??

  Before I even reached my doorstep, Yuan Xiaobai's unique voice rang out loud and clear: "Wen Bin, Cha Wenbin, come out!"

  A girl with an apron tied around her waist hastily pushed open the courtyard door, these two people are fundamentally different types of people, whether it is their demeanor or attire, just like a Chinese rural girl in the 80s and a modern Shanghai street girl in the 90s, but they all have a youthful aura on their faces.

  "Are you looking for Wenbin? She's not here." said the girl wearing a floral print dress and black canvas shoes.

  Yuan Xiaobai carefully observed the girl in front of him, a pair of big watery eyes, curved and natural eyelashes, skin white with a hint of red, high nose bridge, melon seed face, especially those thin lips that were just right. Her hair was tied up with a silk handkerchief, black and shiny. Yuan Xiaobai thought to himself that this woman looked really good, she must be the one Xiao Yi had found as his wife, otherwise why hadn't he seen her before?

  The girl was stared at and felt a bit embarrassed, rubbing her hands repeatedly: "Come in quickly, you must be Wen Bin's friend, he went out for a while and hasn't come back yet."

  At this time, I happened to arrive, and Yuan Xiaobai turned around and said to me: "Honestly, where did you pick up such a beautiful wife?" After finishing, she pinched my neck, which was normal in my opinion, but in that relatively conservative era, the princess looked at her with a red face, standing there, neither moving nor leaving.

  I repeatedly waved and finally managed to get rid of the woman, hastily explaining: "Where is she? This is my mother's goddaughter, who is also my sworn sister, named Guan Fei, living in our house."

  "She pouted and said: 'You're just pretending, when did you acknowledge me as your sister, and yet I'm still living in your house.'"

  I quickly pulled her and whispered, "Her thing, wait until later, I'll tell you." Then I pulled Xue Bai over to introduce her to Gong Fei, saying, "This is my and Wen Bin's comrade-in-arms, called Yuan Xiao Bai, a bit older than you, if you like, just call her Little White Sister."

  "Little White Sister." The girl called out shyly and then came out to help me carry things. I saw Yuan Xiao Bai cast a more approving glance at her, and my heart also temporarily calmed down. But based on my intuition, there will be a war between these two people, as for the battlefield, it's even more unnecessary to mention.

  Yuan Xiaobai won't be coming back again after this return, she and Professor Gu are preparing to go back to their home country together to work on a project to restore the chronology of ancient Chinese history with domestic universities. The vast 5,000-year history of China covers almost the entire Asian continent, such an ancient nation cannot be clearly described by just one book like Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian". This time she came back temporarily without work, her task is to play, actually it's to collect folk rumors, these things will be recorded as clues and sent for research and verification. Professor Gu thinks that all legends have prototypes, they can't come out of thin air, such as the great flood, why every nation in the world has records at the same time, why the swastika symbol is scattered all over the world, those mythological legends seem to have their own system, whether it's Eastern or Western. What Professor Gu is more interested in is the mysterious history of the East.

  "When are you going home?" I asked her after lunch. She said with a tone of not taking it seriously, "Home? Isn't this place home?"

  I shrugged and said, "Why not go back to Shanghai?" "Been there, my dad is going to Beijing, I don't want to follow him, so I came to join you guys. Fatso hasn't been found yet, has he?"

  "No." I took a drag on my cigarette and said, "Zha Wenbin also doesn't know where he went, didn't even leave a message, but that's just how he is, who knows when he'll pop up again from somewhere."

  She asked me: "What about you? Are you going to stay at home like this or go out and make a name for yourself?"

  I'm speechless on this topic, I'm a person who can't be suppressed at home. In the past, Cha Wenbin and Ye Qiu were both here, so there was someone to accompany me. Now that they're gone, I can only spend my days with the dog. As for Guangzhou, I don't want to go either. After all, Fatso isn't there, and it wouldn't be fun going alone. Zhu Zihao did call me, but he's always been unreliable when it comes to getting things done.

  "I'm worried about this matter, and I don't know what will happen in the future. My mom doesn't say anything, but she also doesn't want to see me end up like this."

  "She thought for a moment and said: 'Alright, you can just follow us with Gu Lao, as an assistant, at least it's something to do.'"

  "Is dinner ready?" I asked.

