(1)
Labor Day wasn’t over yet.
But the summer outing for Labor Day had already ended—this morning.
In the morning, Ye Wen had specially invited a few workers who used to work at the lumberyard to talk about their past lives.
There were tough parts and happy parts. For the students, who didn’t have to live through that kind of life anymore, they listened with great interest to both.
Breakfast stretched all the way to ten in the morning. In between, they also enjoyed some snacks that were typical of that era—simple, crude, but with a unique charm.
After that, it was time for everyone to pack up and get ready to go home.
“Don’t forget to take your clothes that were drying outside. Check the room for any personal belongings before you leave. If you’re all packed, wait downstairs. We’ll take roll call and then head out together—absolutely no one is allowed to wander off on their own!”
Ye Wen stood downstairs holding a big megaphone, shouting these lines back and forth several times. Then, out of breath, she handed the megaphone to Qiu Yi and told him to keep shouting for her…
His voice, when it came, sounded a bit helpless.
From beside him came Ye Wen’s quiet complaint: “Louder, didn’t you have breakfast!”
“Can’t you just set it to loop and play it on repeat…”
“Oh, right.” The little farce downstairs didn’t affect the students packing their luggage. Actually, at first, An Jing thought you could just stuff everything into your backpack and go, but she hadn’t expected Zhu Ying and Wang Xinru to have spread so many things all over the room. Now they had to check every spot to make sure nothing was left behind.
“How can you manage to put stuff everywhere in just two days?”
“Once you take it out, you put it somewhere handy. Don’t you have to take your towel out of the bathroom, Little Jing?”
“I only have that one towel to take…” An Jing pulled the corner of her mouth helplessly. “I found it. Why is your sunscreen on the shoe cabinet?”
“I just put some on when I was going out, then left it there, I guess?”
“Put it away properly! And Wangwang’s socks, why are they here too…”
“Th-those socks are for me to wear later when I go out.” Wang Xinru looked a little embarrassed. “My feet accidentally got wet, so I can’t wear them…”
The items in the room were packed up one by one. Though there wasn’t much luggage, it gave An Jing the illusion of moving house.
“Whew, finally done, right?”
“Mm—I’ll check one more time.” Zhu Ying was still a bit uneasy.
“I think I’ve taken everything…” Wang Xinru was already putting on her socks by the door—she had dried her feet with a tissue earlier.
An Jing, who had finished packing long ago, slung her backpack on and stretched widely. “Time flies. It feels like we just got here and now we’re leaving again.”
“Time always goes fast when you’re out having fun.” Zhu Jing casually picked up the trash bag in the room and quickly tied a knot in it with nimble fingers.
“But we still have two more days off. Any plans for where to go?”
“I’m definitely sleeping in tomorrow.” Zhu Ying muttered as she walked to the door, set the trash bag aside, held onto An Jing’s arm with one hand, and bent down to put on her shoes. “A vacation without sleeping in is incomplete.”
“Don’t you think it’s a waste to sleep in on a rare holiday?”
“Not sleeping in on a rare holiday—that’s the real waste, isn’t it?” Zhu Ying shot her a sidelong glance.
“Sometimes I think about sleeping in the next day, but I usually end up waking up early, getting up to play games…” An Jing scratched her cheek. “It’s almost always like that. Even if I want to sleep, I can’t. I feel really energetic.”
“I get like that sometimes too…” Wang Xinru laughed softly.
“Eh, Xiao Ru plays games too?”
“I don’t play games, just do other things like watch TV, movies, or read novels. And I have to wash up first, sit properly at the desk, use the computer to watch, and while watching, I’ll cook some porridge, bake some sweet potatoes… When I’m halfway through, I can start eating.”
“Sounds quite enjoyable.”
“Yeah.”
Just as the three of them had put on their shoes and were about to step into the hallway, a flurry of rapid footsteps came from not far away. They all turned their heads and saw Yuan Lanque running over quickly, holding a folded school uniform.
“Zhu Ying! It’s already dry. I almost forgot to give it to you. When I was packing my clothes just now, I kept wondering why there was an extra school uniform…”
“Oh, right, I almost forgot myself.” Zhu Ying turned her back to An Jing and instructed in a very natural tone, “Little Jing, unzip my backpack and stuff the uniform in.”
“Just stuff it in like that? Your backpack is already really full…”
“It’s fine, just cram it in. It should fit if we squeeze… Just don’t break the zipper when closing it.”
“You have way too much stuff in your backpack…” An Jing muttered as she took the uniform from Yuan Lanque and struggled to push it into Zhu Ying’s backpack. With Wang Xinru’s help, she barely managed to zip it shut.
And that was before she had even stuffed all her own things into her backpack—the bag she was carrying in her hand also looked bulging.
