Chapter 220: Someone is coming to your house
Han Hongzhen didn’t understand how she suddenly became famous. She had been a widow for several years and no one in the village had ever talked about her. But now, everything had changed overnight. Wherever she went, people greeted her with a smile, and as soon as she walked away, they gathered together and whispered to each other.

Although Han Hongzhen knew that no one was saying bad things about her behind her back, she still felt weird about it.

It’s no wonder that everyone is curious, she herself is still confused.

How come I suddenly became a celebrity?

First, the Bingyang Daily published a report about her. She knew about this. Xie Hushan told her that he asked Lao Yang to find a reporter to write about her sideline work for the team in the past two years. The reason for writing about her was because she was a woman, and a widow, so she could serve as a role model for other women.

Han Hongzhen originally thought that this was no big deal, because according to what Xie Hushan said, it was nothing more than selling wontons and stewed pork for the team, burning brick kilns, and now managing the steel rolling mill. This happened all the way to show everyone that the work that men can do, women can also do.

So when Han Hongzhen first learned about this, in addition to feeling a little embarrassed, she also felt a little secretly happy in her heart. After all, as a peasant woman, she never thought that she would have the chance to have her name appear in the newspaper.

As soon as the report came out, Han Hongzhen was stunned.

The person named Han Hongzhen mentioned in the newspaper, is that still her?
Why does it feel like this is the child born to her and Xie Hushan?
Although the things she did were still the same, the way she wrote them was completely different.

At the beginning, she and her mother-in-law went to the market to sell wontons for the third team’s sideline group because her mother-in-law had difficulty moving. In order to earn more work points, she had to take her mother-in-law to the market day and night. In this way, they could at least earn full points for both women. If she stayed in the labor group, her mother-in-law would not be able to get full points.

However, the newspaper wrote that she took the initiative to propose selling wontons at the market because she saw that the income from the team’s side businesses was too low, so she volunteered to help the team with the side business. The reason for choosing to sell wontons was not for work points, but because going to the market could allow her to meet more people every day and keep an eye out for opportunities to generate income for the team.

Selling braised pork also became her credit. She heard about this dish from Xie Laoliu. She thought that everyone was short of oil and water and she should be able to make money, so she changed from selling wontons to selling braised pork.

After the stewed pork business became stable, I heard that the team was going to open a kiln to make bricks, so I volunteered to take over the most important supply and marketing work. I went to the most difficult part of the West Mountain with a group of male laborers, carrying bedding on my back, to live in a shack, drink bitter water, and eat wild vegetables…

The team was developing better and better. With the money earned from making bricks, they set up a steel rolling mill. She was regarded as a capable person in the third team and was transferred back to take charge of the work of the steel rolling mill. She regarded the mill as her home and focused on production…

Now, she has just taken up the post of director of Zhongping Light Industry Factory, and she is facing new resistance. People who once supported and encouraged her are against her arrangement, but she is unmoved. Like Yugong who moved the mountain, she firmly believes that products produced in rural areas can also have the opportunity to be sold to foreigners and generate income for the motherland…

If Han Hongzhen didn’t know about her own situation, she would have been ready to cry for Han Hongzhen in the newspaper. This girl has such a hard life. How could she be so miserable?

How could I be as miserable as the newspapers say?

The husband whom she met for the first time through a blind date became her childhood sweetheart in the newspaper, and she watched her husband being crushed to death, crawling on the rubble and crying out his name…

How could this be possible? Not to mention that the earthquake happened in the late night when everyone was asleep. Even if she was not asleep, she had just obtained her marriage certificate and had not held her wedding banquet and lived together when the earthquake happened. How could she not sleep in the middle of the night and wait outside her husband’s house?

Am I a daughter-in-law who never got married or a bandit who failed to succeed?
The wonton business is not doing well because she is being bullied as she is a widow with a disabled mother-in-law?
Later, people started selling buns. They were indeed excluded, but it was not to be called bullying. The main reason why the wonton business was not good was that they were vegetarian and did not have much oil.

Han Hongzhen originally thought that what she read in the newspaper was exaggerated enough, but something even more exaggerated happened.

