After seeing his wife, Wei Aiguo's mission began. Only after completing his mission could he spend time with his wife...

The weather's quite hot now; at night, you can just find a spot, lay down a burlap sack, and sleep through the night. That's how Wei Aiguo has been spending his days.

In large cities, especially Kyoto, which is the most important city in the country, the presence of migrant workers is definitely not allowed.

Wei Aiguo kept hiding. He was good at sweet-talking, so when he met someone, people would say nice things to him or make him sound pitiful. Soft-hearted people would let him go. But if they insisted on sending him back to his hometown, Wei Aiguo could run away; they really couldn't catch him.

Wei Aiguo stretched; sleeping on the hard ground was really uncomfortable. He rolled up the burlap sack, found a tree, climbed up, stuffed the sack into it, and jumped down.

After entering the alley, Wei Aiguo turned and twisted until he entered a secluded alley. Wei Aiguo sat down against the wall, as if he were tired from walking and wanted to rest.

Not long after he sat down, a little boy peeked out from the end of the alley. He noticed Wei Aiguo sitting there and waved to him.

An old woman walked over carrying a basket. "I cooked some vegetables today."

Wei Aiguo took the basket from him and said, "Next time, pick something easy to prepare and don't bring any vegetables."

Wei Aiguo slipped five jin of grain coupons to the old lady, and turned to leave without waiting for her to speak.

The old lady watched Wei Aiguo's retreating figure and said, "We've already given him enough, and now you've given him this."

Wei Aiguo walked a long way and entered a large courtyard.

There are 17 rooms in this courtyard, housing 17 families. In the easternmost room, in the back row, lives an old man surnamed Yu, whom everyone calls Old Man Yu.

This is someone Wei Aiguo met a while ago.

He used to be a eunuch in the palace.

In the new society, no one is abandoned, including someone like him. The people in the neighborhood assigned him to sweep the streets.

Old Yu was quite old, and he had suffered a lot in the palace. His health had long been poor.

When Wei Aiguo was collecting jade, he walked all over the streets and alleys. He happened to run into Old Man Yu, who had fainted while sweeping the streets.

Guided by the people in the alley, Wei Aiguo brought him back.

Old Yu lived alone; for someone like him, being given a job was already a blessing. His neighbors didn't want to be near him. Wei Aiguo took pity on him and took care of him for a few days.

Old Yu said he had high blood pressure and asked Wei Aiguo to buy him some medicine.

In those days, Wei Aiguo would take Song Yan to school in the morning, and then he would either go to the secondhand market or visit Old Man Yu. He also bought him steamed buns at the state-run restaurant twice and helped him sweep the streets.

Five or six days later, Wei Aiguo felt he was almost recovered, so he told Old Man Yu that he was leaving.

"Young man, you've taken care of me for several days, at least tell me your surname!" Old Man Yu's complexion was clearly improving.

“My surname is Wei,” Wei Aiguo said.

“Whether your surname is Wei or not, I’ll assume it is. You don’t speak with a local accent, so what are you doing here?” Old Yu asked.

"I caused trouble at home, so I came out to hide for a while." Subconsciously, Wei Aiguo didn't want to tell the truth.

“Whether you’ll cause trouble or not is uncertain, but you don’t want to be recognized. However, your skills are too poor. Believe me or not, give me a piece of paper, and I can draw your true appearance.” Old Man Yu looked at Wei Aiguo.

These past few days, Wei Aiguo has been taking care of Old Man Yu, but he hasn't really spoken much with him.

After hearing his words, Wei Aiguo looked at Old Man Yu seriously.

"Trying to kill me to silence me? I've suffered enough in this life, I've lived long enough. I'm not afraid of anything." Old Yu sat against the wall, truly appearing indifferent to everything.

At the time, Wei Aiguo only wanted to buy some jade items and hadn't planned on doing anything else. He couldn't help but laugh, "I just took pity on you and looked after you for a few days. You really have wild ideas..."

Alright! I'm leaving. I guess we'll never see each other again!

"Wait! I have a skill that will definitely be useful to you if you learn it. Do you want to learn it?" Old Man Yu asked.

"What skills do you have? If you could make a living with your skills, you wouldn't be doing so poorly," Wei Aiguo said, skeptical.

"Come here!"

Wei Aiguo walked up to Old Man Yu.

Old Man Yu pulled a box out from under the bed. Inside were some odds and ends of bottles and jars.

Old Yu wanted to smear something on Wei Aiguo's face, but Wei Aiguo turned his head away, wondering what it was, and then smeared it on his face.

Old Yu laughed heartily, "I'm buried up to my head, what can you do to me..."