Chapter 126: A Sense of Strangeness

Dai Yan brought back three meal trays, then left again, only to return shortly after with a mysterious look on her face.

“Mother, drink this!”

Mrs. Dai took the bottle her daughter handed over like a treasure. She shook it and looked at the bottle filled with a white liquid. Suddenly, she realized it was made of glass. Her hand trembled, and she almost dropped it.

“My girl, what is this?”

“This is called milk. The cafeteria just started serving it last month. Only we get to drink it in the morning. I got first place in two subjects on the last monthly exam and got two reward coupons. I exchanged them for two bottles for you to try!” Dai Yan spoke very quickly, handing the other bottle to her father as if presenting a treasure.

Dai Dehou looked at the bottle in his hand and was instantly shocked. This was crystal glass!

The milk bottle in front of him was different from the colored glass bottles that were already being sold in large quantities on the market at a low price. It was a transparent crystal glass bottle, and the workmanship was extremely fine. It would not be difficult to exchange it for one or two taels of silver on the market.

The Chiefs are truly generous, Dai Dehou thought with gratitude, his hand trembling slightly. He quickly placed the bottle on the table.

Dai Yan, however, was used to it. She took the bottle, skillfully untied the cotton thread, opened the paper seal, and handed it over again.

Urged on by his daughter’s constant gestures, Dai Dehou took the bottle and carefully took a sip. It had a faint sweet taste, followed by a peculiar aroma that began to fill his mouth.

“It’s delicious, right? Mother, you drink too!” Dai Yan opened the other bottle, handed it to Mrs. Dai, and watched her start to drink, feeling satisfied.

Dai Yan’s mother was not used to the faint “fishy” taste of the milk, but in order not to disappoint her daughter’s good intentions, she still drank it down with a stiff upper lip.

Dai Yan was a restless child. She pushed the meal tray in front of her parents, then took the food box Mrs. Dai had brought, opened it, and pouted. She untied the cotton cloth wrapped around the food container, lifted the lid, and placed the warm large yellow croaker in front of her.

“I told you last time not to bring food. The school treats us very well. We have fish and meat at every meal, and we’re not allowed to leave any leftovers!”

Dai Dehou looked at the rattan meal tray in front of him. It contained several bowls made of coconut shells. Not only was there taro stewed with chicken, but also a dish of stir-fried pork slices with green and red vegetables, and a bowl of vegetable and egg drop soup. It was even more exquisite than what they ate at home.

The three of them began to eat. Mrs. Dai picked up a piece of the unfamiliar dried green vegetable next to the meat slices, put it in her mouth, and bit down. A pungent taste immediately spread in her mouth, and then she could no longer maintain her etiquette, opening her mouth and constantly panting.

“Hee hee, this is a bit spicy, right? It’s okay, just drink some milk,” Dai Yan said with a giggle. “I asked the teacher. This chili pepper whets the appetite. It’s from America, hey, it’s an island very, very far to our southwest. The Chiefs brought it over and planted it in Lingao, so we have it now.”

Although chili peppers were already sold on the market, they were relatively expensive, and eating habits were different. Except for wealthy households and naturalized citizen cadres, ordinary people in Lingao rarely bought them. Although Dai Dehou and Mrs. Dai had seen all kinds of round, pointed, red, and green chili peppers at the vegetable and fruit direct sales store opened by the Red Flower Society, they had never actually eaten them.

Unfamiliar words kept coming out of his daughter’s mouth. Dai Dehou had never heard them before. Seeing his daughter’s success, he felt both proud and anxious for his son, Dai Yu.

No matter how successful his daughter was, she would eventually benefit an outsider. How much could his own family gain?

As he was eating with his head down, Dai Yan suddenly whispered, “Look, that’s a Chief’s child.”

Dai Dehou had long heard that there were “Little Yuanlao.” They had come from Australia with the Chiefs on the big iron ship. However, these children were very mysterious and were almost never seen in public.

Currently, there were less than ten “Little Yuanlao” studying at Fangcao, ranging in age from seven or eight to twelve or thirteen. They received multi-grade education in a specially established class in the Study Courtyard. It was said to be multi-grade education, but in reality, it was not much different from one-on-one tutoring.

Their learning content was deeper than that of the students in the fast-track class, especially in the natural and human sciences, where the depth and breadth were greater. In addition, each of them had to take an elective course in a common foreign language from the old world to ensure that the various foreign language materials in the Grand Library could be effectively passed down.

However, within the Study Courtyard, these students were not allowed to be called “Chiefs.” Anyone in the school could only address them by their first names. The students secretly called them “those people.”

Dai Dehou saw that the person who came in was a female student. Judging from her face, she was only eleven or twelve years old, but she was a head taller than most of the thirteen or fourteen-year-old boys here. She had a slender figure and wore the same style of school uniform as the other students. She had long hair tied with a pink ribbon, and her features were beautiful and her skin was fair.

After she came in, she greeted a few girls she knew and walked gracefully to the dining table to get her food. Her every move, every frown, and every smile exuded a completely different temperament from his own daughter—unaffected, full of confidence, like a rising sun. All eyes in the room were instantly focused on her.

