Chapter 13 The Past
When I got to the side of the road, a taxi with an empty car sign just happened to drive by.
Jiang Zhao waved to stop him and got into the car.
Luo Yan held an umbrella and helped her to the car. Just as he was about to fold the umbrella and give it to her, Jiang Zhao had already closed the car door.
Luo Yan's hand holding the umbrella handle was suspended in the air when he saw Jiang Zhao open the window a little.
The wet evening breeze carried her laughter into my ears.
She waved: "Goodbye, deskmate."
Then he immediately turned around and gave the order: "Master, drive!"
The taxi sped away.
The driver looked at her several times before asking, "Where to?"
Jiang Zhao gave the address.
The cell phone rang, and as expected, it was Luo Yan calling.
Jiang Zhao answered the call, and Luo Yan asked on the other end, "Don't you want the umbrella anymore?"
Of course not.
Because she brought an umbrella.
Just put it in your schoolbag.
I sighed while studying because I was worried that it would keep raining and there might be traffic jams on my way home.
Jiang Zhao said calmly, "I just remembered I put my umbrella in my bag this morning."
There was silence on the other end for a moment: "Then I'll contact you when you get home."
"Okay, desk mate, see you after the holidays."
Jiang Zhao looked at the hung up phone and patted his blushing face.
The evening rush hour before the Mid-Autumn Festival, coupled with the rain, meant that a journey that should have taken half an hour took two hours to complete.
By the time Jiang Zhao got home, it was already completely dark.
There was no one at home.
Jiang Zhao turned on the light and put down his schoolbag.
She turned on her phone and a message popped up on the screen.
Luo Yan: Have you arrived?
Under the orange light, the girl curled her lips.
Jiang Zhao: We’re here.
————
The next day, Jiang Zhao got up early.
When she finished her Chinese and English papers, Jiang Wei hadn't come back.
Their house is over 160 square meters, with four bedrooms and a living room. It has a superior geographical location. It is the first house Jiang Wei bought in the new city. When he bought it, the surrounding area was still wasteland and the house price was only more than 3,000 yuan per square meter. Now it has risen to nearly 20,000 yuan.
From an investment perspective, it's a good deal.
But because few people live here all year round, it seems empty and deserted amidst the lively atmosphere of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Jiang Zhao finished her politics, history, and geography homework in one sitting yesterday after returning home. She stuffed the rest of her homework into her schoolbag, grabbed her bank card and her old Nokia flip phone, and headed out.
Jiang Zhao's old cell phone was left to her by Li Xiuying.
Li Xiuying has a heart disease and had it attack once before. She had a stent installed in her heart. It was very expensive. Li Xiuying said it cost more than 100,000 yuan.
Families in small towns simply cannot afford the blow of a serious illness. Li Xiuying's surgery drained the family's savings, and there is still the risk of recurrence.
Jiang Wei made up his mind and left his daughter, who had not yet started elementary school, to Li Xiuying, and went to the new city to work hard alone.
At first, he would come back during the holidays, but as his business grew bigger, sometimes he didn't even go back during the Chinese New Year.
Jiang Zhao and Li Xiuying became left-behind children and left-behind elderly people.
Tong'an County is very small, so small that it doesn't even need cars or buses. There are only two primary schools, one junior high school and one high school in the entire county.
Jiang Zhao is very smart. She doesn't need to study much to get the first place in Tong'an Primary School. Jiang Zhao is also very good-looking, with big eyes, long eyelashes, fair skin, a small mouth, and a little baby fat on her face. She looks like a doll in a New Year picture, the type that adults like.
All the neighbors know that the Jiang family has a very cute girl named Jiang Zhao. She is very smart and may be able to get into college in the future.
In Tong'an County, being able to get into university is already a great thing.
Little Jiang Zhao grew up carefree in Tong'an County, climbing trees in the mountains and fishing in the river, doing everything he could.
Children are outspoken, and occasionally people would tease her, saying that Jiang Wei was going to Xincheng to find her a "father" in a big city and that he didn't want her anymore. Jiang Zhao didn't take it seriously, and would just pick up her fists and beat the naughty boys until they screamed.
