Two or Three Events in the Last Days 017
Chapter 17: Trading For Chicks
Since they had already agreed to trade for chicks, after lunch Jing Lin loaded a sack of grain onto the tricycle. It weighed a little over fifty jin. In their area, grain sold for a little over one yuan per jin.
Both Zhao Chenghuai and Zhao Zhiwen were injured, so Jing Lin and Zhou Yu refused to let them come along. However, the father and son were uneasy about letting them go alone, so they went around the village asking whether anyone else wanted to trade for chicks. After making the rounds, the village leader’s family, Doctor Zhao’s family, and several other households all expressed interest in going.
Yan Fei’s family was among them. The ones going were Yan Fei and his father. After receiving advance warning of the disaster, Yan Ruifeng had sold off all of the family’s businesses and even their house, leaving them with a considerable amount of cash. Recently, they had acquired a large stockpile of grain and still had money left over. Buying dozens of chickens would not have been a problem for them at all. However, in order not to draw undue attention to themselves, they did the same as everyone else and brought along a sack of grain.
On the day after returning, Yan Fei had gone out and bought two tricycles. Although horses could pull loads more easily and move faster than bicycles, the weather was simply too hot. People could barely endure it, and neither could the horses. Since horses were expensive, risking one to the heat was not worth it.
In the end, everyone agreed to gather beneath a large tree at the village entrance.
Once they had found companions for the trip, Zhao Chenghuai and Zhao Zhiwen finally felt reassured and stayed home with Le Le. Zhao Chenghuai mentioned that they had been so busy gathering supplies over the past few days that the fields and fish pond had been neglected. Since he had free time that afternoon, he planned to go check on them.
After preparing the grain and bringing along sunshades to protect the chicks on the return trip, Jing Lin and Zhou Yu headed toward the meeting place at the village entrance.
When Jing Lin arrived, Yan Fei and his father had just gotten there as well. The moment Yan Fei saw Jing Lin, he felt happy. His face remained as expressionless as ever, but anyone paying close attention would have noticed how gentle his gaze became whenever he looked at Jing Lin. Among the group making the trip, only he and Jing Lin were young people. Naturally, he stood beside Jing Lin and spent the waiting time chatting with him.
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Yan Ruifeng sat in the cargo bed, fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan. Every so often, his eyes drifted toward the pair, closely monitoring his son’s progress in flirting.
Not long afterward, the leader’s family arrived as well.
The leader’s name was Ma Renshan. Although he held the title of village leader, his duties mainly consisted of relaying notices from the production brigade. Most of the time, he worked in the fields like everyone else. His wife was named Wu Yuqiong. They had only one son, Ma Chunzheng, who was already married with children, and made his living driving the family’s tractor to transport construction materials such as bricks and sand for people building or repairing houses.
Ma Renshan also had an older brother named Ma Rencong. He had two sons. The elder son, Ma Chunkang, was married and had two boys of his own. The younger son, Ma Chunjian, was still dating a girl. Both sons were still working far from home and had not returned, leaving the couple so worried that they had been unable to sleep for several nights.
The two families arrived together. Ma Rencong looked troubled, while his wife, Chen Xuefang, sighed constantly, lamenting how she should have never allowed her sons to work so far away.
Her sons had done well for themselves and worked as small construction contractors. While they were not earning fortunes, they had long since paid for the family’s five-hundred-square-meter, two-story house. The elder son had bought a car years ago. Before the disaster, both sons had even said that after saving for another year, they would be able to buy houses of their own. Every Lunar New Year, when they returned home, they had been the envy of the village, giving Chen Xuefang endless material to boast about during casual conversations.
Now she regretted it bitterly. Had she known things would turn out this way, she would never have agreed to let them go so far from home. Whenever she thought about her sons, daughters-in-law, and two grandsons stranded on the other side of the country, she felt like crying.
A mother always worried when her children traveled far from home, and the current chaos only made things worse. Communication was completely cut off, and families separated by great distances had no way of contacting one another. Zhou Yu and the others offered words of comfort whenever they could.
After waiting a little longer, the remaining families arrived one after another. Those without tricycles pushed wheelbarrows instead. Although it was more tiring, traveling together did not slow them down much. Everyone was willing to wait for one another.
Once everyone had gathered, Ma Renshan called out, and the group set off.
In the past, whenever Jing Lin traveled from the village to the county seat during the day, he would always see villagers gathered in small groups chatting in front of their homes. The roadside teahouses would be bustling with noise and conversation.
Now, however, all the teahouses were closed, and not a single villager could be seen sitting outside chatting.
The surrounding villages all shared similar terrain. Cement roads ran through the villages, with houses lining both sides.
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
When they arrived at Jade Light Village and had just entered the main road, they spotted a brick house with one side collapsed. Broken bricks littered the ground. It was obvious that the earthquake had brought it down. As for whether anyone had been trapped or injured, there was no way to tell.
If it had belonged to someone they knew, they might have stopped to ask. Unfortunately, they were unfamiliar with the villagers there.
Neither of the two chicken farms was particularly large. Both consisted of simple red-brick structures built in shallow depressions in the terrain. A scruffy golden retriever was tied up outside one of them. It lay listlessly beneath a crude shelter, panting with its tongue hanging out. When it saw the group approach, it immediately got to its feet and barked several times, though it did not seem aggressive.
A small bamboo grove stood nearby, so everyone parked their vehicles beside it to take advantage of the shade.
Ma Renshan climbed down and called toward the chicken farm, raising his voice. “Anyone home?”
After quite a while, a shirtless middle-aged man drenched in sweat emerged from the farm with the golden retriever. He was pushing a wheelbarrow filled with dead chicks.
The farm owner was clearly in a bad mood. Seeing a group of strangers, he asked gruffly, “Who are you people? What do you want?”
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Ma Renshan was not offended by the man’s attitude and got straight to the point.
“We’re from the neighboring Chashan Ridge. We heard you have chicks here, and we’d like to trade some grain for a few.”
At that time, most rural residents kept their money in banks. Zhao Zhiwen’s family had no cash left, and the same was true for most of the village. The only things they had in abundance were this year’s newly harvested wheat and old grain stored from the previous year. As a result, everyone had brought grain to trade for chicks.
After hearing this, the farm owner remained silent for over half a minute.
Then he set down the wheelbarrow.
Though his mood was poor, he was not a bad person. Tapping the side of the wheelbarrow, he warned them, “All of these chicks died from the heat. The ones still alive aren’t doing much better. I’ll trade them to you if you want, but once you take them home, whether they live or die is your own business.”
Ma Renshan laughed. “Of course. Once the trade is completed, the responsibility is ours. If anything happens after we take them home, it won’t have anything to do with you.”
The farm owner’s expression immediately eased. He had encountered situations like this before. Chicks would leave his farm healthy, only to die a day or two later. The buyers would then go around claiming he had sold them sick chickens, which had infuriated him more than once or twice.
Seeing that they were reasonable people, the farm owner pushed the wheelbarrow aside and led the group into the chicken farm.
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: One of two for the week.
Translator: Miiya
Editor: MushroomKnight73
Proofreader: Yume
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