Chapter 138: People’s hearts
Human hearts have always been unpredictable since ancient times.
The reason the Yan Family got hit this time, so unexpectedly, was mainly because the most trusted person stabbed them in the back.
Faced with the current situation, Old Master Yan had to admit that he was indeed old, so old that his eyes were blurry, so old that he couldn’t judge people clearly.
His back, which had always been straight, suddenly bent at this moment, and the wrinkles on his face became even deeper, aging dramatically in just an instant.
“Old man, we suffered hardships when we were young too. As long as we’re still alive, no matter where we go, I’ll be with you.”
“Good.”
Yan Changrong looked at his wife, a heat rising uncontrollably in his eyes, feeling both moved and guilty in his heart.
She patted his still broad but no longer strong and now thin hand. It didn’t matter what happened to the two of them, what Zhao Panpan was worried about now was only the children.
Especially Xiao Qi, who was far away in Xiangnan and didn’t yet know the situation at home.
Just as the two were about to say something more, the people surrounding the yard suddenly rushed into the house and escorted them out.
Every minute and second that followed was torment for the two.
Even after being escorted to the train station, the Yan Changrong couple, mentally and physically tortured, hadn’t recovered.
After buying the things as Su Ning had said without delaying, he directly squatted at Xiao Qiao not far from the train entrance.
Looking at the group of more than twenty people including the escorts, he didn’t know for a moment how to confirm which one was Old Master Yan that Sister Ning had mentioned.
There weren’t many but also not few old men in their sixties or seventies in the group; he couldn’t go up to each one and ask, could he?
Until an old man accidentally fell to the ground, and the accompanying old woman panicked and tried to help him up, only to be caught and cursed at harshly.
Xiao Qiao’s eyes lit up, and from those few curses, he immediately knew who the person he needed to help was.
He bent down, lowered his head, and began begging while pretending to be mad and pitiful.
As expected, he was driven away by the guards. Xiao Qiao, acting timid and frightened, panicked and ran off haphazardly, somehow weaving through the crowd to the end of the line.
Perhaps because he was too panicked, he stumbled a few times, lost his footing, and fell heavily to the ground.
That thud alone made people feel the pain in their flesh just hearing it.
“Child, are you alright?”
Though their faces and bodies were injured and they themselves could barely move, the Yan Changrong couple still endured the pain to try to help up the child who had fallen in front of them.
Before the guards who sensed something wrong could shout to stop it.
The boy who was being helped broke free from them, running off head over heels as if extremely afraid of being touched by them.
The guard sneered contemptuously, strode up to the two, and shoved them hard. “Get in there quick, all of you behave! You’re all mud bodhisattvas crossing the river, barely able to save yourselves, so quit pretending to be good Samaritans!”
His bent waist seemed unable to straighten from the successive shocks and blows. Yan Changrong hunched over, clutching his injured abdomen tightly, and under his wife’s tearful support, walked forward step by step with difficulty.
Old people are wise. Although Zhao Panpan didn’t know what the young man had stuffed into his arms, she knew it absolutely couldn’t be discovered now.
So the couple cooperated with perfect tacit understanding, as if they had rehearsed it.
In an empty carriage, more than ten, nearly twenty people scattered and curled up on the ground.
Yan Changrong, sitting in the corner, weakly raised his head and quickly scanned the surroundings.
Hearing the train whistle starting to prepare to leave the platform, besides the two guards at the carriage door, everyone else in the carriage were people being sent down this time.
Because it happened suddenly in the middle of the night, the two hadn’t prepared anything and were dressed thinly.
Fortunately, each had put on a jacket while waiting at home; otherwise, in the autumn with such big day-night temperature differences, sitting on the carriage floor like this, they would fall ill before even arriving.
After the train chugged along for a good distance, those around them were either staring blankly with lifeless eyes lost in their own world, or closing their eyes in unwilling resignation.
Even the guards were rubbing their eyes and yawning, no longer in the mood for chit-chat or picking fights.
Seeing the look he gave her, Zhao Panpan intuitively knelt half-down in front of him, using her whole body to block the view from behind.
“Old man, is your head hurting again? Let me massage it, don’t move.”
