The prison buddy is a big shot
When Zhou Huaiyue returned to the carriage, Qin had already gone to sleep.
The next day after everything was explained, she obviously spoke less and was not as enthusiastic as before, and she even sighed from time to time.
Zhou's father probably guessed something and comforted Qin Ye that he would always meet good people. His son had a cold personality and there was nothing good about him except his face.
That being said, Qin Ye really fell in love with Zhou Huaiyue's face, and his aloofness with a sense of borderline. She looked at him again and again secretly, wanting to imprint his face in her mind.
The train arrived at 1pm. Zhou Huaiyue helped the two girls carry their luggage down. When they said goodbye on the platform, he just nodded. Zhou Chuzhuo said to Qin Ye, "See, there's nothing good about it."
......
Chen Zhenhua, wearing a white coat, was recording a set of data under the microscope as usual. The door was pushed open heavily, and Aunt Li took two deep breaths, "Your Chu Zhuo and Huai Yue are back, why are you still here?"
The son only said on the phone that he would be back soon, but did not say when. Chen Zhenhua looked forward to it every night and every day. The closer he got, the more anxious he became. It was much better to find something to do in the laboratory than to wait at home.
"real?"
Aunt Li lived in the unit next door. When she got off work, she saw the lights on in Chen Zhenhua's house. She went up and knocked on the door, and saw that the two people she had been looking forward to seeing had returned. She was so excited that she hugged Zhou Huaiyue and cried, asking him how could he be so cruel for not coming back to Beijing to see them.
After crying, she asked the father and son to rest at home, and she rode her bicycle to call Zhou's mother to come home.
It took ten minutes to ride from the genetics center to the family area. Chen Zhenhua sat in the back of the car, his heart almost beating out of his chest with excitement.
When the door opened, Chen Zhenhua saw Zhou Chuzhuo with white hair, and cried and threw himself into his arms. The two hugged each other and cried together.
That night, at Aunt Li's house, a large table of dishes was cooked to welcome Zhou's father and son. At the table, they cried and laughed, lamenting the impermanence of life and the world, and no one thought that there would be such a day.
......
Lying back on his bed again, Zhou Huaiyue was thinking about how to start the conversation. He made this trip just to see his father off, but when he saw his mother's tear-stained face, Zhou Huaiyue couldn't open his mouth.
The next day, the news that Zhou's father had been rehabilitated and returned to the city spread, and his former friends and colleagues came to visit him at home. Many people came one after another. Zhou Huaiyue was anxious staying at home and planned to go see his cellmate, the one who loved smoking.
At the state-owned store at the entrance of Peking University and Tsinghua University, Zhou Huaiyue bought two pairs of the cheapest Daqianmen bicycles and put them on the front frame of his bicycle.
His cellmate liked this cheap, throat-splitting cigarette.
The bicycle was parked in the courtyard of CAFA. Walking inside, there was an old single-family house with a courtyard on the first floor.
An old man in his sixties, wearing a long blue cotton jacket with a slanting collar, stood under a plum tree, looking up at the red plum blossoms or the blue sky. When the cigarette in his hand was almost burned out, he brought it to his mouth, took a deep puff, and then extinguished it in a tin ashtray hanging on the tree.
"Old man." Zhou Huaiyue called him the same way he did in prison before.
The two entered at the same time, came out at the same time, and were sent down at the same time. However, Zhou Huaiyue followed the educated youth to Yunnan, while the old man was sent to the Northeast.
"Huai Yue! It's you, you bastard." The nickname of the prison cellmate, a unique friendship between two people of different ages, who are more than 40 years apart.
Who says that cultured people are cultured? The nicknames you give sound like insults.
"Come on, come in and sit down." The old man opened half of the wooden door of the yard and reached out to pull Zhou Huaiyue in.
Most of the living room is a study, with a long table on which are spread the paintings that he has been working on recently, and the walls are also covered with Chinese paintings.
"Why isn't my aunt at home?" Zhou Huaiyue casually placed the Daqianmen on the bookshelf next to the table.
"Go to my eldest daughter. Come and see my latest work." Green mountains and waters, three layers of overlapping, deep ravines, small bridges, flowing water in the foreground, a boy holding a cup passing by on the bridge. There is an immortal playing the piano by the water at the mouth of the stream, and two immortals listen quietly beside him, which is very vivid. There are floating clouds in the mountains, and in the setting sun, there are several groups of distant mountains, a sea of clouds, and the picture is endless.
Zhou Huaiyue shook his head as he looked at the little man in the painting, and said, "How come an old man would also bow to the secular world?" It was a boy and an immortal, playing the piano and listening to music, which was very unrefined. But the old man had previously painted cats, dogs, birds and chickens like Bada Shanren, with crazy and cute images.
The painting in front of me looks more like a custom-made piece.
"You son of a bitch, you just know how to bully old men. Smoke." Although Chen Hongyu is a member of the Chinese Academy of Painting and a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, he still cannot get rid of the ways of the world. This painting is for a senior leader who likes green landscapes.
A Daqianmen cigarette drew an arc and fell into Zhou Huaiyue's hands.
"I can't smoke with you anymore."
"What? Is there anyone who cares about you?" Old man Chen lit a cigarette and blew out a puff of white mist.
"Yeah. She doesn't let me smoke." What's with that slightly arrogant expression?
"You will be successful if you listen to your wife. Dog things have a future. Where is the partner from?" Old man Chen, holding a cigarette, pointed to the seat next to his sofa and asked Zhou Huaiyue to sit down so they could have a good chat.
