Chapter 44 Life's Journey
Zhang Jiang took the list from the table, glanced at it, and called to Dashun, "Let's stay here and see if there's anything we can do to help. Uncle Ba, you two can go back and rest first."
Under Zhang Jiang's mobilization, three younger tea farmers stayed behind. Sanwaizi returned home and woke Junzi up, asking him to run over to help. Jiang Qing assigned two people, and with him, there were three in total. Zhenmin also stayed, adding tea and moving documents and account books in and out.
Documents piled high on the conference table, and the tense atmosphere lingered until the early hours. Nanjiu was accustomed to this fast pace, able to juggle multiple complex issues simultaneously, his mind blazing with lightning speed. In contrast, the pace of work in Chashan was much slower. Even though there were a few busy months each year, it couldn't compare to the pace of work in a big city. Nanjiu would often rattle off a barrage of data, leaving them stunned for ages before reacting.
It was four in the morning, and everyone was exhausted. Dashun, exhausted, dozed off on the bench. Nanjiu, noticing this, told everyone to go back and rest.
As she left the office, something darted out of the darkness and scurried up to Nanjiu's feet. She took a step back in shock, only then did she see it was a large yellow dog.
Nan Jiu squatted down and wanted to take a look at the dog, but the dog kept avoiding her and lay down a few steps away from her, staring at her.
Nan Jiu turned around and asked Zhen Min who was following behind him: "Is this dog still the same one as before?"
"That's the one. It's an old dog. It can't see or smell anymore. It won't let anyone touch it."
Nanjiu slowly stood up and looked at it again.
Zhenmin said to Nanjiu, "Come sleep at my place."
"Is Song Ting the only one who has the key to the tea garden cabin?"
"Zhang Jiang has a spare key."
"I'm going to rest in the cabin."
Nanjiu followed Zhenmin and the others back to the village. Nanjiu waited at the door while Zhenmin and Zhang Jiang entered the house. After a while, Zhang Jiang took out the key and handed it to Nanjiu, saying, "Wait for Zhenmin."
As soon as he returned to the house, Zhen Min brought out two hot buns and stuffed them into Nan Jiu's hands: "Aunt Qin said you didn't have dinner. I ran to the top of the mountain to ask you to come over for dinner, but I didn't expect you to be so busy now. You can eat first."
Nan Jiu took the bun in his hand, glanced at Zhang Jiang's figure in the room, and then his eyes fell back on Zhen Min's face.
Zhenmin noticed Nanjiu's gaze and told her, "I married Zhang Jiang."
The sound of a child crying could be heard from inside the house. Nan Jiu understood and did not stop, urging her: "Thank you for what you did just now. You should go back soon."
Zhenmin glanced back, then turned back and asked worriedly, "Did something happen to Brother Song?"
Facing Zhenmin, Nanjiu did not hide anything: "I can't contact her at the moment, and I don't know what the situation is."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Let me think about it. It's getting late, so you should get some sleep."
After saying goodbye to Zhenmin, Nanjiu put the buns in his pocket and walked towards the tea garden alone.
The tea garden lay shrouded in silent darkness, with a wooden house standing alone at the end of a tea ridge. Nanjiu walked to the house, inserted the key, and unlocked the door.
The moment the lights came on, she felt as if she were dragged back to her twenties. This little house had once blossomed with the most fervent of her youth. She had given herself completely to that strong and reliable man, like a boat sailing through a sea of fog, unconcerned about the shore beyond. Returning to that place years later, the throbbing emotion still surged, nearly swallowing her up.
She walked into the house and took in everything. The furnishings inside had changed somewhat. The once cramped little bed had been replaced with a larger, sturdier wooden bed. There were also a lot more furniture and furnishings, giving the house a more lively feel than before.
The door of the cabin was open. Nan Jiu sat in front of the door looking at the dark night. His thoughts were in a mess, but his brain did not stop for a moment and was still working frantically.
