Romance

Standing at the door was Zheng Youshan, who had come to cause trouble during the day.

Zheng Youshan was two years older than Ye Yuanyin. His father and her uncle worked together, and when they were young, they had many opportunities to meet and get along well. But as her grades improved, their interactions became less and less frequent, and eventually they rarely interacted anymore.

Ye Yuanyin left the door half open and asked the man opposite: "What's wrong?"

"We've been so aggressive during the day, don't take it to heart, Ayin." Zheng Youshan was a full 185cm tall, with a sturdy build, more than a head taller than her. He was so arrogant during the day, but now he suddenly became picky. Ye Yuanyin was a little overwhelmed. "I didn't take it to heart. It's a pity that the new car broke down."

Zheng Youshan felt that she was different from the girls in the village since she was a child. When those people were running around the valley and cursing loudly, she was the only one hiding at home and reading quietly. She also spoke politely when she met people.

When he was a child, he thought she was pretending, but when he grew up, he longed more and more for such a woman, not to mention that she became more and more beautiful.

"I'm in Ancheng too. How about we exchange phone numbers?" Zheng Youshan's face flushed with nervousness. "We're all from the same hometown, so it'll be easier to take care of each other."

Ye Yuanyin said honestly: "I probably won't go back again."

Zheng Youshan was shocked and asked her bluntly, "Why? Aren't you some kind of... healer? What are you doing in our village? Talking about art to a bunch of clay figurines? Will they understand?"

What he said was honest but to the point.

Ye Yuanyin didn't know how to answer, so he just smiled and said, "For now, this is the only way."

She had just washed her hair, and the mountain breeze blew over, and a faint and ethereal fragrance filled the man's nostrils.

Zheng Youshan's heart fluttered, thinking that she was really gentle. He couldn't help but ask, "Ayin, do you have a boyfriend?"

She suddenly understood his complex thoughts and said in a friendly manner, "No. I don't want to talk about it. It's getting late, and I need to rest."

Zheng Youshan laughed hurriedly, and suddenly said goodbye politely. "Okay, then, good night."

Ye Yuanyin bolted the door from the inside and walked into the yard. He saw Chen Di sitting on the bamboo chair he had sat on before, with one hand casually placed on his crossed legs, leaning over and playing happily with Chunfen.

The shameless cat circled around him and licked his hand with its tongue.

"It's cold outside, go back and rest, don't catch a cold." She warned him and walked past him to go upstairs.

When they passed by each other, Chen Dian suddenly called her.

"Stop."

Ye Yuanyin went to see him for some inexplicable reason, and Chen Yan stared at her face, which was like a spring mountain covered with mist, and suddenly felt like teasing her.

He slowly lowered himself into the bamboo chair, legs still crossed, a half-smile on his face: "How dare you flirt with another man in front of your husband?"

Her face suddenly turned red, like a rose blooming in spring, timid but seductive.

"I didn't! Besides, you're not real."

"Is the person talking to you a fake person?"

"……boring."

Because of his sudden joke, Ye Yuanyin couldn't calm down for a long time.

What on earth could have stimulated this person, who was so cold before, to become so approachable?

*

Sediment An left the next morning.

When Secretary Ma came to pick him up, he prepared a big gift for the family as a return gift for entertaining him over the past two days.

My mother said Mr. Shen was too polite. How could this be allowed?

Ye Yuanyin persuaded her to accept everything. She understood that a man of his status would not do everything himself. The gifts should have been prepared long ago by the secretary who guessed the boss's intentions. If they did not accept them, it would be difficult for the employees below.

The appearance of Chen Dian was like a small ripple on the calm surface of the water. With his departure, life soon returned to its former tranquility.

The years in the mountains are monotonous and repetitive. If life is not a rose in spring, it will always be a leisurely life to get by.

In early April, a major event occurred in Jiutao Village. A branch of the tassel tree in the village died.

The tree was a thousand years old, its trunk so thick that three teenage children couldn't wrap their arms around it. The village elders gathered under the tree, wondering who would be the next disaster.

Grandma came in from outside with a basket filled with a few cracked corns.

Ye Yuanyin squatted on the ground and repeatedly hammered the dirty clothes on the bluestone slab with a wooden stick.

Grandma went into the kitchen and came out after a while. She sat down at the stone table in the yard, rolled up her sleeves and started breaking corn kernels.

"My aunt gave me some corn to make tortillas for you to eat at noon."

"I'm fine with anything."

My mother was very skillful. After breaking the corn in half, she used one of the corns as a lever to block the two, and the kernels on the other corn quickly fell into the bowl.

"It's a pity that the tassel flowers this year are not blooming as well as in previous years."

The tree grew at the junction of three roads, not far from Ye Yuanyin's home. My mother might have seen it when she came back. She was busy with her work and sighed after working for a while.

"When your father was still alive, he loved this tassel tree very much. He even told me that the tassel flowers looked like the Book of Songs. You know the Book of Songs, right?"

"It's completely unrelated, what does it matter?"

"Your father said that they are all four-character poems, very ancient."

