Acacia beans were not delivered
Finally it was Zhou Huaiyue's turn. He first registered the information of a long-distance call with the staff member wearing floral clothes: he called the Institute of Genetics of Peking University and Tsinghua University in Beijing, and the person who answered the call was Chen Zhenhua.
Floral Clothes roughly estimates the call charges based on the distance and duration of the call: 50 cents per minute, and five dollars for ten minutes.
Zhou Huaiyue went to the side to pay the money, got the payment receipt, and gave it to the registration person. The person turned around and put his call request form on a small square window, which was taken away by the long-distance operator inside.
"Wait over there. I'll tell you your phone number after the call is connected. You can go in and answer it." The woman in floral clothes pointed to the location outside the cubicle and asked Zhou Huaiyue to go over and wait.
In the telephone room, the operator first had to go from Ping'an County to the city, from the city to the provincial capital, and from the provincial capital to Beijing. When they arrived in Beijing, the line was busy and could not be connected. They had to start over.
The second time, when I was going from the city to the provincial capital, the line was busy. I had no choice but to call again.
After the third attempt, I finally went to Beijing, and from there to Peking University and Tsinghua University, where I transferred to the Institute of Genetics. As it turned out, Professor Chen Zhenhua was attending a meeting at the Tsinghua and Peking University Academy of Sciences.
The person who answered the phone was Aunt Li, who liked Zhou Huaiyue the most. When she heard that he was looking for his mother, the 40-year-old girl rushed downstairs in a hurry, showed the energy of a 20-year-old, rode her bicycle from the Institute of Genetics to the Academy of Science, climbed three floors in a row, and pushed open the door of the conference room.
Aunt Li stood at the door, with her hands on her hips, panting heavily from exhaustion. She was still gasping for breath while speaking, her voice intermittent, "Zhenhua, Huai, Huaiyue, is calling. You, you should go back to the genetics institute as soon as possible."
Two seconds later, Chen Zhenhua finally reacted. She put down her pen, said sorry, and ran out of the meeting room. Aunt Li shouted behind her: "Downstairs, my bike is downstairs."
......
Time passed by minute by minute. Ten minutes was long, and it took seven minutes just to make the call. Zhou Huaiyue looked at the clock on the wall and counted silently in his mind as the second hand moved: fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty, one, two...
"It's connected, you, number two." The woman in the floral dress shouted at him.
Zhou Huaiyue hurriedly pushed open the door of the compartment and picked up the phone. It was his mother's voice on the other side, "Huaiyue, is that you? Huaiyue."
Her voice was always warm, and I felt extremely at ease just by hearing her call my name.
"Mom, it's me. Are you okay?" When wandering outside, the son is most worried about his mother's health. As long as she is healthy, nothing else matters.
"Mom is in good health, how about you?" Chen Zhenhua couldn't help but shed tears when she heard the voice of her son whom she missed day and night.
"Mom, I'm fine. I found my dad, and he's doing fine, both physically and mentally. He's still writing and painting. I'm in Ping'an County now, not in Xiaonanchuan City." Zhou Huaiyue didn't dare to waste time and hurried to talk about the important things.
"What? Your dad what?" Chen Zhenhua only heard his son say that he found his father, and he could not hear a word after that. It was all just a crackling noise.
Zhou Huaiyue put his ear close to the receiver, afraid to miss a single word from his mother. "Mom, I said, my dad is fine. He's still alive."
Listening again, it was the suppressed cry of the mother.
Live, just be alive.
Chen Zhenhua's tears flowed down like a dam bursting. She bit her fingers and tried hard not to make any sound.
"Mom, it's Chinese New Year, I'll bring Dad home for Chinese New Year." Zhou Huaiyue almost shouted into the phone. He was afraid that his mother didn't hear him, so he asked nervously, "Mom, did you hear me?"
"Okay, okay! New Year, New Year, you all come back, and our family can finally be reunited. Huaiyue, is your father by your side? I want to say something to him." Chen Zhenhua wanted to turn the longing that had been suppressed in his heart for six years into the three words "I'm sorry", sorry for hurting you, sorry for losing you.
"Mom, next time, next time I'll bring Dad over and let him talk to you."
"Okay. Huaiyue, your father is back, do you want to go back to the capital too?" Previously, because of his father's affairs, Zhou Huaiyue was unwilling to return home with the educated youth. Now that Zhou Chuzhuo has been found, it is time for his son to go home.
As a professor at a top university, she clearly sensed the change in the wind direction at the top. From the top leader's visit to the United States at the beginning of the year to the continuous introduction of ice-breaking policies, all of these showed that the country was about to usher in a new era, and there was absolutely no hope for Zhou Huaiyue if he stayed in the countryside.
