Scarecrow (novella)

When I walked into the store, I took out a USB stick from my trouser pocket and handed it to the boss, telling him that I wanted to print a photo.

He looked up from the computer he had been staring at and looked at me twice before he stretched out his hand, slowly. It was a man in his thirties, with a black thorn on his chin, slightly chubby, wearing a loose blue crewneck long T-shirt and a black baseball cap with a beer brand logo on it.

After inserting the USB flash drive into the jack on the case, he quickly scrolled the mouse wheel with his index finger. Then he asked me two questions about the photo. I replied as I looked at the tiny photo shop.

Like all photo shops in such places, its old, dusty, outdated photographs are scattered in prominent places all over the walls, large and small. The young women in red-purple gowns struck in seductive or gentle poses, smiling slightly, the light dimly shining on their faces, and the fake pearl necklaces around their necks glittered.

He said a price that I could accept. I quickly paid for it, took the receipt, and made an appointment to pick up the photos. As I was about to step out of the store, I folded back.

"What else do you need?" He had gotten up, his eyes glancing over me, fixed on something behind me.

I turned around and saw an old farmer picking two bamboo baskets. Inside is an orchid-like plant with pale yellow flowers.

"Do you sell photo albums?" I turned my head back again and asked the boss.

"What?" He didn't seem to hear me clearly, and his gaze returned to mine.

"Albums. Photo studios sometimes sell photo albums. Right? "I don't know what to say. I've never bought any photo albums in a photo studio. It's not a stationery store. I felt like I was stupid.

"Nope." He said. He walked to the door and stopped the old flower farmer who was about to go away.

I waited in front of the store and watched him trot over, pick a bunch from the basket of orchids, and smell it.

When he returned to the store with a red plastic bag filled with bluegrass, he looked like a different person, with joy and apology on his face, smiled at me, and asked me to sit down on an empty chair. Instead of sitting, I stood at his side, pointed to an online shopping page hidden in the computer's taskbar, and said, "Albums." You can buy a few online and sell them to me. ”

He gave him an incredulous expression. Then, he sat down and straightened his slightly crooked black baseball cap.

"Wouldn't it be better for you to buy it yourself, why bother with this?" As he spoke, he clicked on the webpage and typed "album" into the search bar.

What shall I say? Do you have to explain what happened to me? At least partially. Tell me where I live and why it's not convenient to shop online.

I live in Xianyu Village. I say. He immediately understood and nodded. Xianyu, that mountain village. He knew what it was. The car doesn't work, and there is not even a cell phone signal.

"How did you live there? Very few young people still live there. It's so remote. ”

"Oh, my grandmother is there. I'm not a local. "Are you here to play? Holiday? ”

"Hmm. Holiday. "Whenever I was asked, I would answer like that.

"Good view there. You did a good job of taking pictures. ”

He didn't say anything more, and he didn't plan to inquire into the secrets of the customers who suddenly came to his shop to print these brainless pictures of landscapes and still lifes.

Soon he placed an order and took my share of the money I paid him without any additional charges. This makes me feel a little embarrassed.

"It's rare to have time for a holiday. Stay a few more days and take more photos. I'll give you a discount the next time you come to print. The solemn look he had before was gone, as if he had taken me as a regular customer.

I nodded and smiled.

Yes, I'll have to stay for a while. I'm afraid, it's not just "for a while".

More than a month ago, I was in S City, living in a normal but well-equipped rental house. Like many young people my age in the city (I've been out of college for a little over a year and I'm not yet twenty-five). I have a job to support myself as a real estate agent in a Hong Kong real estate company. God knows how hot-headed I got into this job. When I was in college, I didn't think I'd sell houses and talk to strangers about houses every day. I haven't lived in that house at all, but I want to tell them about its benefits, how comfortable it is, how bright the sun is from what time it is, how good the floor is, how new the furniture is, how good the water heater will be left to you at home, and what are the advantages of this brand of water heater. I'm not selling the house, it's the wonder and comfort in this house and the great future it represents. It's as if I've lived in it for years and how deep my affection is for it. But many times, like them, I was in that house for the first time. All the words are played on the spot in the style of an actor.

Before this job, I didn't know I had the ability. I made money from clients, used it to pay my rent, and lived in a small room in a busy area. I lived my little life. Not long after, Yaya went to S City to join me.

Yaya was my junior high school classmate. We were very good then. I took the train to her house once, and when I came back, I almost lost myself.

She had forgotten about it, though. Even the time I went to her house was wrong, she said that I went to the third year of junior high school, after the high school entrance examination.

I remember very well that it was the summer vacation at the end of the first year of junior high school. After getting the report card, Yaya took me to her house to play.

My father didn't object, he was quite supportive of me going out to play, and I had to relax when I was on vacation. Besides, Yaya's parents are also known to my father, and when I go to her house, what is he worried about?

It was a bit far, and I had to take a train from my town to the town next door, and then walk a few miles back to Yaya's village. On the way to the train, she told me the route, afraid that I would be tired, and repeatedly emphasized that it was not far, only thirty or forty minutes. At that time, she had a childlike hair and wore a plastic headband with a cute bow. I followed this lovely and enthusiastic female classmate and happily went to take the train. After three days of idyllic life at her house, the last day I went shopping in that town, bought some snacks and a pair of bright yellow hairpins and reluctantly said goodbye, and I took the return train home. It was that train that made me cry so much that I shed all the tears of that year.

Yaya didn't tell me—she didn't tell me something so important—that not all the doors of the carriages would open when the train stopped at the small station where I was going to get off.

You'll want to find a door that is about to open in advance (the conductor usually stands at the door in advance). I didn't find the door in a minute, and the train started moving again. I was terrified and burst into tears.

The conductor and most of the passengers ignored me crying. I was crying against the hard green seat, and the fat middle-aged man in the conductor's red armband was chatting hotly with a woman in a floral dress. The afternoon sun shone in through the car window and cast on my bare arms, scorching. I didn't move my arms, I was still leaning on the spot. It seems that the heat of the arm can counteract the panic in the heart. The car stopped at one deserted stop after another.

I didn't have the courage to get out of the car. There are countless forks in the railroad tracks, and you have to go in which direction to get to the place called home.

Luckily, I didn't lose myself. Finally, I got off the train at the county station. Asked all the way, inquired all the way, and with the help of well-wishers, I finally got on the minibus home. I don't blame Yaya. I think she probably forgot. Maybe it's because we're too excited on vacation, or maybe we're having too much fun. When you're happy, it's easy to forget.

The matter passed quickly.

The effect it had on me was that I thought all the bad things that happened after that had something to do with it. For a while, I thought about it, thinking that the best could become the worst in an instant. Even if I'm Antaitai, even if I'm happy, even if I'm doing so well in grades, I can mess everything up because of something as trivial as a fallen leaf falling on my head. I'm worried about messing up. In the end, it did mess up. I had a hard time in high school, and finally went to a third-rate university to study accounting. This surprised all those who have known me since childhood. After all, they think I'm going to a major university.

After graduating from university, I worked as a real estate agent for a real estate agency.

Being a real estate agent isn't a bad thing, Yaya and I said. When she first came to me, I behaved very positively, towards her, for life, and for work. I'm busy, full, every day is full, and every day is full of anticipation for another day to come. Those who may sign the list may be picked by someone. Well. Very good. I say.

Well, that's good. Even now, I'm saying something similar. After coming out of the photo studio, I went to an internet café near the vegetable market and emailed Yaya.

My grandmother's house was in a very remote mountain village. It was the first time I had come to such a remote place. There is no other way to get there except a small dirt road that is spacious and only accessible to people and cannot be driven, and of course, there is also a road on the other side of the mountain, which is to follow the stream that flows down from the mountain, which is not a road. It's just a road that cattle graze in the mountains often walk. The pine branches are tied with red and yellow bands. Traces of travelers. Travelers like such barren mountains and mountains, right? Barren mountains and mountains. Hehe, I actually live in such a place. Not sure how long I can stay.

