County Town Chapter 28 Leaving the Countryside and Missing Home

  Two weeks later.

  Yitian Xing pushed Zou Leilei to the riverbank. The Yangtze River water becomes turbid and unbearable in summer, with a color like overcooked red bean porridge, making people feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, the county town's riverbank is lush with green grass, shaded by trees, and the wind between the woods brings a cool and refreshing feeling. On the opposite side of the county town's river are low, connected green hills, one of which, directly facing the county town's clock tower, has an unusual shape, with a sharp peak that gradually slopes down to the ground. Local people in the county town often say that this mountain has a narrow waist and a big buttocks, and in summer, it is covered with lush greenery, just like a village woman wearing an extremely exaggerated green skirt.

  Lailai sat in her wheelchair, propping up her elbows to gaze at the scenery on the opposite bank of the river. Suddenly, she said: "Look at that mountain over there with a yellow patch in the middle - it's so ugly." Yitianxing smiled slightly and replied: "That's still from when we were in elementary school and a mountain fire broke out. Do you remember? At the time, our teacher was organizing us to learn about Lai Ning, and I saw that the mountain on the other side had caught fire, so I picked up a broom to go put it out, but you held me back."

  "You're so brave? I don't remember that." Lailai's long eyelashes blinked once.

  Yi Tian lowered his head, squatted beside her, and placed his hand on hers, which was slightly cold. He smiled and said, "Our family's Lele has the worst memory, didn't you also fail to recognize me in high school?"

  "That's true. You said... that forest where the fire originally started, it never recovered afterwards. This mountain was hurt, and it's hard to recover too." Zou Leran sighed.

  Yi Tian Xing looked at her faintly worried expression, his palm gently stroking her leg still in a cast, a strong sense of guilt flashing through his mind, momentarily unsure of what to say.

  ………………………………………

  The college entrance examination ended a week ago. Yi Tianxing became more cautious after the incident with Zou Leli, and since he had promised to give her a birthday gift which was already overdue, he didn't dare to be too arrogant and took the exam casually, scoring over 600 points, which was still higher than this year's admission line by a large margin, and he safely entered the provincial capital university.

  He was reading in a county key high school after all, and the children in the county town had no great expectations except for taking exams to go out. As a result, the scores were all high, and Yitian's more than 600 points were not particularly noticeable. Moreover, he had already shown his talent in the campus knowledge competition before, so when the results came out, except for the class teacher Yuan who had always been hostile to him, the other classmates were not too surprised.

  What really made Yi Tian Xing feel uneasy and sad was that Le Le ended up being injured in the car accident after all, and wasn't allowed to take the college entrance exam. He knew that Le Le looked gentle and cheerful on the outside, but was actually born clever and had a strong personality, this time she suffered such a big setback, he didn't know if she could think it through.

  Moreover, her injury was caused by Yi Tianxing in the first place, so he felt especially guilty.

  ……………………………………

  Yi Tian Xing gently pulled her small hand up and looked into her eyes, saying in a low voice: "I'll be waiting for you in the provincial city."

  Zou Leran smoothed out her fringe, her big eyes sparkling with clarity. She looked at Yi Tianxing and said after a while: "You're alone in the provincial city, be more careful."

  Yitian has been hesitating to tell Lele about the strange things that have been happening to him, but when he hears her words, he thinks about it and decides not to say anything for now. On one hand, he is secretly afraid that if Lele finds out, she will leave him; on the other hand, he really doesn't want to scare her again or make her worry about him all the way in the provincial city.

  "Don't worry." Yi Tianxing said with a smile.

  "By the way, Mom and Dad asked you to come over for dinner tonight." Rel's eyes suddenly flashed with a hint of a smile.

  Yitianxing was taken aback, rubbing the back of his head and grinning foolishly: "Could it be that Auntie Pang and Teacher Zou have agreed to our matter?"

  With a loud thud, he was hit on the head by Lere's girl with a burst of melon.

  "What are you daydreaming about? What's going on between us?" Lere's face turned bright red, and in a tiny voice that was almost like a mosquito buzzing, she "roared": "I told you to go, so just go!"

  "Whose daughter is this? She's still so fierce even when she's injured." Yi Tianxing rubbed his head and said, "We'd better get to the bottom of this first."

