Chapter 404
Old Yi went out early in the morning and took a few more glances at the garden before leaving.
The garden is filled with flowers, fruits, and vegetables. The lilies, more than a meter tall, are still in bloom, the lotus flowers in the lotus pot are already forming buds, the peaches on the large peach tree are starting to turn red, the grapes have already turned completely purple, and the cucumbers are ready to eat. Going out early in the morning, you can smell the fragrance of flowers and fruits mixed with the scent of dew, which is so refreshing.
It was Wang Jiazhi who wanted a yard like this, but she had never planted these things before; he was the one who planted them. The kitten also loved them, always sitting in front of them, gently touching this, smelling that, and looking at them for a long time. I should have had a yard like this a long time ago, but I didn't like going home in the past, so it wouldn't have been useful.
Turning around, he saw two shadows, one big and one small, standing in the window, watching him leave.
Wang Jiazhi held the child's hands, swaying them back and forth, and said, "Your dad is going out again."
She fell asleep yesterday and when she woke up, she found him sitting on the steps in the yard, watching the dragonflies and butterflies on the cucumber rack with the children.
Oh my god!
This actually scared her and she pulled him in.
Actually, there were no houses around this place. It was extremely empty and spacious, and there were guards inside and outside the house. But wasn't that the case with the house over there? He didn't even dare to stay in the yard for long.
Some things just make one feel guilty, and she was also worried about him, fearing that he would die.
Wang Jiazhi visits the house over there once a month. Now only her mother and a little girl are looking at the house there.
When she went there today, her mother treated her completely differently than before. She smiled and told her the latest gossip.
Wang Jiazhi was very curious. These people worked for their master most of the time, so how could they know these things better than herself?
Mrs. Ma has been a hot topic lately. Her husband is getting married to his son from a previous marriage, and she plans to attend the wedding ceremony with her ex-wife. This has infuriated her, and she's been arguing fiercely with him. It's said the fight was unprecedentedly brutal, leaving the house in shambles.
Grandma laughed and said, "The child is not hers. Is it possible that the biological mother is here and she is the stepmother who has to take the bride's head? She is not much older than the bride."
Wang Jiazhi also felt that Madam Ma had gone too far. Even though she was a concubine, she was usually so arrogant and domineering, but when she returned to the countryside, she still wanted to sit in the concubine's position and force the married couple to sit in the main seat.
Come to think of it, the higher up society gets, the lower it gets. They arrange marriages, and just to marry them, they divorce their first wives, who have supported their parents-in-law, given birth to their children, and endured half their lives of hardship. It's fine to just make them their legal wives, but they insist on being both their wives and their wives, claiming it's love. If this sort of thing happened among ordinary people, I wonder how people would criticize it, but with them, it's called love. Hey! It would be fine if it was really love, but they wanted to find a prince consort, and after a long time of searching among the powerful and influential, they chose this one. It's truly a love that was carefully chosen!
In ancient times, true princesses would seek out their husbands and force their wives to divorce, and history books would record this truthfully. In the new era, with democracy, they are hiding this and whitewashing it, packaging it as love. It's simply ridiculous. Moreover, they are far from being princesses.
Wang Jiazhi wondered whether she should go or not.
After much deliberation, I decided to go. If I didn't go, I'd offend someone, but if I did, I'd offend Mrs. Ma. Since I was bound to offend someone, I might as well convince them with reason.
It was so hot, and it was horribly stuffy sitting in the car. She could open the window, but he couldn't, and he had to wear long sleeves, a shirt, and a jacket. He wondered if he wouldn't get heatstroke.
They were doing all kinds of things, and she was still clinging to him. Didn't she ever think about getting heatstroke?
When she got home, she was covered in sweat again. Wang Jiazhi took a shower, lay down, spread out her long hair, and while drying her hair, she felt drowsy and hugged her daughter's purple rabbit, preparing to take a nap.
The kitten was standing by, first combing her long hair with a comb, then fanning her with a fan to coax her to sleep.
Wang Jiazhi sighed, "At such a young age, I was able to fan my father's pillow and warm his collar. I felt that I had received filial piety too early. I thought my mother had never enjoyed such a blessing. I was already sixteen years old at that time."
This definitely doesn't look like her, it must look like her father.
At noon, when someone asked him what he wanted to eat, he shook his head. It was so hot, and he couldn't eat much to begin with.
She brought him two green apple snacks, probably thinking they were for him to eat before or after dinner. He considered them his lunch. The cup contained refreshing black tea, and she asked someone to make green tea to go with the snacks.
These two green apple puff pastries are really exquisite, and they look very similar to her green apple-shaped note.
Each sheet was in the shape of an apple slice. She glued several sheets together, then fastened the first and last sheets together with a paper clip to create the shape of a green apple. She couldn't bear to use them, so she kept them on her bookshelf.
This pastry was also crispy and flaky, and he was a little reluctant to eat it because it was so beautifully made.
Wang Jiazhi loves making puff pastry. Her hometown is full of them, but she never paid much attention to them; her family rarely ate them. But after a trip to Hangzhou, she saw so many shops selling them, and they were so beautiful. She thought they were a true home-cooked pastry. And since she was pregnant and feeling down, she started learning to make them. She has a special talent for making puff pastry, so she's been making them ever since.
He said it was a hot day, and he had to do this in front of the frying pan. It was the same when I was pregnant, and it was so hot that it was really worrying.
He took a bite and found it was full of mung bean paste. There was no sugar in it and it was light and refreshing, which was really good.
