After passing through the Yashan road, which has a cliff on one side and lush trees on the other, the view gradually opened up. High mountains and large trees disappeared from the sides of the road, replaced occasionally by small mounds of earth and, more frequently, overgrown wasteland.
Jingrong Village had always been a large village. After the household contract responsibility system was introduced in the 1980s and 1990s, every household was full of energy and enthusiastically cleared the wasteland.
Most of these weed-grown wastelands had once been cultivated, but as everyone’s living standards improved later on, these fields far away from the village were abandoned again.
As the scenery along the road became more and more familiar, Shen Wuqiu could no longer calm her mind to rest.
This was probably what they called homesick trepidation.
After entering the village, the large and small branching paths multiplied, and the navigation system became unreliable. To avoid taking any detours, the driver simply turned off the GPS.
“Beauty, which road should I take?”
The driver stopped at a fork in the road, turned around to see her dazed, and could not help teasing: “Beauty, you wouldn’t have forgotten the way home, would you?”
The main road leading home had not changed much, but the village itself had changed dramatically. For instance, right at this intersection, there should have originally been an ordinary two-story building with a plain cement wall, but now it was a three-story villa with glazed tiles and blue-stone exterior tiles.
At first glance, she really had almost forgotten the way home.
Shen Wuqiu blinked, looked around in all directions, and then said, “Turn right at this fork, then drive straight along the right-hand road. My house is at the very end of the road.”
The driver playfully teased, “Beauty, are you sure?”
Shen Wuqiu was not in the mood for banter and simply nodded.
The road was not far to the end. The driver pressed down on the accelerator, and in less than two minutes, a weathered two-story small villa came into view.
The driver stopped in front of the main gate and turned back to ask, “Beauty, is this the place?”
Shen Wuqiu nodded, but remained seated in the car without moving.
The driver scratched his head, did not urge her to get out, and stepped out himself to proactively retrieve the suitcase from the trunk.
Only after the driver opened the car door for her did Shen Wuqiu pick up her handbag, get out of the car, and hand over the fare.
The driver quickly counted it, looked satisfied, and deftly slipped it into his jeans pocket. “Beauty, do you want me to help you carry the suitcase inside?”
Just as he finished speaking, the iron gate opened from the inside, and a tall, straight-postured teenage boy walked out. When he saw Shen Wuqiu, his expression was visibly stunned. After a few seconds, he called out in an indifferent tone: “Sister.”
Shen Wuqiu was not warm toward this younger brother either; she nodded in acknowledgement, turned around to thank the driver, and then picked up her suitcase, heading straight inside the gate.
The driver cast curious, gossipy glances back and forth between the siblings. Noticing that someone was looking his way, he quickly retracted his gaze, laughed it off, and said, “Handsome, do you have a place to stay around here?”
He was not particularly bold, just fond of money. Demanding an exorbitant four hundred was because he had calculated that it was too late to pick up any other passengers from the village, and he definitely would not dare to cross Yashan alone. So, he might as well spend a little money to find a place to stay the night in the village.
“I do not know.”
Shen Wujun looked impatient, muttered a perfunctory reply, and closed the large iron gate again. Ignoring the driver’s expression, he took long strides, caught up to Shen Wuqiu, and reached out to take the suitcase from her hand.
Shen Wuqiu sidestepped to avoid his hand. “No need, I can carry it.”
Shen Wujun glanced at her, stubbornly snatched the suitcase away anyway, and carried it into the house without saying a word.
“Who is outside? Whose suitcase is this?” Su Yunzhi was cracking melon seeds and chatting with a few women from the same village inside. Seeing Shen Wujun walk in with a suitcase, she asked while craning her neck to look outside. The moment she spotted Shen Wuqiu, she was similarly stunned for a second, then immediately tossed aside her melon seeds and walked toward her with a beaming smile. “Oh, our Wuqiu is back.”
Hearing this, the other women also turned to look at her:
“Oh, it really is Wuqiu.”
“We have not seen you in a good few years. Must be five or six years, right?”
“The feng shui in big cities really nourishes people. Look at her, she is getting prettier and prettier.”
Four or five mouths chattered around her. Shen Wuqiu found it noisy, and coupled with the fact that she and Su Yunzhi had never quite seen eye-to-eye, she naturally disliked the women who associated with Su Yunzhi. She endured it, forced out a smile, and greeted them one by one.
Su Yunzhi stepped forward, pulled Shen Wuqiu toward the sofa to sit down, and asked, “Have you eaten? If you were coming back, you should have let the family know in advance so your brother could go pick you up.”
“Not hungry. Where is Dad?” Shen Wuqiu quietly shook off Su Yunzhi’s hand. What she despised most was Su Yunzhi’s hypocritical air of intimacy; in private, Su Yunzhi always spoke to her with snide remarks, yet in public, she put on the absolute image of a gentle and loving mother.
“He is lying down in his room.” At the mention of Father Shen, Su Yunzhi’s brows furrowed. “He has been hurting terribly these past few days, and no matter how much we tell him to go to the hospital, he simply refuses.”
