Not So Long Ago 5

In 1961, Zhang Xinshu was back in Henan, Huixian. He didn't have houses or lands. He borrowed one of his sixteen cousins' place to settle. 12-year-old Zhang Qingping put down the luggage and found all local teenagers mimicking his Beijing accent. He learned Henan dialect in a month and never spoke Beijing mandarin again. 

Zhang Xinshu was very weak and could do little work. Luckily, Zhang Qingping was strong enough to take over the work and support his family. He was strong enough to build a house with his own hand, which he would do thirteen years later for his wife. He was like a cattle working in a boundless rice field with no expectations for the future or life. It was easier to live with eyes focused on the ground, not sky. 

His new home was a lot different than the Siheyuan he had lived. There were neighbors who shared a lot of things like muddy roads, wild fruits, wild vegetables, firewood, and wells. Guo Xueshu, a 47-year-old granny with lotus feet, often struggled with fetching water from the well. One of their neighbors, a ten-year-old girl, often came and helped. Two years later, she would accidentally drop a needle into her right eye when sewing a shoe. Her name is Guo Guilan.

Guo Guilan has three brothers and a former Kuomintang soldier father. They were labeled as counterrevolutionaries. Unlike Zhang Qingping, Guo Guilan was born after the hero became the sinner. She was born a sinner's daughter. She never lived in Siheyuan. 

She grew in a small, old, 100-years-old hut with dirt walls and dirt grounds. Whenever it rained outside, it rained inside, too. Her family would use pots and bowls to hold the dripping rain from their melting tilt ceiling. The dirt walls of their pigsty and toilet were 101 years old and would directly crush whenever it rained. There were very few good houses in Henan in 1961. Good houses were confiscated.

There weren't a lot of Osmanthus or Orchid for her to admire.

Instead, Guo Guilan admired someone else. It was a miracle because before she was old enough to think of love, 1966 was there. From 1966 to 1976 there was the Chinese version of witch hunt, the notorious Cultural Revolution. Every "black five categories" person survived was a miracle.