Chapter 90
◎Trapped in the Mountains by a Heavy Rain◎
Jiexi Village was located in the suburbs of the capital, backed by Wang Mountain. The mountain was planted with circles of pine and cypress trees. Last spring, under the leadership of the village party committee, a base for planting jasmine flowers was opened at the foot of the mountain. It was almost May, and the mountain wind carried a warmth. The new green branches were sprouting up.
The weather was fine, and the sky was clear.
Someone from the research and development group had borrowed a camera. A few girls were standing on a stone pier, constantly changing their poses. Tangtang was taking pictures of them.
“Su Xintang, Senior Si Junxiang wants to see you!”
“Then you should go. Take pictures of us again when you come back,” Chen Xiaohui said.
Tangtang nodded, asked the person for Si Junxiang’s location, and went towards the back mountain. When she reached the back mountain, Si Junxiang and a boy had already set up the monitoring equipment.
“Senior, what do you need from me?”
Seeing the camera hanging around her neck, Si Junxiang took the test tube and struck a pose of serious research. “Just in time. Take a picture of me. Remember to capture the look of serious scientific research.”
Tangtang took a deep breath. Without finding an angle or light, she casually raised the camera and took a picture.
“Let me see.”
Tangtang showed him the picture in the camera. Si Junxiang curled his lip. “Alright, give me the camera. You stay here and watch.”
Tangtang was taken aback for a moment.
“What are you standing there for? Go.” After saying that, Si Junxiang said to the boy next to him, “Let’s go.”
“That’s not a good idea…” The boy hesitated for a moment. Although Jiexi Village was at the foot of the mountain, the terrain of Wang Mountain was complex. It was not safe to leave a girl here.
“You’re not going? Then you can stay here with her,” Si Junxiang said.
The boy hesitated for a moment and still went with Si Junxiang.
…
The bus back to school stopped at the village entrance. The person in charge of the team shouted, “Everyone, count the number of people. If everyone is here, we’ll go back to school!”
“One, two, three, four, five… seventeen. Three people are missing.”
Lu Youxin said sweetly, “The group leader and the others are staying behind to do ecological environment monitoring. They’re not coming back with us!”
Lu Youxin’s “they” was said after “three people are missing,” so everyone naturally thought that the three missing people had all stayed behind to do ecological environment monitoring.
Hearing this, the team leader nodded. “Alright, then we won’t wait for them. The weather in April is very changeable. It looks like it’s going to rain. Let’s hurry back to school.”
Hearing Lu Youxin’s words, Chen Xiaohui frowned slightly but didn’t think too much about it and got on the bus with everyone else.
The bus swayed on the dirt road at the village entrance, and soon, clouds of dust were raised.
…
The pine and cypress trees cast a dense shade on the open space. The air was mixed with the smell of plants and rotting leaves. Just as Tangtang had recorded a string of data in her notebook, a large drop of water fell on the back of her hand. Before she could react, raindrops began to hit her.
The sky was very overcast, and large black clouds were rolling. From the looks of it, it was definitely going to be a heavy rain. Tangtang fumbled to pack up the recorded data and instruments.
Si Junxiang and the boy had just come down the mountain. Before they could go to the village entrance to take the bus, a heavy rain came down fiercely. Helpless, they could only go to a nearby villager’s house to take shelter from the rain.
Zhou Shunian had heard from the dormitory administrator that Tangtang had gone out around four in the afternoon. He had waited downstairs for an hour but hadn’t seen her come back. Seeing Li Ping come out of the girls’ dormitory, he quickly went up to ask, “Hello, I’d like to ask if Su Xintang is back?”
“Tangtang? I’m not in the same major as her. I think I heard this morning that their research and development group went to Jiexi Village for a field trip. I haven’t seen her come back since then.”
“Jiexi Village?”
“Yes, I remember they said there’s a base for planting jasmine flowers there…” Before Li Ping could finish, she saw Zhou Shunian hurriedly walk towards the school gate, leaving only his cold back. “Hey? Where are you going?”
After coming out of Capital University, Zhou Shunian hailed a taxi. “Sir, to Jiexi Village, please.”
The driver was a middle-aged man. He looked at the customer with some suspicion. “Jiexi Village? That’s thirty or forty kilometers from here. The price is expensive. Are you sure you want to go to Jiexi Village?”
“Yes, I’m sure I want to go to Jiexi Village. The price doesn’t matter. Please hurry.”
Hearing this, the driver deftly shifted gears and turned the steering wheel. “No problem. The road to Jiexi Village is not easy to walk. We have to go around a section of mountain road. You’d better hold on tight.”
…
Si Junxiang wiped the rain from his forehead and looked at the white sheet of heavy rain outside, feeling extremely grateful. “With this rain, the situation on Wang Mountain will be even more complicated. Fortunately, we’ve come down the mountain. The weather in April is really strange. A heavy rain comes just like that.”
“Senior, Su Xintang is still in the mountains,” the boy said with some worry.
“Who cares about her? She’s not a three-year-old. Can’t she find a place to hide when it’s pouring rain?”
“But…” The boy couldn’t stand it anymore.
Before the boy could finish, he was interrupted by the enthusiastic villagers. “Come, young man. You must have been soaked by the rain, right? Have some brown sugar water to warm up. We don’t have much to entertain you with at home.”
Si Junxiang’s eyes lit up when he saw the brown sugar water. He gave the boy a warning look, telling him to keep his mouth shut.
“Young man, it’s not easy for you to do scientific research in this weather.”
