Chapter 1676 — Entering the Village

Seeing them walk far away, Yun Suji stood up and patted the dirt off his buttocks. The guards behind had caught up.

"Chief, are you okay?"

"I am fine." Yun Suji said. "Look at this cadre—quite majestic."

The guard said: "Is it not like this in the countryside? If you do not have some majesty, who listens to you!"

Yun Suji said nothing. He had been a Tiandihui agricultural technician for several years, spending more than half the year in related villages, and married a small landlord's daughter. He knew what the guard said was largely true.

"Let us go—enter the village!"

Standard Villages were all built according to unified models, neat and uniform. Since Qiongshan belonged to the Yellow Zone with no military defense needs, the village did not adopt the fortress earth building style designed by President Wen. However, for public security management, the village was still enclosed. The outermost houses had walls built between them to connect into a block, leaving only four exits in the cardinal directions.

Yun Suji walked into this Standard Village. There was a wooden sentry box at the village head. Several women sat outside stitching shoe soles and talking. Hearing their Shandong accent, he nodded secretly.

Just about to enter, a woman asked: "Comrade, which village are you from?"

Yun Suji stopped. The questioning woman was twenty-five or twenty-six, tall, with a few slight pockmarks on her oval face, wearing a blue cloth jacket with carefully rolled red edge—old but tidy and neat. He said: "I am from the county, coming to handle affairs."

"Do you have a road pass?"

"Yes, yes." Yun Suji took out the letter of introduction. The woman took it, examining it upside down and downside up. Yun Suji knew she probably could not read and was comparing the shape of the official seal.

The county's naturalized cadre had said literacy rate in this village was over eighty percent; it seemed there was much exaggeration in that.

After a long while, the woman handed back the letter: "The seal is correct. You go in, sir."

Yun Suji praised: "Your security here is quite strict."

Several women looked at him and said nothing. The one who asked for the letter spoke: "Village rules: strangers entering and leaving must have a road pass."

Yun Suji originally wanted to say more, but they all fell silent, sitting down to stitch shoes. Seeing he could not strike up conversation, he had to ask for directions to the Village Office.

"Walk east along the road—you will arrive when you see the big banyan tree." The young woman said.

Yun Suji thanked her and walked into the village.

The roads were clean, without garbage or debris. The walls were not snow-white but were clean, with no urine stains, feces, or garbage at corners. Slogans were painted one by one on white walls along the street: "Don't plant red flowers today, go down the mine pit in Sanya tomorrow"; "One person steals electric wire, whole family goes to labor reform"; "Hygiene not done well, whole family gets malaria"; "Women don't unbind feet, men bind small feet"; "Fight across the strait, liberate all China"... Yun Suji saw many such slogans when going to the countryside and did not mind. But the cleanliness of this village truly exceeded expectations—it reached the level of the few best model villages in Lingao.

There were few people on the street—probably all gone to the fields. A few who saw him quickly hid by the roadside without a word.

Yun Suji felt somewhat strange and walked straight to the Village Office. There was a big banyan tree outside, probably there for a long time, with a stone mill underneath. Such places were where villagers gathered to talk. Now in the slack season, yet unexpectedly not a single villager was there. He felt even more strange.

Standard Village Offices were all the same. Outside was a bulletin board posted with various notices. Yun Suji stopped to look; most were policy notifications. Standard notices printed by the County Printing House, and some written with brush on rough paper—village affairs. The latest was a notice for corvée labor, followed by a detailed list: which family, how many people, names and surnames, very detailed. There was also a newspaper reading board pasted with yesterday's Lingao Times.

Just looking at this bulletin board—let alone the 17th century—it was rare even in 21st-century Chinese rural areas.

Yun Suji wondered secretly: this grassroots governance level! Still "relatively advanced"? What would the most advanced look like? He stepped in. Inside was also very tidy. A yard in the middle rolled flat and smooth. Three main rooms were office areas; left and right were wing rooms hanging with padlocks—probably warehouses.

Inside the Village Office, he met two village cadres playing chess. Because they were arguing over a move, they did not see Senator Yun enter.

Yun Suji waited for a while. Still no one spoke to him, so he asked amidst their argument: "Which one is the Village Head?"

The two looked up. Seeing him wearing a bamboo hat, gray cloth cadre suit, dark blue homespun trousers, and straw sandals—he looked like someone who went to the fields often. Though they did not recognize him, hearing his accent, it was not the southern tone of naturalized cadres but had northern accent.

