Chapter 740

When she was little, although wolf packs didn’t dare wander into the village in broad daylight, it was common for them to sneak down to the educated youth station and kill pigs and chickens from the communal pens. They’d break into the pigsties and duck enclosures, making the animals screech in terror. The villagers would shut their doors tight and wouldn’t dare to go out and chase the wolves away. It was the old team leader, a wounded and retired Red Army soldier, who couldn’t bear to watch the chickens and ducks be ravaged by the wolves. He fired a shot and hit a wild wolf. Only then did the wolf packs start to grow wary, and their visits down the mountain gradually lessened.

Even when Jiang Ning was little, it was still common to hear someone crying in the morning that wolves had stolen their chickens or pigs in the night.

Hearing Grandaunt Jiang’s question, everyone excitedly chimed in, “Grandaunt, you don’t know yet, do you?”

“All thanks to our Ning Ning, who came up with the idea! She and Guotai and the Fourth Brother led the whole village in planting tea. Now everyone’s getting rich! The village doesn’t just divide up tea fields for girls now—there’s housing land too! This is Ning Ning’s land. This is her house!”

“And Baizi—Second Uncle’s second son—he also got into college! I think he’s in graduate school now, and he’s a celebrity too! Have you seen ‘White Snake’ ?”

This time, Grandma Jiang was truly shocked.

After marrying into Qushui City, she rarely mentioned her hometown of Wugong Mountain to her children and grandchildren. The most she ever talked about was the mountain in front of their old house—Huolu Mountain. She used to say her brother was a forest ranger up there, that their whole village was dirt poor and couldn’t even fill their stomachs, but somehow her brother could always catch rabbits and pheasants on the mountain and bring them down to give their family a rare feast.

Because if they roasted wild rabbits or pheasants in the village, the meat smell would travel far and wide, impossible to hide. So Grandpa Jiang always cooked it on the mountain before bringing it down to them.

That was one of the few happy memories from Grandaunt Jiang’s childhood. No matter how poor or hard life was, those occasional bites of meat left a lingering joy that carried her through her childhood and teenage years. It gave her enough optimism to withstand all of life’s hardship and misfortunes.

Then one summer break, she happened to watch White Snake and saw scenes of Wucheng and Wugong Mountain.”

She had only seen the city walls, moat, and gate tower of Wucheng once—on the day she got married. But Shuibu Town, that ancient town with hundreds or even thousands of years of history—that she knew like the back of her hand.

At first, she didn’t dare believe it, thinking that her eyes were playing tricks on her. But then she saw that endless stretch of lotus flowers blooming along the riverbank—and Grandaunt Jiang couldn’t sit still anymore. She shouted to her husband, “Old man, old man! Look!”

That levee—they had built it themselves, her and Grandpa Jiang’s generation. Shoulder to shoulder, with bamboo baskets, carrying soil one scoop at a time. Even after decades apart, even after the years had passed—the levee hadn’t changed. She recognized it at a glance. It was her familiar hometown.

Later, she saw Jiang Bai, Wugong Mountain, and Wugong Tea.

She didn’t know who Jiang Bai was. She had never heard of “Wugong Tea” either. The tea from their mountain—they never called it that. The term “Wugong Tea” was just something Jiang Ning had made up for branding. Locals all just said “picking tea leaves” or “tea leaves from our fields”. It didn’t matter what the tea was called—it was their own, and that was enough.

But Wugong Mountain—that name, that place—was legendary in their region.

Grandma Jiang didn’t know anything about Wugong Mountain or Wugong Tea, but her grandson sure had heard of it—it was a name that rang like thunder in his ears. When he found out this was actually Grandaunt Jiang’s hometown, he got excited and said loudly, “I know Wugong Mountain and Wugong Tea! Last time, Wucheng hosted an International Dragon Boat Culture Festival. A lot of people went there to compete, and Wucheng was promoting Wugong Tea. All the tea served during the dragon boat races was free—it was this Wugong Tea! Now we’re getting ready to form a dragon boat team in Qushui too.”

“Really?”

Grandma Jiang was quite intrigued too. Anything about her hometown caught her interest.

As they kept chatting, they eventually decided that on the second day of the New Year, they would accompany Grandaunt Jiang back to her old home.

They set off at 7 in the morning and rode for four hours to reach Tanshan. After crossing the ferry, they hired a small motor-tricycle and managed to arrive at Jiang Village just before lunch.

Fortunately, the cement roads in Jiang Village had all been completed; otherwise, without a boat on the second day of the New Year, it would’ve been tough just to get from Shuibu Town to Jiang Village.

Back in 1998, the floods filled the Sha River with water. In 1999 and during the millennium, boats could still reach the dock of the Linhe Brigade. But now in winter, the river flowed directly into the Yangtze again, and with water levels lower, boats couldn’t get to the riverbanks anymore.

Originally, they had planned to get to Tanshan by car and then walk the rest of the way. But after crossing the ferry, they were surprised to find that the entire riverbank had been paved with cement roads. Though larger tricycles couldn’t pass, the smaller four-person trikes could just barely squeeze through. That’s how they made their way from the ferry dock.

When her grandson arrived at the dock and looked at the cement pier and paved riverbank, he couldn’t believe his eyes—this was the same poor and remote little mountain village his grandma had described? The one with no proper roads?

When they arrived in Jiang Village, he was stunned. The first thing he saw was the public restroom in front of the brigade office—it was more luxurious than the public restrooms in their city. And nearby stood a three-story house, like a small city villa.

Then, turning left, he saw another big four-story home. Looking around, Jiang Village was full of two-story houses. Some were already completed, others still under construction.

How was this still the mud-house village from his grandma’s memories?

If it hadn’t been for the brigade office still being in the same spot, and the ancient pagoda tree at the village entrance still standing unchanged, Grandaung Jiang wouldn’t have believed this was her old home—Jiang Village—where she had lived for twenty years as a child.

When she heard the village even gave tea fields and housing land to the girls now, she was even more shocked.”

Her grandson was even more astonished. He couldn’t believe this beautiful house belonged to his grandma’s family.

In his mind, bringing his grandparents back to their hometown wasn’t exactly a triumphant return in glory, but at the very least, it was a trip from the city to the countryside. Even if their city was just a small county-level city, it was still a city.

But now, he and his grandparents felt more like country bumpkins just arriving in the big city—shocked to their core, like chickens about to scream.

Grandaunt Jiang, of course, was overjoyed. So was her husband, who turned to her and said, “Now you can rest easy, right? You didn’t know—these past years, she was always worried about her brother, afraid that her big brother was living a hard life.”

Grandaunt Jiang tilted her head, taking in the view in all directions. Everyone gave her space, letting her look around as she pleased.

Uncle Jiang’s wife laughed and said, “Ning Ning’s house is the best one in the village. She even hired a designer from Shanghai to draw up the plans! Feel this wall—it’s a fire wall. In winter, when we cook or boil water, the heat goes right into this wall.”

Though Jiangnan Province was in the south, it was still very cold—unlike Hainan or Yunnan, where they’d never even seen snow in winter. There, winter snowfalls over a foot deep were common.