Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

Zhao Shanhe paused slightly as he buttoned his shirt.

He raised his eyelids, calmly surveying the middle-aged man's oily, chubby face, his tone revealing neither joy nor anger:

"It's me. Who are you?"

"Hey! It really is you!"

The middle-aged man felt as if he had been stung by a scorpion. The annoyance and embarrassment he felt from being rebuffed by Lao Zhou were instantly washed away by this sudden astonishment.

He pointed to the tip of his nose, his eyes wide open, and began to shout at the top of his lungs:

"I'm Sun Changyou! From the No. 1 Middle School in the commune! We were in the same class in the second year of junior high. I sat in the second row, and you sat in the last row near the back door! Remember me?!"

Upon hearing the name "Sun Changyou," Zhao Shanhe's eyes flickered slightly, and a vague image finally surfaced in his memory.

Back in the commune's No. 1 Middle School days, there was a boy who was as thin as a stick.

Relying on his father's position as a weighbridge operator at the commune's grain station, he always carried two cents' worth of hard candy in his pocket, forming cliques in the class every day, and acting all high and mighty.

But then, a sudden disaster struck the family.

My father had an accident while carrying a large log in the mountains. When they brought him back, his body was already cold.

Li Cuihua, the mother, had never seen much of the world. Suddenly struck by this devastating disaster, she was completely panicked. Sitting on the kang (a heated brick bed), she could only tremble and stare blankly. She had no idea how to cook the food or how to handle the funeral arrangements. Even when relatives and neighbors came to discuss matters, she could only shrink back blankly, completely at a loss.

But life goes on.

The younger brothers, Zhao Shanhai and Zhao Shanlin, couldn't even reach the stove, and the younger sister, Zhao Xiaocui, always wore pigtails and cried for food when she was hungry.

Several mouths are left to dangle in their chaff every day, waiting for food, while outside there's a huge debt owed to the family for their funeral arrangements.

Although Zhao Shanhe was only a teenager, he was the eldest son in his family and the only male in the family who could already be considered half a strong laborer.

Before the midterm exams for the second year of junior high school had even been handed out, he packed all the books tightly into the stove hole without saying a word, went to school to complete the leave of absence procedures, turned around and shouldered the heavy manure basket and hoe, and plunged into the poor muddy land of Kaoshantun to work hard for work points.

Nearly twenty years have passed in the blink of an eye.

Those two short years at the commune's No. 1 Middle School felt like a distant dream, a lifetime ago, and he couldn't even recall them on ordinary days.

Back then, there were dozens of people in a class. Apart from a few people who left a deep impression, I've long forgotten most of their faces and names.

Zhao Shanhe stared at the oily, chubby face in front of him, which was many times larger than it had been back then. He examined it carefully for a couple more moments before the blurry image deep in his memory finally became a tangible reality.

However, that's all.

Although the two studied in the same class back then, they had absolutely no friendship whatsoever.

Sun Changyou's father worked as a weighbridge operator at the commune's grain station. In those days, he was considered a respectable person who worked for the government and always walked with his chin held high.

Zhao Shanhe himself came from the poorest peasant family in Kaoshantun, and couldn't even afford a decent set of clothes. The two families were too different in social standing, and they were never on the same wavelength from childhood, so naturally they could never get along.

Later, Zhao Shanhe's family had some trouble, so he threw away his books and went back to Kaoshantun. Naturally, their already shallow classmate relationship was completely severed.

Twenty years later, when we meet again, we're practically strangers.

However, one shouldn't hit a smiling face; it's the most basic courtesy and politeness between adults, and Zhao Shanhe wouldn't be stingy with it.

The tense lines on his face relaxed slightly, and he nodded politely to Sun Changyou:

"Okay, I remember now."

"Old classmate, it's been many years since we last met."

He glanced at Sun Changyou again, a faint smile playing on his lips:

"You've really changed a lot. I didn't even recognize you just now."

Upon hearing this, Sun Changyou's fleshy face trembled with laughter, and he took a half-step forward to join the fray.

