Chapter 90 Spring Festival travel from north to south, from east to west

Although he had read about the grand occasion of Beijing's Spring Festival travel rush in previous years on the Internet before leaving, Zhu Yingning was still dumbfounded when he arrived at the train station.

Even the exaggerated idiom "a sea of ​​people" seems inadequate to describe the Spring Festival travel rush. She recalled a time when, as a child, Liu Guifang forgot to put a pinch of sugar on the stove while cooking. That evening, she went to the kitchen for some water. Half asleep, her hand casually touched the stove. The sugar had become sticky from the moisture of the mountains and forests. Thousands of ants crawled up her fingers, densely packed like a string of black sesame seeds.

At this moment, the station is like an ant nest, with groups of ants migrating, and she will soon join the group migrating south.

Xu Zhengkang drove her to the station entrance. The traffic jam at the entrance, just a short two hundred meters away, was jammed for half an hour. The car door had barely opened, and before she could even get out of the car, a car behind her started honking, as if urging her to reincarnate. She opened the trunk and unloaded her heavy luggage—mostly New Year's gifts for her family back in the mountains. The rest consisted of a few changes of clothes, an old cell phone, and a reply letter Zhou Tianqing had asked Zhou Tianlan to bring her.

The old cell phone was given to her by Xu Zhengkang, who told her that if she wanted to come to Beijing after the Chinese New Year, she could call him and he would arrange the ticket purchase.

She carried the reply letter with her to prevent Xu Sirui from finding out. Although she had boasted to Zhou Tianqing that she was not afraid of Xu Sirui getting angry, Zhu Yingning always held the view that if she could avoid making him angry, she would, especially after he had given her such a thoughtful birthday gift.

I received the letter shortly after the winter vacation. It was a thin piece of paper, written and crossed out, crossed out and written again, and in the end, only two words were left: "Thank you."

Zhu Yingning didn't think she'd done anything worthy of gratitude. She'd simply written a detailed account of Xu Sirui's recent situation in her letter to Zhou Tianqing: what he liked to eat, how much he ate, how socializing with friends went—in short, just boring, trivial details. But Zhou Tianlan said to her—thank you.

She looked at the two words again and again, unable to describe a mother's heart.

After bidding farewell to Xu Zhengkang, Zhu Yingning went into security alone carrying her luggage.

Xu Sirui didn't come to see her off, one reason being that he couldn't get up, and the other being that he didn't want to be in the same enclosed space with Xu Zhengkang, such as a car.

She was squeezed by the crowd through security check and then into the waiting room. Unable to find a seat, she could only sit on her snakeskin bag. Fortunately, the snakeskin bag was soft and could not be crushed.

Zhu Yingning felt a wonderful mood as he stepped onto the green train again.

This time she sat by the window, and the scenery outside the window replayed in her eyes. The town gradually faded into the distance, replaced by mountains, forests and fields, with large areas of withered yellow and scattered green.

She rarely missed home in Beijing, perhaps because she was too busy. When people are busy, they have no time to feel delicate emotions. It was not until she got on the train back home that she realized that she actually missed home.

The train runs from north to south, from east to west, from dawn to dusk, heading to her hometown.

After leaving the train station, there were ride-sharing vehicles soliciting passengers at the station entrance. Zhu Yingning paid twenty yuan and got into a modified van with other migrant workers returning home, which looked like it could fall apart at any time.

The train was filled with not only people but also a variety of indescribable smells, the most prominent being secondhand smoke, followed by smoked bacon. A greasy bag of bacon sat in a sack, carelessly tossed on the floor mat, next to the grimy cotton shoes of other passengers. The woman near the door even held a large rooster, its comb drooping to the side, looking half-dead. Arms were pressed against arms, thighs against thighs.

Whether analyzed from the visual or taste perspective, the scene was far from beautiful, but the slightly rough and vulgar accents of the people around made Zhu Yingning feel at home.

The old man sitting opposite her was dark, thin, and with only a few yellow teeth left. He was holding a cheap Daqianmen cigarette in his mouth. He asked her why she was alone. Was she working outside? Was she going back to her hometown? Which county did she live in?

She answered in dialect, and the old man said that Ah Mei's life had not been easy at such a young age, but that she had been able to study in Beijing and would surely have a bright future. Unlike his good-for-nothing eldest son, who spent his days lying around, relying on his parents, and who didn't know when he would become ambitious, he should at least clean himself up and get married. He then went on to chat with other nearby workers about real estate, medical insurance policies, and the international situation.

The two women who had given birth to children sitting next to me were whispering about the private affairs of the couple.

One said: "After I gave birth to my third child, my breasts drooped like two water balloons. Without wearing underwear, they would hang down to my belly. The debt collector in my family always complains about me..."

One said, "He dislikes you? If he dislikes you, you laugh at him and say he's a soft eggplant. No matter how much smoke there is, it will still become soft after being fried. How dare this idiot who can't even take medicine dislike us old women? Don't you even see who gave birth to their children..."

