120 Long-awaited reunion
After working for more than half a month, Guan Yuehe has finally sorted out the work at hand.
During this period, I also made two trips to the airline food company and received many colleagues from other organizations who came to inquire about joint venture issues.
But she is still the only person in the huge office; the comrades who were supposed to be transferred from other provinces have not yet arrived.
She adjusted her study time every night, setting aside half an hour to study the "Law on Sino-Foreign Joint Ventures". Occasionally, when her sister came to pick up Guyu, she would call her over to ask her questions.
But she suspected her sister didn't really understand, and each time she would make an excuse, saying, "I'm in a hurry to get home, I'll tell you next time."
Fortunately, when they met again, her sister was able to explain the problem in a clear and easy-to-understand way. However, she raised a new question...
When the evening study time was changed, she moved her reading time to the morning. Anyway, she was no longer a newcomer to the company, and her colleagues were all in a hurry, so no one noticed that she only arrived at the company ten minutes early every day.
Four steamed bun stalls outside the wall were busy serving neighbors early in the morning. She was reading in her small room, and she found the sounds quite pleasant to listen to.
On Sunday, Guan Yuehe got up early to read as usual, ate breakfast, and then went back to bed for an hour of sleep.
When Jiang Guiying came over, she saw her fiddling with a tape recorder playing a cassette tape.
"I was thinking that now that you've finished school, you wouldn't have to learn all that foreign language stuff anymore. How come you have to spend even more time learning now that you're working?" Jiang Guiying really didn't understand.
“If I don’t learn, I’ll waste my time. What if I talk to foreigners about work and suddenly forget what to say? How embarrassing would that be?” Guan Yuehe joked. “Why don’t you learn a few simple phrases from me? Even Tingting can give directions to foreigners at the alley entrance.”
"No way! I can't learn it."
Seeing that Guan Yuehe was about to give her a pep talk, Jiang Guiying quickly changed the subject, but before speaking, she cautiously glanced around the courtyard to see if anyone was listening.
"I'm asking you, is Ding Laosi a tour guide for foreigners near the Forbidden City?"
Guan Yuehe was surprised and paused the recorder. "You saw him? No, you also went to the Forbidden City?"
“No.” Jiang Guiying waved her hand. “I heard it from other people in the alley. They said that when they took their relatives to the Forbidden City, they saw a man who looked like Ding Laosi, but they didn’t see his face clearly, and he didn’t seem to be Ding Laosi either.”
Guan Yuehe didn't reply, she was just lying through her teeth, "Ding Xuewen is still a teacher in Northeast China. Even if he goes back to the city, he can't possibly become a foreign tour guide. If English were so easy to learn, everyone could be a tour guide."
Jiang Guiying understood and clapped her hands, saying, "I'll say that next time!"
At the same time, he was also thinking to himself: This Ding Laosi is really capable. He passed the exam and returned to Beijing, and he can also make money as a tour guide.
But Guan Yuehe was still worried. "Could you check if Aunt Ding is up to any trouble? I'm afraid she might go and stake out someone."
"She's busy leaving early and returning late every day, doing laundry and cooking for Ding Laowu, and doesn't have time to go see Ding Laosi." She can't keep an eye on him either.
Guan Yuehe thought about it and agreed. Aunt Ding was now very happy, thinking that Ding Laowu was successful and that her good days were just beginning. She wouldn't even think about Ding Xuewen, whom she hadn't seen for many years.
He pressed the recorder again, listening to the tape while taking out his autumn and winter clothes and quilts to air them in the sun.
A series of ringing sounds came from outside the alley, followed by the voice of a messenger.
Before long, voices asking if anyone had received a notification letter for so-and-so began to rise and fall.
Guan Yuehe then remembered that the results of this year's college entrance examination should be coming out soon.
Before anyone had received their notification letter, the mailman called her name first; this time, she had two letters.
One letter was from Chunmei, and the other was from an unfamiliar address; I didn't know who it was from.