It's nothing, nothing to do every day. Maybe stay a little longer and find something you can do. I had to get acquainted with my grandmother slowly. I was like a sudden intruder.

I hope it doesn't mess up her life......

E-mails are written in advance on a laptop and stored on a USB stick. The letter is long. I have a lot of time to pass every day. I sat in my uncle's room, by the old desk, writing emails to Yaya on my laptop. Like a writer, wishful thinking weaves the present and the past. When I got to the Internet café and copied the letter into the email, I changed my mind and deleted more than half of it, leaving behind mostly daily records like a running account. Then click Send.

In just a second or two, the mail arrived at Yaya. If she's in front of her office computer, she'll see the tick of a new email arriving right away. If she's in class, it's not for sure. Today is Tuesday. After work, she had to go to Du Feng's house first to tutor his daughter for two hours. On the way, she would find a small shop to eat a bowl of noodles. Thinking of this, I got up and left the Internet café to go to the vegetable market.

I can give Yaya a call. When I got to town, with the signal, my phone came alive again. Last night I filled my phone to full. I've figured out a few people to call. Call Yaya, or call a customer you know in S City for work reasons. My farewell more than a month ago was rude and irresponsible. They trusted me and bought house after house from me, their own, their friends' and relatives'. Many of their houses are still in my possession. They used to be very warm to me, as if I was such an important person to them.

They may be treating the person who takes over my job with the same enthusiasm. Xiao Li, Lily, Cindy, Ah Qian. A few familiar faces appeared in my head.

After coming out of the market and smelling the air that suddenly became fresh, it occurred to me that it was completely unnecessary to call and explain these things to customers. They won't be missing even the tiniest corner of their lives because they don't have me. Even if I go back, they won't be my customers. I haven't thought about whether to go back or whether to go back to my old job. I haven't thought about the rest of the story until now. When I left, I was so quick and decisive that I didn't give myself room to think. Whether you want it or not, right or wrong. People sometimes have to make a decision. When I resigned and returned the rented house, the contract had not expired, and I did not greet the landlord three months in advance, and I didn't even find the landlord for the subtenant, so I just left. I paid a few thousand dollars in liquidated damages. Looks like I'm not going to do anything. I threw away my life in that city, my one-bedroom rental, my big supermarket, the colorful fruits and vegetables, the fresh food shelves, the buy-one-get-one-free discounted vegetables with fine purple tape, and the discounted bread after 6 p.m.

The mood of calling Yaya was worn out in the crankiness. I looked at the people in the town, who were squeezing around a not wide market street, calm and elated.

Before going up the mountain, I sent a text message to Yaya to remind her to receive emails.

My grandmother was waiting for me at home. She sat on a bamboo chair in the doorway. As soon as they saw me from afar, they stood up.

I trotted all the way to her. She also walked towards me with the kind of small steps that are characteristic of old people. The thin body was stretched slender in the twilight sun. The slender black shadows streaked across the nightshade bushes, the cacti growing wildly by the tiles, the half-dried red peppers scattered in the bamboo plaques, and the hens pecking at the invisible insects on the ground, slowly brushed on my face. The moment I was graying down my forehead with tiny beads of sweat, she stopped. The silver strands of hair shone golden.

I looked at her and smiled. I must, must be, look at her and smile silly like a little child. I couldn't resist the urge to do it. While laughing, I opened the big cloth bag I carried with me and showed her the results of my purchase from the mountain. A small bag of pork ribs, a dozen dried fragrant herbs, a few pieces of lotus root, and a bunch of small mushrooms with white flowers and round flowers.

After receiving her compliment, I took her in my arms and walked back to our house with our shadows.

The sight was tearful.

When I was a child, I didn't remember my grandmother.

My grandmother gave birth to a total of three children. My mother is the second-oldest. My younger uncle went to study in a big city in the north and ended up staying there and starting a family. My mother married away from home. Only the eldest uncle remained in the land where he was born. He did not stay in his grandmother's mountain village, but went to the county seat, made a fortune by doing a small business, and later opened an auto repair shop. And my grandmother, after my grandfather's death, guarded this almost crumbling old house alone, guarding the village where there were fewer and fewer people. She's not going anywhere. It seems that in this place, loneliness has also become a grass and a tree, and it has become a necessity to stay with heaven and earth, mountains, white clouds and streams all year round, and I don't feel so lonely after all.

My uncle can't go back a few times a year. My uncle and my mother can't count on it.

I'm here. She was both surprised and happy. Her ears are not very good. When I received a phone call, I misheard the daughter of another relative, and then misheard the time I arrived. She wasn't at home when I arrived, so she went to the vegetable patch to pick vegetables. But no one in this village has a locked door, so I went into the house I had seen in the photo, carried a bamboo chair to her door, and sat and waited for her.

My grandmother's house is not difficult to find, she said on the phone, there is a gardenia taller than me at the door.

The huge gardenia, adorned with swollen, plump buds, and its dark green, silent leaves glittered in the sun. The leaves are clean, and there are no insects, except for some traces left by spiders in some parts, and some thin transparent winding silk webs. It stood there, surprisingly vigorous, and so strong that it made my heart weak. A few buds have already revealed their white insides, and they may bloom tomorrow.

I leaned over and smelled it. Think about whether this is a double-petaled gardenia or a single-petaled gardenia, and when it was planted.

Then, once again, I weaved what I should say when I met my grandmother. I was apprehensive. It's true. Sitting on the cool bamboo chair, I started to really get nervous. I don't behave like a normal person. She might think she has a weird granddaughter. I'll have to find a plausible excuse. Come out and breathe, relax for a while, or find a quiet place to study and improve?

Or, she doesn't care about any of this, she's here alone, I'll be with her, and she'll be happy for that alone, right? She is not the kind of old man who is demanding of her juniors, otherwise, how could she agree to her daughter marrying so far?

I haven't seen her a few times since I was born. My impression of her is limited to the photos in her mother's photo album. She and her house. And what she looks like now is a far cry from the photo. Only her voice is familiar. Over the years, my mother had regularly sent her pictures of us. Every Spring Festival, I would call my grandmother to pay New Year's greetings, and always let me speak a few dry words of blessings to her on the phone.

After thinking about it for a while, I heard my name called behind me. I looked back. In the vague smell of the unopened jaws, a small, thin old man walked towards me, walking as fast as she could, beyond her natural frequency, carrying a bamboo basket of vegetables. I suddenly became restrained and embarrassed, and didn't immediately walk towards her.

There was some distance between us, and she must have just come out of the corner of the house diagonally opposite, and when she saw me, she called me, and I should at least trot over and take the basket from her hand.

But I was stunned, looking at the slightly strange old man.

It seemed like there were just two of us in the whole village. Only the sound of my grandmother's cloth shoes rubbing against the sand on the road. Indeed, everything was silent, and not even a dog could appear.

When my grandmother was about to walk up to me, I finally took two steps forward. She put down the basket and took my hand. Her hands were warm, rough, and thin. It was as if I had reached her bones.

I have no experience living with older people. My father lost his parents before I was born.

I have no memories of my grandparents, and although I regret it, there is no way. And my grandmother, maybe when I was a child, I was led by this hand to walk in this village, to choose vegetables in the fields, or to walk on the ridges of green seedlings on both sides. But I don't remember anything.

I actually ran to her. And he's so stupid, so ashamed that he can't speak. The words I had woven before had gone without a trace.

She was asking me questions, in a dialect I barely understood. She asked me how long I had been in the car, where I had been going, if I was tired, and if the village was hard to find. It seems that she should be proud of this.

I smelled the unfamiliar scent of her and responded with a uh-huh. I started to worry that she couldn't understand my Mandarin. Even communication is going to be a big problem for us.