Ye Yuanyin smiled and said nothing. This was an incurable madness.

In the mother's eyes, her father's sentimentality is a catalyst that keeps their love lasting. She always loves everything about this man through a filter.

But when he left the mountains, he sighed that his talent was not appreciated. He could only please the girls in the mountains, but could not provide any economic value to the elite women in the city.

Suddenly, there was a "knock knock" sound in the yard. Wang Yaya rushed in with disheveled hair. One of her shoes was missing, and her face, soaked with tears, was covered with black streaks.

"Aunt Long, isn't the secretary here with you?"

My mother quickly stood up and asked, "What's wrong?"

"My grandma, my grandma, wow..."

The cry was heartbreaking, and Ye Yuanyin's heart seemed to draw a parabola, with an irregular tremor when it landed. She thought, Oh no, life is going in an uncontrollable direction again.

The flowers of the tassel tree are as white as snow, and the flowing clouds cover the sun.

On such a perfect spring day, Wang Yaya and Wang Zhizhi's grandmother left this world completely.

Poverty is an unspeakable disease. With nothing in her house and two children waiting to be fed, this was too much for an old woman with no source of income and who could only make a living by scavenging. After the children fell asleep, she got up in the dark, tied a rope, and stuck her head through it, ending her hard and tiring life.

Village Party Secretary Long Yan’s hair is almost turning white with worry.

The young and strong labor force went out to work, leaving behind the villagers, the elderly and children. What should he do? He took out his pipe, which had been idle for a long time, put some strong tobacco in it, and started to smoke.

"Third daughter, take the siblings back to your home to stay for a while. I'll think of a solution."

My mother is kind-hearted and helping the weak has become a habit in our family. "Okay."

Village director Zheng Baoshu was dejected. He slapped his thigh and said with full energy, "I'll go to the county to look for it!"

"Who are you looking for? What do you want?"

"Go to the finance department and ask for money. We have to let the villagers survive!"

"There are over a thousand villages in the county, and if they all cry poor like you, where will they get so much money for poverty alleviation? We have to rely on ourselves for everything now."

Long Yan tapped his pipe, squinted his eyes, took a puff of smoke, and slowly exhaled. The bluish-white smoke enveloped his face. When the smoke dissipated, a smile suddenly appeared on his wrinkled face, which made the lines at the corners of his mouth seem even deeper.

"That young man named Shen who came back to the village last time wanted to launch some kind of 'Aiyaai' pilot project, didn't he? At worst, I can go and ask if his project can be brought to us."

Zheng Baoshu's eyes lit up. "Any ideas?"

"You forgot that Secretary Lin also knew a favor for me."

Zheng Baoshu burst into laughter. "Hey, brother, you're amazing."

*

Three days later, with the help of all the men and women in the village, the neighbors prepared to hold a grand funeral so that Grandma Wang could complete her final journey with dignity.

The night before the farewell ceremony, Ye Yuan was in a very bad mood and hid in his father's study at night.

An entire wall in the room is used to store books, and those that can't fit are placed on the floor. My father used to be a high school teacher in the county, and he used all his little salary to buy books.

He was a scholar who resigned from his teaching position in the county. With only his passion, he wanted to send all the children in the village to school, teach them knowledge, and help them get out of the mountains.

But reality is often less than ideal. In a village that has been declining for years, capable parents have already taken their children away, leaving most of the remaining children behind. While the elders at home may have some understanding of the benefits of education, few can truly commit to it. A few children managed to stay in first and second grade, but as they grew older and the rice-planting work in the fields began, the boys all fled home, leaving the shabby classroom barely large enough to accommodate them all.

Moreover, most of the village boys are self-righteous, and the girls are unmotivated. Having never seen the outside world, they mistakenly believe this little world is their future and everything. They hastily marry, their lives slipping away. Then they give birth to the same offspring, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

Dad's passion burned out, leaving only tears.

He had no choice but to put all his efforts on his daughter in frustration. He taught her from the most basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to Chinese characters, from Hanfu poetry to essays and novels, and later studied psychology and philosophy, and sent her to the best university.

In the end, even though my daughter left the mountains, she eventually returned here, turning her starting point into her final destination. If her father knew about this, he would probably be unable to sleep or eat peacefully.

She opened the drawer of the study and took out the mobile phone inside. After charging for a few minutes, the phone turned on automatically. Messages poured in like a flood, vibrating and ringing, interweaving into a picture of war and battle.

She seemed to have returned to the outside world, involved in complex interpersonal relationships, being coerced, judged, and treated rudely and unreasonable.

On the social software, You Jing has sent more than a hundred messages.

[Ye Yuanyin, where are you? ]

【Come out here! 】

【Are you missing? 】

Don't let me catch you.

【Yin Yin, answer the phone. 】

One after another, strong and overbearing, just like him, leaving no room for breathing.

Ye Yuanyin felt difficulty breathing and despair swept over him.

Anxiously, she returned to the main interface and suddenly discovered that Chen Di'an had sent her a message in late March.

At that time, it had been more than half a month since he left Jiutao Village.