He wondered what she and the kitten were doing.
He had only drunk half a cup of green tea when something else happened.
It was already past seven when I got home, and it was still light. After bathing and putting the kids to sleep, they too fell asleep, but no one could fall asleep. I looked at the clock and it was already past twelve.
He smiled and said, "Let's go to the yard and take a look."
"Um?"
He has suddenly become bolder these past two days, which makes her very worried.
The summer night was cool, and the yard was quiet except for the chirping of crickets, which made the night even quieter. The shadows of the grass and trees were faintly reflected in the nightlight. Big White was fast asleep under the grape trellis, and the two cats were also sleeping beside him.
"The sky is so clear today, and there are so many bright stars."
Wang Jiazhi looked up and saw the stars shining in the sky, so beautiful.
It was then that I remembered how many years it had been since I had properly looked at the sky. When was the last time I properly looked at the sky, the moon, and the stars? It was when my mother was still alive, when I had not been abandoned or abused.
She took his arm and rested her head on his shoulder.
"When was the last time you looked at the moon?"
"I don't remember. It was a long, long time ago..."
As expected, people only look up at the sky when they're confident. She recalled walking long distances before dawn to find work or queue up for relief rice. Occasionally, when she glanced up at the sky, the moon, even when full, was bleak and desolate.
"When I was little, after dinner, when the sun went down, I would sit in front of the house with my father, looking at the vegetables and fruits in the yard and the stars in the sky. The sky in the countryside is clearer than in the city, and the moon and stars are especially bright."
Wang Jiazhi recalled the time when she and her grandmother returned to the countryside, where they would sit in the cool breeze in the courtyard, enjoying fresh lotus pods and water chestnuts. They peeled them for her to eat, fearing they would damage her nails, and she was not allowed to touch them.
Childhood was a long one, but she didn't look forward to growing up. She had always been diligent and hardworking, striving to be strong and ambitious. Even as a child, she was expected to be a good child and a good student. She didn't dream of the freedom and unfettered freedom many children dream of when they grow up. Her family had no special expectations of her; these were her own demands.
But I always thought that things would get better as I grew older, and I never expected it to be like that.
In her previous life, Wang Jiazhi thought about how much of a failure her life had been. Perhaps, apart from the starving people outside, no one was more miserable than herself. But then she thought again: if she continued to live, she would likely starve to death. Even if she didn't starve to death, those who died violently would still be left exposed in the wilderness. The difference between fifty steps and a hundred steps wasn't that big.
She was always unwilling to accept that after gritting her teeth and working hard, this was the result.
After all, you won't be left with nothing in the end, so you should be willing to die.
"When I was in your hometown, I loved going to the mountains to watch the stars, especially in March and April when the azaleas were in bloom. There were so many white azaleas on the mountain, and even at night they were bright and gleaming, as if the moon had been cut into flowers from a piece of fabric."
"That's a good way of saying it. You could write a novel called 'Moon Cutting'. Yes, He Zhizhang was also from Hangzhou. He also wrote in 'Ode to the Willow': 'I don't know who cuts these delicate leaves, the February spring breeze is like a pair of scissors.' You all like to use natural things to cut and cut."
He laughed and said, "I just said it casually, and you compared me to the ancients."
"Are you going up the mountain by yourself? It's very dangerous at night."
"I was young then, and I wanted to be alone and quiet. It would have been better not to go with anyone, and I felt..."
He didn't say anything else. She knew that he was fearless at that time, not as panic-stricken as he is now.
"I've never remembered the name of the mountain. It's been almost twenty years."
"The view down the mountain is also very beautiful. There are so many houses, with thousands of lights. If you have a good eye, you can even see the rows of roofs. The scent of roses at night is intoxicating."
"It seems like we are both going to the same mountain."
"Yeah, you took me there."
"When did I take you there?"
"In my dream, you took me there on your bicycle."
He smiled but said nothing. She thought he thought what she said was unreal, and she felt the same way. He thought it might be that they were connected, a tacit understanding. It was just that he didn't want to talk about his younger self. He no longer had any trace of his youthful spirit.
In their past life, she had indeed brought him great comfort, during those dark, purgatory-like days, filled with excruciating pain. Later, when she passed away, the memory of her and its aftermath, though painful, was still a painful comfort. He was deeply grateful. When she was alive, he thought she was the first person in his dissolute half-life to have touched his heart, the first person to offer comfort in his bleak existence. After her death, he gradually understood that this kind of heartbeat only comes once in a lifetime, and even when he returned to his youth, at his best, it would still be the same.
He grew increasingly afraid of death, also because of his hopeless life. Death used to be a kind of honor, and in his youth, he even had a vague romantic expectation. He daydreamed of his own death, now unconscious and unconscious, and reveled in the sadness of his own mortality. But in old age, death would be a disgrace. So, all he could grasp was a few more days of life.
He was very grateful that God had not completely abandoned him, because he knew she was waiting for him in his hometown, and in the end he was not so afraid of death. Death, besides being terrifying, also brought him a warm hope. But he had not given her anything good. She lived because of the pain of this relationship with him. When he died, he thought of her waiting for him there. When she died, she was alone.
The stars on the top of the mountain shine on the tall buildings outside the mountain.
The boy's eyes could not see the hill.
The wind from the valley swirls around the lonely village entrance.
How long will it take for you to come back, my dear?
Excerpted from the lyrics of "Stars Shining on the Tower"
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