Chapter 104: Sheep Prison

Yun City's bus system has been around for some years. Since the construction of the urban rail network in the last ten years, the passenger volume of passenger buses and buses has continued to decline every year. Office workers mostly take the subway. Today, the only people who still take buses in the city are student parties who swipe cards to go to school, and elderly people who get up early every morning to take free buses and run far away to the countryside market to buy cheap vegetables.

Oh, and tourists, but tourists generally charter buses.

Sitting in the West Suburban Station from dusk until dark, the people on the benches gradually became fewer. Ji Taimei sat restlessly, constantly trying to contact his mother, sending text messages, making calls, WeChat chatting... He wanted to know what that letter meant, what happened at home, but he never got any reply.

Not only was his mother out of contact, but his father could not be contacted either, and even his sister who was recuperating in the countryside and his grandparents were inexplicably out of contact. Uneasy emotions continued to accumulate in the bottom of Ji Taimei's heart, making him sit on pins and needles.

"Waiting like this is not a way..." Ji Taimei looked down at the electronic clock on the phone screen and gritted his teeth secretly.

There were still several hours until the last bus at ten o'clock at night. Now that something happened at home, could he just sit here and wait? At least go home once to see how Mom is doing. Anyway, the distance is not too far. After confirming she is fine, it is not too late to come back and take the bus.

Thinking of this, Ji Taimei couldn't sit still anymore. He sat up from the bench and walked toward the outside of the waiting hall.

The waiting hall was empty, and there was basically no one left. Under the empty steel structure ceiling, only his own voice echoed—breathing, footsteps, the sound of clothes rubbing when walking, rustle, rustle. It was so quiet that it didn't look like a public place with people coming and going on weekdays.

The moist wind blew from the direction of Yunmeng Marsh, blowing the evergreen trees outside the station wall to rustle. The tender green branches were covered with white flowers, and small flower buds like rice grains hung densely on the treetops, like clusters of white wheat ears drifting in the wind, emitting a sweet fragrance that was intoxicating.

Ji Taimei walked out of the station gate, and two stone statues on the left and right came into view.

"Hmm? Was this at the entrance before?" Ji Taimei couldn't help but be puzzled. It seemed he didn't see any stone statues when he entered the door just now?

Looking down, two stone statues stood on the left and right sides of the gate of the West Suburban Station. They were not the stone lions commonly seen guarding houses, but two goats standing on two feet with their upper bodies upright. The goat heads were tilted backward, and the curved long horns were stabbed into their own backs. Their faces were full of twisted pain. A strange feeling arose spontaneously. At a glance, it made people feel very uncomfortable.

Who would put this kind of thing at the door? It doesn't look auspicious. Ji Taimei frowned and clicked his tongue, looking at the twisted and painful faces of the two goat statues, and suddenly felt a bit familiar.

Vaguely remembering that when he was young, he was held by his mother's hand and returned to his mother's maiden home in the countryside to visit relatives. At that time, he also took a bus. There were people everywhere in the station. He, who was afraid of strangers, was so scared that he shrank in his mother's arms and cried loudly...

... Was he really afraid of strangers?

The two goat faces on both sides of the gate were still twisting in pain, silently making miserable groans. A pool of memories that didn't seem to belong to him emerged faintly from Ji Taimei's mind, like a faint fragrance of water lilies drifting from an empty old house. At that time... there were also two such statues.

"I... I... I seem to be? Scared to cry by these two sheep." Ji Taimei held his head with both hands, his breathing became rapid. He remembered that he was taken back to the countryside by his mother to visit his grandparents, and his sister who was recuperating in the village... It turned out that his sister was already sick at that time?

Inexplicable palpitations filled his chest. Ji Taimei's face was pale. He remembered one thing:

—The West Suburban Station had been out of service for 10 years. The buses in the old city of Yun City were all integrated into the Yunmeng Marsh Scenic Area as tourist buses, under the unified management of the City Tourism Administration.

"But if that's the case, what's going on with those buses driving out of the station just now?" Ji Taimei slowly loosened his hands holding his head, and his eyes slowly lost focus: "Where were those buses going?"

For the first time in more than ten years, the teenager felt that the city that gave birth to him and raised him was so strange. Unease, hesitation, fear... all kinds of emotions came one after another, filling the bottom of his heart. Ji Taimei wanted to hold his mother's hand tightly like when he was a child, curled up his small body in his mother's arms and cried wantonly, but the woman who loved him most in the world was no longer there.

The child grew up today, and no one could accompany him on the road ahead.

Ji Taimei took stiff steps and walked into the station without a soul. The crying of a child came from the empty waiting hall. The noise of people was overflowing. Ji Taimei looked up, and the electronic screen on the top of the waiting hall displayed the current time:

July 01, 2008, 21:58 PM.

There were 2 minutes left until the last bus.

Ji Taimei reached out and touched his chest. The letter his mother left for him was in the pocket inside. I don't know if it was the effect, but the paper in the pocket seemed to be slightly hot. The warm feeling dispelled the unease and fear. He took a deep breath of the air with a damp, moldy smell, passed through the waiting hall, and got on the only bus parked in the parking space on the left edge.

The route it ran was pasted on the front windshield of the bus:

【Yun City — Sheep Prison】

Sheep Prison Village is the village where Ji Taimei's mother was born, about 15 kilometers away from the west suburb of Yun City. It is a good place with mountains and water. In 2015, it made a fortune taking advantage of the popularity of farmhouse entertainment.

But it is not 2015 now...

Ji Taimei got on the bus. The bald driver uncle was sitting in the driver's seat with his legs crossed, smoking. The conductor was carrying a diagonal bag and sitting in the seat by the door, saying slowly: "Where are you going, young man?"

"Sheep Prison." Ji Taimei said truthfully: "I'm going to Sheep Prison."

"One-way or round-trip?"

=9+Shu_Ba

"Round-trip."

"18 yuan." The conductor took a 20-yuan cash from Ji Taimei's hand, returned a 2-yuan paper note, and handed over a white handwritten invoice along with the paper note.

Ji Taimei took the change and the invoice, passed through the aisle between the two rows of seats, and sat in the last row by the window.

At ten o'clock, the sky outside the window was pitch black. There was not a single star in the gloomy night, and the moon seemed to have disappeared. A faint smell drifted in from the bus window. There were only three people in the long carriage: Ji Taimei, the driver, and the conductor.

The 2 minutes passed quickly. July 01, 2008, 22:00 PM, the last bus of the West Suburban Station in Yun City departed on time.

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 105 =====