He said, "I remember when we were rushing the construction, the Literary and Art Troupe came to the site to perform and boost morale. I remember these words, though I don’t know who said them on stage, but it went:
If we don’t build this embankment now, don’t dig this river now, don’t build this reservoir now, then we leave it to our children to build them later. We are taking all the hardship now so that our children won’t have to suffer in the future.
Looking back now, what was said is really true.
Panzi, Leizi, and the others won’t have to dredge rivers anymore."
The uncles all agreed, the days now are indeed much better than before.
The construction site was rather far, so teams from several towns would gather early and set off, only arriving by midday.
Moreover, there were many simple sheds at the construction site, including nearby houses that were temporarily requisitioned to provide hot water and dry food.
You could fetch hot water any time, and dry food was distributed to the village’s large and small teams.
The Li family sat together, eating scallion pancakes while the four uncles brought out homemade pickles and salty sauces from home.
"Little Yuanhou, do you like the food?" Uncle Li Sheng asked.
"Mmm, it’s tasty." Li Zhiyuan broke a piece of scallion pancake and put it in his mouth, the aroma of the scallion mixed with the dough was indeed delicious.
"Now we have provided meals. In the past, when your grandparents and I dredged rivers, we had to bring our own dry food and couldn’t even get hot water; we had to boil it ourselves.
After eating, there wasn’t time for a nap, and soon the cadre from the brigade came down to assign everyone their tasks.
Soon, Li Zhiyuan saw a dense crowd carrying tools and pushing carts, descending into the still waterless and somewhat muddy river ditch, resembling a swarm of ants.
But there was nothing insignificant about them, instead, it gave a sense of awe.
Organized into small groups, everyone started chanting and worked enthusiastically.
Li Zhiyuan was just tagging along and wasn’t part of the labor force; naturally, he wasn’t assigned any tasks. There were quite a few young kids around his age playing, some still holding and eating their pancakes.
However, Li Zhiyuan couldn’t really play with them; he followed Panzi and Leizi pushing the cart.
At that moment, a group of college students came over, asking Panzi and the others to help pull a rope to set a marker for measurements, and Li Zhiyuan was also assigned a task, holding a wooden stake at a designated spot.
Beside him were two college students, one measuring and the other recording, addressing each other by name, which was how Li Zhiyuan learned that the one measuring was Xue Liangliang and the one recording was Zhao Hequan.
Zhao Hequan, laughing, said, "Projects are becoming less common. The juniors after us won’t have to be assigned to construction sites anymore, I really envy them."
After Xue Liangliang recorded a data, he looked down to continue measuring but countered:
"No, in the future, these kinds of major projects will only increase, but our country won’t need to mobilize mass voluntary labor like in the past. The hardest times have almost passed; it will only get better from here."
"Xue Liangliang, what are you talking about?"
"What, you don’t believe?" Xue Liangliang smiled, "Then just wait and see in the future. Trust me, projects , in the future, will be considered too trivial to mention."
"If it’s trivial, then why are we still here doing this?"
"I said it would be trivial in the future, not necessarily in the past or present. Nantong is located right at the mouth of the Yangtze River entering the sea. In the past, so many irrigation projects were constructed, first for boat transportation, second for agricultural irrigation, and third, and most importantly, for flood and waterlogging prevention.
Without these infrastructures, there wouldn’t be any discussion on future development."
"Hehehehe." Zhao Hequan laughed, finding his team member a bit naive.
After finishing the measurements,
Xue Liangliang stood straight, stretched languidly after reporting the final group of data, looking at the bustling yet orderly construction scene in front of him, and couldn’t help but say:
"The great people are creating a great history."
"Wake up, Xue Liangliang, you almost made me think I was in a political class. Are you secretly memorizing books to prepare for the final exam?"
Xue Liangliang smiled without responding, lowering his head. Seeing Li Zhiyuan next to him also smiling, he reached out to pat Li Zhiyuan’s head and asked:
"Little friend, are you also following your family here?"
"Yes." Li Zhiyuan replied, "Even though I’m small, I am still one of the people."
Xue Liangliang burst into full laughter, bent down and hugged Li Zhiyuan, then took out some White Rabbit Creamy Candy pieces from his pocket and stuffed them into Li Zhiyuan’s.
He found the little boy amusing, and Li Zhiyuan also thought this big kid was interesting.
Especially hearing his words earlier reminded Li Zhiyuan of his Grandpa Bei.
Just then, some commotion came from the far end of the construction site as someone ran over, shouting:
"We’ve dug something up, we’ve dug something up!"
Discovering objects during construction was normal, though it piqued curiosity, not many people gathered to look, as everyone was busy completing their tasks.
However, the university students assigned to the site had more freedom after finishing their tasks, and Zhao Hequan immediately pulled Xue Liangliang urging:
"Come on, let’s go see what they dug up."
Gradually, news kept coming, and everyone roughly learned that they had unearthed a small temple, about the size of an ordinary household’s bathroom.