The Taming of the Ruffian Hero

Chapter 131 (In Midsummer That Year) Lin Wenxi Missed Zhao Yuan’s Former Home and Ran into Zheng Zihuan While Revisting There

On the road, the three of them refueled Yun Che’s motorcycle. Then they had to wave goodbye to each other at the crossroads of Lin Wenxi’s home.

“Have a nice winter,” Lin Wenxi said with a smile.

Zhao Yuan touched Lin Wenxi’s head and then Gu Xi’s head. Taking a large bag of clothes and other personal things, he pulled away with a chug of the motorcycle.

Lin Wenxi, who returned at such a snowy night, truly surprised Huang Xiya. When she heard Gu Xi exclaim that Lin Wenxi drove home by motorcycle, she could not help looking at him with new eyes because Lin Ziwei and Hong Xuan still stuck outside and could not come back.

The atmosphere of the Spring Festival became thicker. After Lin Wenxi helped Huang Xiya finish the housework, he took Gu Xi to Zhao Yuan’s former home. Because the courtyards had so many branch roads, so he did not have enough confidence to find the way. But it was very strange that Lin Wenxi could remember the way to Zhao Yuan’s home. When he came closer to Zhao Yuan’s home, Lin Wenxi could remember each lane, each turn, and each path clearly as if he had got the help from God. Like a wanderer returned to his hometown, Lin Wenxi was very familiar with every horizontal road and every vertical road there.

Looking at the red lantern hanging up there, Lin Wenxi felt a little lost. Perhaps, the birds flying south had skimmed over the eaves, so their sharp claws pierced the red cloth of the lantern.

The red cloth hung down from the broken hole of the lantern. It looked like a peeled rotten orange, which had been left there for a very long time because there was no one to eat it. Dust and spider webs could be found all over the lintel of the door. Lin Wenxi had never expected that he hadn’t been here for only half a year, but the time actually made this place a deserted field.

Lin Wenxi found some rags in the nearby shop and wiped the porch with the snow water mixture in the corner. Suddenly, he heard someone whisper a sigh in surprise. While rubbing his forehead, Lin Wenxi looked there and saw that Zheng Zihuan, who was staring at him in amazement, walked through the door.

“Wenxi?” asked Zheng Zihuan.

“Zheng... Uncle Zheng.” Lin Wenxi felt a little nervous. But thinking at full speed, he had already tried to find the reason for cleaning this place.

“Why are you here, Wenxi? Someone has brought this house, but the buyer has not moved in,” Zheng Zihuan said. Lin Wenxi surprisedly found that though this uncle was in his forties, he looked thin and pretty. He looked so delicate that Lin Wenxi cannot see any wrinkles on his skin, which made Lin Wenxi feel ashamed of his ungainly look. Zheng Zihuan faintly flushed. He had a slightly shy appearance, and he didn’t look like a person who had experienced many vicissitudes of life at all. Thinking of this, Lin Wenxi answered him with great confidence.

“Even if it is sold, it should also give the buyer a good impression,” Lin Wenxi said with a smile.

“Oh, oh. Yes, yes.” Zheng Zihuan muttered a vague answer. His eyes fell on the rag in Lin Wenxi’s hands and the jade-carved person beside him. At the point when he was about to inquire in detail, Lin Wenxi asked, “Uncle, what are you doing here?”

“This place is my hometown. I come here to pay New Year calls, and visit my brother’s former home by the way.” Zheng Zihuan nodded slightly, with a face full of tiredness.

“Is Zheng Kai back?” Lin Wenxi asked.

“This year, I am alone,” replied Zheng Zihuan.

“Uncle, I’m sorry...” All of a sudden, Lin Wenxi look sad.

“You have tried your best. It is life.” Zheng Zihuan asked, “Old Zhao’s funeral, does A Yuan start to prepare it for him?”

“I heart that A Yuan will take his father’s body home after the New Year and cremate him then.”

“Oh, yeah, after the New Year, I forgot.”

Lin Wenxi paused a little. He waved the rag in his hand and continued to do his unfinished business. In the beginning, Zheng Zihuan could talk with Lin Wenxi by answering his questions. But now, when Lin Wenxi stopped asking him, he suddenly stood at the spot and felt utterly at a loss. He wanted to say something, but he didn’t know how to start. After a moment of hesitation, he turned around and went to borrow a rag from the nearby store, too. The store owner stretched out his hand and got closer to the stove. “Using rags in such a cold day, why don’t they choose a sunny day to do the cleaning?”

