Chapter 32 Qingming Festival She also wondered if he would come. ...
During this Qingming Festival holiday, Ye Yuying got up at four o'clock every day. Before dawn, she would put on her rain boots and go to the market with her grandmother, carrying a vegetable basket.
The mornings in Qingcheng are filled with the damp scent of earth. The stone slabs, covered in moisture, gleam with a soft light, but when the sun rises, they become blindingly white.
She pulled her collar up and pushed the old handcart, which was filled with the greens her grandmother had picked the night before, as well as some garlic sprouts, scallions, and amaranth that they had grown themselves.
Because it was peak season for tomb sweeping, my grandmother bought some extra chrysanthemums to sell.
There weren't many people in the old market yet; the aroma of soy milk wafted from the breakfast stalls, and someone was steaming buns nearby.
An old man from the next stall greeted her, and she greeted him shyly, her bright eyes gazing at the passersby behind her stall, staring blankly at the fresh potatoes on other people's stalls.
The stall was set up, the light bulbs were turned on, and the first rays of morning light shone down.
She squatted on the plastic sheet, arranging the vegetables, the bundles neatly stacked. Grandma sat on a small stool, slowly peeling garlic sprouts.
“You don’t need to come every day. You should sleep in a little longer today since it’s your day off.” Grandma’s tone was ordinary, but there was still a hint of heartache in it.
"I'm not sleepy when I wake up early now," she said softly, her fingertips moving non-stop.
She actually gets up at four o'clock every day, and she's so sleepy, but for some reason, she just wants to stay with her grandmother a little longer, and then a little longer.
At this moment, the sky is gradually brightening, and a gentle breeze is stirring the lush green vegetable leaves. Grandma is arranging the green beans one by one with her rough, yellowed hands. The neatly arranged green beans look like wind chimes being swung open.
During the tomb-sweeping season, people come with their families. Many successful children drive their luxury cars from other places to visit the tombs with their elders.
From a young age, she envied those families who traveled together as a group, always feeling that the children running and playing around in such families would receive complete love, as well as love from various relatives and elders.
Ye Yuying has few family members. She lives with her maternal grandmother most of the year. Her maternal grandfather passed away some years ago, and the only person she still keeps in touch with is her aunt.
My aunt never married and never had children of her own, so she treated her as her own daughter.
She envied the children in those large families, where every Qingming Festival was like a grand collective spring outing, with everyone playing and walking on the way to sweep the tombs, expressing their longing for their loved ones in a more relaxed way.
During Qingming Festival, she and her grandmother would simply bring some offerings, visit her grandmother's older brother's grave, light candles and burn incense at the head of the household, and that was it for a simple memorial service.
Grandma packed a basket of freshly steamed mugwort dumplings into a small cloth bag, added a few hard-boiled eggs, and said, "Take these to eat on the way. You always get hungry quickly when you go up the mountain."
The road was difficult to travel; one had to cross a river, a bridge, and pass through a large bamboo forest.
Ye Yuying carried a small basket on her back, while her grandmother leaned on a bamboo cane. Their shadows were stretched long by the morning light, the grass and trees were damp, and the air was filled with the fragrance of earth and grass.
She walked on the fallen leaves from last year, listening to the thumping sound of her bamboo cane hitting the ground, and suddenly felt that it was all like a silent play—silently going up the mountain, silently commemorating, silently rushing about.
Only the two of them showed concern intermittently.
"Grandma, your back is injured. Has my mom called?" She suddenly remembered something halfway through her walk.
Grandma didn't stop walking. She waved her hand, as if resigned to her fate: "She has hated me for so many years, she won't care about me."
Ye Yuying didn't know what sound should come out of her throat at this moment. She just lowered her head as if she realized that she had mentioned a sensitive topic, looked at the muddy road under her feet, and continued to walk.
The cemetery is located on the mountainside and is covered with moss.
Grandma arranged incense, candles, and offerings in front of the grave, then bent down and kowtowed three times, her movements slow but swift. Ye Yuying knelt down as well, whispering a few words to herself.
Perhaps she was expressing some wishes; since childhood, her wishes had rarely come true during memorial ceremonies, so now she didn't care whether they were fulfilled or not.
The two walked down the mountain in silence, until they reached the depths of the alley and returned to the small courtyard with the laurel tree. As soon as Grandma opened the gate, a gust of wind blew in, gently brushing a cluster of wisteria against her forehead.
"Oh dear." Grandma was taken aback, took the wisteria off her head, and then smiled, "It knows we're back."
The time to return to Chengdu is approaching.
Ye Yuying didn't know when Cheng Mingdu would come to pick her up, or even...
She also wondered if he would ever come back.
After all, Cheng Mingdu had no obligation to do so.
That day, as usual, Ye Yuying helped her grandmother set up her stall early in the morning. Just as dawn was breaking, Ye Yuying was helping to inspect the vegetables when she caught a glimpse of a figure at the street corner that seemed out of place with its surroundings.
The markets in Qingcheng have always been simple and unpretentious, with vendors and customers familiar with each other, and the same old faces coming and going. So when that figure appeared at the street corner, it was like a drop of titanium white in an ink painting, exceptionally eye-catching.
Judging from Cheng Mingdu's height, it's hard to believe he's from the Jianghuai region. Especially when he comes to Qingcheng, he's the kind of person who makes people take a second look.
I don't know if I was looking at his figure or his face.
Ye Yuying's feelings were complicated when she saw him. She almost subconsciously looked down at her mud-covered rain boots and her clothes, which were old and worn for work, the kind that she didn't care if they got worn out.
