Volume 5 I turned back and saw that Teacher Xiao was actually sitting on a tractor Chapter 3

  What I don't understand most is my mother. I didn't disturb her life, why did she hate me like that? Is it just because I'm the daughter of a rightist? But I was also born to her and the rightist! If they hadn't done well, why should I suffer this injustice?

  At this thought, a surge of anger rose up in his heart.

  "Grandma!"

  "What's going on?" Grandma lifted the curtain. Before she turned on the light, I sat up with a "huff": "Grandma, I want to know about my father!"

  In the darkness, Grandma felt her way to the bed and asked in a surprised voice: "Bei Fang, what's wrong with you? Who said something to you again?"

  "Why did he want to be a rightist?"

  "Grandma said in a low and trembling voice: 'Don't ask about this anymore! Don't think about these things anymore! He... he has nothing to do with you now...'"

  I lay down again, covering my aching head with the quilt. Father, mother, I really hate these two titles!

  After the final exam ended, the real graduation mobilization began. The so-called ideological mobilization is actually a queue mobilization. As for joining the army or going to work in a factory, no mobilization is needed. Teachers find this comrade today and that comrade tomorrow, all doing ideological work to persuade those comrades who should join the queue but come up with many inexplicable reasons not to go. The teacher says, this is a political task, if you should join the queue but don't, it will leave a political stain on your personal file, which you'll carry for life.

  Under this powerful offensive, I gradually feel that the hope of staying is getting smaller and smaller. I also realize that even if I meet the policy requirements, as long as my mother makes a phone call to the school, I still have no hope of staying.

  At this time, I encountered something exciting.

  That day, our school invited a few representatives from the Zhiqing (educated youth) group who had been sent to Yan'an for a discussion. The ones who came were all our alumni, including one of my classmates' sisters. They were all wearing military uniforms that had been washed until they were white, with some having patches on their shoulders. Their faces weren't dark like those of peasants, but rather deep red. They looked at us with bright eyes and called us "younger brothers and sisters". Each of their speeches left me surprised and enchanted. They could recite long passages from Marx, Lenin, or Chairman Mao's words to prove that every young person with aspirations should go to the countryside. They could also describe rural life in Shaanxi using dialects we couldn't understand, sometimes speaking as if they were exchanging secret codes, laughing loudly after saying a few sentences before translating them into Beijing dialect for us. The impression they gave me was that going to the countryside was like an adventure, a fashion, and a career that could stir one's passions. I was really tempted by them, with a war drum beating "boom boom boom" non-stop in my heart, getting more urgent with each beat.

  After they finished speaking, they won the graduates' heartfelt and warm applause. The teacher who hosted the discussion even opened his mouth with red eyes. He told everyone that there was a classmate who required an impromptu speech. I took a look, it turned out to be our class's league branch secretary, a boy I had always admired. He looked very excited, the teacher asked him to sit down and speak, but he insisted on standing up and said: "Our elder brothers and sisters broke through family obstacles and rushed to the Shaanxi highlands, I think this action is of great significance to our country, just like when Americans developed the West. As a young man born in New China and growing up under the red flag, I am determined to swing my youth freely in the vast world. I have decided to take the road of going up to the mountains and down to the countryside, even ten old cows can't pull me back!"

  He raised one arm high, just like the "May Fourth" youth in the movies. Everyone, including the teachers, applauded loudly, forming a thunderous applause. Amidst the applause, several older brothers and sisters walked up to him, shook his hand firmly, and some even hugged him.

  Dear readers, don't think I'm ridiculing them. Put yourself in their shoes and think about it - if your youth didn't have at least one such passionate and exciting experience, then frankly speaking, your life must be dull and lackluster!

  Let's talk about me!

  In the thunderous applause, I heard my own applause. The applause and the "war drum" in my heart merged together. I felt that a brand new world suddenly unfolded before me, just like being pushed from behind in the dark and suddenly thrust into a sunny area. What's wrong with going to join the queue? Can't I use my own strength to blaze my own trail in life? Mother, it's not that you let me go to join the queue and I had no choice but to obey, no! Now it's me who wants to go, I yearn to go, it has nothing to do with mother! I just want to use my own strength to blaze my own trail in life! Even if it means being exposed to wind and sun every day, eating coarse food, it's still better than seeing the cold faces of mother and Lingling!

  I was not yet ten years old, the fire of my life was very strong, the wound in my heart was still bleeding, but I could still imagine a beautiful thing. I was like a small bird that had just been caught, flapping its wings desperately to break free and fly back into the free sky.

  Afterwards, I caught up with Teacher Xiao outside the classroom and told him that the application for not cutting in line that I had submitted was no longer valid.

  "Why?" Teacher Xiao looked at me in surprise, "The school hasn't finalized it yet!"

  "You just help me get it back, I'll go insert the team then."

  Teacher Xiao looked around at the students and teachers coming and going, and said to me: "Tomorrow, tomorrow afternoon I'll come to your home to talk."

  The next day was Sunday, and Teacher Xiao came.

  Grandma attended the meeting convened by the street family committee, as usual I replaced grandma to answer the phone. Fortunately, there have been no phone calls for a long time, and I can entertain Teacher Xiao wholeheartedly.