Together, the three of them wiped the house down. Then they smiled at each other and went to the restaurant.

Zheng Zihuan openly talked about all the specific things that had happened between Zhao Mingjiang and him to them.

In that year, there was no South City High School. And there was only Yangzi Middle School in the county. In that year, various domestic and international events filled students’ heads, and a catastrophe was spreading in China. In that year, the dam in Zhumadian City, Henan Province, collapsed. In that year, the first experimental communications satellite successfully launched. In that year, and Jiang Jieshi passed away.

In the era of all chaos, the restless smell of turmoil dispersed everywhere in the school. And the extreme unabashed youngsters would have many latent crazy impulses. At that time, fights and brawls in the streets cropped up here and there. No matter it was good students or hooligans, they would all encounter something like injuries or financial losses on their way to and from school.

The autumn wind on that day had the warmth of the sunshine. The streets at that time were not as broad as they were at this time, and the Linjiang Road was just a dirt one. However, Zheng Zihuan was not in a good mood to enjoy the refreshing fragrance given out by those incense camphor trees on the roadside in the early autumn because a group of trouble-making students drove him into the corner. He held his schoolbag tight, in which there were a few yuan for half a year’s food and a lot of food coupons.

A hero rescued a man, then the story began.

When those students were about to attack Zheng Zihuan, they were stunned by a sudden righteous roar. Then they found a rustic boy rushing toward them with a wooden stick. A group of trouble-making students was no match for a real bully. After some times of fighting, the bunch of students all cried miserably. The boy beat them up and scared the shit out of them. The boy who saved Zheng Zihuan was Zhao Mingjiang, who was one year older than him. Zhao Mingjiang threw the stick away and hobbled away just like he had never got those punches and kicks from the students. When Zhao Mingjiang protected Zheng Zihuan by the stick, his ferocious expression, his upturned brows, and his glowing red eyes directly tore Zheng Zihuan’s heart apart and then broke into his dreams countless times.

Watching Zhao Mingjiang walked away, Zheng Zihuan felt that under the blue sky, the boy’s clothes made of burlap were fluttering in the wind and his figure was as mighty as the greatest hero in all the Kung fu novels. Zheng Zihuan forgot to ask which class Zhao Mingjiang was in, but he ran across him later in school.

At that time, Zhao Mingjiang’s name was still Zhao Guangli.

Zhao Mingjiang liked playing football, so Zheng Zihuan went to practice playing football.

Zhao Mingjiang liked studying masonry, and then Zheng Zihuan would admire any small buildings Zhao Mingjiang made by his side.

Zhao Mingjiang only had green beans and pickles to go with rice, and Zheng Zihuan would take out his homemade white steamed bread.

Every week, when Zhao Mingjiang went back to his hometown from Yangzi County, Zheng Zihuan would accompany him to go home. Along the way, with a blade of silvergrass in his hand, Zheng Zihuan usually would kick the stones with him. Finally, Zheng Zihuan took out the pocket money that he had been saving for a long time. And with the lots of money he stole from home, Zheng Zihuan brought a second-hand old bicycle for Zhao Mingjiang. From then on, he proudly accompanied Zhao Mingjiang to ride the bike from the first year of junior high school to the graduation.

The happiest thing for Zheng Zihuan at that time was to ride back to the hometown from the school every week with Zhao Mingjiang. Zhao Mingjiang strengthened the back seat of the bicycle. After that, Zheng Zihuan could sit sideways behind Zhao Mingjiang, leaning against his wet back and enjoying the wind. Zheng Zihuan would go to the countryside together with Zhao Mingjiang and go to help him with the chores. Sometimes, when Zhao Mingjiang felt too hot, he would take off his shirt. Then, Zheng Zihuan would help Zhao Mingjiang carry his shirt and hugged his sturdy waist and abdomen.

