Chapter 2807 Daya Village

"More young men heading off to be soldiers." Zhang Laicai returned to the private room with a sigh.

"Someone has to go, don't they?" Tan Shuangxi said. "This splendid, colorful world of ours—someone has to watch over it."

Zhang Laicai said nothing. He lit a cigarette and blew slow smoke rings. Tan Shuangxi, bored out of his mind, picked up the day's fresh issue of the Lingao Times from beside the table and began flipping through it idly. Suddenly his eyes went wide, and he nudged Zhang Laicai's arm.

"Look at this!"

Zhang Laicai startled so badly he nearly dropped the cigarette butt on his arm. Thinking it must be urgent news, he hurriedly stubbed out the cigarette and leaned over.

"What is it?!"

What he saw, however, was the literary section of the Lingao Times—though they usually enjoyed reading the newspaper, they typically skipped that part.

"What's this..."

"Look here!" Tan Shuangxi pointed at a small block at the end of the literary section.

Zhang Laicai focused and saw it was a poem signed by Tan Haonan.

"Because I truly like her, I want to share all beautiful things with her. Setting aside love, simply liking someone also makes you want to share the beauty you feel with her. For example, the moon tonight is truly beautiful, and the wind is gentle too."

When Tan Shuangxi woke, his head still felt ready to split. After drinking a big bowl of hot water and lying wrapped in his blanket for a while longer, he finally felt somewhat better. The sun was already high; he had missed the broadcast time signal and guessed it was already past nine. Zhang Laicai hadn't returned yet—a moment of spring night is worth a thousand gold pieces, and that fellow probably wouldn't be back at the inn until noon.

After dinner the previous evening, Zhang Laicai had left. With nothing else to do, Tan Shuangxi had continued drinking to drown his sorrows. The beer ran out and wasn't satisfying enough, so he ordered fruit brandy. By the time he realized how late it had gotten, he could no longer stand steadily.

Fortunately, not far from the restaurant stood an inn bearing a "Military Designated" sign. The restaurant owner, fearing Tan Shuangxi might cause trouble while drunk, sent two shop hands to escort him there and check him in.

Just as his head was aching most fiercely, Zhang Laicai found him.

"So this is where you've been hiding." Zhang Laicai was beaming. "I had to ask the restaurant owner before I tracked you down."

"He sent me here." Tan Shuangxi waved his hand weakly. "A good man, truly..."

"A serving of stewed sheep testicles cost us fifteen cents—of course they have to serve you well." Seeing Tan Shuangxi's haggard state, Zhang Laicai added, "Feeling rough from drinking too much? You don't usually drink much; downing that amount all at once will do this to you."

"Never again," Tan Shuangxi muttered.

Zhang Laicai, on the other hand, was full of energy. Seeing Tan Shuangxi looking so sickly, he fetched water for him to wash his face, then went outside to buy him porridge. The camaraderie they hadn't built over years of serving together had somehow solidified during these few days of their mission.

"The last one is a platoon leader." Zhang Laicai sat at the dining table watching Tan Shuangxi drink porridge while flipping through the mission documents.

"Platoon leader," Tan Shuangxi repeated unconsciously.

Li Anze had been the platoon leader of his platoon. It was precisely because of Li Anze's death in action that Tan Shuangxi had become the "Senior Sergeant" of the unit. Their connection ran deep. Tan Shuangxi's entire journey from an ordinary soldier at the start of the campaign to Senior Sergeant and acting platoon leader—none of it would have been possible without this officer's guidance. Although Li Anze was much younger than him, in Tan Shuangxi's eyes, this graduate of the Jeju Island Army School had been like both father and elder brother.

"Such a pity. Lieutenant Li originally had a boundless future ahead of him," Zhang Laicai said with deep regret. "Look at this—it's always the talented ones who die."

Li Anze had been a true "academy-bred" military cadre. After graduating from senior primary school, he was admitted to the Jeju Island Army School and completed the first two-year infantry program. Compared to the old "Military and Political Cadre Schools" that lasted three months, six months, or at most a year, this batch of graduates not only possessed higher cultural levels but, due to extended professional training, also boasted first-rate military aptitude. The Senator officers valued them highly; all were targets for priority cultivation.

Tan Shuangxi said solemnly, "He was my benefactor."

"That's right. If not for him, you'd have been dead long ago."

This touched on a past incident. Back when they were pursuing Ming troops during a night march, Tan Shuangxi's platoon had been assigned to the battalion's collection duty, specifically recovering straggling soldiers. The night was dark and the road slippery; he slipped and tumbled into a mountain gully, losing consciousness.

When he woke, the unit had already passed. He was bleeding from a head wound and had twisted his ankle. Lying alone in the gully's undergrowth, surrounded by wilderness—crying to heaven brought no answer, calling to earth brought no response. He could only sit and await death. But unexpectedly, Platoon Leader Li Anze had noticed him missing during the morning roll call. While the unit rested, he led men back at the risk of being attacked by stragglers and bandits, walking nearly twenty li on mountain paths to rescue him.

