Chapter Fifty-Six Dowry
After lunch, Jiang Chuan helped Lin Jianguo fix the dripping heating pipe. As usual, Grandma wanted to take a nap. Before taking a nap, she called Lin Yu to her room, mysteriously locked the door, and pulled her to sit on the edge of the bed.
With trembling, wrinkled hands, she pulled a yellowed handkerchief from under the pillow and placed it in Lin Yu's hand. Her expression was serious, as if she were handing over some important secret.
Lin Yu smiled and unfolded the handkerchief, but her expression turned serious when she saw what was inside. Lying in her palm were the pair of gold earrings that her grandmother used to wear most often when she was young.
She looked up at her grandmother's bare earlobes, and a pang of sadness welled up in her heart. "Grandma, this is your dowry..." Lin Yu quickly rewrapped the handkerchief and gently pushed it back. "You should keep it for yourself."
Lin Yu deliberately lowered her voice as she spoke, so her grandmother couldn't hear her clearly at first, and just kept stuffing the earrings into her arms. Seeing that Lin Yu wouldn't take them, she slapped her thigh in frustration, her cloudy eyes welling up with tears. "Disobedient! Disobedient! You've always been the one who causes Grandma the most worry!"
Lin Yu had no choice but to hold his grandmother's hand and patiently explain, "Grandma, I can't take it. My sister doesn't have any. If I take it and my uncle and aunt find out, it won't be right."
She blinked and laughed carefree. "Besides, I earn 80,000 a month in Shanghai, I have more money than I can spend!"
To reassure his grandmother, Lin Yu made up a story without any guilt. His grandmother's eyes reddened, and cloudy tears streamed down her face like rain seeping into cracked earth.
Her rough fingers gripped Lin Yu tightly. "My little grandson, silly child, your sister married well. You've been without parents since you were little, so pitiful! Grandma knows all this."
Lin Yu wanted to correct his grandmother, saying that he wasn't without parents, that they were just divorced, not deceased. But seeing his grandmother's tearful face, the words of explanation suddenly stuck in his throat.
She could only gently grasp her grandmother's deformed hand and tremble as she said, "I'm all grown up now, I'm not pitiful anymore!"
"Grandson-in-law is so smart! Grandma likes him!" Just as Lin Jianguo had said, Grandma would disagree with anything you said.
"Take this as your dowry and live a good life, and Grandma will be at ease!" After saying that, she pressed the earring back into Lin Yu's hand tightly, then covered it with her other hand and patted the back of Lin Yu's hand hard.
Lin Yu stared at the pair of earrings in her palm, which held all the old woman's affection. Wrapped in her grandmother's bent, deformed fingers, they burned her heart. Faced with her grandmother's expectations, she simply couldn't be honest about the true relationship between her and Jiang Chuan.
The room was stuffy from the heating. Lin Yu helped his grandmother lie down on her side on the bed and gently tucked her in with a thin blanket.
She sat on the edge of the bed, gently massaging her grandmother's knees, which were severely deformed from years of hard work, until she heard her grandmother snoring evenly. Then she got up, closed the door, and carefully put the pair of gold earrings into her pocket, intending to give them to her father later.
In the living room, Kiki, dressed as Princess Elsa, was obediently squatting by the sofa, intently playing with the Ultraman toy her older sister had bought for her. To avoid waking her great-grandmother, she even refrained from singing her favorite song, "Let It Go."
Lin Yu sat down next to her sister, and the two whispered some private words. After a while, Lin Jing got up to say goodbye.
Lin Yu stood up to see her off, holding his sister's slender wrist, as if they were back on those childhood summer nights when they shared a pillow and whispered secrets. "When my brother-in-law is less busy, I will definitely go to Beijing to see you and Aunt."
When they were little, their parents were too busy with work, so the two sisters were often left at their grandmother's house. They ate and lived together, played together during the day, and whispered secrets in the same bed at night. Their relationship was much closer than that of their brother Lin Kang, who lived abroad for many years.
