After finally returning to the place where she grew up, Xiao Qian was very excited and couldn't stay for a moment. Regardless of the severe cold outside, she started running around the village.
Here, he can't go wrong even with his eyes closed.
It's a pity that many of my former friends are no longer here.
Li Jinfu's family moved away, and Sun Laosan and others were no longer at home. As people grew up, they went to school and worked, and their life trajectories became different.
In this era, the dropout rate in Northeast China, especially in such a small place, is very high.
Among Xiao Qian's classmates in the previous life, several stopped studying after graduating from elementary school. After high school, only two or three were still studying.
While walking in the countryside, the people I occasionally met were all very familiar. He greeted me warmly, but they no longer recognized him.
In a few years, the child with a runny nose turned into a handsome young man, who was incompatible with the local customs here.
After he announced his identity, the other party responded twice with surprise. Then there was an awkward silence, unable to find a common language.
After walking around the village, it was too boring, so Xiao Qian simply came to the wilderness.
In the Northeast in winter, as long as you leave the residential areas, there is only one color between heaven and earth, and that is the ultimate white.
Standing on the embankment at the west end of the village, I looked around. Everywhere I looked, in addition to the flat, mirror-like terrain, there was white stretching to the horizon. It was as if this land was located above the clouds, and it was as beautiful as the human world.
It was the first time for Gu Hui and others to come to the Northeast, and they were all fascinated when they saw this scene. A group of guys acted as if they had never seen the world before, running and playing in the snow, as happy as children.
Xiao Qian stood on the embankment for a while, and someone walked over from a distance.
Driving a group of sheep, in this season when everything is lonely, slowly, let the sheep carefully search for the few food between the snow and the soil.
The sheep herder was over sixty years old, slightly stooped, wearing a bullshit hat and a thick cotton-padded jacket.
Looking at Xiao Qian, who was wearing a white down jacket, he couldn't help but take a closer look before slowly walking over.
"Is this Xiaoqian?"
Xiao Qian smiled.
"Secretary Song, you know I'm back, why are you still pretending?"
The old man smiled embarrassedly, his old face turned orange-red due to the cold wind, adding to the sense of vicissitudes of life.
"You kid, if you know, can't you pretend you don't know?"
Xiao Qian dropped the book bag with him.
"Knowing is knowing, not knowing is not knowing."
"Not bad, not bad. He is very knowledgeable."
This man was the village party secretary. He was one of the few people of the older generation in the village who could write and calculate, so he became the village party secretary and worked there for decades.
Anyway, there is nothing big going on in this small place. There is no difference between the village party secretary and ordinary farmers, and everyone has no objection.
But don't think that this guy is just a good person. He does a lot of things like deducting food subsidies, occupying homesteads, and taking advantage of others.
This guy was obviously here for her, and Xiao Qian wanted to see what he was saying.
This time when he came back, he discovered that no matter where he went, these people regarded the Xiao family as the God of Wealth.
"Where's Xiao Qian? I heard that your family has made a fortune in the south?"
After all, the old man's skills were a bit weak and he was not tactful at all.
"I did some small business to make ends meet."
The old man's eyes clearly didn't believe it.
Can you believe it?
Not to mention anything else, there were only a dozen or so people around Xiao Qian. They looked like big leaders, and they seemed to be doing well at first glance.
Old Songtou knew that playing tricks was no longer enough, so he decided to do it forcefully.
"Your family is now married and has moved to a big city. It's pity for us fellow villagers, we still have to guard this land. Life is... sad!"
The old man sighed while secretly glancing at Xiao Qian.
Xiao Qian... doesn't respond.
Old Songtou is so angry, he has never seen such a difficult child.
"Are you looking at that bridge? It's about to collapse."
This time it was more direct and even pointed out the problems.
Of course Xiao Qian knew the bridge that Old Songtou was talking about. He had walked on that bridge countless times when he was a child, and he had to pass by it when he went to farm with his parents.
It's just a bridge, rather a short section of corridor.
At the west end of this village is a river. It is not a naturally formed river, but a flood discharge and drainage ditch. It is just wider, and the dams on both sides are about a hundred meters apart.
The terrain of the county is high in the north and low in the south. The purpose of digging such a river channel is to guide the upstream floodwater to discharge when floods occur, so as to avoid flooding residential areas.
There are two such rivers, one is at their feet, and the other is to the east of the county.
