Chapter 1 Chapter 1 You are Li Zhuo!
Preface.
If everyone's life is a one-way street with no return, then there are two forks in the road called Li Zhuo.
The first fork in the road came when he was found by a family-finding program after living in a remote mountain village for fourteen years.
The second fork in the road occurred at a banquet. When he was being scolded by his parents, a guest who had been sitting upstairs watching for who knows how long suddenly asked:
"Don't you want him anymore?"
He walked step by step to the almost collapsed Li Zhuo, pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped the mixture of cream and tears from his face, and said in a gentle voice:
"They don't want you, I want you."
"Come and be my child."
From this point on, Li Zhuo's future is smooth.
*
October 31, 2015
Li Zhuo may never forget that day, never, ever forget it.
It was a late autumn morning when a group of brightly dressed city dwellers, carrying cameras on their shoulders and microphones on their collars, found Pingshan Village.
At that time, he was not called Li Zhuo, but Yang Shun. He was working in the fields on the back mountain, carrying two buckets of water and walking intently on a very narrow dirt road, trying to get to the other side to water the cabbages and other vegetables he had planted.
It wasn't that he didn't want closer land, or a more accessible route, but because all the other land was owned by someone else, and even if it was abandoned, no one would give it to him. The only land Yang Shun could move on was some undesirable wasteland, meaning no one wanted it, and most of it was in remote corners.
He was also a polite man who never crossed or stepped on other people's fields. He always had to take the winding and difficult paths. There was no water source near the wasteland, so he had to go a long way to fetch water. After several trips back and forth, his shoulders would always be left with obvious red marks, which would hurt for a long time.
They called him five or six times, I can't quite remember, but he just ignored them.
He really didn't hear the first few calls, but he did hear them later on. However, he didn't feel from the bottom of his heart that these Mandarin calls without any local accent were calling him.
After all, those city people were calling Li Zhuo.
Who is Li Zhuo? He doesn't know him.
The first person to rush up from the family search program team was a young man with a bit of a bad temper.
The man had his hair combed neatly and was wearing a neat, new suit. He didn't look like someone who would appear in the fields.
After only walking a short distance up the mountain, the spoiled city dweller was already breathing unevenly, his forehead was covered in sweat, his leather shoes were covered in mud, and he grabbed Yang Shun's shoulder pole with a fierce momentum.
"Li Zhuo! You are Li Zhuo, right? What's wrong with you? Why didn't you respond even after I called you for so long? Didn't you hear me? Or are you fucking deaf?!"
A few steps behind the young man were two young men carrying black machines and wearing black hats, and an uncle who was about forty years old.
Probably because he saw the conflict in front, the uncle started to persuade them from a distance: "Don't be impulsive..."
Further back, I could see three or four men and women hanging in the distance. The path up the mountain was extremely difficult to walk on; they probably hadn't been on such a path before, so they were walking very slowly.
The uncle's attitude was much better. When he got there, he first pulled the young man away, apologized to Yang Shun in a gentle tone, and said that the man was still in college and was there for an internship.
After saying that, he scolded the young man in a low voice, saying that he had to follow his rules when he came to his place. If he continued to make trouble like this, he could just leave and it would be impossible to give him any title.
He didn't really listen to what was said, his gaze fixed on his own bucket, which was half empty. What a shame! All the water was going to other people's fields. He had to carry the water from so far away and with so much effort, and now he would have to carry it all again.
At the same time, I was also gloating over the misfortune of thinking that this city dweller who came from nowhere was in trouble. He actually stepped on someone else's field!
If I remember correctly, that was the land of the old man from the Liu family who lived at the head of the village. They planted green and red peppers. Not long after the seeds were planted, many of the young seedlings that had just grown were trampled to death. This person would definitely be severely scolded by the old man with the loud voice.
In the past, Yang Shun, who was only a few years old, would be scolded for several days if he accidentally stepped on it.
——However, the fact is that until this group of people left, they crossed the fields more than once and trampled on the seedlings, and several times in front of the landowners, but not a single landowner came out to fart.