She was momentarily at a loss for how to react, as if at this moment the boundary between them had become clearer than ever before.
She blended into the Qingcheng market, growing up in the mud, dressed practically and unkempt, while he seemed to belong elsewhere.
She almost wanted to turn around and hide in the crowd, behind the garlic sprouts on the stall, but she wasn't sure if she was hiding her body or her thoughts.
Cheng Mingdu stopped at the street corner, standing in the gap where sunlight and mist met, and looked down at her, as if confirming without any hesitation.
Then he strode towards her and walked straight to her stall.
Cheng Mingdu stopped, glanced down at her attire, and his lips twitched slightly as he said:
"Shall I take you back today? Let you rest up, you have class tomorrow."
His voice was low and steady, with his usual cool and aloof tone, as composed as if he were speaking in a conference room, but Ye Yuying felt a rare sense of "parental authority" about him.
She paused for a moment before slowly coming to her senses, lowering her eyes and whispering, "We close up shop at noon... Why are you here?"
He didn't answer immediately, but slowly bent down, as if helping her straighten a basket of vegetables that had been placed crookedly.
This action stirred up a myriad of thoughts in Ye Yuying.
His voice rang out again: "I promised to pick you up, so here I am."
At that moment, the conditioned reflex of unreality reappeared in her mind, and the scene, so contrary to common sense, was as unusual as an absurd dream.
The person before her stood at the boundary between the morning mist and the daylight, appearing in a place that did not belong to him, silently reaching a hand into her chaotic life.
It doesn't have any special meaning; it's just an outstretched hand, that's all.
She was momentarily at a loss for words. Saying "thank you" would be too formal, while saying "I thought you wouldn't come" would be too obvious.
She could only give a soft "hmm," then awkwardly tidied the scallions beside her, burying her eyes in the pile of garlic sprouts.
Grandma had just returned from the steamed bun stall next door, carrying a bag of steaming red bean buns. She spotted Cheng Mingdu standing in front of the stall and immediately recognized him as a stranger.
She looked for a while, but her weathered eyes couldn't recognize the other person's identity.
"And this is...?"
Ye Yuying carefully considered her words, pondering in her mind how best to introduce him, "His name is Cheng Mingdu, and he helped me a lot in Chengdu."
Grandma didn't press the matter further, because from the surname and the other person's unusual demeanor, it was easy to guess who it was.
"You must have had a long and tiring journey, coming all this way so early in the morning?" Grandma said as she bent down to sit on the plastic stool and handed a steamed bun to Cheng Mingdu.
Cheng Mingdu nodded slightly and politely declined the steamed bun, saying, "It's no trouble at all."
Ye Yuying saw this scene from the side, but just silently lowered her eyes, her eyes seeming to catch a glimmer of light, so light that it was almost imperceptible.
Before she left, her grandmother saw her off at the alley entrance.
"Don't eat anything cold on the bus. It's been raining a lot lately, and it can upset your stomach." As she spoke, she stuffed a hot glutinous rice ball that she had just scooped out of the pot into her hand. "Take this, it's still warm."
Ye Yuying looked down at the pastry wrapped in lotus leaves, and her nose suddenly stung with tears. She quickly nodded and said, "I understand."
Suddenly remembering something, Ye Yuying asked, "Is there anything you need me to tell you?"
Grandma stood at the alley entrance, her figure blending into the gray and white of an old photograph. She closed her eyes and silently shook her head.
Once in the car, she quickly rolled down the window, wanting to say something more, "I'll come see you again during my next holiday."
Grandma nodded, her smile growing even warmer. "Remember what I said: don't look back too often, just run as fast as you can."
The moment the car door closed, Ye Yuying realized that she was about to leave Qingcheng again.
The car slowly drove away from Qingcheng Old Alley. The courtyard, the laurel tree, the wisteria flowers, and those gentle eyes, weathered by time, gradually disappeared into the rearview mirror.
They remained silent the entire way.
Cheng Mingdu was focused on driving, his face bathed in the light of an early spring morning, his features sharply defined by the shadows of the mountains. Ye Yuying sat in the passenger seat, holding a glutinous rice ball wrapped in a lotus leaf, but hesitated to open it.
She left, but her heart was at peace.
She gazed out the window at the rapidly receding tea mountains and bamboo forests; the early spring sun was just beginning to warm the landscape, and the outline of Qingcheng Mountain had already disappeared into the distance.
Ye Yuying looked at him, suddenly wondering, "Brother, how long will you stay this time..."
She swallowed the rest of her words.
Is it too late to see her progress...?
"If my supervisor needs me at the last minute, I might go back earlier; otherwise, I should be able to stay for a month and a half."
Cheng Mingdu's tone was normal, without much variation.
“One and a half months.” Ye Yuying repeated softly, her voice falling on the car window like the sound of drizzle on paper, light and gentle.
She looked down at the glutinous rice ball in her hand, her fingertips gently lifting the lotus leaf. The glutinous rice inside was still steaming, mixed with the fragrance of the leaf—a taste only her grandmother could make.
She broke off a piece with her hand, took a bite, and chewed it very slowly.
The light outside the car window gradually became brighter, and the sky became completely clear.
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Author's Note: 50 red envelopes! [Cat emoji]
After finishing the middle school section, I'll jump back to the city section, then jump to the flashback section, and finally jump back to the city, ending the story in that sequence. That's roughly the arrangement. The flashback section is divided into two parts. [Applause]
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