My conversation with Mi Cai continued when suddenly a thunderclap split the sky, startling Mi Cai on the other end of the phone so much that she stopped talking. After a while, she said to me, “Zhaoyang, since it’s thundering, don’t answer the phone anymore. Let’s end our conversation here.”
“Wait, don’t hang up so quickly.”
“Why not?”
“Do you still remember that you once promised me we’d get married after my career took off? Well, I’ve already thought it through. If we have our first child, let him take your surname Mi, which would bring some comfort to your father.”
Mi Cai asked in surprise, “Why are you suddenly bringing this up, even planning our future married life already?”
“With love, the biggest fear is that delays breed trouble. I don’t want any unexpected incidents like Luo Ben happening between us, so let’s quickly find an ending for our relationship, even if it’s one we create artificially.”
“Okay, then let love follow your lead.”
Mi Cai’s response lightened my mood, which had been heavy all day. Finally, I softly said to her, “Take good care of yourself over there. Do your work to the best of your ability, but don’t push yourself too hard.”
Mi Cai replied helplessly, “Work is always done through effort. If there were no difficulties, it wouldn’t be called work anymore.”
Her seriousness made me smile, and I then said, “Then work hard and overcome the difficulties!”
“You also work hard and wait for me to come back.”
…
After leaving the restaurant, we returned to the hotel we had just booked. Then the rain started again, heavier than before, and the wind howled fiercely through the windows, creating a mournful sound.
Luo Ben stood by the window smoking, squinting into the night outside, as if searching for a distant place.
I patted his shoulder and said, “Since we’re stuck here anyway and have nothing else to do, why don’t you tell me about your past with Wei Manwen?”
Luo Ben exhaled smoke onto the glass, watching it dissipate before nodding and saying, “Once, I was a lonely person, not very sociable.”
“You’re still pretty solitary now!”
Luo Ben looked at me again and continued, “That day, our band performed at their Normal University. After the show, I had quite a bit to drink. On my way back, I rode my friend’s motorcycle and clumsily sideswiped her!”
“What a clichéd story!”
Luo Ben nodded and said, “In the end, she was fine, but I ended up injured.”
“Then she took you to the hospital?”
Luo Ben shook his head, “She lived in the teacher’s apartment at the Normal University. That day, she took me home, bandaged my wounds, and kept apologizing to me… I thought she was pretty silly back then!”
“She was just kind.”
“Later, we started dating. I really enjoyed being with her. We seemed to have endless conversations and shared dreams for the future. She said she wanted to become a teacher, and I said I wanted to be a folk singer. So we dated while working hard toward our respective goals until graduation.”
“So during your relationship with her, you were really like a normal person!”
“Yeah, so a once ordinary love gradually deepened over time. Later, you already know the story—she moved to Suzhou for me.”
“Then her parents came looking for you, and you slept with a prostitute right in front of her.”
“Actually, we didn’t even sleep together—it was just for show. But all that doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that she left, and I stayed behind in Suzhou… For a long time, no one spoke to me again… I just stared blankly at the 150,000 yuan she left behind every day.”
“She left you 150,000 yuan?”
Luo Ben nodded, “We had saved it together to buy a house in Suzhou. Later, after she left, I took out the money and kept looking at it over and over again…”
Suddenly, I remembered something, my voice rising a few pitches, “Wait, could you be the one who left 100,000 yuan at the CC restaurant back then?”
Luo Ben looked at me, took out another cigarette from the pack, lit it, and took a puff before replying, “No, later I decided to gamble with that 150,000 yuan. I went to Macau, hoping to win some money to open a bar or buy a house in Beijing, but I lost it all in one night… It was really painful!”
“You really are a man of drinking, womanizing, and gambling!”
Luo Ben sighed but didn’t take another puff from his cigarette. He looked through the glass again at the night outside, falling silent… He truly seemed solitary, especially today, three years after Wei Manwen left.
After a while, I asked him again, “Now that you’ve seen her again, what do you plan to do? Will you take her back to Suzhou, or to Beijing?”
He answered my question with a different one, “I’m a man who’s slept with countless women. I don’t deserve her.”
“Then why are you even going to look for her?”
“It’s an instinct. Do you understand instinct?”
I nodded, “Even though you’ve slept with countless women, you’ve never been unfaithful in spirit. So…”
Luo Ben frowned and countered, “If the woman you deeply love is slept with by someone else, and she tells you that she’s never been unfaithful to you in her heart, would you still love her, Zhaoyang?”
