Chapter 76 Not Grandfather, But Uncle
The house wasn't big; the two bedrooms on the second floor were empty, and the living room, which was only about 30 square meters, was crammed with the elderly couple's books and writing implements.
"You can't touch the things on your grandparents' desks."
In the roughly 30-square-meter space, the best-lit window seat is occupied by two huge desks, leaving the sofa and coffee table cramped in the corner.
The two children ran happily around the living room, followed by Xu Cuihua feeding them grapes.
The three of them, grandfather, grandson, and granddaughter, circled around the coffee table, the old and the young alike thoroughly enjoying themselves.
Chen Yun smiled helplessly, clearly no one cared about what he had just said... it was pointless to say anything.
He sat down on the chair by the door, eating an orange and recalling Ma Cuifen's visit that morning.
"Old Chen."
Chen Yun only came to her senses when two figures pushed open the courtyard gate and approached, and Chen Shu quickly walked out of the kitchen.
"Old Liu."
I met Liu Bo'an, who was slightly overweight, on the day Chen Yun moved.
Her hair was as white as snow, and each strand was meticulously combed. Her face was round and glowed with a healthy rosy hue.
The old man always spoke with a smile, and that brief meeting left Chen Yun with the impression of a kind and benevolent elder.
"Old Chen, come quick! See who's here!"
"..."
After a brief silence, Chen Shu suddenly exclaimed.
"Old Li, Li Zheng!"
"Chen Shu." The man's tone was excited, but it sounded somewhat familiar to Chen Yun.
Curious, I stepped out the door and gasped when I saw the face of the person shaking hands with Uncle Chen.
This wasn't the elderly man with heart disease that Chen Yun rescued at the entrance of Kun'an People's Hospital... Later, it was also Chen Yun who strongly recommended himself to Hu Xiangming.
If it weren't for Li Zheng, Chen Yun would never have had the opportunity to work at the Workers' Hospital.
"Grandpa Li!" Chen Yun exclaimed in surprise.
Li Zheng suddenly looked up, his eyes wide open, his mouth slightly agape in astonishment.
"Xiao Chen, what are you doing here!"
"Xiao Chen?" Chen Shu's face showed no less shock than Li Zheng's. He looked at his daughter and then at Li Zheng: "You two know each other?"
"Do you remember Grandpa Li who introduced me to work at the Workers' Hospital? This is Grandpa Li!"
Chen Yun took two steps down the stone steps and walked up to the three people.
"Grandpa Li!" Chen Shu burst into laughter after realizing what he had said, patting his old friend on the shoulder, who was both amused and exasperated: "You should call him Uncle Li, not Grandpa Li."
"Calling him grandpa isn't wrong either," Li Zheng said self-deprecatingly, touching his full head of white hair.
Li Zheng's figure contrasted sharply with Liu Bo'an's; his short, completely white hair stood up straight, and he was tall and slender.
His face was angular and sharp, and he exuded an aura of authority that commanded respect without anger.
Chen Yun's two conversations with Li Zheng were both concise and to the point; he never uttered a single unnecessary word.
"Let's all go inside and talk, it's cold outside."
Chen Shu invited his two old friends into the house, and the two children sensibly stopped playing.
There were no elderly people in the family with completely white hair, so the siblings looked up at them with great curiosity, not even wanting to look away.
"Here, have some candy."
Liu Bo'an magically produced a few hard candies and waved to the two children with a smile.
Chen Shu couldn't wait to find out how Li Zheng and Chen Yun met.
Through their conversation, Chen Yun learned that it wasn't wrong to call him "Grandpa" based on his appearance.
Chen Shu and Li Zheng are not only alumni, but also participated in the Revolutionary Poetry Society together. Their friendship was forged amidst the flames of war.
Li Zheng is ten years older than Chen Shu, and due to the influence of that era, he married and had children at the age of sixteen under his parents' arrangement, so his grandson is not much younger than Chen Yun.
