Chapter 116 - The Students

“I think they’re planning to press oil. Coconut oil poached fish.”

“That sounds disgusting,” Shi Niaoren said. “But it’s more likely they’re preparing to make soap.”

“They won’t be making soap on a large scale anymore,” Jiang Qiuyan said. “This expedition discovered a large amount of soapberry resources. It’s estimated that everyone will be using soapberries for a long time.”

“Does washing your hands with soapberries have a sterilizing effect?”

“I don’t know, it should.”

With that, he took out several thick, wrinkled notebooks stained with salt from his personal box, which contained the case files, health diaries, and disease conditions written during the expedition.

“Let’s sort these things out together when we have time. After all, I’m a psychologist, and this is a bit unfamiliar to me.”

Fu Wuben was taken to the No. 1 male children’s dormitory. In addition to gender segregation, the quarantine camp now also segregated by age, no longer putting orphans and single men together. The reason was that in the quarantine camp in Bopu, there had been incidents of adults snatching children’s food and sodomizing children. Although the perpetrators paid a heavy price—they were sent to the labor reform team and sentenced to labor until death—the transmigrators still decided to separate adults and children to prevent such scandals from happening again.

The No. 1 barracks was for the children who had just arrived. There were less than ten people in the thirty bunk beds, and the room was empty. A few children were sitting on the edge of their beds, reading aloud, while a few others were roughhousing. Like him, they were all bald and wore tight-fitting, high-collared blue cloth jackets.

The beds were covered with clean straw mats, and there was a stack of single blankets made of the same blue cloth as their clothes, and a simple cattail pillow. Besides that, there was a small cabinet of unfinished wood next to the bed.

Fu Wuben knew the rules for newcomers. After entering, he stood obediently, waiting to see if a “leader” would come out to assign him a bed. But after waiting for a long time, no one spoke. He cautiously chose a bed that looked unoccupied and put down the luggage he had just received.

“Hey!” someone shouted. Fu Wuben was startled and quickly picked up his things again, standing blankly by the bed.

A boy ran over. “Newcomer! You can’t put your luggage directly on the bed! If Teacher Bai sees it, you’ll get a beating.”

“Then where do I put it?” Fu Wuben asked, and then added in a fawning tone, “Senior Brother.”

“Senior Brother?” The boy was stunned, then laughed. “I’m not your senior brother. My name is Lu Jia! I’m from the county capital!” When he said he was from the county capital, he seemed to proudly stick out his chest.

The so-called county capital people were the people from the county town, the so-called “city people.” The sense of superiority of being a “city person” was also very common in ancient times.

“Isn’t your family just a tenant farmer of the school land? You’re a barbarian living at the city gate,” a few boys next to him immediately acted as the truth party. “What’s there to be proud of?”

“My family is an official tenant…”

“So what if you’re an official tenant? You’re still so poor your butt is showing.”

“I’m from XX village,” Fu Wuben carefully avoided joining this conversation about the truth.

“I heard! A lot of people from your place have come recently,” Lu Jia said. “The rules here are very strict. Everything has to be put away neatly, and you can’t just put things anywhere.”

“I’m from the Thirteen Villages!” a boy ran over. “My name is Yuan… Yuan…” He finally remembered his newly given official name: “Yuan Fei!”

“You people from the Thirteen Villages are all bandit brats!” Before the two could exchange pleasantries, a discordant voice came from another corner of the room. It was a slightly older boy with a large scar on his forehead, which made him look very fierce.

“You’re talking nonsense!” Yuan Fei shouted angrily. “My father is not a bandit!”

“Your grandfather is a bandit, your whole family, your whole village are all bandits!” the scarred-faced boy shouted back without showing any weakness. The two glared at each other, looking as if they were about to start fighting and eat each other alive. Fu Wuben was so scared that he hid behind.

“That’s Wu Xiang,” Lu Jia said in a low voice. “I heard that his family was harmed by Dang Namen’s gang, so he’s like a madman now. If anyone says they’re from the Thirteen Villages, he’ll immediately treat you like an mortal enemy.”

“Will he hit people—” Fu Wuben thought, I’m also from the Thirteen Villages area. I don’t want to get beaten for no reason. That’s not worth it.

“Don’t worry, he won’t dare. Last time he fought with Yuan Fei, he was dragged out and given a good whipping. Now he only dares to shout,” Lu Jia said nonchalantly. “If he makes any more trouble, he’ll be sent to the labor reform team.”

Sure enough, after a few minutes of glaring at each other as if to kill with their eyes, the two of them backed down. Yuan Fei said, “That’s great. Now that you’re here, we from the Thirteen Villages don’t have to take that madman’s crap anymore.”

“You’d better save it,” Lu Jia said. “The Australian superiors hate it when people form cliques based on their hometown or clan. Be careful of the cane!”

