After leaving the ivy-covered villa, Gu Jianian slowly walked down the mountain path.
As the sun set, undisturbed by the city’s tall buildings, it tenderly reached the village, casting a warm golden hue on every inch of the fields.
The wild roses along the way had never been pruned and flourished wildly. Gu Jianian picked up a few fallen branches and tucked them into the pocket of her backpack.
Smoke rose from a few farmhouses, and most of the farmers had headed home for dinner.
Gu Jianian’s heart beat erratically, her cheeks flushed with an inexplicable excitement. Her thoughts were half submerged in the story she had just left, and the other half drowned in the day’s extraordinary experiences.
The house at Aunt Zhang’s seemed like a utopia from her dreams. When she eventually started working and had some money, she resolved to decorate her home similarly.
She’d turn the living room into a library, filled with countless books, where she could read right after work.
It would be perfect with a cat too, resting on her lap while she read.
Her parents’ words then echoed in her mind.
“All this reading, what’s the use if you can’t study or pass exams? In Beilin, the competition is so fierce, a single point can determine your fate against thousands of others. If you don’t get into university, you might end up unable to afford even a basement.”
Gu Jianian lowered her head, pressed her lips tightly together, and focused on the path ahead.
As she entered the yard, Gu Jianian saw her grandmother and two cousins from her great uncle and second uncle’s families waiting for her, along with a middle-aged woman she didn’t recognize.
The anxious expressions on everyone’s faces eased when they saw her.
Her second cousin, Chen Suo, asked her, “Tingting, where have you been? We looked everywhere for you.”
Gu Jianian was perplexed. “I just came back from Aunt Zhang’s house. She wasn’t home, but her son was there.”
“Son?” The middle-aged woman beside them exclaimed in surprise, “I only have a daughter. And, I’ve been home all day.”
With this realization, Gu Jianian understood that the woman was indeed the Aunt Zhang her grandmother had spoken of, and the villa she had visited was not Aunt Zhang’s house. She had gone to the wrong place.
Reflecting on the visit, Gu Jianian realized she had been completely absorbed by the multitude of books and had assumed it was Aunt Zhang’s home without ever confirming it with him.
She felt a bit embarrassed, thinking it strange that he had simply allowed her to read in his home for over an hour.
Her eldest cousin, Chen Xi, then asked, “So, you went to that villa on the mountainside? The one covered in ivy?”
Gu Jianian nodded.
Both her younger cousins fell silent, amazed, “You actually went in? There’s a weird person living in there.”
“Weird person?”
Gu Jianian thought of the empty liquor bottles, cigarette butts, discarded manuscripts, and the books that filled the place.
It was indeed weird.
Chen Suo explained, “According to my dad, that house has been empty for decades, with nobody living there. Until a year ago, someone moved in. The doors and windows are always shut, and he never comes out. But every week, two groups of people come by car to deliver whole boxes of supplies. I wonder if he’ll ever use them all.”
Chen Xi chimed in, “Yeah, from when he moved in until now, no one in the village has ever seen him. What kind of person can’t stand the light?”
Gu Jianian shook her head but saw Chen Xi make a sinister ghost face and answer his own question, “Could it be… a vampire disguised as a human?”
Both Gu Jianian and Chen Suo shivered simultaneously.
The two younger cousins wanted to gossip some more, but their grandmother, who had been silent for a while, sent them off, “Alright, everyone go back to your own homes and do your own things. I’ll take Tingting back to make dinner.”
The two little devils had to give up.
*
The kitchen was built separately, adjacent to the two-story brick house on one side and connected to the hall on the other side. There was also an entrance to the outside.
Not far from the side entrance was the river, and a group of waddling ducks had been chased onto the shore, forming a line as they walked home.
The sun gradually set behind the bamboo-covered mountain on the river side, and the evening twilight slowly deepened.
The silence of the night enveloped the entire village.
There were lights on the shed roofs, the kind you pulled a rope to turn on. Warm yellow light shone through the windows into the courtyard, and dust particles floated in the light beams. A few moths hovered near the windows, trying to explore the source of the warmth.
Gu Jianian found an unused porcelain vase and placed the rose branches she had collected inside, placing it on the windowsill.
Grandma sat behind the earthen stove, starting a fire, and asked Gu Jianian to assist her.
Gu Jianian had never been in the kitchen before, she didn’t even know how to crack an egg. Sometimes she tapped the eggshell too lightly and couldn’t crack it open, and sometimes she tapped too hard, causing the shell to break into the egg. Even when cutting tomatoes, she couldn’t get them consistently sized until the second try.
Grandma didn’t make fun of her, just let her try.
The dinner for the two was very plentiful, with a meat dish, a vegetable dish, and a soup, all simple farmhouse dishes.
Grandma was the one cooking, but Gu Jianian didn’t idle around, she watched and learned throughout the process.
She just realized that cooking was also a skilful activity. Heating the pan before adding oil prevents sticking, marinating meat with sweet potato flour makes it tender, and there’s an art to when to add seasonings and control the heat.
Different ingredients require different cooking times.
“Cooking on a rural wood stove is fast, but if it’s a gas stove or induction cooker from the city, it will take some trial and error.”
Grandma said as she brought the stir-fried meat and tomato egg soup to the table, wiped her hands with an apron, and smiled, “These days you assist me, and in the future, I’ll assist you. Learning to cook for yourself ensures you’ll never go hungry no matter what happens.”
Gu Jianian used an iron rod to rake the firewood in the stove, her eyes stung by the smoke, and it took her a while to respond.