Shen Wuqiu gave an acknowledging nod and headed straight toward the bedroom.
The moment she turned and walked away, the women left behind immediately crowded around Su Yunzhi and whispered:
“This girl’s temper is still the same as before.”
“It really is hard being a stepmother to her. You cannot hit her, you cannot scold her, and you still have to mind her facial expressions.”
Su Yunzhi looked aggrieved on the surface, but magnanimously said aloud, “Alas, she just has this temper. I will just do my part as a mother.”
Her voice was always sharp, and since she did not deliberately lower it this time, Shen Wuqiu, who had just stepped into the bedroom, heard every word clearly, even without trying. She did not need to guess to know that these people outside were gossiping about her again.
She was long used to it anyway. Birds of a feather flock together; Su Yunzhi was a two-faced smiling tiger, and the people who kept close company with her were naturally no good either.
Shen Wuqiu did not care much about what those people said. She turned, closed the door, lowered her head to take a deep breath, and then looked toward the bed.
Father Shen was not asleep; he was simply resting with his eyes closed. Hearing the commotion, he opened his eyes. The first glance at Shen Wuqiu made him think he was hallucinating, so he closed his eyes again. After a few seconds, he looked back at Shen Wuqiu. Once he confirmed that she had truly returned, his expression was one of deliberately forced calmness: “You are back.”
The elderly father before her looked aged and haggard, a far cry from the dignified and somewhat domineering father figure in her memory. An inexplicable sourness surged in Shen Wuqiu’s chest. Seeing that even sitting up was a struggle for him, she hurried over to help him up. She wanted to call out to him, but her throat felt blocked as if something was stuck in it. After a long while, she managed to squeeze out a single word: “Dad.”
Father Shen remained as unsmiling as ever, nodded with a grunt, and quickly resumed his indifferent expression: “Still know how to come back? I thought you would not show up until I was in my grave.”
Shen Wuqiu did not want to bicker with him. “Auntie said you are in severe pain. Why are you not going to the hospital?”
“I am already like this, why go to the hospital to suffer that torture?”
Even after years apart, there was still not a shred of warmth in the dialogue between father and daughter. Every sentence hit a dead end, and Shen Wuqiu’s temper flared up too. “Suit yourself.”
Father Shen continued with his barbed remarks: “If it is not up to me, could you make the decisions for me?”
“Seeing that you are still so full of life, it looks like nobody needs to worry about you in the short term. Since that is the case, I am going back to my room to rest.”
Father Shen grunted through his nose and laboriously lay back down by himself. “Go on then, do not get in the way of my rest.”
Hearing this, Shen Wuqiu did not hesitate for a second, pushed open the door, and walked out.
The women from the same village had already left, and Su Yunzhi was sitting alone in the living room, continuing to crack melon seeds. Seeing her come out, Su Yunzhi warmly offered, “Wuqiu, do you want me to make you something to eat?”
“No need.” Shen Wuqiu did not even look at her and prepared to go upstairs to her room. Reaching the staircase entrance, as if remembering something, she asked, “Is my room still kept as it was?”
“It is kept, though you have been gone for five years and I have not cleaned it much, so it might be a bit dusty. If you had told me in advance, I certainly would have cleaned it up for you. Shall I go up and tidy it up for you now?”
“No need.” Shen Wuqiu flatly and cleanly rejected her hypocritical kindness and headed straight upstairs.
The room was cleaner and tidier than she had expected, though the bed was unmade. It was clear someone had been cleaning it regularly.
She walked over to the closet. The items inside were placed just as they used to be, though the smell was a bit heavy. It seemed the bedsheets and quilt covers inside could not be used tonight. Just as she was hesitating whether to go find Su Yunzhi, Shen Wujun walked over carrying a quilt.
Shen Wuqiu looked at this younger brother, who had suddenly shot up and grown half a head taller than her, feeling somewhat complex.
The eighth-grade-syndrome teenager became irritated and embarrassed under her gaze. “What are you looking at? Do you expect me to make the bed for you?”
Shen Wuqiu shrugged. “If you want to help, I would not mind.”
“In your dreams.” Shen Wujun sneered, tossed the quilt onto the bed, and walked out.
Shen Wuqiu was unfazed by his snide attitude and deftly made the bed.
She was far too exhausted; the moment she finished making the bed, she collapsed onto it. She had originally only intended to take a short nap before washing up, but who would have known that once she closed her eyes, she would sleep straight through until midnight.
Half-asleep and half-awake, she once again heard that cat meowing sound that resembled an infant crying. She irritably covered her ears, wanting to ignore it, but the wailing sounded as if it were right beside her ear, impossible to shake off.
Could it really be because spring had arrived?
Tormented to full wakefulness, Shen Wuqiu helplessly opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling above, while that annoying meowing echoed in her ears.
Finally, unable to bear the sound any longer, Shen Wuqiu got up and pulled back the curtains.
“Meow.”
Before Shen Wuqiu could search for it, a white cat suddenly came into her field of view. When it saw her, it let out a very well-behaved meow in her direction.