  Teacher Xiao was only two or three years older than us, and after graduating from junior high school, he taught at a primary school. Later, he attended a teacher training course, and after completing it, he was transferred to our school. When we were in the third year of junior high school, he became the first young teacher to join our school after the Cultural Revolution. He had a fair complexion, double eyelids, a straight nose bridge, and hair that curled slightly at the ends. On warm days, he would wear a light-colored shirt with a sweater over it, leaving the top button undone, giving off a relaxed and casual air. This young and elegant teacher, dressed in such an outstanding outfit, stood out among the old teachers who had been worn down by the Cultural Revolution and looked like they had been battered by frost. As soon as he walked into our classroom, he became a sight to behold. What made other classes jealous was that, out of over 40 classes in the entire school, from junior high to high school, Teacher Xiao just happened to become our class advisor. Ever since this great fortune befell our class, our female classmates also became the source of gossip for the entire school. If Teacher Xiao talked to any girl for a slightly longer time or more frequently, rumors would immediately start circulating: "Teacher Xiao likes so-and-so," or vice versa: "So-and-so likes Teacher Xiao." Almost all the girls in our class who were somewhat good-looking had been involved in such rumors at some point. Teacher Xiao severely criticized several of his colleagues for this reason.

  And I have never been on the rumor list. I didn't show any shyness in front of Teacher Xiao. I even never concentrated my attention to measure Teacher Xiao. The boys and girls in the class all know that I need to help my grandmother make phone calls after school, and sometimes some classmates will meet me in the yard. Just for this reason, I won't have any beautiful fantasies about anyone. In fact, I am very willing to fantasize, and a lot. I like to sit quietly in a corner, staring silently at a certain place, thinking about the characters in the books I've read and liked. If the character is alive in the book, I think about how I would meet him (or her). If the character died in the book, I think about how to make him (or her) come back to life.

  That's right, it was because of books that the distance between me and Teacher Xiao suddenly narrowed.

  That day, a classmate secretly lent me a book from a bundle hidden by her father, titled "Ghost Stories". She made me "pledge to Chairman Mao" several times, saying that if others found out, her dad would "beat her to death". Unfortunately, the book was not well-hidden, and during recess, it fell out of my desk drawer and was discovered by a boy in our class who I disliked the most. As soon as I entered the classroom, he rushed over, holding up his spoils in front of me, shaking them loudly, "You dare to read superstitious books! Look, they're all ancient paintings, so reactionary! If the Public Security Bureau finds out, they'll come and arrest you..."

  The book fell into the hands of Teacher Xiao. For a whole class, I sat still, my mind buzzing non-stop. I didn't know what was waiting for me, and all that appeared in my mind were scenes from movies where revolutionaries were being brutally tortured. My back felt like it had grown thorns, and the classmate who borrowed the book from me was sitting right behind me, making me feel extremely ashamed...

  When class was over, I heard a sentence that made me tremble with fear: "Yu Beifang, come to my office!"

  I came into the office and Teacher Xiao asked me to sit down in front of him. The book was placed on the desk between us two.

  "Whose book is this?" Mr. Xiao's first sentence hit on the question I least wanted to answer.

  I just lied: "It's mine."

  "Is it? Look at the cover page, there is still a seal of the unit library, is it your family's?"

  “……”

  "First you attend classes and read books, then again you don't speak the truth, is this right?"

  I am speechless.

  "Yu Beifang, I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time. Your studies are not bad, but now it's far from enough to just have good grades. I heard from your politics teacher that you never speak up in class, and also heard that you haven't even written an application to join the Youth League? How can you be so unambitious? This won't do!"

  After hearing these words, my heart sank. How did it come to this? Our political class started from the first day of school and was scheduled for the first period every day when students were most awake, which showed its importance. The teaching materials for political classes mainly came from editorials in "Two Newspapers and One Magazine" or various "single-edition books", with different themes changed at different times, criticizing Lin Biao, criticizing Deng Xiaoping, criticizing "Water Margin", Huang Shuai, Zhang Tieshan - In class, it was either reading newspapers or holding criticism meetings or lectures. To hold a criticism meeting or lecture, you had to prepare a criticism manuscript or lecture manuscript in advance and then speak in class. The order of speaking was not arranged by the teacher, relying on self-awareness, and the teacher would examine whether a student was actively demanding progress politically based on this. However, there were also implicit rules for speaking, generally starting with the team branch secretary, followed by the branch committee members, then the team members, and finally the ordinary masses. If any of the masses did not follow these implicit rules and suddenly rushed to the front to speak first, it was likely that they would have to make a big effort to join the team. Mr. Xiao's words reminded me that I had almost never spoken in political class. I had written manuscripts, but I knew they were not good enough, unlike the team branch secretary, who could write criticism or lecture manuscripts with idioms and allusions one after another, which made people admire when listening to them. Moreover, seeing so many students speaking enthusiastically, there was simply not enough time for a class, and I really felt that I didn't need to speak up. I had only stood up once in political class, when the political teacher asked me to stand up and read the newspaper. It happened that the article was written by Lingling's father. The faces of every member of that family flashed before my eyes as I stuttered through the reading and was replaced by the teacher halfway through. Apparently, the political teacher had reflected on my performance to the class director and had generalized my performance. If a student had political problems pointed out, they were basically eliminated by the tide of the times, and if such an evaluation was put into their file, it would become a lifelong stain.

  I hung my head in shame, looking like a broken pot.

  But suddenly I heard Mr. Xiao say: "Take this book back, don't bring this kind of book to school to read in the future, and especially not during class time, got it?"

  "Got it!" I was suddenly wide awake, immediately putting the book into my backpack, afraid of being robbed again. My heart felt as if I had been granted a great amnesty, feeling extremely relieved. Once I got the book in hand, I wasn't afraid of what the teacher said anymore.

  "Just now I may have said too much, but the teacher is for your own good. You can express your opinions, but don't avoid me. I can see that you always avoid me, but this just shows that you are not frivolous at all, and I quite like this about you!"

  My face suddenly turned red. I had never heard anyone use the word "like" on me before, and I didn't expect this word to give people such a strong stimulus. I nervously glanced at Teacher Xiao, and saw that he was smiling at me, without any blame in his eyes. I panicked and avoided Teacher Xiao's gaze. My life has never taught me to face other people's gazes...