‘SEE YOU MORNING’ 109 Governance of Lübeck

After a slightly busy weekend, Lübeck reflected on the impact his newly adopted children had brought to his life. Although the love he had given them had well satisfied his moral needs, it had indeed increased his life burden in reality. Financially, it was nothing to him, but the occupation of his energy and time was tangible. What’s more, they had more or less disturbed his private life with Ruth and Emma.
The carriage was driving on the way to the town hall. Lübeck had walked here through spring, summer, autumn and winter, yet this spring made him feel a unique vitality and ignorance of spring. Perhaps it was the spiritual satisfaction brought by helping Doris, or the vitality that the two little elves Clara and Ada had brought to the family, or the sense of accomplishment from stabilizing the social structure of Zufluchtsland, that made this road he had walked for many years look so different in the morning light.
When he arrived at the town hall, some colleagues had already arrived. Lübeck always seemed to be the last one to come. The longer commute could be a good excuse, but he also didn’t want to be the first one to arrive and put pressure on others. His own easy life and the comfortable lives of others were the reasons why he worked here. Sometimes apparent diligence could not solve problems.
The purpose of establishing Zufluchtsland was to preserve and strengthen the human race and ethnicity. The most basic need for population reproduction was food, so from the very beginning of administrative management, Lübeck had attached great importance to the production of food crops and formulated a series of guidelines for implementation. When he came to the town hall, these administrative staff were recording and statistics the spring sowing production activities and harvest estimates in various places according to the procedures he had formulated to formulate guiding policies.
Sitting in the chair of his office, Lübeck thought about his idea from yesterday: whether to start improving the educational production and scientific and technological level of Zufluchtsland. After all, the selection result formed by the current single agricultural production environment was those people with good physical strength. They would have better agricultural output, thus obtaining superior personal living conditions, making them more advantageous in obtaining partners and having offspring. But obviously, such ethnic genetic selection had a biased impact on the overall development.
“Captain, look, after eliminating that wave of moths, the farmers’ enthusiasm for reclaiming cultivated land has increased a lot. Look at this,” Müller said with a smile while holding the latest statistical document and walking into the office to show it to Lübeck.
Lübeck took it and flipped through it, and Müller continued to add on the side,
“Look, according to this trend, the number of newborns that a family can afford may double. The small family unit model you mentioned before may be coming soon.”
“Indeed. Maybe we should expand the urban residential area,” Lübeck replied, but what he was thinking in his heart was how to gradually improve the quality of the population rather than the quantity.
“Maybe we should start public education,” Lübeck went on to say.
“But who will teach?” Müller asked.
“Yeah, maybe we can only rely on the development of social productivity to promote it step by step. I’m already daydreaming when things have just improved a little, hehe.” As he spoke, Lübeck laughed at himself.
“Captain, you can’t say that. For twenty years, I have watched the construction of our Zufluchtsland with you. After all, our total population is so small, and it’s not easy to have such development.”
“Well, let’s move forward step by step. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Let me think about it, and gradually introduce some technologies and industries to gradually establish the non-agricultural production system here.”
After consulting the report documents and exchanging opinions, most of the day passed quickly. Lübeck left the town hall early, bought some fish at the market and went home.
As soon as he entered the door, he saw Ruth preparing dinner for the family in the kitchen, and on the other side, the babbling voices of boys and girls came from Emma’s room.
Without taking off his coat, Lübeck turned around and walked directly into the kitchen.
“You’re back,” Ruth said without moving, just turning her head to greet him. She was making a fire, turning the embers under the ash with a long piece of firewood while adding small pieces of wood.
Slowly, the fire gradually burned up. The flames in the furnace flickered from dark red to bright yellow, shining on Ruth who was sitting opposite the furnace, illuminating the apron blouse she often wore when working. The firelight lit up the wear on the blouse, the washed stains, and the wrinkles left by the years, as if telling the silent sacrifices she had made.
Lübeck approached Ruth in front of the furnace, bent down to put down the fish he had bought, put his forearm around her waist, and tilted his face to hers.
The flames in the furnace flickered, illuminating her eyes in the deep eye sockets. With the flickering afterimage of the fire in Ruth’s eyes, Lübeck closed his own eyes and gently kissed her lips.
The temperature of the furnace flames scorched Lübeck’s neck, and the temperature of Ruth’s lips scorched his soul.
“Okay, the children are watching,” Ruth gently pushed Lübeck away after the kiss and said.
Her smiling eyes, slightly upturned corners of her mouth, and gently swaying posture radiated nothing but gentle kindness. Only then did Lübeck notice Clara, who often assisted Ruth with tasks within her capabilities. The small figure sat silently on a stool against the wall, observing everything without a word. Her pale, slightly sparse hair was neatly pulled back close to her scalp into a ponytail, making her appear all the more lonely and vulnerable.
Lübeck knew he had neglected her. How fragile a little heart was. Thinking of this, he took the initiative to pick her up and sit her on his lap, kissed her little forehead and said,
“Sit here, it’s warmer closer to the fire.”
After saying that, he glanced at Ruth opposite and smiled. How could he express the helplessness in his heart in front of the child.
Ruth looked at Lübeck and smiled it off, said nothing more, and bowed her head to help Lübeck clean the newly bought fish. It seemed that they could have some extra delicious food tonight.
Clara sitting on Lübeck’s lap was not idle either. Watching the two of them, she learned how to scale the fish and remove its internal organs. Although her little hands were still clumsy, she did it very carefully and earnestly.
Dinner after adding two new members was lively, but for Lübeck, he still hadn’t adapted to such a new life rhythm. After dinner, he went for a walk alone on the road outside. It seemed that the shaking figures of people busy with their own things disturbed his thoughts, and only the quiet night sky and nebulae could calm his inner peace.
When he returned home again, everyone had rested, only Ruth had prepared hot water waiting for him to come back to wash up. Seeing Lübeck return, she went back to her room alone.
After washing up, following Ruth’s footsteps, Lübeck returned to her side. After a day of complicated trivial matters, he could finally stay quietly by his lover’s side now. He stroked Ruth’s hair with one hand, looked at the outline of her cheek outlined by the night, and leaned in to continue the unfinished kiss from the afternoon.
“Seeing you cooking today, I felt as if your figure in the kitchen over all these years flashed before my eyes.”
“Hehe,” Ruth laughed when she heard this.
“At least you have a conscience and still have me in your heart.”
“It’s just that now there are two more little girls, it’s not convenient for me to be intimate with you anymore,” Lübeck said in a somewhat frustrated tone.
“Hmph, do you have to have it?” Ruth teased him softly.
“I think maybe we should set up a public orphanage, or a boarding school. After all, I can’t adopt all the children.”
“Well, that’s true,” Ruth echoed.
“I just don’t know when it will be. It’s just an idea now. We don’t have enough professional personnel yet, and we can’t achieve detailed social division of labor.”
Just as they were talking, a beam of night light lit up Ruth’s cheek. The two looked up in surprise and saw half a small figure poking out from the night in the crack of the door. She peered at the door for a while before saying timidly,
“Daddy, don’t send me away, okay?”
It was Clara. She had heard Lübeck and Ruth’s conversation outside the door.
Alas, what kind of deprivation made a child listen to her own fate being discussed outside the door. With a sigh, Lübeck quickly called her,
“Come in, my child.”
Clara stepped into the room, closed the door behind her, and walked to the bed. Lübeck put one arm under her armpits to help her get into bed and lie between himself and Ruth. This child had no father and no mother by her side. Now he was her father, and Ruth was her mother.