Yonghe Road

Chapter 7 Bench
In the height of summer, the village seemed embraced by the sun's warmth. The sky was a brilliant blue, without a single cloud. The sun poured down without reservation, scorching the earth to a scorching heat. Though lush and green, the trees seemed somewhat limp under the blazing sun. The leaves drooped, and a few cicadas hid among the leaves, their shrill voices incessantly chirping, "Zhi-la, Zhi-la," adding a touch of clamor to the scorching summer day. The air was thick with a parched heat, making even breathing difficult.

Located on the coast, the air here is humid and hot, which is different from the dry heat in the capital.

The weather changes differently.

While June's weather is often described as childish, the capital's summer weather is mostly stable, with only occasional thunderstorms. The weather here, however, is highly variable. Perhaps influenced by the maritime climate, severe convection is more common, and thunderstorms are frequent. In the past week, thunder and rain have been a regular occurrence every evening. However, the duration is brief; after about ten minutes, the sky clears up again.

However, if a person is walking on the road and is suddenly drenched, he will become a drowned chicken.

At this moment, Xie Anmin was like a miserable drowned chicken.

Not only was she soaked all over, but the laptop in her hand was also damaged. It contained her interview materials. She was so upset that she almost couldn't cry.

But I can’t take care of so many things at the moment. The most important thing is to find a place to shelter from the rain.

There is a convenience store not far ahead, located on the right side of the road. It is blocked by the rain and fog, with only faint lights showing.

Xie Anmin ran quickly towards the convenience store. Because she was rushing diagonally forward, an electric bike speeding behind her had to brake suddenly to avoid her, and she only heard a scream of "Ouch".

Xie Anmin looked back and saw that the electric bike had lost control and both he and the bike fell to the ground.

That was the first time Xie Anmin and Zhong Ziqi met. Zhong Ziqi almost bumped into Xie Anmin, but ended up falling down himself. Zhong Ziqi scolded Xie Anmin and even nearly hit him. But a good man doesn't hit a woman. In the end, Zhong Ziqi, believing himself unlucky, dragged his wounds to the village clinic to get bandaged, not forgetting to give Xie Anmin a ride in his car.

"Come up!"

Seeing Xie Anmin standing in the rain stupidly, Zhong Ziqi shouted at her, but his shout was muffled by the rain curtains and became very quiet when it reached Xie Anmin's ears. It happened that there was thunder in the sky, and the thunder was much louder than his voice.

Hearing the thunder, Xie Anmin shrank back, and without caring about anything else, she lifted her wet skirt, took a step forward, and got on the back seat of Zhong Ziqi's car.

"Where?"

"Rural Revitalization Hotel."

Zhong Ziqi asked in a shout, and Xie Anmin answered in a shout.

The electric car started in the rain, making an impatient sound like a trapped animal, and rushed forward. Inertia caused Xie Anmin to fall backward, and he had to hold Zhong Ziqi's waist tightly to avoid falling.

The young man's back, full of hormones, still emitted enough heat even in the cold rain, and through physical contact, he conveyed the warmth to Xie Anmin.

This warmth made Xie Anmin like a small animal trying to survive in the rain. He held on tightly and unwilling to let go. In the end, he even buried his face in the warm, broad and masculine back.

Zhong Ziqi dropped Xie Anmin off at the entrance of the Rural Revitalization Hotel, started the car, rushed into the rain and fog, and soon disappeared in the rain and fog.

This person is really interesting.

Xie Anmin left his laptop at the front desk and asked the waiter to send it for repair while he went back to his room to wash and change clothes.

Standing under the shower, warm water pouring down from above his head, Xie Anmin instinctively closed his eyes, but was suddenly surrounded by a strange feeling.

She suddenly opened her eyes, turned off the faucet, wiped the water off her face with both hands, and took a deep breath. She was actually recalling the feeling of hugging the young man's waist and pressing her face against his back.

After taking a shower, Xie Anmin changed into a loose, casual white T-shirt and dark blue jeans, dried his hair, and put on a baseball cap. He looked at himself in the mirror: he still looked very young, not at all like he was in his thirties. Without any makeup, he looked a bit like a lotus blooming in clear water.

Leave the room and take the elevator downstairs.

Although this hotel is located in a village, it is full of modern atmosphere. The exterior design uses a lot of glass curtain walls and steel structures. The lobby is exquisitely decorated and luxurious. The combination of manual and self-service check-in smart terminals and the holographic projection navigation system allow guests to experience the convenience brought by technology.

On one side of the lobby, there is a quaint and elegant white tea booth and an open tea room. A young female tea artist dressed in traditional costume is making tea for the guests in an elegant posture. While making tea, she explains the tea ceremony with a gentle and refreshing smile on her face. The guests are sipping tea and listening with great interest.

This is a benefit that guests staying at this hotel can enjoy every night.

Xie Anmin used to go to the lobby almost every night to enjoy this kind of leisure time to relieve his fatigue from working in the fields during the day.

But now, she stopped walking towards the tea room, turned around and walked out of the hotel.

The heavy rain had stopped long ago, but night had fallen.

The whole village is immersed in the misty night, which has a unique charm.

This was once an impoverished village, with per capita annual income of only a few hundred yuan and the village collective in debt of hundreds of thousands of yuan. With more than twenty natural villages scattered across remote hilltops, villagers walked on dirt roads and lived in dilapidated thatched and tiled houses. Later, economic talent Wang Kai was persuaded to return to the village to serve as village secretary. He led the village in implementing a "business development and income creation" plan, revitalizing collective assets, building an industrial park, and attracting businesses to the area. This led to job transfers for villagers and facilitated the "three transformations" of farmers from workers to businesspeople to shareholders, ultimately lifting them out of poverty and into prosperity. The village then developed the tertiary industry, investing in a business hotel, a happiness park, and other infrastructure projects to serve the surrounding nuclear power plant and tourist areas.