As she spoke, she carefully placed her hand on his head, now forming a hugging position that blocked everything completely.
Seizing the opportunity, Yan Changrong opened his jacket on one side, took down the small cloth bag clamped under his armpit, and quickly opened it.
Inside, besides money and ration coupons and small jewelry made of gold, there were two or three small paper packets; judging by the words on them, they should be western medicine pills for emergencies.
After just a quick glance, he calmly stuffed them back. Yan Changrong held her hand. “Wife, I’m much better now, stop massaging. Sit down and rest.”
Zhao Panpan, smoothly lowering her hands, nodded and softly leaned half on his shoulder, asking in an extremely low voice by his ear.
“These things?”
“When that child stuffed them in, he muttered a name softly.”
“Who?”
“Su Ning.”
The girl his own little grandson liked?
How could it be her?
Although they didn’t know how she got the news or specially found someone to deliver these, both felt a surge of warmth in their hearts.
Adding flowers to brocade is easy, sending charcoal in snow is hard.
In the current situation, these things could save their lives several times over.
Xiao Qi has always had good eyesight since childhood, and this time is no exception!
They knew full well that if one or even both of them were gone, it would be the most fatal blow to their filial son and grandson.
So, even for the children’s sake, the two of them had to struggle hard to stay alive, watching and waiting for the day the Yan Family rises again.
“What will happen to Eldest and Second?”
The result came so quickly; the required procedures were probably just formalities.
But it was impossible to crush the entire Yan Family directly with those things. Eldest and Second weren’t pushovers; they had connections, means, and backups.
The biggest possibility was that they would be sent down just like them, but to where…
He only hoped now it wouldn’t be a place with too harsh conditions.
As Old Master Yan had guessed, Yan Ziyu’s family was sent down to the remote Reclaimed Land Farm, while Yan Zijing’s family went to Guer Farm.
This was still after several parties mediated, and those who had stayed neutral unexpectedly stepped in to muddy the waters, resulting in the outcome most favorable to the Yan Family.
Not only could the two families be together, but they also avoided places from which there was no return, where backups were kept to deliver big gifts to the Yan Family members.
But these two places—one with long winters that could freeze people to death, the other full of yellow sand and severely short of clean water—without help, could still make them suffer badly.
The people in the shadows had no choice but to console themselves this way and grudgingly accept the result.
……
Shanghai City, Zhao Family study room.
“Dad, the matter you mentioned is all settled.”
Zhao Rui looked at his old father, unconcealed doubt behind his gold-rimmed glasses. “Dad, you have an old connection with Old Master Yan of the Yan Family? How come I didn’t know?”
“It’s not with the Yan Family, it’s with the Su Family.”
How did the Su Family get involved again?
Zhao Rui was very clear about the Su Family and their own family’s matters. Uncle Su and his father not only had a good relationship but a life-or-death friendship.
Back then, in danger, if Su Ting hadn’t decisively turned back to rescue him regardless of his own safety, there wouldn’t be Zhao Qian, and thus no Zhao Family today.
If it was because of the Su Family, he understood why his father was so urgent to find him and even make that outrageous request.
“You don’t need to worry about the rest.”
“I know.”
After the Yan Family incident, plus the faint news coming down from above, Zhao Rui, with his unusually keen sense of smell, had already sensed something.
Changing the topic, he tentatively proposed, “Dad, how about I send you and Mom to Lili’s hometown to retire?”
“Hm?”
His daughter-in-law Lili’s hometown was in Tianfu, said to be a beautiful place with mountains and clear water, but the problem was their old stomachs couldn’t handle the ‘fiery enthusiasm’ of the food there.
Besides, old people love staying in their own nest, nowhere else to go, like fallen leaves returning to roots.
So Zhao Qian waved his hand and didn’t agree.
Having been refused, Zhao Rui said no more, just thinking darkly about how to work on it from his mom’s side.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be long before the city got increasingly chaotic. If his parents stayed here and one day he too got caught…
Better to plan ahead and make arrangements early.
When the situation stabilized and what he feared didn’t happen, everything would be fine; the two elders could stay wherever they wanted.
Because of screen closure, this chapter and the previous one are swapped, so everyone pay attention. I really can’t figure it out.
