Industry began in 1937

Chapter 7 Going to Gouzi Village

As dawn broke, the mountain mist had not yet completely dissipated, clinging damply to the skin.

He had another unforgettable night.

He burned all the remaining coal in the iron bucket because once he went to the village, he wouldn't be afraid of not having clothes and shoes to wear.

I was thinking of ways to exchange it for something useful.

Chen Yuan stood at the cave entrance once more, taking one last look at his belongings.

He carefully wrapped the head of the wood-chopping knife in rags and tied it to a newly whittled hardwood stick with vines, making it into a rather heavy-looking long-handled wood-chopping knife, which he then placed in his satchel.

It is both a tool and a weapon when necessary.

Going to the village doesn't necessarily mean there are bad people, but in these times, he couldn't be sure.

The nails were placed at the bottom of the iron bucket, and the sickle heads and kitchen knives were carefully placed on top, separated by dry grass.

The most precious tools, such as steel files and calipers, were kept close to his body.

He moved his ankle; the stinging pain was still clear, but he seemed to have gotten used to it a bit better than yesterday.

He took a deep breath, lifted the heavy bucket, held the wooden spear in his hand as a walking stick, and carried the bucket in his other hand. He set off step by step towards the direction of Dongbiangouzi Village in his memory.

It's called a road, but it's really just a dry riverbed eroded by flash floods and a faint path trodden by wild animals.

The area is covered with gravel and has steep slopes.

With each step, the weight of my body pressed down on my injured foot, bringing a sharp, stabbing pain that shot from the sole of my foot straight up to my calf.

He had to choose his footing with extreme care, avoiding sharp rocks and loose soil.

Sweat quickly seeped from his forehead, not only because of the pain, but also because the slow and continuous torment was consuming a great deal of his mental and physical strength.

He stopped to rest three times along the short mountain road, and each time he felt the injured spot on the sole of his foot swelling and burning up again.

This was probably the most difficult period of my 25 years of life.

It's not about poetry and distant places, but simply about the most basic survival and exchange.

When the low, gray outline of Gouzi Village reappeared in my field of vision, it felt like it was almost 10 o'clock.

The sunlight dispersed some of the fog, clearly outlining the appearance of this village deep in the Taihang Mountains.

It's a pity there are no cell phones now, otherwise he would definitely have filmed it so that people could see what a truly pristine mountain village looks like.

The village is nestled in a relatively flat valley between two mountains, with dozens of houses scattered haphazardly on the sunny slopes.

The vast majority of houses were built by mixing bluish-gray stones from the nearby mountains with yellow mud. The walls were thick but rough, with withered grass growing between the stones.

The roof was covered with a thick, dark brown thatch, some of which had collapsed and was barely propped up with sticks and stones.

Only a few houses that looked slightly better had roofs covered with thin stone slabs.

None of the windows had glass; they were all wooden frames covered with yellowed and tattered paper, and some were simply covered with straw mats or broken wooden boards.

There were no utility poles in sight throughout the village, and the sky was so clear that only eagles occasionally flew by.

A few wisps of pale gray smoke rose from some rooftops, slowly merging into the mountain mist.

There is a crooked fence at the entrance of the village.

Several children dressed in bulky, patched cotton-padded jackets and trousers chased each other in the open space. Their little faces were red from the cold. The sleeves of their jackets were so long that they covered the backs of their hands, and their trousers were too short, revealing their red, frozen ankles.

When they saw Chen Yuan, this unfamiliar stranger who walked strangely, they immediately stopped playing and hid behind woodpiles or trees, only revealing pairs of wary and curious eyes.

Finally, seeing Chen Yuan dawdling as he approached, they all scattered and ran away, clearly frightened by his appearance.

When Chen Yuan appeared under the old locust tree at the village entrance, almost half the village was alerted.

Everyone already knew from the children that a strange person had arrived.

Many faces peeked out from the low, rough stone doorway.

There was an old man with a wrinkled face, cloudy eyes, and a pipe in his mouth.

There was a woman with a sallow complexion, thin and frail, holding a small, frail baby, her eyes filled with wariness and curiosity.

Most of the children were teenagers, wearing cotton-padded jackets that were obviously old clothes altered from adults, still too big and patched upon patched. They sniffled and hid behind woodpiles and stone mills, their dark eyes staring unblinkingly at the uninvited guest.

Perhaps it was because the weather had turned cold that people stopped working in the fields, and there was nothing new or exciting happening in the village.

Looking at Chen Yuan, I felt a great deal of curiosity.

Chen Yuan could clearly feel those gazes—curiosity, suspicion, fear, and a subtle, natural resistance to any potential trouble caused by external changes.