Two years later, the previous white-skinned boy Zheng Zihuan became black and thin, and his previous jade-like hands were fully stacked with cocoons now. However, with his excellent academic achievements and hands piled up with cocoons, Zheng Zihuan managed to enter the high school in the provincial capital. While Zhao Mingjiang thought that studying in school was useless, so he went back to the countryside to do farming and fiddled with his work as a mason. Under the pressure of his intellectual family, Zheng Zihuan had to go to the high school in the provincial capital. Zheng Zihuan worked in the daytime and studied at night. When he was on holiday, Zheng Zihuan would run back to the countryside to help Zhao Mingjiang to accumulate work points. It seemed that Zheng Zihuan had become an adopted son in Zhao Mingjiang’s family.

At the age of twenty, Zheng Zihuan graduated from high school and was assigned to be an ordinary clerk in the archives division of Yangzi Middle School. In the bustling working day, he received a letter from Zhao Mingjiang, who invited him to return the countryside and talk about their old days.

However, the letter was late for a few days.

Feeling excited and a little uneasy, Zheng Zihuan ran back to the countryside. But he only saw a red honor roll with “Glorious Soldier’s Family” on it, hanging on the lintel of Zhao Mingjiang’s home. Then, he saw a green military truck driving along the streets carrying the newly-recruited soldiers. On both sides of the roads were full of people. They were singing and dancing, and there were even lion dance teams.

In the sound of firecrackers, Zheng Zihuan rushed out of the crowd and chased after the truck while shouting Zhao Mingjiang’s name. Zhao Mingjiang made his way through those young people who had joined the army on the truck. And on the edge of the truck bed, he smiled and waved at Zheng Zihuan.

In that year, the Sino-Vietnamese War happened. In that year, China and the United States established diplomatic relations. In that year, there was a line in the song that said, “Spring thunder, it wakes up people living inside and outside of the Great Wall. Sunshine in spring, it warms people living on the two sides of the Yangtze River.” Zheng Zihuan did not feel the warmth of the sunshine in spring, but was shocked by the spring thunder and suffered from insomnia every day.

Later on, Zhao Mingjiang laughed and said that he would write back to Zheng Zihuan every time after he finished reading the letter from him. And the letters he wrote to Zheng Zihuan were many more than those he wrote to his families and even more than the love letters that he wrote to his girlfriend at the time.

This time, they hadn’t met each other for four years.

Four years later, they met again and shook each other’s hands. Wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase, Zheng Zihuan now worked in a government office. While with a big red flower on his chest and with his girlfriend Liu Xuehua to whom he had written four years of letters in his hand, Zhao Mingjiang came back to build a new countryside.

Zheng Zihuan applied for a transfer, so he was able to work in the countryside where Zhao Mingjiang stayed.

Zhao Mingjiang continued to open up the wasteland in the countryside. When he was free, he would do all the things a mason would do. He didn’t want to win anything. He did all of this only because he loved his fiancee and wanted to build a house for her. Zheng Zihuan was very busy and worked very hard. He often brought his subsidies and fruits that his work unit sent to him for holidays and festivals to Zhao Mingjiang’s fiancee. Some people gossiped that he coveted Zhao Mingjiang’s wife and that the government official was about to take the honest countryman’s wife.

Two years later, Zhao Mingjiang finished building his new house.

Zheng Zihuan attended Zhao Mingjiang’s wedding. He arranged a large sedan chair carried by eight people for Zhao Mingjiang’s wife. With Zhao Mingjiang’s wife sitting in the sedan chair, the eight people carried her all the way from the home of Zhao Mingjiang’s parents-in-law to Zhao Mingjiang’s home, and finally to the new house that Zhao Mingjiang had built. Zheng Zihuan blew the trumpet with red flowers in person. Blowing the trumpet joyfully, he went all the way to the wedding room. On the very night of the wedding, Zheng Zihuan was drunk, and somehow he cried.

After that day, some people always said that they heard Zheng Zihuan say something like Zhao Mingjiang’s wife was so lucky that she married Zhao Mingjiang. These people even asked him why he didn’t say that Zhao Mingjiang was lucky.

All Zheng Zihuan’s families were very anxious because even Zheng Zihuan’s brother Zhao Mingjiang, a farmer who worked in the field the whole day long, was married. In an era when men usually got married at 18 or 19, Zheng Zihuan, who was much better than Zhao Mingjiang no matter it was in the family or education background, did not even have a girlfriend.