“Mancang, they are all labourers, sweating after pulling the tow rope for a while. Once the sweat soaks in, the rope rubs, and their clothes wear out in less than a day. Poor people, where can they get so many clothes?”
Zheng Fang, passing by, explained, “The women following behind are usually the wife of one of the trackers. You see it often enough, and they stop feeling shy.”
“The trackers’ wives don’t pull the tow rope, so why do they follow?” Mancang asked again.
“Pulling the tow rope is hard labour. You can’t skimp on food, or you won’t have strength. They carry food and water.”
Zheng Fang added, “Sometimes, when a tracker is too exhausted to go on, they can take over for a while, letting the man catch his breath.”
“Do they wear clothes when they pull the tow rope?” Mancang asked curiously.
“Of course not,” Zheng Fang said. “But these women are tougher than men. No one laughs at them.”
In those days, clothes were very valuable. Many people had only one set, worn from spring to winter, patched up when torn.
Before Guan Xiaorou married Jin Feng, she had one set of clothes, made when she was ten. As she grew, she added patches. By the time she married Jin Feng, the clothes had multiple layers, patch upon patch.
That was considered decent. Some poor families had only one or two sets for the whole household. Whoever went out wore them, while others stayed in bed.
When working in the fields, they laboured from dawn to dusk, not out of diligence, but because they had no clothes. In the dark, no one could see.
Trackers were always sweating. Clothes wore out too quickly, so they went without. Otherwise, their hard-earned money wouldn’t cover the cost of clothes.
“How much can they earn pulling the tow rope for a day?” Jin Feng asked.
“It depends. On good roads, seven or eight wen a day. On tougher routes, the pay is higher, up to thirty or forty wen a day at most.”
“So much?” Mancang asked, shocked.
Even Jin Feng was surprised.
Trackers earned that much?
To put it in perspective, he paid Zhang Liang five hundred wen a month, and Zhang thought it was too much.
“Thirty or forty wen is for the toughest stretch,” Zheng Fang said. “It’s all cliffs and steep walls with fast currents. Most people can’t even climb it empty-handed, let alone pull a boat. Countless trackers die there every year.”
“In that case, they’re risking their lives. They should be paid more,” Jin Feng nodded in agreement.
“Forty wen a day? I’d risk my life for that,” Zhang Mancang said, eyes full of envy.
But soon, he stopped envying them.
By noon, the wooden boat reached a valley.
The peaks on both sides of the valley narrowed inward, like the waist of a gourd. The Jialing River, nearly a hundred metres wide, shrank to half its width here, with the current becoming especially turbulent.
The cliffs on both sides were extremely steep, almost vertical.
Though this stretch of cliff was only a hundred metres wide, there was no foothold. How could the trackers pull such a large boat across?
“How do they pull it?” Mancang voiced the question in Jin Feng’s mind.
“You’ll see,” Zheng Fang said, keeping them in suspense. “After you watch, you’ll understand why they earn thirty or forty wen a day.”
Mancang, seeing Zheng Fang wouldn’t elaborate, didn’t bother asking further. He leaned on the deck railing, watching curiously.
A few hundred metres from the valley, the trackers stopped at a spot where the current wasn’t too strong, tying the tow rope to a tree.
Two women who had been following immediately stepped forward with baskets on their backs.
The trackers took hard millet cakes from the baskets, scooped bowls of water from the Jialing River, and ate heartily.
While the trackers rested and ate, the two women took two coils of hemp rope from their baskets, hung them around their necks, and headed toward the cliff.
One woman rubbed her hands together and began to climb.
The cliff was extremely steep. The woman moved nimbly, like an ape, using cracks and protruding rocks to advance diagonally upward.
Jin Feng, watching from the boat, couldn’t help but worry for her.
In his previous life, he had seen videos of rock climbers online, but he never imagined witnessing something so breathtaking.
The rocks on the cliff were wet from the river’s spray, many covered in slippery moss.
This woman, with no protective gear, climbed barefoot and barehanded.
The difficulty was far greater than any climbing wall in a training room.
She moved quickly. By the time the trackers finished one cake, she had reached the middle of the cliff, over twenty metres above the water.
There, a rock protruded about a metre, forming a small platform less than two square metres, a decent resting spot.
The woman took a few deep breaths on the platform, then removed the rope from her back. She held one end and threw the other down with force.
The woman waiting below caught the rope and tied it securely to a tree.
The woman on the cliff tied her end to a protruding boulder.
The woman below tugged the rope to ensure it was secure, then, holding the rope with her right hand, began to climb.
With the rope to aid her, the second woman climbed even faster than the first.
By the time the trackers finished their second cake, the two women had met on the small platform.
“What are they doing?” Jin Feng asked, pointing at the cliff.
Zheng Fang ignored Mancang but couldn’t ignore Jin Feng. He smiled and explained, “Trackers have strength but lack agility. The women are nimble and light. They climb the cliff to set up a rope. That way, the trackers can hold the rope to cross the toughest stretch. Without it, half the men would die here.”
“I see,” Jin Feng said, looking at the polished stones on the cliff. “It looks like many boats pass through here every year. Why doesn’t the government install some stakes and leave a rope? That way, women wouldn’t have to risk their lives climbing the cliff each time.”
“They tried before, but the ropes left here get stolen within days,” Zheng Fang sighed. “The government replaced them a few times, then gave up.”
That made sense. In those days, hemp rope was valuable.
A hundred-metre-long thick hemp rope, if stolen and sold, could feed a family of four for a month.
While Jin Feng and Zheng Fang talked, the first woman, now rested, began the second half of the climb.
This part required descending diagonally, which was trickier than going up. She moved cautiously, not rushing.
Fortunately, her skills were honed, and she reached the bottom safely without incident.
The second woman took the rope from her neck and threw it downward.
Her strength wasn’t as great as the first woman’s, and the rope fell into the water, missing its mark.
With no choice, she pulled the rope back and tried again.
The second attempt failed as well…
