NOVPUBSaturday.
At a little past eight in the morning, six kids got into Zhang Chunxue’s car to head back to Chuxi Village for the feast.
Today was a grand celebration day, as Uncle Yao Jianjun was getting married. The adults had gotten up and gone down to the countryside to help out since before five in the morning. Xu Qingfan couldn’t get out of bed, so he took Zhang Chunxue’s car back.
"Xiao Fan, you need to give directions, I’ve never been to Chuxi Village." Zhang Chunxue said to Xu Qingfan, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
"Got it, just go straight, and turn right at the traffic light at the end." Xu Qingfan buckled his seatbelt and responded.
Four years had passed, and time hadn’t left its mark on Zhang Chunxue’s face; she still looked youthful. Her chestnut-brown sunglasses were casually pushed up to the top of her head, she was clad in a rosy red slim-fit trench coat, and she hummed along to the music in the car with a bounce in her demeanor, appearing to anyone who saw her as a stylish woman in her late twenties.
"Right, Xiao Fan, your uncle is forty this year, isn’t he? Why is he getting married so late?" Perhaps out of boredom from driving, Zhang Chunxue curiously pried.
Normally, she wasn’t a nosy person, but since it involved Xu Qingfan’s uncle, curiosity was inevitable.
"More than forty, oh, my uncle is fifteen years older than my mom, he’s almost forty-eight this year."
Having succeeded in his career, Yao Jianjun had gained a fresh vigor. Thanks to his naturally mature looks, now with his hair dyed black, he indeed looked like a middle-aged man in his forties.
"Ah? Then why..." 𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒑𝒖𝒃.𝙘𝙤𝒎
The five girls in the back of the car stopped their chattering and silently waited for the juicy details.
"How come so late in getting married, right? I’ll tell you, but you can’t spread it around, otherwise, my uncle will kill me!" Xu Qingfan turned to the five people behind him and said.
"Brother Fan, tell us quickly!"
"Brother Qing Fan, I promise I won’t tell anyone!"
"Xiao Fan, if it’s about your uncle’s privacy, never mind, I don’t have to hear it." Zhang Chunxue stopped the car at a red light and patted Xu Qingfan on the head as she spoke.
Hearing Zhang Chunxue say this, Xu Qingfan felt even more uncomfortable, explaining, "It’s nothing much, my uncle was married once about seven or eight years ago, that was almost thirty years ago!"
"Ah?"
"Don’t worry, my uncle isn’t a Chen Shimei, and my former aunt didn’t die, well...that’s not certain either...." Xu Qingfan started from the 1960s, when Yao Jianjun was just an eight or nine-year-old kid, enchanted by the city boy, Chen Zipei.
"Anyway, that’s how it was, her family moved back to Yanjing the next year she went on to take the college entrance exam and went back too. Then, she vanished without a trace, well, not entirely without trace, she did send a letter back, inside which was a divorce agreement."
After listening to Xu Qingfan’s detailed narration, everyone felt sympathy for Yao Jianjun’s situation.
"That woman is too malicious, even worse than the evil fairy Xiaoyue; if it were me and I married someone I loved, I wouldn’t leave just to have a better life!" Lin Wanning inadvertently looked towards Xu Qingfan’s back as she spoke.
Wu Lingyu looked at Lin Wanning and nodded in agreement, strongly feeling the truth of her words, given that her own mother was the perfect example.
"Exactly, if that woman knew Uncle Yao became a big-time entrepreneur today, she’d be regretting it to death!"
Zhang Chunxue just smiled and said nothing, aware that the adult world weighed both pros and cons and right and wrong.
Aside from finding it cold not bringing her children to visit a bit inhumane, she couldn’t really say whether the other party’s actions were right or wrong.
Life is all about making choices at countless crossroads; as long as one believes the choice is right at the moment, that’s enough. Future matters can be addressed in the future.
Were it not for Zhang Yiyi’s grandparents being unwilling to acknowledge her as their granddaughter, Zhang Chunxue would have been open to bringing her along.
"So your uncle is quite... faithful, having waited thirty years." she casually concluded.
Xu Qingfan shrugged, "Who knows."
He had privately met this new aunt a few times, as the two families had to sit down together for a few meals to discuss engagement matters beforehand.
The aunt, named Song Zhujun, was a 1978-born scholar, exactly thirty years old this year, three years younger than his mother.
She was a working postdoc at the Agricultural University, having just been promoted to associate professor this year.
Her looks may not be conventionally beautiful, but she had a very scholarly aura, leaving a deep impression on Xu Qingfan at first sight.
His uncle’s farm had encountered some technical issues, so he sought help from Song Junzhu’s research team, and as she happened to be from Sanhe Town, she was responsible for the coordination, which led to their frequent contacts and eventual familiarity.
Though his uncle was middle-aged, dressing up made him very handsome, almost effortlessly deceiving the health insurance cards of middle-aged and elderly women for miles around.
Yao Jianjun took a liking to Song Junzhu from the first sight and, upon learning she was still single, he launched a vigorous pursuit.
When it comes to chasing women, he was very experienced; it was all about being bold, attentive, and thick-skinned—a peak form he had already achieved thirty years ago.
It was either constantly delivering gifts to her family every three days or bombarding her with all sorts of cheesy love phrases.
Xu Qingfan once accidentally saw a text message Yao Jianjun sent to her: I fueled up today, do you know what oil it was?
She instantly replied: Diesel? Gasoline?
’No, it was ’I love you so much’ oil.’
Xu Qingfan cringed upon reading it, feeling goosebumps all over.
Despite the sizable age gap between them, but the man was handsome, rich, and thick-skinned—an irresistible combination, plus the woman was nearing thirty, just shy of becoming a saint herself. It wasn’t long before their marriage was scheduled.