Chen Yuan, however, was unaware of this.

The day before yesterday, Old Han came back and mentioned that he had encountered a young city boy who had been robbed by "bandits" in the mountains to the east. He looked miserable. Everyone just listened and didn't take it seriously, and no one thought that this person would actually come looking for him.

The person is right in front of you now.

His appearance was indeed pitiful: his face was pale, his lips were chapped, and the ill-fitting dark brown coarse cloth jacket he wore was dirty and tattered, barely covering the strangely styled and strangely textured "white clothes" (pajamas) underneath. His feet... could hardly be called shoes, they were just swollen feet wrapped in tattered strips of cloth, and they were covered with suspicious stains.

But the sharpened wooden spear in his hand and the heavy, broken iron bucket that looked like it was filled with something heavy set him apart from a mere beggar or refugee.

Especially his eyes, tired yet clear, carrying a calmness that seemed out of place with his surroundings and... a hint of barely perceptible urgency.

"Is Uncle Han here?" Chen Yuan put down the bucket, trying to keep his voice calm, and his gaze swept across the crowd before landing on Old Man Han, who came out of a stone house after hearing the voice.

Old Han was still wearing that bulky, tattered black cotton-padded coat. When he saw Chen Yuan, his face was expressionless, but his brows were furrowed as usual: "It's you? Why did you only come here today?" His tone was flat, revealing neither joy nor anger, typical of a mountain dweller's attitude towards a stranger.

He was clearly very curious about why Chen Yuan had only come to the village two days later.

He thought Chen Yuan had been carried off by wolves!

"Uncle Han," Chen Yuan bowed slightly, his attitude respectful, "I've always remembered how you helped me in my time of need. My legs are really not very mobile, so I found some of my belongings that I had hidden in the mountains before," he pointed to the iron bucket, not finishing his sentence, "I was thinking of seeing if I could trade with you, or with the village, for some things that I urgently need right now."

"Exchange things? What do you have to exchange?" An old man with gray hair and a face so wrinkled it could trap mosquitoes spoke up as he squatted against the wall in the sun. His voice was hoarse. He was an old man in the village, and everyone called him "Third Uncle".

Without saying much, Chen Yuan bent down and, in full view of everyone, took out a heavy, black woodcutter's knife with a blade that gleamed coldly.

Then, he took out a sickle head, a kitchen knife, and finally a neatly arranged, gleaming silver nail from the bucket.

Several items gleamed in the midday sun with a unique luster, distinct from the rusty, repaired farm tools in the village, belonging to finely crafted metal.

"hiss……"

A suppressed gasp rang out.

The men who had been hiding in the back couldn't help but move forward.

Zhao Dachui, a man in his early thirties with an honest face but large hands and prominent knuckles, stared intently at the head of the wood-chopping knife, his Adam's apple bobbing.

He was recognized in the village as the most skillful with his hands, and he knew a little about stonemasonry and repair work. He could tell the quality of ironware at a glance.

"This blade...this design..." he murmured, reaching out to touch it, then pulling back and looking at Old Han and Third Master.

Old Han squatted down, picked up the kitchen knife, slowly scraped the blade with his fingertips, then flicked it, listening to the deep, resonant metallic echo.

Third Master squinted, picked up an iron nail, and examined it against the light.

"Young man," Old Han put down his cleaver, looked at Chen Yuan, and his eyes held a different glint, "These things... don't seem like the work of a blacksmith from the mountains. Where did you get them?"

"My family used to live in the city and had some dealings with machine shops and blacksmith shops. We kept some good materials and tools as treasures." Chen Yuan lowered his head slightly, his tone sincere but with a hint of bitterness, befitting his status as a "fallen young master".

"We hid some when we fled, and we found them in the mountains these past two days."

This explanation, combined with the rumors that he was "robbed by a rich young man," is barely plausible.

Whether they believe it or not, they probably don't really believe it, but what does it matter?

The key is that the products are genuinely good.

"What do you want to change?" Third Master asked directly, his gaze sweeping over Chen Yuan's tattered clothes and swollen feet.

"Third Master, Uncle Han, fellow villagers," Chen Yuan lowered his tone even further, "What I'm most anxious about is the injury on my foot and the clothes I'm wearing. I want to change into a pair of shoes that can walk on mountain paths, and get more clean cloths to wrap the injury. Also, it's getting cold, so I want to change into a thicker cotton-padded coat and trousers. Then there's food, as well as copper, hardwood, and leather."

The items at the front are the most basic and urgent survival needs; these are the items that will help Chen Yuan survive.

The materials needed to produce the human-powered foot-operated generator are then added later.

Now, having endured the cold and hunger of those two, he has prioritized survival.