I asked about gardenias. It's like getting inspiration from that vague aroma. The topic of greetings finally fell to a reassuring reality. Those flowers, shining in the sun.

Who grows the flowers? Grandma pointed to herself. Later, she explained a few more words, probably someone brought the seedlings, which were different from the gardenia in the mountains - she turned around and pointed to the mountains in the distance. When was it planted? She couldn't remember it clearly, but said that it had been a long time, and her uncle was still living at home at that time.

After that, she led me upstairs to my room. The house had been cleaned up for me, with clean sheets and a sun-dried bedding. The dust on the table was also swept away. It was originally my uncle's room. She pointed to what was on the table, saying that he had left it. She didn't signal me not to touch them, and her expression showed that if you liked it, you could play. She pointed to the toilet in the corner behind the door and said that I would be here for a night's work. It was a stunt old wooden barrel, the dark red lacquer that had been mottled. She said something more later, and I didn't hear it clearly. After coming down from the upper floor, she led me to another place. Walking into the alley between the rows of houses opposite, the gravel path led to a simple shed made of wood and plastic sheets, and she opened the door. It is a modern toilet. Toilet. There is also a shower room on the other side of the toilet. She seemed happy. It was like leading me to discover a new continent. It can be here during the day. She said.

She looks athletic. He kept taking me here and there, and introducing me to the things I needed to live here. What's in her house, and what's outside. Like all grandmothers, she refused to let me help when she was ready to cook. I had to wander around the village alone. It didn't take long to smell the smell of burning firewood wafting from the chimney.

I had a lot of dreams on the first night. Sleeping is neither good nor bad. I woke up when my grandmother's crowed. It wasn't dawn yet, because I slept too early, and I didn't have all the discomfort of waking up early in the past. I lay in bed and waited for the sun to come out, falling asleep and waking up in a daze, over and over again. My grandmother's movement downstairs intermittently entered my ignorant consciousness. It's as if every move is in front of you. The creak of her opening the door, her deliberately light steps, her catching water from the faucet outside the door, washing something, brushing - I guess it's the toilet. It's as if these were all dreams. Unreal. The more you feel it, the more you feel it, the more unreal it becomes, like lying on this old-fashioned carved old wooden bed and touching the hard protruding edge of the bed. It's like waking up in a sleep to find yourself in another strange place.

I was indeed lying in another strange place. Far away from S City. When the sun came out, I really felt it. Grandma's voice was really coming from downstairs, along the planks and air of this building, and she was cooking breakfast. The smell of burning firewood.

My clothes were already hanging downstairs on a drying rack propped up with bamboo poles. I stretched and spotted them as I stood at the window and looked out. Gently swaying in the morning breeze. Clothes in the sun are bright. They no longer have to be confined to their closed balconies, receiving the pale sunlight that has filtered out most of their ultraviolet rays. They breathed the fresh, sweet mountain air after a long night before I did. They also experienced the old but still very strong hands. Soak in a basin full of white soap foam. For the first time in his life, he left the upside-down water of the washing machine, and under the hands of an old man, the dirt mixed with the fibers was washed away in various ways and became clean.

A few chickens paced under their drying clothes. From time to time, he stretches his neck and pecks in the sand. The crown on the rooster's head shook and shook. On the other side is a dilapidated house, with almost all of the white lime peeling off the walls, revealing yellow earthen brick walls that have been eroded by wind and rain. The western half of the country had almost collapsed, the beams were crooked, and the tiles had fallen to the ground and become parasites of weeds and insects. Once a house loses its owner, it decays at an unimaginable rate, almost no different from a potted plant. First weeds grew in the corners, then unknown shrubs, a small sapling, the seeds of which the birds had left behind at some point germinated after a rain, and happily took over new territory. After one rain after another, the tiles began to leak and fell one by one. Lianas crawled all over the walls, tentacles through the window lattices, and climbed onto the abandoned furniture of the house. Between the furniture, the originally smooth and solid ground, the plants broke through the soil and quickly flourished. In this barren mountain village, it seems to be commonplace, as if it was the territory of those things, and the owner of the house has only obtained temporary habitation. After they left, the place they had abandoned returned to its original owner.

These houses are not at all like the ones I sold in my hands.

Row after house, city house, old, new, old-fashioned public house or river-view mansion, they move from one owner to another. Maybe it's still vacant, or it's being resold, or it's going to be handed over to a talented designer by a new owner, and after a few months, the old one is renewed, the reinforced concrete cage is replaced with a homely outfit, and the chandelier is full of sweet warmth. That's their home, yes, not mine. Perhaps, no one's home is either. I don't know the ultimate fate of the house that came out of my hands. I don't have any affection for them. The sentimental words I say are false, and they are spoken to their future owners only to make a deal. A city with thousands of houses like that. I'm also one of the most common real estate agents out of thousands.

It didn't have any difficulty getting this job, and it was much easier than I could get other jobs. At job fairs, where almost every aisle is flooded, I can stand at the recruiter's desk, hand me my resume, and briefly introduce myself without squeezing through the bar.

They don't care if I'm a graduate of a prestigious university.

The name of the university on the cover of my resume won't look miserable in front of them. Students from prestigious universities don't come to them to sell their houses. I became confident and talkative, and I received an offer two days later. The job came as a matter of course and as a result of the confusion. I didn't seem ready, but I didn't hesitate.

Be a real estate agent. Don't be a real estate agent. go

S City is a magical metropolis. Leave the magical metropolis of S City. Sometimes I do get hot-headed. Today, in a small village deep in the mountains, I sleep on a bed that is as hard as a concrete pavement. Spiders crawled around on the beams, crickets, rats, they used this old, old dark room as a paradise when I was asleep.

More than ten years ago, I decided to go to Yaya's house without thinking about it, and I didn't know the condition of the train I was on. Not every door will open when parking, as is customary, and you need to stand in front of the door where the conductor is standing in advance.

No one ever told me that. I can't blame Yaya.

She didn't mean to. This kind of thing may only happen to me. And Yaya may never encounter this kind of thing in her life.

Yaya and I are different. She hadn't gotten lost on the train, and she hadn't gotten lost anywhere. Soon after she arrived in S City, she knew most of the roads. Unlike me, even though I am a real estate agent, I still rely on the map I carry in my bag to find the way. With a diploma from a third-rate university, Yaya experienced some minor setbacks before finding a job and working as a teacher at a private school. She said that she was lucky, originally the other party only recruited three people, but somehow, it suddenly became four. It's definitely not because I'm pretty, Yaya invited me to dinner at the hot pot restaurant on the day she received the offer call, and she told me so happily. Of course I know that she is almost as inconspicuous as I am when it comes to appearance. But in some small things, she has her excels.

In addition to my grandmother, there are two other elderly people living in this village. They are a husband and wife, about the same age as their grandmother, dressed up, and the aura on their bodies is also similar. If I had come to such a place without being my grandmother's granddaughter, but some other stranger, and had left so quickly, the three of them would have been almost identical in my later memories. I had a similar experience when my former boyfriend and I went on a hike and pitched a tent in a mountain village for one night. While eating dinner in the village, many women were busy with their meals. Although they were tall, short, fat and thin, no one remembered them in the end.

After I settled in the village, I became familiar with the two old men. They always smile when they see me. They thought that I was willing to stay in such a desolate and outdated place, and stayed for so long (they thought I would come and stay for three or five days before leaving), and how filial it was to accompany my grandmother, who lived alone. They always praised me like this in front of my grandmother, "filial piety", I understood, and then smiled shyly, but I couldn't help but feel a little stunned in my heart, but I couldn't show the slightest in front of them. On the contrary, it has to appear to be the same thing.