The other river channel, together with the large reservoir upstream, also irrigates the farmland on both sides.
The final destination of the two rivers is the Wuyuer River nine kilometers south of the county.
This is the largest inland river on the Songnen Plain, which eventually flows into the Zhalong Nature Reserve and is the main water source of the Zhalong Wetland.
However, the water volume of Wuyur River dropped sharply later, and in order to maintain the wetland, water had to be diverted from the nearby Nen River.
It was not until twenty years later that the government began comprehensive management in order to maintain the ecological environment on both sides of the river.
The river in the east is also used for irrigation, while the river in the west usually has no water at all.
The Northeast is not a place with heavy rainfall. Over time, the river channel has lost its original function. Most of the places inside the river channel have become dry land. Only on the west side near the river embankment, a deeper river channel has been formed.
Small ditch.
What flows inside is not clear river water, but sewage discharged from a nearby flax factory.
How do people in this era have any awareness of environmental protection?
The economic situation in the Northeast is not good to begin with, and it is no longer easy for people to struggle to survive.
The small bridge that Old Songtou mentioned was built over the smelly ditch.
Three rows of cement pipes were placed on the river, fixed with cement, and covered with soil. They became the only channel for people in the village to farm.
People in the village need to get down from the east embankment, follow a long-trodden dirt road, pass this small bridge that is only three or four meters long, and go up to the west embankment before they can go to work in the fields.
Such a simple bridge was obviously overloaded and damaged after years of trampling by people and horses, as well as damage caused by tractor loads.
Xiao Qian followed Lao Songtou to the bridge and saw that the right side of the bridge had collapsed. The cement pipes below were also broken in many places.
The dirt road on the bridge is just two ruts, but half of the ruts on the right have disappeared due to the breakage of the cement pipe.
If you want to drive over this broken bridge now, you must be extremely careful. Otherwise, the vehicle is likely to overturn in the ditch.
Foul-smelling dirty water was still gurgling out of the cement pipes under my feet. Even in this winter, a pungent odor still lingered.
Xiao Qian was impatient and went to the embankment with Lao Songtou again.
"As you can see, this bridge will not be built if it is not repaired. Otherwise, farming will be a problem for the people in the village. But the village has no money and cannot afford to repair it."
Xiao Qian understood what he meant.
"You want me to pay?"
"Just do some good deeds for the village. Everyone will remember your family's kindness."
Hearing that Old Songtou just wanted to build the bridge, Xiao Qian couldn't help but look at him with admiration.
This old man was much more honest than the township cadres he met in Jinjiagou, and all he wanted and wanted was for the villagers.
Just such a small bridge is a big deal for the villagers and cannot be repaired. But for Xiao Qian, it is nothing.
"Okay, I promise..."
Before he finished speaking, a flash of lightning suddenly flashed in Xiao Qian's mind.
He stood on the embankment, couldn't help but turn his head, looked at the surrounding situation carefully, and thought of more.
Now that the Spring Festival of 1997 has passed, there will be more than a year left, and it will be 1998.
When she thought about that summer of 1998, Xiao Qian couldn't help but panic.
Xiao Qian's hometown belongs to the Nenjiang River Basin, and the Nenjiang River is a tributary of the Songhua River.
This was the disaster-stricken area in the 1998 floods.
He still clearly remembers that summer of that year, when the empty river in front of him was filled with black and yellow floods.
The floods from the upper reaches rushed down like a roaring dragon, with the power of destroying everything, making people panic in the summer of that year.
I still remember that for more than a month, when I went to bed at night, I could hear the roar of the flood, as if it could rush to my side at any time.
In the most critical days, on the embankment at his feet, the old Songtou cried hopelessly.
He called the county and the countryside for help, but received no response. Seeing the flood rising step by step, this old man who was not very good at first could only cry bitterly.
It's not that the county or township doesn't want to rescue, but it's just that they really don't have the power.
Thirty miles north of the county, there is a large reservoir. When it was most dangerous, the county even decided to open the floodgates to release floods. If that were done, at least half of the county would turn into a vast ocean.
But if the flood is not discharged and the reservoir embankment is washed away, it will become a hell on earth.
In order to save the county seat, the county devoted all its efforts to the reservoir. It really couldn't take care of the villages in this corner.
During those most painful days, God knows how the people here survived?
