Chapter 166.3

Li Zhuiyuan and Xue Liangliang stood on the village road to welcome them. Xue Liangliang’s father and mother had only just gotten out of the taxi, and before they even had time to unload their things, they started scolding him for making them take a cab all the way here from the bus station. Did he know how much that would cost?

Originally, Xue Liangliang had planned to rent a car and go pick them up from their hometown himself, but they refused and insisted on buying bus tickets and coming on their own.

But once they reached Nantong Bus Station, they really had no other choice and could only do as their son told them and take a taxi.

Along the way, the two old folks watched the numbers on the meter keep jumping higher and felt their blood pressure rising right along with it.

Xue Liangliang kept smiling and helped them carry their things.

The two elders grumbled and criticized him the whole way, but the moment they reached the yard and saw Li Sanjiang, they immediately switched to smiling faces and warmly greeted him and started chatting.

Seizing the chance, Xue Liangliang told his parents that he had only taken half a day off to meet them today and still had to get back to the construction site.

Then he rode off again on his three-wheeler.

Watching Brother Liangliang’s carefree departing figure, even Li Zhuiyuan felt that he was a true warrior.

Xiong Shan and Lihua finished tidying up the west room and happily moved into Huzi’s house for good.

Ever since their son had cried out “Xiong Yu” that night, the couple had gone every evening to set up an offering table in Huzi’s yard and burn a little paper.

Most of the time, Xiao Yingying was the one looking after the child. Only when they went to burn paper did the couple carry their son over. After the ritual was done, they would place him back into the coffin where Xiao Yingying lay.

Still, Li Zhuiyuan had overheard the couple whispering to each other from time to time.

The general meaning was: why wasn’t there any sign yet from Lihua’s belly?

The last time they had a child, it had come from an accident when they failed to take precautions. After all, the two of them had never been so crazed as to deliberately make a child just for the sake of carrying one along the river.

So logically, Lihua ought to have been someone who conceived easily.

Now that someone was helping care for the child, the couple only did a bit of farm work and made a few paper effigies during the day. For people with their physical constitution, that amount of labor was nothing. They had plenty of energy left to toss around at night.

And yet, no matter what, they could not produce any more results.

Li Zhuiyuan looked at the child cradled in Little Oriole’s arms.

All he could say was that some children remain only children because of state policy, while others manage it through their own merit and fortune.

Even while still wrapped in swaddling clothes, he could cut off at the source any chance that his father’s and mother’s love might be divided.

It was not the child’s intention, but that was the influence someone blessed with fortune naturally exerted.

The next day, Xiao Yingying also moved into Huzi’s house with the child, because Runsheng and the others were back, and she had to give up the coffin-bed.

Yin Meng drove the car and brought the three brothers back.

Runsheng could already get out of bed and walk freely, but he still could not work.

Tan Wenbin no longer needed a crutch, but he still had to watch his steps when walking.

Lin Shuyou was wearing glasses now, and they were reading glasses at that.

Li Sanjiang noticed something was off with the three of them and asked why. They explained that they had gone to an amusement park to ride a pirate ship, but it had derailed and thrown all three of them off.

Little Yuan had studied properly and had not gone with them to the amusement park.

Li Sanjiang then asked whether the park had paid compensation. Only after hearing that they had did he feel somewhat satisfied.

Still, he could not help feeling a bit regretful. Three mules that had originally been so sturdy and durable had all come home sick for the New Year. It was practically a mule plague.

Grandpa Shan had also come here to spend the New Year. Clutching Runsheng’s hand, he sighed over and over in distress.

Runsheng took out a New Year’s gift of money from his pocket and handed it to Grandpa Shan.

Grandpa Shan smacked it right back and scolded, “You’re in this state, and you think I could take your money? Could I?”

Then at noon, Aunt Zhang came over asking whether anyone here wanted to play fried golden flowers.

Grandpa Shan’s cheeks twitched. He ran up to Runsheng, turned his back to him, and flicked his hand behind him.

Runsheng silently passed that money right back into Grandpa Shan’s hand.

