Chapter 6

The next day, upon arrival, Jun Lichun shot off like a rabbit.

Jun Lijiang made a phone call, then returned to the car and asked Jun Jianqing, “Cousin, want me to walk around with you?”

Jun Jianqing glanced at her: “Your business resolved?”

Jun Lijiang shrugged: “The whole of Gentle Wind Alley, except for that one stubbornly refusing household, is done. I’m planning to go see what the deal is soon.”

Jun Jianqing’s expression was cold: “Your people can be replaced.”

Jun Lijiang laughed, then sighed after laughing: “What can I do? I have a really good temper.”

Not everyone could be like her cousin.

Although the matter wasn’t perfectly resolved yet, the overall efficiency was acceptable. She could live with it.

Any slower, and she really would fire the team.

Jun Lijiang beckoned to the bodyguard waiting nearby. A tall, capable woman walked over and opened the car door for Jun Jianqing.

“Cousin, the surroundings here aren’t bad. You can take a look around and casually offer me some valuable suggestions,” Jun Lijiang said, walking beside her.

Many cherry blossom trees were planted around Gentle Wind Alley. Now was the season for them to bloom, their faint fragrance drifting through the air. Jun Lijiang sniffed a couple of times and raised her eyebrows: “The air is pretty nice.”

Jun Jianqing’s expression remained faint, leaning comfortably against the back of her wheelchair. The bodyguard behind pushed it at an unhurried pace, her control over the force precise.

She said: “Just average.”

Jun Lijiang clicked her tongue: “Just average?”

She peered at Jun Jianqing, found she couldn’t read anything, and decided not to pry. She’d just assume her excuse to drag her out for some “fresh air” was correct.

Even dead, the old man still had some effect on people.

“Then, Cousin, you walk around first. I’ll go check on how things are progressing over there, try to get all the resettlement compensation agreements signed today.”

Jun Jianqing nodded. After the person left, dead silence returned around her.

The rolling wheels made rhythmic friction sounds against the flagstone path. The surrounding scenery was plain. Jun Jianqing felt a flicker of displeasure at her own momentary impulse that had led her here.

She really shouldn’t have come.

…

With Gentle Wind Alley slated for demolition, the breakfast shop at the first intersection left from the alley entrance would likely have to relocate soon too.

Cheng Yan was particularly fond of their steamed buns. Every time she came home, she’d have breakfast there.

Today was no exception.

Thinking she might only have a few more chances to eat there, she deliberately ate a bit more than usual.

The result was she’d overeaten.

It was still early. Figuring the staff from Shihong Company coming to sign the resettlement compensation agreements wouldn’t arrive too early, Cheng Yan took a detour to walk along the park lake closest to Gentle Wind Alley to aid digestion.

She didn’t expect to run into a neighbor from the alley so early in the morning.

Her first reaction was to leave silently, but the other party had already spotted her.

Aunt Li wiped her tears with a tissue and offered Cheng Yan a strained smile, her voice very gentle: “I heard a few days ago you were back. Thought you might be busy and I wouldn’t see you lately.”

Cheng Yan stepped forward to greet them: “Aunt Li, Uncle Li, have you had breakfast?”

Uncle Li was a man of few words, his skin very dark. He nodded: “We have.”

After exchanging a few pleasantries, although she had some understanding of their current situation, Cheng Yan didn’t intend to say much more. Just as she was about to nod and leave, Aunt Li suddenly brought something up.

“Yanyan, for your parents’ house, have you agreed to the demolition?”

Cheng Yan hummed in confirmation: “I came back this time just to sign the agreement.”

Aunt Li’s eyes welled up with tears again. She was silent for a moment, sighed, and said in a daze: “You should sign. You’re still young. Moving forward is the right thing to do.”

“Your parents, if they knew, wouldn’t blame you.”

Cheng Yan pressed her hand against her stomach and looked up at the sunlight. The March sun wasn’t too harsh, but she still shifted her feet to stand in the shade.

“Actually, if you moved away, it would be good for Yuanyuan too.”

Aunt Li instinctively refused: “No! No, we can’t. Yuanyuan grew up here, she’s so familiar with this place. Ever since she was little, she didn’t like staying inside. She always wanted to come out and play. Before she could even speak properly, she loved drawing on the alley walls with colored pens. When she got a bit older, could run and jump, she especially loved running from one end of the alley to the other with her friends, so happily.”

Mentioning her daughter, Aunt Li always had endless words. “And this park—when she was little, she loved pestering me in the spring to buy her kites. She’d come here to fly kites, work up a sweat, then beg me to buy her sweet and sour pineapple to eat.”

“She also loved playing with water. She always wanted me to hold her hand and walk around here. Seeing water, lakes, she’d get so happy, always asking me to buy little rubber ducks for her to play with in the water. So I coaxed her, saying that when she was older, I’d send her to learn swimming. Wait a little longer, wait a little longer, until our finances were a bit better…”

At this point, Aunt Li’s voice broke. “So I can’t leave. If I leave, everything here will be gone. What will my Yuanyuan do then?”

Cheng Yan looked at the tranquil lake surface in the early morning. The golden glow made the lake beautiful, shimmering with light.

Nothing showed that this place had once swallowed a fresh, innocent young life.

Beside her, Aunt Li, after speaking, buried her face in her hands.

Uncle Li put his arm around her shoulder. Though no tears fell from his eyes, his face held a numb kind of pain.

