The Qilian Mountains are very long, stretching from the Tibetan area into Gansu Province. It is said to be the place where dragons were slayed in the pre-Qin period.
No one knows whether there really were dragons in ancient times. Zhao Yulin only knows that standing on the highest building in this small county town, looking at a corner of the mountain range from a distance, he can feel the deep sadness and desolation.
Although the scenery there is actually very beautiful.
After staying in the small county town for three days, Chen Siyao's mood has completely eased and returned to normal, but he looks towards the sky from time to time.
Zhao Yulin was unwilling to continue to speculate. No matter how he guessed, no one would tell him whether he was right or not. It was all in vain. Later, he thought about it carefully. Who was Qiu Baima to Chen Siyao? It had nothing to do with him. The biggest use was to satisfy his curiosity.
"Here."
The group stood at the crossroads of the county road. Zhao Yulin threw a lollipop into the air, using the method of immortals pointing the way to decide where to go next. He
had also thrown a lighter before. It was too hot and thrown too high, so it exploded when it landed.
The candy landed, and one end of the candy pointed to the left of the crossroads.
With the direction, everyone got on the car. The military jeep continued on the road and turned to the left. When it came to a fork in the road, Zhao Yulin made the choice based on his intuition. After twists and turns, he saw the road sign a few hours later and entered Aba Prefecture in Sichuan.
There were very few vehicles on the road, perhaps because the two places were far apart. Most people would take faster means of transportation such as airplanes and trains to go back and forth.
The military jeep drove faster and faster, but on the long road, it was like an ant crawling on a thin line, moving little by little.
The surrounding wilderness was desolate, and the jeep became a lonely ascetic monk.
Sun Leling had never seen the scenery of the hilly area before, and she seemed particularly excited. She leaned on the car window and looked outside. The air rushed into the fast-moving car through the window, turning into a whistling wind, ruffling her hair and making her smile bright and blooming.
Yanjing is a plain, mostly flat and vast, and moving further south is to the seaside. There is a famous big river Dongyue in the nearby Shandong Province, which is majestic and fierce.
The scenery in the southwest region is similar to it, but the temperament is different.
"You are at least a little princess in the upper class, can you not be so ignorant and excited?"
Zhao Yulin looked up at the rearview mirror and took in Sun Leling's expression of a mountain kid coming to the city.
He just didn't believe that with the huge wealth of the Sun Group, Sun Chongyue would not take his daughter to see all the beautiful scenery in the world.
"What's wrong with being ignorant? Ignorance means that I am naive!" Sun Leling's head left the window screen and retreated into the car to argue with the driver.
Zhao Yulin curled his lips and smiled without saying anything.
Those who reason with women are all idiots, and he is not stupid.
Ignorance and naivety are always two different things. Sun Leling cannot fail to understand. Since she said so, it is obvious that the quiet journey is a bit boring and she deliberately wants to provoke a fight.
Zhao Yulin didn't have the leisure time to chat with the eldest lady. He picked up the functional drink from the side and took two sips, stepped on the accelerator and continued to rush forward, trying to reach an inhabited city or town before dark.
At eight o'clock in the evening, the wilderness came to an end, and the jeep crossed the bridge and drove into a village.
Wen County received support after the earthquake, and the situation is much better than five years ago. There are beautiful small buildings everywhere. Although the mountainous area is still a mountainous area, there is no poverty and backwardness at all.
Zhao Yulin found a family with young people, chatted with them for a few words, gave them money, and then he had a place to stay for the night.
The hilly area is not like the area where the provincial capital Tianfu is located. There are steep slopes of mountains heading south everywhere. In ancient times, it was a natural barrier to protect Bashu from war and disasters, which made the poet sigh that the road to Shu is difficult, as difficult as ascending to heaven. But today, the inconvenience of transportation has become a major problem hindering development.
"Life is not easy. If you go up the mountain to dig the land, you may fall to the bottom of the slope if you are not careful. Those grass uncles will scratch you all over!"
Tibetans and Qiangs are hospitable. A group of young men and women from the capital came to the house. The neighbors around came to visit this family, drink and eat meat, and chat about trivial matters at the table.
There were not many people in the first place, and the great disaster that year took away countless lives. The survivors had the conditions, and most of them moved to Tianfu or nearby cities. Naturally, there were even fewer people who stayed in their hometowns and were unwilling to leave their hometowns.
"Our place is not a scenic spot. It is only lively during the New Year. It is really rare to have a few guests."
The head of the family is a middle-aged man in his fifties. He drinks sorghum wine, and his face is full of the vicissitudes of life.
Someone from the neighborhood interrupted, "It's rare for someone to come and liven things up. Kunwazi, I heard that you brought the person in. Did you not charge him any money?"
Kunwazi was the young man Zhao Yulin was dealing with. He was the adopted son of this family. He was in his twenties and looked a little uneasy.
"He didn't charge me any money. I wanted to give him money, but he got so angry that he almost hit me." Zhao Yulin's lips touched the wine glass and he answered for him in a weak voice.
Kunwazi looked at the man and nodded.
The neighbor laughed and said to Zhao Yulin in a half-sounding Mandarin, "Don't blame me, little brother. People outside say that we have strange tempers. I say we are honest. Just eat and drink when you come!"
Zhao Yulin curled his lips and gave a polite smile without saying anything.
