The Little Duck 69p1

Chapter 69 p1

Yan Lu was coming back for the New Year, which was an unexpected joy.

Although so many years had passed and the little girl from back then was already an adult, Huang He still subconsciously asked the first thing, “Should I help her get a ticket? It’s almost the New Year, and tickets are hard to get…”

Perhaps no matter how much time passed, in the eyes of the elders, a child would always be a child, and needed to be taken care of at all times.

But this worry was not very meaningful, because although she could hire someone to take care of them, Yan Lu was not at ease leaving the two little ones at home for so long. After all, she was not very at ease with a randomly hired person.

Hearing this, Jian Xin couldn’t help but ask, “Then aren’t you tied down by them and can’t go out to travel?”

“I’ve been to most of the places I wanted to go,” Yan Lu said. “If there’s really a place I want to go, I’ll just drive myself if it’s closer, and if it’s further, I’ll ask Qianqian to help take care of them for a while.”

Jian Xin: “Is it not convenient for Qianqian this time?”

Yan Lu: “She’s also going home for the New Year.”

Jian Xin: “So she’s not from Jincheng?”

Yan Lu: “Mmm, she’s from Taishan.”

Jian Xin recalled for a moment and finally reacted. “I remember now, your grandma is from Taishan.”

Yan Lu in the voice message laughed. “It’s a wonder you remember.”

Jian Xin was a little proud. “Of course, my memory is still pretty good.”

She said, then thought for a moment and tentatively asked, “I’m just a little curious. Didn’t you cut off everything from the past? How did you run into this little cousin?”

Hearing this, Yan Lu let out a soft laugh.

She said, perhaps this is what you call fate.

*

In those years, Yan Lu, who had left Jian Xin, had gone to many, many places.

At that time, her savings had been taken away by those man-eating relatives. Besides a small portion of her novel income that she hadn’t had time to withdraw, she was almost penniless.

After she took a leave of absence from school, she didn’t know where she could go, so she started to travel around aimlessly and cheaply.

Because she had no direction, every direction was a direction.

Every time she walked to a bus station, she wouldn’t care where she would end up. She would just randomly buy a ticket for the bus that was leaving the soonest, and then get on the bus, and she could start to look forward to what kind of place the next stop would be.

On the road, Yan Lu had applied for a new account from her editor, which was her current pen name—Perched by the Roadside.

At first, she didn’t believe that she could go very far, but she had inexplicably walked very, very far, and at a very, very slow speed, she had been to many small places that many people might not have even heard of, and had seen many completely different local customs.

She started to fall in love with this feeling, and she also started to write about the people and things she had seen along the way in her novels.

Everything started from scratch.

Having lost her original reader base, the income from her first novel was very dismal.

But it didn’t matter. As long as she was frugal enough, it was enough for her to live on her own outside.

There were some shabby places to stay, where a night could be as cheap as twenty-something yuan. There were delicious and cheap local snacks at the street stalls, and she could go to the market before sunset to pick up some bargains and get some cheap ingredients. With just a small electric pot, she could solve one or two meals.

When she was free, she would slowly write.

No matter what she was busy with during the day, she would try her best to maintain a daily update.

Of course, she had to walk around, so it was already very good to be able to update two to three thousand words a day. As for full attendance, she didn’t dare to think about it.

But just by updating slowly like this, the stickiness of her readers was actually higher than when she was diligent.

In the days when she had almost exhausted herself to earn money, the things she had written with all her might were in line with the market, but there were so many similar works on the market, and she was just one of them, and she had never stood out.

On the contrary, now, this slow and leisurely state could always make more people praise her from the bottom of their hearts and recommend her everywhere.

So Yan Lu’s life gradually got better.

But she still liked to take the bus and sway slowly.

She used to get a little carsick, but Jian Xin was even more so, so she would always want to pretend that she wasn’t and spend more effort to take care of Jian Xin.

But now she no longer got carsick.

She gradually fell in love with the feeling of traveling alone at will.

With a sense of curiosity, she would go to a place determined by fate. When she was tired, she would close her eyes and sleep, and when she was energetic, she would open her eyes and look out the window.

The mountains and rivers that the long-distance bus passed by, or the vast plains, how could they not be a kind of scenery?

The world is really big, bigger than she had imagined.

Because she had no home to go back to, she was not a traveler in a hurry, but would stay in every place for a long time.

Sometimes she would follow the online guides to play, and sometimes she would ask the owner of the shop when she was eating to see if there were any recommended places to visit. It wasn’t until she had had her fill of fun that she would go to the next place.

In those years, time had been passing silently, and Yan Lu had thus slowly wandered from the south to the north.

One time at a bus station, she had, according to the principle of buying the ticket for the bus that was leaving the soonest, bought a ticket to Taishan.

When she got the ticket, she fell into a deep thought.

Even though so many years had passed, she still remembered that her mom was from Taishan.

Back then, her grandma had come to Liang County and had taken her mom’s ashes away, crying.

After that, she had never seen her mom again.

Yan Lu looked at this ticket, and the corners of her mouth couldn’t help but lift slightly.

Looking at the time, it was just in time for the Qingming Festival.

—Is this fate?

Four hours, it only took four hours, and she could be in Taishan.

After Yan Lu arrived in Taishan, she found a place to stay and put down her luggage. The first place she went was the cemetery in Taishan.

