At noon after school, Xinyan didnât rush back to the courtyard.
After leaving the school building, they found a pavilion to sit down.
Jiang Peiqin looked at Zhang Zhaodi and said, "Zhaodi, weâre classmates and roommates by chance. Whatâs going on at home? Tell us, so we can think of ways to help you."
Zhang Zhaodiâs eyes turned red when she heard this.
Xinyan saw her not speaking and said, "Zhaodi, apart from your family, weâre the closest people to you now. If thereâs any difficulty, letâs think of a way to overcome it together, which is always better than you worrying alone."
Zhang Zhaodi finally said, "Earlier this year, my family arranged a marriage for my Second Brother. After the New Year, the village stopped working for work points and instead distributed land to each household, implementing the household contract responsibility system.
It should have been a happy event for each family, but some problems arose, such as the land distributed to the young lady wouldnât be redistributed after she marries into her husbandâs family.
So, when they heard this news, families with marriage arrangements started to act cautiously. Many families wanted to get married before the land distribution, relocate their household registration, and thus claim grain land.
My family thought the same and went to discuss it, but my Second Brotherâs future father-in-law disagreed no matter what, causing disagreements between the two families.
This issue wasnât unique to our family. Eventually, my parents came to terms with it, and since the in-laws didnât agree, we let it go.
But as the wedding date approached, her family suggested postponing it until after the sowing season, and after discussion, my family agreed it was sensible to prioritize the land.
However, a few days later, we got a message asking my Second Brother to borrow livestock from the village to help them sow their fields.
Itâs a busy farming season, and every family is busy sowing. Livestock is unlike land; not every family owns any. During the collective period, we didnât raise much livestock, and villagers usually combined resources to buy one, but most families had none and relied on manpower for sowing.
Such a request really put my family in a tough spot, but since they insisted, we had to find a solution.
We managed with difficulty to borrow an ox from a family we knew well in the village and went to help them sow. We were extremely careful but halfway through the sowing, while the ox was resting, my Second Brotherâs future brother-in-law caught us off guard and whipped the ox.
You all donât know, our village is mostly hilly. Unlike what you might think, our slopes are inclined following the terrain.
That whip directly startled the ox, and it rolled down the slope and couldnât be saved.
The worst part was the bad luck; someone happened to be passing by below, and they got injured.
This incident involved quite a bit of money. Although my family didnât need to take care of the injured person, we still had to pay half for the lost livestock, which was a negotiated outcome.
My family didnât want to affect my studies, so they didnât write to inform me. If I hadnât bumped into a senior from my hometown association, I wouldnât have known about it.
Thinking about how much compensation my family owes, and how weâre already not well off, made my eyes immediately brim with tears.
In the end, Jiang Peiqin and Xinyan each lent eighty yuan, and Cui Haili, Fan Xiaoxing, Bai Aiwen, and Su Yuelan each lent ten yuan, pooling together two hundred yuan for Zhang Zhaodi to send back home for emergency use.
Zhang Zhaodi was deeply moved and kept thanking everyone.