The rush to harvest tea is inherently fraught with uncertainty. A single decision can impact the livelihoods of hundreds of tea farmers and workers across the tea plantations and factories. It's not simply a race against time, but a high-stakes gamble and a psychological battle. Every minor factor could lead to a complete loss.
You have to play against the weather; you have to allocate resources with absolute high intensity; you have to calculate every economic account; and you have to consider market risks.
Each of these decisions is incredibly difficult. If you decide to wait, you risk a complete loss. If you decide to rush into mining, you must immediately contact workers, prepare equipment, and arrange for the various tasks. Ultimately, all this effort may result in losses.
This was a battle for survival, unlike any battlefield Nanjiu had ever known. She had never faced such a difficult decision. It wasn't a matter of man conquering nature; it was a matter of man and nature working together. Such a challenge was beyond human control. More pressingly, there was no time to weigh the pros and cons; a decision had to be made at dawn.
The overwhelming pressure weighed on Nanjiu's shoulders like a giant mountain. She couldn't imagine how many times Song Ting had experienced this kind of pressure over the years. She had never so longed to hear Song Ting's voice, even just to let her know she was safe, or to tell her what to do.
She took out her phone and called Song Ting again. The same cold voice still came from the receiver, and every word was like a needle piercing her heart and lungs. She didn't put down the phone, letting the voice repeat in her ears until the voice automatically cut off.
The phone screen went dark, sliding into her palm. She quickly turned it back on, opened the web, and searched for recent news about Tingzhuang. Aside from reemployment promotions and the upcoming high-speed rail line, there wasn't much else going on. If there was no news tomorrow, she'd have to call the police.
Worry and anxiety nearly suffocated her. The tea trees huddled in dark shadows, silently surrounding the cabin. The pre-dawn darkness pressed down overwhelmingly. This was the empire Song Ting had fought so hard to build, and without him, she couldn't stand by and watch it crumble. Burning worry and the weight of responsibility tore through her mind, making her chest ache.
Her stomach cramped with nervousness, and Nanjiu thought of the buns Zhenmin had given her. She took them out of her pocket, but they were already hard.
The sky was low, starless, moonless, only a dull darkness. Nanjiu's figure sank into the darkness, stuffing the bun into her mouth. The hardened crumbs clung to her tongue and throat, making swallowing difficult and causing a slight pain in her esophagus. She buried her head, stubbornly gnawing on the cold, hard lump, bite after bite. She couldn't taste anything, only knowing that swallowing would make her stomach feel better.
Logically, she should get some sleep before dawn as she had a tough battle to fight tomorrow.
However, lying in bed, her mind couldn't rest for a moment. She forced herself to close her eyes for half an hour, then sat up again, put on her coat, and walked out of the cabin.
The tea garden was still a dream, dew condensing on the tips of the leaves. Nanjiu walked between the tea rows, squatted down, and stroked the leaves, trying to find the answer from each tea tree and leaf tip. A gust of wind passed by, and the tea trees trembled. Dewdrops on the leaf tips flowed onto her fingertips. The air was filled with the smell of damp earth and the slightly bitter taste of tea leaves. She put away all her anxiety, and her heart gradually calmed down. She imagined what kind of decision Song Ting would make if he were here.
Nan Jiu scooped up the dark brown soil beneath the tea trees and sniffed it carefully. The soil was slightly cool, carrying the unique aroma of this tea mountain. She closed her palms, reverently grasping the lifeblood of the tea mountain, just as she tightly grasped Song Ting's hand.
Suddenly, a silent force burst out from the soil and flowed from her palm to her veins.
The sky gradually turned pale, and when the first ray of sunlight fell on the earth, she rekindled her fighting spirit.
......
Nanjiu returned to the cabin and washed his face. He sat back down at the table, turned on the lamp, and dug out the notebook he'd written down. He then began to analyze the costs and expected revenues of the two options, developing a risk model to assess their feasibility. Finally, he calculated the specific losses he'd incur under the worst-case scenario.