She didn't rush home to open the letter; she remained standing at the gate of the compound, waiting to see who had a happy occasion.
This year is a bumper year! Three people from Ginkgo Hutong received their acceptance letters today. Congratulations poured in, and the voices of those following behind were even more eager to ask if their own children had received theirs.
"Lilac! Whose lilac is this? Come out and get the letter!"
Guan Yuehe craned her neck, trying to see which one was Dingxiang.
The next second, Er Ya, her face flushed, raised her hand high from an inconspicuous corner outside the crowd. After squeezing for a while, she finally managed to get in, and her voice, barely audible, reached the messenger's ears: "It's me!"
Many neighbors voiced Guan Yuehe's doubts: "Er Ya, is your name Dingxiang?"
"Such a nice name, why do they all call her Er Ya?"
Dingxiang was completely oblivious to what was happening around her. With trembling hands, she signed the papers and finally received her acceptance letter. Her neighbors, forgetting their earlier questions, urged her to quickly open it and see which school she had been accepted to.
Mr. and Mrs. Ding were so happy that they circled around outside the crowd, trying to squeeze in to see, but they were blocked by others and couldn't get in at all.
The mail carrier closest to Dingxiang read aloud, "Our Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications! Hey! Graduates will be working in the postal and telecommunications system, not bad!"
"That's great!" Sister-in-law Ding patted Ding Laoda several times with joy. It was all worth repeating a year of school!
Waking up, Ding Xianguang scratched his head in annoyance. He went outside to ask what was wrong and learned that his younger sister had been accepted into university. This only made him more agitated.
Guan Yuehe went home after watching the excitement, and told Jiang Guiying, "Dingxiang got into university."
"Whose child is Dingxiang?"
"...Dingxiang is Erya."
"That's a nice name, quite pleasant to hear." Jiang Guiying covered her mouth and whispered, "Like her fourth uncle, she's got the makings of a scholar."
Guan Yuehe snorted, "Why don't you say I'm also good at studying? My teacher said I have a special talent for learning languages!"
"Okay, you're pretty good too." Jiang Guiying really didn't want to listen to the gibberish in foreign languages anymore, so she got up to go back to Courtyard No. 3 to see what was going on.
With no one else at home, Guan Yuehe finally opened and read the two letters she had received.
Chunmei wrote to say that she had secured an internship at the Canton Fair this autumn and would be traveling to Guangzhou with other selected students. She also asked if Chunmei would be attending the fair, and if she was, they could meet in Guangzhou.
Guan Yuehe couldn't reply to Chunmei's letter today because she herself didn't know if she would have the chance.
I decided to reply to Chunmei a few days later.
After opening the second letter, Guan Yuehe immediately focused her gaze on the last page of the letter and saw the words "Shenghua classmate". Excited, she immediately turned her gaze back to the first page to read the letter.
In fact, the letter was only one page long. Shenghua did not mention the situation in the past few years in the letter. He only said that he had recently received the letters that she had sent in previous years, and that he had just remembered to write back to her. He asked her about her situation in recent years and asked her to send her letters to this address in the future.
"Yuehe, it's been so long since we last contacted each other, I don't know what to talk about right now. I hope you'll write to me often in the future."
After reading the letter, Guan Yuehe took a deep breath, her eyes feeling a little hot.
Shenghua didn't know what to talk about; she had plenty to say. She absolutely had to tell Chunmei all those things she'd previously boasted about!
Although they haven't met in person yet, the letters they've exchanged have made it feel like a long-awaited reunion.
—
Yuanbao peered out the window of his living room for a while, then suddenly asked curiously, "Mom, is Auntie dancing?"
Zhou Hongqi followed her gaze and saw Guan Yuehe pacing around in the house, while a foreign language cassette tape was playing in Guan Yuehe's house.
"Maybe they were listening to foreign songs and dancing along."
Zhou Hongqi thought that the factory's club was going to hold a social dance party, and the foreign trade department might also organize such an event.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
