Chapter 99 Going to the Countryside

Du Ruo ignored the boss's madness. The only thing she could do was to keep getting stronger. Only when she was strong could she have a say.

She thought about what the old man had said during the day. Hexi Village? Could it be downstream of the tomb? She would go check it out tomorrow.

At around five in the morning, Du Ruo went downstairs to have breakfast and saw Li Anze running towards her from a distance.

He was wearing a sports suit and a white towel around his neck, and he had obviously just come back from a run. He saw Du Ruo from a distance, and there was a smile in his eyes behind the lens.

"Are you going for a run?" Du Ruo greeted. She looked into Li Anze's eyes and lowered her own.

Few people know that Li Anze is not nearsighted. Under his elegant appearance, his eyes are somewhat sharp, so he likes to wear glasses.

Li Anze smiled: "When I passed by your downstairs for the first time, you were probably still asleep. I didn't call you. I had already bought breakfast and brought it home. Come home and have dinner."

He used the word "go home" and said it very naturally.

The two walked side by side toward the county committee's family quarters. Along the way, people kept greeting them and looking at them with strange eyes.

Li Anze has been the head of the county committee for three years. He has always kept himself clean and has never been close to anyone of the opposite sex. Now that they see a beautiful female comrade next to him, everyone has some guesses.

Li Anze remained calm and neither explained nor introduced anything. The two of them returned to the Li family's home.

Breakfast was steamed buns and millet porridge, with two tea eggs.

Li Anze never mentioned Du Ruo's schedule, nor did he ask about any external affairs. He just silently placed the peeled tea leaf egg on the small plate in front of Du Ruo.

After breakfast, Li Anze went to work by himself, and Du Ruo planned to go to Hexi Village.

She had already asked the waiter at the guesthouse yesterday. There is a bus passing by there on the urban-rural highway, but the frequency is relatively small, only about two or three times a day. The last bus back to the county town is at five o'clock in the evening. If you miss the bus, there will be no more.

Du Ruo noted the time and walked to the fixed gathering point on the urban-rural road. There were indeed several buses parked there, and one of them happened to pass through Hexi Village.

There are not many people on the bus yet. Several people are squatting beside the bus, smoking and playing cards. A few lesbians are standing there chatting. The bus is rather stuffy and no one wants to get on early.

There are more and more people waiting to get on the bus, and people get on the bus one after another for fear of not being able to get a seat.

Du Ruo bought the ticket at the window, got on the bus, found a seat by the window, sat down and looked out the window.

From time to time, there were a few ice cream sellers shouting under the car. Someone handed out a dime to buy an ice cream, ate it slowly while sitting in the car, and threw the ice cream stick out of the window after finishing. At that time, there was not much awareness of hygiene, and some people even threw things directly into the car.

The older sister sitting next to Du Ruo was very talkative. She took out a cucumber from her cloth bag and passed it to Du Ruo: "Big sister, have a try. This is from my garden. I brought it when I went out yesterday. Do you want to try it?"

Du Ruo smiled and said, "Thank you, sister. I can't eat anything when I smell the gasoline in the car. Otherwise, I will vomit soon."

The older woman slapped her thigh and said, "Big sister, are you carsick? That's easy to explain."

As she spoke, she rummaged in her cloth pocket and found a hand-embroidered purse. She handed it to Du Ruo and said, "This is the mint grown in my garden. It's very effective in treating motion sickness. Would you like to smell it?"

Du Ruo thanked the elder sister and brought the purse under her nose. She felt much better. "Elder sister, your method is quite useful."

The older sister smiled proudly: "This is all my experience. I used to suffer from motion sickness, and it was terrible. I vomited all over the place before the car even started. Later, someone gave me this method, which is very useful. Big sister, what is your name?"

"My surname is Du, sister, what's your surname?"

"My last name is Cheng. You can call me Sister Cheng. You don't look like a country girl like us. Are you visiting relatives? Which village are you from?"

Du Ruo smiled and said, "Our unit is on holiday recently, and I want to go out and have a look. I don't have any relatives in the countryside, so I heard that Hexi Village is nice, so I want to go and take a look."

Sister Cheng slapped her thigh and said, "Big sister, you have good taste. I'm not exaggerating. Our Hexi Village is definitely a Feng Shui treasure land. The mountain in front of us is the dragon head of the entire mountain. Dragon head, you know? People say that our village is a place that produces emperors and generals. It is definitely a Feng Shui treasure land."

Du Ruo's heart moved, and she showed a hint of interest: "I really don't know this. I just heard about it from my colleague, so I wanted to go and take a look."

Sister Cheng said enthusiastically: "If you want to visit our village, just come to my house. My family is small. My two children and my husband are all working in the county town. I am the only one at home. It is very convenient. If you come to my house, you can have lunch there at noon."

Du Ruo smiled and said, "How can I feel embarrassed? I was thinking of paying some money to find someone to stay at my house for a while. Sister Cheng, I feel embarrassed when you say that."

"Why should you be embarrassed? Everyone has relatives and friends. Get off the car and follow me to my house. It's a deal."

There was a man sitting in the aisle. He probably just heard what Mrs. Zheng said and muttered, "How can your Hexi Village be considered a Feng Shui treasure land? The real leader is in our Shanghe Village. Our place is considered a Feng Shui treasure land. According to the legend of our ancestors, an emperor and a general are buried near our village. What is there in Hexi Village?"

Sister Cheng was so angry that her face turned red: "Stop talking nonsense, if your village is really the leader, how did they lose their country?"

The two people were arguing back and forth across the aisle. Du Ruo listened thoughtfully. She felt that the young man's words made sense. According to her speculation, considering the situation of Hexi Village picking up things, their village should be at the downstream and could not be the leader.

One after another, several more people joined the battle, some from Hexi Village and some from Shanghe Village. The argument became more and more intense, and Du Ruo heard a lot of useful information.

The topic of conversation gradually changed. Someone asked, "Have you heard that people in that village in the south are making fake antiques. They are doing it in full swing, bringing truckloads of them to the county. The experts said they will take whatever they can get."

Someone who is well-informed said: "Their village has made a fortune, and now they are denying all responsibility. They insist that the experts only want clay figurines, but they didn't say whether they want ancient or modern ones. The experts are at a loss."

Du Ruo was speechless. Don't say that. If you think about it carefully, it is indeed the case. I guess those experts don't want to explain too much to the farmers. If you don't explain, how can they know whether you want new or old?