I was stunned for a moment. Then, an image I never wanted to imagine appeared in my mind. I saw two naked bodies on a bed—one wasn’t me, and the other was the woman I loved deeply. I immediately became furious, gritting my teeth as I told Luo Ben, “If she’s been slept with by someone else, then there’s no point in loving her anymore!”
“Yeah, sometimes when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you get the answer that’s closest to the truth.”
I couldn’t argue against that, so my chest felt heavy and I hurriedly took out a cigarette from the pack, trying to calm myself down.
…
After a night of wind and rain, the sky finally cleared the next morning. After getting up and washing up, I immediately contacted the taxi driver from last night, asking him to lead us into Chonghuo Village, located deep in the mountains.
On the way, I kept asking him about the village. His response was that it was extremely backward and impoverished. Then he curiously asked why we were going to such a place. I told him it was a secret. He said, “Whatever your secret is, just pay me the 1,000 yuan and I’ll get the job done.”
So Leyao, who was the wealthiest among the four of us, immediately counted out 1,000 yuan from her wallet and handed it to him, urging him to work efficiently and get our matter resolved quickly.
His efficiency was indeed high. After entering the mountains, a donkey-drawn cart was already waiting for us. He then handed us over to the cart driver, saying that the owner of the donkey cart was a villager from Chonghuo Village.
I asked the villager cautiously, “Fellow villager, I’d like to ask you about someone. Is there a woman named Wei Manwen in your village?”
The villager nodded repeatedly.
“What does she do in your village?”
“Teacher Wei is great. All the children in our village learn from her.”
Leyao and I exchanged a glance behind him. Since he knew about Wei Manwen, he must be from the village. So I urged again, “Fellow villager, please take us to your village quickly. We are friends of Teacher Wei and want to see her.”
“Sure, sure. Get on the donkey cart. It’ll still take several hours to get there!”
“That’s fine, as long as we can see her.” Saying that, I helped Leyao onto the donkey cart first, followed by CC, and finally Luo Ben and me sat on either side of the cart.
The villager sat in front, raised his whip, and the donkey began plodding along the rocky mountain path with effort. In the sunlight, the world gradually quieted down until only the sounds of birds and insects remained.
…
The mountain path was indeed rugged. When the donkey couldn’t go further, we had to get off and walk. Leyao, who had the weakest stamina, was already sweating profusely but insisted on continuing without delaying the trip. CC remained silent, following closely behind Luo Ben.
Finally, I stopped and said to Leyao, “Let me carry you.”
“It’s about time. I’m almost exhausted to death!”
“Considering social norms between men and women, I tried to hold back unless absolutely necessary.”
Leyao muttered softly, “You’ve already slept with me. Why pretend now?”
I looked around and sighed inwardly. Only in such a remote mountain forest would she dare to speak so freely. If she were in the real urban world, she wouldn’t dare to express herself so recklessly. So, this secluded place indeed grants us many freedoms we normally don’t have.
CC, Luo Ben, and the villager were already far ahead of us. I squatted down and urged Leyao, “Hurry up and get on. We need to catch up with them. If we get lost here, we’re done.”
Leyao took off her high heels, held them in her hands, and jumped onto my back. I carried her and struggled to catch up with the others.
On the way, Leyao casually picked up a large leaf and started fanning me while sighing, “Zhaoyang, no wonder Wei Manwen chose this place. I’m even considering staying here forever. It’s so peaceful and the breeze feels so nice!”
“Please, the villagers here can’t wait to leave the mountains and see the outside world!”
“So the grass is always greener on the other side!”
“I’m almost exhausted to death. I don’t have time to listen to your musings…”
“You only care about your own romantic haven in Xitang. How would you understand the magnificence and sentiment of the mountains… How about I sing ‘Eighteen Bends on the Mountain Road’ for you? Maybe it’ll help you appreciate the charm of the mountains!”
Amidst Leyao’s endless chatter, the view suddenly opened up ahead. The enclosed mountain path finally came to an end. A refreshing breeze blew in our faces, and the sight before us was a lush green terraced field, seemingly chaotic yet orderly arranged. We could hear the flowing stream and the sounds of sheep and cattle, truly a world apart from the bustling city.
Just as I was immersed in this natural scenery, Leyao patted my shoulder, pointing down the mountain. Following her finger, I saw Luo Ben running frantically toward a woman working in the terraced fields… Although we couldn’t see the woman’s face clearly, we could already guess that she was the Wei Manwen that Luo Ben had longed for all these years!
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