Ultimately, they were just bullying him. — Strict adherence to the rules has different meanings in different fields. If this trait is attributed to a high-ranking official, it is a blessing for ordinary people; but if it is attributed to a lower-class person struggling to survive, it becomes a tragedy.
*
After learning that this group of misfit city people were looking for him, Yang Shun simply didn't believe it.
"What did you just say?"
Yang Shun looked at what they were wearing, then looked at his own tattered old clothes, the rough calluses on his palms, the mottled scars of new and old superimposed on each other on his exposed skin, and the pair of promotional discounted sandals that were wobbling and about to fall apart. It was like they were from two different worlds.
"I'm not Li Zhuo, you've got the wrong person."
Yang Shun repeated this sentence three times, each time louder and more flustered.
"My name is Yang Shun... I'm not Li Zhuo. I have to go water the plants. I was busy doing odd jobs yesterday and didn't water them. I have to water them today. Please get out of the way..."
Yang Shun didn't know how others would deal with the sudden change. He only knew that his mind was in a mess at that time.
An indescribable complex emotion swelled and swelled in his chest, like a monster rampaging through his limbs.
He felt dizzy, his throat was tight, and the air around him suddenly became thin...
At that moment he couldn't breathe.
Yang Shun stubbornly picked up the shoulder pole and walked steadily and quickly along the familiar winding path. When he arrived at the place, he mechanically scooped up water as usual and used his wrist strength to skillfully spread the water evenly on the soil.
He was minding his own business, as if he couldn't hear the chattering behind him.
"Hello, we are not scammers. We are from a TV station. Here is my work ID. You can take a look..."
"My last name is Guan. I'm filming a documentary about finding relatives. I already knew everything before I contacted you..."
Yang Shun poured the last bucket of water into the dry ground, and there was just a little bit of water left.
"Hey, where are you going?! Stop and listen to me. Although you may not be able to accept or believe it right now, you really are the Li Zhuo we are looking for..."
Yang Shun took the empty bucket and went back to fetch water.
He had walked this road countless times and was so familiar with it. However, the crew members were different. They were unfamiliar with the road and walked slowly, especially the young man who rushed up at the beginning. He was so carelessly stepping on other people's fields, but he actually fell down and left angrily after getting up!
Are all city dwellers so stupid?
He might have thought so at the time.
The uncle called back the men and women who fell behind, saying that he was there and asked them to go back to the car to watch over the equipment.
The man who claimed to be the director walked more steadily than the young man who left, but he was still several steps behind Yang Shun. After everyone else had refilled their water tanks, he finally caught up.
When they reached Yang Shun, Director Guan deliberately lifted the bucket and sighed, "Wow, it's quite heavy."
Yang Shun didn't say a word, just focused on his work, watering the newly planted fields one by one; pulling out the small basket he had hidden from under the cover of dead branches and leaves; picking a ripe cabbage from another small plot of land, and squatting by the roadside to carefully pick a few handfuls of wild vegetables.
He was immersed in his own world, completely isolated from the chattering behind him.
"Fourteen years ago in 2001, when you were just one year old, you were lost while being taken out for a play date by our nanny, Chen. When the nanny came home, she told your parents she had just gone to the bathroom, and the moment she turned around, you were gone..."
"Your parents called the police immediately. At the time, surveillance cameras weren't widely available, so it took a long time to find out that the last time you appeared on the surveillance camera, you were being carried into a van by a strange man wearing a mask and a cotton hat..."
"Because the license plate of the van was obscured, your parents searched for a long time. When they finally found the owner, he said the car had been stolen three months ago. They wanted to find clues about the thief, but the owner lived in a remote area with no surveillance cameras. The only surveillance camera on the main road had expired and the footage had been overwritten, so the clues were cut off here again..."
"Until last Chinese New Year, the Qilian City police and Lin'an City police jointly busted several trafficking rings. One of the members, in an effort to reduce his sentence, confessed many crimes in the detention center, as well as the details of other people he knew about. You were among them..."