“Hey ya——” Zhu Ying grabbed the backpack straps and hoisted it up with effort. “Okay, let’s go downstairs. Looks like the boys are all down already.”
“Well, boys aren’t as slow at packing…”
(2)
On the way back, the others still took the double-decker minibus, while An Jing and her group got into the white Suzuki Beidouxing with black stripes—a car that looked like a bread loaf from the outside but was probably closer to a sedan.
Wang Xinru was still in the passenger seat, and An Jing and Zhu Ying were still in the back, but the driver had changed from Ye Wen to Qiu Yi.
As for the double-decker minibus, Ye Wen wasn’t driving it either, because she didn’t have a license for that kind of vehicle. The driver was a middle-aged man named Wang Hui—he wore a leather jacket and black leather shoes, and looked more like a bodyguard than a driver…
Meanwhile, Ye Wen was squeezed in with the crowd of students, probably wanting to experience the lively atmosphere of the group heading back.
When the Beidouxing drove off, the minibus was still taking roll call, with a noisy clamor coming from inside. That return journey must have been full of conversations.
In comparison, An Jing’s side was much quieter.
Wang Xinru got carsick easily, so she leaned against the window with her eyes closed as soon as she got in. Qiu Yi also didn’t seem particularly talkative, so An Jing and Zhu Ying just whispered about the scenery outside.
Though it was the same scenery, the feeling was completely different going back than it was coming.
The car wasn’t going fast, but it was steady. Even Wang Xinru, who was prone to motion sickness, got used to it after a while and occasionally blinked and said a few words.
“Fields and fields of wheat.”
“The summer rice will be ready to harvest soon.”
“Eh, there’s summer rice too?” Zhu Ying’s face lit up with curiosity.
“Of course there is. Some rice grains are harvested twice a year—once in summer, once in late autumn.”
“I thought they could only be harvested in autumn. That’s what the books always say: autumn, the season of harvest~”
“I didn’t know before either, but as far as I remember from my childhood, the rice has been harvested twice a year. In the off-season, you can also plant rapeseed flowers.” An Jing looked out the window at the rice that was greenish-yellow, at the gently swaying ears of grain, and couldn’t help lifting her chin. “Freshly harvested rice is really delicious. Even rice that hasn’t been completely husked is fragrant!”
“Yeah.” Wang Xinru was clearly recalling something too, and she couldn’t help glancing at An Jing through the rearview mirror. “That time I ate it with An’an.”
“Mm, at my uncle’s house. He leased a plot of land on the outskirts of town.”
“When will you take me to try some?” Zhu Jing puffed out one cheek.
“Sure, maybe during summer break. Oh, speaking of summer, not only do you have to eat fresh rice, but you also have to drink iced barley tea, and eat the golden watermelons grown in the sandy soil by the seaside!”
“Are golden watermelons really that good? I remember eating one once, and… it didn’t taste that great.”
“You have to eat them fresh. They have a slightly savory taste, mmm.” An Jing wiped the corner of her mouth. “Once you eat it, you’ll know!”
(3)
The car drove slowly along the less-than-wide provincial road, with faster cars whizzing past one after another.
Qiu Yi drove almost without bumps, and there were no sudden brakes or accelerations—completely unlike the style of town drivers.
An Jing couldn’t help but suspect he had gotten his driver’s license somewhere else.
In the smooth ride, Wang Xinru fell asleep against her seatback. An Jing was still looking at the scenery, but by now she was starting to feel drowsy too.
The car was especially quiet, with almost nothing but the sound of the engine and the wind outside the window.
Zhu Ying took out the earbud that was in An Jing’s ear, swapped it for one of her own, and also changed the song to one by Lin Junjie—of course, she didn’t only listen to Jay Chou. “What are you doing?”
“This ear’s gotten tired from listening, so swap to the other ear. Here, I swapped yours too.”
“I’m not really that tired…” An Jing yawned, letting the gentle wind brush over her face.
They hit a red light. The car stopped far in advance. Not far from the road was a construction site. Several large yellow excavators were working on the dirt slope, and a huge tower crane was slowly moving steel from one side to the other…
“Hmm… I feel a strange sense of familiarity.”
“What’s wrong?” An Jing leaned against the window without turning around—because Zhu Ying was currently leaning on An Jing’s back. “You’ve definitely seen tower cranes and excavators before, so it’s normal to feel familiar, right?”
“No, no. It’s a different kind of familiarity… Right! That description in your grandfather’s dream—this is exactly what he described, isn’t it?”
“Huh?”
“A thick arm, a yellow body, no legs, but it could move…” Zhu Ying’s eyes began to light up. “See, that’s an excavator!”
“A tall one with a slender arm—that looks like a tower crane.”
“Right!”
“But the monster he imagined doesn’t look anything like these two things… Not at all.”
“Well, imagination exaggerates things!”