Chapter 2 Chapter 2 The world outside the village is really huge...

There is nothing much to say about Yang Shun's life. He has lived in Pingshan Village since he can remember. The man who lived under the same roof with him, whom he once thought was his biological father, was called Yang Lai Zhong.

Of course, not many people would call him by this name on a daily basis. I guess few people would even know his name. People in and outside the village would refer to him by his nickname, Yang Duyan'er. He was blind in one eye.

The countryside is a large society of acquaintances. It looks lively on weekdays, but only those who are in it know that each village and team does have warmth, but not everyone can enjoy this warmth.

Families with large populations will naturally not be bullied, while families with small populations will become the topic of conversation and occasional jokes for others.

This kind of talk is not necessarily obviously insulting. Most of the time, it is just a joke. It seems that they are just telling a few harmless jokes, but everyone knows what is going on. No one would joke about the village chief's pain.

——It is obvious that Yang Laizhong’s situation in Pingshan Village is not very good.

Yang Laizhong was the eldest of his brothers and the least successful of them all. Anyone in Pingshan Village could lecture him, even if they laughed at him in front of him, and he would still have to put on a smile and laugh along.

No one knows why he wanted to buy a son. According to the gossipy aunts in the village, it was because Yang Zhonglai's youngest brother held a full-moon banquet for his child in the city. When he came back, everyone laughed at him for not having a son, but he didn't say a word.

On the morning of the fourth day after the banquet, at daybreak, Yang Laizhong carried a sleeping little boy on his back and walked around the village twice, from morning till night, showing off to everyone he met: "Look, this is my son."

The man was neither particularly good nor particularly bad to his bought son.

When he fell ill as a child, his husband would take him to the town clinic overnight to get medicine worth a few or ten dollars, but that was all. If the condition got any worse, he would have to delay treatment.

There's nothing we can do, that's the condition.

Yang Shun was a sensible child since he was young. He knew how to help with housework, wash clothes, clean up inside and outside the house, and tidy up the fields at a very young age. He was very well-behaved.

Before Yang Laizhong died, maybe once or twice, when he was in a good mood after work, she would praise him and give him a cheap, melting fruit candy.

Is this good for him?

Yang Shun didn't know either.

Anyway, Yang Laizhong is dead.

The man's death dragged on for almost two years. — When he was coming back from work, it suddenly started to rain. The ground was too slippery, and he lost his footing, so he rolled down the slope, injured his spine, and became paralyzed. What could he do? Just lie down.

Yang Shun had just started junior high school at that time. He had to take care of homework, work around the house and in the fields, and take care of Yang Lai Zhong on a daily basis, turning him over, wiping his body, feeding him, and enduring his worse-than-usual temper. He was so busy that he didn't even have time to complain about being tired.

The year Yang Laizhong died, Yang Shun was thirteen years old.

There were no special signs that day. In the morning, he was still thankful that he was quieter, but when he came home from school that evening, he was gone. Yang Shun looked at the cold, motionless body, pondered for a few seconds, then turned to find the village chief. The rest of the process was handled by the village committee, and he didn't ask about it.

On the third day after Yang Laizhong's death, another family from the same village seized the land that originally belonged to the Yang family. They used a very nice excuse, saying that it was originally their land and they had just lent it to them.

Can't beat them, can't compete with them.

There's nothing I can do. He is a relative of a small leader in the county.

As for why I stopped studying after junior high school, the reason is simple: that's how it is.

It's not just Yang Shun. All the other children in the village are like this. There is no kindergarten, the primary school is in the village, and the middle school is in the town. After nine years of compulsory education, they go out to work.

After graduation, Yang Shun also wanted to go out to work, but he wanted to save more money, otherwise he would feel uneasy.

During the past six months, he not only farmed and sold vegetables to save money, but also did odd jobs for others to earn money. The farthest place he had been to was the county, where he worked part-time when foreign businessmen held sales conferences.

He saved and saved until he almost had all the money.