Cheng Yan took a deep breath and said, “The trafficker from back then is still in prison. Even if he paid an even greater price, it couldn’t save Yuanyuan’s life. But the way you two have lived like walking dead these years, not a day going by without missing Yuanyuan—if what you say is true, and Yuanyuan knew, how heartbroken would she be?”

Li Yuanyuan was five years younger than her. She had a little round face and round eyes, incredibly endearing.

She loved to smile and play from a young age. But on that summer day when she was ten, during the heat of noon when everyone was napping, she secretly slipped out to find someone to play with and ran into the traffickers who were rampant at the time.

Fortunately, she was fairly clever and wasn’t tricked.

Unfortunately, as she ran away, she slipped and fell into the lake.

The traffickers, frightened, fled immediately. At noon in the summer, there was hardly anyone around. A fresh, vibrant life was thus extinguished in the icy lake water.

From then on, Aunt Li and Uncle Li never moved on.

Aunt Li sobbed: “I understand the principles, but this is my only remaining thought, my only connection. Yuanyuan grew up here. I can’t leave! I just can’t leave!”

“They all tell me to leave, to think about the second half of my life. Second half of my life? Without Yuanyuan, what second half of life do I even have?”

Cheng Yan said nothing more.

Her cries were full of pain and regret. Cheng Yan felt her stomach cramping, wave after wave, under that heart-wrenching sobbing.

After a long, long while, Aunt Li slowly calmed down. Her voice was still hoarse from crying: “I’ve made a fool of myself in front of you.”

Cheng Yan shook her head. She looked out at the lake, her lips a little pale.

Aunt Li’s eyes were blurred by tears. Seeing this, she thought Cheng Yan was also reminded of her own sad past.

“Back then, your parents were still here, and you were eight or nine. The three of you, a family, loved coming here for walks. How wonderful it was back then.” She murmured. “I remember one time, you got a butterfly kite. Yuanyuan saw it and specially traded her new ice cream with you, wanting to play with it for a while. Your mother also said…”

Cheng Yan lowered her head and listened to her rambling.

Perhaps pressured too much lately by the demolition issue, and with only Cheng Yan in the entire Gentle Wind Alley who could empathize with her, Aunt Li rambled on and on, recalling countless past events.

Some Cheng Yan still remembered, some from her childhood she had no impression of.

Things about Yuanyuan, things about her parents.

When Aunt Li started reminiscing, in a daze, about even older times, about the sweet love story of her parents, Cheng Yan finally couldn’t bear it any longer: “Aunt Li—”

She restrained herself, clenching her right hand tightly, her expression flawless: “I have an appointment soon, I need to go ahead.”

Aunt Li stopped her words, murmured a couple of times: “Ah, okay. You go on.”

Cheng Yan walked straight ahead. When there was finally no one around nearby, her steady pace finally faltered. She stumbled.

Her stomach hurt terribly.

Her digestion had been poor since she was little. Her parents had carefully regulated it for a time, and it improved a lot, though it would still act up once or twice every year.

Later, when she was on her own, as she grew older, her sensitive stomach gradually got better, to the point where even the one-or-two-times-a-year frequency disappeared.

But today, it had abruptly returned.

Cheng Yan pressed her pale lips together. In the midst of the discomfort, she guessed it was because she’d eaten too much this morning.

Unable to part with the soon-to-relocate breakfast shop, she’d ended up triggering her stomach issues. A self-deprecating smile crossed her face. Everything truly required moderation.

Crouching by the roadside, she took a long time to recover. Only when the pain subsided somewhat did she use a nearby tree for support to slowly stand up.

She was still leaning against the tree, her body slightly hunched, pressing on her stomach. A dull ache remained; some medicine would probably fix it.

Just as she was thinking this, the sound of wheels rolling over the flagstone path came from behind. Cheng Yan didn’t turn around, just shifted sideways to make room for whoever was behind her.

But the sound suddenly stopped.

A flicker of impatience crossed her eyes. Isn’t all this space enough?

Just as she was about to turn and see what was going on, a handkerchief was offered from slightly behind, to her right.

That hand was whiter than snow, and the blue veins on the back of the hand were very prominent. The two colors intertwined, radiating an aura of frailty.

The knot of emotions in her chest hitched for a second. Brushed by the wind, she realized there seemed to be some sweat on her forehead. It dawned on her then that the handkerchief was meant for her.

She turned around, her amber eyes still carrying the pain from her stomach’s cramping. Her gaze moved downward, somewhat surprised to see the person who had appeared before her.

She was speechless for a moment, then parted her lips: “It’s you?”

Jun Jianqing’s gaze imperceptibly shifted away from her slender waist, as if she could still see the hunched waistline hidden within the loose shirt, pressed by the wind to reveal a slender silhouette.

Hearing her question, Jun Jianqing slightly nodded: “Yes, it’s me.”

Cheng Yan’s expression relaxed somewhat. She smiled, a bit embarrassed: “I thought… it was just a passerby.”

She took the offered handkerchief and wiped the sweat from her forehead. The expensive silk fabric wiping her skin indeed brought a sensation ordinary tissues couldn’t match.

After wiping her forehead, Cheng Yan folded the used handkerchief and held it in her hand. Then she looked at the person in the wheelchair before her.

Her stomach still throbbed with waves of pain. She curved her lips, sincerely thanking her: “Thank you. You’ve helped me again.”