摘要：Back then, we all called them "carrots," not "red radishes." Red radishes did exist—what we called a type of spicy radish, large a

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Transparent Carrots

Back then, we all called them "carrots," not "red radishes." Red radishes did exist—what we called a type of spicy radish, large and thick, about the size of a child’s calf. Carrots were small, some no thicker than a finger.

From 1960 to 1963, I attended Liaocheng No. 1 Primary School. During those four years, carrots became a crucial part of my life.

Xiao San was my best friend. His father’s official identity before Liberation had been that of a "puppet police chief." But he claimed to have been an underground Communist—his sole contact had died, leaving his true status a mystery. After Liberation, he was branded a "historical counterrevolutionary" and sent to the nitration yard for reform through labor, surviving on a meager monthly allowance of just over ten yuan.

My father had also worked underground, though he and Xiao San’s father had never crossed paths. Still, my father trusted Xiao San’s father on instinct.

At the time, my father was also under investigation for historical issues, working as a teaching supervisor at a middle school while his Party membership hung in limbo. In that sense, he and Xiao San’s father were comrades in misery.

For the sake of his child’s future, Xiao San’s father took the initiative to divorce his wife and lived alone in the tool storage yard at the nitration site. The yard was filled with carts, shovels, hoes, and other tools. When he had nothing else to do, Xiao San’s father would quietly repair broken equipment.

In a weedy corner of the yard, there was a patch of unused land. Xiao San’s father cleared it and sowed carrot seeds, harvesting two crops a year.

And so, carrots entered our lives.

Back then, a children’s rhyme circulated among us:

Liaocheng County, a pigsty,

Dust flies when it’s dry,

When rain falls, the mud swallows high.

On rainy days, we usually went barefoot, jumping in mud puddles like Peppa Pig. Once, Sun Shansong—the son of the county magistrate—was hopping around in a puddle when a shard of glass sliced his foot. Blood gushed out, and I was terrified. But in truth, the children of Party cadets and us common folk were no different. The son of Political Commissar Li, the organization department head, was in my class. His clothes were always patched up—I hardly ever saw him wear anything new.

A sixth-grade girl once found a wallet on the street containing over thirty yuan—a fortune Back then. Her family was poor, yet she waited on the roadside for the owner from noon until past four in the afternoon. When no one came, she handed it over to the police.

She became a little hero. During the Friday afternoon assembly, the school had her share her story with the whole student body.

I sat in the front rows, close to her. I watched as the Young Pioneers counselor took out a glass jar half-filled with sugar and poured a generous amount into a teacup before adding hot water. The little hero sipped the sugar water between sentences.

My attention was completely fixated on that cup of sugar water. Sugar was a rare luxury. At home, we only had clumpy, brownish "Cuban sugar" that looked like chicken droppings—locked tightly in a cabinet.

"Being a hero must be nice—you even get sugar water," I said to Xiao San days later, still unable to forget it.

"Then let’s be heroes too," Xiao San replied.

But how? Xiao San was cleverer than me and soon had an idea: "We’ll buy five fen worth of saccharin. On Sunday, we’ll carry a bucket of well water to the reservoir construction site for the workers to drink."

It was a brilliant plan. Saccharin-sweetened well water was a favorite drink among us kids.

We carried the bucket to the site and shouted, "Saccharin well water! Come and drink!"

But no workers came. Disappointed, one uncle told us, "By the time you carried it here, your ‘well water’ was already warm. It’ll just bloat our stomachs. We have tea provided at the site."

Back home, Xiao San refused to give up. This time, he turned to his father’s carrots.

In those days, carrots weren’t just fruit—they were a vital substitute for grain.

"If we bring some carrots to the site, we’ll definitely become heroes," Xiao San said.

"But will your father agree?" I asked, feeling guilty, since Xiao San’s father often gave us carrots.

"He will," Xiao San said confidently.

We went to the tool shed together.

"Dad, we want to take some carrots to the reservoir site," Xiao San said.

"Why?" his father asked, sounding interested.

"The workers are working hard."

"That’s a good thing. Let’s dig up a basket, wash them, and take them over."

Xiao San and I carried a basket of carrots to the site, and the workers devoured them in seconds.

Excited, we told our Young Pioneers counselor at school.

She nodded and said, "Oh."

Days passed. No praise from the teachers, no sugar water from the counselor.

Xiao San was gloomy for days.

When his father found out, he washed two big carrots, handed one to each of us, and said, "We do good deeds not for praise or to be heroes. When the reservoir is finished, we’ll have running water, electric lights, multi-story buildings, telephones—and even beef stew with potatoes. That’ll taste much better than carrots."

I held my carrot up to the sun. The light shone through, making it glow translucent. I tried my best to imagine that future—multi-story buildings, electric lights, telephones, the taste of beef stew. My mouth watered.

At our feet, a toad stared blankly at us, as if dozing off—or waiting for something.

来源：小说讲坛