Even though they live in different cities after growing up, whenever Lin Yu encounters difficulties or has troubles she can't talk about, besides Yao Fangfang, the first person she thinks of is her older sister Lin Jing.
Lin Jing bent down to tie Qiqi's scarf, a stray hair slipping from behind her ear. "He's busy all year round. You know, pharmaceutical sales representatives are always away from home. If they're not busy, they're not far from being unemployed."
She smiled helplessly, tucked her hair back, and her expression remained as gentle and quiet as in her youth, but she seemed to have lost some of her energy, exuding endless fatigue. "My parents keep urging me to find a job, but they won't come to help me take care of the child. Who will pick Qiqi up from school?"
To outsiders, Lin Jing's marriage was indeed a perfect example. Her sister and brother-in-law met when they were still relatively unknown. At that time, her sister was studying at an art academy, and her outstanding temperament attracted many suitors, while her brother-in-law was just an unknown junior college student studying an unpopular major that would lead to unemployment after graduation.
But he was quick-witted and, after graduation, through self-study, switched careers to become a pharmaceutical sales representative. He rose from an unknown junior college student to a mid-level manager in a pharmaceutical company earning millions, which made his parents, who had opposed the marriage, change their minds and praise him.
It was truly a case of turning the tables and finally getting revenge, but whether this pent-up anger would backfire on his sister was something Lin Yu didn't know.
The talented woman who held a solo art exhibition at the art academy back then seemed unwilling to be a housewife. However, her parents-in-law were bedridden for many years, and her own parents always used their busy business to excuse themselves from taking care of the child.
Like a butterfly caught in a spider's web, she gradually forgot how to flap her wings in the cycle of diapers and baby food, wasting her youth and ideals in the daily grind.
She suddenly thought of Yao Fangfang. Their situations were different yet similar. She wanted to ask Fangfang if she was experiencing the same predicament. The elevator doors slowly closed, swallowing up the figures of Lin Jing and her daughter.
Lin Yu's fingertips touched the gold earrings in her pocket; the cold touch reminded her of her grandmother's words about marrying well. But what exactly meant by "well"? Lin Yu couldn't quite figure it out for a moment.
Kiki's fallen crystal crown lay forlornly on the windowsill, the winter sunlight filtering through its sharp edges and casting fragmented patches of light on the floor.
After seeing his sister off, Lin Yu returned to the living room and found that Jiang Chuan had already fixed the heating pipes and was squatting next to the washing machine tightening screws. Lin Jianguo stood to the side with his hands behind his back, his eyes full of admiration: "Little Jiang, I didn't expect you lawyers to be so capable with your hands!"
Lin Yu leaned against the doorframe, watching Jiang Chuan skillfully pack up his tools, and couldn't help but chuckle. She walked between the two, handed him a glass of water, and deliberately mimicked Jiang Chuan's tone. "The principles of things are all similar. What's so difficult about fixing an appliance!"
Jiang Chuan washed his hands, tucked a stray hair behind his ear, took the warm water Lin Yu handed him, and said modestly with a smile, "I used to fix all the appliances at home myself when they broke down, but I've gotten rusty over the years, so please excuse me, Uncle."
Lin Yu knew that Lin Jianguo had always been prejudiced against liberal arts students who were only good at talking. He thought they were bookworms who crammed into textbooks, and while they might have some connection to poetry and art, they were ultimately socialist waste discarded by the division of arts and sciences.
But at this moment, looking at the rare look of appreciation in her father's eyes, she suddenly realized that Jiang Chuan was gradually dismantling Lin Jianguo's stereotype of liberal arts students.
With nothing to do in the afternoon, Lin Jianguo kept the stewed food warm on the stove and sorted out his grandmother's medicines, planning to show this "tourist" guest from Shanghai the scenery of the border.
......
The car slowly drove out of the town. Lin Yu looked up at the clear blue sky, a blue so pure that it was impossible to see in Shanghai. But she was optimistic by nature and always had a knack for finding a unique romantic tone for each city.