The two of them talked and laughed all the time, you patted me, you pinched each other, laughing until your faces were red. In the middle, I gave Zhu Yingning an Alps lollipop and told her that it was delicious.

Every time the van arrives at a place, it will spit out a few people, and the space inside the car will become more spacious.

Zhu Yingning was the second to last person to get off the bus. She stood in the familiar town with a snakeskin bag on her back. It was already dark. She looked at the place where the ox cart was tied in the town, but she didn't see an ox cart, but there was a donkey cart.

The donkey cart belongs to the fool from the next village.

Speaking of idiots, almost every village has one or two intellectually disabled people. Some are born with this condition, some become mentally retarded after catching a fever and not receiving prompt treatment, and some are suddenly debilitated by a major trauma. This idiot from the neighboring village is the product of incestuous marriage. His father and mother are cousins. When his father was a child, he was playful and lost an eye when a branch poked him in the eye. As an adult, he was never wanted by anyone. His mother had a boyfriend, and they were about to get married, but he suddenly changed his mind and married a woman from a wealthier family. Since then, his mother has become unhinged, trying to commit suicide by drinking pesticide several times and even planning to poison the couple.

The two families decided that since they were siblings, they knew each other well and could look after each other, so they arranged a wedding. However, their foolish kindness led to further tragedy. Of the two children born, one had an intellectual disability, with an IQ similar to that of a five or six-year-old; the other, with normal intelligence, suffered from severe bipolar disorder, or what the villagers called "possessed by a ghost," and quietly committed suicide at the age of 20.

Zhu Yingning asked the fool if he could take her to Zhujia Village.

The fool picked his nose and shook his head, saying, "No, no." She found a bag of Wangzai steamed buns from her luggage and handed it to him. The fool nodded repeatedly and changed his words, "Yes, yes." After a while, he slyly raised two fingers and said, "Two bags, two bags." So Zhu Yingning gave him another bag.

The fool drove the donkey cart skillfully towards Zhujia Village, tore a small hole in the plastic packaging of the steamed buns, and put his black fingers in to dig and dig, like a gold miner, or a bit like he was picking his nose.

Zhu Yingning felt homesick and when he saw the dilapidated appearance of Zhujia Village, a strong and indescribable feeling surged in his heart.

She pushed open the door of her house with a heavy snakeskin bag on her back, and what caught her eye was Zhu Jixiang sitting cross-legged on the kang playing with his mobile phone. He heard the noise, looked up at her, and there was a brief surprise on his face. After he reacted, he called her "Sister" calmly.

"Eh." After not seeing him for half a year, Zhu Yingning felt a little strange around him. She replied dryly, put down her luggage, and went to the kang to check on Zhu Dashan, who was still sound asleep, and her grandmother, who was still confused. She asked, "Where's Mom?"

"In the kitchen."

"Why are you playing with your phone?" she asked in surprise. "Can you connect to the internet?"

"Yes, someone came and installed something here a few months ago. Anyway, now we can make calls with our cell phones and connect to the internet."

"Oh..." She said slowly, her eyes a little blank.

Seeing Zhu Jixiang was so engrossed in his play, she didn't want to disturb him, so she simply went to the kitchen to find Liu Guifang. Liu Guifang was cooking in front of the kang, and the smoke made her sweat all over her forehead. She wiped the oil from her nose with her sleeve, and through the smoke, Zhu Yingning found that she had aged a lot.

Like a tree trunk wrapped in snow, silver threads support her wrinkled face, and the wrinkles are her bark.

"Mom."

Hearing her voice, Liu Guifang glanced at her and exclaimed, "You're back, Ningning? We can have dinner after I finish cooking this dish."

"Yeah." Zhu Yingning walked over to help serve the rice.

"I originally asked your brother to pick you up in town on a bullock cart. I was busy cooking here and couldn't spare my hands, but he was so engrossed in his phone that he wouldn't listen," Liu Guifang complained. "He's in his rebellious phase now, becoming increasingly ignorant. It's harder than climbing a mountain to get him to do anything. I wonder if all men go through this phase. Sigh... what a bummer..."

Zhu Yingning didn't say anything, but just silently served the rice, brought it into the house, and placed the chopsticks on the dishes one by one.

Zhu Jixiang was still playing with her phone, not even looking up. She expertly picked up one of the bowls of rice, softened it, and mashed it according to the same steps as before. She added a few vegetables and a few pieces of bacon, and fed it to her grandmother first.

The old lady was missing two more teeth. She chewed the rice slowly with her shrunken mouth. As she chewed, she looked at her with her cloudy eyes. After a long look, she giggled and said, "You look familiar, little girl."

Zhu Yingning felt sad and helpless: "Grandma, you forgot me again."

"I remember, I remember." The old lady pointed at her and said vaguely, "You are Chunyan next door. The fat boy you gave birth to is as popular as you."

After feeding her, they sat at the dining table. Liu Guifang placed several meat dishes in front of her and Zhu Jixiang, and handed her a small bowl with two peeled boiled eggs. She glanced at her and sighed softly, "You're still so skinny."

