Perhaps it's because Wen Qian quit her job, but recently she has been feeling light-hearted, although there is also a hint of confusion mixed in.
But all of that is not really important. Wen Qian has already been envisioning her life in the countryside. She has started buying some household items for herself, as she knows she will need to clean and disinfect when she goes back home. She will also need to spray insect repellent to keep away snakes, bugs, and ants. The countryside is teeming with them, and Wen Qian is particularly attractive to mosquitoes. When a group of people is together, she always gets bitten the most.
In the past, Wen Qian would definitely have to carry a lot of bags, but now she has her own space. She puts everything in the space and only brings back a small suitcase.
When someone asks, she can simply say that she is temporarily staying in the countryside and will return to the city later.
There are fewer people and less activity in her hometown, but Wen Qian is used to being alone. Besides the lack of urban conveniences, she doesn't really have any other difficulties adjusting.
The only thing she finds difficult to adapt to is the toilet in her hometown. It's an outdoor dry toilet, so you can see everything, and there are many mosquitoes and flies, which is quite disgusting.
The toilet is located a short distance away from her house, and at night she has to use a flashlight and summon the courage to walk out of the door. In the summertime, she has to spray insect repellent or light mosquito coils in advance, or else she'll be carried away by mosquitoes.
She will also need to renovate the toilet when she returns home, but she probably won't be using it for long. If she decides to rebuild it, she'll need to buy bricks, sand, and cement.
Even if she doesn't hire anyone, trying to do it herself will still require time and effort.
The most troublesome part is that she can't take the toilet with her. Wen Qian finds it quite inconvenient.
She starts searching online for temporary toilets and comes across one that costs just over 1,000 yuan. She plans to buy one and use it in her hometown. Moreover, she discovers that some temporary toilets can be equipped with shower facilities and washbasins.
If it's a temporary toilet, she can store it in her space, and in the future, if she moves to a different place, she can save some time by already having a toilet.
But storing a used toilet in her space? Wen Qian finds it repulsive.
After much contemplation, she decides to buy a cheap temporary toilet and then store it in her space while it's still brand new.
As for the toilet in her hometown, Wen Qian decides to build a new one nearby herself. Yes, she will construct her own toilet.
Wen Qian even considers buying some construction materials and storing them in her space.
That way, no matter where she goes, she can start anew and build a new home.
In An City, July is already scorching hot. It's impossible to sleep at night without air conditioning.
If she were in her hometown, they would sleep on the roof of a bungalow, or if there was no bungalow, they would bring out a cot and sleep by the front door.
When Wen Qian was young, she heard adults talk about how some children were taken away by wolves when they slept outside during hot weather.
Fortunately, there are no wolves in the village where Wen Qian lives, and even wild boars are rarely seen.
After dark, she would sleep between her grandparents, gazing at the stars in the sky, and before she knew it, she would fall asleep.
Sometimes it would rain, and her grandparents would carry her inside.
During that time in the countryside, there was a big temperature difference between day and night. Even if it was scorching hot during the day, it would become cool at night.
In An City, the urban heat island effect makes the temperature even hotter. Even at night, the temperature can reach 30 degrees Celsius, and the breeze outside feels scorching.
Back in her hometown, Wen Qian used to sleep on the roof of her bungalow and only needed a thin blanket. The only inconvenience was having to bring in the cool bed during the day to avoid sun damage.
Time flew by, and before she knew it, July came to an end.
After finishing her last day of work, Wen Qian returned home and ordered takeout.
She sat there eating fried food, sipping cola, and watching food videos on her computer.
Her life as an unemployed wanderer officially began.
With no job to wake up early for, Wen Qian slept in until noon the next day. After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she returned to her room to eat, sleep, and play.
Without the structure of a job, Wen Qian's regular routine quickly crumbled. She started skipping meals, reducing them to just two a day, and spent most of her time lying on her bed.
Except for going out to collect packages, Wen Qian stayed in her apartment all the time.
August arrived, and An City entered a scorching mode.
Due to the high electricity consumption of air conditioners in summer, each bedroom had a three-tiered energy-consuming unit, causing the electricity usage to skyrocket.
Fortunately, each bedroom had a separate electricity meter. Otherwise, the shared electricity bill alone would have made Wen Qian consider moving out.
Originally, Wen Qian had planned to stay in An City for half of August. Her plan was to resign from her job and spend some time exploring the city.
Now she decided to return home earlier since she spent every day inside the apartment anyway.
The weather was too hot, and Wen Qian didn't feel like going anywhere. Why waste electricity in An City?
So, on the fifth day after quitting her job, Wen Qian handed over the keys and left the apartment she had lived in for a long time.
Before she had a chance to reminisce, she carried a light suitcase and set off on her way back home.
An hour later, the high-speed train took her to Lu City, a small city in the same province as An City. The heat warning message of 38 degrees accompanied her. Wen Qian got off the train with her small suitcase.
The heat wave hit her face.
From the bus station in Lu City, she still had to take a forty-minute bus ride to reach her hometown. And from the town, she had to take a minivan to get to her actual home.
In the afternoon, there were hardly any buses in the town, so Wen Qian prepared herself to walk back.
The small bus swiftly traveled on the rural roads, making continuous rattling sounds. It looked like it could fall apart at any moment, but it was surprisingly fast.
There was no air conditioning on the bus, only a small fan above the driver's seat.
The midday sun heated up the entire bus, and if it weren't for the open windows and the breeze blowing in while the bus was moving, Wen Qian wouldn't have been able to endure a single minute.
When she arrived at the final stop, Wen Qian headed straight to the supermarket, buying groceries while enjoying the coolness of the air conditioning.
Knowing her home was likely covered in dust, Wen Qian had to clean up before she could find a place to sleep. Without tidying up her room, there would be no place to rest. Without cleaning the kitchen, there would be no place to eat.
Although she had water and instant noodles at home, she still bought some items to make it look like she had things in her hands.
As she walked out of the supermarket and crossed a bridge, she happened to see a minivan at the corner.
So, Wen Qian spent 10 yuan to have the driver take her home.
The mountain road meandered as the local driver, familiar with the terrain, swiftly drove the car along the cemented road, and in no time, Wen Qian was delivered to the threshing ground.
The driver could only take her to the threshing ground; from there, she had to walk home on her own along a dirt road.
Originally, each household only needed to spend a few thousand yuan to have the road extended to their doorstep, but unfortunately, there were too few households in this area.
Many people went out to work and buy houses, so they didn't want to bother fixing the last stretch of road in their hometown.
Wen Qian tried to avoid passing by the houses in the village, but the small path, untouched for a long time, was now overgrown with weeds and bushes. She had no choice but to pass by people's doorsteps.
She heard the sound of dishes being fried in the kitchen and thought that they probably hadn't noticed her.
"Oh, isn't this Xiaowen? Why have you come back? It's such a hot day," said the person speaking, Chen Jiawang, holding a sickle as he walked over from the other side of the house, seeming to have just finished working in the fields.
"I quit my job and came back to take a break for a while."
"What happened? What happened? Who is it?" Chen Jiawang's wife came out with a spatula in her hand.
"Oh my, Xiaowen is back! You must be hungry coming back at this time. Come on, come on, come to my house and have lunch!"
