Chapter 56 9. The corner of society

Under the barrier of mountains, life in the small county is peaceful.During the Cultural Revolution, there was also violent turmoil here, and many people died tragically.When I arrived in Yuanyuan, it had only been three years, but there seemed to be no traces on the surface.Stories can also happen in small counties now, becoming an embellishment of monotonous life, as if throwing a stone into the lake, a circle of ripples blooms, and then returns to calm.These stories are often related to sex, some tragic, some wretched. Not long after I arrived in Yuanyuan, a murder broke out in the county government compound.A young man from the Military Control Commission (at that time, the Public Security Bureau was merged into the Military Control Commission), served as the Youth League branch secretary of our County Revolutionary Committee, and within a year of marriage, he shot his wife to death with a pistol and then committed suicide.The reason was that he concealed the fact that he was married, and his wife wanted to leave him when she found out, so she was murdered.

There was a 20-year-old female worker in an agricultural machinery factory who was unmarried and pregnant. She secretly gave birth to the child in the dormitory, then strangled her to death, and stuffed it into a cardboard box.This matter was discovered, no matter how interrogated, she refused to tell who the man was.She was fired, of course, but not sentenced.The punishment was for adultery, and infanticide did not seem like a big deal in rural areas at the time. A peasant woman in Zhongfeng committed adultery, murdered her husband, and was arrested.She was pregnant, and according to regulations, she could not be executed by shooting, and the fetus had to be taken out first.For several days, she was kept in a ward of the county hospital. I went to see her, a fair-skinned young woman with an expressionless face.For laparotomy, the chief surgeon is a student from Guangxi Medical College who came in the same batch as me, and he is very familiar with me.He told me that he was merciless to this murderer, and the anesthetic was useless during the operation, but she didn't cry out, she was really stubborn.I was shocked when I heard it, because of his cruelty, but also because of the strength of the woman.A few days later, a public trial meeting was held, and after the verdict was pronounced, he was taken to the riverside and shot immediately.The venue was crowded with people, and it was a festive scene. I stood in the open space behind, feeling inexplicably uncomfortable.

A middle-aged cadre in a certain unit in the county, his wife died early, and he lived with his daughter for many years.The seventeen or eighteen-year-old daughter was always in a trance, as if she had suffered mental trauma, and finally confided the distress of being raped by her father for a long time.The secretary of Liangshui Commune is a tall, retired basketball player who used to work for the County Sports Commission. One day, he was arrested for raping a young girl, and news soon spread that he committed suicide in the detention center.Zhongfeng Commune is the main grain-producing area in the county. The secretary is a famous person in the county. He is obese but strong. I often see him in the dusty world. I suddenly heard that he was investigated for sodomizing many young subordinates. A few days later, He hanged himself in his dormitory.

The resources are very small, and the cadres in the county and the communes know each other, at least they all know, and if something happens, it will spread immediately.In addition to cases that occur from time to time, daily life, old age, sickness and death will also become news.There are a lot of people suffering from cancer. It is said that the reason is that there are uranium mines underground. Among the acquaintances in the county, I have seen a dozen people who have been killed by cancer.With each new unfortunate, the news was reported to one another, sighed, and soon forgotten.People in small counties have tenacious vitality and regard birth, old age, sickness and death as normal.There is a funeral procession walking on the small street. Although the person in the coffin is familiar to everyone, people still enjoy their daily life with relish.The most important thing in life is to eat and drink. Wherever you go, you can see a number of people gathering around a charcoal stove with an iron pot on it. The locals call it Dayaji.In fact, the contents of the iron pot were quite poor. Meat was rationed at that time, and each person had only half a catty per month.Therefore, people put their minds on how to get unplanned food. There are two ways, one is to go through the back door, and the other is to purchase from other places.The driver has become the most enviable job, and the girl most wants to marry, because she can travel around and get items that are in short supply in the county.Well-connected families sought driver vacancies for their children one after another. A deputy county magistrate arranged for his son to join the motor team, and he was more proud than being a county magistrate himself.The driver of the bus is the most prestigious, and there are more people who fawn on him than the county magistrate. His nod is the ticket, and the brake is the stop. If you have a good relationship with him, you can get a lot of convenience and benefits.

