Du Ruo ignored the boss's madness. The only thing she could do was to become stronger and stronger. Only when she became strong would she have the right to speak.
She pondered what the old man had said that day. Hexi Village? Could it be downstream from 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 sportswear and a white towel around his neck. He had obviously just come back from a run. When he saw Du Ruo from a distance, there was a smile in his eyes behind the lenses.
"Are you going for a run?" Du Ruo greeted. She looked at Li Anze's glasses and lowered her own eyes.
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 and said, "When I first passed by your building, you were probably still asleep. I didn't call you. I had already bought breakfast and brought it home. Come home and eat."
He used the word "go home" and said it very naturally.
The two walked side by side towards the county party 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 party committee for three years. He has always been a clean-minded person 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 himself. The two of them returned to the Li family's house.
Breakfast was steamed dumplings 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 eggs on the small plate in front of Du Ruo.
After breakfast, Li Anze went to work alone, and Du Ruo planned to go to Hexi Village.
She had asked the waiter at the guesthouse yesterday and found out that there was a bus passing by there on the urban-rural highway, but the frequency was relatively low, only about two or three times a day. The last bus back to the county town was at five o'clock in the evening, and if you missed the bus, there would be no more.
Du Ruo noted the time and walked to the fixed gathering point on the urban-rural highway. 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 next to the bus smoking and playing cards, and a few female comrades are standing there chatting. The bus is quite stuffy and no one wants to get in early.
As more and more people are waiting to get on the bus, people start to get on the bus one after another because they are afraid of not being able to get a seat.
Du Ruo bought a 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 people selling ice cream shouting under the car. Someone handed over a dime to buy an ice cream, and ate it slowly while sitting in the car. After eating, they threw the ice cream stick out of the window. 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 handed it to Du Ruo: "Sister, have a try. This is from my garden. I brought it when I went out yesterday. Would you like to try it?"
Du Ruo smiled: "Thank you, big 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 through her cloth pockets for a while, found a hand-embroidered purse, and handed it to Du Ruo: "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 fresher. "Elder sister, your method is quite useful."
The older woman smiled proudly. "This is all from experience. I used to get carsick too. It was terrible. I'd vomit all over the place before the car even started. Then someone gave me this method, and it works really well. Big sister, what's your name?"
"Mian's surname is Du, big sister, what's your surname?"
"My last name is Cheng. You can call me Sister Cheng. You don't look like a country girl. Are you visiting relatives? Which village are you from?"
Du Ruo smiled and said, "Our company is on holiday recently, and I want to travel around. I don't have any relatives in the countryside, and 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, but our Hexi Village is absolutely 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's absolutely a Feng Shui treasure land."
Du Ruo's heart moved, and she looked a little interested: "I really don't know about 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. We have a small family. My two children and my husband are all working in the county town, so I'm the only one at home. It's very convenient. If you come to my house, you can have lunch there."
Du Ruo smiled and said, "How can I feel embarrassed about that? I was thinking of paying some money to find someone to stay with for a while, but Sister Cheng, I feel embarrassed when you say that."
"Why should I be embarrassed? Everyone has relatives and friends. Get off the bus and follow me to my house. It's a deal."
A man was sitting in the aisle. He had probably heard Mrs. Zheng talking, and he muttered, "How can your Hexi Village be considered a Feng Shui treasure? The real dragon head is in our Shanghe Village. Ours is a Feng Shui treasure. According to our ancestors' legend, an emperor and a great general are buried near our village. What's there in Hexi Village?"
Sister Cheng's face flushed with anger: "Stop talking nonsense! If your village was really the leader, how did they lose their country?"
The two people were arguing with each other across the aisle. Du Ruo listened thoughtfully. She felt that what the young man said made sense. According to her speculation, based on the situation of people picking up things in Hexi Village, their village should be downstream and could not be the leader.
Gradually, 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 conversation gradually shifted, and someone said, "Have you heard? That village down south is making fake antiques, and they're bustling with activity, bringing truckloads of them to the county. The experts said they'll buy whatever they can get."
Someone with inside information said, "Their village has made a fortune, but now they are denying everything. They insist that the experts only want clay figurines, but they haven't said 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 will they know whether you want new or old?"
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