The summer heat begins to ebb at this time of day, and even the breeze from the rice fields brings a hint of coolness.
Li Zhiyuan faces the rice fields, closes his eyes, and takes several deep breaths.
"Little Yuanhou, what's wrong, does Grandmaster have a smell?"
"No, Grandmaster, I'm smelling the rice fragrance."
"Oh, did you smell it?"
"I can't smell it; it's not like what's written in the articles. They say the scent of rice is really nice."
"Silly child, your timing is off. Wait until after fertilizer is applied or pesticides sprayed, then smell it again, I guarantee that scent will be overwhelmingly strong!"
"Grandmaster, you're teasing me."
"Hahaha." Li Sanjiang twisted his neck and continued to carry the child along the ridge path. "Right now there's no particular smell, but wait until harvest, drying, hulling, and when the rice is steamed and rice cakes are made, with the hot steam rising up, wouldn't that scent then travel far and wide?"
"Grandmaster, you're right."
Li Sanjiang stopped walking, turned around, and also looked at the rice fields: "Actually, what those articles you read say isn't all wrong. For us farmers, seeing the crops growing well in the fields, having grain in the storage and rice in the pot, not having to worry about hunger, that gives peace of mind. Stand anywhere, close your eyes, take a breath, and it's all sweet."
"No, you don't get it, Little Yuanhou. You've never truly gone hungry; you can't fully understand that feeling. Us being able to eat our fill has not been for many years.
But no matter what, it can't compare to before the liberation."
"Hm?" Li Zhiyuan asked in surprise, "Before liberation, did people always have enough to eat?"
"Yes, before liberation, everyone could have their fill, no one went hungry."
"Grandmaster, what you're saying seems off."
"Because livestock don't count as people."
"Little Yuanhou, your Grandmaster, I braved the Shanghai Beach too."
"Then Grandmaster, do you know Xu Wenqiang?"
"Who's Xu Wenqiang? Don't know him. When I went there, I went by boat; it was really convenient, after all, Nantong and Shanghai are just separated by a river.
Back then I thought, big Shanghai, oh big Shanghai, getting work must be so much easier there, and better than staying home farming for the landlord no matter what.
And I was lucky, found work as soon as I arrived."
"What kind of work had Grandmaster found?"
"The corpse carrying crew."
"Grandmaster worked in a funeral home?"
"Heh, there were funeral homes back then, but ordinary folks couldn't afford going there, carried in face up and need to leap out running, too expensive to die.
Grandmaster joined the corpse carrying crew, back then the municipal government allocated funds and some wealthy merchants d, and the job was... collecting bodies early in the morning, lifting the corpses found on the streets and in alleys, and taking them to nearby charitable burial places.
In good times, there might be a few d coffins available, not one per person, mind you, but many piled into one, jam-packed.
I still remember one time, so many kids about your size were collected, took a lot of effort to stuff them all inside.
It was helpless, truly helpless.
Do you know what I mean?"
"Does it mean the coffin was too heavy to be moved from outside, and from the inside it was so tightly packed that it was stuck and also couldn't be moved?"
"Right. And that's when times were good, there'd be a coffin. In bad times, bodies would just be rolled up in straw mats and disposed of swiftly. We couldn't burn or bury them in time, and would just dump them in the mass graves outside the city, feeding the wild dogs.
In winter, boy, it killed people.
Out on the streets early, you'd see plenty of whole families, huddled together, frozen stiff.
Little Yuanhou, that was big Shanghai, already a big city, extremely wealthy. An ordinary person dropping a little change from their fingers could feed a normal family for months.
But your Grandmaster, truly, worked all year round from start to finish, there were never enough hands for the work, we just couldn't finish.
Back then, I thought...
Everywhere you looked on the street, there were fancy cars, in that international district, there were dance halls, theaters, and tall buildings, and the ones going in and out were the lords and ladies dressed fancy. But just in the cracks of walls and the alleys, every day we found people starved to death.
I thought for a long time, and eventually, Grandmaster understood a truth.
Everyone has a pair of eyes, a nose, two legs to walk on, but only a small handful of people were considered 'people,' the rest... no, the rest were damned beasts.
Wait, that's not right, beasts are also valuable, at least they get a handful of hay when they're hungry, but them, they weren't even worthy of a piece of coffin board, they'd be collected only because it affected the city's appearance."
Li Zhiyuan hugged Li Sanjiang's neck a little tighter, pressing his face against the Grandmaster's back: "So Grandmaster, it was during that time that you learned your skills?"
"That's about right. Back then, a day's work carrying corpses barely covered a day's food; now, pulling one up lets me enjoy good food and drink for a while.
Liberation was really a good thing; humans finally became valuable."
"My grandpa also said that when he was a child, he was whipped while working as a long-term laborer for a landlord's family."
"Listen to Yuanhou's nonsense, his hair had barely grown out when we were liberated, and those landlords were all... ah, Little Yuanhou, are you not talking about Yuanhou?"
"Hahaha, that guy from Beijing, the dad of your father?"
"Yes, he said that if it hadn't been for truly not being able to survive, he wouldn't have joined the ranks to make a revolution."