In such an environment, I am even more of a nerd.I don't want to spend time on housework. I don't want the monthly meat ticket, and I don't want the meat allocated by the unit during the Chinese New Year. I always eat in the cafeteria.I stay away from places where people gather, eat, drink, or play poker.There is one less person at the poker table. If someone who doesn’t understand wants me to participate, someone who understands will immediately say contemptuously: “He is a college student, he can’t play poker, he can only read books!” Locking myself in the house, apart from dealing with the work assigned to me, I spend most of my time reading.When I went to the countryside, I always took books with me to read.For this reason, the main criticism of the county government has always been that I am proud, can't let go of the airs of a college student, and divorced from the masses.In fact, what I can't let go of is just books. Other than that, I am very easy-going. Common people, especially farmers, never say that I have the airs of a college student.

What I really can't handle is the relationship with certain officials, in front of them, I may be a little proud.Quite a few grassroots cadres who were born in peasants, they often put on the airs of cadres to teach peasants, and discriminate against intellectuals because of their peasant backgrounds.Some people are powerful with a small amount of power, and I really can't reciprocate with humility.A small boss in charge of the general affairs of the agency broke into my room and found that there was a green curtain on my desk and a green curtain on the window. He immediately scolded aggressively: "Look what you say, reading yellow books, and hanging green curtains How can you be more polite to him besides laughing at his ignorance in the face of such scolding?When I first arrived in Ziyuan, I was asked to collect and dispose of the so-called illegal printed materials circulated during the Cultural Revolution. After this work was over, according to the opinions of the immediate superior at that time, most of the collected materials were destroyed and a small number of samples were sealed.One day five years later, the Minister of Propaganda suddenly stopped me on the street and asked me where the confiscated items were kept.When I said it was destroyed, he was furious and reprimanded me for destroying it, and then heard me say that there were still samples, and reprimanded me for not destroying them all.Faced with such unreasonableness, even on the street, under the watchful eyes of everyone, how can you swallow your anger in order to take care of his minister's face?No doubt on all such occasions I have been charged with a pride.I finally understood that if I was not going to be proud, I had to be absolutely obedient. This standard was too high for me to reach.

Working at the grassroots level for many years, my personal experience made me pessimistic about the quality of many grassroots officials.The problem at that time was not corruption. In my opinion, it was mainly stupidity, muddling along, and refusing to take responsibility for big or small things.No matter what kind of trivial matter, if the leader's signature is required, it will be miserable, the officials will definitely push each other, you get lost in the forest of the officials, and you can't find someone who is willing to sign for you.I am an out-of-town cadre in the resource, and I have statutory family leave before marriage and before my spouse is transferred. However, the experience of taking leave every time can only be described as unbearable.At that time, there was no ID card, and a letter of introduction issued by the organization department was required for business trips or family visits.The situation is almost certain, the secretary of the organization department said he wanted to ask the deputy director, the deputy director said he wanted to ask the deputy director of the county revolutionary committee, the deputy director said he wanted to ask the deputy secretary of the county party committee, and the deputy secretary asked me to go to the secretary of the organization department.After one turn, it is almost the Spring Festival, and after the Spring Festival, it is impossible to give a holiday.Once when I approached the deputy director of the County Revolutionary Committee, he actually said, "You have to go back to Shanghai every year, and the masses have great opinions." I couldn't help being angry: "It's strange, my family is in Shanghai, where can I go if I don't go back to Shanghai to visit relatives? "Sometimes, when I really can't get a signature, I go on the road in anger. As a result, the travel expenses are not allowed and my salary is deducted.This is obviously depriving me of my legal rights, but I have no choice but to endure it myself.I couldn't understand the psychology of these officials. It was originally a clearly stipulated matter. No matter who among them took the lead to criticize a word, they would never make mistakes. Why did they make it difficult for an ordinary cadre under them.I can only use the basic quality to explain, and there is a small example about this quality.The deputy head of the organization department who never agreed to my statutory family visit hypothesis later died of cancer. Before he died, the thing he couldn’t forget was to transfer his brother-in-law a good job. Before he died, he pulled his wife’s clothes and pants and stretched out three Finger, meaning to make three sets of shrouds for him.