The county women’s federation arranged for her to give a report to a meeting of women representatives from the county at the county conference hall, so that female comrades could learn from her selfless and fearless spirit of not fearing hardship or fatigue and wholeheartedly seeking the welfare of the collective. The county leaders also awarded her a certificate of honor and a banner.

At this point, Han Hongzhen could still understand it. After all, Hu Shuang, the secretary of the County Women’s Federation who had been in contact with her, was Jiao Peng’s lover. When she and Xie Hushan went to pay New Year’s greetings to Jiao Peng, Hu Shuang and she had always had contact.

But then the leaders of the Women’s Federation of Yaoshan City came to inspect and comfort her. Some of the gray-haired female leaders who only knew her name through the newspaper had tears in their eyes when they saw her for the first time. They grabbed her hand and kept saying: It’s not easy. It’s not easy for a woman in the countryside to get to this point. You have suffered…

Hu Shuang, the secretary of the Women’s Federation of Bingyang County, introduced her to the party. On the other side, the leaders of the Women’s Federation of Yaoshan City have organized and called on comrades from the Women’s Federations of neighboring counties and outstanding women representatives to come to Zhongping to learn from her.

Han Hongzhen was very excited about joining the party. After all, these days, having the word “party member” in one’s political status is still very important.

But she was terrified by the fact that groups of women came to Zhongping to learn from her and to visit her.

After receiving a notice from the commune and the brigade yesterday that Hu Shuang and other comrades from the Women’s Federation of Bingyang County would bring more than 30 women representatives from the neighboring Yushui County who were coming to visit and study to meet her in Zhongping tomorrow, Han Hongzhen did not sleep all night and came to the brigade headquarters to meet Xie Hushan at six o’clock in the morning.

She knew that Xie Hushan was on night duty at the brigade headquarters last night, and she was afraid of gossip, otherwise she would have come to find him last night.

“More than thirty people want to learn from me. What can I teach them?” Han Hongzhen twisted her body and sat across the table, turning her face away so as not to look at Xie Hushan.

Xie Hushan looked angry as he got up, and poked the fire with a stove hook. He was too embarrassed to yell at a woman, but Ma Laowu and Accountant Zhao usually didn’t dare to come too early when he was on duty to cause bad luck. There was no one else to vent his anger on, so he could only poke the fire hard and shouted:
“Dahei! Come here!”

Dahei, who had followed Xie Hushan and had a smooth and shiny fur, came in from outside, wagging his tail. When he saw Xie Hushan squatting on the ground with his head moving towards him, Xie Hushan grabbed the dog’s head in annoyance and slapped Dahei four times.

Han Hongzhen said speechlessly: “I’m asking you something serious, why are you taking your anger out on a dog?”

To her surprise, Dahei seemed to have gotten used to it. After being hit in the face, he didn’t react at all and didn’t run away. Instead, he lay down beside the stove.

After the fight, Xie Hushan got up and took out the leftovers from last night’s meal from the kitchen. He put all the food, both meat and vegetables, into the dog food bowl that had been prepared long ago, and put the bowl on the ground. Dahei went up and took a few bites from the bowl, then raised his head and looked at Xie Hushan. Han Hongzhen could almost understand what was in the dog’s eyes.

Dahei might want Xie Hushan to hit him a few more times. He felt a little guilty about the fact that he ate so well after only four hits. He would not retreat if he didn’t hit him, since he had already eaten it anyway.

Xie Hushan, who had taken out his anger on Dahei, was wearing cotton slippers woven with wool and cotton. He searched for a long time, muttering to himself, but couldn’t find his shoes and socks. Finally, he sighed, opened the door of the team headquarters, and shouted to the boy who was passing by the team headquarters early in the morning to pick up manure: “Little boy, go to my house and ask my aunt to bring over the socks and shoes that she brought back for me to wash last night. I’ll buy you two sesame cakes on the way as errand fee, and I’ll pay you when you come back. Go!”

Hearing what Xie Hushan said, the little boy carrying the dung basket smiled like a flower and jumped high as he ran towards Xie Hushan’s house.

Looking at the pair of slippers on Xie Hushan’s feet, Han Hongzhen had never seen anyone so wasteful that he mixed the fine crimson wool and white cotton thread to weave slippers. Someone gave him some wool as a gift, and he thought of weaving it into slippers. No one knew what was in his head.