“Old woman, this is what we should do. We also want to contribute to the economic development of Jiexi Village. It’s nothing to measure data in the rain and get soaked.” As Si Junxiang spoke, he took a sip of the brown sugar water that had been brewed with a lot of ginger. He felt comfortable all over after one sip.
Hearing this, the old woman couldn’t help but sigh a few times and begged them to stay for dinner before going back. Si Junxiang readily agreed.
After the old woman went to the kitchen, only Si Junxiang and the boy were left in the main hall. A hurried knock came from the door.
The person who was knocking was Zhou Shunian. After opening the door, he looked around the room but didn’t see Tangtang’s figure. The veins on his neck were faintly visible. He forced himself to calm down and asked, “Where is Su Xintang?”
“Who are you?” Si Junxiang was not tall. Zhou Shunian was over 1.8 meters. When the two stood opposite each other, he instantly lost his momentum.
Zhou Shunian was a well-known figure at Capital University. The boy recognized him. “She’s still in the mountains.”
Before Si Junxiang could speak, a punch landed on his face with a thud. His black-framed glasses were instantly shattered. He immediately felt a warmth in his nose and mouth, and a stream of scarlet blood gushed from his nasal passages.
Zhou Shunian couldn’t help but grab his collar and curse, “You bastard! You actually left her alone in the mountains!”
After saying that, he fiercely threw this beast-like thing to the floor, didn’t give him another look, opened the door, and went up the mountain towards Wang Mountain.
Dark clouds pressed down, and lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. Wang Mountain at dusk was pitch black. Occasionally, a bolt of lightning would strike, tearing a crack in the sky.
Zhou Shunian’s umbrella had long been lost somewhere. The pouring rain had drenched him. He wiped the rain from his face and struggled to find Tangtang’s figure in the rain.
“Tangtang, Tangtang—”
The white sheet of heavy rain blurred his vision. He suddenly remembered the night his mother had passed away. It had also been a heavy rain like this.
…
There were many mosquitoes in the mountains. Tangtang opened her data record book and saw that the recorded data was all fine. She breathed a sigh of relief.
This rain came suddenly, but fortunately, she had moved the instruments back to the research and development group’s supply point tent in time, and she was not drenched.
A trace of sorrow came over her. Tangtang sighed. There was no sign of the rain stopping. She would probably have to stay in the mountains for a night. She rolled up the sleeves of her clothes and looked at the time on her watch. It was already 6:30 in the afternoon.
Tangtang had been busy with the research and development group and the interest group recently and hadn’t seen Zhou Shunian for several days. She didn’t know what he was doing now.
“Tangtang, Tangtang—”
At first, Tangtang thought she was hearing things. She stood up with the book in her hand and listened again several times before she pushed aside the rain curtain hanging at the entrance of the tent and shouted with a mixture of surprise and joy towards the source of the voice, “Brother Shunian, I’m here!”
After shouting, she ran into the rain and towards the source of the voice.
She widened her eyes and looked at the young man in the rain. “Brother Shunian.”
“Tangtang?”
Before Zhou Shunian could finish, a warm embrace enveloped him.
The rain had stopped, and water droplets were dripping from the leaves. The insects in the ground crawled out of the soil to breathe the fresh air. A fire was lit in the open space in front of the supply point. The firewood was crackling and burning, and the firelight made his face red.
Under the firelight, the bloodshot in his eyes was clearly visible. He had clearly been searching in the rain for a long time.
Tangtang’s eyes couldn’t help but sting. She rested her head on his shoulder. “Brother Shunian, why are you here?”
“Your roommate told me that you were in Jiexi Village. I was worried that something might happen, so I rushed over.” Zhou Shunian wiped his face, and water droplets dripped down his jawline. He looked around the tent with various instruments. “What is this place?”
“This is the supply point of the research and development group. Sometimes, the teachers in our department will also bring us to Wang Mountain for research.”
Zhou Shunian responded with a sound and said nothing more. Tangtang’s head rested on his shoulder, and the two of them just snuggled quietly together.
“Tangtang, what are your plans for the research and development group in the future?”
Tangtang was worried about this. She sighed. “I want to report the situation to Professor Ruan, but I have no evidence. At that time, Si Junxiang will turn around and say that I’m slandering him… At worst, I’ll just quit the research and development group. That way, I can also have some peace and quiet.”
Speaking of quitting the research and development group, Tangtang’s eyes still couldn’t help but feel a little sore. This project was more than half completed. For her to quit at this time was equivalent to all her efforts during this period being in vain.
Zhou Shunian took the initiative to hold her slender fingers. “Leave this matter to me. I’ll handle it.”
“Hmm?”
“Isn’t he most used to bullying the weak and fearing the strong? I’ll let him know what is the strongest.”
Seeing Zhou Shunian’s fierce words, Tangtang’s eyes couldn’t help but be tinged with a smile. The Zhou Shunian she had always known was gentle and had a scholarly air about him. She hadn’t expected him to have a fierce side.
Her eyes crinkled with a smile. Thinking that Zhou Shunian had always been sensible, she said, “Alright, then I’ll leave it to you.”
A small gadget was stuffed into Tangtang’s hand.
She picked it up and looked at it carefully. “This is… my hairpin?”
What Zhou Shunian handed to Tangtang was exactly her previous gingko hairpin. After the gingko decoration had fallen off, she had thrown it into her satchel. He had taken it back a couple of days ago.
“I used glue to stick the decoration back on.”
Tangtang’s voice was soft, and the end of her sentence was softened by the sound of the rain. She couldn’t help but reach out and hug him.
“Brother Shunian… you’re so good.”