"It was then that your parents realized that you weren't abducted after getting lost, but were sold by the nanny named Chen for 1,500 yuan. The reason was simply because your mother made a mistake at work and deducted 500 yuan from her salary. She held a grudge and wanted to take revenge, so she did this on purpose..."
"Because so much time has passed, and you've been passed around several times, we've been looking for you since last year, but we only found out you were here last month..."
"The man who bought you was named Yang, right?"
"We've already found out in the village. He's blind in one eye, his family is poor, and he couldn't find a wife. He bought you from a human trafficker for 3,000 yuan..."
"Li Zhuo, you really are Li Zhuo..."
*
After finishing his work in the fields, Yang Shun returned to his small, shabby house carrying a backpack. Behind him were still the young man carrying the camera and the middle-aged man with a work ID hanging on his chest and a receiver on his collar.
They were quite curious. No matter what Yang Shun did, the young man in the hat would always carry a black camera and film him.
They clapped their hands when he took out the leftovers from the well in the yard, clapped their hands when he fed the chickens, clapped their hands when he cut vegetables, and even clapped their hands when he chopped wood and lit a fire in front of the earthen stove, they clapped their hands at the crackling firewood on the stove.
Yang Shun's meals were simple. He would rinse and clean the cabbage he picked from the field, cut it in half, chop one half into fine pieces to feed the chickens, and chop the other half into chunks and mix it with some leftovers from who knows how many meals, stir-frying them until soft and they were ready to eat.
Just as he was about to steam the rice, he hesitated for a moment. Finally, he silently walked over to the shabby little cupboard, pulled out a bamboo basket from the innermost corner, lifted the blue floral cloth covering it, took out an egg, thought for a moment, turned around to check the number of people, and then pulled out the whole basket.
The chicks he raised outside were the ones he got during the autumn harvest last year after working for a family in the neighboring brigade for several days.
I remember when I first got it, it was still tiny and skinny. He had raised it with great care, and he wouldn't eat the eggs it laid, saving them to sell. This was the best he could offer, to entertain guests.
While waiting for the meal to be cooked, Yang Shuncai, who had been spinning like a top for the whole morning, finally had some free time.
He sat on the stone steps at the door, looked up at the usual blue sky and white clouds above his head, then looked at a group of strangers in the courtyard who he didn't know, and a few fellow villagers and neighbors who were peeking at the place not far away.
At this point, he finally stopped treating the production crew as if they were air, and responded directly: "Really?"
"What's really going on?" Such a nonsensical sentence made Director Guan very confused.
"You just said that they've been missing me all these years, that they've been looking for me all these years. Is that true?" Yang Shun's face remained as blank as before. He pursed his cracked lips and tilted his head slightly, as if looking at a bird that had just flown across the sky. "Those words...are they all true?"
Director Guan was overjoyed and continued:
"Of course it's true!"
*
Seeing that he was finally willing to communicate, the entire program crew gathered around him. Some showed him videos and photos of his parents, and some showed him photos of himself as a child. They talked a lot and it was very lively.
"As soon as we got your accurate information, we drove here immediately. Your parents even prepared a welcome party for you. They..."
The boy didn't respond, but he looked at the cars parked outside the house with obvious anticipation.
The staff member's voice gradually faded, and Director Guan immediately added: "Your parents...they...are busy with work, so they couldn't come with you this time. You'll know when you get back. They miss you too..."
Others followed suit.
"Yeah yeah…"
"You are their son who has been missing for more than ten years. How could they not miss you?"
"Fortunately, it's not too late to find it now..."
Amidst the mixed emotions, Director Guan carefully asked what his adoptive father had done to him.
There was no joy of being praised on Yang Shun's face, nor any other emotion. He seemed to be stunned by this huge surprise that fell from the sky and had not yet woken up.
He drooped his eyelids and tried his best to avoid the black machine that was facing him.
"It's okay, just okay."
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