As An An entered middle age, plastic products once again appeared in people's lives.
Thus, An An's family began using a hand pump well, and she and Yin Chuan no longer had to carry water.
The differences between the north and south grew increasingly stark, with some southern cities already using electricity, while the north lagged behind.
Flashlights and cassette players started to make a comeback.
Things that An An had only read about in books, and items her mother had used in her youth, gradually began to appear in her own life.
She and her husband would buy one or two items to satisfy their curiosity, and they would also go to the small town with their family to take photos as keepsakes.
She knew that living in such a remote area meant it was virtually impossible to get electricity lines; they would probably only reach as far as the nearest village to them.
Everything was slowly spreading from south to north, and An An guessed that the future would probably be as the books described, with a sudden leap forward at some point in time.
But she also felt that she probably wouldn't live to see it—the era her mother had experienced.
After all, there were only so many people, and no matter how fast things progressed, they wouldn't reach that stage. But she thought her child, Qiu Qiu, might see it.
Or if Qiu Qiu had children, they would probably be able to enjoy it.
When her mother was still alive, she used to say that although the standard of living was improving, people's desires were hard to control.
Back then, poor people thought that having three meals of white rice a day was a good life, but when everyone could afford fish and meat and eat well three times a day, people started chasing after cars and houses.
When others have something and you don't, it creates a huge disparity, even making people feel that life has no meaning. Not only do they push themselves to climb higher, but they also burden their children with life's purpose.
So children who were free from the pressures of survival now faced mental pressures.
Children experiencing these intangible mental pressures would be mocked by adults who had lived through tangible hardships. The adults would think that the era they lived through, when they couldn't even eat their fill, was the worst, and that mental pressure was just a sign of having too much free time.
Back then, she didn't understand what mental pressure was, but now she did. People started comparing who had flashlights, who had radios and tape recorders, and even sewing machines and watches.
Once people were well-fed, they had to find other things to compare, even extending to comparing their children's education.
Even weddings and funerals became a matter of comparison—what wasn't there to compare?
Paper newspapers and magazines began to appear, and people learned more information, making them yearn even more for the south. Many young people began to hope to carve out a new life there.
In the course of history, many people want to venture out, but only a few truly succeed in the end.
In An An's view, even success could go through cycles in history; it all depended on which lucky individuals had the right timing, location, and support.
Bicycles became more common, and later, four-wheeled oil-burning farm vehicles appeared, as well as trucks in the north.
Some main road sections began to be widened, with cement and soil making a comeback. In the north, vehicles were mainly used for transporting coal or timber.
People wanting to go to another place no longer had to spend as much time and energy as before, although the speed was still far from what it was before the disaster.
Later, when electricity came to small towns and villages, people brought projection equipment to show movies in the village.
An An and her husband, along with neighboring villagers, all went to watch. Surprisingly, they showed old movies from many years ago, restored and replayed.
Many people came from the surrounding areas. An iron frame was set up with a very large screen, allowing everyone to see.
Wen Qian's generation had all passed away. Now, the people watching the movies mused about the lives of their predecessors, unsure whether to envy or sympathize with them.
They knew more or less about the past, but couldn't truly understand that era, as too much time had passed.
As An An watched, she thought of her mother, wondering if she had watched the same film many years ago when she was young.
Because of the written records at home and the early newspapers that had long since withered away, An An felt a sense of familiarity mixed with strangeness whenever new things appeared.
Yin Chuan asked An An if she wanted to move to a small town or village, but An An refused. She was fine with visiting occasionally, but she couldn't bear to leave her home for long.
She felt that she might be getting old, becoming more attached to the place where she grew up, feeling safe only there.
Qiu Qiu was sometimes very curious about how developed the south had become. When An An asked if she wanted to go see for herself, she said no.
Qiu Qiu had her own ideas; she didn't want to be too far from her family. Although she couldn't go to distant places, she could always hear news from afar.
An An told her that to see how developed the south was, all she needed to do was check if they could see the stars in the sky above.
This was what Wen Qian had told her before: as cities develop, air pollution combined with light pollution at night means you can barely see the stars in the sky—that's when you know it's about there.
This was gradually proven true later. People returning from the south described how the stars had become fewer, but not to the point of being completely invisible.
At this time, the south wasn't yet able to light up useless lights at night, so the sky was still visible for now.
However, as cities developed later, it became very difficult to see the starry sky in urban areas.
An An always paid attention to various changes in life, as if her mother's era was gradually unfolding before her. She could now imagine what her mother's life had been like back then.