“I’m not a bandit’s family!” Yuan Fei said with a wronged expression. “The children of the bandits’ families are all locked up in a separate camp by the church! I heard they’re going to make them foreign monks!”

“Why do they want them to be monks?” Fu Wuben asked strangely.

“Who knows,” Lu Jia said. “Let’s put our things away first.”

Fu Wuben opened the bag he had received. There were many things inside: a set of clothes identical to the one he was wearing, a hat with a brim, two sets of underwear, and socks—the underwear and socks were very soft and had no seams, which surprised him. These were products made by the Bairen Textile Factory with primitive knitting machines.

Then there were two long towels, one white and one blue. They were thick and soft, with loops all over them. Lu Jia told him: these are called towels, the white one for washing your face, the blue one for bathing. Fu Wuben had never used a face towel in his life, and now he heard that he had to use two. He suddenly felt as if he had come to the wrong place—even the landlords and grain merchants were not so particular.

He knew that the wooden toothbrush was for brushing his teeth. A landlord in his village used one, and it looked similar. Of course, he had never used one himself.

There was a bamboo cup for drinking water and rinsing his mouth, and a large bowl and chopsticks and a spoon for eating.

“Master is so thoughtful.”

“Everyone gets the same, it’s nothing special,” Lu Jia said with the air of a veteran who knew everything. Then he taught him to put things in their designated places according to category: clothes had to be folded neatly and placed in the cabinet, towels had to be hung unfolded, and even the direction of the chopsticks had a rule.

“The Australians hate messiness the most. There are rules for everything, even for taking a shit!” Lu Jia described exaggeratedly. “And they’re very afraid of dirt, so they have to take a bath every day! If you break the rules, you’ll be dragged out and spanked.” As he said this, he shivered, probably remembering the feeling of being beaten. “They use a cane.” He subconsciously touched his bottom.

As they were talking, Fu Wuben’s stomach suddenly churned.

“I can’t hold it! Where’s the latrine?”

“Go out and run to the left, there’s a house with two doors,” Lu Jia hadn’t finished speaking when Fu Wuben was about to run.

“Don’t run, take the toilet paper!” Lu Jia gave him the toilet paper. Fu Wuben ran off without being able to say a word.

When Fu Wuben returned to the dormitory, his legs could barely move. It was like a storm in his stomach. After he came out, a big kid on duty outside asked him to wash his hands and even used a slippery thing to rub on his hands until it foamed before he could wash them clean.

Fu Wuben’s diarrhea would continue for another two days, until he stopped taking the deworming medicine.

Everyone talked for a while longer. It turned out that everyone came from a different background. Lu Jia was an apprentice recruited by Wu Nanhai.

“That day, Master Wu and the county instructor took a turn in the fields and then accepted me,” he said proudly. “He even said I was some kind of promising what?”

Yuan Fei was recruited by Du Wen when she was taking in orphans in the Thirteen Villages area—he was not an orphan, but after hearing that children who went to Bairen could get free food and clothing and also learn to read and write, many families who felt they had too many children and a heavy burden also sent their young children over, and the work team accepted them all.

As for Wu Xiang, he had run to the East Gate Market himself and asked to seek freedom—they all came from different backgrounds.

There were two types of children here: “commissioned students”—sent or adopted by individual transmigrators, whose related nurturing expenses were deducted from their own income. After a simple basic literacy study and military training, they were taken back by their “masters” to be educated themselves; “government-funded students”—children from various channels, who were uniformly nurtured and educated by the Ministry of Education, and then sent to various places according to their learning situation.

As they were talking, a call came from outside, “Attention! Officer inspecting the rooms.” With this long call, the children in the room quickly put down what they were doing and all stood by their beds, standing at attention.

“Hurry up and stand at attention!” Lu Jia reminded him. Fu Wuben imitated him and stood up straight.

The person who came was a military officer in an army uniform—during the quarantine period, it was a unanimous resolution of the Executive Committee to give all people basic military training to strengthen their organization, discipline, and obedience. So it was stipulated that army and navy officers would take turns serving as instructors in the quarantine camp. The person who came was none other than Zhang Bolin.

Lu Jia, who was standing closest to the door, saw Zhang Bolin come in and shouted, “Attention!”

Zhang Bolin scanned the entire room and returned the salute.

“Reporting, sir! There are twelve people in dormitory one, and twelve are present! Please give your instructions.”

Zhang Bolin waved his hand and walked down the aisle between the beds, looking at each bed and the cabinet next to it. From time to time, he would wipe the furniture with his white-gloved hand to check for dust. When he did this, a child’s forehead broke out in a cold sweat.

Finally, he expressed his satisfaction with the hygiene and order here and walked out. Then came the shout from the next dormitory.

Fu Wuben broke out in a cold sweat. Lu Jia said proudly, “See how strict the rules are here? The dormitory rules are on the wall. you’d better memorize them.”

“I can’t read,” Fu Wuben said embarrassedly.