Seeing this, Li Sanjiang cursed, “That old beast really is no good.”

Grandpa Shan reddened and stiffened his neck. “I’m saving money for the boy!”

Then Grandpa Shan started trying to light his water pipe. He struck several matches in a row and could not get it lit, so he kept changing position. With every shift he edged farther and farther out of the yard, until in the end he simply took off running straight for the gambling den.

Li Sanjiang cursed at Runsheng, “Your brain’s full of water too, giving him money like that.”

Runsheng just gave a simple, honest smile.

He had deliberately given Grandpa Shan a sum of money so the old man could happily go lose it over the New Year.

Before the shop’s winter break ended, they had settled accounts and paid out dividends, and he had received a very large sum.

He kept one-third for buying rice, flour, grain, and oil for his grandfather’s household, as well as for sending off at the card table.

He gave all the rest to Yin Meng and let her go shopping for clothes.

Anyway, he had never had much habit of spending money on himself, so there was no point in keeping it on him.

Early the next morning, Liu Yumei’s family returned.

The old lady had changed out of the clothes she used to wear in Jinling and had switched back into the sort she used to wear in the countryside.

Uncle Qin and Aunt Liu had also returned, and there was still a clear air of road-weariness about them.

They had rushed back right after digging up someone else’s ancestral grave.

With so many people in the yard, Ah Li did not like it much, but when Li Zhuiyuan walked up and took her hand, she smiled, her eyes fixed on the boy the whole time.

Li Sanjiang cheerfully took out the key and went to unlock the east house.

Inside, it had been cleaned very thoroughly.

That was because Li Sanjiang had secretly unlocked it and gone in to clean it before.

He had been too embarrassed to do it openly. If he cleaned it all up and then no one came, that would have been too humiliating.

Now he felt pretty pleased with himself, especially after noticing that when his great-grandson and that girl went hand in hand up to the second-floor terrace, the old lady did not look jealous at all. Instead, she wore a smile.

Well now, that worldly old lady had actually changed her nature!

The east house also had one hall and two rooms. Uncle Qin and Aunt Liu shared the south room.

Li Sanjiang suggested that they stay at Huzi’s place, where there were still quite a few empty rooms, but the old lady refused and said they could fit here.

Mainly, it was enough that everyone knew the others existed. There was really no need to make A Li and Tingting live right in front of the other side, king against king.

The whole family did not sleep in the same place at night, but they did eat together, so the kitchen was extremely busy.

Aunt Liu returned to her old trade, and she was thoroughly used to working at a rural stove.

Lihua very consciously helped at her side, humble to the point of seeming even lower than an apprentice.

When there was nothing to do during the day, Uncle Qin pushed the cart out to make deliveries. During the New Year period there were many banquets, so there were deliveries almost every day.

Xiong Shan helped Uncle Qin out.

The husband and wife were very fair-minded. While working, neither of them even dared breathe too heavily.

After meals, the old lady liked to set up a small table and have Xue Liangliang’s parents and the others gather around and chat with her to relieve her boredom.

What she especially loved hearing from them was how their son still was not married and still did not want children, while they were waiting to hold grandchildren.

Because the old lady knew that the one from the Bai family was already pregnant, the more she listened, the more entertaining it became. She could not even shell sunflower seeds fast enough.

Li Zhuiyuan and Ah Li would stroll around the village together, and sometimes they would also drop by Cuicui’s house to sit for a while.

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Xue Liangliang took his parents to see the Yangtze River and the sea.

In the car, it was a rare moment with just the three of them alone.

Xue Liangliang’s mother asked curiously, “That old lady at the house, just who exactly is she?”

Xue Liangliang froze for a moment. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

His father said, “She ought to be some very important person.”

“Do you feel pressured sitting with her?”

His mother hurriedly shook her head. “Someone like that willing to sit and chat with people like us—that’s something we could only wish for.”

His father nodded. “Exactly.”

In truth, the old lady had already put on very little airs. But some things simply could not be cast off just because one wanted to. She only had to sit there, and everyone naturally gravitated toward her.

Whatever she wanted to hear, that was what everyone had to talk about.