Wouldn’t it be nice to knit it into a sweater?
Xie Hushan sat back at the table, looked at Han Hongzhen across the table, and said sleepily:
“I told you yesterday. When they came, you started talking about how you took your mother-in-law to the market to sell wontons, and then talked about how you are now the factory director. Don’t you know how to speak? It’s all written in the newspaper. You can check the newspaper if you don’t know how to speak.”

“What’s in the newspaper is all nonsense. How can I say that in front of others? I blush when I hear those words and feel ashamed of myself.” Han Hongzhen retorted in a dissatisfied tone when she heard Xie Hushan asking her to say what was in the newspaper.

Xie Hushan picked up the teacup, drank a sip of overnight cold tea, and looked at Han Hongzhen who looked angry: “How can you make it up? No one made it up. These are all things you did yourself. Why are you embarrassed?”

“Which one is not true? In the middle of winter, are you going to call your mother-in-law and wash the pig offal with ice-cold water, with your hands full of cuts from the cold? If they don’t believe it, show them your hands!”

“Is it because the team is short of labor that you left your mother-in-law to clean up the mess while you can only pull a cart with a nine-year-old idiot to go to the market all over the world?”

“Did you go to the cliff with your blankets on your back to make bricks, and then you followed a group of old men to work in the dirt for several months?”

“Steel rolling mill, I am the factory director and I am a hands-off manager. Do you have to serve me like a master and keep an eye on all the work in the factory for me?”

“Why do others think you deserve it, but you feel unworthy of it? I wonder why you think so little of yourself? You’ve suffered so much, but when honor comes to you, you’re so scared?”

“You are still making up stories. Can you get honor by making up stories? Do you think the leaders of Yaoshan are blind? They only listen to the newspapers and can’t they learn about it in private? If you have never suffered those hardships and have not made contributions to Zhongping, then you are mentally ill and are calling on other women comrades to learn from you?”

“It’s not like I worked in vain. The team gave me work points, and I also received subsidies for making bricks.” Han Hongzhen said, “Selflessness is about not seeking anything in return. I am…”

She wanted to say that she was not making selfless contributions, but she didn’t know how to refute it. She could only say halfway, staring at Xie Hushan with her mouth open, without saying a word.

“If you can say this in 2024, everyone will sign you up for the “Moving China” campaign.” Xie Hushan sighed and slowed down his tone:

“Fourth sister, if we have any other tricks in Zhongping, can we let the women rush to the front? Ever since the Anti-Japanese War, it has always been men who go to the front when something happens, but this time is different, don’t you understand? The best men now, even if Lao Yang is assigned to Zhongping, it’s all shit to them. Han Laogou, an old revolutionary, the county magistrate has a headache when he sees him, and it still won’t work. The current situation is that if the men go up, the whole army will be wiped out. If you rush to the front line, there is still a glimmer of hope. If you back down, at least hundreds of female comrades in Bingyang County will curse you behind your back and ruin your reputation.”

“Ah? Ruining my reputation?” Han Hongzhen was shocked. Why should she be scolded behind her back if she didn’t want others to make up stories about her?

Xie Hushan crossed his legs and swung his slippers: “I have told you about this in general. I told you and Taozi about it during the autumn harvest last year. I said that we should build a garment or textile factory next year and bring all the young women from the poor brigade to work in the factory, so that they can earn money and learn skills. Then we can let them marry into good families and save them from the wrath of a mother-in-law like Ma Saner’s mother who despises the poor and loves the rich.”

“I have the money to start a factory, but you have been in the steel mill for so long, you also know that the most important thing for a factory is to have business. If no one buys the products, the factory will have to close down. Now there is an opportunity to make money from foreigners. The wages of foreign workers are high, so it is not cost-effective for them to start their own factories. Our country is cheap, so they are willing to give the work to us. However, we cannot do business with foreigners privately in China. Cooperating with Hong Kong businessmen to open a factory and sell calendars to China is one thing, but formally cooperating with foreigners is another matter, which is very complicated. You know that this matter must have indicators. With the indicators, our Zhongping factory will be qualified to participate in an exhibition and discuss business with foreigners.”

