpleasant remarks from the rural women turned He Fang’s face pale.

The villagers’ collective anger boiled over. The Women’s Federation director rushed in to mediate, doing her best to calm the situation and persuade the angriest ones. Still, grumbling and cursing were inevitable. Some of the elder villagers even wanted to drag Ye Laoliu out and give him a beating.

Seeing the angry mob, Sun Lingyu and He Fang turned deathly pale. Though they’d always known how rough the villagers could be, they hadn’t expected these ordinarily friendly and diligent farmers to suddenly show such a violent side. Wielding hoes, one slap from them could crack a skull. The fierce local temperament was truly terrifying.

Meanwhile, since Zhou Tingting and Ye Qingshui weren’t working today, they missed all the excitement.

…

After the confrontation between the furious team members and the captain, the well-digging project was abandoned indefinitely. The educated youths lost the villagers’ trust, and even the brigade captain was no longer believed. The useless wells were angrily filled in with dirt.

He Fang’s eyes turned red at the sight. She rushed forward like a madwoman to stop them.

“The revolution isn’t over yet! How can you give up halfway? This is sabotage of production!”

A team member sneered, “Revolution, my ass! You want us to keep a death trap open just to fall in?”

With fanfare, they carted in loads of dirt and spent the entire morning filling in what had taken a month to dig — a clear demonstration of their resolve. Ye Laoliu, watching this, suddenly shivered. The fury of these people, as if they wanted to drag someone to the execution stage and pelt them with mud, reminded him of those frenzied years past.

He removed his straw hat, clumsily pulled out a stick of grass tobacco, and struggled for a long time to light it — to no avail.

The well could no longer be dug. The Women’s Federation director had no choice but to go to Ye Qingshui’s house herself. Though she didn’t quite believe Qingshui could really be so capable, there was something uncanny about this girl.

The director had been mediating disputes for years and took a hard stance on romantic relationships. To her, this plain and even shabby-looking girl — who didn’t even get the chance to finish high school due to poverty — was trouble. After all, she had even bested a male educated youth from the capital and was constantly arguing with the other girls. The director had heard the gossip and didn’t like her one bit.

But after she explained the well situation, Ye Qingshui agreed readily and without complaint. She led the director to a few locations, made some measurements, and said, “I recommend these three spots for digging wells.”

Holding these coordinates in her hand, the director felt lightheaded and unsure. Was it really that easy to get water points?

This was completely different from the meticulous scientific methods the other girls had used. Should she believe it?

Even though she was reluctant, the striking workers forced her hand. Gritting her teeth, she took Qingshui’s recommendation and gathered the team to dig a new well.

He Fang stood nearby, holding her hoe, deep in thought.

Sun Lingyu looked defeated, never expecting things to take such a dramatic turn. She quietly slipped away from the crowd and murmured to He Fang:

“If… if this well actually gets water, w-what do we do?”

He Fang replied, “Nothing.”

What about your worker-peasant-soldier student recommendation, then?

Sun Lingyu looked at the pale green tinge on He Fang’s face but didn’t dare say it out loud. Sharing the same grudge, she said, “They’re all from the same village, sharing the same interests. We just had a stroke of bad luck.”

“It’s a pity about our wells. If we’d just held out a little longer, we might’ve struck water. It’s infuriating how they didn’t even give us a chance. After this, I’m not agreeing to anything like this again. We took on all the responsibility, worked ourselves to the bone, only to have someone else walk away with all the credit.”

Her words finally relaxed He Fang’s tense expression just a little.

In their hearts, they both wished — desperately — that this well wouldn’t yield water. This kind of disloyal, uncooperative thought couldn’t be said aloud, but they both knew that was what they were thinking. The glance they exchanged made it unmistakably clear.

But things rarely go as planned. One day later, the Third Brigade’s well struck water. Encouraged, the First Brigade threw themselves into the task with renewed determination — and two days later, their well also hit water!

Though many still found it hard to believe that the Ye family girl — not even eighteen years old — could succeed where so many had failed, despair and the refusal to admit defeat had driven the workers to give it everything. And it paid off — they really got water!

The team members rubbed their eyes in disbelief, nearly weeping with joy. Without water, they couldn’t farm. If they missed planting the late-season rice, next year would be a year of hunger and hardship.

With success spreading, joy flooded the entire village.

After the celebration, the village cadres and workers sobered up and began to reflect on their mistakes.

The Youth League secretary calculated the losses from the failed digging attempt. Labor costs aside, just the equipment rentals had cost hundreds. Digging wells manually up to ten meters was barely manageable, but every meter beyond that came at a steep price.

He sighed, “We need to hold a struggle and self-criticism session for this.”

The other two brigade leaders said nothing but all looked toward Ye Laoliu.

The Women’s Federation director grumbled, “It’s all those educated youths’ fault. If we’d known it was that easy to dig a well, we wouldn’t have wasted so much money.”

Since she had gotten the coordinates from Qingshui so easily, she’d come to think that digging wells wasn’t that hard after all. The way she saw it, it was the educated youths who had messed up and misled everyone. If they hadn’t made those mistakes, getting water would’ve been a breeze.

The three brigade leaders all had different expressions on their faces.

