In a year of such severe drought that even drinking water was a problem, my family discovered an underground river. Not only did it have an inexhaustible supply of fresh water, but also more fish than we could ever eat. Others could only tighten their belts to get by, but my family ate meat every meal until we were sick of it.
In my past life, I couldn't bear to see the whole village suffer, so I told the villagers about the underground river. Who would have thought that everything in our house would be looted by everyone — even our home itself? It was the village secretary who couldn't stand it and let my family live in the cow shed. But after the drought came a blizzard.
In the end, my family passed away one by one in the cold.
When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to 1975, the year we discovered the underground river. I had just come to my senses when I saw Qiao Yuanzhong by the well, raising an iron shovel. His brutish, fleshy face was turned toward my dad, Luo Wenxin.
The yellow earth on the ground was cracked with large fissures. The sun was so hot it made you dizzy, and the air was thick with the smell of dry earth. My dad was arguing with Qiao Yuanzhong by the well. Qiao Yuanzhong accused my dad of taking an extra pole full of water, claiming he was taking advantage of public resources, and was raising his shovel at him.
My heart skipped a beat. In my previous life, this is where my dad got into a fight with Qiao Yuanzhong and was beaten to death.
"Dad, look out!" I rushed forward to block him, planting myself in front of my dad. With a cry of pain, I took Qiao Yuanzhong's shovel handle as it slammed into the back of my head. The pain was so intense that everything went black.
I went with the momentum and fell to the ground, playing dead. Qiao Yuanzhong was scared stiff. The iron shovel in his hand clattered to the ground. My dad, Luo Wenxin, was also stunned. Seeing me lying motionless on the ground, he abandoned his water buckets, and with bloodshot eyes, he yelled, "Zhenshan, don't scare me!"
He didn't have time to fight Qiao Yuanzhong. He just threw me on his back and ran home.
Dad carried me on his back, jogging all the way. I could feel his back was drenched in sweat. I could also hear him secretly wiping away tears, but that actually made me feel relieved. In this life, Dad is still alive, and my two younger sisters haven't disappeared. There's still time to fix everything.
When we got home, my dad had just put me on the bed. When I opened my eyes, my mom, Li Shufang, was wiping her tears, about to go out and find a doctor. When she saw I was awake, she was so startled she dropped the basin in her hands.
I didn't have time to explain. I grabbed my dad's hand, pulled my mom into the inner room, and locked the door behind us.
"Mom, Dad, we'll deal with those Qiao family people later. Right now, I have something that can make our whole family's fortune turn around. A treasure I want to show you." I lowered my voice and pointed to the cellar. "Dad, instead of running several miles every day to fight for water in that dried-up ditch, why don't we just dig our own well?"
I said it to them in a low voice. My forehead was still wrapped in a bloodstained white cloth, which made me look quite scary.
Luo Wenxin was squatting on the threshold, puffing on his dry pipe. When he heard this, he almost dropped his pipe on the ground. He just shook his head and said, "Zhenshan, my boy, you must have been hit silly. The ground is so dry, it's cracked three inches deep. All the old wells in the village have dried up. Where on earth are we going to dig and find water? To dig a well, you need to hire an expert, and you also have to buy bricks and stone. Our family can barely even afford a full meal. Where would we get the spare money?"
I stomped my foot in frustration. I leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "Dad, do you trust me? A couple of days ago, behind the cellar, I found a patch of earth that was really damp. There must be a water source underneath. It looks like this drought is going to last for a long time. If we wait any longer, people in this village are going to starve. We can't just wait around to die."
As I said this, my voice unconsciously rose a few notches. My mom, Li Shufang, heard the commotion and rushed over from the kitchen, thinking my dad and I were arguing. But when she understood that I wanted to dig a well, she was actually the first to agree.
Shufang chimed in, trying to persuade old Luo. "The boy is right. Water is life. If we can really find water, our family will be saved. That bunch of animals from the Qiao family won't let us fetch water. So we'll just have to dig for it ourselves."
Luo Wenxin was a proud man to begin with. After hearing that, he fiercely stubbed out his cigarette. He gritted his teeth and agreed.
But when he looked at the wound on my head, his eyes turned red again. He muttered, "That brat Qiao Yuanzhong. He was too vicious. We can't just let this go."
The moment the Qiao family was mentioned, that fire in my heart flared up again. In my past life, it was the Qiao family, relying on their numbers and power, who seized our house and caused my parents to freeze to death. Although those things haven't happened yet in this life, the seeds of hatred have already been sown. The Qiao family has many sons. If we were to fight them head on, my dad would surely lose. But that doesn't stop me from first collecting a little interest from them.
For dinner, our family had some thin, watery pumpkin soup. I had my two little sisters go to bed early. Then I pulled my mom and dad into the back room. We moved the heavy wooden bed in the corner, revealing the trapdoor to the root cellar where we usually kept sweet potatoes.
"Dad, start digging down from here. I can tell the feng shui in this spot is good. There's definitely something significant here," I said, pointing to a corner of the cellar.
Luo Wenxin didn't say a word. He just took off his jacket, grabbed a hoe, and got to work. He was a real powerhouse when it came to manual labor. His whole body was solid muscle, and in no time at all, he dug up a huge pile of dirt.
Li Shufang wasn't idle either. She held an oil lamp by the mouth of the hole to light the way. Every now and then, she'd hand him a towel to wipe his sweat. As for the dirt he dug up, we carried it out in baskets, load by load, and piled it up against the backyard wall. Later, that soil could be used to fertilize the land, which would be perfect for growing some vegetables.
And just like that, our family worked in secret under the bed for most of the night. We were so exhausted our bones ached before we finally took a break.
Early the next morning, I left the house before dawn. Before I left, I reminded my dad, "When you go to work, find the village chief first and file a complaint. Just tell him Qiao Yuanzhong nearly beat me to death. Don't worry about anything else. I'm heading to the township to handle something."
Luo Wenxin was very worried, but he had no choice but to go work on the irrigation project. It was a mandatory assignment from the production team. Every household had to send a worker.