What is more, the newly harvested grain, when milled into rice, tasted exceptionally good, and he grew quite fond of it.
The village had plenty of fields, yet very few people actually living there. Unable to bear the sight of abandoned fields, the locals often simply handed their plots over to those who remained in the village to farm. Should the original owners ever return, or if the government introduced any new policies, the land would still revert to them. Seeing the fields go to waste broke the hearts of those left in the village, so they did their utmost to cultivate as much as possible.
When harvest time rolled around, there was simply too much grain. Even if some wanted to send provisions to their children in the city, they lacked the means to haul such a heavy load all the way there. Besides, what would be the point of lugging it to the city? Would they carry unhulled rice straight there? Where were they supposed to mill it? Did the city even have rice mills? Should they carry polished white rice instead? If they brought too much, it would sit around too long and breed weevils; if they brought too little, the household stockpile back home barely shrank. Nor could they hop on a bus costing one or two hundred yuan back and forth just to deliver a few dozen jin of rice whenever they pleased. The travel fare alone would buy a fair amount of rice right there in the city. Above all, they could not burden their children too endlessly.
Chapter 166