Siheyuan: Struggle Begins in the 1950s

I had only eaten half of a corn cob when I heard the noise of a crowd behind me.

Wang Jianjun looked up.

Oh, isn't this Xu Mule? No! Isn't this Xu Damao?

At this moment, Xu Damao has changed from his usual humble appearance.

The arrogant look looks a bit funny.

Along the way, there were four or five strong villagers following behind.

Some of these people were moving equipment, and some of them were carrying tables.

When they arrived at the threshing ground, Xu Damao began to direct the villagers to set up tables and build a projection screen.

He himself tinkered with the movie equipment.

There were many children around, sticking their heads out to look.

From time to time, adults would scold them and ask them to stay away.

After all, these film equipments are very valuable, and we cannot afford to compensate for them if they are damaged accidentally.

But there is one exception.

I saw a village woman in her early thirties who still had some charm standing beside Xu Damao and helping him.

Occasionally he would hand him a tool, and from time to time he would exchange glances and chat with Xu Damao.

Wang Jianjun wanted to laugh. Looking at the expressions of the two, he didn't believe that they didn't have a relationship beyond friendship.

This village woman is probably Xu Damao's mistress.

Xu Damao takes after his father Xu Fugui.

When I was young, I liked to go after women.

Wang Jianjun remembered that when he was a child, there was a woman who came to their courtyard to cause trouble with Xu Fugui.

It turned out that Xu Fugui had gotten into an affair when he went to the countryside, and he got a widow pregnant and came to the house to find her.

In the end, the matter was suppressed by Xu Fugui paying compensation, but because of this moral stain, Xu Fugui lost the chance to become the manager of the hospital.

Xu Damao takes after his father, a playboy.

In other words, projectionists have a high social status and earn a lot of gray income.

Otherwise, Xu Damao's mule face is not much better than Sha Zhu.

Wang Jianjun didn't bother to meddle in other people's business.

The village woman was obviously married, and she was able to chat and laugh openly with Xu Damao, so she was most likely a widow.

It is not easy for a widow to live in the countryside. At least she can live a better life by relying on Xu Damao, a rich man.

This situation is not uncommon in the countryside. If you can't survive, who would want to find someone to help them and be laughed at?

After Xu Damao adjusted his equipment, the title of the movie to be shown tonight, "Breaking Through the Darkness Before Dawn", appeared on the projection screen.

Everyone cheered at first, and then fell silent.

Because the projectionist will start explaining the movie next.

Although sound film technology already existed in this era, wax discs were used to produce sound.

But the projectionist couldn't bring so many equipment when he went to the countryside, and since there was no sound, Xu Damao had to do the dubbing himself.

So being a projectionist in this era is really a technical job.

Everything was ready. Xu Damao picked up the loudspeaker beside him and began to introduce the movie to be shown in the evening.

While explaining, his hands did not stop moving, and he turned the tape reel slowly and evenly.

It must be said that Xu Damao is indeed a good speaker and his words are powerful and eloquent.

With such eloquence, if he had not married Lou Xiao'e, the daughter of a capitalist, he could have become a small leader at least.

The movie's plot is a clichéd one about fighting the Japanese invaders, without any of the exaggerated plots of anti-Japanese dramas.

It's just that the actors' acting is a bit exaggerated.

But Wang Jianjun was quite interested in watching it.

This kind of entertainment with the characteristics of the era can only be enjoyed by living in this era.

After the movie was over, the village secretary gave a few polite words and then the villagers left the venue one after another with their benches.

Wang Jianjun left the village and found a deserted place and entered the space.

As for Xu Damao, Wang Jianjun didn't go to say hello to him.

This guy will probably be busy keeping the widow warm tonight.

Spent a night in space.

Early the next morning, Wang Jianjun pushed his bicycle into the village.

The two militiamen who were on guard were the same ones from yesterday.

Because we had met before, entering the village was much smoother today.

Wang Jianjun came today to purchase some grain for sowing.

He observed yesterday that there was a lot of arable land in Liu Village.

He even saw people growing wheat here.

As the saying goes, money can’t buy drought in May, and May is the season for harvesting winter wheat.

This is approaching the end of May, and many villagers should have already harvested their wheat.

Wang Jianjun planned to store more wheat for planting during the harvest.

In addition to eating it themselves, the livestock in the space also need to eat it.

Otherwise, when the people's commune movement begins next year, it will be difficult for him to buy it with money.

Buying food went smoothly.

After paying the grain tax, the villagers have some left for themselves to eat and keep for seeds.

The rest are usually sold to the village supply and marketing cooperative.

Wang Jianjun's coming to collect the goods just saved us a lot of trouble.

Not only did Wang Jianjun not lower the price, he also referred to the standards of the supply and marketing cooperative and even gave a price a few cents higher.

So most villagers were willing to sell food to him.

In addition to collecting grain, Wang Jianjun also asks villagers to buy some vegetable and fruit seeds.

If he has fruit trees at home, he will also ask for a few young branches for cuttings.

After the round, he received a lot of good things.

Among them are common vegetable seeds in the city, such as cabbage, leek, rapeseed, spinach, radish, coriander, and celery.

There are also coarse grains such as barley, sorghum, and soybeans.

The fruits we harvested included persimmons, grapes, apples and his favorite watermelon.

He only got a small handful of most of the vegetable seeds.

In the past, people in rural areas would paste the collected vegetable seeds with wood ash and stick them on the walls.

This way it can be preserved for a longer time and also avoid being destroyed by mice.

As for grain seeds, we collected quite a lot and bought dozens of kilograms in one morning.

Among them, he bought more than 100 kilograms of wheat.

Because he bought them one by one, and put them into the space when no one was paying attention, so he didn't attract anyone's attention.

The only pity is that no one grows rice here.

There is a kind of Jingxi rice in Sijiucheng that is quite famous and is considered a landmark agricultural product.

It used to be tribute rice for the royal family.

Wang Jianjun has inquired around and found out that this plant is only grown in Haidian District. It won't grow well in other places even if it is planted because of unsuitable geographical conditions.

Fortunately, now that he knew the place, he had a direction. Wang Jianjun planned to go to Haidian District after a while to see if he could get some rice seeds.

After visiting several restaurants, Wang Jianjun looked at the time and prepared to visit another restaurant so as to find a place to eat first.

At this moment he happened to come to a house on the edge of the village.

The location is a bit remote and there are not many houses around.

Wang Jianjun knocked on the door, and after a while a village woman came out to open the door.

In rural areas, unless it is the busy farming season, men usually work in the fields while women take care of the housework at home.

Wang Jianjun didn't think much about it at first.

It's just that at first glance, the person looks familiar.

After taking another closer look, he realized that this was not the woman Xu Damao had chatted with last night.