“How much money do I need to save?”

A staff member of a family search program asked curiously.

Yang Shun did not directly answer the specific number, but instead asked the program team a question: "Did you see two large fish ponds when you entered the village?"

"Um."

"The owner's surname is Liu. He has three children. After graduation, the two older ones went to Guangzhou with friends from the next village to work. I think they worked in a garment factory? ... Another family in the village had children working in an electronics factory in Shenzhen. When they came back for the Lunar New Year, they were all carrying large bags of stuff. I haven't decided where to go yet. I was debating whether to go to Guangzhou or Shenzhen, and I don't know where else."

Yang Shun held a pointed stone and wrote numbers on the stone slab at the door.

"The bus from the village to the town costs 5 yuan, and from the town to the county it's 28 yuan. The bus from the county bus station to the city is only 35 yuan, but there are no direct trains from the city to other provinces, so I can't go to the city. I have to take a bus to Chongqing first, and the ticket is 153 yuan..."

"Once you're in Chongqing, you can go directly to many places. From Chongqing to Guangzhou, it takes 20 hours by train, and a hard seat ticket costs 180.5 yuan. From Chongqing to Shenzhen, it also takes nearly 20 hours, and the ticket costs 189.5 yuan..."

"If I go to Guangzhou, all the travel expenses will be 366.5, and to Shenzhen, it will be 375.5. Well... that's just the travel expenses; food and accommodation along the way are all unknown. Also, I'm not sure I'll be able to find a job once I arrive, so I need to give myself at least a month. They say that living outside is very expensive, and a bowl of noodles costs dozens of yuan, so I need to leave myself more money..."

"Wang Qiang, who used to be in the same class as me, received 1,000 yuan from his family when he went out to work. If it wasn't enough, his family would send him more. My situation is different. I don't have any family to send me money, so I have to prepare more myself..."

"My goal is 1,500 yuan, or 2,000 yuan if things go well. I've saved over 1,080 yuan now..."

"Actually, your timing is quite coincidental. If it were a month or two later, I would have gone out to work. They say that New Year wages are higher than usual, so I decided to wait until then to go out..."

Yang Shun's tone was flat and straightforward, without joy, sadness, or any emotion at all, and his eyes were so numb that he didn't look like a fifteen-year-old teenager at all.

How much suffering has he endured over the years?

Everyone present was speechless, especially Director Guan, who was closest to him. His eyes were visibly red. He took a deep breath, turned his head and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

"Good boy, you won't have to work so hard in the future. I have good news for you. Your biological parents are very rich..." Director Guan wanted to try to liven up the atmosphere and said in a mysterious tone, "You'll know when you go there..."

Several other staff members of the program team also echoed and said yes, yes, they all congratulated him on finally finding his family and finally getting his happy ending after all the hard work.

Yang Shun didn't agree. He dropped the stone he was holding tightly, brushed the dust off his palms, stood up and walked towards the earthen stove in the compartment.

The cameraman who was following the scene immediately caught up, and the boy's voice drifted along with the aroma of rice.

"Have you eaten yet? I just made some egg custard. If you don't mind, let's eat some together. There's nothing else in the room..."

*

The program crew stayed in Pingshan Village for a day.

Firstly, Yang Shun had to take care of some household matters, such as the dozen or so plump poultry that looked perfectly well-fed, the vegetables that were almost harvested in the fields, and the odd jobs he had agreed to do but couldn't do.

Secondly, the program crew also wanted to take this opportunity to film some of the village where Yang Shun had lived for more than ten years and his past life, and they also conducted random interviews with people around him.

Time passed quickly. The night before leaving, Yang Shun didn't sleep all night. With his eyes closed, all sorts of bizarre images flashed through his mind.

He thought the chickens had been sold, and the ripe vegetables in the fields had been given away. He also told Grandma Zhang about the ones that were still a few days old and asked her to pick them when the time came.

