Chapter 741

When Grandaunt Jiang first walked in, she had been too emotional—crying non-stop. She hadn’t even noticed the warmth. But now she could feel the thin sheen of sweat on her body—it was warm enough to take off her coat.

Jiang Ning’s house really was huge. The living room alone was visibly bigger than the entire apartment she shared with her husband in the city.

That apartment had been a welfare home from her husband’s younger years, with a total area of less than 70 square meters. Even housing several family members, it was considered pretty spacious by city standards.

Uncle Jiang’s wife and her daughter-in-law led Grandaunt Jiang and the people with her through the house, opening each door, showing off room after room.”

“There are tons of people! Ning Ning’s rooms are so popular, we can’t even take all the bookings. People call every day to reserve!”

After touring the house, Grandaunt Jiang finally understood how things were. Jiang Daguo and Jiang Guoping had split households—Grandpa and Grandma Jiang had each gone with one brother. Grandma Jiang lived with Daguo and his wife, while Grandpa Jiang stayed with Guoping and his wife in retirement.

Daguo’s three sons had already moved out and started their own families. He and his wife planned to build a new house next door, but for now, they were temporarily living in Jiang Ning’s house and helping keep it clean.

After all, a house needs to be lived in, or it’d fall into disrepair.

Jiang Guoping and his wife were working away from home and only returned during the New Year, so Grandpa Jiang stayed with his little granddaughter and Daguo’s family in Jiang Ning’s house.

After seeing the whole house, Grandaunt Jiang was still full of amazement at the luxurious home her grandniece now owned.

“This house must’ve cost a lot to build, right?” Grandma Jiang was asking—if the family had spent this much money to build a house for her, would her brothers be okay with it? In the countryside, people still generally assume that all of a parents’ property belongs to the sons.

Uncle Jiang’s wife laughed and said, “The money didn’t come from Guoping’s family. Ning Ning earns money every year from her tea fields!”

That way, they didn’t need to worry about girls being cheated out of their tea field income.”

If life in Jiang Village had been this prosperous back when she was young, maybe she wouldn’t have had to marry far away?

—-

What Yu Wenjie saw was better than what he had imagined a rural village to be like. The entire village had cement-paved roads, and even the public restroom next to the cinema was more beautiful than the houses of most people. There were also many open stores: tea stores, snack stalls, small eateries, and even a photo studio.

The photo studio was opened by the man who ran the cinema, together with his wife. He knew how to play films, take photos, and develop them. Ever since Jiang Village started attracting more tourists, the demand for photos had gone up. Since the cinema man already had these skills, he didn’t go out to work that year. Instead, he stayed in Jiang Village, bought a camera and photo development equipment, and began taking photos for people next to the cinema. When he got too busy, his wife would help out with the photography. After a year of practice, his wife had gotten quite good at it and knew how to make people look nice in pictures. Not only that—even their nine-year-old son had learned how to take photos. Sometimes when there were too many customers and his mom wasn’t around, he would help take photos for the guests.

These small stores were all very simply set up—just a signboard in front of their house, reading “General Store”, “Tea Store”, “Snack Stall”, and so on. There weren’t even proper store signs.

Although that day was the second day of the Lunar New Year—typically a time when such stores would be closed—Jiang Village remained lively thanks to the cinema. Even during the Spring Festival, people from nearby villages came in a steady stream to watch movies there. In past years, with no proper roads or transportation, those who came to watch movies had to walk, so it was usually only people from the two or three nearby brigades. But now that the cement roads had opened and vehicles could come through, young people from slightly farther villages—now back home for the holidays—would bring their blind dates to Jiang Village to catch a movie, and at the same time, show off their hometown: the villas built on barren hills in Jiang Village.

Jiang Guotai was extremely well known in the local area. The house he built for his daughter on barren hills had practically become a local landmark. Anyone coming to the southern side of the Sha River and passing by Jiang Village would point to those few villas on the hills and say to their relatives or friends, “See those three big villas? The one on the far left is Jiang Ning’s. The middle one belongs to Jiang Guotai’s daughter. You’ve heard of Jiang Ning and Jiang Guotai, right?”

Everyone who heard this would praise Jiang Village as a place that truly produced talented people—so many impressive folks had gathered there. Then they’d head over to the photo studio next to the cinema to rent a camera, or ask the lady boss or her little boss to help them take a photo with the hillside villas in the background.

The spring blossoms on the hills, the lotus leaves by the riverbank, the pink peach blossoms and green willows lining the long embankment, the wild goji berries growing on both sides of the dam—even the persimmon trees in autumn, heavy with fruit that no one wanted, all became picturesque backdrops for tourists’ photos.

Local persimmons were overabundant. In past years, the domesticated ones and the wild ones on the hills were more than anyone could eat. No one wanted them. Now that there were tourists, many households would pick the ripe persimmons from their trees and set up roadside stands to sell them. Though the locals were tired of eating persimmons, they were very popular among the tourists. Many elderly villagers who couldn’t do heavy labor could earn a decent income in the fall by selling persimmons and Chinese chestnuts.

Along the road from Xu Village toward the sand factory and neighboring cities, there were persimmons everywhere. In previous years, these fruits would just rot on the trees, be eaten by birds, or be picked to feed pigs. But after discovering that Linhe Brigade had a lot of tourists, some villagers—reluctant to compete directly in Jiang Village—started taking their goods by tricycle early every morning to the Linhe Brigade’s dam and dock to set up stalls and sell persimmons.

Before long, the people of Linhe Brigade realized their business was being snatched. So the more industrious ones began bringing their own persimmons, chestnuts, Chinese water chestnuts, and gorgon fruits to set up stalls at Jiang Village’s dock. Business was booming.

At this moment, it was the Spring Festival. Tourists from far away weren’t many, but all the young people who’d returned from working outside had gathered around Jiang Village’s cinema, making the old people’s activity center in the village center especially lively and packed with youth.

The most popular Chinese New Year movie this year was the sequel to Song Dynasty, adapted from Jiang Ning’s My Years as A Catcher in the Song Dynasty. That was exactly the movie playing at the cinema that day.

Jiang Village’s cinema had been renovated from an old rice barn. Though it looked a bit worn from the outside, the inside was quite spacious. There were a lot of viewers.

Yu Wenjie found his seat and sat down, glancing left and right. Soon, the movie began.

By the time this film was shot, Jiang Bai had already passed his graduate school entrance exam. He also had a cameo in this film. Though his screen time wasn’t much, people in Jiang Village still recognized him instantly.”

Jiang Bai had been quite famous a couple of years ago. The only year he didn’t act was the one when he was studying for graduate school. But many of the TV dramas where he had previously played background roles had aired one after another. That year, although he didn’t shoot anything new, the audience still kept seeing him on screen. Sometimes as a nobleman, sometimes a young general, sometimes an assassin—always minor roles with just a few minutes of screen time.