  "Dad and mom might be worried about whether your university tuition fees are enough." Zou Leran said seriously.

  Yitianxing smiled and said: "Don't look at me picking up scraps from a young age, I can actually make a fortune."

  Zou Lerer raised an eyebrow and smiled, clearly disbelieving.

  Yitian didn't explain much and said, "Just rest at home and recover from your illness, did you hear? Your IQ is slightly lower than mine... Lere made a gesture to hit him, "...but it's still higher than others by a bit, so you'll definitely have no problem taking the college entrance exam next year."

  "I am waiting for you in the provincial city."

  "Got it." Lailai smiled brightly.

  "I'll come back to see you on New Year's Day."

  Save some money.

  "You're not allowed to lose weight, eat more, I like you plump and fair."

  "You're not allowed to smoke!"

  "Get out of here, you little boy from the countryside!"

  "You're not allowed in the dance hall!"

  "There's a little boy who hands you a note, and then immediately drops it on the ground and even steps on it twice!"

  "I'm not that crazy. But you, can't help drooling when seeing a beauty."

  ……

  ……

  "Write me a letter."

  "Uh-huh."

  ………………………………………

  In the summer after the college entrance exam, Yi Tianxing found a job carrying large packages at the train station through his connection with Hu Yun's dad. With his abnormal strength and tireless body, he was well-suited for this physically demanding job. Having been used to eating bitterness since childhood, he worked from 8 am to 12 pm in three shifts, occasionally eating a few steamed buns. He walked swiftly with two large packages on his shoulders, and if not for fear of being too shocking, Yi Tianxing would have liked to carry ten large packages at once and perform the skill of stacking them like a pagoda at the train station.

  Thus, thirty days later, Yi Tianxing was elected as the most perverted king of carrying packages in the history of County City Railway Station with a brilliant record of carrying 300 packages a day and unloading cartons by the month.

  When he counted the thick banknotes leaving the train station warehouse, an old worker taught his children and nephews: "See? Three hundred and sixty-five lines, every line produces a champion, as long as you are willing to suffer hardship, like this kind of porter, in one month you can become a millionaire!"

  Yitian Xing took the money he had earned and invited He Wei and Hu Yun to have a meal at Tianxiang Pavilion, the largest restaurant in the county town. Then they bought some fake ginseng wine as gifts and ran out of the county town to visit the old man. They casually discussed with the old man about what to pay attention to when looking for people in the Yuanyuan Temple in the provincial city, but concealed the strange thing that happened in the small pond that day.

  He came back from outside the city and went to the market to buy a turtle, several eel fish, and rushed to the Zou's house. In the kitchen, he was busy for a while and finally made ice sugar steamed turtle and eel fish soup that had great therapeutic effect on wounds.

  At the dinner table, the annoying Director Pang started asking about his tuition again. He took out a thick stack of money he had earned over the past few days, only then did the three members of the Zou family feel at ease.

  After finishing the meal, he returned to the small black house where he had lived for seventeen years, knelt on a large bluestone in front of the house, knocked three times with a "ding" sound, and said: "Grandpa, I'm leaving."

  The bluestone brick was struck by his iron head and shook violently.

  With a creak, Yi Tianxing's face remained calm as he inserted his hand into the bluestone brick below and pulled out a passbook. The passbook had 4,000 yuan on it, which was the result of him picking up trash for over a decade. Then, he walked into the small black house, tidied up his luggage, and packed his "work uniform" in a woven bag. He even brought along the familiar forked bamboo stick that he used with his hands.

  Four thousand yuan plus what I earned during summer vacation should be enough for university, right?

  There are so many people in the provincial capital, and there must be a lot of garbage. Shouldn't picking up trash earn more money?

  Yitian Xing thought about these inexplicable questions and boarded the train to the provincial capital.

  At this time, the young man's mind was filled with thoughts of how to make money, completely unaware that in the vast and crowded provincial city, what awaited him was not only a sea of silver coins, but also towering piles of books, as well as some unknown dangers and strange encounters. And on that day, after being pierced by a red light in the pond, a small red mark appeared on his chest, which seemed to sense that he would soon face a vast expanse of sky, and it grew more vibrant and intense, gradually turning into a blurry shape, as if wanting to fly out from his body...