He wanted to get the work done, and he had even spoken to his boss about it. Accompanied by the production crew, he got his back wages back. The director promised to let him buy new clothes in the city the next day...

What else could it be?

Oh, his mom and dad...

Yang Shun was only one year old when he was abducted. Even if he was gifted, it would be impossible for him to remember such an early memory.

He began to struggle to remember.

The photos of his parents that he had seen during the day kept turning in his mind, and he really couldn't stop himself from thinking, so this is what they looked like?

Will they like me? What should I say first? Should I buy them a gift? What should I buy? They seem very rich, and I can't buy anything nice with my little money, right?

Every time he turned over in the straw bed, he could hear a rustling sound. He had heard this sound for more than ten years and should have been familiar with it. But that was the first time he felt unable to sleep because of such a sound.

After turning over and over like a pancake seven or eight times, Yang Shun still couldn't fall asleep. The palms of his hands, soles of his feet, and even his chest were all terribly hot.

This was too unreal. He even had an absurd thought: could everything he saw just be a dream, a figment of his imagination? When he woke up, there would be nothing left?

The next second, he suddenly pinched his thigh hard. Hmm, the pain was so clear and real. He closed his eyes in peace.

The next day, the cameraman continued to follow along.

There is a difficult and rugged mud road about two kilometers long from Team 7 of Pingshan Village where Yang Shun lives to the entrance of Team 1. It was very bumpy and shook everyone in the car, and the camera was also shaking.

A staff member asked Yang Shun how he usually went out.

"How do you get there? What car do you want to take?"

Yang Shun tightly grasped the handle on the roof, his face tense, his voice trembling: "Those who have three-wheeled vehicles at home drive them, but I don't have a car, so we always walk..."

The road conditions were so bad that they didn't get better until we left the village. The road changed from a dirt road to an asphalt road, and we finally entered the city.

After getting off the car, Yang Shun was thinking about buying new clothes, so the group went into a clothing store.

When trying on clothes, Director Guan discovered that although Yang Shun had a lot of sunburn on his skin due to years of wind and rain, and looked haggard at first glance, his facial features were still very good when you looked closely. The only problem was that he was a little timid.

He can see this in many rural children. Perhaps because of their lack of self-confidence, they always habitually hunch over like a frightened hedgehog.

The child was even more so. On the surface, he had a stern face and tried his best to act fierce, but his eyes and expression still revealed his true thoughts.

He is afraid of the camera.

I was so scared that I would deliberately avoid the cameraman.

He was very wary and timid towards these strangers from the city. He would observe their expressions before speaking, as if they were traps that would hurt him.

It was almost two days after the two sides had been in contact that he stopped deliberately avoiding the camera, and finally he let down his guard towards this group of people a little, gradually revealing the youthful liveliness that was expected of his age.

"How is it?" Yang Shun came out of the fitting room and looked at Director Guan. Although his face was tense, he could still see that he was a little unsure. His voice was like a mosquito's hum, "Wouldn't it be weird to look at it like this?"

He changed his clothes from head to toe. The new coat was a black sports suit. He zipped it up to the top, almost covering most of his mouth and nose. Overall, he looked pretty good. He was just too shy.

"What's strange about that? Not at all! What a handsome young man, don't you think?"

Director Guan did not stop at praising himself, but turned around and asked other staff members, and of course none of them said no, and they all praised it.

*

There was no trouble afterwards.

That was Yang Shun's first time on a plane in his life. The whole experience was novel and new. After getting on the plane, he kept looking out the window at the soft white clouds for a long time.

The world outside the village is indeed very big.

This novelty was accompanied by nervousness, and Director Guan began to chat with him about other things, occasionally talking about what his son had done, and occasionally talking about what happened in Pingshan Village before.

They chatted about everything under the sun until the arrival announcement sounded. Director Guan patted the back of Yang Shun's hand again and said, "Don't worry, it's okay..."

The boy's grip on his backpack relaxed for a few seconds, and he smiled sincerely at Director Guan: "...Thank you."

