Chapter 21 Chapter 21 He bowed his head first
Wen Yu took three days off.
When Pan Xianchen received the leave request on DingTalk, Wen Yu had already boarded the urban-rural bus to Xiahe Village. She had requested bereavement leave. Pan Xianchen approved it and called Peng Yan in to discuss Wen Yu's request.
Peng Yan said: "She told me very suddenly, and I just found out about it."
"Who in her family died?"
"I don't know."
Pan Xianchen nodded and sent Peng Yan out. He had a lot of work on hand, but he wasn't in the mood for it right now. He had just returned from a business trip last night and learned about Yan Qianqian and Jiang Jin's situation, so he had no time to spend with Wen Yu. Wen Yu had taken another day off from work today.
She didn't tell him anything. He even found out later than Peng Yan.
Pan Xianchen felt bad. A black gel pen twirled between his fingers, like his restless and anxious heart.
After thinking about it, he couldn't help but send a WeChat message to Wen Yu: Are you okay?
He held his phone tightly, waiting for a moment. WeChat remained completely unresponsive, seemingly dead. Pan Xianchen began to work on the tasks he had been accumulating over the past few days. He opened a document and glanced at it before turning back to his phone.
No reply.
He continued working. This time he lasted five minutes.
No reply.
Pan Xianchen frowned, deleted WeChat from the background, and then reopened it from the main page. The result was the same.
He wanted to call Wen Yu, but he was worried she was busy. He didn't really want to call her either. Such a big thing had happened, and she hadn't said a word, hadn't told him anything. He was angry. Why should he cling to her like a puppy, wagging his tail?
Pan Xianchen didn't get any work done that morning. As WeChat grew quieter, his face grew increasingly grim.
OK. He's a dog. He wags his tail. He bows his head first.
Pan Xianchen called Wen Yu.
Wen Yu didn't answer. Her phone was silent. The bus was old and worn, wobbling along the muddy mountain road. There was a sickening odor inside. Wen Yu felt carsick, her face pale as she leaned back, her eyes closed. She didn't want to look at these unfamiliar relatives on the bus.
At two or three in the morning, Wen Yu shook her awake. Wen Yu's grandmother had passed away, and a call had come from home, asking them to rush over immediately.
Wen Yu washed her face and sobered up a bit. Wen Yu was already dressed and waiting for her at the entrance. She looked at his silent face and asked tentatively, "Do I have to go? We're not married yet. Can I give a little extra money for the funeral?"
Wen Yu's gaze swept over her quietly. He wasn't close to his grandmother. He had moved out of Xiahe Village with his parents when he was young, and his visits to his grandmother were few and far between. The one raised with his grandmother was Wen Yu's cousin, and their relationship was more like that of grandparents and grandchildren. But Wen Yu was the eldest son, so he had to take the lead in such situations.
"But we're already engaged, and my family and all my relatives have already recognized you," Wen Yu said. "What will they think if you don't attend? What will they think of me and my parents?"
Wen Yu pursed her lips and said nothing.
Wen Yu reminded her: "You said you were going to the bar to pick someone up tonight, and I went with you without saying a word. For this reason, can't you help me?"
Wen Yu: “…”
"You don't have to do anything when you get there, just follow the crowd." Wen Yu saw that Wen Yu agreed, so he stepped aside to make way and said, "Let's go."
They drove to a field parking lot where the bus was waiting. Quite a few people were already in the bus, and Wen Yu greeted them one by one and introduced Wen Yu to them.
An elderly man, who was either Uncle Wen Yu or Uncle Wen Yu, looked Wen Yu up and down and said with a smile, "Wen Yu is so lucky! His wife is so beautiful!"
Wen Yu glanced at him. His grin revealed uneven yellow teeth that matched his dark complexion. Wen Yu couldn't help but think of the old country corpse in the ghost story she had read, and it gave her goose bumps.
Wen Yu took her to sit in the back seat. The bumpy ride lasted too long, and Wen Yu felt sick to her stomach, with a strong urge to vomit. Wen Yu was so focused on looking out the window that he didn't notice her. After a while, he said, "We're here."
After getting off the bus, a huge crowd of people were moving around like a migrant. Not far away, a makeshift shed had been erected, and a woman in a leather apron was washing a large iron basin with a tap.
Wen Yu said, "Let's go into the shed and have breakfast first."
Breakfast was simple: a few large round tables were filled with similar items like steamed buns, porridge, and soy milk. People in the shed came and went, each minding their own business. Wen Yu passed many people, none of whom she recognized. She hadn't recovered from the motion sickness, and now the smell of the meat buns had completely wiped out her appetite.
"You eat it, I can't eat it." Wen Yu walked out of the shed to get some fresh air.
Xiahe Village is nestled between mountains and water, offering a tranquil environment. Far from the modern city, high-rise buildings are rare along the way, with rows of low houses and patches of farmland dominating the landscape.
It was now bright outside. Suddenly, with a whoosh, countless birds flew over from the distant forests, leaving behind a burst of bird calls.
After a while, Wen Yu and several middle-aged men emerged from the greenhouse. Wen Yu didn't recognize anyone, so she followed him. He led her to a simple prefab house and told her to wait there while he was called away by others to run around.
Wen Yu looked around. Behind her was a dense forest, and in front of her was a busy crowd. Everyone was busy with their own things, no one cared about her. She felt like an outsider, standing there alone.
She took out her cell phone and checked, but there was no signal.
After waiting for a long time, Wen Yu still hadn't returned. Wen Yu wanted to go to the bathroom, so she stopped a nearby woman and asked. The woman looked at her, pointed in a direction, and led her away while saying, "Are you Wen Yu's wife?"
