Chapter Five: Saying Goodbye

There was a slight quiver in Shao Hong’s voice, as if he might cry, and this made Zhong Di feel a pang of sorrow himself.

“No, don’t come to me about this again,” Zhong Di said, and hung up.

This was not the first time. It had happened many times before. Shao Hong had borrowed three thousand yuan from him alone—not to mention what he’d borrowed from others.

To have to buy reconciliation with money—Zhong Di swore, this was the first time in his life he’d encountered such a thing. He’d heard of it before and always thought it was just a scam. But when it happened right in his circle, he finally believed it.

He thought of Shao Hong’s past bravado, his passionate speeches, and then looked at him now—he couldn’t help but feel helpless at how things had turned out.

After hanging up, Zhong Di frowned, but in the end, he opened WeChat and transferred a thousand yuan to Shao Hong, leaving a message: “The last time.”

He had no idea how many more times he would help Shao Hong. Each time was supposed to be the last; it was a bottomless pit, and no matter how much you poured in, it would never be enough. Xiao Xin was just such a bottomless pit.

Zhong Di had always believed that love required effort on both sides; one-sided giving only led to heartless wounds. Shao Hong’s ending was already written.

But he couldn’t be too harsh—it was something only Shao Hong himself could work through. The truth is, the one inside the story is always confused, while the bystander sees things clearly.

The only reason he helped Shao Hong this time was because he knew, if Shao Hong couldn’t get money from him, he’d go groveling to others. Zhong Di didn’t want to see that.

That, he thought, was the meaning of friendship: even when you know it’s a bottomless pit, you still try to fill it. As for how long he could keep doing so, he had no answer.

On the other end, Shao Hong received the money and replied with only two words: “Thank you.”

Just as he was about to put his phone away, Zhong Di noticed a message from Wen Ya. Instinctively, he opened it. Maybe she wanted to explain something.

“Who was that woman you were talking to today? I can’t believe you’d do this behind my back. From now on, we owe each other nothing.”

Zhong Di panicked. He didn’t want Wen Ya to misunderstand. Even though they’d broken up, he still didn’t want her to think he’d betrayed her.

He quickly typed, “It’s not like that,” and hit send—only to see a red exclamation mark.

Was it all just wishful thinking on his part?

She had simply chosen the outcome she wanted, not the actual truth.

Zhong Di hesitated for a moment, then tapped on Wen Ya’s profile photo and deleted her on WeChat. He quickly scrubbed his Moments clean of anything related to her.

“Zhong Di, dinner’s ready,” his mother called from the living room—the meal must be done.

“Coming,” he replied, gathering the photo he’d just torn from the wall into a plastic bag. He took the bag and stepped out of his room.

His father was sitting on the sofa, waiting for dinner. In their home, the living room doubled as the dining room—it changed according to need, with no fixed rules.

There was a plate of twice-cooked pork, a plate of stir-fried greens, a bowl of seaweed and egg soup, and the fried dumplings he’d been craving while away. He hadn’t seen the twice-cooked pork earlier; his mother must have made it last.

“Mom, I’m going to throw something out first.”

His mother glanced over and immediately knew what he was carrying.

“Just leave it in the kitchen—I’ll burn it later.”

Bang!

Suddenly, his father slammed his chopsticks on the table, his voice rising, “Di Chunhua, why must you meddle in the child’s affairs?” He shot his wife a look, watching Zhong Di’s reaction carefully.

“So what if I burn it? My son is just fine—what’s so special about Wen Ya? It’s not as if she can’t live without him. Go on, leave it in the kitchen, I’ll burn it myself,” Di Chunhua’s voice was even louder than Zhong Tian’s.

Zhong Di had told his parents that he was the one who initiated the breakup, but parents always know their children best. They could guess what had happened without him needing to say a word.

When you’re at your lowest, when everyone else sees you as useless, as a failure, no matter what, in front of your mother you will always be the best. Only your parents truly care for you, their love is always selfless and without expectation.

Zhong Di paused, then nodded. It was time to say goodbye to the past—never to see it again.

By the time they finished dinner, it was already half past eleven at night. Throughout the meal, his parents remained silent, not mentioning his resignation or the breakup once. He knew they were afraid of touching a nerve.

The next morning, Zhong Di got up early. His parents had already left. No matter how early he rose, they were always up before him.

On the table was a meal they’d left for him, and a ring of keys—keys to the house and the fields. Zhong Di pocketed them.

His mother worked at the textile factory. At her age and with no special position, the factory normally wouldn’t keep her on. But his family had always been poor, and in China, there were poverty alleviation policies—families like theirs were given priority for such jobs.

His father’s job was a bit better, since he could operate all kinds of farm machinery. He could always find work driving machines, and it wasn’t too tiring.

After eating breakfast, Zhong Di got on the family’s battered old electric scooter and rattled out the door.

Just outside, he ran into Aunt Guo, a neighbor, who was washing vegetables in the water channel out front.

This was the main irrigation channel, and by the flow, it could just about be called upstream. Every household liked to wash their vegetables here first, then rinse them again with clean water.

“Aunt Guo, washing vegetables for cooking?” Zhong Di greeted her politely. You had to mind your manners here, or risk being scolded and even gossiped about as badly raised.

“Zhong Di? You’re back? I heard you were working in the city,” Aunt Guo said, surprised.

“I’m back. I’m planning to take care of our jujube orchard,” Zhong Di replied. He figured everyone would know soon enough, so he might as well say it outright and stop people from guessing. In no time, news of his return would spread, with dozens of versions of the story.

Lingjing Village wasn’t large—just over two hundred households, close to a thousand people all told. But that counted everyone. These days, all the young people had left for the big cities to work; only those with no other options remained.

“Didn’t you say you’d found a good job, earning over ten thousand a month? Why give that up? And your jujube orchard’s been abandoned—can it even be revived?” Aunt Guo was clearly surprised that Zhong Di had made such a decision. Most young people were striving in big cities; few returned, especially one of the village’s few college graduates.

“It wasn’t that much—just a few thousand a month. If I clean up the orchard, it’ll be fine. All right, Aunt Guo, I’m off to the fields. You go ahead.”

Hearing people say he earned over ten thousand a month made Zhong Di want to leave quickly. If he stayed and chatted, who knew what people would say about him next.

Here, even the tiniest bit of news would be all over the village by noon.