"What a coincidence!" Chen Shu exclaimed.
“Who says otherwise!” Li Zheng shook his head with a smile, his face also full of emotion: “If I had known you were at Hongri Machinery Factory earlier, I wouldn’t have needed to ask around to find you.”
The lack of convenient means of communication, and the fact that they were working in different cities, was enough to cause the two friends to lose contact.
"You're quite stubborn, you should have written to Lao Liu sooner."
When talking about the past, we have to mention Chen Shu. As old friends who are closer than family, no one would stand idly by.
If Chen Shu hadn't taken the initiative to contact them, none of them would have known that their old friend had suffered so much hardship.
“If you had just sent me a telegram, I could have found a way to get you a job at another school,” Li Zheng said.
Liu Bo'an nodded in agreement.
These old friends certainly have the ability to do this, and besides, Chen Shu was framed, so why would he be afraid of being reported?
"It's precisely because I know you'll help me that I can't say anything." Chen Shu's face darkened. "If we make even one wrong step, it won't just ruin you, but also our entire family."
"Old stubborn man," Li Zheng cursed.
"Fortunately, it's all over now. Look at Old Chen now..." Liu Bo'an pinched Gao Nianping's cheek and smiled kindly: "He has children and grandchildren around him, a filial son-in-law, and a capable daughter."
Seeing Li Zheng relax and smile, he continued, "I'm better than both of us."
Li Zheng glared at Liu Bo'an with annoyance: "You always have such a loose tongue."
"What happened?" Chen Shu pressed.
"These are all minor matters." Li Zheng raised his hand to interrupt Liu Bo'an, who was about to open his mouth: "We'll talk about those unfilial sons later. First, tell me about the foreign relatives who have implicated you. Who exactly are they?"
The change of topic successfully wiped the smile off Xu Cuihua's face. She gave a cold snort and turned her head away in annoyance.
No one would give a pleasant look if the "culprit" who almost killed them was mentioned.
“My third great-uncle’s eldest son… He went abroad with my third great-uncle when he was just a few years old. If it hadn’t been unearthed, we would never have remembered that we had such a relative.”
If we really trace it back, it all happened fifty years ago. Even if we bumped into each other on the street now, we definitely wouldn't recognize each other.
"I heard from Lao Liu that they contacted you again?" Li Zheng asked again.
Chen Yun looked over in shock; her parents hadn't mentioned this at all!
“That’s right!” Xu Cuihua chimed in, a forced smile playing on her lips. “They still want to come back to visit relatives.”
"My cousin doesn't know that we almost got criticized because of them." Chen Shu's tone was also somewhat unhappy.
"I don't care if he knows or not! If we hadn't been lucky, would we be in this situation today!" Xu Cuihua stood up angrily, sneered, and craned her neck to shout at Chen Shu, "You want us to entertain them? Dream on!"
Actually, the elderly couple had already been arguing about this for several days before Chen Yun arrived.
Chen Shu felt that they were all relatives and that he was unaware of the situation, so he shouldn't blame them for being targeted.
Xu Cuihua believes that whether or not someone knows the reason, it doesn't matter. If she wants to receive them happily, don't even think about it!
Chen Yun will definitely stand unconditionally on Xu Cuihua's side...
After all, if she hadn't transmigrated, the original owner would have already committed suicide! She has no right to forgive on behalf of the original owner.
"Dad, I support Mom!" Chen Yun paused, then asked two questions with a hint of sarcasm: "How do you know they weren't aware of it back then? Could they have contacted you so easily? Didn't they ever inquire about the family's situation before?"
Chen Shu: "..."
"Xiao Chen is right." Li Zheng sighed, picked up his teacup and blew on the scalding tea. "Is your third uncle's only relative in China?"
Chen Shu: "..."
Seeing his old friend's expression, Li Zheng didn't even wait for a reply before continuing, "Do you have any relatives closer to you?"
