Chapter 54: The Green Train Heads to the New World

The announcement finally read out the train number Zhu Yingning was about to take. Chen Bin pressed the train ticket into her hand, patted her luggage—a greasy, colorful snakeskin bag—and said, "Go ahead, check your ticket."

When Zhu Yingning went to pick up Zhu Dashan to go home during the Chinese New Year, she took a hitchhiking van. So strictly speaking, today was her first time taking a train. She knew nothing about the procedures related to the train. Even the ticket was bought for her by Chen Bin who went to the train station a few days ago.

Student tickets are cheaper.

This train station is very run-down and small. There is only one ticket gate. You don't need to identify it. Just follow the flow of people.

After queuing up with the ticket in hand, Zhu Yingning turned around and looked at Chen Bin.

This kind of farewell might have been a good time for some sentimental words, but as they stared at each other, they were at a loss for words. It wasn't until the line dwindled and it was almost her turn that Chen Bin managed to utter, "Study hard and make progress every day."

"I will, Teacher Chen!" She raised her arms and waved at him vigorously.

"Ticket, ticket!" the staff member urged her impatiently in Mandarin, tinged with a local accent. She finally withdrew her hand and handed over her clenched ticket. After checking, the staff member returned it to her, saying expressionlessly, "Platform 1." Then, in equally impatient Mandarin, he urged the next person in line, "Ticket!"

Entering the platform meant they were truly parting ways. Zhu Yingning turned back once more, looking at Chen Bin one last time through the glass covered in fingerprints and handprints, through the faces etched with their hometown accents. Perhaps because a farewell should be formal, he wore a shirt and trousers he didn't usually wear—a decision that was undoubtedly a mistake. The temperature was a whopping 37°C, and his white shirt had become transparent due to sweat, clinging to his body and revealing the outline of his beer belly. His round-framed glasses slid down his nose, smeared with oil.

This image is far from elegant. The only thing worth a good comment is the smile on his face, a kind smile that makes him look like a disheveled Maitreya Buddha even when he is in a dishevel.

A surge of sadness suddenly welled up from the soles of her feet, coursing through her body. Zhu Yingning suddenly realized that after all these years of being taught by him, she never seemed to understand his life. For example, why did he give up the prosperity and convenience of city life to come teach in the mountains?

She never properly thanked him. After answering Xu Sirui's call, when she asked, "Teacher Chen, is this really possible?", it was he who said "Yes," which further strengthened her decision. He then personally went to Liu Guifang's house to explain the situation and share some of her anger.

Chen Bin turned and walked out of the station. His back was neither tall nor hunched. He merged into the crowd like a drop of water into the boundless ocean. He was so ordinary that he was unrecognizable and could not arouse any Zhu Ziqing-style associations.

The crowd pushed her forward, and she could only wave her arms again, her thousand words condensed into one sentence: "I will study hard and make progress every day, Teacher Chen! I will study hard!"

The clanging sound was approaching, and the green train pulled into the platform. Zhu Yingning shook the snakeskin bag on his body upwards and searched for the carriage according to the seat on the ticket in an unexperienced manner.

Train, this was her first time taking a train.

The long train was like a giant steel beast, swallowing her into its stomach. The stomach was filled with a mixture of foot odor, sweat odor, and body odor, and the stuffy heat acted as yeast, fermenting into a sour, spicy, and pungent odor.

She found her seat—the middle of a three-seater, and, stepping over a sturdy, middle-aged woman, managed to squeeze in. The seat was covered in various unidentified yellow stains and had several small holes in it.

"Ouch! Little sister, you should put this bag on the luggage rack. Don't throw it at people's faces!" The old lady pushed away the snakeskin bag that almost hit her face.

"Sorry, sorry, I didn't notice." Zhu Yingning quickly raised the bag and followed the others to put the snakeskin bag on the shelf above his head.

The old lady was very talkative: "Are you taking the bus alone?"

"Yeah." She sat down in her seat, it was so hot that she couldn't even breathe.

"How old are you?"

"fifteen."

"She's still very young! Why didn't her parents come with her?"

Zhu Yingning hadn't yet mastered the art of avoiding the topic; she maintained the simplicity of a mountain child in this regard. Although she felt the question brought back bad memories, she still answered with an overly simple honesty: "My father is sick, and my mother is at home taking care of him."

"Is that so? Then where are you going and what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to Beijing to study."

"Yeah! That's great, that's great." The old lady took a crying baby from the woman sitting in the row in front of them, placed it on her lap, and changed the baby's diaper without any hesitation in front of everyone. As she changed the diaper, she asked, "So where did you get the money to study in Beijing? Did your parents give it to you? Did your brothers and sisters give it to you?"

