Chapter 50 "Brother, I want them all."...
Chapter 50
Not long after returning from his business trip to Beijing, Shen Yanzhou's time in Lanzhou officially ended. With only a month left before Yu Pan's school started, Shen Yanzhou decided to take Yu Pan back to Xishan Village.
It has been two whole years since I last came back, and a lot has happened in those two years.
One of them was the landlady who had been corresponding with Yu Pan. At the end of last year, she told them in a letter that she was going to the city to take care of her grandson.
Less than two months later, the old man who ran the bookstore also wrote in a letter that he was getting old and his children wanted to take him home to live out his retirement.
Over time, they gradually lost contact with each other.
Unlike last time when they passed by their own home without entering, this time they drove in by car from the village entrance and came to a smooth stop in front of the old house.
Ever since he returned last time and saw the yard full of weeds taller than the walls, Shen Yanzhou has been paying people to clean it regularly.
Although Shen Yanzhou and Yu Pan had discussed this matter, when Yu Pan got out of the car and truly saw the neat and clean courtyard, she couldn't help but feel a sense of disorientation, as if they had never left.
Pushing open the rotten wooden door of the main house, he found that the house didn't have the musty or dusty smell he had expected, probably because the cleaning staff kept opening the windows for ventilation. Instead, there was a smell in the air that... smelled like no one had lived there for a long time.
The old cloths they used to cover the furniture when they left have been removed, and the familiar tables, chairs, and cabinets stand quietly in their original places.
Yu Pan ran his hand over the corner of the table, rubbing his thumb against it repeatedly. It didn't hurt at all; he had worn the corner smooth from reciting math multiplication tables as a child.
At that time, Aunt Shen would usually sew insoles next to him, while Shen Yanzhou would sit on one side doing his homework. He would squat on the stool, holding a pen and writing from memory. After he finished writing, Uncle Shen would correct his mistakes. The family would sit around a square table with a kerosene lamp in the middle.
The smell of the kerosene lamp was unique, but not unpleasant, and Yu Pan liked it very much.
Yu Pan quietly rubbed the corner, her mind filled with memories of the past.
Fortunately, before Shen Yanzhou returned, he arranged for someone to drive away insects from top to bottom of the house, and the beds were disassembled and washed and dried in the yard for half a day. They also bought new mosquito nets, pillows, and quilts when they came back.
There are many midges in the countryside, and their bites are poisonous. Yu Pan stood there blankly for a while, and two big welts appeared on her chin. When Shen Yanzhou saw this, he put some dried mugwort he had bought on the way in a basin and burned it to fumigate the house for a while. When she went back in, she was indeed much better.
At least you won't get pimples all over your face after standing for just a few minutes.
"Don't move, let me put some Tiger Balm on you." Shen Yanzhou unscrewed the bottle cap and was about to press it onto Yu Pan's face.
Yu Pan frowned, but being held by Shen Yanzhou, she couldn't hide anywhere, so she could only say, "Don't put on too much, it smells bad."
"Okay, okay." Shen Yanzhou said, after applying the medicated oil to Yu Pan's face, he poured five or six drops of medicated oil onto his own hands, rubbed them together, and then applied it to Yu Pan's exposed hands and neck.
"It really stinks." Yu Pan wrinkled her nose and held her breath.
Seeing him like this, Shen Yanzhou laughed: "Better to smell than to be covered in mosquito bites, right?"
“That makes sense…” Yu Pan touched Shen Yanzhou’s arm with a hint of disgust. “Don’t you have any fragrant Tiger Balm?”
Shen Yanzhou laughed when he heard this, patted Yu Pan's bottom to make him get up, and said, "Come on, let's go buy food."
In rural areas, where the land is small, any noise will be heard soon enough that someone will come out to check, let alone such a big commotion as a car entering the village.
However, since Xishan Village is located near a fireworks factory, the villagers are used to seeing trucks and cars, so they weren't surprised by the commotion caused by Shen Yanzhou driving back.
Shen Yanzhou took Yu Pan to the restaurant where he ordered lunch for her when he worked at the fireworks factory.
Years have passed, and under the tree roots next to the shop entrance, there is still a card table set up, where some old men play cards and smoke pipes, their coarse language audible from afar.
Shen Yanzhou led Yu Pan into the shop and said to the owner, who was cleaning up, "Boss, two meals to go."