"Of course there is!" Xu Cuihua rolled her eyes in annoyance: "Third Uncle's youngest son is still in Taicheng, but he's smart and changed his name a long time ago to sever ties."
“I don’t think it’s because he’s smart; he probably found out about it somewhere a long time ago, so he made preparations in advance,” Li Zheng said.
"That can't be right." Chen Shu's face was full of disbelief.
"You're too kind-hearted, that's why you've suffered such a disaster. Think back carefully... how was your third uncle's youngest son's family doing before you were reported?"
Chen Shu slowly fell into deep thought.
The situation, which I had never thought of before, seemed to become clear again under Li Zheng's questions one by one.
The youngest son of the third uncle was named Chen Yingcai. When he was a child, his mother often said that the third uncle went abroad to make a living and then disappeared without a trace, so she took extra care of the third aunt and her son.
Originally, both families lived in the same alley. Two years after Chen Shu got married, Chen Ying moved to the suburbs with her whole family.
The two families also visited each other frequently during that time.
Occasionally, neighbors would mention seeing Chen Yingcai wearing new clothes and having bought a large piece of meat. Everyone would jokingly guess that it was because their third uncle had sent money back from abroad.
Later, when the revolution broke out, everyone was in danger and everyone was afraid that others would know that they had relatives abroad. No one dared to mention Uncle San anymore.
Chen Ying only lost contact with Chen Shu after someone reported him.
Without Chen Shu speaking, Xu Cuihua poured out everything she had heard, and angrily added at the end: "Old Chen said he was suffering for them, but they never even thought of coming to see this distant cousin."
Li Zheng frowned, his words sharp.
"It's quite possible that Chen Yingcai reported it himself."
"Impossible!" Chen Shu and Xu Cuihua exclaimed in shock at the same time.
“I think Uncle Li is right.” Chen Yun started to reason from the result: “Why didn’t the Revolutionary Committee arrest Chen Yingcai’s family? Why did they keep targeting our family? Logically speaking, they are the direct relatives.”
"Chen Yingcai knew about the news in advance. Rather than passively waiting to be investigated, he decided to take the initiative to report it and distance himself from the investigation."
With a smile on his face, Liu Bo'an continued speaking calmly.
"Actually, it's quite simple." Li Zheng leaned back on the sofa and lazily crossed his legs. "I'll call my old friend in Tai'an this afternoon to find out who reported it."
As long as someone reports it, there will be a record; you can find out by checking the Revolutionary Committee's archives.
"Old Chen, you said that Chen Yingcai's older brother returned to China but didn't go to his younger brother's house, but instead contacted you... Guess why?" Liu Bo'an asked again.
These two uncles were completely different from Chen Shu, who had been immersed in teaching for many years. They had clear logic and immediately and sharply found the loopholes in the whole matter in just a few words.
Chen Yun listened in disbelief as they slowly analyzed the situation, and soon they arrived at the most important and crucial point.
"They wouldn't still want to harm Old Chen, would they?" Xu Cuihua exclaimed in surprise.
"Not really," Liu Bo'an laughed, then pulled a few candies from his cardigan pocket and waved them at the siblings. "They're probably just feeling guilty and want to make amends!"
"Who cares if they make up for it!" Xu Cuihua rolled her eyes.
"Whether it's rare or not is another matter." Li Zheng lifted the lid of the cup again, blew away the tea leaves floating on the surface, and said with a smile, "Let's learn about it first."
Chen Yun didn't take a single sip of the tea leaves even after I blew on them three or four times... Could this be some kind of conversation technique?
"Next time, call Lao Li. With him around, there's nothing to be afraid of!" Liu Bo'an said.
"It's nothing, go and cook two good dishes, let's catch up tonight."
After finishing that sentence, he finally downed most of a cup of tea.
So you were just... blowing on it to cool it down?
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