Xue Liangliang’s parents had originally been saving up a whole bellyful of things they wanted to say to their son, but over the last two days they had repeated it all again and again to the old lady. It was like chewing sugarcane over and over until all the flavor was gone. By now, they did not have the energy to lecture their son anymore.

Xue Liangliang first took his parents to Wolf Mountain to burn incense. Standing on the mountaintop, they admired the magnificent sight of the Yangtze flowing into the sea.

After they came back down and got into the car, his parents said that while burning incense they had prayed for their son to marry and have children soon.

Xue Liangliang immediately nodded. “I’ve heard Wolf Mountain is really effective!”

After that, he drove to the stretch of riverbank he often visited and took his parents for a walk there.

The river view was broad and open, enough to calm the heart. Arm in arm, his father and mother talked about their younger days and about when Xue Liangliang was little.

Xue Liangliang followed behind them.

Behind him, over the river’s surface, a curtain of water slowly rose and bowed in salute toward the two elderly figures ahead.

She was still dressed in bridal clothes, but now her lips had been freshly reddened, her face newly powdered, and she wore a full set of jeweled ornaments and a phoenix coronet.

The two old people noticed nothing at all.

Xue Liangliang, meanwhile, stopped walking and looked at her. She was looking at him too.

Though neither spoke, it was as though they both heard the other’s heart at the same time:

“I’ve made you suffer.”

“I’ve made you suffer.”

After the water curtain sank and the river grew calm again,

Xue Liangliang unconsciously straightened his back, drew a deep breath, and slowly let it out.

Little Yuan had once said that some ceremonial things still carried meaning of their own.

Now he felt it.

At that moment, he felt he had truly grown up and genuinely understood what responsibility and commitment were.

If, before, he had lived and worked only by relying on his own unique eye and a chest full of hot blood, then now he had begun truly planning out his life.

This river, this water, these waves... this magnificent land.

Starting next year,

he would go tame them, transform them, and build them.

And he would take his junior brother Little Yuan with him... together!

...

Zhou Yunyun came. Her home was in Shigang, so it was already quite nearby.

And Tan Wenbin had already gone to her house before. Though the two of them were not formally engaged and had not held a banquet, both families had already accepted the match.

As for their age, in the countryside there were plenty their age who already had children old enough to run errands.

Li Sanjiang took them all to pay respects to those two.

The graves of those two had been built like a siheyuan. Though miniature, they even had multiple courtyards in sequence.

One large and one small, and among the local graves they absolutely counted as first-rate luxury homes of the dead.

A bit of trouble had broken out when the graves were built. Some villagers had reported it, and not only had village cadres come, people had also been sent down from the town.

After all, in these times, making a small one was one thing, but something this extravagant was honestly a bit too much. Too many eyes were watching.

If everyone’s lives kept getting better and later every family started using this as the benchmark for building graves, would that not become total chaos?

In the end there was no choice. Li Sanjiang had to come up with a different explanation for the road-building money.

He said it was true that the overseas Chinese man had given the money, but that man had only been a middleman. The ones who had really given it were those two who wanted their souls to return to their native home.

Anyway, Ding Dalin had vanished without a trace after giving the money for his peach trees, so they could make up whatever story they wanted about him.

That left the town cadres with nothing much to say. These days, in order to attract foreign investment, local governments all over the place had to offer who knew how many favorable conditions.

The man had donated a large sum for road and bridge construction, for supporting the elderly with no family, and for helping children with school expenses, and all he asked for in return was two graves. That was not excessive, was it?

And so, in this way, those two old gentlemen settled down in Siyuan Village.

When Li Sanjiang brought everyone there, he noticed traces of candles and burned paper on the two graves, and the weeds nearby had also been cleared away.

Quite a few villagers had probably come by on purpose while tending family graves during the New Year and had made offerings for them as well.

A lot of modern writers like to deliberately magnify the ugliness that appears in the countryside because of scarcity of resources.

Yet throughout history, most shrines to gods were built in villages. How many ever made it into the cities?

People’s hearts are made of flesh. When someone treats them well, they know how to be grateful.