"Alright, what do you want to eat?" Upon hearing this, the owner put down the rag in his hand and lifted the several large covers covering the dishes.
"Panpan?" Shen Yanzhou looked at Yu Pan, asking him to make a decision.
Yu Pan looked at the dishes on the table, pursed her lips, and said, "Brother, I want to eat them all."
Shen Yanzhou felt a wave of tenderness wash over him. How could his Panpan be so adorable? He turned to the shop owner and said, "Boss, I want all the dishes, in a box."
"Okay." The boss carried a fast food box, with two dishes in each box. He filled four boxes and finally had time to observe the customer who looked unfamiliar but was somewhat familiar upon closer inspection while getting the food.
"Aren't you...?" The shopkeeper, while tying up a plastic bag, frowned as he looked at the casually dressed man in front of him, trying to recall, "someone who used to buy dinner from me often at night...?"
“Yes, I used to come here often.” Shen Yanzhou took the packed food, hooked his arm around Yu Pan’s hand, and walked out with him.
The boss then noticed Yu Pan, who had been standing behind Shen Yanzhou. When he saw Yu Pan's face, he immediately remembered that she was the handsome mute boy from the village!
The mute man's brother worked at a fireworks factory. Every evening after work, he would come to his shop to buy food to take home. The boss had a deep impression of the two brothers.
At the time, the villagers said that the mute man they had taken in was enjoying a life of leisure at home, while his brother was working hard to earn money outside and couldn't even get a hot meal when he came home.
He hadn't seen the two brothers for the past few years, but he never expected to see them today... The restaurant owner stroked his chin and clicked his tongue. Didn't they say the younger one was mute?
On the way back, Yu Pan's mind was filled with the food in Shen Yanzhou's hands. As soon as they got home, she took the initiative to open the lid herself.
The room was instantly filled with the aroma of food. The owner's cooking skills were as consistent as ever, and the dishes tasted just like before. As Yu Pan ate, she felt that it was even more like the old days.
Just after finishing his meal, Yu Pan heard a commotion outside. He followed Shen Yanzhou out to see what was happening and found that the courtyard gate had been pushed open, and several people were standing in the yard.
"Yan...Yanzhou?" An old man rushed over, grabbing Chen Yanzhou's arm with one hand. "You finally decided to come back!"
Yu Pan looked at him carefully for a while before recognizing the old man as Shen Yanzhou's uncle and elder brother.
"Your grandmother was thinking of you when she passed away...!" Uncle Shen told Shen Yanzhou with tears streaming down his face how much they missed him and how much his grandmother missed him during the years he was gone.
Yu Pan didn't feel much sympathy for Uncle Shen, who had chased him away with a stick when he was a child. After listening to him say so much, the only feeling that arose in her heart was that he deserved it.
A lot has happened in the past two years, the second being that Grandma passed away.
She passed away on the seventh day of the first lunar month this year. She had been ill for more than half a year before she passed away. Shen Yanzhou was very filial and asked someone to bring back a lot of money to treat his grandmother's illness.
Grandma always said that she treated all her grandsons equally well. According to what Yu Pan heard from Aunt Shen, before they separated their families, the children in Uncle Shen's family ate rice with real rice, while Shen Yanzhou in her family only had rice water.
Later, when Shen Yanzhou was five years old, Uncle Shen separated from his wife, son, and grandmother. They only paid pension money each month and were given two acres of land. They didn't have a house at first. Later, Uncle Shen and Aunt Shen earned money and built the house they have now.
When Uncle Shen and Aunt Shen were still alive, they rarely visited each other. After Uncle Shen and Aunt Shen passed away, Shen Yanzhou would only visit them on the first and second days of the Lunar New Year to pay his respects, and he would not speak to them at other times.
In addition, when Yu Pan was first taken in, her grandmother almost hanged herself. It was because of her grandmother's fierce protests that Yu Pan was not given the surname Shen, and even her household registration was changed by someone else through Uncle Shen. She was not registered in the Shen family and could not be entitled to any of the Shen family's land, so her grandmother finally gave up.
Therefore, Yu Pan didn't have a good impression of Grandma and Uncle Shen's family, but she still felt a little sad when she heard the news of her death.
Time flies so fast.
Uncle Shen was still recounting the events of the past few years with grief and indignation, while Shen Yanzhou listened calmly, neither responding nor offering any comfort.
