SIAS Chapter 229.1

After a winter, it was 1976 in the blink of an eye.

Four heartbreaking things happened this year, and the whole country mourned.

First, a week after New Year’s Day, Mr. Zhou was dying. His last words before his death were to the medical staff: “I’m fine here. Go take care of other sick comrades. You need more there…”

After that, Mr. Zhu shared some of the state work and was overworked, which led to his illness and death. He passed away in early July of the same year.

At the end of July, a major earthquake occurred in Tangcheng. A large city with a population of one million was razed to the ground.

The successive blows caused Mr. Mao’s condition to deteriorate sharply. After reviewing the notification documents of the earthquake, he fell into an uncontrollable coma and left the people forever in September.

This year, Yi Qingqing made a lot of paper-made products. Every other week, she would burn some offerings in the backyard, not only to commemorate the old gentlemen, but also to commemorate the victims of the earthquake, even including the soldiers who died in the war and the intellectuals who were tortured to death.

Sometimes there were merit rewards, sometimes not, but the system had not been upgraded.

At this time, rather than earning merit, she wanted to do her best to contribute what little she could.

Amidst all this sorrow, the only consolation is probably that death is not the end of life. Yi Qingqing has personally been to the underworld. So perhaps it is another beginning.

Yi Qingqing burned the offerings for Mr. Mao and buried them in the fire pit.

Although some of his decisions after liberation were not entirely correct, looking back on his life, his merits always outweighed his faults. Such a person should have a lot of merits and virtues, and should be better than herself. At least he can get a time travel + golden finger package.

She couldn’t help thinking.

Although this year seems a bit difficult, fortunately, this is the last darkness before dawn. She must also prepare for the coming dawn!

Yi Qingqing shook off the dust on her hands, went back to the house, scooped up a bucket of water to wash her hands, and then examined her system panel.

[Merit: 61]

[Sign-in point: 621]

[Skills: Cooking (Level 4 – 3%), Incense Making (Level 3 – 58%), Paper-Folding (Level 3 – 56%), College Entrance Examination (Level 3 – 96%), Musical Instrument (Level 2 – 88%), Painting (Level 2 – 92%), Calligraphy (Level 2 – 93%), Foreign Language (Level 2 – 95%), Traditional Chinese Medicine (Level 2 – 82%), Planting (Level 2 – 88%), Hunting (Level 2 – 92%), Sewing (Level 2 – 68%), Woodcraft (Level 1 – 8%)]

The increased merits were all accumulated slowly from her various worship activities this year.

It didn’t happen every time, but after so many times, she gradually realized that it was easier to gain merit by doing pure good deeds.

The number of sign-in points also increased greatly. In addition to the sign-in points awarded when gaining merit, a large amount of them came from her cooking skills.

A few months ago, her cooking skills broke through Level 4.

After the skill reached Level 3, although it was difficult to learn and the progress was slow, once it reached Level 4 through your own efforts, the reward was not comparable to that of Level 2 or Level 3. One hundred sign-in points were awarded at one time.

Yi Qingqing also gradually figured out the rules for rewarding sign-in points for skill upgrades.

If she used sign-in points to upgrade skills, there would be no sign-in point reward, but if she learned to upgrade by herself, the sign-in points required for the upgrade would be fully awarded to her.

Upgrading to Level 2 is 5 points, upgrading to Level 3 is 10 points, upgrading to Level 4 is 100 points, and upgrading to Level 5 is 1,000 points.

She didn’t know about the Level 6 upgrade in the future, but looking at the cumulative trend, it might be 10,000 points, which made her look forward to it a little.

 

*****

Translator’s Encyclopedia: Major Event in China, 1976 (Part 1)

The Death of Zhou Enlai

Zhou Enlai, one of the principal founders and top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Republic of China, died at 9:57 a.m. on January 8, 1976, at the age of 78, from bladder cancer at the 305 Hospital in Beijing. 

At the time of his death, he held several major positions, including Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Premier of the State Council, and Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Zhou’s death marked a pivotal moment in Chinese politics, triggering an outpouring of public mourning, exposing deep political divisions within the CCP, and setting in motion a chain of events that culminated in the Tiananmen Incident of April 1976.

 

The Tiananmen Incident

The 1976 Tiananmen incident or the April 5 Tiananmen incident (Chinese: 四五天安门事件) was a mass gathering and protest that took place on April 4–5, 1976, at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. 

The incident occurred on the traditional day of mourning, the Qingming Festival, after the Nanjing incident, and was triggered by the death of Premier Zhou Enlai earlier that year. Some people strongly disapproved of the removal of the displays of mourning, and began gathering in the Square to protest against the central authorities, then largely under the auspices of the Gang of Four, who ordered the Square to be cleared.

The event was labeled “counterrevolutionary” immediately after its occurrence by the Communist Party’s Central Committee and served as a gateway to the dismissal and house arrest of then–Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, who was accused of planning the event, while he insisted that he was nearby only for a haircut. The Central Committee’s decision on the event was reversed after the Cultural Revolution ended, as it would later be officially hailed as a display of patriotism. 

 

 

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