Chapter 1771 - 1365: Night of Returning Home (3)

The car drove out of the urban area and onto the provincial highway, and the scenery outside the window gradually changed from high-rises to fields.

It was early summer, the seedlings of the early rice had already been transplanted, the fields were a stretch of fresh green, and the paddies were like mirrors, reflecting the blue sky and white clouds.

In the distance, the mountains undulated, morning mist like a thin veil coiling around their waists.

Song Heping looked out the window, and his memories slowly began to awaken.

He had walked this road countless times.

When he was seven, he first followed his father into town to sell vegetables.

They got up before dawn, his mother tied up the greens, his father carried the pole with the baskets, and he followed behind.

They walked for three hours before reaching the county town and set up a stall in a corner of the vegetable market.

It rained that day, the vegetables didn't sell out, and father and son sat under the eaves gnawing on cold steamed buns.

His father said, "Study hard, so you won't end up like your dad."

At twenty-one, in his first year of enlistment, he came home on leave, returning in his military uniform by long-distance bus.

The bus broke down on this very road, and he helped the driver fix it, getting his hands all greasy.

By the time he got home it was dark, and his father was waiting for him at the entrance of the village, his face full of anxiety.

At twenty-four, he came back after demobilization, still on this same road.

His father was already gone.

The burden of the whole family rested on his shoulders.

Time really flies...

"Bro, look over there," Lingling pointed out the window and said, "do you still remember? There used to be a brick and tile factory there, the chimney belching black smoke every day; now it's been turned into a logistics park."

Song Heping followed the direction of her finger with his eyes.

The brick and tile factory in his memory had vanished, replaced by neat warehouses and parking lots, container trucks driving in and out.

"And over there, that used to be wasteland covered in reeds; now it's been developed into an industrial park," Harmony said. "The year before last they attracted investment, a few electronics factories came in, and it created jobs for over a thousand people."

"Has the county changed a lot?" Song Heping asked.

"A lot, way too much," Harmony said, gripping the steering wheel, his tone full of feeling. "The Old Town has basically been left alone. The government says it has to protect the historical look, so they restored the old buildings as they were and turned it into a specialty street. But the new city has expanded several times over; you'll see in a bit."

More than an hour later, the car entered the county town.

Sure enough, it was just as Harmony had said—the new city was a completely different scene.

The asphalt road was a dual eight-lane carriageway, with camphor and ginkgo planted in the greenbelts.

High-rises stood in rows, glass curtain walls flashing in the sunlight.

Large shopping malls, star-rated hotels, office buildings—everything was there.

It was no different from the development zones of any third-tier city.

Was this really the same old county town?!

Even someone as well-traveled as Song Heping couldn't help but feel like some country bumpkin entering the city, looking left and right, astonished at every turn.

They drove out of the county town, turned into the township, and finally into the village.

The bluestone road was still there, only the utility poles on both sides had been replaced with imitation-ancient street lamps in the shape of lanterns, which would glow a warm yellow at night.

That old locust tree was still there, its trunk even thicker, its branches and leaves shading half the street.

The breakfast stall at the village entrance was actually still there too. Its signboard had faded, the four characters "Wang's Breakfast" barely recognizable, and there were still a few low tables and stools set out at the entrance.

The car pulled over by a small path at the edge of the village.

This was the path leading up the slope behind the village.

Only the path was too narrow for the car to drive in.

The four of them got out, and Harmony took out the prepared incense, paper offerings, and offerings of food from the trunk.

The path wasn't long, just over two hundred meters.

Halfway along, a three-story house, clearly larger and newer than the others, came into view.

This was the ancestral house that Song Heping had paid to have rebuilt.

Blue-brick exterior walls, black-tiled roof, and the carved wooden windows had been handmade by an old Carpenter.

The original stone steps at the entrance had been preserved; polished smooth as a mirror by the feet of generations, with moss growing along the edges.

A plaque hung above the lintel, black background with gold characters: "Song Mansion."

"We come back every week to clean," Lingling said, taking out a key to open the door. The brass lock was an old-fashioned one. "Inside it's been renovated exactly according to the drawings you sent back. See if you're satisfied."

Pushing open the heavy wooden door, they entered the courtyard.

The ground was paved with bluestone slabs, with tiny ferns growing in the gaps.

In the middle was an old well, its rim carved from a single piece of bluestone, worn smooth and shiny by the years.

The main hall held an Eight Immortals table and official's chairs, all solid old wooden furniture.

On the wall hung the memorial portraits of their parents, enlarged from the photo taken on the twentieth anniversary of their marriage.

In the photo, his parents were still young. His father wore a Zhongshan suit, his expression stern but with a smile in his eyes; his mother wore a floral blouse, her smile gentle.

In front of the portraits stood an incense burner, still holding the ash from yesterday's incense.

Song Heping stood before the portraits and looked at them for a long time.

"Dad, Mom, I'm back."

He spoke softly, his voice sounding especially clear in the empty main hall.

He lit three sticks of incense and placed them in the burner.

Thin blue smoke curled upward, forming a slender column of light in the sunlight.

When he knelt and bowed, his forehead touched the cold stone floor; that hard, solid sensation made his eyes burn.

Harmony said from behind, "Bro, let's go sweep the graves first, we can look around properly when we come back. The dew on the mountain is heavy—we should go early."

The graves weren't in a public cemetery but on the mountain behind their old home.

This was the Song Family ancestral burial ground, handed down for five generations.

Their parents' grave was a combined burial at the very top, with a wide view overlooking the entire village and the river in the distance.

Walking up along the mountain path, Song Heping breathed in the familiar air.

The earthy tang of soil, the fresh scent of grass and trees, the moist breath wafting from the distant rice fields, and the resinous fragrance unique to pine trees.

These smells were ones he had dreamed of countless times in the deserts of the Middle East, on the grasslands of Africa, and in the rainforests of Southeast Asia.

The mountain path was still a dirt trail, but stone steps had been laid, making it much easier to walk. Wild chrysanthemums along the roadside were in full bloom, clusters of small yellow and white flowers.