Today, this place is a "Common Prosperity Pilot Village," a star village that attracts people from all over the country to conduct research, inspections, and visits. It's also where she's been spending the past two months, deeply rooted in the village's history of prosperity and gradually becoming familiar with its winding streets. So, she found the Baile Village Health Center with familiarity.

She was worried about the young man, wondering if he was injured in the fall and how he was doing.

However, she did not see him in the health center.

The doctor on duty asked her if she wanted to get some medicine, and she said she was looking for someone. When asked who she was looking for, she opened her mouth but couldn't say anything.

She did not know the young man's name.

After returning to the hotel from the clinic, Xie Anmin went to sleep. She actually dreamed of Zhong Ziqi, but only his back, tall and straight. When he turned around, she woke up from the dream. They met in the rain yesterday. In fact, she didn't see his face clearly, but she felt that anyone with that figure must be a handsome man.

Suddenly dreaming of a handsome man, Xie Anmin lay in the comfortable bed of the hotel, a little dazed. He took his phone from the bedside table and opened the Zhougong Dream Interpretation. He typed in the dream of a handsome man, and immediately Zhougong gave a comment: This is an erotic dream. The dreamer may have been single for too long and needs a relationship to relieve loneliness...

Xie Anmin's face turned red. He threw his phone on the quilt and hid in the bed, laughing.

She'd indeed been single for a long time; it had been nearly eight years since her last relationship. She'd been single for eight years, but first love was truly unforgettable. Forget it, Xie Anmin. Women should focus on their careers and let all men go.

A new day begins a new interview task.

According to the interview plan, Xie Anmin came to the home of Lan Dafeng, an old She man.

Lan Dafeng is seventy years old, thin, and has a kind smile. Over the years, like Secretary Wang Kai, he has become accustomed to facing various interview cameras and receiving reporters and visitors. When facing Xie Anmin, he was not restrained at all. Wearing the She ethnic costume he specially prepared, he looked energetic.

The laptop was soaked in water, so Xie Anmin could only use the most basic interview tools: pen and notebook.

"Mr. Lan, can you tell me where you used to live and what life was like at home?"

"Life was really hard back then. We lived in the mountains, with no running water or electricity. The roads were barely wider than our shoulders. We lived in thatched huts that leaked when the wind blew and when it rained. We wanted to build a house, but the cement we needed couldn't be transported up there. We could carry food on our shoulders, but how could we carry cement?"

Mr. Lan’s recollections of his hardships have become very formulaic. He has said these words many times, but every time he speaks of them, he still gets emotional, as if those hardships happened just yesterday.

"Luckily, around 2000, the village implemented a 'welfare project'. More than villagers from our 'five inaccessible' natural villages were able to move to Chang'an Avenue and build houses, with the government providing them with free land and housing subsidies, as well as loan assistance..."

An instinctive smile appeared on the old man's face, and his hands flew around, just like the happy day he was living.

"Now we have everything at home. The children no longer have to work outside; they just grow tea at home, and the grandchildren are engaged in tea processing. Our family income is between 10,000 and 200,000 yuan a year. I used to work as a security guard in the village kindergarten, earning 1,500 yuan a month. In recent years, I have gotten older and don't want to work so hard, so I quit my job and stay at home. Now I am really happy, and my life is getting better and better..."

Xie Anmin's pen quickly recorded on the paper. In just a few pages, he recorded the old man's long, bitter and sweet life.

"Comrade reporter, can you guess the origin of this chair of mine?"

The old man couldn't tell the difference between a writer and a journalist, nor did he know what a writer was, but he knew what a journalist was. Since Xie Anmin came to interview him, he treated Xie Anmin as a journalist.

He brought a small chair next to him to Xie Anmin as if he were presenting a treasure.

It was a reddish-brown bench, the red paint had faded, showing its historical sense.

This is a bench the old man crafted himself when he was young. Back then, his family lived in a thatched hut in the mountains. He used wooden stakes he found in the mountains, sawed and polished them into planks, and then used nails and wedges to assemble a small bench. He then carefully searched the forests and found several lacquer trees. He carefully cut small incisions in them and collected the liquid lacquer to bring home.

The natural sap cut from the lacquer tree is milky gray or oyster-colored. After being brought home and left for a period of time, it will oxidize to black.

At that time, the old man got some cinnabar from somewhere, mixed it with raw lacquer to make a red color, dipped a brush in the lacquer, and carefully applied it to every corner of the small stool, over and over again, until the small stool was evenly covered with red lacquer.

When the old man made the red bench, he was still young and never imagined that decades later, this bench would have such a magical experience.

The old man was immersed in happy memories, and Xie Anmin couldn't help but curl up the corners of his lips.

The interview came to an end. Xie Anmin looked deeply at the red bench in the old man's arms and stood up to say goodbye.

Walking slowly along Chang'an Avenue, Xie Anmin looked at the houses lining both sides of the street. They were all neatly decorated Western-style buildings, evidently quite a long time old. A few days ago, while accompanying Secretary Wang Kai on a field trip, he happened to overhear him mention that Baile Village was planning a "two districts, two parks" project, which would relocate villagers from Chang'an Avenue to a new district. The houses in the new district would be farmhouses, offering more comfortable living, but the villagers were still being mobilized.

Xie Anmin was thinking about it when he heard a woman's cry for help from a house on the side of Chang'an Street.

Xie Anmin didn't expect to meet Zhong Ziqi again so soon.

(End of this chapter)