Before seven o'clock, Nan Jiu knocked on Uncle Ba's door. Uncle Ba was preoccupied and couldn't sleep well, so he got up early. When Aunt Qin came to open the door, Uncle Ba was sitting in the house drinking porridge. She stuck her head out and asked, "What time did you finish last night?"
"At night." Nan Jiu said casually, "Can you contact Director Liu and ask him to come over this morning so we can finalize the matter?"
Uncle Eight put down his bowl and said, "I'll call now."
That morning, the villagers of Ganjing Village all woke up early. Normally, with such a big mess happening, Boss Song wouldn't have failed to show up. Now that no one could contact him, all sorts of speculations were rampant among the villagers.
The tea fields were in turmoil yesterday. Rumor has it that Boss Song's wife rushed over that evening and held an all-night meeting with Manager Jiang and Zhang Jiang. The unclear decisions from above have left the tea farmers anxious, casting a shadow over the entire village.
Factory Director Liu arrived at the top of the mountain around eight o'clock, and Xiang Zhiyang attended the meeting on behalf of the village chief. Everyone initially gathered in the open space outside the office, and when most people had arrived, they gradually entered the meeting room inside.
Just as Nan Jiu was about to follow the others into the house, her cell phone suddenly rang in her pocket. She took out her phone, glanced at it, and answered the call from Grandpa Nan.
"Grandpa." Nan Jiu said as he strode away from the crowd and walked around to the side of the house.
"Song Ting just contacted me."
Nanjiu's voice immediately tightened: "Where is he? What happened?"
"There was a car accident."
Nanjiu's breathing stopped suddenly: "Is it serious?"
"I don't know the details. He used someone else's phone to report he was safe. He just said he wouldn't be back for the time being and asked me not to worry. How are things going over there?"
A long, dead silence fell on the receiver. Anxiety and worry weighed heavily on Nanjiu's chest. She gripped the phone, her wrist trembling slightly. After a few seconds, she took a deep breath, suppressing the turbulent emotions in her chest.
When she spoke again, her voice had calmed down, gathering into a reassuring force: "I'm here, it can be handled, don't worry."
"That's good. I'll tell you if he calls."
Nan Jiu's breathing was rising and falling rapidly. Just as Old Man Nan was about to hang up, she suddenly called out, "Grandpa," her heartbeat drumming in her chest. "I remember when I was eight years old and went back home, you once argued with a pockmarked man over a basket of tea drying in the doorway. He insisted it was his. Why did you choose to give him half in the end instead of fighting?"
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, and then the voice of Mr. Nan came: "You remember clearly that the man's face was not pockmarked, but a birthmark. He didn't come to reason, he came to ask for food.
"What's the point of arguing with him until the sun sets? The tea leaves are drying in the sun. Every moment I argue, they wilt a little more. If the whole basket of tea is ruined, no one will benefit. Why are you asking this?"
"Nothing, it just occurred to me. I'll hang up now."
Nanjiu held his cell phone tightly, standing quietly on a high place, overlooking this season of life.
For years, she'd been living in a battle she couldn't lose. She treated every project presentation as a life-or-death struggle; every negotiation she fought tooth and nail; every development opportunity she grasped at like a lifeline. Because she knew she had no one behind her, no escape route, no one to rely on. She had no choice but to win.
She was used to living her life as a never-ending battle of offense and defense, laying the foundation stones for victory one after another under her feet, never to let her feet dangle in the air again.
However, at this moment, as her eyes swept across the endless tea ridges, she suddenly realized that in this battle unlike any other, stopping losses might be more important than winning.
Nanjiu turned around and walked towards the meeting room again, and the dead light in her eyes gradually woke up.
Since Song Ting was able to make a phone call, it meant he was conscious. Therefore, he would face all the crises ahead of him; in the battle behind him, she would defend him.
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