Zhu Jixiang took a bite of meat, squinted his eyes at her, and said with a smile: "Sister, why are you still dressed so rustically?"

"...It's okay." Zhu Yingning didn't know what to respond.

Zhu Jixiang asked her again: "How are you doing in Beijing? Did Xu Sirui's parents buy anything for you?"

Zhu Yingning opened her mouth, but suddenly felt powerless. She looked at Zhu Jixiang and was silent for a few seconds before answering, "No."

"Yeah, I can tell." He picked at his meat and said excitedly, "Even though you're in Beijing, you probably don't know as much as I do. Have you heard of the iPhone?"

"No."

"This is an American smartphone with a touch screen. Do you know what a touch screen means? It means you can manipulate the screen directly with your fingers, without having to use buttons. In October, the iPhone 4s went on sale in California, USA, and it caused a sensation around the world. It's expected to be available in China next year, too. Even our teacher said it was a groundbreaking innovation."

"Oh..." Zhu Yingning said subconsciously, "That must be very expensive, right?"

Zhu Jixiang rolled his eyes and said, "Sister, you're talking like mom now. I can tell you're so poor. You'll be poor all your life."

Zhu Yingning didn't say anything.

Before she left home, she actually had some unpleasantness with her family.

That day, Chen Bin took her home and told Liu Guifang that Xu Sirui and his team were planning to switch their sponsorship to her. Liu Guifang was stunned for a long time, her face filled with confusion. She asked, "Is this a mistake? Wasn't it agreed that Xiang'er would go? Why did they suddenly switch to Ningning? Teacher Chen, I'm really running out of ideas. Please explain it to me."

Chen Bin explained and deceived Liu Guifang in this way and that way, and finally made her understand the truth.

Liu Guifang was a person who easily went with the flow. When she heard Chen Bin say that Zhu Yingning's move to Beijing would have the same effect as Zhu Jixiang's, she was a little confused: "How could it be the same? Daughters graduate to get married, and only sons can achieve great things in their careers..."

Chen Bin tried his best to convince Liu Guifang that this was a new era and that women held up half the sky. But before he could finish, Zhu Jixiang yelled, "Mom—it was my sister. She stole my sponsorship! She knows that Xu Sirui. She must have called and asked for a replacement!"

Liu Guifang didn’t understand what the new era meant or what it meant that women could hold up half the sky, but she understood the word “grab” and she understood the meaning of the word.

How can a daughter take something from her son?

It was only after Zhu Jixiang yelled that Zhu Yingning was beaten.

After the beating, she and Zhu Jixiang didn't speak again until she left home to catch the train. Later, she would occasionally call home, but only to Liu Guifang, not Zhu Jixiang. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to Zhu Jixiang, but that Zhu Jixiang was actively avoiding her.

Until today.

She had originally thought that Zhu Jixiang's willingness to talk to her meant that they had reconciled, but now it seemed that this was not the case. Even if she was still dumb, she could still hear the sting in Zhu Jixiang's words.

She chose to avoid his thorns and ate in silence.

Zhu Jixiang finished picking out the large pieces of meat on the plate and picked up a boiled egg. Liu Guifang stopped him softly, "Hey, this is your sister's..."

"I'm just eating one. It's not like our family is so poor that we can't even afford an egg."

After such a long car ride, Zhu Yingning had lost his appetite due to the shaking, and now he felt even more bloated. So he said to Liu Guifang, "I don't have much of an appetite. You can eat the remaining one."

Zhu Jixiang looked at her: "You really don't want it?"

"Um."

He stretched out his chopsticks and picked up the remaining one as well.

**

After dinner, Zhu Yingning dragged the snakeskin bag to the middle of the bamboo mat and introduced the New Year's goods he brought to Liu Guifang.

In addition to food and Zhu Dashan’s medicine, there are also a few daily necessities, such as plastic gloves with cotton inside.

Zhu Jixiang picked it up and looked at it, and said with disgust: "What is this? Why did you buy this?"

"These gloves are specially used for washing dishes. Wearing them while washing dishes in winter will prevent your hands from getting frostbite." Zhu Yingning replied.

Liu Guifang took it with a smile and fiddled with it in her hands: "This thing is quite good, really good."

"...boring." He rolled his eyes again and asked, "Where's my gift?"

"Oh, yes." Zhu Yingning pulled out a brand new watch from the snakeskin bag. "You're in high school now, and you'll definitely need a watch for exams and stuff, so I bought you one."

Zhu Jixiang took it, looked at it over and over, and asked, "What brand is this? Swatch?"

"No." She smiled awkwardly.

"How much?"

"Over sixty. I see a lot of boys in our school use this, so..."

"Only over sixty?!" Zhu Jixiang immediately threw the watch back into the snakeskin bag, his face full of disgust. "Can you at least buy a bigger brand? How can I wear a watch like this? Aren't you deliberately embarrassing me among my classmates?"

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The author has something to say: I would also like to say that since this article will be published on July 13th/Sunday starting from Chapter 29, I have written the mine clearance details in the preface of Chapter 28. You can read the mine clearance before considering whether to subscribe.