“But this quota is very small. There are only more than 1,000 in the whole country. On average, a county can’t get one quota. What’s more, it is not distributed on an equal basis, but by the province. When the province looks at the information, it first looks at the honors of the registered companies and the honors of the person in charge. There are no decent men in Zhongping. There is no reliable one. We can’t compete at all.”

“But, I understand that there are almost no women factory managers. Women also need role models. You have done so much for the team, so let’s spread the word in the newspaper and see if there is a chance to get that glimmer of hope.”

“If you get it, how many girls will no longer have to worry about being bullied by their mother-in-laws? How many girls will learn the skills of making clothes and no longer have to worry about hanging around the stove all day? If you can’t do it, these girls will have to be married off and face the cold eyes of their mother-in-laws every day, and they may even get beaten. Tell me, if they knew that they were in trouble because of your retreat, wouldn’t they definitely try to discredit you behind your back?”

Han Hongzhen lowered her head and remained silent for a while, then raised her head and looked at Xie Hushan who was swinging his legs. She seemed to want to say something but stopped herself and still turned her eyes away.

She remembered that it was during the wheat harvest last year that the young man did say such words to her and Taozi when they were chatting. At that time, Ma Saner, who had just returned from Yakou, was telling a few militiamen that his mother despised the girls from Yakou because they were poor and looked down on them, and was afraid that her parents would come to ask for money every day.

It was also at that time that Xie Hushan told Taozi that he would build a factory next year and recruit all the girls from the poor mountain villages in Xishan to work and earn wages. By then, those mothers-in-law who looked down on them would not be able to find wives for their sons until they were old.

At that time, she thought Xie Hushan was afraid that Taozi would be sad after hearing what Ma Saner said, so he said this to cheer her up. In her heart, she thought that this guy was so sweet-mouthed when he spoke to Taozi.

Who knew that it was not just idle talk, he really wanted to open a factory so that girls from poor areas could learn a skill, live a good life and find a good family.

“You’re so shy, you look at me and then turn away. What’s the matter? Are you afraid that others can’t tell that we’re having an affair?” Xie Hushan saw that Han Hongzhen’s reaction was a little strange, and asked in confusion, “Now someone comes in from outside and sees your reaction just now. He won’t believe that we’re all right. If you have anything to say, say it quickly. I have a lot of things to do today. After I finish these women’s affairs, I have to pick up Taozi in the afternoon. Let’s discuss and find an auspicious day to set the date for the wedding.”

Han Hongzhen hesitated for a moment, suppressed her thoughts, changed the question, and rolled her eyes at Xie Hushan: “Nothing, I just want to say, you always ask difficult questions. The newspaper also wrote that I taught myself foreign languages. How could I know those things? If people ask me, what should I say?”

“Hey! That’s a big deal. Let me teach you. When people ask you what foreign language you learned, I’ll teach you a jingle. Just recite it once. Come is for coming, go is for going, nod your head for Yes, shake your head for No, I am I, you are You, and when you meet someone, say Hello. These few sentences are enough. They are all women representatives from various brigades. They don’t know any foreign language. You can fool people with just two words. You have to be busy with production all day. The leaders can understand that you didn’t learn a few words.” Xie Hushan said to Han Hongzhen:

“If you can’t remember it after just one try, I’ll write it down on paper and you can memorize it yourself.”

“When you are receiving them, just say whatever you normally say to everyone else. Just remember one thing. Even if you say whatever you want, your attitude must be the same. You firmly support opening up and respond to the country’s call. You must lead other women in the team to make new contributions in the new era. The current goal is to sell the products of the light factory to foreigners and earn foreign exchange for the motherland. As a young woman who grew up in the countryside, you must contribute to the motherland’s early realization of the new four modernizations! You can say whatever you want, but in the end you must express this attitude and emotion. This…”

“Third brother! Third brother!”

When Xie Hushan was teaching Han Hongzhen the precautions for receiving guests, the boy who was in charge of helping him get his shoes and socks from home came running in with the baked shoes and socks in his hands: “Someone’s coming to your house! Auntie asked you to go back quickly!”

(End of this chapter)