Like old friends who haven't seen each other for many years, the two talked about their painful and rare experiences after separation, what interesting and fun people they met, and what breakthroughs they made in painting. Later, when they talked about Shen Roujiao, who "can make money with good calligraphy", Hedong Village, where "herbal medicines are everywhere", and Shen's mother, who "has been missing for many years", Zhou Huaiyue said he wanted to go back.
"Don't go back for now. Send a telegram with the address clearly stated. Let the Shen family find it themselves, and leave as soon as possible." Old man Chen's expression suddenly became solemn. He would not speak so seriously unless there was something really wrong.
"?"
"My second daughter is with her grandson and son-in-law in the place you mentioned. She called yesterday and said she couldn't come back for the Chinese New Year. There have been a lot of people getting sick there recently. We thought it was just a cold, but we didn't take it seriously until several families died. We started investigating. It's the end of the year, and we're afraid the locals will panic. We're blocking the news and investigating what the disease is."
"What happened in the past few days? Are you sure it's the place I mentioned?" Zhou Huaiyue didn't dare to believe it. How could a cold be so serious that it could kill the entire family?
Old man Chen took out a notebook from the bookshelf, which contained several envelopes. He took it out and handed it to Zhou Huaiyue.
The letter was from their daughter Chen Hong. She had just arrived there and was not used to the new life, so she often wrote to them. So when Zhou Huaiyue talked about the county town, Chen Hongyu always felt that it sounded familiar.
The envelope clearly read: Benyuan County, Xiaonanchuan City, Yunnan Province. Zhou Huaiyue's heart suddenly rose to his throat. He had only one thought: whether the news was true, "I want to make a phone call."
"Let's go." Every department office in CAFA has a telephone.
Zhou Huaiyue originally wanted to call Mayor Lu Qinglan and ask him, but he couldn't get through to the government department at all. In the end, he called Chen Hong, the daughter of old man Chen.
When the call was connected, Old Man Chen first introduced that Zhou Huaiyue was also there. When the other party heard the name, he actually asked if he was Shen Roujiao's master, and also said that Shen Roujiao was her son's senior schoolmate.
Chen Hong is Gu Jingnian's wife, Gu Changgeng's mother, and Shen Roujiao's sister.
On the phone, Zhou Huaiyue confirmed two things: the disease was contagious and was spreading, the city was taking it very seriously, and was sorting out the condition, with critically ill patients being admitted to a fixed hospital; Shen Roujiao had returned to Hedong Village after the holiday and was safe for the time being. As for finding Shen's mother, Zhou Huaiyue did not say anything.
Because, there was no need to say anything, he decided to go back tomorrow.
First, to avoid the epidemic, and second, to take Shen Roujiao to Nanshan Village to find Shen's mother. At such an important moment, he must stand by her side.
Old man Chen reminded Zhou Huaiyue to wear a mask and to call the department if he needed help. He was basically there during the day.
He was indeed reminded that when Zhou Huaiyue came out of the old man's house, he first rode a bicycle to the train station to buy a ticket, but there was no seat. It was hard to bear to take a 50-hour train from Beijing to Yunnan without a seat. But he was eager to go home, so he had no choice.
On the way home, Zhou Huaiyue came across a state-owned store and a supply and marketing cooperative and went in to buy masks, ten at a time. Buying too many would arouse suspicion, so by the time he got home he had about a hundred masks.
His parents were puzzled when they saw him coming back with a bag of masks. When they wanted to ask, Zhou Huaiyue said that he was going back to Yunnan, had bought the train ticket, and would leave the next morning.
Chen Zhenhua was unwilling to let his son go. He had just returned for two days and had to leave before the New Year's reunion, which he had been looking forward to for six years. His son's heart was not in the capital at all, but outside.
Zhou Huaiyue could only tell a few things, especially the matter between the Grand Master and Shen's mother. As for infectious diseases, he only mentioned them briefly.
"I disagree. It's dangerous for you to go back before you figure out what kind of disease it is. As for her mother, you only need to tell them the address. Whether they look for her or not, how they look for her, and when they look for her, it has nothing to do with you. Huaiyue, Mom hopes you will consider your personal problems carefully. You can't stay in the mountains and valleys for the rest of your life with an ignorant girl. You will regret it. How many people got married and had children while in the countryside, but left without looking back when they returned home, harming the girl and the child."
In the end, they came to the point where the biggest disagreement occurred. Chen Zhenhua had not thought about discussing his personal problems with his son before the New Year, because he had vaguely learned from Zhou's father that his son was really thinking about it.
Everyone has been young, but youth is not an excuse. People should be responsible for their own actions and cannot just come and go as they please. Chen Zhenhua does not want Zhou Huaiyue to make a wrong decision due to his momentary emotions, which would harm others and himself.
"No, she is not only knowledgeable, but also ambitious and has her own ideas. Mom, if you have met her, you will definitely like her. She is different from other girls. I promised to help her, so I can't just give her an address. Besides, that is her mother who has been missing for more than ten years. I want to accompany her at such an important moment."
After hearing what her son said, Chen Zhenhua's face became uglier and uglier. She held Zhou Huaiyue's hand, covered it in her palm, and said with a sad look in her eyes: "Son, you should find a girl who can match you in ability, appearance, and age. The two of you are too different, and it can't last long."
"I'm already trying, trying to keep up with her thoughts, her speed. Mom, I've thought of everything. I can take full responsibility for my own affairs."
Being fully responsible generally means:
He saved her and she saved him.