Her parents always wanted her to excel, but Grandma was teaching her how to survive.
The two quietly finished dinner.
After dinner, Grandma asked Gu Jianian to help move two bamboo chairs to the porch.
The two sat on either side of the porch, cooling off, illuminated by the light seeping out from the main hall.
Gu Jianian was assigned a straw fan.
Mosquito coils burned in rings, driving away the buzzing mosquitoes. Gu Jianian looked at the thick darkness outside, feeling as if she was sinking into it too.
She turned on her phone, there were no unread messages except for the class group.
No messages from her parents or her Chinese teacher.
What was she usually doing at this time?
This time should be the first period of the evening self-study.
Evening self-study in senior year often had quizzes every other day. She looked forward to the Chinese test the most because it was the only subject where she wouldn’t get scolded after the grades were out.
None of her other teachers liked her. Probably the one who disliked her the most was the math teacher, who often held up her test papers, pointed at her head, saying she was hopelessly stupid and that she shouldn’t waste her energy because she wouldn’t understand no matter how much she studied.
Thinking back, her math grades weren’t that bad in elementary and middle school.
Why did they get worse and worse?
“Stop, did you go to that person’s house today, to study?”
Grandma’s words interrupted her thoughts.
“Yes, I did. I spent an hour studying at his house, it was quite strange.” Gu Jianian scratched her head, somewhat excitedly, “But I’ve never seen anyone with so many books at home. The entire three-story wall was filled with books, probably thousands of them?”
“Really?” Grandma chuckled, “He’s just like his grandfather, loves reading.”
Gu Jianian didn’t catch the latter half of the sentence, she just heard the tone and asked, “Grandma, do you know him?”
Grandma didn’t answer, she shook the straw fan.
Gu Jianian suddenly remembered something, she turned around and ran to the hall to get her backpack, taking out the box the young man had given her.
“He said this is a gift for you and asked me to personally give it to you,” she handed the box to Grandma, “I almost forgot.”
The box was palm-sized, wrapped in delicate dark green velvet, with a brass clasp at the opening, it felt heavy.
Grandma took the box, gently caressing it with her fingers, and sighed.
Gu Jianian was curious, what could be inside such a well-packaged box?
“Grandma, aren’t you going to open it? This family is really wealthy, we only gave them a box of snacks, and they even gave us a gift in return.”
Grandma remained silent for a moment, then reached out to open the brass clasp and lifted the lid.
Gu Jianian leaned over to look, and couldn’t help but exclaim.
Inside the box was a string of pearl necklace, each pearl round and lustrous, all the same size, still shining brightly under the yellowing light. At the bottom of the necklace was a red gemstone pendant, reflecting the moonlight and lamp light, sparkling brightly.
Gu Jianian didn’t understand jewellery, but she could tell that the necklace was valuable. She widened her eyes and looked at Grandma, feeling bewildered, “Why would he give such an expensive thing?”
Grandma reached out and touched the red gemstone pendant, without saying a word.
She looked at the sweet osmanthus tree outside the door, the tree shadows swaying, cutting the light into fragments. The moon quietly climbed up the hill, with a few stars of a summer night twinkling in the distance.
After a long while, Grandma closed the lid and said to Gu Jianian, “Maybe it was a mistake, next time you help me return it to him.”
“Oh.” Gu Jianian nodded, carefully putting the box back into her backpack. She thought this person was really strange, how could they casually make such an expensive mistake?
After cooling off, the two parted to wash up and get ready for bed.
Gu Jianian brought a stool and sat by Grandma’s bed, helping her massage her legs. The legs of the elderly often swelled, and it seemed like the skin and flesh were somewhat separated, leaving an indentation with each press.
She gently massaged them and then went to get a warm towel to apply to her legs.
“Stop, don’t bother, I’m not uncomfortable.” Grandma sat on the edge of the bed, beckoning her with her hand.
Gu Jianian walked over with the towel and sat down next to her. Grandma reached out and gently stroked her hair with her rough palm, “Is reading enjoyable?”
“Yeah, it is,” Gu Jianian’s lips involuntarily curved upwards when talking about books, “That person said I can keep going to his house to read in the future.”
She lowered her voice as she continued, “But everyone says that reading is useless, and it’s best to spend free time doing exercises and drills. I used to try hard, but I could never meet their expectations.”
“Who are they?” Grandma asked.
Gu Jianian thought for a moment, it seemed like everyone had said something similar.
“My parents, teachers. Classmates don’t like me either, they think I’m a bookworm, and I don’t have many friends in class.”
In reality, the names she was called behind her back were far worse than “bookworm,” she had unfortunately heard them a few times but didn’t have the courage to retort.
As Gu Jianian grew older, she became more introverted, rarely interacting with people, always preferring to read a book by herself. Over time, she became more and more out of place.
Grandma took out a wooden comb from under the pillow and gently combed her hair, stroke after stroke.
“Your nickname, ‘Ting Ting,’ (Stop Stop) was because you were quite restless when you were little. Do you know why your given name is ‘Jianian’?”
Gu Jianian shook her head.
Grandma smiled and said, “In the years before you were born, Yunmo often experienced flooding, houses were submerged and fields buried, life was becoming unbearable. Only in the year you were born, everything in Yunmo was peaceful, crops flourished, and everyone could eat their fill. That was truly a ‘Jianian’ (auspicious year).”
“My Tingting, you have good luck. If you want to go, then go. Go read, do what you want to do, no matter what they say. Some things will be understood later on, it’s not too late to do them then.”
Gu Jianian’s eyes were moist as she nodded.
Leave a Reply