Li Sanjiang set out the offering table, and Tan Wenbin brought Zhou Yunyun over to kowtow.

That was something he had promised his godfather before.

When Li Sanjiang saw Li Zhuiyuan standing there without moving, he quickly waved at him. “Little Yuanhou, you should kowtow too, get a bit of good fortune on you. Those two are good people. They can bless you.”

Li Zhuiyuan looked troubled.

Tan Wenbin quickly stepped in to smooth things over. “Grandpa Li, one thing is one thing. These are my lifesavers. It’s enough for me to kowtow.”

Li Sanjiang said, “What kind of talk is that?”

As he spoke, Li Sanjiang faced the two graves and held up the burning incense.

“You two did good for our village by building roads and bridges. I, Li Sanjiang, remember your kindness. It’s New Year’s, so I’ll kowtow to you.”

Li Sanjiang knelt down, then turned his head and waved at Li Zhuiyuan again.

With his great-grandfather kneeling, it really would not have been right for him to keep standing there.

Li Zhuiyuan could only start bending his knees, but before they even touched the ground, there came a sound:

Crack!

The roofs of the main chambers on both the large and the small ornate graves split open at the same time.

“Oh no, no, no!”

Li Sanjiang no longer cared about kowtowing. He hurried forward to inspect the damage, then told Tan Wenbin to go fetch a village mason. He had to get the graves repaired before nightfall.

When Li Zhuiyuan got back home, he discovered Liu Jinxia had come, and Aunt Xianghou was helping in the kitchen.

Liu Jinxia had had a fiery temper all her life, but in front of Liu Yumei even her voice softened. She had heard more messy family gossip and sordid stories than most people in her lifetime, and her own household alone could fill a book.

As she told them one by one, Liu Yumei listened with great relish.

Cuicui and Ah Li were upstairs on the terrace playing five-in-a-row.

“Brother Yuanhou, hehe, look! This bracelet was a gift from Sister Ah Li. Pretty, right?”

Cuicui held up the wooden bracelet on her left wrist for Li Zhuiyuan to see.

The color of that bracelet... was very much like the complexion of the ancestors of the Qin and Liu families.

After glancing at it, Li Zhuiyuan looked at Ah Li.

The fact that she could shift her attention away from a single person and onto others was itself a sign that her condition was improving.

Li Zhuiyuan had once thought of finding a hard metal object to suppress Cuicui’s Natal life-mark. This wooden bracelet could not provide a permanent effect, but at least it would still work for quite a few years.

“Cuicui, from now on, wear that bracelet every day. Don’t take it off.”

“Of course. I’d never bear to take it off.”

Before the New Year’s Eve dinner, Tan Wenbin and Lin Shuyou were going to call home to give New Year’s greetings, and Xue Liangliang also pulled Li Zhuiyuan along to call Luo Gong.

Tan Wenbin called his father first, and then Lin Shuyou took the phone and called home.

The other end was extremely lively. There was drumming and gong-beating. During the New Year period, the temple had many activities, and one of the temple’s child mediums had already entered trance and was currently blessing the sick and dispelling ill fortune.

Lin Shuyou’s grandfather was the one who answered, and he was in the middle of earnestly lecturing Lin Shuyou.

Just as one ritual ended, the people over there started thanking the child medium, saying how hard the young master had worked.

Nearby, Li Zhuiyuan was chatting with Xue Liangliang about his daytime trip. When he learned that Xue Liangliang had specifically taken his parents to the riverbank so she could meet them and offer her salute, Li Zhuiyuan said:

“You’ve worked hard too.”

At once, a cry of alarm came from the other end of Lin Shuyou’s call.

“This is bad! The child medium collapsed, collapsed!”

Lin Shuyou’s grandfather could only speak quickly. “Something’s happened at the temple. Stay put and spend the New Year peacefully in Nantong. Everything at home is fine, don’t worry.”

Then he immediately hung up to go deal with it.

Lin Shuyou blinked and lowered the phone.

Next, Xue Liangliang called Luo Gong, and together with Li Zhuiyuan they offered him New Year’s greetings.

