CH 48

It wasn’t their place to live in the second room nor the master room, so they could only squeeze in the west corner and sleep on the north and south kangs.

She wasn’t used to it at all!

If it was up to her, she felt that she should sleep in the east kang, whereas the Old Three and his family would sleep in the west corner.

The old lady got angry and scolded, “Get out, get out, get out! Whoever wants to live separately can get out of this house; it doesn’t matter to any of you if your father and I die anyways.”

Knowing that she was only speaking out of anger, everyone dispersed.

The old lady leaned on the kang and said, “Old man, my head is bulging and pounding painfully just like the frozen winter melon, I’m afraid I’m going to have a stroke out of anger. Quick, give me a piece of the ointment patch to paste it on.”

According to her, the son was the Company Commander and he was part of a specific cadre!

Although the Eighth Route Army and the People’s Liberation Army were also stationed there during the Anti-Japanese War and the Liberation War, she had also seen many Platoon Commanders and Company Commanders, so they weren’t all that special to her back then.

Although many young folks enlisted in the army in the 1950’s and 1960’s, to the point where even several Company Commanders and Battalion Commanders returned to resist the US Aggression and aid Korea, she didn’t bother to see how they were faring.

But now, the situation is different!

At that time, because of the wars that would inevitably cause the soldiers’ deaths, many people did not want to join the army and the daughters of the country were not willing to marry soldiers either.

Now, it was a popular career option to be a soldier!

Soldiers, like workers and government agencies, were iron rice bowls(1)!

(T/N: Refers to any job being ‘stable and secure’. Usually, you wouldn’t have to worry about not having income by taking these careers)

Little Fourth(2) also said that if he could not get a good job after graduating from high school, he would go to the army to find his third brother.

(T/N: The old lady’s youngest son, but that’s the way parents would typically address their kids)

If Old Three were to change jobs, what could he do?

The old lady also knew that many soldiers in the nearby village were demobilised and they returned home. If the conscripts were to be demobilised for three years, it would be necessary and there was nothing much to say about that.

After being demobilised, the army would give them some money. Then, they would have to find a job by themselves, which would be nothing more than taking care of the Brigade Commune and becoming a civilian soldier or the Chief of Security in the village.

Even if it were small cadres who wanted to change their jobs, sometimes even Platoon Commanders, they could at most be Company Leaders in a company or work at the Public Security Bureau of the commune, the Ministry of National Defence, the Militia Company, etc. The old lady had inquired about them, but ultimately, they had no future.

Although the local members felt that these were jobs with rather proud titles and high-paying jobs, how was the old lady going to accept those? After all, she was also the old mother of the Company Commander of the army.

She only felt a burst of sudden dizziness. Originally, she wanted Han Qingsong to make things clear, but he managed to run away. As a result, she couldn’t breathe and almost suffocated herself.

She didn’t want to succumb to suffocation due to her overwhelming anger, so she nagged at the Old Man Han.

Old Man Han was so sleepy to the point where he couldn’t open his eyes. He hummed at first, but then, he snored loudly in the middle of his wife’s nagging.