"If not for him, not only would my bones have been lost without a trace, but most likely my file would bear an inexplicable 'Missing' stamp." Tan Shuangxi spoke with deep emotion.

"He was from your hometown, right?"

"He and my grandmother were from the same village," Tan Shuangxi said. "The Li family were the village carpenters. His father was skilled—he worked outside all year round and always brought back a good amount of money and rice at year's end. Their life was better than most in the village. That's why he could study and learn to read."

After breakfast, the two set off. Daya Village, where Li Anze's family lived, was a fair distance from the urban rail. It was a coastal village; they could either take the coastal transport boat from Bopu or take the rural route's public coach. To save time, they decided on the coach.

Unexpectedly, at the Bairen Transport Center, Tan Shuangxi ran into an acquaintance—a villager from Daya Village who had come to Bairen to deliver goods and was now heading back after unloading. The two hitched a ride on his cargo coach.

Once aboard, they found the wide carriage more than half loaded. Judging from the packaging, it was all daily consumer goods: liquor, fabric, soap... There were also farm tools, fishing gear, and hardware materials.

Fields receded on both sides of the road as they traveled. The route to Daya Village was average. The gravel surface was fairly level, but the foundation was thin, and they frequently encountered significant potholes that made the whole coach jolt continuously.

"Sorry about the bumps—this is a cargo vehicle." The driver called back to them. "The suspension's a bit rough. Not as comfortable as a passenger coach!"

"No problem, having a ride is good enough." Tan Shuangxi handed the driver a cigarette and started chatting idly, hoping to distract himself and ease the lingering discomfort from his hangover.

"The road isn't very good?"

"Built with pooled funds—how good can it get?" The driver smoked and chattered on. This road wasn't considered an "official highway" but rather had been built with money and labor contributed by Daya Village and several villages along the way. However, since it was the first time private funds had been pooled to build a road, the county's Civil Affairs Section provided a small subsidy and sent a technician free of charge to survey and design. So the road's specifications followed Australian style—it just lacked big machines to compact the foundation, and the materials were substandard. A few months after completion, it had started deteriorating.

"...These past two years, we patch it when it breaks. We patch slower than it breaks," the driver said. "Well, how many vehicles pass on this road every day? Strange if it didn't get worn down."

Daya Village and several other coastal villages used this road to sell their catches to Chengmai County seat and Maniao Fort, while villages not on the coast used it to sell vegetables and poultry. Whether it was the old county seat or Bopu, Bairen, Jialai... these emerging towns' giant appetites seemed never to be satisfied. Cargo coaches flowed endlessly along the road, transporting agricultural and fishing products and bringing back industrial goods from town.

"It's really different from before." Tan Shuangxi gazed at the scenery along the way and sighed.

He hadn't been to Daya Village for a long time. As a child, he had loved accompanying his mother back to her maiden home. As he grew older, he went less often. The family was poor, and his mother wasn't enthusiastic about visiting either. After all, life at her maiden home hadn't been easy. Dragging children along meant the face-saving hospitality became "reluctant"—grandmother's worry beneath her happy expression, uncle's slightly awkward "welcome," aunt's undisguised disgust. Although kinship still compelled occasional visits, they grew fewer and fewer.

Later, when grandmother passed away, he had hurried back to Daya Village with his mother for the funeral. In a flash, several more years had passed since then.

"Now there are ten times more people than before," the driver said. "All northerners. If you speak the local dialect in the village now, eight out of ten won't understand. Everyone can only speak New Speech these days."

"Everyone understands New Speech; there's nothing bad about that."

"True, nothing bad. But the children can't speak the dialect anymore..." The driver seemed to have some complaints, but he couldn't quite articulate what harm there was in children not speaking it. He just sighed helplessly.

On one side of the road, the terrain opened up into vast coastal mudflats. Near the road, grass and shrubs grew thick. On the mudflats, flocks of ducks foraged.

Tan Shuangxi knew this was "mudflat duck farming." Raising ducks this way not only saved feed but also produced more eggs of better quality. These were the so-called "sea duck eggs."

"So many ducks!" Zhang Laicai stood up to gaze at the massive flocks constantly forming various patterns on the mudflat, exclaiming in surprise.

"This isn't many," the driver said. "Just a small part. These days, many households in the village are raising ducks; fewer go out to fish instead."

"Oh? Why not fish?" Tan Shuangxi was somewhat puzzled.

"Fishing takes more capital now. You need big boats—Australian-style big boats at that. Fishing gear isn't cheap either, and you have to buy ice... As for making money, fishing earns more than before, but the capital investment—ordinary people can't afford it. Besides, big boats save manpower; what do the extra people do? They have to find other livelihoods. The Heaven and Earth Society sent people to promote duck-raising, saying we have lots of mudflats here. So the village started raising ducks. Selling eggs to the food factory at least earns enough to keep the family fed."

"That's fine too. Going out to sea to fish is hard work, after all," Tan Shuangxi said sincerely.

(End of Chapter)