In 1974, I graduated from junior high school and went to the countryside as a young intellectual like millions of other middle school students. The simple life, the closed environment and the heavy labor made me learn independence quickly. However, a sudden event broke my peaceful life.
In the 1960s and 1970s, necessities were extremely scarce. Each person was supplied with 15 feet of cloth per year. Cloth coupons were issued before the New Year and distributed to each team by the commune.
Our cloth coupons were supposed to be collected by the production team accountant. When the commune secretary came to the team to handle some matters, they took our coupons with them. However, that day the accountant was visiting relatives and not at home. Since my place was closest to his, the commune secretary entrusted me with temporarily keeping the coupons. There were over four hundred coupons for more than three hundred people in the entire production team, forming a thick stack. I casually placed it on the box in my room.
In those days, every family was poor, with only a few simple household items and tools for production, along with a few tattered clothes. There was nothing that could be called property, so no one had the habit of casually closing doors, let alone locking them. It was truly a case of not picking up lost items on the road or leaving doors unlocked at night. We, as educated youth, were even poorer, and we didn’t lock our doors or suitcases either. Besides, there wasn’t much of value in my suitcase.
At that time, the educated youth often moved around among themselves. A male educated youth surnamed Xu frequently came to me. If I ignored him, he would stand outside the courtyard shouting “Zhenghua —— Zhenghua ——,” so loud that everyone in the production team could hear. I was only 17 years old then, and I didn’t understand anything; it wasn’t right to openly drive him away. Every time he came, I had to find an excuse to slip away, but even when I did, he still lingered inside, refusing to leave. Once he said, “You don’t need to hide from me. No matter how high or low I go, I can find you; there’s no way to avoid me. In the future, if I do whatever you say, will that be okay?” How could I dare to believe him!
On that very day, he came again. He chatted idly here and there, and I repeated my old trick, saying that I would go to the captain to borrow something and then slip away. He laughed as if he had seen through me and chased out, saying, “Go ahead, I’ll keep watch for you!”
I lingered at the captain’s house for half a day and then asked his son to check if he had left. Soon, he came back in a huff, grinning and frowning, saying, “He’s gone, gone, I saw him just now.” Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief, feeling at ease. When I got home, I found the floor spotless, the water in the cistern full, and a large pile of firewood chopped… Suddenly, I noticed the box, which was clean and empty, sending a chill down my spine—reminding me of the cloth coupons, which were enough for over three hundred people in the production team to wear for the whole year next year.
I looked everywhere, from the box to the bed to the table to under the bed to the kitchen… but I never found the cloth ticket. What if I lost it? It would be a disaster!
I thought it must be Xu Zhiqing who had stolen the cloth coupons; no one else had been to my house. Without thinking much, I shouted at the top of my lungs: “Catch the thief, catch the thief, the thief has stolen the production team’s cloth coupons ——” This shout almost mobilized all the members of the production team. They surrounded and pursued him, finally trapping Xu Zhiqing tightly. Without a word, they pounced on him with a flurry of punches, leaving him disoriented.
He panicked, shielding himself while asking, “Why did you hit me?” I cried, “You stole our production team’s cloth coupons. If you don’t give them back to me, I’ll be dead!” Upon hearing this, he repeatedly said, “I didn’t steal, I didn’t steal! What for did I steal the cloth coupons? Hundreds of yards, and I have no money to buy them…” Before he could finish, several commune members beat him up again: “Damn it, you know how many yards there are, yet you still say it wasn’t you who stole them!”
Some female members also clenched their teeth in hatred: “Why do you have to steal our cloth coupons? If we lose them, what will we wear next year!” He had already been beaten down and kept begging for mercy: “I really didn’t steal, I really didn’t steal, don’t believe me? Search me!” As he spoke, he looked at me with pleading eyes.
The angry crowd gathered around him again, ready to beat him up once more. I was both furious and anxious as I confronted him, “You didn’t steal it, so where did you hide the cloth coupons?” “I put them in Zhenghua’s box!” I was furious upon hearing this: “You’re lying! I always keep my cloth coupons in the box!”
Everyone chattered on, “Let’s take him back first and make him find it. If he finds it, great; if not, we’ll tie him up and hand him over to the authorities!” So, they pushed and shoved him all the way back. He was bruised and battered, almost unable to stand. After being repeatedly pressed for information, he finally came to his senses, pointing at the box and saying, “The cloth coupons are in the box.”
I walked over and slammed the box open: “Look, where is it?” Before he could react, a group of male commune members pounced on him, kicking and beating: “Damn it, you’re not being honest!” He couldn’t hold his ground any longer and grabbed me, saying, “Zhenghua, I really didn’t take the cloth coupons. You left so many coupons on top of the box without locking it, and I was afraid they would be stolen. You couldn’t bear the responsibility, so you put the coupons at the bottom of the box and covered them with clothes.”
I opened the bottom of the box, and there lay a large stack of cloth coupons. We were stunned, staring at each other in silence. He had been wronged by his good intentions, and now he was beaten so badly… At that moment, the villagers quietly slipped away one after another. I was at a loss for words, unsure how to express my apology. Approaching him, I said, “It’s so cold out, I wonder where you got hurt!” He gently pushed me aside, taking a step back. “Then lie down on my bed for a while; I’ll cook you something to eat.” He refused, insisting on leaving, saying it was too late and he feared others might gossip about me. Hearing this, I felt both moved and guilty, so I asked him, “Will you come again next time?” He looked at me steadily and said, “No, I won’t come back.” “You resent me?”… I could only watch helplessly as he stumbled away.
From then on, he was out of my sight, out of my life. For more than forty years, there was no news of him.
(Wan Zhenghua oral, Zhou Rongqi collated)
Note: The narrator was a young intellectual sent to Nangjiang County in 1974, and the editor was a young intellectual sent to Guogeng Commune in Bazhong County in 1972