Chapter 8

Dai Min was not much sad about the death of Zhang Yunchang. The affections between them were weak. But she was not happy with the cruel execution of her husband. That kind of treatment was against law and humanity.

She told her two sons that the death of their father was related to his lust. Their father’s rapes led to his cruel end. In the vernacular of the local people he was like a rooster deforming too many hens and incurring the misfortune for itself.

His evils were rooted in the ownership of land. The land was granted but he didn’t use it well. It became an instrument for him to bully other women and girls. Unfortunately, lust was not regarded as a fault of man’s. This gave rise to his indecent living.

But land should not be supposed to be the primary cause for his miserable death. It was the local custom for the landless people to rent land from the landed people. He didn’t rent much land to others, and furthermore the land he rented to others was more for help than for charge. He was not a landlord that exploited others heavily. Nevertheless, he was quite lusty. His lust brought the disaster to him. But should lust be taken as an excuse for his execution in a place where lust was considered to be a virtue of man?

He once made his father suffer from the lack of opium and die. That he was not filial should be taken as an excuse of punishing him fatally. Yet it was not this but his lust that took his life. Maybe he shouldn’t have had sex with other women and girls in the village.

Dai Min was puzzled about the death of her husband. She was more puzzled about the on-going land reform in the new society.

After the public criticism party, Dai Min and her two sons were driven out of their house. The clothes they wore were all they had. The militia took them to the hut of the poorest cattle feeder and threatened them:

“Live here from now on. No rebellion, or you’ll risk taking your own lives!”

That night she held her two sons tightly in her arms. The hut was broken. It had no door, and there was a big round hole on the roof. The wind blew and brought them coldness. The bed of straw smelled of mould.

There was only one pot in the hut. There was no grain left for them. The neighbors were unwilling to help them with food. They had to feed on wild plants. The two boys couldn’t bear the hardships, and implored their mother, “Take us to our relatives in the city. Let us have some meat.”

Dai Min scolded them, “How little you care about face and dignity! The day your father died, your uncle was present. The land deed owner was not your father but his father. But did he do anything to save your pleading father? He was once a Kuomintang general, and now he is President of Business Association. He enjoys a high social status. Will other people do anything bad against him if he admits the ownership of the land? When we were driven out of our house, he was in the supervising delegation. Did he say anything to help us? Listen, boys! Your uncle is unwilling to have anything to do with us. We can’t lose our face before him.”