Truly born of nobility, Dai Dehou thought with envy. His own daughter had also become more and more spirited since she started studying here, but compared to this one, there was no comparison… He wondered who this Yuanlao’s daughter would marry in the future…

Dai Dehou’s wild thoughts were soon interrupted by his wife’s words: “Whose daughter is this?”

“A Yuanlao’s, of course. You wouldn’t know even if I told you…”

This was true. The number of Yuanlao whose names Dai Dehou knew did not exceed ten, and most of them he knew through the radio and newspapers.

“Then what’s this girl’s rank…” Mrs. Dai now also regarded this general assessment as something divine.

“They don’t participate in the general assessment. They are amazing. If they participated, we would all have to wash their feet…”

“Wash their feet?”

“Hmm… anyway, you wouldn’t understand, Mother.”

Looking at his daughter, who was smiling one moment and pouting the next, Dai Dehou suddenly felt that she had become a stranger. She was no longer the little Sanniang of the past. The way she spoke and her demeanor were very similar to the Yuanlao’s daughter just now…

The meal soon ended. Dai Yan returned the empty meal tray and milk bottle. After the meal, there would be half an hour for parents and children to spend time together.

Seeing that Mrs. Dai had almost finished talking with their daughter, Dai Dehou considered for a moment and finally spoke.

“Yan’er, has Chief Luo come?”

The person who had recommended his daughter to study here was Chief Luo. However, Dai Dehou was not a naturalized citizen and had not yet figured out Chief Luo’s full name, nor did he know his official position or the extent of his power. Naturally, he didn’t know what Chief Luo’s intentions were towards Yan’er. In fact, apart from the chance encounter at the East Gate Market, he had never seen him again. The matter of his daughter’s recommendation was handled by his third cousin, who had taken him to ask for it. But that Chief was said to work in some restricted area, and they had not personally seen this mysterious Chief, only sent a letter.

“He comes every week. He brings me a lot of food and tells me to study hard!”

At the mention of Chief Luo, Dai Yan seemed to remember something. She mysteriously took out a few candies from her school uniform pocket and handed them to Mrs. Dai.

“Mother, take these back for my younger brother. These are milk candies that the Chief gave me. They are not sold outside!”

Seeing that his daughter was oblivious and he couldn’t get any more information out of her, Dai Dehou didn’t press further.

The time of reunion is always short. Teacher Xu soon stood up and announced that the visitor’s class was about to end. The spring break would be in a few days, and she hoped that the parents would pay attention to their children’s safety. Then she said a few more words of thanks from the Chiefs to the parents for their support and that they would cultivate their children into useful talents. Finally, she gave the students’ report cards to the visiting parents one by one. This was now the best thing to show off to the neighbors.

Dai Dehou and Mrs. Dai left the school. There was still an hour before he had to go to work, but he had already asked for leave.

The two of them boarded the train first. Dai Dehou’s mind was constantly thinking.

I wonder if Chief Luo has taken a fancy to my Yan’er? No matter how dear a daughter is, she has to get married anyway. Besides, it would be a blessing for his daughter to be a concubine to Chief Luo. If he could get on good terms with Chief Luo, his son might also be able to study at this National School, and maybe he could even say a word about their homestead.

Of course, he was not confident in his heart. Right now, he had no house and no property, and he couldn’t even afford a decent dowry. Besides, it was a bit early to marry off his daughter. He had heard that the Australians did not have the custom of child brides, and the female Chiefs particularly hated it.

“My dear, do you think if we ask Chief Luo, he will also recommend Yu’er for enrollment?” Mrs. Dai, who was looking at the report card, suddenly said.

“Huh?” Dai Dehou hadn’t come back to his senses yet. “How would I know…”

“How about we write a letter and ask Yan’er to take it to Chief Luo when she goes back to school after the break?”

“That’s a good idea!”

Dai Dehou suddenly felt a surge of energy. He held Mrs. Dai’s hand, feeling that the future of the whole family was hopeful.

“Manager Zhang, your progress is not good enough.”

Yang Yun and Zhang Xingpei, along with Dai Xiu, the life secretary, the apprentice, and the guards, had just returned to the command post from the Maniao New District under construction.

Although the land adjacent to the highway had been leveled, most of the thirty buildings scattered on it were still in the foundation-digging stage after three months of construction. Only a few buildings near the highway had been built up to two stories. At this rate, Yang Yun’s draft of the new round of housing allocation plan was just a pipe dream.

“If you want to speed up the progress, either give me more people or more equipment. There are a lot of rocks underground here, and the explosives allocated to me are not enough.”

Zhang Xingpei sat on a recliner, enjoying a hot towel wash from his life secretary, his tone lazy.

His lofty ambitions when he first took office had long been worn down by reality. The entire team of civil construction cadres was composed of local people, and most of the workers were rejects and novices that the general construction company didn’t want. Although many odd-job workers were organized to help, the progress was still slow, and accidents were continuous.

Every day at work, Zhang Xingpei spent most of his energy scolding people, but he was tired of scolding too.

“How about this, I’ll give you a thousand more people, but you must guarantee the construction period!”

“Do you have any spare manpower over there?”

Zhang Xingpei was a little puzzled. Lingao was currently most in need of manpower. The scope of work was gradually expanding, and people were needed everywhere, especially skilled labor, which all departments were competing for.