When his mother said returning to the capital, she didn't mean going back to celebrate the New Year, but leaving Hedong Village forever, leaving the people of Hedong Village forever, and returning to the capital where Zhou Huaiyue grew up.
This means that he has to leave and give up Shen Roujiao.
"Mom, the time is almost up, take care of yourself. Next week, or on Wednesday, I will bring my dad over." Zhou Huaiyue did not answer his mother's question. He had not thought it through. For a moment, he even wanted to take Shen Roujiao back to the capital, even though he knew it was impossible.
"Hello, hello..." Chen Zhenhua reluctantly put down the phone until the line was disconnected. She sat in the chair in a daze, still unable to recover from the dreamlike scene.
It seemed as if suddenly, everything began to be 'set right' and returned to its original position.
So, even if her son did not answer the last question, she knew that Zhou Huaiyue would come back, back to his home in the capital.
After the call, Zhou Huaiyue went to the mailing window, asked for two sheets of letter paper, and carefully wrote a new letter. After that, he bought stamps and envelopes, opened the thick postal directory, found Xiaonanchuan City in the Yunnan-Yunnan region, and then found Benyuan County below.
He carefully affixed the stamp, wrote down the detailed information of the recipient and sender, and chose to send the letter as expedited before leaving the post office.
Following my father's instructions, I bought two old calligraphy books from a run-down book stand in the county town. When I was paying, I met the two girls in the queue again. Our eyes met, but they immediately looked away, pretending not to see me, and turned away in a hurry.
Looking at their backs as they walked and chirped at him, Zhou Huaiyue secretly felt lucky that he had not sent the letter first. Afterwards, Zhou Huaiyue hurried and finally caught the last bus back to Nanshan Village.
......
Three days later, Shen Roujiao was paving the ground in the open space behind the school when she heard Duan Baisheng calling her from behind, "Student Shen Roujiao, student Shen Roujiao, there is a letter for you."
Shen Roujiao raised her head, wiped the sweat from her forehead, folded her hands and rested her chin on the end of the wooden stick, and asked lazily, "What letter? How can I have a letter?"
"Yes. Really." Duan Baisheng tried hard to identify the sender's name on the envelope in his hand, "Zhou Huai something."
Zhou Huai? Yue!
Master?
"Impossible." Shen Roujiao put the hoe aside and threw it to the ground. She almost stepped on the hoe because she was too anxious. Fortunately, Duan Baisheng was quick-witted and pulled her up, thus avoiding the danger of being hit hard.
"Hurry, let me see it." Shen Roujiao almost snatched the letter from his hand.
"Don't worry, I'll give it to you." When Duan Baisheng handed it to her, he saw Shen Roujiao's face full of excitement and joy, and asked sourly: "Whose letter is it that makes you so happy?"
After receiving the letter, Shen Roujiao looked at the words on the envelope and recognized it at a glance. She carefully tore open the envelope along the edge and pulled out the letter from it. Before unfolding it, she glanced at Duan Baisheng next to her, "Thank you, it's a letter from my master. I want to read it."
?
"Oh!" Duan Baisheng suddenly realized that the last sentence meant that he should leave. He rubbed his hands awkwardly and said disappointedly, "No need to thank me. I'll go work over there and won't disturb you from reading the letter."
Seeing Duan Baisheng leave, Shen Roujiao walked to a tree at the edge of the open space, sat down against the roots of the tree, and then opened the letter. It was two pages of stationery, filled with writing. The first line addressed him: Disciple Shen Roujiao!
Very formal, a little different from the lazy and pretentious Master Zhou in my memory.
With full of longing, she read word by word. The more she read, the colder she felt. After reading it all, only four words popped up in Shen Roujiao's mind: What the hell?
Zhou Huaiyue, who had been away for more than 20 days, finally wrote a letter, but apart from the first few sentences, it contained nothing but the following: He learned about his father's news from the mayor's secretary and was in a hurry to leave. He was sorry for not telling her in person. Now he is with his father and everything is fine.
Apart from that, there was no other useful information, just some inexplicable and even trivial content, such as the lotus flowers in the pond at the entrance of the village were blooming beautifully; there was a big tree next to it with beautiful red fruits, and he wanted to send a few to her, but the staff said that the beans were very hard and would tear the letter paper, so he could only put a leaf in the envelope; and there was a spring in the mountains with sweet water, he had not been there yet, he had only heard about it...
What the hell is this writing about?
He didn't say what he should say, and wrote a lot of things that he shouldn't say.
After closing the letter, Shen Roujiao found a leaf in the envelope. The leaf was nothing special, just a feather shape, a normal green color, and a smooth surface. And that was it.
I was thinking of showing it to Brother Huzi when I go back to the village to dig wild Polygonatum tomorrow, but the teacher suddenly called for a meeting, and when she stuffed the letter into his mouth, the leaves quietly slid to the ground...