She bought a plane ticket for early the next morning and entrusted Maodou to Brother Gui.
“Is this also one of your clients?”
The Soul Ferryman shook his head. “No, this belongs to a friend of mine.”
So you can still make friends over there. Yu Miaomiao suddenly felt that dying wasn’t so scary after all—it was just like moving to another city to continue living.
The next morning, she rushed to catch her flight. Before leaving, she gave him endless reminders: “Please, please take good care of Maodou for me. Walk him morning and evening, and each time should be at least half an hour!”
She left in such a hurry that it wasn’t until she reached the airport that she remembered she couldn’t go back empty-handed.
At the very least, she should bring some local specialties for her “family.”
Since this was a coastal city, she bought some dried squid, roasted fish slices, dried clams, and the like at the airport’s specialty store.
She also bought some sugar-free cake that her grandma could chew easily.
The journey was long and arduous—plane to bus, bus to minibus, minibus to tuk-tuk—and it wasn’t until nightfall that she finally reached the small mountain village.
When Yu Miaomiao got off the tuk-tuk, her butt was completely numb from the bumpy ride.
Good heavens, this really was a mountain village. As far as the eye could see, there were nothing but mountains.
She really wanted to sing, “The endless green mountains stretch for miles…”
Even in this remote mountain hollow, there was still a signal. Her “uncle” was waiting for her at the village entrance, holding a phone.
“You must be Xiaolan’s classmate, right?”
The man’s face was etched with wrinkles like terraced fields, full of deep furrows.
Yu Miaomiao nodded. “Uncle, please accept my condolences.”
The man’s eyes instantly reddened, and he choked up as he said, “Thank you. Ah, my Xiaolan’s fate was truly unfortunate…”
Yu Miaomiao also wanted to sigh. Whose fate was truly good?
“Let’s go. We shouldn’t keep Grandma waiting too long.”
His house wasn’t far into the village, and its dilapidation perfectly matched the idiom—bare walls and nothing else.
Yu Miaomiao was stunned. She didn’t mean to mock anyone; she had just never seen such a poor household before.
Her family had been poor when she was a child, but there was still a significant gap between urban poverty and rural poverty.
“Mom, look who’s back!”
Her uncle called out loudly and pointed to the room next door.
Yu Miaomiao quickly adjusted her state of mind. It was time for her to act.
“Grandma, I’m back!” she exclaimed cheerfully, carrying her things as she walked into the old woman’s room.
On the kang bed in the room lay Xiaolan’s grandmother, who was actually only in her sixties but looked closer to eighty.
Squinting toward the doorway, she muttered, “Who are you?”
“This is Xiaolan! You’ve been asking every day when Xiaolan would come back, and now that she’s here, you don’t even recognize her!” Her uncle joked deliberately.
“That’s right, I’m Xiaolan.”
“Oh, my Xiaolan is back!” The old woman was so excited she nearly fell off the kang.
“Why did it take you so long to come back? Grandma missed you so much!”
She grabbed Yu Miaomiao’s hand, pulled her into her embrace, and stroked her hair as if she were a five-year-old child.
“My child, are you doing well at school? Is anyone bullying you?”
“Grandma is useless. I wanted to go see you, but I couldn’t even leave this place!”
“Don’t send money home anymore. Keep it for yourself. We grow crops here, so we won’t starve. Look how thin you are—are you not eating enough?”
Yu Miaomiao didn’t know this grandmother and had no emotional connection to her. She had originally worried that she wouldn’t be able to act convincingly.
But she ended up overacting, crying uncontrollably as if she had lost all restraint…
“Grandma, don’t worry about me. I’m doing great—I have enough to eat and wear, and I’ve made lots of friends!”
“It’s easy to make money in the big city. I work part-time while studying, and I even got a scholarship!”
Her mind went blank for a moment, and she pulled out the two thousand yuan in cash she had specifically withdrawn, worried that mobile payments wouldn’t work in the mountains, and forcefully stuffed it into the old woman’s hands.
“Keep it for yourself. If it’s not enough, just tell me!”
“Xiaolan also bought you some delicious food. Look at all this—keep it and enjoy it slowly!” The man lifted the bag in his hand.
The old woman beamed with joy. “My Xiaolan has really made it. In our village, you’re the only golden phoenix that’s flown out. The Zhang family ancestors must be smiling down from their graves!”
That night, Yu Miaomiao slept right next to the old woman.
The kang bed was too hard, the mattress too thin, but the old woman kept fanning her with a cattail leaf fan and gently patting her back.
Yu Miaomiao thought Xiaolan was much luckier than her.
Even though her life was just as short, at least she had family who truly loved her.
Not like her, tossed around like garbage since she was little.
She would never forget the disdainful looks her parents gave her, or the way her grandmother snatched her rice bowl away, complaining she ate too much…
In the morning, she was woken by the rooster’s crow, and outside, the birds were chirping as if putting on a concert.
Yu Miaomiao opened her eyes. The family had already finished breakfast, but they had left her a steaming, thick bowl of millet porridge.
They had also steamed an egg custard, generously drizzled with sesame oil—it was incredibly delicious!