  "Don't worry," she said with a smile. "This has project funding, an American company invested in it, the pay isn't much but you definitely won't starve."

  "It doesn't matter, as long as it's not boring." Indeed, I was about to go crazy at home, so finding something to do is fine. Yuan Xiaobai came for a purpose that clearly wasn't me; she wanted to find Zhao Wenbin because Professor Gu's research project was on the origins of China's indigenous religions. He believed that religion and history are inseparable. There are three major world religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, while Taoism is unique to China, its creation more like a native mythological legend. Foreigners' interest in it is clearly higher because the East has always been mysterious and charming, and this religion is now as endangered as some precious animals in this country, on the verge of disappearing at any moment.

  Sometimes I really feel like my home is a hostel, with people coming and going all the time, staying for a few days, eating and drinking without paying a penny. Luckily, my parents are easy-going and happy to see my friends. Yuan Xiaobai and Guan Fei's relationship seems harmonious, at least for now, but I need to go out and try to contact that guy, he didn't leave any contact information behind. All I can do is wander back and forth between the village entrance and the bus station every day.

  On the fourth day after Yuan Xiaobai arrived, after dinner, I took my dog for a walk at the village entrance as usual. At that time, there were no streetlights, and a group of old men were smoking and chatting on the stone road. This was the most relaxing moment of the day. Suddenly, I saw someone stumbling and walking slowly towards me from afar, seemingly drunk. Since there had always been many drunks in Hong Village, I thought nothing of it. But then that person fell to the ground, and the men surrounding him rushed over. I remained standing where I was, looking on blankly, when suddenly someone called my name, and I also heard the name Cha Wenjin...

  He came back, dead drunk, vomiting all night. I don't know where he went, now he looks like a beggar, his whole body reeks of sour smell, his hair is matted, and his beard hasn't been shaved for at least a month. In my impression, he doesn't drink, never does.

  The next morning, I was woken up by the stench of vomit on the sofa. This guy had thrown up all over the house yesterday. When I opened my eyes, there was no one on the bed. In the courtyard outside, a pale young man was practicing Tai Chi.

  "Awake?" It was he who spoke to me first, I looked him up and down, he had lost a lot of weight compared to a month ago, the flesh on his cheeks had sunk in, a kind of weariness that didn't match our age appeared on his face.

  I washed my face with well water at the door and asked: "Where are you going?"

  He didn't answer, just smiled, and I said again: "Xiao Bai is back, she took care of you last night, and you threw up all over her."

  "Oh." He responded with this sentence, and then continued to punch like nothing was wrong. This appearance made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but after a helpless shrug, he said: "I want to build a house."

  "Hmm? Isn't it good living here?"

  "It's about time I had a home of my own. The old house is going to collapse, and my master's memorial tablet needs a place to be put." His response was reasonable.

  "Go ahead, turn back and find someone to settle accounts with you."

  Cha Wenbin's home was in Wulipu, a place that was over ten miles away from Hongcun Village. Unlike Hongcun, this area was sparsely populated before liberation. After liberation, the government advocated for land reclamation, and each commune had its own task. At that time, Wulipu was still a vast wilderness, but the terrain was flat, so each commune gathered some people to go there and open up the wasteland. Gradually, a small village took shape. The village was not big, with only about ten households. Cha Wenbin's home was built by his master Ma Suifeng, with walls made of yellow mud and rice straw, and a roof covered with stone slabs. Two small rooms were located at the foot of the mountain in the deepest part of Wulipu, with their own gate and courtyard, which was quite quiet.

  He wanted to build a house, which was a good thing. At that time, building a house was simple and basically everyone in the village would come to help. If it went quickly, it could be finished in three to five days. I said at the time that I wanted to build him a brick house, but he insisted on not doing so, saying that an earth house was warm in winter and cool in summer. It didn't cost much money and the house was built in just one week's work. There were four rooms in total, with one of them enshrining portraits of the Three Pure Ones. Underneath the portraits were spirit tablets of the Tianzheng sect from various periods, as well as a shrine, an incense burner.

  I thought Cha Wenbin was going to become a monk, because at that time he was in a very bad state. Yuan Xiaobai had tried to talk to him several times but was met with cold water. Fortunately, the girl's heart was quite high-quality, and when Cha Wenbin's new house was completed, she also moved over with him and settled down in one of the rooms.

  ...