"Do you think this looks like the character for ’Qiao’?" Su Ziceng asked Yan Wuxu to take a closer look. This bowl was not an antique, or else it wouldn’t have ended up on the Yan Family’s table, but the peculiar thing about it was the ’Qiao’ character under its rim.
The surname Qiao is not a prominent one in Mo City. Plus, Qiao Chu’s maternal family had all emigrated overseas years ago, and the Qiao surname had almost vanished from Mo City.
Such a relief Yan Wuxu had also seen at the Su Family. The Su Family’s tableware all came from famous kilns, and each bowl had a ’Su’ character on it. It was said that the major households in Mo City all followed this custom, and the appearance of this bowl with the ’Qiao’ character on it was definitely not a coincidence.
"Mom? Where did you get this bowl from," Mrs. Yan said this bowl was from over ten years ago, when a middle-aged man who was guarding the mountain for the government ate at their place, couldn’t pay in full, and left it as collateral.
The Mountain Guardian seemed hard to find, but was actually the easiest to locate. There were dozens of large and small mountains around Mo City, and aside from Fa’an Temple, which had been established on one of them, only Wolong Mountain in the south of Zone 1 was managed by the government, the rest were unattended wild mountains, rarely seen by anyone on a regular day.
Therefore, when talking about Mo City’s Mountain Guardian, there was really only one, and that was the Mountain Guardian who lived in the government-owned house at Wolong Mountain. Wolong Mountain was rumored to be a geomantic treasure, so the government took an interest and, years earlier, had people plant hundreds of acres of economic forest, then hired a local to build a bungalow halfway up the mountain, and it had stayed that way for over a decade.
Following the old routine of more than ten years, at sunrise, the Mountain Guardian would walk to the mountain top, and at sunset, he would return to the foot of the mountain. Going back and forth precisely made up his day.
This one morning, taking advantage of the sweltering sun not yet risen, the Mountain Guardian took his water and a pair of grass-cutting shears, and headed up the mountain. Midway, he saw a small car coming from the foot of the mountain, heading straight for the cottage he stayed in.
"Which gluttonous leader wants to come for wild game again?" The Mountain Guardian muttered to himself. As for whether Wolong Mountain was a geomantic treasure, he didn’t know, but the mountain was indeed a good one with plenty of hares and pheasants. From time to time, people would come up to hunt wild game, then bring it down to the city to enjoy the freshness. He didn’t like these people, but according to the old familial tradition, it was better to turn a deaf ear to worldly affairs. So he continued his way up the mountain as usual.
Coming and going still amounted to a day, and when the Mountain Guardian descended, he found the car still parked at the foot of the mountain, which struck him as odd. These people hadn’t left yet. Thinking this, he quickened his pace down the mountain.
Outside the bungalow, three people were sitting, one man and two women. The man looked like the hares that ran wild on the mountain, while the women were all fair-faced, particularly one of them...
The Mountain Guardian stood on the stone steps. The wild grass was lush in the summer, and standing behind the grass, one could only vaguely see the scene in front. Even so, the Mountain Guardian recognized the woman sitting at the bottom, who looked almost exactly like Qiao Chu, who had already passed away.
"Uncle!" The woman standing outside was the first to see him, and called out to him loudly. Her voice was so loud it startled the sparrows pecking at seeds and made them fly up.
Su Ziceng also raised her head, and against the setting sun, she saw a fairly clear silhouette. The ’Red Love’ on her chest warmed, not because of the summer’s heat, but because of a sense of kinship that seemed familiar.
"I am your uncle," the Mountain Guardian, who was also Qiao Zhi’an, poured water for the three of them. His eyes moved back and forth over Su Ziceng’s face several times, reluctantly withdrawing his gaze. He did not reveal the deeper connection he had with Qiao Chu; besides being Qiao Chu’s cousin, he was also her fiancé. In earlier years, marriages between cousins were less controlled, and the Qiao Family, in order to preserve the family bloodline, always married off cousins to each other. Maybe because cousin marriages were common in the family, Qiao Zhi’an’s parents were cousins themselves. For this reason, he had an extra finger on his right hand. When pouring water, he always twitched his sleeve, but the more he did so, the more it drew attention to that extra part of his finger.
"Cousin uncle?" Su Ziceng had always thought that she no longer had any relatives in the world, and that all of the Qiao Family had gone abroad. It was unexpected that, in the deep mountains of Mo City, there still was a relative.
"You look so much like your mother," Qiao Zhi’an said as he watched Su Ziceng’s mouth form a dimple, unable to help but sigh. He was a bit flustered, even spilling some water and hurriedly wiping the table with his sleeve.
The setup inside the bungalow remained from the sixties and seventies, with the exception of the table and a newly replaced lamp, the only other furnishing was a pair of old bookshelves made out of bamboo racks. Aside from those books, on Qiao Zhi’an’s person, Su Ziceng could no longer find any trace of the scholarly family that Mo City people used to speak of.
"I didn’t know you were still living alone here at Wolong Mountain. I thought all the Qiao Family had already gone abroad," for some reason, in Qiao Zhi’an’s eyes, Su Ziceng saw an indefinable sadness. That kind of gaze shouldn’t appear in a living person. Qiao Zhi’an was like an old book forgotten in the years, with an air of decay, but his body was alive and well. This stark contrast made it very uncomfortable just to look at him.
"All of them have left, even Xiao Chu is gone, only I remained. I know that Xiao Chu is too lonely by herself, she needs someone to accompany her," Qiao Zhi’an said tugging at his sleeve again, suddenly remembering something and shouting: "I have photos of Xiao Chu when she was a student, wait for me, I’ll find them for you to see." Qiao Zhi’an’s expression was excited, like a child who had hidden away a cherished toy, as he turned over the photo album that had been kept for over a decade. (To be continued. If you work, your votes of recommendation and monthly tickets on Qidian (qidian.com) are welcome. Your support is my greatest motivation.)