Actually, there were many cemeteries in Taishan, and she didn’t know where to go at first.

But after searching online, she found that if she could provide some basic information about the deceased, she could inquire about the burial place at the relevant location.

Although it took some effort, she finally found her mom’s grave.

Her mom’s name was engraved on the tombstone—Li Wanqiu.

In the gray and white photo, there was a brilliant smile she had never seen before, more beautiful than any moment in her memory.

Yan Lu thought that she would not cry. After all, so many years had passed, and her memory of her mom had long since blurred.

But at that moment, she looked at the photo, the name, the tombstone, and she always felt that she should say something to the person inside.

“Mom, I’m here to see you.”

Just that one sentence, and she could no longer hold back her tears.

It was as if all the grievances she had suffered over the years had been crushed by this one sentence, and had fallen into the soil under her feet with her tears.

Thus, the person who had left would come and hug her with the gentle breeze.

That day, she had squatted there and cried for a long time.

Until someone came closer.

It was a woman who looked to be in her forties, and beside her was a young lady who looked like a college student, tilting her head and looking at her with bright eyes.

It was her third aunt, whom she had never met, and her third aunt’s little cousin.

They had just come from her grandma’s grave not far away, and before they got close, they had seen this strange-looking girl who had been squatting in front of Li Wanqiu’s grave and crying.

Her third aunt bent down, handed her a tissue, and asked for her name softly.

Relatives who had never met before had accidentally met at that moment.

Yan Lu was taken back home by her third aunt, and they had even helped her to bring back the suitcase she had left at the hotel.

During the days she had stayed in Taishan, her third aunt’s family had been very attentive to her and had taken very good care of her.

Although it was their first time meeting, it was far better than the relatives she had often met in her memory.

Yao Wenqian was studying at a university in Taishan. To accompany this newly met cousin, she had specially taken a few days off and had taken her to eat, drink, and play all over Taishan.

Yan Lu got along well with her, so she talked a lot more.

Yao Wenqian found that Yan Lu was writing a novel and very enthusiastically went to read one, and quickly sent a doodle.

“How are you so good at drawing?” Yan Lu said with a laugh, praising her little cousin.

Yao Wenqian blushed and smiled, her eyebrows arching.

She said that if her cousin didn’t mind, she would often draw for her in the future.

Yan Lu asked if it would be too much trouble.

Yao Wenqian just said it wouldn’t be.

She had always wanted to have an older or younger sister since she was a child, and now that she finally had one, she was so happy.

Her cousin’s novel was good, and she liked it, so she loved to draw.

She wanted to become a particularly amazing artist, and she would draw for her cousin to attract more readers when she had nothing to do. When her cousin earned money, she just had to remember to treat her to a big meal!

Yan Lu looked at her and nodded seriously.

Her third aunt called from outside, calling them to eat.

The family affection that had once been missing seemed to have been unexpectedly found by her in another place after many years.

*

This was the story of how Yan Lu and her little cousin had met.

Jian Xin listened and couldn’t help but sigh.

Many things in this world are as if they have long been destined, and many coincidences are indispensable.

If Yan Lu hadn’t left her, she wouldn’t have traveled around, wouldn’t have gone to Taishan on that year’s Qingming Festival, wouldn’t have met her third aunt and little cousin, and naturally, there would have been no subsequent mutual achievement of Perched by the Roadside and Qian Xiaohuan, one in writing and one in drawing.

Perhaps with their respective strengths, they would have eventually made it, but perhaps it would have been many years later.

This is very good.

Jian Xin told herself in her heart that all of this was the best arrangement of fate.

Three days later, Yan Lu drove back to Nanjiang with the two little ones.

She didn’t even need to be picked up. She just found the community where she had lived for many years with ease.

She hadn’t been back to this home for eight years, and now that she was suddenly here, Yan Lu couldn’t help but get nervous.

She had disappeared without a word back then, and after so many years, besides sending a sum of money here, she had not sent back any news.

She was a little worried that it would be very awkward to face her aunt and uncle again, so she stood at the door and hesitated for a long time, not having the courage to ring the doorbell.

Xin Xin seemed to be unable to stand it anymore and started to bark in the hallway.

Yan Lu was startled by it and quickly crouched down to comfort it.

However, the next second, the closed door beside her was opened.

The one who opened the door was Jian Xin.

She was wrapped in thick pajamas, her long hair loose, and she looked down at her with curiosity. “Why are you squatting on the floor?”

Yan Lu: “…”

A little speechless, she rubbed the dog’s neck to calm herself down.

Huang He poked her head out to look at the door, and her eyes suddenly lit up. She got up and went forward to greet them.

“Xiao Lu?”

“Auntie…”

“You’re back,” Huang He said, and just like back then, she took the luggage from Yan Lu’s hand.

The next second, she saw the duck and dog outside, and she couldn’t help but let out a “whoa.” “So this is Xin Xin and Cauliflower?”

Xin Xin and Cauliflower clearly heard their names and both looked up at Huang He.

Jian Xin: “…”

Yan Lu: “…Yeah.”

Huang He: “Please come in, please come in!”

From the angle of Huang He’s bow, the direction of her wave, and the position of her gaze at this moment, it was clear that this “please come in” was not said to Yan Lu—it was said to the two little ones on the floor.