Zhu Yingning was about to answer when a young woman sitting by the window touched her knee with the back of her hand and reminded her, "Don't just answer whatever you're asked."

She said "Oh" blankly.

"Ah, I'm just chatting with her, what do you think of me?" The old lady looked a little unhappy, but after changing her grandson's diaper, she warmed up again. She leaned close to Zhu Yingning's ear and said to her, "Look at the woman next to you. What kind of tattoos does she have? You can't tell at a glance that she's a good person. Girl, I think you're a simple person, so you better stay away from such bad people."

“…”

Zhu Yingning was a little speechless, not knowing what to say or which side to stand on, and could only hunch his shoulders weakly.

The young woman with rose tattoos on her arms rolled her eyes at the sky when she heard this, connected the walkie-talkie in her hand, put on the headphones and looked out the window, leaving the old lady with only the stiff back of her head.

Zhu Yingning was sandwiched between the two of them, sometimes curiously glancing at the walkie-talkie in the young sister's hand, and sometimes turning to watch the aunt teasing her grandson with a big bubble gum.

The train started, the clanking sound echoing under her feet, and outside the wide-open window was the receding tracks and the receding mountains. It was only at this moment that she felt the reality of leaving.

The marks on her thighs and buttocks from Liu Guifang's beatings still stung. This was the first time Liu Guifang had beaten her since she was old enough to understand. She used a cane, a broom, a feather duster, anything she could get her hands on. She didn't resist, nor did she run away. She just stood there silently and endured it.

Although Chen Bin told her, "Yingning, your choice is correct. If you don't go to Beijing, you will never have the opportunity to study again. And if your brother doesn't go to Beijing, your mother will still do everything she can to get him into the county's No. 1 Middle School. Do you understand what I mean? You didn't take away your brother's chance to study, you just took back your own chance to study."

Although she understood the deep meaning of Chen Bin's words, she still couldn't help feeling a heavy sense of guilt in her heart.

This sense of guilt prevented her from resisting or running away when she was beaten, and she meekly endured the pain that came with anger and judgment.

And now——

Whether it was pain, guilt, or anything else, all those negative emotions disappeared, leaving only the most genuine excitement of a child's defection.

She has embarked on a journey.

The carriage was filled with all kinds of odors and noises, but she was still full of energy, like a little animal out of a cage, almost greedily taking in all the new things with her five senses.

The drive from Province G to the capital was ten hours, and she would arrive there this afternoon. This realization made her so excited that she could barely sit still. But fearing she might cause trouble for those around her, she took two deep breaths to suppress her excitement.

People around her came and went, some got off the bus, some got on. The aunt with her grandson and the young sister with a walkie-talkie were soon replaced by other people. She saw office workers in suits and ties who had been answering and making phone calls since getting on the bus, an old man who insisted on sitting in his seat to smoke despite being reminded by the conductor that it would be better to go to the smoking area, and an ugly young couple who were sleeping soundly together.

She met all kinds of people and the small parts of their lives that were intercepted by the train.

**

"Mr. Xu, what time will this kid you're talking about arrive?"

After waiting for over an hour, Yang Zihao's soles were almost calloused. He was a reporter hired by Xu Zhengkang, and he had been waiting at the exit with his camera for so long, but he hadn't seen the child he mentioned.

Xu Zhengkang wiped his greasy neck with a handkerchief, his face still anxious, and he had already cursed Xu Sirui over and over in his mind. If he had followed his original idea and sponsored Zhu Jixiang to go to school, everything would have been fine by now. But Xu Sirui, on the other hand, had interfered, acted first and asked for his consent later, and changed the sponsorship recipient to Zhu Yingning without telling him the truth at the last minute. That would have been fine, but the key point was that this kid had disappeared today, and no one knew where he was hanging out again. He didn't even know what Zhu Yingning looked like, so he could only urgently watch the variety show and compare the blurry screenshots on the variety show with every passenger walking towards the exit.

Yang Zihao was also there to help identify them.

"Found it! Found it! Mr. Xu, look at that skinny little guy who looks like a boy!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the boy was picked up by someone else, and Yang Zihao could only smile awkwardly.

After a while, he yelled again, "Mr. Xu, look at that! That mushroom-headed girl who looks like the big-eyed little girl from the Hope Project, isn't she a bit similar?"

Xu Zhengkang compared the photo on his phone with the "mushroom head" Yang Zihao pointed out: "Hmm... it's quite interesting."

Mushroom Head was wandering aimlessly at the exit, holding a tacky snakeskin bag with red and white stripes. He had a dark complexion, a pointed chin, and a pair of eyes that were distinctly black and white.

"Let's go up and ask." Xu Zhengkang locked onto the target and led Yang Zihao and the cameraman forward.