As she continued talking, Yu Pan could almost smell the aroma of food wafting from Uncle Shen's house. Uncle Shen just kept going on and on.
Yu Pan frowned, about to speak, but Shen Yanzhou gently patted the back of her hand, "Uncle, look, your dinner is ready. Why don't we go to your house and sit down to talk slowly?"
Uncle Shen stopped abruptly, his eyes darting around. "I didn't know you were coming back, so I didn't prepare anything special. That'll have to do. By the way, your grandmother... my family paid for her funeral. You're still part of the Shen family, aren't you..."
“But Uncle,” Shen Yanzhou asked, feigning doubt, “didn’t I send someone back eight thousand dollars when Grandma was seriously ill?”
"Eight thousand!?" The onlookers gasped. Eight thousand yuan! The villagers only earn four or five hundred yuan a year from the beginning to the end. Shen Yanzhou is really something, daring to ask someone to bring back eight thousand.
"You mean this?" Uncle Shen scratched his head and sighed, "Your grandma had to live in the health center back then, how could that be enough?!"
If Yu Pan didn't know the inside story, she might have actually believed Uncle Shen's words.
At that time, Shen Yanzhou sent someone to deliver money to the old man. The old man said that he had only stayed at the health center for two or three days before he started clamoring to go home and that he had been treated with folk remedies.
Shen Yanzhou chuckled, and Uncle Shen was startled as well.
"Uncle, how much will the funeral expenses be?" Shen Yanzhou asked.
Uncle Shen's eyes darted around. "One hundred and seventy!"
“Okay,” Shen Yanzhou turned to Yu Pan and said, “Panpan, give your uncle two hundred yuan.”
"Oh." Yu Pan went back into the house, counted out two hundred yuan, and just as she raised her hand to hand the money to Shen Yanzhou, Uncle Shen suddenly snatched the money away.
"Good nephew, good nephew," Uncle Shen counted the money in his hand, then smiled, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth. "Then I'll go back for dinner now."
Once Uncle Shen left, the others, seeing there was nothing exciting to see, also left one after another.
After Shen Yanzhou closed the door, Yu Pan sat on the stool, somewhat angrily, "Brother, he was obviously lying to us!"
Shen Yanzhou sat down next to him, holding Yu Pan's hand. "Dad once said that when he was a child, he got a leg cramp while playing in the river, and it was his uncle who dragged him ashore."
After listening, Yu Pan pursed her lips and remained silent for a while before finally speaking, "How about I go and give him another two hundred?"
"No need," Shen Yanzhou said with a smile, pinching Yu Pan's cheek. "That's enough."
Although they had eaten dinner, it was still early, so Yu Pan and Shen Yanzhou took a leisurely walk in the village to digest their food.
Several years have passed, and the village has not changed much. They passed by fields that used to belong to their families, but now no one knows who has taken over them and planted rice there.
“Brother, look over there.” Yu Pan suddenly stopped and pointed to the corner of a paddy field not far away.
Shen Yanzhou followed his gaze and couldn't help but chuckle, "I remember, you fell down from that side and got covered in mud."
"I really thought I could jump over it!" Yu Pan laughed as she defended herself, finding the scene amusing. "You and Uncle Shen jumped over it so easily."
"Yeah, Dad and I are just watching, waiting for you to fall." Shen Yanzhou reached out and pinched the back of Yu Pan's neck.
"Hmph, you and Uncle Shen are so mean." Yu Pan wrinkled her nose, pretending to be angry.
Walking along the road into the village, there is a stream running alongside it. It is a stream that comes down from the mountain. The water is fast-flowing but shallow, and it is especially cool in the summer.
When she was a child, Yu Pan couldn't go swimming, so she could only play in the water by this stream.
His favorite thing to do was to sit side by side with Shen Yanzhou on the rocks by the stream on hot summer afternoons, soaking their toes in the water and touching the smooth pebbles that had been washed by the current.
The stream is still there, but it has been reduced in width. It used to be about forty centimeters wide, but now it looks almost half the width of a ditch.
Yu Pan squatted down, touched the water with her hand, and told Shen Yanzhou what she had discovered: "The water doesn't seem to be flowing as fast as before."
Shen Yanzhou also squatted down and reached out to splash some cool stream water. "It really is."
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Author's Note: Panpan: Only children make choices! I want them all! [Cat emoji][Cat emoji][Cat emoji]
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