After the banquet, the housewife made the beds and tidied the rooms for the young people from the capital to move in. Outside the window, in the yard downstairs, the older people who had nothing to do were drinking tea and chatting about after-dinner things. It was a little noisy, but lively.
Sun Leling liked the hustle and bustle. Although she didn't participate, she just watched and felt it.
In recent years, Sun Chongyue has become increasingly busy, and naturally has less time to spend with his daughter. Sun Leling lives a life of a young lady with no worries about food and clothing. Every day, she looks at the villa, which is deserted and empty. She doesn't get bored or annoyed, but she always gets tired of it.
Otherwise, Zhao Yulin would not have left only a little money for gas and gave all the rest of the cash on him to this family - tonight's banquet is his treat.
"Brother-in-law, let me tell you something amazing."
Zhou Yidian came over stealthily with his cell phone, as if he was going to tell a big secret.
Zhao Yulin leaned on the edge of the bed with his arms folded, looking at the dozen or so ordinary faces of people in the yard downstairs. Some of them had red faces and ears, and they were a bit unbridled after drinking. Some of them were pale and looked very gentle. After changing their clothes, they didn't look like hardworking farmers in the mountains.
"Speak."
"Don't look at this remote place, there is actually wireless network! Look!"
Zhou Yi held out his cell phone to him at one o'clock. It showed that it was connected to the wireless network and the game was already opened: "Come on, let's play together. I'll help you become the king!"
Zhao Yulin had no interest in this matter at all. He shook his head, took out his cell phone, opened the most popular mobile game at the time, clicked twice, and handed it to his brother-in-law: "If you are talking about this king, then there's no need, I'm already one."
The screen was colorful, with an icon and a few words: Glorious King, and below it was a golden five-pointed star, multiplied by seventy.
"Seventy-star king!"
Zhou Yidian went crazy at that moment, hugged Zhao Yulin's arm and pretended to be pitiful: "Master, please lead me!"
Zhao Yulin raised his eyebrows and asked: "Aren't you one yourself?"
Zhou Yidian said embarrassedly: "I'm just pretending, my rank is actually only platinum..."
Then he showed his rank to Zhao Yulin, which was platinum with two stars.
"Brother-in-law, take me with you. I will find you a sister-in-law when you return to school next semester."
Zhao Yulin waved his hands to refuse. It was not that he did not want to take me with him, but that he was powerless: "I can't play this. There is a friend who is very talented in playing this kind of game. He downloaded it from my mobile phone some time ago."
When he was still in Yanjing, every time he went to the Tomans Hotel, his mobile phone would be taken away by Luman. This mobile game was also downloaded by Luman to play, and it had nothing to do with him.
Zhou was a little disappointed, but after a while, he came to his senses again and hugged his brother-in-law's big arms again: "Then when will you introduce me to the master?"
"Let's talk about it when we return to Yanjing."
Zhao Yulin pulled his hand back and lay on the windowsill. In a blink of an eye, he saw a small head sticking out from another room.
Sun Leling waved at him with a sweet smile.
Knock, knock, knock~
There was a knock on the door.
Zhou went to open the door at 1:00 am. Standing outside was Kun Wazi, who looked embarrassed and stammered as if he wanted to say something.
"What's the matter, brother?"
Zhao Yulin saw this and stepped forward to ask in the local accent, but unfortunately he didn't imitate it well.
The tall and thin young man rubbed his pocket, took out a stack of red banknotes and handed them to him: "My dad said, you are guests, you can't accept this money."
Zhao Yulin frowned and said, "I gave it to me, and you are returning it to me. It's not right."
Kun Wazi was obviously the type who was not good at argument, and said stubbornly: "You take it back."
Zhao Yulin shook his head and pushed back the other person's hand holding the banknotes: "I don't like to owe others. The banquet tonight costs a lot, and there is no reason to let you bear it."
Of course, these words were not what he meant. He had been poor since he was a child with Old Man Feng, but he was not used to being poor. He loved money more than his own father. If he said that he didn't feel sorry at all after giving away this stack of bills, he would be lying.
But you can't take advantage of everything in this world.
"If your father doesn't want it, just keep it for yourself. You can always use it in the future. You can't let your parents pay for all the expenses after you find a partner, right?" He declined again.
At the banquet, everyone talked about it. They said that Kunwazi had just met a girl on a blind date recently. They were both quite satisfied with each other. The two parents have already met and are discussing getting married at the end of the year.
It seems that they just finished the engagement banquet yesterday.
In the words of Kunwazi's father, the girl Kunwazi is dating is good in every way, except that she is very good at spending money.
At the engagement party, the girl asked for a small red envelope, which was lower than the average standard in Wen County. As a result, after dinner, the girl took Kunwazi to stroll around the county town for a day, and the old couple spent all the 3,000 yuan they gave their son, and the key point was that they hadn't bought anything big.
It seems that it is a waste of money and extravagance, but it is not entirely a problem of outdated concepts.
However, Zhao Yulin is a complete outsider to this village. Family members care about each other. He is unwilling to point fingers at other people's parents, and he is not as nagging as many people who worry about trivial matters. As a passerby, the greatest kindness he can give is this stack of red banknotes.
"Thank you, Brother Zhao."
Kunwazi's movements and expressions were awkward, but he still put the money back into his trouser pocket.