Sometimes I would sit in the hallway in front of the old couple's house, in the shade shaded by the eaves tiles, holding a sketchbook, looking for an angle, and drawing my grandmother's house. A pencil case with pencils and erasers sits on a nearby cement table. On one side of the table is a sink with a cast copper tap above it, where old people wash their vegetables, wash their clothes, and brush their pots. In addition to painting my grandmother's house, I also painted the old people's every move, painting the grandmother brushing a wooden barrel, or using a small bamboo bucket to wash rice, and I used immature lines to draw her roughly. Instead of stopping her, she was happy about it, and the old man came to see it from time to time. He doesn't talk much, and likes to smile to show his attitude towards the painting in progress. He lost a lot of teeth, and his lips were irregularly inverted, making his smile show full sincerity. I'm happy with his smile. I think I'll forget about what bothered me in this day-to-day boredom. They often appear like ghosts inadvertently and quietly at night, when they wake up at night, sit opposite their grandmother and chew on a grain of rice, or close the door of the modern bathroom in the wooden shed.

Lovers of S City. Former boyfriend. Every minute and every second of the past.

Love is always sweet, think about how we know. You never know what's going to happen in the next second. But afterwards, we feel that everything is interlocked, that there are two things, and that all the things we can't imagine happen inadvertently.

He's a customer of mine, and the first time he came to our store to ask if there was a suitable listing, he used that tone, and it looked like he was just asking rather than really wanting to buy. I registered his information, followed up step by step, and called him regularly to introduce a house. After three or four phone calls, he came to see the house. The house was sold by the landlord on carte blue bnctuary, and the company got the keys to the house. A silver coating has been worn to reveal a brass security key. I took the keys, changed the subway once, and when I arrived at my destination twice, I was already sweating profusely. It was a summer afternoon. There was a heat wave rolling in the house, and all the windows were opened, but there was still no wind. I wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead with a tissue. The most common and cheapest paper towel, which unceremoniously left marks on the bridge of my nose, and I knew nothing, and enthusiastically introduced the house to him with the sweaty confetti on the bridge of my nose, and gasped. I haven't recovered from the rush along the way. He signaled that I didn't need to be in a hurry, that he would take his time, that he would ask me questions, and that I had something on my nose. After I cleaned my nose, the outpouring of enthusiasm suddenly cooled, and I stopped talking, and stood at a window, breathing in the hot air to calm my awkward emotions.

He asked a few simple questions after reading it, and his expression seemed absent-minded, as did my answers. It was clear that he had no particular interest in the house. Originally, he made an appointment for five o'clock in the afternoon, but it was temporarily changed to two o'clock because of something. When he descended the stairs, his absent-minded expression was gone. Maybe he was thinking about something just now. He began to apologize to me for his impromptu change of time. I think he was talking about the confetti on the bridge of my nose before. I smiled at him knowingly.

After that, we walked out of the hallway together, drowning in the scorching afternoon sun. Then, he offered to invite me to a drink at the cold drink shop next door to the neighborhood to apologize. I accepted.

As I sat down on a pine stool at the cold drink shop, I realized that it had been a long time since I had sat down and enjoyed a sweet and refreshing cold drink on a hot summer day. He ordered an ice cream for me and asked for an iced coffee himself. Hardly asked for my opinion. Or maybe he thinks that ladies love ice cream. Banana boats are available for any flavor of balls, and you can leave them if you don't like them. That's probably what he thought. I never have any special requirements for customers. And he did it exactly what I wanted, so I didn't have to face the pink cold drink booklet and flip through the pages and think about the price, what to order, not too expensive and not too cheap, exposing my choice barriers when it came to doing this kind of thing.

After the cold drinks were served, our chats slowly became casual. From the house to his daughter. He has a daughter who is in elementary school. Buying a house is to consider transferring to a better school for my daughter. His daughter's grades were not ideal. He felt that with the intelligence of him and his ex-wife (who said "wife" at first, and later said ex-wife), his daughter's grades should at least be better than the average person. But she was not much better than her classmates, but she fell behind in many exams. However, her daughter does not agree to change schools, she is very stubborn, and this stubbornness is often unbearable for adults.

He stopped talking and shook his head helplessly. The helplessness is full of fatherly love. As he sipped sip after cup of iced coffee, I thought of something else. It's not his house, it's Yaya. An unexplained excitement appeared with Yaya in my beautiful ice cream cup. Sparkling.

I asked him if he had hired a tutor for his daughter. He said no. He didn't expect this, he was only in elementary school, it seemed that it was too early, he had never asked for a tutor when he was studying, and there were very few tutors among his classmates. Now it's different, I said. She doesn't want to transfer schools, so she won't transfer, and she can't force her children. Not to mention, moving is not an easy task. I put aside my status as a real estate agent and spoke honestly about the call. He listened intently, nodding his head from time to time.

I told him that I had a good friend who was a teacher at the school and could introduce him to be his daughter's tutor. Many children now have tutors. He agreed.

His name is Du Feng. In the days that followed, Yaya went to his house twice a week. Until now.

In the days when I borrowed from my grandmother's house. I contacted Yaya via email. She rarely mentioned Du Feng's situation. Probably because she was afraid that I would be sad, in her opinion, how difficult it was for me to make the decision to leave. Despite how impulsive it behaves. It's all over the place. "Don't tell me anything about him in the future." I said this to her before I left. She kept her promise. She didn't think it would do me any good to get stuck in the same way I used to be. I'm too young to die for an old man ten years older than me. That's what she told me. However, no matter what happened to Du Feng and me, it would not affect his relationship with her employer and tutor. It wasn't hard for her. Perhaps, Du Feng will ask Yaya about me, what will she say?

His daughter. The ten-year-old girl named Du Tiantian. I will never be in her presence again. She wished it was so. When I think of her, I seem to go back to her age, becoming headstrong and childish. I don't think I'll be able to handle this in another 10 years. This is the same as learning to draw and music, it also requires talent. I'm afraid I'm not fit to be a teacher. When you think about it, selling a house is a good choice of all career options.

"My daughter is a bit headstrong. Spoiled for choice. Her mother left her when she was very young. Oh yes, we're divorced. She had been with my parents before. Du Feng said, at the time of the first meeting.

"I know. I understand. "It's like I really know. Actually, my parents have a good relationship. I've never lived with an old man.

"When she went to kindergarten, I took her to live with me. I put a lot of thought into her. ”

"You're a good dad. It's not easy to be a single dad. My tone was sympathetic. Not polite. He wanted to say something, but he felt that it was inappropriate, but he couldn't help it, and I'm sure he didn't usually talk about his relationship with his daughter like that. Ordinary friends, colleagues, relatives...... Who will he talk to? Now it seems that he may have meant it. Viewing rescheduled, big summer, ice cream, young couple at the next table. Who knows!

Yellow, green, milky white soft snowballs served in a transparent boat-shaped glass container with a silver spoon.

He ordered me two copies in quick succession. I felt a special comfort when the smell of mango, cantaloupe, vanilla, and sweet milk stimulated my taste buds again. I thanked him when I left the cold drink shop and said that the ice cream was delicious.

He may have been waiting for me to say that.

I know a company that makes handmade ice cream, it tastes better, and I'll take you to try it next time. That's how he answered.

Yaya is happy that I have such an affair, and I am even more happy to have a new job. She said earlier that when I do such a job, I always come into contact with customers who buy houses, and there must be many rich people among them, and I have to be ready to encounter such a thing. Sexual encounters are for those who are prepared.

She would lie in bed together after we took a shower, munching on potato chips, watching variety shows, and chatting in the era of my real estate agent, looking forward to my beautiful encounters and a bright future.

At that time, I felt that she was really different from me.

She was very satisfied with the job of a governess. The hourly wage given by Du Feng was very high, which greatly exceeded her expectations.

