Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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Ying Qiao slowly arrived at the door of Jiang Lan’s house and saw that the door was open. He must have left it open deliberately because he knew he was coming.
In the living room, Jiang Lan was packing a suitcase. While Suan Ni and Jiao Tu’s suitcase was already packed with their belongings, and they were even bringing a tablet with them.
When he turned around, he happened to see Ying Qiao at the door, so he greeted him, “Are you here? Do you want to take a rest first?”
At this time, Ying Qiao just wanted to go back and tidy himself up. He was afraid that he would notice that he was all messy and had no time to sit still. He just said vaguely: “No, you have to get up early tomorrow. I’ll just pick them up. Then you can go to bed early.”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Lan handed the suitcase to Jiao Tu, while Suan Ni squatted on the suitcase consciously.
“This week, I have to be busy with work in the countryside, so I will trouble you to take care of them for the time being.” Jiang Lan explained the preferences of his two younger brothers, and specially told Ying Qiao: “Don’t let them play games for too long. The maximum is four hours a day.”
Then he said to Suan Ni and Jiao Tu: “I will visit you when I have a rest day. Don’t cause trouble for Ying Qiao.”
Both brothers responded obediently.
Jiang Lan worriedly finished his instructions before handing his brothers over to Ying Qiao.
Ying Qiao had been careful to keep a distance from him, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that he hadn’t noticed his messy appearance. He was afraid that Jiang Lan would notice if he stayed for too long, so he said goodbye to Jiang Lan at the door, picked up Suan Ni with one hand, took the suitcase with the other and went downstairs.
Jiang Lan wanted to send them down, but Ying Qiao stopped him a little forcefully.
After seeing off Ying Qiao and his younger brothers, Jiang Lan put the things he would bring with him tomorrow into his bag, then washed up and went to rest early.
At half past five the next day, just after dawn, Jiang Lan got into Xue Meng’s car and they set off for Sanshui Village.
With the route map Xiao Xiaoyu sent yesterday, their journey was much smoother, without any detours, and they arrived at the entrance of the village at about a quarter past eight.
Probably because of the cloudy weather, Sanshui Village looked a bit gloomy today. There was a dark and thin man with a slight hunchback standing at the entrance of the village. He waved when he saw their car. Judging from his figure and clothes, he should be the village party secretary Huang Zhishu.
Jiang Lan parked his car under the big tree at the entrance of the village, and Party Secretary Huang came up to meet him. When he saw Jiang Lan and Xue Meng, he looked stunned for a moment, rubbed his hands and asked, “Why didn’t yesterday’s girl come?”
“We are her colleagues, and the leader arranged for us to come here in turns.” Jiang Lan always felt that it was strange that he asked about Xiao Xiaoyu as soon as he came up, so he couldn’t help but look at him more.
The man was dark and thin, a head shorter than him. He didn’t know his exact age, but just looking at the state of his face, he was probably in his fifties. His palms were broad and rough, and they looked like they belonged to a farmer digging in the fields. Even his face had the simplicity unique to farmers.
“Okay, please come in. The two comrades helped us a lot yesterday and said they would help us solve our difficulties.”
Party Secretary Huang seemed to just have mentioned it casually and did not ask any more questions after that. He only warmly invited them to sit at his home first, asked them if they had had breakfast, and called his wife to boil some eggs for them.
Jiang Lan and Xue Meng ate bread on the road, so naturally they quickly refused, saying that they had already eaten it.
Sanshui Village was really poverty-stricken, which was visible to the naked eye. Even if they hadn’t eaten breakfast, they were too embarrassed to ask the village party secretary to spend money to prepare breakfast for them.
Seeing that they were indeed not being polite, Party Secretary Huang stopped trying to persuade them and took them around the village to get a general understanding of the situation.
There were not many households in Sanshui Village. Jiang Lan counted about thirty households, which was somewhat different from the forty-five households shown in the data. Many of the houses were empty and dusty, with no one living in them.
Jiang Lan was confused and asked one more question: “Have all the owners of these vacant houses left the village?”
“Yeah, they have all left.” Secretary Huang looked at the vacant houses, his face becoming more and more full of the vicissitudes of life.
“Only those of us with half of our bodies buried in the ground are left waiting to die in the village.”
Xue Meng was close to his grandfather, and he couldn’t bear to hear these words from the old man. He said quickly: “Don’t say these depressing words. When the village builds roads and gets connected to running water, life will get better.”
Huang Zhishu chuckled, rubbed his rough palms, and said, “Yes.”
“We are here to give the comrades from the Poverty Alleviation Office a head start. We will first understand everyone’s difficulties and ideas. When the comrades from the Poverty Alleviation Office come later, we will try our best to solve the difficulties for everyone…”
Xue Meng gave full play to his talkative nature, apparently forgetting the fear he had before coming, and started chatting happily with Party Secretary Huang.
Jiang Lan followed them, scanning the old houses one after another.
Probably because the weather was bad and the lights were not turned on, these houses looked dark. Jiang Lan looked away lightly and saw a family holding a funeral in front of him.
No one was seen in the village because all the villagers were gathered in front of the house where the funeral was held.
At first glance, there were many men and few women, and most of them were middle-aged people in their forties or fifties. There were only a handful of young people and children.
They were divided into two rows and stood on both sides of the main door of the host’s house. In the middle of the main room was a black coffin. In front of the coffin, a middle-aged couple knelt and were kowtowing to the coffin.
The atmosphere was very solemn.
After kowtowing, the middle-aged couple helped each other up and said in a trembling voice: “Rise!”
There were four strong men waiting aside, each carrying the coffin to the woods to the north of the village for burial.
Jiang Lan and Xue Meng were watching the ceremony. Xue Meng and Party Secretary Huang were already familiar with each other, and he shouted to him: “Do you still have burials in your village? Now the country advocates cremation, which is more environmentally friendly.”
Upon hearing this, Party Secretary Huang looked back at him, his cloudy eyes not turning for a long time.
Xue Meng was a little uncomfortable with him and laughed dryly.
Party Secretary Huang looked away and laughed strangely: “This set of customs have been around in the village for many years. If you change it randomly, I’m afraid it will anger the ancestors and kill people.”
Xue Meng knew that cremation was a taboo topic in some villages, so he stopped mentioning it and changed the topic to ease the awkward and stiff atmosphere: “Yesterday Xiaoyu said that the fertilizer spreading in Grandma Huang’s field has not been finished yet. Let’s continue it today. We will wait until the afternoon. When the funeral is over, could you please get everyone together, and we will conduct a survey and mobilization on the intention of migrant workers. Once the number of applicants is determined, we will contact the surrounding companies and factories to win jobs for everyone.”
Huang Zhishu rubbed his hands and said, “Okay.”
Then he said: “The fields of Mrs. Huang’s family have been taken care of, so I don’t need to trouble you. It’s hard for you to travel all the way and catch up with the funeral in the village. You can rest first in the morning and wait until everyone comes back in the afternoon. I’ll go call someone for you.”
After saying that, he led Jiang Lan and Xue Meng to his home to sit down. Huang Zhishu’s wife brought two bowls of tea. The bowl was an open porcelain bowl that you usually ate in. The black stems soaked in it must be relatively low-quality tea stems. Just holding it in your hand made you smell a bitter taste.
To show respect, the two drank two sips before putting down their bowls.
When Party Secretary Huang saw them drinking tea, he picked up the hookah on the side and said, “I have to go and have a look at the cemetery. You two comrades can rest here first.”
After saying that, he left, and his wife went into the back room again, without saying a word to the two of them from beginning to end.
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