Chapter 2: The Little Beggar

The children on the ground were scruffy and ragged, wearing tattered clothes in the scorching heat, still layered with cotton-padded jackets full of holes, exposing the blackened cotton inside smeared with a layer of thick, dark grease. Once hit by the sun, a foul, pungent odor wafted through the air.

The villagers watching the excitement were extremely enthusiastic. No one felt the heat or stench anymore; everyone was heatedly discussing, occasionally exchanging a few words with those nearby. These days, every household struggled with hunger, who dared to interfere unnecessarily? Besides, with the presence of the village chief, there was no need for everyone to worry. Of course, being hungry didn't stop them from enjoying the spectacle; everyone turned into a Sherlock Holmes, speculating about the truth.

"That clothing is so tattered, must be a beggar from the town."

"Do we even have beggars in our town? Never heard of that," a village nearby immediately refuted, "I've been to the town many times and have never seen one."

The other villagers nodded in agreement with his words. The villager who had spoken first, feeling embarrassed by the rebuttal, reddened in anger and was about to retort when suddenly someone shouted that the village chief was coming, causing him to immediately shut his mouth. The crowd of onlookers quickly parted to make way for the village chief.

Knowing someone was by her side, signaling her safety, Lan Tian sighed in relief and completely lost consciousness.

Upon opening her eyes, she saw the dark blue mosquito net above the bed, feeling bewildered and disoriented.

The mosquito net was clearly very ancient, square-shaped, perfectly covering the bed. The openings at the top were tied up with cloth strips, one end nailed to the opposite wall and the other to the window, while the back ends were directly nailed to the wall.

The walls were made of mud, a material almost extinct in modern times, mixed with sections of straw. A mud brick was approximately one meter long and one inch high, very ancient, showing pockmarks and pits from the peeling earth.

There was a wooden wardrobe by the bed, half of its door missing, the other half opened outward. Inside, several sets of neat but old clothing were stacked. Under the window, there was a wooden table with a large hole on the surface, on which lay a yellowed book. Through the mosquito net overhead, she could see the black-painted beams covered with cobwebs and the grey-green roof tiles.

Lan Tian gently closed her eyes, unable to comprehend.

Where was this?

Nowadays, everyone had a smart brain, traveled in hovercars, and humanity was preparing to venture beyond the Milky Way into other galaxies exploring unknown histories. Automobiles, computers - those vanished into the river of history except for a few preserved in museums, let alone the legendary mosquito nets.

Staring at the mosquito net, Lan Tian was lost in thought. This item was extremely antique, seemingly existed about a century ago, roughly around her childhood when her family had two such nets.

Turning her head to survey the room meticulously, she could describe it in only four words: utterly empty.

The mosquito net, made of coarse hemp, had large holes, the crude hemp fringes blocking the holes, preventing mosquitoes from entering.

This coarse hemp was grown by rural folks in the past when they were too poor to buy mosquito nets and resorted to growing and weaving their own hemp. After harvesting, the hemp bark was peeled off, spun into thick threads, dyed, air-dried until the color set deeply, and then woven into mosquito nets. Parts of exposed original hemp color indicated poor dyeing.

The more Lan Tian looked, the more familiar the room seemed. Memories surged like tides; the coarsely hand-woven hemp mosquito net, a hallmark of that era, was commonplace in every household. From her childhood to her marriage period, in the seventies and eighties, her family used this type of mosquito net.

In the early seventies, the village was still a production team, implementing a public rationing system. Everyone went out to work in the morning and returned together in the evening, rations distributed per capita. The grain harvested, after fulfilling the state's quota, the surplus was shared among the village based on work points.

Families with many members and strong laborers received more work points, thus getting more grain. There was a saying, 'strength in numbers.'

Back then, the land belonged to the state, the mountains belonged to the state, and the grain harvested from the land was the state's. The property of every household was transparent; everything in a family was well-known in the village. Families with less manpower kept quiet, tightening their belts to get by.