He is so generous, even if it is because of me, she can only teach Du Tiantian with all her heart, which is more serious than her job as a teacher in a private middle school. She bought a lot of books such as "Child Psychology", "How to Communicate Effectively with Children", "Like a Child", and so on. She had a very foreseeable feeling that Du Feng and I would eventually become lovers, and even, I think, she contributed a lot to facilitating this matter. Affair. Affair. Affair. Diamond King Old Five. Diamond King Old Five. She always said these fanning words to me in front of me, brewing my little bit of sweetness into a vat of honey syrup. She also had a very foreseeable feeling that Du Tiantian would become an obstacle between us. "I'm going undercover." That's what she told me. She never mentioned me to Du Tiantian. Even, after I met Du Tiantian, I got along with Du Tiantian as Du Feng's girlfriend, and she didn't mention me to Du Tiantian. In front of Du Tiantian, she is a tutor who has nothing to do with anything. She said the role was good. She can handle it.

But I can't, I lack some kind of talent. Yaya's undercover gains, Du Tiantian's temperament and preferences, did not bring any improvement to my relationship with her. How could a girl have any affection for a woman who was going to have a relationship with her father, and she was still such a young woman? She hated me for granted. I thought about it when he took me home and kissed me for the first time. I thought of the little girl, thought of her, and then accepted his kiss and cooperated with him. But my tongue didn't listen, and the mint gum flavor in his mouth seemed to be a monster at that moment. The little girl, the smell of mint gum, his unrestrained passion, the pink, green, orange ice cream balls in the boat-shaped glassware huddled together, and I took the silver spoon and scooped them into my stomach in a daze.

Du Tiantian has no good impression of me. Why would she have any affection for a woman she certainly doesn't like?

She closed the door of her room and tucked a marked piece of paper between the door. As soon as I opened it, the piece of paper recorded my voyeurism

But why should I peep into her room? She didn't want to do anything else, she didn't want to cry with her father because of this. Maybe it was Ao who made trouble, but Du Feng didn't tell me. She doesn't see me, as long as I go to her house, she goes to her grandparents' house, to her classmates, to the library, to the cinema.

The pink note tucked between the cracks in the door looked at me as an uninvited guest, and it knew I was going to go in, and it waited for me, waiting for me to pick it up from the ground. There wasn't a word on it. Ordinary clean pink one. It floated in as Du Feng enthusiastically pushed open the milky white door and asked me to look inside a well-decorated photo booth to get a good look at his beautiful daughter, who had never shown up. It crossed my shoulders and landed on the tips of my feet. I know it's not a coincidence. Every time I walked through the milky door, I could see the pink eye on the crack in the door. It stopped in a different position each time, winking at me.

After some time, the door opened. The dark and dreary room with the curtains drawn was like a hostile dark hole, which absorbed my enthusiasm and stirred my emotions, and I would unconsciously look towards it wherever I was in the house. It reminded me of who I was – I was terrified of being a stepmother, of this train that didn't know where to go. But Du Feng couldn't understand my fear. Why didn't he pull the curtains on that room before I came? Even if a little light leaks in. Big deal, he pulled it up again after I left.

"Isn't it just a curtain? What's wrong with you? There's no need to fight with curtains! ”

"But how is this just a curtain? I'm not talking about curtains. ”

"It's just a curtain in a sweet room, honey. Well? ”

When he tried to kiss me, I avoided him.

I burst into the room and pulled open the blackout curtain of velvet mixed with thick cotton. He stood in the doorway, motionless at me, suddenly illuminated by the sun. There was that strange, surprised look on his face.

One cloudy afternoon, I knocked on the door of a house on the east side of town. The red lacquered iron door has many small dots on it. I looked at the dots and knocked them over and over again.

The door opened. We briefly confirmed each other's identities and she let me in.

It was a chubby old lady, dressed in a cotton pajama with blue and yellow flowers, and permed her hairstyle, which is fashionable in this town. She looked quite kind, but she couldn't hear a knock on the door because she was napping, and she kept telling me that she was sorry.

As I looked around her yard, she introduced me to the flowers.

The moon and hydrangeas that are close to the western courtyard wall are in bloom. The crimson flowers and eggplant purple flower bulbs are not lacking in rain, light, nourishment and care at a glance. The two loquat trees on the east side of the courtyard wall are full of heavy golden fruits. Immediately under the wall at the foot of the hall, I saw the bouquet of orchids that Cuong had bought. The orchid is planted in a brown pot with an elongated waist.

This is Cuong's home. It's the photo shop owner.

My parcel is on the coffee table in the hall. I put it on the ground and placed it next to the wooden chair I was sitting on.

Soon, a cup of tea was placed in the place where the package had been placed, as well as a plate of washed loquats. Cuong's mother is just as welcoming as Cuong. I couldn't tell the impatience of being troubled on her face, and she seemed glad to see me into her house. I made tea, prepared fruit, and had a posture of wanting to have a long talk with me.

I think I probably met a good person. When I got to this place, my luck wasn't too bad. I said this to Yaya in an email. I said that I was printing photos at a photo shop, and then asked my boss to buy a photo album for me, and then asked him to collect my courier on my behalf. That way, Yaya, you can send me the things I need. I made a list and asked her to help me with the purchases. I transferred the money to her through the bank in the town. After that, Yaya sent me some things regularly, some of which I had made a list for her to purchase, and some that she thought I might need and bought them for me. When the delivery arrived, Cuong would call my grandmother's house and tell me to pick it up. Grandma seemed happy to receive calls from him from time to time. Because in the past, her telephone would not ring twice a month.

The owner of the photo studio is called Cuong. The first time I picked up the parcel at his store, it was close to lunchtime, and I invited him to lunch as a token of gratitude. I thought he would be polite, like the men I knew before. What a gesture, why are you so polite, why don't I invite you or something. He didn't say anything else, just okay. When he said yes, the man had already stood up, closed the computer page, and was ready to go out. I later learned that he was in such a hurry because there would be guests coming to pick up the photos at noon.

He closed the door and hung a sign. "Lunch is gone, wait." The small wooden sign shook on the doorknob and scratched the hem of his dress as he turned. It was a gray T-shirt with embroidered birds on the front, and there were more than twenty of them.

The bird-embroidered garment is now hanging on the second-floor balcony, watching loquats, moonflowers, and hydrangea clusters, dozing off in the afternoon breeze.

The old lady urged me to eat loquats. said that she brushed the hair on the loquat with a small brush, and then plucked it off the stalk one by one. She was a well-rounded person and a talkative person, from loquat trees to moon flowers, and then to Cuong's friend in Lucheng, how he went from a fruit vendor to a big supermarket owner, how he married a young wife, and gave birth to two boys in quick succession. Ah Qiang is going to Lucheng to drink full moon wine today, he has to stay for a day or two before coming back, maybe longer, you know, he doesn't usually go out much, he always stays in that photo shop. There's nothing wrong with that, but you have to go out and walk around when you stay in one place.

She just said as if she were pulling strings, and she didn't mean to stop. I was worried that it would be dark when I returned to my grandmother's house after talking for too long. Walk the mountain road at night. Alone again.

I don't have the guts.

Maybe she just wanted someone to talk to. What about her husband? Cuong didn't say anything about his father. Then his father should still be alive. Maybe it's going fishing, or maybe it's playing cards.

"There are fewer people like you who print as many photos now!" She spoke about me again.

"Hmm. Take a pat and keep a souvenir. I said.

"Are you going to stay in the mountains for a long time?" Her face turned to me, and the tone of the conversation shifted slightly.

"It's hard to say. I haven't decided when to leave. "Hmm. Actually, it's not bad here. There are also some good job opportunities in the county. ”

I smiled, scooped a loquat into my hand, and didn't immediately answer her words. After that, we looked at the sky almost at the same time.

I pulled out a tissue, wiped my hands, and stood up.

She got up too, loaded me with some loquats, and escorted me to the door.

She was a little unsatisfied, and her face was a little more rosy than when she first saw her. Come back when you have time. She said.