Ye Xianjin said calmly, “Wells aren’t easy to dig, are they?”

Ye Laoliu responded angrily, “Right! It’s all those educated youths’ fault!”

“Let’s not get sidetracked—let’s discuss who should be held accountable,” said the Party Secretary.

Once all fifteen new wells in Ye Family Village were completed and their brick and cement linings were neatly finished, the first criticism and self-reflection meeting of 1976 was held.

…

Sun Lingyu and He Fang were both informed that they would need to make self-criticisms.

He Fang’s face turned pale, then green.

Sun Lingyu had long anticipated this. She bit the end of her pen as she wrote her self-criticism, but as she wrote, she broke down and cried on the table. At first, her sobs were silent, but the more she thought about it, the more wronged she felt, and soon she was gasping for breath between sobs.

In these times, reputation meant everything. A good reputation might not guarantee much, but a bad one was utterly unacceptable. With a tainted name, all recommendations, honors, and future job prospects would vanish. Reputation was a person’s face.

He Fang comforted her, saying, “It’s just a self-criticism session; it won’t go on your record. You’re not a bad element. You come from a solid working-class background—there’s nothing to fear.”

Sun Lingyu thought about how He Fang’s family, due to work reasons, had some overseas connections and was even more vulnerable. Yet He Fang seemed stronger than her. One self-criticism letter was already complete—sincerely worded, with a very good attitude in admitting fault.

Sun Lingyu wiped her tears and, holding back her crying, carefully finished writing her own self-criticism letter.

Just then, the village postman called for her to collect her mail.

Sun Lingyu opened a letter and found a yellow sheet of paper tucked inside.

“Lingyu: Hope this letter finds you well! How are things in the countryside? I miss you a lot. I’ve been thinking about the days we spent volunteering together. It’s been a while since your brother sent any letters home. We’re not sure how he’s doing, and our parents are very worried. If you happen to see him, please tell him his parents are hoping to hear from him.”

Signed: Xie Dongmei.

Sun Lingyu, still emotionally drained from crying, wasn’t in the mood. After reading the letter, she casually tossed it on the table. He Fang picked it up and said, “She wrote to you—why don’t you reply?”

Soon, the criticism and self-reflection meeting of Ye Family Village officially began.

This meeting concerned the entire production team. The members of the First Production Team felt they had been utterly screwed over for more than a month and were furious. The crowd that gathered to watch was bigger than ever. The meeting was held on the open ground of the village elementary school.

He Fang and five or six other educated youth stood at the front one after another, reading their self-criticisms, as if they had been stripped naked, enduring the angry stares of the villagers below.

After the self-criticisms were done, the furious crowd still refused to let them leave the stage. Eventually, even Ye Laoliu went up to make his own self-criticism. Once he finished, the ten or so of them stood stiffly in a row, enduring the villagers’ scolding and cursing.

The village officials decided to cancel He Fang’s qualification as a worker-peasant-soldier student. The others were each penalized thirty work points. As for Ye Laoliu, who had demonstrated poor leadership, the First Production Team decided to nominate a deputy team leader.

But that punishment wasn’t enough to satisfy the crowd’s anger. One woman, whose husband had broken his leg while digging a well, brought a bucket of urine and flung a ladleful at them.

Sun Lingyu and He Fang, standing nearby, were caught in the splash—several drops landed on their clothes.

From the audience, Zhou Tingting widened her eyes and excitedly called out to Ye Qingshui, “It’s rare to see them this humiliated—come look!”

After the meeting, Sun Lingyu ran into Ye Qingshui and angrily said, “I didn’t lose to you.”

“I lost to Xie Tingyu. Don’t think I don’t know he was secretly helping you. What’s so impressive about relying on a man?”

Ye Qingshui frowned at her words. Looking at the resentment in Sun Lingyu’s eyes, she was a little surprised. Calmly, she said:

“You’ve said both the good and the bad already. But when you fail, instead of reflecting on yourself, you keep making excuses. Is it really that hard to acknowledge someone else’s strength?”

“Your wells simply weren’t going to produce water.”

Sun Lingyu, unwilling to accept that, firmly believed her wells could have yielded water. She wanted to argue, but Ye Qingshui shook her head, said one final sentence, and walked away.

A few days later, Sun Lingyu understood what Ye Qingshui had meant.

She saw an entire newspaper page brought by the postman with a feature titled:

“The ‘Underground Clairvoyant’ — G Province Educated Youth Ye Qingshui and Intellectual Zhou Cunren Successfully Develop Natural Electric Field Water-Finding Instrument.”

Sun Lingyu quickly skimmed through the article:

“For thousands of years, in the vast karst regions of our country, surface water has been as precious as oil, while underground spring water flows abundantly. The poor peasants have always hoped for a pair of ‘clairvoyant eyes’ to detect underground water…”

She read and re-read the entire article multiple times. Her expression was extremely complicated.

Support Sansukini on Ko-fi

Thanks for visiting. If you like this story, then I’m shamelessly asking you to visit NovelUpdates and give a 5⭐ review. (人❛ᴗ❛)♪тнайк　чоц♪(❛ᴗ❛*人)

You can also check out my other translations Here