Wen Yu responded vaguely.
"When are you getting married? We're looking forward to your wedding!"
Wen Yu had no answer to this question and smiled dryly at the woman.
"We're here, let's pull it."
“…”
Wen Yu looked at the "toilet" in front of him and stood there awkwardly. The woman asked understandingly, "Are you not used to dry toilets? There's nothing we can do about it. The conditions are so simple right now, so we have to make do."
"...I'm not going up yet." It smelled so bad here that Wen Yu held his breath and wanted to leave quickly.
The woman said, "People need to eat, drink, defecate and urinate. How can we do that without using the toilet? You'll be here for several days, what are you going to do? Why don't you let Wen Yu take you back to the old house? There's a flush toilet there."
"Thank you. I'll talk to him later."
Wen Yu walked back to where she was, and Wen Yu was already standing there. Wen Yu anxiously went to meet her, and Wen Yu also saw her and asked, "Where have you been? Didn't I ask you to wait for me here?"
"Wen Yu, I want to go to the bathroom."
Wen Yu paused, knowing that Wen Yu couldn't use the toilet, so he had to take her to the old house. But he had a lot of things to do now, so he had to drive back to the old house, and he had to borrow a car from a relative.
Wen Yu frowned, but still borrowed a pickup truck to take her back. After going to the bathroom, Wen Yu said to Wen Yu, "I'm hungry."
Wen Yu: “…”
Wen Yu: "Who told you not to eat breakfast? It's already late, where do you want me to get you something to eat?"
Wen Yu looked back at the old house: "Is there anything to eat in there?"
Wen Yu: “…”
He was so anxious that he was confused. Wen Yu jumped out of the car and rushed into the old house. After a while, he came out with a box of biscuits and handed it to Wen Yu.
The pickup truck started moving. Another jolt.
Wen Yu held a biscuit of an unknown brand in his hand and checked the expiration date. It had already expired two years earlier. Old people love to hoard things and are reluctant to throw them away even after they've expired. They still haven't opened them.
The cookies are definitely not edible.
Wen Yu glanced at Wen Yu's tense face and said nothing.
Wen Yu pointed to the temporary cabin and said, "Go inside and take a rest. I'll call you if anything happens."
Wen Yu walked in. Several men and women were already resting on plank beds. They didn't know each other, so they exchanged a few smiles and nods as a greeting. Wen Yu followed their lead and sat down on a random plank bed. They were talking quietly, chewing apples. Wen Yu, hungry, didn't bother to look at them.
She wants to go home.
Wen Yu clutched her stomach, her eyes tearing. She pulled out her phone and mindlessly swiped left and right on the home screen. The signal was spotty. She opened WeChat, but the circle at the top kept spinning, and no new messages appeared.
She missed Pan Xianchen.
Pan Xianchen had just returned from a business trip, and they didn't have time to say a few words before they couldn't see each other again.
Wen Yu opened the chat history with Pan Xianchen and read every word carefully.
Plop—her tears splashed onto the phone screen, blurring out Pan Xianchen's words. She quickly wiped them away, and the words became clear to her again.
Suddenly, firecrackers were set off outside, popping non-stop.
Wen Yu came in to find her and said, "It's time for lunch. Take a short rest after lunch to get enough rest. You still have to keep vigil tonight."
"Keep vigil?" Wen Yu said in surprise, "You didn't tell me you were going to keep vigil."
Wen Yu was a little impatient: "Funeral customs are like this. Not only you, but also me and others."
"Can I not go?" Wen Yu said, "I'm scared."
Wen Yu looked at her strangely: "What's there to be afraid of? The person lying in there is my grandma, not a ghost!"
“…”
Wen Yu ate her food hastily, a nagging fear welling up in her heart. She'd never seen Wen Yu's grandmother once since she'd met him. Now that she was dead, she was supposed to hold a vigil for her?
She wouldn't even want to stay by a stranger's side while he lay sleeping, let alone a dead stranger.
It was quickly getting dark. Grandma Wen Yu's body lay in the Wen family ancestral hall, a large red lantern hung at the entrance, creating a strangely Chinese atmosphere of terror. Wen Yu nervously paced back and forth outside the hall, swinging her still-wounded right foot, rubbing a shallow dent in the dirt.
She kept pulling out her phone to check the time, each minute and every second seeming to stretch as long as a month or a year. Suddenly, at some point, her phone started to ring repeatedly. It had picked up a signal.
Wen Yu opened WeChat and saw several people had sent her messages. She searched and found Pan Xianchen's WeChat message sandwiched between them. She clicked it open.
[How are you? ]
[? ]
[Busy?]
[Where are you now? ]
[Please reply to me after seeing the message.]
[No response]
[Answer phone.]
[No response]
[No response]
[No response]
[Where are you? I'm coming to find you.]
[No response]
There was also a missed call from Pan Xianchen in the recent calls.
This string of news exploded like thunder in Wen Yu's heart. As she yearned for him, he too searched for her. It was as if, at that moment, there was an intangible thread connecting them. Through this slightly trembling thread, Wen Yu sensed Pan Xianchen's anxiety, worry, and panic.
She couldn't wait to contact him, and her hands holding the phone were trembling slightly like that invisible thread.
No signal again.
Wen Yu held his cell phone up to the sky and walked back and forth continuously, capturing places and moments where signals might exist.
She walked, not knowing where she was. The signal on her phone was as weak as her heartbeat on the hospital bed. She frowned, staring intently at the subtle change.
At this moment, her wrist was suddenly grabbed by someone. Wen Yu shuddered and turned around. Wen Yu's impatient face was buried in the surrounding darkness. He glared and asked, "What are you doing?"
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