I have only been to Keung's house once. Later, he didn't let me go to his house to pick up the parcel. It's also possible that he never left the city again when my courier arrived and I happened to be down the mountain. Occasionally, when we had a meal or a drink or two, he would talk about his mother.

That expression is the expression of the son who for various reasons does not satisfy the mother. That expression on that chubby face was quite sympathetic.

I told him that my parents were always urging me to go back to S City as soon as possible and get my life back on track as soon as possible.

But they didn't say it explicitly. for I am fulfilling their duty for them.

"yes, that's what they were supposed to do. Now I did. "I feel a little mean when I say that. That's not the case.

"What do you think of S City?" I asked Cuong.

"Okay. Nice place. How many people dream of it. He said so. A mischievous grin. After that, there was another solemn silence.

"Let's go back when you want to." A moment later, he said again.

I know he's one of the few people who doesn't take S City seriously, at least among my friends. I'm glad Yaya didn't make any more jokes about me and didn't treat my incident in the photo shop as another affair. She's changed too. It's no longer like she used to be. I think she may have been through some of the messy things I went through, not as bad as mine, but at least the things that made her mature. She was a homeroom teacher, and it seemed that she did well in that private school.

I sometimes talk to Cuong about Yaya.

Chen Yalan, why do you send you something by such a person every time. Initially, it was he who was curious about the name. That's my best friend. Junior high school classmates. Friend. I say. He understood. No more asking. It was me, who babbled a lot of Yaya things with him. From my tone, he could probably tell how much I admired Yaya's temperament.

Her kind of style that I can't learn anything. Her scruples. She's tougher than I am. I finally came up with the word to describe it, "tenacity". I'm so happy when I think about it.

Cuong doesn't think so. He wasn't that interested in Yaya that much. But he's a great listener. You can listen to my babbling endlessly. The photo shop became a permanent base for me in town. When I need to go shopping or pick up a parcel, I go down the mountain early in the morning, go to an Internet café, a vegetable market, walk around the town, and finally go to a photo shop. At the photo shop, I opened my parcel and sat in the shop chatting with him, and then went to dinner at noon. I usually go to the ones near the photo shop. A spicy restaurant, a local restaurant, and sometimes a beef restaurant. The fresh beer at the Malatang restaurant tastes good. When it's hot, we'll have a cold beer and talk over it. I told him about what happened to me when I was working as a real estate agent in S City. In order to save intermediary fees, how can those slippery families try their best to jump out of the intermediary, of course, some of the upper families who sell houses also like to do this. We have some ways to deal with them, but sometimes they don't work.

I also talked about my boyfriend. I said in an understated tone that I had a boyfriend in S City. They later broke up. Because he has a daughter. Cuong said he understood, and it wasn't easy to handle.

"It's divided. You're young, find another one! He reached out and patted me on the shoulder.

At that time, I was eating a bowl of super spicy Malatang. For this reason, I deliberately chose the location directly facing the air conditioning vent.

"yes, find another one. Hehehe. I picked up a fine vermicelli with chopsticks dyed red with chili oil, and deliberately laughed loudly, letting my voice tremble three times in the wind.

"Find a good one." He raised his glass. So I raised my glass and touched it as hard as I swore it. The beer in the glass spilled out, and bubbles continued to bubble on the back of my hand.

"his old relationship, go to his ex-boyfriend, even if he comes to beg me in this ravine, I won't go back with him, haha!" I just shouted, feeling presumptuous.

At that time, I didn't think a man was a big deal.

I seem to be making a bit of a fuss. Why should I give up what I had worked so hard to get for him? My job, my rental, my clients.

But without Cuong, and with the wine glass in my hand, maybe I wouldn't think so. I deleted all the text messages sent by Du Feng, and I was disappointed that he didn't come to contact me anymore. Is this your love? I also imagined his frightened look when I confronted him. I might laugh at the way he looks. Or maybe he was as calm as a tree, the kind of landscape tree that stood in the square under the windless warm sun. He forgot about me and got a new girlfriend. He has a face that women love!

Go, go, let him go. I'm not the first one Du Tiantian has dealt with, and certainly not the last.

Du Tiantian flashed through my mind like a spark. At that point, I began to rejoice that I was lying on a simple and old carved wooden bed. The wind in the mountains and forests in the distance can blow in through the open wooden window at any time and place.

At first, I felt guilty for my impulsiveness and avoidance. I avoid talking to people too much. My parents. Grandmother. I hid what happened in S City. After living in my grandmother's village for a while, perhaps the slow and comfortable life in the mountains affected me, and I felt that all my previous vacations had been in vain. There has never been a day like this when I feel a visceral sense of the time I have and everything I have. Later, when people asked me why I came to live in such a place, I said, "Come on vacation!" It's the most suitable place, it's much more beautiful than any beach, villa beach. I decided to play the role of my granddaughter on vacation. It's good for everyone.

I spent time with my grandmother in the mountain village every day. Grandma's dialect is starting to be less difficult to understand. In her gestures, I gradually understood the meaning of those words. I used to go to bed early every night, wake up in the middle of the night and relax in the toilet in the corner of my room, and the stream-like sound that came from my grandmother's room under the wooden board at night was as normal and ordinary as the insects and birds chirping outside. I started waking up early. Stand like my grandmother by the sink at the base of the wall and wash your clothes, then dry them on the bamboo poles you have built. Three bamboos tied with hemp rope at one end, which can stand firmly in the sun, one on each side, and a thin bamboo pole in the middle, which is already handy for me. I followed her to the vegetable field to choose vegetables and help her with the simple farm work. She also has a small plot of rice paddies. Usually, when it is harvest season, she hires villagers from neighboring villages to help. The harvested grain could feed her for a year, and the surplus went to her uncle who lived in the county.

My grandmother would sometimes ask me when I would go back. I said I hadn't thought about it, and I had to wait until they were harvested.

I pointed to the rice paddies that were slowly turning golden. Grandma smiled and nodded. It is said that this year's rice harvest is good.

I knew she wanted me to stay as long as I could. Perhaps, she will also feel lonely. Who is exempt from loneliness? But she wouldn't leave here, she, and the old man who lived across from her. During the holidays, the children return to the village for a short stay and then leave.

This village was also lively for a while in previous years. Countless trekking groups and enthusiastic travelers come to this village on weekends or holidays, and a family that knows how to do business has started a business for travelers, providing food and shelter, and the villagers' empty houses have become temporary hotels. The wood-paneled toilets with flush toilets and showers were built at that time. After a few years of excitement, the family's children settled in the city, and they had children, and the old couple who were in charge of the food and accommodation of the travelers left the village and lived in the city, taking care of their children.

The flags of the trekking team can be seen everywhere in the village, they are hung everywhere they can, and many of them are hung on the earthen walls of my grandmother's house, which are worn out by the wind and sun, and the signatures on them can still be seen clearly, and the names signed with black markers are still strong.

There was only a village of three old men left, and they did not come any more.

Changed bases. There are other villages in the mountains.

The trekking group was part of the conversation between my grandmother and me, and when our communication became less difficult, I used to talk to her about the village. Of course, my grandmother was happy to tell me about her or her uncles' lives, whether it was the hike group that came and went, or her house, the pictures hanging in the house, or the life of her or her uncles. After washing our faces in the morning and changing our clothes last night, we officially started our day, and when we went to the kitchen to make breakfast, I helped her make a fire, and managed the hole of the earthen table, the flames flickered in the stove, and the smoke came out of the chimney on the roof. She walked from one end of the kitchen to the other, taking this and that, tiptoeing to reach the bamboo basket hanging on the wall, taking an egg from it, and hanging the basket again. Without my help, it seemed that taking the basket down and hanging it up was something she had to do. It's as strange as why she likes to put her eggs in a basket hanging on the wall. There were other things in the bamboo basket, cinnamon, bay leaves, garlic, and two bundles of sweet potato vermicelli. Speaking of her basket, she told me about a chicken she once raised, and when the chicken laid eggs, it flew first to the stove, then to the cabinet next to the stove, and finally from the cabinet to the basket hanging on the beam, and then clucked down the same road. You can't chase it, let it go wherever it likes, it's better to be at home than outside, Grandma said.

