“It’s just… that… this… this doesn’t…”
Old Man Jiang was too embarrassed to say it.
Jiang Xu interjected unhurriedly.
“What he wants to say is the year you were both eight, when he licked every single piece of the candy that had been allotted to him.”
Old Man Jiang looked shocked. ”Great-Aunt, you know about that too? So it’s true—once you’re up in heaven, you know everything?”
Jiang Xu’s expression remained calm. ”Your grandmother wrote to me about it.”
Old Man Jiang couldn’t remember.
But it didn’t matter anymore. His great-aunt had come to take him, and he would be leaving soon.
The affairs of the mortal world—if he couldn’t remember them, so be it.
Beside them, Old Lady Xu, slow to react, finally came back to her senses.
She slapped Old Man Jiang on the head!
“You good-for-nothing Jiang Zhiye! You learned to steal at such a young age? And you lied to me, saying the candy melted on its own because of the hot weather! You liar—give me back my candy!”
Old Lady Xu grabbed Old Man Jiang and shook him violently.
Dazed from the shaking, Old Man Jiang raised his hands repeatedly to stop her. “Don’t move me—if you keep shaking, the great-aunt will disappear.”
Jiang Xu said, “Yadan doesn’t have that kind of ability.”
Old Man Jiang not only didn’t listen, he was still lost in his own little world.
He shouted again, “Old woman, show me some respect! Otherwise, when I go up to heaven with the great-aunt, the other elders will laugh at me.”
Even at this point, he still thought Jiang Xu was a hallucination, that he was about to die.
Old Lady Xu slapped him again, and pinched him hard on top of that.
Old Man Jiang hissed and jumped.
“You old woman, why did you pinch me?”
Old Lady Xu asked, “Does it hurt?”
Old Man Jiang said, “Of course it hurts! Pinch me and see—wait, I mean, pinch yourself and find out!”
Old Lady Xu said, “Still think you’re dying, that this is a dream, a hallucination?”
Old Man Jiang’s face was full of question marks.
Old Lady Xu said, “Look over there.”
Old Man Jiang turned his head doubtfully and looked ahead.
Against the light, his great-aunt was still there.
She hadn’t left.
Old Man Jiang rubbed his eyes, closed them, then opened them again.
The great-aunt was still there.
Trembling, he reached out a hand, carefully trying to touch Jiang Xu’s face.
Jiang Xu’s eyes darkened slightly. “Gou Wazi, what do you think you’re doing?”
Old Man Jiang let out an “ah!” of fright. His normally stiff body was suddenly remarkably agile—he shrank back onto the wooden bed in one motion, hiding behind Old Lady Xu.
The whole movement was smooth and seamless, without a hint of hesitation.
He crouched behind Old Lady Xu, only a pair of eyes and the top of his head showing.
“Wife… wife… am I… are my eyes playing tricks on me… otherwise how… how could I… how could I be alive… and see… my great… great-aunt…”
“No… no wait…”
Old Man Jiang, trembling, corrected himself.
“I seem to… seem to be seeing… seeing my great-aunt… alive…”
As he spoke, he carefully reached out a hand, wanting to check whether Jiang Xu was breathing.
But as soon as his hand rose, he didn’t dare.
Instead, he grabbed Old Lady Xu’s arm, making her go check whether Jiang Xu actually breathed.
Jiang Xu looked at Old Man Jiang in confusion.
Old Lady Xu had also been extremely shocked at first, but after all the old man’s fussing, she could now face this woman who looked so much like the great-aunt with perfect calm.
“She doesn’t just look like her.”
Jiang Xu spoke up, interrupting Old Lady Xu’s thoughts. “She is the genuine article.”
Old Lady Xu…
Old Man Jiang asked, not understanding, “What do you mean, the genuine article?”
“You… could you really… be my great-aunt?”
The great-aunt his great-grandmother had given birth to at fifty, and who had been raised by his grandparents?
Jiang Xu glanced at Old Man Jiang. “Is there a problem?”
Old Man Jiang first shook his head, then immediately nodded furiously.
“There is a problem—of course there’s a big problem.”
“Little… little girl, how old are you? Do you know what year my great-aunt was born? And you dare to impersonate her?”
“Impersonate?”
Jiang Xu narrowed her eyes slightly, her gaze falling on Old Man Jiang. “Is the plum blossom birthmark on your left buttock still there?”
Old Man Jiang answered instinctively, “It is!”
Only after answering did he realize something was wrong.
Wait—how did she know his private secret?
Had someone betrayed him?
Old Man Jiang instinctively looked at Old Lady Xu!
Old Lady Xu was about to retort when Jiang Xu spoke to her. “Yadan, you were a child my sister-in-law picked up on her way back to her parents’ home.”
“You were six at the time. Because you were a girl, your parents didn’t want you and abandoned you in the mountains.”
“It was my sister-in-law who found you and brought you back to the Jiang family, where you were raised alongside Gou Wazi.”
Her words were accurate to the smallest detail.
Old Lady Xu had no reason to doubt anymore.
But Old Man Jiang still felt something was off.
“You… if you… if you really are my great-aunt… then… then how… how are you still so young?”
By his calculations, his great-aunt should be over eighty years old.
So why did she look like a young girl?
“Could it be you’ve taken some kind of elixir of immortality?”
Old Man Jiang’s imagination began to run wild.
Jiang Xu gave him a faint glance, walked over to a stool with a broken leg, and sat down. “For you, decades have passed.”
“But for me, I’ve only just come back up the mountain after attending my eldest brother’s birthday banquet.”
“What?”
Old Man Jiang’s voice rose sharply.
Now he wasn’t even scared anymore.
He stepped out from behind Old Lady Xu and looked at Jiang Xu. “You mean, right after attending my grandfather’s birthday banquet, you came here?”
Jiang Xu corrected him. “To be precise, I returned to the mountain and was sleeping in my Taoist temple.”
She had been sleeping soundly when the water swept her here.
And then she had encountered Gou Wazi’s family, living in utter misery.
Old Man Jiang rubbed the tip of his nose, a little embarrassed. “Well… you see, times are different now than they used to be…”
Though doubts remained, he believed that the young woman before him was indeed his great-aunt, who had left home as a child to cultivate in the mountains.
Because the secret he shared with his wife was known to no one else—not even their children or grandchildren.
If this young girl could recount it so precisely and accurately, it could only prove she was an old acquaintance.
Add in her appearance, and there was no doubt—she was his great-aunt.
At this thought, Old Man Jiang felt rather ashamed.
His great-aunt had finally come for a visit, yet their family couldn’t even produce a decent stool, let alone properly entertain her…
Old Man Jiang was mortified.
He looked around, hoping to find something in their bare, impoverished home to offer this great-aunt who had come from so far away.
Jiang Xu spoke first. “How did the Jiang family’s fortune get spent?”
“Great-Aunt… this…”
Old Man Jiang found it hard to speak of.
Gu Hanzheng’s voice came from outside. “Jiang.”
Jiang Xu turned around.
Gu Hanzheng had a large burlap sack slung over his shoulder, and in his other hand, he carried a ten-jin bag of premium flour.
Seeing this, Old Man Jiang and Old Lady Xu hurried out to support him. “Comrade, what’s all this?”
A faint smile appeared on Gu Hanzheng’s face. “I bought some rice and flour from the supply and marketing cooperative.”