She explained this by saying that the neon lights in Shanghai are like fallen stars, while the stars in her hometown are like neon lights hanging in the sky; each has its own beauty, it's just a matter of adapting to local conditions.
It takes about two hours to drive from home to the border. The road to the border is deserted and quiet. Most families are still immersed in the festive atmosphere of visiting relatives and friends and will not go out until after the third day of the Lunar New Year.
But Lin Jianguo had always disdained these customs; he had always lived by his own beliefs. Jiang Chuan sat in the passenger seat, chatting with Lin Jianguo about border trade, the conspicuous SpongeBob patch on his shoulder appearing and disappearing with his movements.
Lin Yu quietly reached out from the back seat, his fingers tracing the comical patch, which Lin Min must have randomly found among Lin Yu's old belongings.
She knew that Lin Min wasn't very good with her hands, and that her own laziness was a perfect manifestation of this recessive gene. But optimistically, at least the down jacket wouldn't leak any more feathers.
Jiang Chuan felt a touch on his shoulder and turned to meet Lin Yu's smiling eyes. He paused slightly, followed her gaze to his shoulder, and couldn't help but smile, mouthing silently, "You really are your mother's daughter!"
As soon as the car came to a stop, Lin Yu eagerly jumped out and exhaled a puff of white mist into the crisp air. The clash of warm and cold air currents in front of Lin Yu obscured her smiling face in the misty haze, making her appear both real and unreal.
The three slid down the riverbank slope onto the frozen river, where an endless white world stretched out beneath their feet. A low barbed wire fence divided the ice in two, and on the other side lay foreign land.
“When spring comes, anglers will come here to ice fish,” Lin Jianguo said, pointing to the thick ice. “The fish caught when the river opens are very delicious. I’ll definitely take you to try them next time I come back.”
Jiang Chuan gazed at the lonely watchtower in the distance. He realized that this important border defense area was so tranquil, with only the white snow connecting the horizon.
"How is it? Is it as I imagined?" Lin Yu leaned closer and lightly touched his nose, which was red from the cold, with her fingertips. She sighed inwardly, thinking how poor he was, a southerner, to suffer with her in this freezing weather of minus thirty degrees Celsius.
Jiang Chuan gazed at the boundless snowfield and said calmly, "It was indeed unexpected."
"What?" Lin Yu tilted his head curiously. "Did you think there would be heavy guards? Standing in a long line along the riverbank?"
Lin Jianguo raised his camera and waved to them from in front of the boundary marker. Lin Yu skipped over, leaning half his body against the weathered stone, and waved to Jiang Chuan. "Come on, slowpoke!"
Jiang Chuan slowly stepped forward and stood opposite her. Lin Jianguo raised his camera, placing the two of them on the left side of the frame, with the boundless frozen river behind them.
The moment the shutter clicked, Jiang Chuan suddenly took Lin Yu's hand, which was behind the monument. She turned around in surprise and met Jiang Chuan's gentle gaze. The camera captured the moment when the two were gazing at each other.
On the way back, the morning coffee lost its effect, and Lin Yu finally succumbed to sleepiness, tilting his head to the side and falling into a deep sleep.
Jiang Chuan gazed at the spectacular rime ice scenery flashing past the window. Glistening ice crystals adorned the branches, heavy with snow, like silver petals blooming between heaven and earth. The entire snowfield was silent, as if he had fallen into a fairy tale wonderland, with only a serene white expanse between heaven and earth.
"You guys are lucky," Lin Jianguo's voice came from the driver's seat. "This kind of frost formation requires a sudden change in temperature."
Jiang Chuan withdrew his gaze, politely looked at Lin Jianguo and smiled, "It's already a rare treat to see such a snow scene; anything more would just be icing on the cake."
Encountering the beauty of nature requires a stroke of luck; mountains and rivers possess a spirit, not easily revealing themselves. If they close their doors to visitors, no matter how hard you search, you'll never catch a glimpse of their true form. But conversely, a breathtaking sight may appear around any corner. Perhaps the most beautiful encounters can never be planned.