Ordinary teachers and students would not go this far, but theirs was a special relationship. Master, master—only someone who truly takes the role of a father worries that deeply about a child’s future.

Xue Liangliang had bought a great many fireworks in advance, and all of them were the big boxed kind.

After New Year’s Eve dinner, everyone began setting them off.

In those days, aside from the little firecrackers children played with, fireworks were still considered a luxury. In the countryside, only households doing particularly well would buy a few to set off, and even then they did not last long.

But Li Sanjiang’s yard became the brightest place in the whole village that night. Many villagers came specially out of their homes and gathered nearby just to watch the fireworks.

When one batch was finished, another batch would be brought out from the house. Everyone took turns enjoying the thrill firsthand and could even choose which style of fireworks to set off.

Even Tan Wenbin could not help asking curiously, “Brother Liangliang, just how many fireworks did you buy?”

Xue Liangliang shrugged. “Enough.”

Tan Wenbin gave him a thumbs-up. “Brother Liangliang, impressive.”

Then Tan Wenbin leaned in and asked in a low voice, “This must’ve cost a lot, right?”

Everyone knew Xue Liangliang had money, but he did not like doing business, so even with money, it still seemed excessive to burn it like this.

Xue Liangliang said, “Based on the pattern of Western economic development, I think the domestic stock market is definitely going to be established and grow, so last year I had a friend help me buy quite a few stock subscription certificates.”

Tan Wenbin said, “Are those things worth a lot now?”

Xue Liangliang replied, “They’re all right.”

Under the sky full of fireworks, Li Zhuiyuan and Ah Li stood hand in hand on the second-floor terrace.

Every so often Li Zhuiyuan looked at the brilliant display in the sky, and every so often at the sparkle in the girl’s eyes.

“Next year, I’m going to be very busy. I’ll often be away.”

The girl could not speak. She only gave his hand a gentle squeeze in response.

“But every time I finish what I’m doing, I’ll still come back.”

The girl turned around to face the boy.

“Look at Brother Liangliang. Even when he used to be busy, it never kept him from coming back to Nantong. If I follow his example, I won’t be coming back any less often.”

The girl lowered her head, and the boy lowered his too. Their foreheads gently touched.

“Are they still noisy?”

The girl closed her eyes.

The boy closed his eyes too.

The next moment, Li Zhuiyuan appeared in Ah Li’s dream.

Outside, the thick fog had already retreated to an extremely distant place. At a glance, it almost looked like clouds hanging at the horizon.

Holding Ah Li’s hand, Li Zhuiyuan stepped over the threshold.

The boy took down the white lantern wedged into a crack in the wall and led the girl onward.

This was wilderness. This was a stream. The scenery here ought to have been beautiful, just like the girl would have been if she had been able to grow up healthy.

As Li Zhuiyuan kept moving forward, the dense fog in the distance churned and rolled, seeming to surge backward in retreat. Not only did none of them dare come forward, none dared stand in the front row.

They were afraid that if they were careless, the lantern in the boy’s hand would fish them out again.

Not many people care about the process. Most only look at the result. And they themselves were one of those “results.”

Although Li Zhuiyuan’s name still was not prominent in the world of the rivers and lakes, beneath the dark currents of these waters, this pack of snakes, vermin, and rats had already begun to fear him.

Just as, in reality, Liu Yumei had grown more relaxed and happy.

Because the Dragon King gates of the Qin and Liu families were, step by step, being raised again.

It would not be long

before the entire underworld of the rivers and lakes once more remembered the terror of the days when the Dragon Kings of the Qin and Liu families stood there.

Karmic fire ignited in Li Zhuiyuan’s palm and burned the white lantern.

The boy flung it forward. The lantern split open and turned into a burst of gorgeous rosy clouds, stirring the surrounding mists into violent waves.

The fireworks in this dream truly did not lose to the real ones at all.

Li Zhuiyuan clapped his hands, raised his head, and looked at the glowing clouds dyed with the colors of the fireworks.

Then he said:

“Hide yourselves well. Starting today, it’s my turn to go looking for you.”