Chapter 72: Chapter 63: We’ve Arrived
Xiao Man asked again, "So, does Secretary Mo know you’ve come to Wancheng to sell herbs?"
"He does, but he pretends not to. To prevent any trouble on the road, he gave me a note. It just says I’m transporting herbs for a purchasing unit, without specifying which one. It doesn’t matter where I sell them; I tear up these notes afterward. They’re useless then."
"And that’s okay?"
"Why wouldn’t it be? Your grandpa doesn’t cause trouble. It’s been fine for all these years."
"Oh, so the price that ’boss’ gives you is really high?"
"Much higher than the procurement station." Grandpa looked at Xiao Man with a smile. "’Boss’? You know that word too."
"The man pays a high price, which means he’s rich. And rich people are called ’bosses,’ right? That’s what they do in the movies!"
Xiao Man imitated a little beggar from a movie, holding out her hand and shouting, "Boss, boss, have a heart, spare a few coins!"
Grandpa deliberately put on a stern face. "You’re a young lady, you shouldn’t be learning bad habits like that!"
"Okay, I’ll try another one," Xiao Man said, clearing her throat with a cough. She yelled, "Proprietor, bring out the dishes! Crispy plum duck, white cut chicken, five-spice braised beef, lion’s head meatballs in brown sauce... and bring us a pot of Xinghua wine!"
Grandpa burst out laughing. "Just look at what a little glutton you are! You watch one movie and you’ve already memorized all the dishes. Alright, alright! When we’ve finished our business and gone home, Grandpa will buy a chicken to slaughter, and you can have both drumsticks!"
"That’s great! I’m getting big drumsticks!"
Xiao Man cheered. At the thought of savory white cut chicken, she couldn’t help but lick her lips. ’Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve had any chicken or duck at all since I came back to this life. I’m really craving it!’
The ox cart ambled along. Grandpa would occasionally stop to let the big water buffalo rest, cutting some grass from the fields by the roadside for it to chew on. When they passed a pond, he would pull out a gourd ladle from the cart to scoop up water for it to drink. Usually, this was Xiao Man’s job. When Grandpa wasn’t looking, Xiao Man would add a bit of Spiritual Spring from the palm of her left hand, hoping the ox would walk faster after drinking it.
But she was disappointed. After drinking the Spiritual Spring, the water buffalo remained as stubborn as ever, maintaining its steady, unhurried pace with no intention of speeding up. The only obvious change was its tail, which was swishing back and forth with such enthusiasm that it nearly slapped Xiao Man in the face twice, earning the beast a sharp scolding from Grandpa.
Xiao Man and Grandpa arrived in Wancheng a little after one in the afternoon. They only knew the exact time because they overheard some people talking on the roadside.
Xiao Man didn’t have much of an impression of Wancheng. In her past life, she had slaved away for Liu Fengying’s family, finishing farm work only to take on side jobs to earn money. She rarely even went to the township market, let alone into the city. The only time she had passed through Wancheng was when Mo Guoqiang and Liu Fengying took her on a bus to the train station here. From there, they transferred to a train to the provincial city, and then from the provincial city to Beijing...
I remember staying one night in a Wancheng hotel. Liu Fengying had taken me shopping. In 1990, Wancheng was bustling and prosperous, full of cars and people. The streetlights were bright, and the dazzling, multicolored neon signs made my eyes swim. Everything was a riot of color, but I couldn’t tell east from west and ended up backtracking several times. Mo Guoqiang called me an idiot, while Liu Fengying, bent over with laughter, said I was just like Granny Liu from the old novel, a country bumpkin visiting the big city for the first time.
That trip to Wancheng was also when Xiao Man bid a final farewell to her hometown. In the years that followed, apart from occasionally browsing news from the area in newspapers or online, she had never returned.
In this life, Xiao Man had insisted on coming to Wancheng with Grandpa to scout out the area. ’Gongdao Village is where I grew up, but I can’t stay cooped up there forever. The world is a big place, and I have to get out and see it. Right now, Wancheng is my most convenient way out.’
It had a bus station, a train station, and even an airport. Of course, she couldn’t hope to fly; the airport wasn’t open to civilians. Militiamen from the village had come here for training and said that the planes everyone occasionally saw flying overhead would sometimes land at this airport for a while before taking off again. Those were military aircraft. More often, they were small planes from the forestry department, sowing tree seeds.
As a regional city governing more than a dozen counties, Wancheng had a military sub-district and was garrisoned with troops. In her past life, Xiao Man had heard a certain judge say that when he first joined the army, he was stuck in Wancheng for two years. It was only when that war was approaching that he was transferred elsewhere for training. In the end, he didn’t make it to the battlefield and never returned to Wancheng.
’Let’s see,’ Xiao Man calculated on her fingers. ’The autumn of 1977... that’s this year. The judge will be eighteen by traditional reckoning and is about to come to Wancheng for his military service!’
’I have no intention of seeking him out,’ Xiao Man thought. ’He’s a pain, a total obsessive-compulsive. We once had a massive fight over whether or not I should get plastic surgery, after which we declared our friendship over and truly started avoiding each other.’
’After I died in my past life, the judge got my phone number and address from a lawyer and started sending me money and gifts four times a year. I donated it all to an orphanage and mailed the receipts back to him. But he was relentless, continuing his scheduled deliveries and even sending me holiday text messages!’
Xiao Man had texted him back: I’m not your mom, your wife, or your sister. I don’t need you to support me!
He replied: You’re my grandma!
Xiao Man: ...
Up until the year Xiao Man died in the high-speed rail accident, she was still receiving large packages in her capacity as his "grandma," and she hadn’t even had time to send the last two to the orphanage!
In Xiao Man’s eyes, the Wancheng of this era could only be described as "dilapidated." There were no skyscrapers; the streets were lined mostly with flat-roofed and tile-roofed buildings, with one or two dark, tar-paper roofs mixed in. The streets were narrow, and the road surface was pitted with deep, water-filled potholes. Fortunately, there weren’t many cars in those days. Cyclists would steer around the large ox cart on their own. The people on the road were all hurrying toward their own destinations, paying no attention to Grandpa, Xiao Man, and their ox cart.
Grandpa said that this was just the outskirts of Wancheng. If they went further, to the area with the department store and the Workers’ Cultural Palace, it would look much nicer.
The ox cart crossed a relatively short concrete bridge, then turned left. It followed a simple path, just over a meter wide, along the river for another twenty minutes or so before turning into a small alley, and then into a large courtyard... Grandpa said this was the back entrance. A big ox cart like theirs couldn’t easily navigate the main street, so they had to come in from behind.
Immediately, a man of about forty came over to greet Grandpa, calling him "Brother Mo." He familiarly took the ox’s lead rope from Grandpa’s hand. Xiao Man couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. ’Looks like this is the place. We finally made it!’
The courtyard was a residential compound. Soon, a group of seven or eight boys and girls, ranging in age from young children to teenagers, gathered around. They all stared at Xiao Man, and a few even tried to speak to her. ’City kids really are different,’ she thought. ’They’re all dressed so neatly, with such fair skin. And they’re so bold, not shy with strangers at all.’
Grandpa was genuinely worried about losing Xiao Man, and seeing so many children crowd around, he quickly took her by the hand. He didn’t let go, no matter where he went or who he talked to.
The man who had first greeted Grandpa led the ox cart deeper into the large courtyard. Grandpa and Xiao Man followed behind. The group of children, however, did not follow. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to; someone had stopped them.
