Chapter 27: Going Home

While eating breakfast, Shen Siyuan called a rideshare.

The reason Shen Siyuan hadn't booked a car the night before was that rideshares heading to his old hometown were plentiful.

The reason for this was that every day many tourists took cars traveling between Binhai and Coconut City, and Shen Siyuan's home was right between those two cities.

After breakfast, Shen Siyuan went to the roadside, and before long a car slowly pulled up beside him.

Someone was sitting in the front passenger seat, so Shen Siyuan pulled open the rear door and got in.

"User 2817, going to Qingshui Town?" the driver asked, turning his head.

"Yes. No more passengers, right? Do we leave now?"

Shen Siyuan didn't really like sitting in the back with strangers.

"Just the two of you, we're off now," the driver said.

Hearing this, Shen Siyuan didn't ask any more questions, but took out his phone and started scrolling.

The car wasn't quiet, though, because the passenger in the front seat was very talkative and kept chatting with the driver nonstop.

"What fun places are there in Binhai…"

"The cost of living in Binhai is way too high…"

"What's good to do in Coconut City…"

"Too bad my flight's in the afternoon, I'll have to come back next time," and so on.

From their conversation, Shen Siyuan also figured out that the middle-aged man had come to Binhai to travel and unwind, and was planning to fly back from Coconut City.

As for why he didn't just fly directly from Binhai, it was because Binhai was a tourist resort and direct flights were very expensive, so many tourists chose to fly to Coconut City and transfer there, which was much cheaper.

Shen Siyuan got on the car at seven and arrived at Qingshui Town before nine. The town was still halfway to Coconut City; the remaining passenger wouldn't reach Coconut City until past eleven, just in time for a lunch there.

Actually, departing from Binhai, one could take the coastal ring expressway, which would be faster, but the driver clearly wanted to pick up one more passenger, which was why he chose the national highway.

Shen Siyuan's home wasn't in Qingshui Town itself, but in a small village beneath the town.

Getting off the car, Shen Siyuan didn't hurry home, but went to a pharmacy and bought several boxes of blood-activating pain-relieving plasters. His mother was a teacher, and because she'd been raising her arm to write on the blackboard for years, her frozen shoulder was quite serious.

Besides that, he also bought a carton of cigarettes, naturally prepared for his father Shen Jianjun. Although his smoking habit wasn't heavy, he'd set up his own chicken farm, and the daily social calls consumed quite a lot.

Speaking of Shen Jianjun, he was also a capable man — he'd run a restaurant, done a sand quarry, raised fish, raised ducks, and now was running a chicken farm.

Don't be fooled by Shen Siyuan being a livestock handler in Binhai; in fact, his family's life was quite comfortable.

That was also why some relatives and acquaintances were so keen on introducing matches to Shen Siyuan — mainly because his family's conditions were good.

After buying everything, Shen Siyuan got on a three-wheeled motor taxi at the end of the street.

The three-wheelers wove through villages and alleys, specifically ferrying townspeople to various villages — essentially folk taxis, though they didn't charge by distance but by head: children free, adults five yuan each.

Bumping and bobbing along the way, in about twenty minutes they reached the entrance of Shen Siyuan's village.

Shen Siyuan's village was called Linjiapo. It wasn't big, only some two hundred households, but most of those remaining in the village now were the elderly and children; the young people had basically all gone out to work.

Carrying his things, Shen Siyuan arrived at his own front door and saw the courtyard gate wide open. His mother Huang Huijuan was drying shrimp skins in the yard — these shrimp skins were for making shrimp paste.

Huang Huijuan was fifty-one this year, wearing a blue floral V-neck dress, and had permed her hair. Her skin was very fair, so she looked very young. One could tell she had absolutely been a beauty in her youth, though now her figure had filled out a bit — but that only made her look more graceful.

"Mom~"

Shen Siyuan called out to her.

Huang Huijuan looked up, and seeing Shen Siyuan, was of course overjoyed, and immediately came over to greet him.

"Coming home is coming home, why buy more stuff? Have you eaten breakfast?"

Although on the phone the two of them sniped back and forth, once face to face it was a picture of motherly love and filial piety — of course, such a state lasted only at the first meeting, not even a full day.

"I've eaten. I bought you several boxes of blood-activating pain-relieving plasters on the street. Didn't you say your arm hurt last time? Is it better?"

"It's been fine for ages. If I waited for your plasters, wouldn't I have died of pain already?" Huang Huijuan said crossly.

But she had already reached out and taken the bag from Shen Siyuan's hands.

Just then, she suddenly stopped, looking him up and down in surprise.

"What is it?" Shen Siyuan asked, somewhat puzzled.

"You seem a bit different," Huang Huijuan said suspiciously.

She reached out to touch Shen Siyuan's face, but he dodged with a look of distaste.

"Your hands stink, don't touch me."

Hearing this, Huang Huijuan gave him two annoyed slaps on the shoulder.

Then she brought her face close to Shen Siyuan's and examined him carefully: "Are you wearing those colored contacts?"

"You even know about colored contacts?"

"How rare — your mother isn't some old fossil. Oh right, I haven't even gotten to you yet — why don't you like my WeChat posts or follow me on Douyin?"

Saying so, she reached out as if to knock on Shen Siyuan's head.

Shen Siyuan hurriedly shielded himself and protested, "Can you stop posting that stuff?"

"What do you mean, 'that stuff'?"

"Like 'if you have no children, chances are you won't be supported in old age'; 'harsh truth that makes people shudder'; 'eating pickled vegetables every day will add at least ten years to your life'; 'truths TV stations dare not report'…"

"If you believe that stuff, you might as well believe your son is Qin Shi Huang."

"If you've got the nerve, go say that to your father."

Huang Huijuan shot him a look, then grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the house.

"What's there for me to be afraid to say?"

"Do you know who Qin Shi Huang's mother was?"

"Lady Zhao — who doesn't know that?"

"Lady Zhao didn't exactly have a good reputation…"

"Uh…"

Shen Siyuan's home was vast; though situated in the countryside, it was built quite luxuriously, in no way inferior to a standalone villa in the city.

It had two floors, six rooms in total, two living halls, one kitchen, and two bathrooms, looking quite beautiful.

Walking into the entrance hall, a huge floor-to-ceiling window faced them directly; the north-south light was clear and unobstructed, making the view appear extremely open.

"Where's my dad?" Shen Siyuan changed into slippers and asked casually.

"He went to the chicken farm; he should be back soon."

Huang Huijuan put the things down, walked into the kitchen to wash her hands; the smell on her hands from handling dried shrimp skins earlier was indeed unpleasant.

"How did you get back?"

"How else could I get back? I hitched a ride."

"Riding in cars every time isn't a solution; you should get a driver's license. I and your dad will pool some money to buy you a car."

Hearing this, Shen Siyuan looked up at the luxurious big house in his home; they still treated him like a child, always saying the family was very poor and had no money.

"Forget it; taking the car is fine."

Just as they were speaking, a motorcycle sound rang out outside. Shen Siyuan walked to the door and saw a middle-aged man with a big belly riding a motorcycle into the courtyard.

The arrival was none other than Shen Siyuan's father, Shen Jianjun.