"That's right! Me too! If I hadn't heard that old man call you Shanhe, judging by your current outfit, I would never have imagined that I would run into the top student in the whole school back then!"

As Sun Changyou spoke, he glanced at the wrecked car with its large, smashed surface, then his gaze returned to Zhao Shanhe's hand, which was covered in black engine oil. His tone carried an undisguised air of inquiry and superiority:

"By the way, what are you doing at this farm machinery repair shop? What, all these years later, you've still been holed up in that poor, remote village of Kaoshantun?"

Zhao Shanhe narrowed his eyes slightly, how could he not detect the sense of superiority and contempt in the other party's words?

We had no relationship to begin with, and now I have no desire to chat idly anymore.

He was too lazy to explain what he had been doing all these years, and simply echoed Sun Changyou's words with a casual reply:

"Yes, still in Kaoshantun."

"There's a problem with the car here, so I came over to fix it."

Zhao Shanhe didn't say anything more. He bent down, picked up the gloves from the oil drum, patted the dust off his cotton-padded jacket, and put them on.

"I have to go back too. I need to hurry while the roads are still frozen solid, because once they thaw at noon, the roads will be all muddy."

"We can chat more when we bump into each other again."

After saying that, Zhao Shanhe nodded to him, then turned around and prepared to leave.

Sun Changyou's smug smile, etched with fat, froze slightly.

He had originally thought that when he ran into an old classmate he hadn't seen for over a decade, he should at least stand down and say a few more words.

In Sun Changyou's mind, even if Zhao Shanhe wasn't envious, he should at least ask himself a few more questions about his current life. Look at that wool coat, look at that style, isn't everything about him top-notch?

But this guy is something else.

He didn't ask me a single question like "What have you been doing all these years?" He just said a couple of polite words and then turned to leave.

That familiar unease inexplicably welled up in Sun Changyou's heart again.

He was the same way back in school. While the whole class was swarming around Sun Changyou, Zhao Shanhe would sit in the back row like a silent gourd, not even bothering to glance at him.

Twenty years have passed, and this peasant has become so poor that he's still the same deadbeat at heart!

Sun Changyou was furious, but when he caught a glimpse of Zhao Shanhe striding out the door, he remembered the broken-down jeep at Wulipu and finally panicked.

"Hey! Zhao Shanhe!"

He quickly took two steps forward, nearly slipping and falling in the mud.

"Wait a minute!"

Zhao Shanhe stopped and turned around:

"Is there anything else?"

Zhao Shanhe's face remained expressionless, his eyes calm and still.

This stubbornness left Sun Changyou feeling a tightness in his chest.

But thinking of the dreaded dinner party at the county's Bureau of Commerce that afternoon, Sun Changyou could only suppress his anger. A smile returned to his greasy, overweight face, and he adopted a familiar yet urgent demeanor:

"Shanhe, why are you in such a hurry to leave!"

Sun Changyou rushed over, his hands tucked into the pockets of his wool coat, glanced sideways at Old Zhou sitting in the repair shed, and said in a low voice:

"Old classmate, let's not beat around the bush. I really have a pressing matter to attend to today, and I need your help!"

Seeing that Zhao Shanhe didn't respond and was only looking at him coldly, Sun Changyou coughed and quickly blurted out:

"My Beijing Jeep broke down in Wulipu. This afternoon, a high-ranking official from the county is waiting for me to discuss a big deal; I can't afford to be delayed even a moment! I saw it just now. You're quite familiar with Old Zhou at that repair shop, aren't you? That old man has a temper as hard as a rock. I'm just thinking of asking you to put in a good word for me and tell him to come with me to Wulipu and get the car fixed up!"

At this point, Sun Changyou deliberately puffed out his belly and patted his bulging coat pockets:

"Don't worry, I won't let you ask for nothing! Once the car is fixed, besides paying the factory workers, I'll secretly give you ten yuan as a tip for your hard work! How about that, pretty generous, right?"