Lin Jianguo nodded, glancing at the sleeping Lin Yu in the rearview mirror. "Banban has a stubborn temper, you'll have to be more tolerant. You know about me and her mother..."
"Uncle, don't worry." Jiang Chuan turned to look out the window at the snow-covered ground gradually bathed in golden light at dusk. His voice was gentle yet firm. "We'll get better and better from now on!"
......
After returning home and having dinner, Lin Yu chatted with his grandmother in the room, while Lin Jianguo pulled Jiang Chuan to the study. Jiang Chuan saw him take an old camera out of the drawer in front of his desk.
"Xiao Jiang, do you think you can use this?" On the way back, Lin Jianguo heard that Jiang Chuan was also interested in photography, and suddenly remembered that he had a Canon P that had been gathering dust at home for a long time.
Jiang Chuan stepped forward, carefully took the camera, and examined it closely. "Purely mechanical?"
Seeing that he recognized its value, Lin Jianguo couldn't help but smile. "It was bought a few years ago when Sheng Banban was alive. It's not worth much now. If you like it, take it. Go back and oil the parts. If it works, then use it."
These types of cameras rely on manual film advance and a mechanical shutter, requiring no battery power. As long as the core components are working properly, they should function normally. He tested the shutter speed and checked the film magazine and viewfinder, concluding that there were no major issues.
As I looked up, my gaze inadvertently swept over the bookshelf beside me. I saw the neatly arranged control specifications and atlases inside, and they looked familiar. I remembered seeing similar books in Lin Yu's room.
Lin Jianguo followed his gaze. "Interested?"
Jiang Chuan withdrew his gaze and shook his head. "I saw him at Banban's place."
"Oh..." Lin Jianguo walked over, randomly pulled out a book from the pile, and flipped through it. "Uncle did purely technical work at his previous company, so he had to know a little bit about everything. I've seen those blueprints before, and the principles are basically all there."
Jiang Chuan noticed a thin layer of dust on the cover, and the edges of the pages were slightly yellowed. "You haven't read this book in a long time?"
Lin Jianguo paused, then chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Back in the Environmental Protection Bureau, I was always buried in technical blueprints, completely oblivious to interpersonal relationships. Even when colleagues tried to trip me up, I didn't take it to heart. I thought as long as my technical skills were solid, nothing else mattered..."
Lin Jianguo paused, his fingers unconsciously tracing the edge of the book. "In the end, things didn't go well at work, and she was always arguing with her mother when she got home. They eventually got divorced, and she was transferred to another unit. Gradually, she stopped using these things."
"But back then, my skills were among the best in the bureau."
“I’ve heard Banban mention it before,” Jiang Chuan replied softly.
Lin Jianguo sighed, shook his head, and put the book back on the shelf, his expression somewhat forlorn. "There's no point in talking about this now."
“Actually, Banban’s current job also uses similar technical principles,” Jiang Chuan said thoughtfully. “Perhaps you can offer some advice on her career path.” His words implied an intention to ease the unspoken tension between father and daughter.
Lin Jianguo turned to look at Jiang Chuan, his gaze carrying a deeper meaning. He didn't speak, but nodded thoughtfully and patted Jiang Chuan on the shoulder.
During the two days that Lin Yu stayed at Lin Jian's house, she gave her bedroom to Jiang Chuan again without hesitation, while she squeezed into the same big bed with her grandmother.
Falling asleep each night to the familiar sound of her grandmother's breathing, a long-lost sense of peace welled up within her. She knew that the number of times she could see her grandmother was dwindling, making her cherish these two precious nights all the more.
On the morning of the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, Lin Yu bid farewell to his father's family. His grandmother's withered fingers gripped the door frame tightly as she wiped her eyes with her faded sleeve. Lin Yu couldn't bear to look any longer and quickly pulled Jiang Chuan downstairs, carrying the local specialties that Lin Jianguo had bought for them.
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