Reborn in a small village in the 1990s

After finishing his work for a while, Zhao Da'e took a stroll, intending to go up the mountain for a walk to clear his head. There wasn't much scenery to see in winter. Unlike the densely populated south, the north was a desolate place, with its mountains and rivers exuding a sense of barrenness.

Especially in winter.

Zhao Da'e strolled leisurely up the mountain, encountering several fellow villagers who were also stealing tree branches. Zhao Da'e chuckled and continued on his way.

In those days, food and clothing were not very good. In the south, at least you didn't have to worry about firewood for cooking, but not in the north. The temperature was too low, and the nights were exceptionally cold. If the heated brick bed was cold, anyone would get sick from the cold.

In ancient times, Dongtaizi Village, where Zhao Da'e lived, was extremely desolate, located in the harsh, cold border region. Although not as cold as Ningguta, it was still unbearably cold. Everyone wore thick cotton-padded coats and trousers, so people were all quite bundled up.

Even in later generations, people would still wear bulky clothes because no down jacket could withstand the bone-chilling cold.

The dirt road was narrow and meandered upwards.

Halfway up the mountain, there was just a pile of rocks. Back when we were in the production team, this was a quarry. Now nobody cares about it or wants it, so the villagers come here and use crowbars to remove the rocks to build their houses.

Building a new house was out of the question for Zhao Tiesheng's father. Zhao Tiesheng was barely scraping by; what could he possibly rely on? With Zhao Tingxu and his wife having squandered their money, Zhao Tiesheng naturally had no way of having any left to build a house. Even if the money were still there, Zhao Tingxu wouldn't build a new house for him. Zhao Tiesheng's idea of ​​saving up to build a new house himself was, from the very beginning, just a fantasy.

Zhao Da'e jumped into the stone pit in the quarry and gestured for a while before finally saying, "This stone will be good for building a wall around the yard. Dad's probably going crazy right now. His dream, which he's worked so hard for for so many years, has been shattered. Don't drive him insane. Let him work on the stones sometime, then he'll have something to do. If he's busy, he won't have time to think about all that nonsense."

If you walk further ahead, there's a grassy patch on the hilltop used for grazing cattle. The soil is very thin. In the past, the village had a cattle shed where everyone's cattle were raised together. But later, the cattle either starved to death, died of disease, or died of emaciation. In short, there weren't any left, and the cattle shed closed down.

No one wanted this patch of grass anymore.

Zhao Tiesheng and his wife reclaimed seven or eight acres of land here, but the soil and water were poor, the yield was very low, and there were weeds everywhere, so the harvest was not much.

Beyond that point lies the back of the mountain, and there lies Xiaoyangshugou (Little Poplar Tree Gully). It gets its name from the few poplar trees at the village entrance. That village… was incredibly poor; there wasn't even a proper road leading out.

Zhao Da'e wandered around in circles, but didn't see anything to pick up, and was slightly disappointed. If someone had set a rabbit trap and no one else had found it, he could have easily snagged it. Too bad, no one had.

She then walked along the other side, further east, and then descended the mountain. Once down the mountain, she reached Zhao Da'e's aunt's house.

My older cousin, Zhou Chunwen, was sweeping the yard when she saw Zhao Da'e return and asked, "Why didn't you come to see what was going on? You ran away halfway through! You have no idea, your house was even more lively than last time. Your grandfather said his three sons were unfilial, and he took a kitchen knife and was going to kill them all..."

Zhao Da'e immediately perked up: "Holy crap. Has the old man gone mad? What's going on? I thought the old folks would just deny it to the death. Sister, tell me quickly."

"I couldn't hear clearly either. We were hiding far away, weren't we? Anyway, we were just arguing. There were a lot of onlookers, so it became even harder to hear."