These topics make me happy. Grandma is also a lot more lively in these topics. It's like going back to when I was younger. When she was young, she was a lively, capable and beautiful girl. I've flipped through the album of old photos she kept, and I'm going to draw them.

So I bought a lot of materials for painting. I went to the town again and again to pick up the courier from Yaya, and in addition to snacks, clothes, books, napkins, sanitary napkins of the same brand I usually use, and other things, I used to draw tools.

I also draw grandmothers. She is now and she was in the past.

One morning, I found a photo album in my uncle's bookcase, which contained a picture of my grandmother when she was young. At first I didn't even recognize it, because the picture was sandwiched between my uncle himself and a bunch of his friends and classmates. Later I recognized it. The girl in the photo is the one who stays with me every day. My grandmother. She stood in front of a house, her face turned sideways, a moon flower pinned to her braids, and a little man as tall as she was leaning against the door behind her. I thought it was interesting to see this picture sandwiched in the book with a group of young people, the same young grandmother. A shy and bright smile, a healthy and plump figure, and her red moon flower, and the scarecrow behind her identity. So I drew it. Of course, with some modifications, I moved the scarecrow from the door, which had a red couplet on the side of the head, to my grandmother's side, and let her rest her head on it. It has a dull but loyal expression. I dressed it with a paintbrush. Dressed in a blue cloth coat. And the grandmother wore a floral dress on a white background. Grandma said that the skirt was specially changed by the person who took the photo. The skirt was made by the tailor of the town. I painted my grandmother's old house in layers of bright yellow – lemon yellow, cobalt yellow, earth yellow, bright orange, and under the layers of oil paint, the house was beautiful. Including the straw man, and the grandmother who is in her prime. The whole painting is bright and vivid. When I showed it to my grandmother, she shouted in a little girl's tone, almost with a fuss, - a scarecrow. Then she narrowed her eyes again, and came closer, taking a closer look at the painting. The delicate and warm gaze seems to be looking at a former lover.

"He's like your boyfriend." I'm kidding.

"yes, yes. Better than a boyfriend. She replied.

"It's been a long time since I've pierced this thing." She added.

I pulled out my prints and found a photo I had taken of a rice paddy field in a neighboring village. There is a lean scarecrow in one corner of the photo. It was almost a wooden shelf with a garment and a hat buttoned up, and a strip of cloth tied to a stick on one side, which swayed with the empty clothes when the wind blew.

"It's so roughly done. Ay! Grandma squinted and sighed.

"I pierced the man in that photo." She added.

She said that she was still young at the time, she was not married, and there was a scarecrow in the field, so she made one well.

The person who happened to be a scarecrow to take a picture came to the village, so she took a picture.

"I made it like a living person. Nobody does that. I didn't tell anyone else. How can I say that? They'll think I'm crazy, I'm nervous, and I won't be able to get married. As she spoke, Grandma smiled.

I looked at the little golden figure in the painting with a smile, and there seemed to be some kind of imperceptible smile in his dull but loyal expression.

In the summer, mosquitoes take over the entire village.

Mosquitoes, ants, bees, tide insects, crickets, and birds are as much a part of this place as the grass and trees, the air, and the water. It's impossible to live without mosquitoes. And my blood is naturally part of their food, and it doesn't seem to be any different from the blood of cows, sheep, or other animals. My bare arms and ankles were always bitten into bag after bag. My grandmother hung a cotton gauze mosquito net for me. At night, I was able to sleep peacefully.

Yaya sent me mosquito repellent, peppermint cream, mosquito repellent bracelets and other colorful things. In my email to her, I talked about the annoyance that mosquitoes caused me, such as the large and unafraid mosquito shed where I went to the toilet and bathed. I had to keep a roll of lit mosquito coils in for a long time.

When Yaya sent the mosquito repellent supplies, she stuffed a note in the package, the handwriting was a little sloppy, and she wrote quickly, as if she had written it improvised before sealing the box.

The note briefly said one thing. Du Feng's daughter is leaving Du Feng to live with her mother. That is, she is going to the United States.

Du Feng's ex-wife divorced him after completing her master's degree in the United States, and quickly found a job and an American husband. And now, she needs her daughter. She could have given her a better life and a better education.

Du Feng agreed. Du Tiantian also agreed.

I was a little shocked by this. In addition to its suddenness, there are many incomprehensible parts. Although the whole thing is quite a matter of course.

Are you coming back? This is the last sentence on the note.

In the silent and scorching summer, my heart did not burn with such news.

And it seems that the person who is burning for this news is not me but Yaya. Her scribbled, hasty handwriting seemed to implicit her concern. Does she want me back?

But in fact, I will not be overjoyed by Du Tiantian's departure, and I will not leave this village immediately after him, and plunge into my old life again. How could I do that? If I did, even Cuong would think I was a complete fool.

But Yaya, doesn't Yaya understand?

"The bathwater is ready for you. There are two buckets next to it, one with hot water and the other with cold water, and clothes can be placed on the bamboo bench next to it. Yaya's mother said to me.

Yaya and I were rolling on the bed. We had just returned from a walk outside the village. Caught a bottle of fireflies. With the lights off, we put the glass bottles on the bedside table. Yaya's mother came in and told me to take a bath. Yaya's bed smelled of dried straw. There is a thin layer of straw under the straw mat. I don't take it off even in the summer. She said that there was no dry straw, and the bed was hard as if she were sleeping on a stone slab. In winter, the dry straw is replaced with a thick layer.

Next door to Yaya is the barn. There's a spotted tanuki there all year round.

When I thought about this, I was sitting in the examination room for the accounting certificate exam, waiting for the invigilator to send out the papers. After a month of sitting on the desk in my room (my uncle's room), I began to read it seriously.

This summer, I sat calmly in the exam room and answered all the questions. After leaving the exam room, the scorching sun unceremoniously sparkled on my bare cockroach. I felt the urge to cry.

Yaya. Chen Yalan forwarded the packages to his store one by one, the sender's signature column. It's a rustic name. Others call her Xiao Chen or Chen Yalan. Her parents called her Lan Lan. Yaya was chosen for her by me, because the name is more foreign.

Yaya didn't tell me the whole story. That is-Du Feng probably started calling her Yaya too. Like I mentioned in front of him before, how Yaya is.

And no longer call her Teacher Chen.

Yaya fulfilled her promise to never mention that name in front of me again, never to talk about him again.

She did a great job. He was left out of our topic. But what about outside of us? The name I gave her, Yaya, was quietly and naturally stolen by another person.

How I wish this was my assumption.

Should I wait for her to tell me about it herself? That afternoon, I wandered alone in my grandmother's village, and the uninhabited and dilapidated houses told me she wouldn't. She will keep her promises. Even if there is no commitment. She also has the right to keep secrets.

"Nan, I'm going to the vegetable field, what do you want to eat?" Grandma's voice came from afar, and she waited at the corner of the stone wall where there were several lush vines.

"Lentils! Purple lentils! I yelled at her.

Grandma soon disappeared by the stone wall. She went to the field to do her work. It's time for me to go back to the house. Go make a call.

My grandmother's phone, I only grabbed the black receiver when Yaya's courier arrived, and listened to what Cuong told me in the photo studio. This time, I dialed Yaya's mobile phone number on it. I asked her if she was with him - I still didn't mention that name. She said yes, first in a hesitant and then affirmative tone. She just needs a man, she said. Not like you. She said, I'm not like you. You can just give up what you should be cherishing.

"But I can't, I'm desperate for everything. So that I can survive in this city. She smiled. Maybe I misheard, how could she laugh at this time?

