Chapter 27: Returning Home

Shen Siyuan booked a ride-sharing service while eating breakfast. He hadn't booked it the night before because there were plenty of such rides heading back to his hometown. This was because many tourists traveled daily between Binhai and Yecity, and Shen Siyuan’s home happened to be located right between the two.

After breakfast, Shen Siyuan walked to the roadside. Moments later, a car pulled up slowly beside him. There was already a passenger in the front seat, so Shen Siyuan opened the rear door and climbed in.

"User 2817, heading to Qingshui Town?" the driver asked, looking back.

"Yes. No other passengers, right? Are we leaving now?" Shen Siyuan didn't particularly like sitting in the back with a stranger.

"Just the two of you. We're leaving now," the driver replied.

Shen Siyuan didn't ask anything else; he simply took out his phone and started browsing. The car, however, was far from quiet. The passenger in the front seat was quite talkative, chatting incessantly with the driver.

"What are some fun places in Binhai..."
"The cost of living in Binhai is just too high..."
"Any good spots in Yecity..."
"It’s a pity my flight is in the afternoon, I’ll have to come back next time..."

From their conversation, Shen Siyuan gathered that the middle-aged man had been vacationing in Binhai and was heading to Yecity to catch a flight home. As for why he wasn't flying directly out of Binhai, it was because Binhai was a major tourist destination, making direct flights prohibitively expensive. Many tourists chose to fly to Yecity instead and transit from there, which was much cheaper.

Shen Siyuan had gotten into the car at seven o'clock. By shortly before nine, they arrived at Qingshui Town. This was still halfway to Yecity, but the other passenger wouldn't reach the airport until after eleven, leaving him just enough time for lunch in Yecity. Technically, one could take the coastal highway from Binhai for a faster trip, but the driver clearly wanted to pick up an extra passenger, so he had opted for the national highway instead.

Shen Siyuan’s home wasn't in Qingshui Town itself, but in a small village under its jurisdiction. After getting out of the car, he didn't rush home immediately. Instead, he stopped at a pharmacy to buy several boxes of medicated plasters for blood circulation and pain relief. His mother was a teacher, and due to years of lifting her arms to write on the chalkboard, she suffered from chronic periarthritis of the shoulder. He also bought a carton of cigarettes for his father, Shen Jianjun. Though his father wasn't a heavy smoker, he ran a chicken farm and had plenty of social obligations that required them.

Speaking of Shen Jianjun, he was a capable man who had tried his hand at everything—running restaurants, operating sand pits, raising fish, herding ducks, and now, managing a chicken farm. Although Shen Siyuan worked like a beast of burden in Binhai, his family was actually quite well-off. This was precisely why relatives and acquaintances were so keen on setting him up; his family’s financial standing was a major draw.

After buying his items, Shen Siyuan caught a "three-wheeler" at the end of the street. These vehicles traversed the village lanes, acting as local taxis that transported people from the town to the various villages. They didn't charge by the mile but by the head—children rode for free, and adults paid five yuan each.

After a bumpy twenty-minute ride, he arrived at the entrance of his village, Linjiapo. It wasn't a large village, consisting of only about two hundred households, and most of those remaining were elderly people and children, as the youth had almost all gone away to work in the cities.

Carrying his bags, Shen Siyuan reached his front gate to find it wide open. His mother, Huang Huijuan, was in the courtyard drying shrimp skins used for making shrimp paste. Huang Huijuan was fifty-one this year, wearing a blue floral V-neck dress with her hair permed. She had a fair complexion that made her look quite young; one could tell she must have been a beauty in her youth. Though she had put on a little weight over the years, it only added to her graceful demeanor.

"Mom," Shen Siyuan called out.

Huang Huijuan looked up, her face lighting up with joy as she hurried over to greet him. "You’re back, but why did you buy so much stuff? Have you had breakfast?"

Although they often bickered over the phone, they were the model of a loving mother and son in person—at least for the first day, before the charm inevitably wore off.

"I’ve already eaten. I bought you some pain-relief plasters in town. Didn't you say your arm was hurting? Is it any better?"

"It’s been fine for a long time. If I waited for your medicine, I would have died of pain," Huang Huijuan retorted, though she reached out and took the bags from his hands anyway.

Suddenly, she paused, examining him up and down with surprise. "What’s wrong?" Shen Siyuan asked, puzzled.

"You look a bit different," she said suspiciously, reaching out to touch his face. He dodged her hand with a look of distaste.

"Your hands smell like fish, don't touch me."

Huang Huijuan swatted his shoulder twice in annoyance, then leaned in close to peer at him. "Are you wearing those colored contact lenses?"

"You even know about colored contacts?"

"What's so strange about that? Your mother isn't an antique. And while we're at it, why don't you like my posts on WeChat or follow my Douyin?" She reached out to flick his forehead, but he quickly blocked her.

"Can you stop posting that stuff?" he complained.

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

"Things like 'If you don't have children, you likely won't be cared for in your old age,' 'Cruel truths that will make your blood run cold,' 'Eating pickles every day will help you live ten years longer,' or 'The truth the news stations are afraid to report'..."

"You’d be better off believing your son is the First Emperor of Qin than believing that nonsense."

"You wouldn't dare say that to your father." Huang Huijuan rolled her eyes and pulled him toward the house by the wrist.

"Why wouldn't I dare?"

"Do you know who the First Emperor of Qin's mother was?"

"Zhao Ji. Everyone knows that."

"Well, Zhao Ji didn't exactly have a sterling reputation..."

"Uh..."

Shen Siyuan’s home was quite large. Even though it was in the countryside, it was built luxuriously, no worse than a detached villa in the city. It had two floors, six rooms, two living areas, a kitchen, and two bathrooms—a truly beautiful home. Upon entering the foyer, one was greeted by a massive floor-to-ceiling window that allowed light from the north and south to flood in, making the space feel incredibly open.

"Where's Dad?" Shen Siyuan asked, slipping into his slippers.

"He went to the chicken farm. He should be back soon." Huang Huijuan set the bags down and went to the kitchen to wash her hands; the smell of the shrimp skins was indeed quite pungent.

"How did you get back?"

"How else? Took a ride-share."

"Always catching rides isn't a long-term solution. You should get your driver's license. Your father and I can scrape some money together to buy you a car."

Shen Siyuan looked around at the luxurious house. She was still treating him like a child, always claiming the family was poor and had no money. "Forget it, catching rides is fine."

As they were talking, the sound of a motorcycle engine echoed from outside. Shen Siyuan walked to the door and saw a pot-bellied, middle-aged man riding a motorcycle into the courtyard. It was his father, Shen Jianjun.