Under the camera of the program crew, the boy who was abducted to a remote mountain when he was over one year old finally met his biological parents in the airport VIP lounge after fourteen years of separation.

When they first met, Yang Shun was clearly a bit unfamiliar. In the camera, he froze in place, motionless, allowing a graceful woman with red eyes to embrace him in her arms. She kept talking about how she had lost him, how the nanny was in jail, how she thought she would never see him again, how she missed him so much, and how she often dreamed of him...

Although the middle-aged man's face wasn't shown in the camera, one could hear him soothing her gently, "It's okay, it's good that you're back... Don't scare Xiao Zhuo."

The cameraman accurately captured Yang Shun's changing expressions, from the bewildered state he felt when his biological mother embraced him to his gradually moved expression, until the tears slowly filled his eyes and finally overflowed, unable to bear the burden. Finally, he carefully hugged the woman back, as if he had instantly transformed from the aloof hedgehog back into a child who felt wronged, calling out "Mom" in a trembling voice...

It was such a touching scene that several staff members couldn't help but turn around and wipe away their tears. Director Guan even took off his glasses and wiped the fog off them.

Standing next to the Li family member was a young man who was also well-dressed. His face was not revealed, but he was introduced as his elder brother, who kept looking at his younger brother with a smile.

Yang Shun was taken home.

Before getting in the car, his brother took the initiative to carry the luggage, his father drove, and his mother pulled Yang Shun to sit in the back seat, holding his hand tightly all the way.

In order not to disturb the family's private time, the cameramen of the program crew did not squeeze into the car, but only filmed from behind.

The destination was a luxury house with an average price so high that the young people in the program crew couldn't help but sigh.

The camera turned again, and Yang Shun was sitting on the leather sofa in the Li family's house, with a gorgeous crystal chandelier above his head. Below him, several servants in uniform were silently bringing tea and snacks and placing them on the coffee table.

Even though he had changed into new clothes, the little bumpkin from the mountains still looked gray. He was surrounded by people and kept looking at this home that should be familiar to him but was extremely unfamiliar to him. He felt curious and nervous.

His mother, whom he hadn't seen for fourteen years, spoke to him in a warm and concerned voice: "Xiao Zhuo, you must be hungry on the way here. What would you like to eat tonight? Mommy won't be going anywhere these days. She'll stay at home with you..."

The director also comforted her: "Don't be nervous, relax a little, this is your own home..."

The boy's face, which had been tense all the way, finally showed some emotional fluctuations at that moment, as he should have at his age, and began to observe "his own home" boldly.

"Thank you."

*

The family search program has come to an end here.

The post-production team thoughtfully added a warm filter to this image of a family reunion, and even the subtitles were in cursive: [Finally, this child, who had been away from home for fourteen years, finally returned to his true home, where a warm new future awaited him…]

But...is it really like that?

As a series of programs, Li Zhuo is not the only protagonist of the family search program, but perhaps because of his bloody life experience, or perhaps because of other reasons, his episode is more popular than other episodes.

Almost every viewer who has watched the show sincerely believes that when a child who has been lost for many years is found, the parents will love the child like a treasure and will do everything they can to make up for the love they lost in the past...

Netizens in the comment section called on their friends and made jokes:

[Don’t tell me, when the camera turned around, I could tell at a glance that he was no ordinary farm boy (dog head)]

[Young Master, cry now! Cry for a while now, or you won’t have a chance to laugh later…]

[That environment is so familiar. My hometown is pretty much the same. Transportation depends on walking, and communication depends on shouting. But I just grilled my dad about it for a long time, and he refused to admit that he bought me. Sigh...]

[The protagonist in the previous episode was already middle-aged when he was found, so crying was useless. This protagonist is only 15? Life has just begun. It's a blessing in disguise. He can even go home for his coming-of-age ceremony. What a gift from God...]

[I wonder what the young master is doing now...]

【I guess he is enjoying a comfortable life. 】

【……】

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