I stood at the table with the telephone in the corner of the hall, first against the wall in front of the table, then facing the door, and watched as the hens appeared and disappeared from my eyes with their growing flock. I listened to Yaya talk about her.

"But you chose him!" The flame she lit was ablaze.

"You chose him." I repeated in disappointment.

I saw the flames, and it burned my skin.

It's not just the skin. At that moment, I suddenly wanted to keep Yaya.

I lost her so easily. We used to be right next to each other and talk about people we had hurt or hurt us. I was reminded of our past. The spotted tanuki in Yaya's barn. When I went to pick it up, it struggled and scratched my left arm.

I want to keep her. Out of pride, I wouldn't say anything like that. Beads of sweat continued to drip from my palms, and I wiped all the sweat from my left hand on the edge of the table, but my sweaty right hand was still holding the black earpiece tightly.

"You don't need him anymore, do you? You don't need it anymore. Gave up. You give up so casually. She said.

"Whatever, you say it's casual?" I laughed.

Once again, she reminded me. Our friendship, I thought it was. In the midst of my laughter, she was silent, maybe she wanted to say sorry. From beginning to end, she hadn't said sorry yet. But why did she say it?

"Whatever."

I repeated. Wanted to say something more. I should say something more.

Grandma is back. She appeared leisurely with the chickens at the end of the doorframe, bringing with her the lentils I had asked her to pick.

"So be it. I wish you happiness. We'll see you again. ”

Perhaps, what she needs, is for me to push her away. Casually, as she said.

I stood there, looking at the skinny old man who was standing still two meters away. She carried her bamboo basket of purple lentils, blue-and-white gourds, and long cowpeas like tentacles. I rushed towards her, using all the strength I had left, and hugged her for the first time.

When I was younger, I liked a boy. Grandma said.

For dinner that day, she used the basket of vegetables to cook me a few simple but delicious dishes, fried lentils, roasted cowpeas, gourd shredded dough cakes, and scrambled eggs with shallots.

I ate a lot, and it seemed that my appetite was not affected by that sadness at all. I broke myself.

"How can I do that? I lied to you. I'm so stupid. As a result, others lied to me. I said.

"It's really funny that you deserve it!" I thought to myself.

"It's fine, it's fine. Babble. It's okay. When you experience more things in the future, you will feel that it is nothing at all. It's not your grandmother who is telling you big things. How nice it is to like people when you are young. You'll have someone else you like. There will be other friends. It's like grandma's cowpea this season, which is about to go off the market. I'm going to plant again next year. You'll come back next year. ”

Grandma told me about her crops. She then said that she had liked a boy when she was younger. She said it without a bit of transition. She didn't give me time to get ready to listen, and she didn't even finish my burp. After talking about vegetables, she said that she liked someone when she was young. The other party also likes her.

We're good. She smiled. But his family had already married him, a girl from a neighboring village. A few days before his wedding, I made an appointment with him to leave the village and go somewhere farther away—I certainly hadn't decided where to go. It was pitch black at the entrance to the village before the sun had yet to set, and he and I ran hand in hand along the path down the hill. I was a little scared. After a while, I was exhausted to death. It may also be scary. I didn't seem to be ready to be pushed on the road.

Grandma didn't speak coherently. Intermittent. Think about it before you move on. On the table were the plates we had eaten and had not yet cleaned up. She didn't move them. Let them lie on the dining table under the energy-saving light bulbs.

He felt sorry for me and asked me to sit on his vamp and rest for a while. You can't sit on the ground, and there's dew on the ground. Also, earthworms and other bugs that crawl out at night. I'm always afraid of stepping on them when I walk. I sat on his vamp, gasping for breath and looking out at the vague fields surrounded by mist.

It was too quiet at that time, and there was already a light in the east. I saw a couple of people. The scarecrows I made, they were erected one by one, in the fields, far and near.

Afterward. Then I rested and went back. Grandma laughed and patted her shriveled thighs.

It's like a joke has just been told.

"And then?"

"Then he got married. I'm married, too. "He doesn't blame you?"

"No complaints. It's not a big deal! We're all staying in this place. No one has any serious illness, the children have grown up and become a family, and our old bones can still live to this day, and we can still see them every day. I can't get it for ten times of elopement! ”

In my grandmother's slightly shy smile, I guessed the identity of the boy and asked her to confirm my suspicions. But she pursed her mouth mischievously and said no more. Instead, she carefully cleaned up her mahogany dining table. Hold the bowl into the sink by the wall.

And I, I just waited for me to get a good night's sleep, and the next day at dawn, I went to sit on the porch of the house diagonally opposite and sat for the day to see my grandmother's lover and his wife.

There was an extra puppy on that porch, with a white background, and a few yellow patches on its back and belly on one side. The little freshly weaned furball staggered from one end of the porch to the other, and I stroked its little furry head as it came to sniff my toes. Probably someone sent them for companionship.

After I left, the village had to return to the way it was before I came. Three old men, a flock of chickens, and a puppy. Thinking of this, I picked up the little fellow who had just walked past my feet and was cautiously trying a stone staircase that was too high for it. I hugged it to my chest like a doll when I was a child, and it hummed softly. It's me who hugs it too tightly. Why should I hold so tightly? It was as if I was going to make a painful parting with it. I couldn't help but smile when its shiny obsidian eyes looked at me. It's about to start its new life, how nice it is! I gently kissed its furry forehead.

"You like it!" Uncle Liu came back from the field and was slowly walking up the stone steps with a hoe on his shoulder.

"Ahh It was lovely. ”

"You can raise one in the future, too!"

"You don't have to stay with you if you like it!" I put the dog down and grinned at him. He nodded slightly.

Lean your hoe against the wall on the side of the porch, roll up your sleeves and walk to the pool. Tap water gushed out and rushed over his wrinkled, calloused hands.

I walked up to him and watched him quietly.

"Well, I'll be back in a few days." I say.

"Oh. Good. Check it out when you have time. He turned to me and seemed to have told him the expected news, even though it was a decision I had just made.

I dismissed the idea of getting to the bottom of it. Whether he is the person in Grandma's story or not, this question is not asked. There is no point in knocking on the side, just respecting him as you would your grandmother. I am happy with this thought.

I spent a lot of my last few days in the village on that porch. I tied a couple of scarecrows there, and my grandmother taught me. I put the scarecrow up like a trophy in the field to show off, as she did when she was younger, even though no one could see it.

Outside of them, I don't show off anything anymore.

I left my clothes and hat with them. Whether they want it or not, I turned them into "them". In the days when I left the mountain village, I often thought of them. Daytime, night, between work, and even when you are dating a man.

I miss the smell of sun and earth on them.

Grandma left us on an autumn night.

None of us saw her for the last time. Uncle Liu found out, and he called my uncle to inform him. That autumn, the mountain village was revived with the funeral of my grandmother. Uncle Liu's children also came. They came to convince their parents to leave the village as soon as possible.

After drinking the liquor, I stayed alone in the vegetable field where my grandmother had worked at the back of the village. One of them was with me. The afternoon sun cast a dazzling golden hue on her. I thought about something, what my grandmother had said, and her love story. Even if she just made up a story like that to appease me.

"How many do you see?" I asked.

"Four, three, or five. They are small dark shadows. Even the one behind me looks like a little black shadow! "Her little dark shadow. Her lover, boyfriend. Her love. They are more real than what I experienced.

I stepped over the rows of turnips, revealing my fat white body, and came to her again, took off the old hat, which had faded from the sun and rain, and gently put the gray-blue bowler hat on my head on her head.

Author: Xi Wei, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a senior engineer, a writer, has published works in "October", "Writer Shuixi Lake to Literature Port", "Wild Grass", "Hunan Literature", "Guangzhou Literature and Art" and other publications, and is the author of "Tentacles", "Homecoming", "Day after Day of Domalin", etc. He now lives in Yuyao, Zhejiang.