She could climb the tallest and thickest tree in Tong'an County, and catch the most fish from the river. At that time, Jiang Zhao thought that her life would continue like this carefree.
Until Li Xiuying suffered a second heart attack.
While Li Xiuying was cooking, she suddenly fell to the ground with her face turning blue and purple.
Jiang Zhao found Li Xiuying's medicine and gave it to her, but it didn't work. She was scared and started crying. She called Jiang Wei, but the call didn't go through, so she called 120.
But Tong'an County is very small, so small that there is only one hospital and one ambulance in the entire county.
Unfortunately, the ambulance had just been dispatched.
Jiang Zhao cried and knocked on her neighbor's door. When the door opened, she fell to her knees and said, "My grandma is dying."
The neighbors around them, like Jiang Zhao and Li Xiuying, are left-behind children and left-behind elderly men and women.
They don't have a car either.
Finally, the neighbor's uncle called a young man from the family, who carried Li Xiuying on his back and ran to the street while hailing a car.
Jiang Zhao followed behind and for the first time felt how big Tong'an County was.
By the time we got to the hospital, it was too late.
Li Xiuying is dead.
Jiang Wei's call finally got through, and he rushed back in the middle of the night.
Jiang Zhao held Li Xiuying's cell phone numbly, looking at Jiang Wei without saying a word.
Jiang Wei brought Jiang Zhao to the new city, paid a large sum of school selection fees, and sent Jiang Zhao to Mingyuan No. 1 Middle School.
The new city is so big that Jiang Wei almost has no time to go home.
His business grew bigger and bigger. He bought one house after another in the new city and rode the real estate boom, making countless money.
The once sky-high price of heart stent surgery is no longer worth mentioning.
But Li Xiuying was already dead.
In Xincheng, Jiang Zhao seemed to be doing everything wrong.
Her pigtails looked tacky, her grades were poor, and she didn't understand the various topics everyone discussed during recess.
Even when her head teacher praised her for doing the radio gymnastics seriously, the boys would still laugh at her for being stupid.
Once, a bug flew into the class and there was a scream in the classroom. Jiang Zhao caught the bug and threw it out of the window.
Others just looked at her with disgust, as if she was also the bug that flew in accidentally.
Twelve-year-old Jiang Zhao blamed everything on Jiang Wei.
She hates Jiang Wei.
——————
After eating, Jiang Zhao went to the bank first.
She had two cards, one of which was left to her by Li Xiuying, which contained the money Li Xiuying had saved, including Li Xiuying's pension and the living expenses transferred to Li Xiuying by Jiang Wei.
The other one was given to her by Jiang Wei after she arrived in the new city, and Jiang Zhao never used it.
I checked at the ATM and found that the total amount of the two bills was close to seven figures.
She went to a nearby mobile phone store, exchanged it for a smartphone, and then stuffed her old Nokia into her schoolbag.
When Jiang Zhao first came to the new city, Jiang Wei also bought her a mobile phone.
But that old Nokia was left by Li Xiuying. Not only was Jiang Zhao unwilling to change it, he also had a quarrel with Jiang Weida.
Jiang Wei wanted to hire a nanny to take care of her, but Jiang Zhao stubbornly refused and applied to live in the school dormitory herself.
She felt that Jiang Wei didn't love her at all.
Jiang Wei didn't have much education, but he made a name for himself in the new city through hard work, boldness and recklessness. He was a big shot in the business world, but when he saw his daughter who had become independent early on, no matter how eloquent he was, he didn't know what to say and could only express his concern by transferring money.
In Jiang Zhao's eyes, the difficulty in getting through on the phone and the few words they exchanged when they met meant that her father didn't care about her.
The two people who should have been the closest are drifting apart.
After changing his SIM card, Jiang Zhao did not go home. Instead, he found a coffee shop and downloaded WeChat while doing his homework.
At this moment, she felt a pair of eyes staring at her.
A boy was staring at her paper.
The boy looked no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, with dyed yellow hair, wearing earrings, and dressed in a loose sweatshirt and jeans, giving him a very hip-hop style.
Jiang Zhao asked, "Hello, what's going on?"
The boy took a step back: "No...it's okay. I was just watching you do math problems...I was trying to figure out how to do it."
After saying that, he ran to the order counter as if escaping.
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