Judging from the clothing, the older cadre thought he was a messenger from some village, so he asked lazily: "Which village are you from?"

Yun Suji replied: "From Lingao County."

The village cadre asked again: "What are you doing here?"

The other cadre was about to lose and urged: "Move quickly!"

Yun Suji was somewhat impatient: "You are very busy! Talk again when you are free later!" He threw his backpack onto the steps and sat on it to rest.

The first cadre saw his tone was off, stopped the chess game, and leaned over: "Wondering where the honored guest comes from?"

Yun Suji saw he was a village cadre but deliberately asked again: "Where did the Village Head go?" As the cadre answered with a blushing face, just as Yun Suji was about to give him the letter of introduction, suddenly there was commotion outside. Someone shouted: "Village Head Fan! Village Head Fan!"

Village Head Fan frowned, pushed the chessboard away: "Go see first—what is Yuanhu tossing about again." Ignoring Yun Suji, he lifted his foot and went out.

Yun Suji said nothing, quietly got up and stood by the window. He saw seven or eight people in the courtyard—men and women, old and young. The leader was the young cadre who beat Old Meng. His chest was open, revealing white undershirt inside, hands on hips, looking very majestic.

Behind were several young men carrying sticks, crowding around a middle-aged man. This man wore homespun short jacket, tied up solidly with ropes, looking terrified. A woman followed behind, crying and wanting to get close but pushed by the young men.

At the very back was a girl of eleven or twelve, wiping tears bashfully, supported by a woman.

Yun Suji wondered what drama this was.

Just as he pondered, he heard the young cadre say loudly: "Village Head! Yan Laowu bound his daughter's feet again—let us not talk about his wife's feet; she bound them all her life and is not used to walking with released feet, so we turned a blind eye. He binding his daughter's feet behind backs like this clearly shows he does not take the county and Central instructions seriously!"

He waved his hand; several young men carried things to the steps: a disemboweled rooster dripping with blood, several broken bowl pieces, a roll of foot-binding cloth—all things used for foot-binding.

Yun Suji thought this young man learned slogans proficiently; just his temper was not very good.

Village Head Fan frowned: "Old Yan, regarding foot-binding, the county's preaching team came several times, right? Let us not talk about your wife... You secretly binding your daughter's feet like this is clearly ignoring instructions!"

Hearing "ignoring County and Central instructions," Yan Laowu was so scared his legs went soft. He knew "Australian Chiefs" hated this most. But for a girl not to bind feet, Yan Laowu could not simply imagine—in his common sense, only down-and-out households with uncertain meals or beggars did not bind daughters' feet. As long as there was food and land, everyone bound daughters' feet. When home, he heard knowledgeable people say Southern Barbarian women planting rice did not bind feet—he thought it a fairy tale. Unexpectedly arriving at the Southern Barbarians' territory and learning to plant rice, the Chiefs forbid foot-binding.

Not allowed to bind, and those bound must be released. Yan Laowu panicked. In his common sense, a woman going out without bound feet equaled going out without pants. Moreover, without a small foot to knead during intimacy at night, he could not get aroused...

Seeing his daughter was twelve—if not bound now, it could not be bound later. Though girls here did not worry about marrying, those without bound feet weighed lighter in bride price. Yan Laowu and his wife calculated and secretly bound their daughter's feet.

Afraid the village would know, he did not let his daughter go out or let people come. Unexpectedly, his daughter could not bear the pain and cried at night. Eventually it reached Militia Captain Liu Yuanhu's ears.

Militia Captain Liu Yuanhu was an orphan: lost parents before the mutiny. Before he could work to support himself, he was a beggar in the Dengzhou countryside. He started herding cattle for a landlord at thirteen—knew all farm work, had good strength. The master liked him, saying he would assign a maid to keep his heart. Before this pie in the sky could be realized, the master's whole family was killed by disorderly soldiers. He himself was tied and dragged away, almost dying in the chaos.

The Senate saved him from the pit of the dead and let him, an illiterate person, become a cadre and human being. In Lingao, he opened his eyes—knowing how real humans lived and what the Australian world looked like. The Chiefs wanted to turn this world into the Australian world. In the Ma'niao Agricultural Cadre Training Institute, Du Wen instilled the consciousness of "Serving the Senate and the People" into his mind. Thus he became a person who feared nothing in heaven or earth and regarded "Senate's instructions" above everything else.

(End of Chapter)