Almost everyone who met Wen Qian felt that she could not stay in the countryside for too long. In their opinion, the countryside was a place for retirement and returning to one's roots.
Young people like her would live in towns or cities even if they got married and had children, rather than returning to live in such a remote and isolated mountain village.
It was too quiet and boring here, with no way to make money, just repeating the same farm work day after day and the same mundane family life.
Wen Qian told Chen Lin that she was not sure when she would leave.
Chen Lin thought she would stay in her hometown for the second half of this year, so he said, "It's fine to have fun at home for a while, just think of it as a long vacation. It won't be too late to find a job after New Year."
However, he felt that young people couldn't stand staying so long. They would definitely want to go to towns and cities to have fun in between. After all, the village was too boring.
Chen Lin used to work outside, but had to frequently come back to help out with the farm work as his elderly parents at home needed care. His child was still attending school in town, so he simply started raising sheep and cattle in his hometown.
However, the place where he grazed his sheep and cattle was not in Dachenwa, but rather much farther away in the mountain gullies. So some of the people he picked up in his car in the morning were strangers to Wen Qian.
During the conversation, Chen Lin also showed her the sheep and cattle on his farm through the surveillance video on his phone. After seeing that he could monitor his sheep and cattle from anywhere with this, Wen Qian asked if the village had internet access now.
Chen Lin shook his head. Other than Liuhe Village which had more people making it easier to access the internet through wired connections, it was very difficult to get wired internet access in other mountain gullies. At least five households would need to apply together for it.
So that was the issue. There weren't even five households in a ravine. Running wires that extensively would be too demanding.
What Chen Lin used was the mobile internet on his own phone.
Wen Qian had an inexpensive phone plan. Once her data usage exceeded a certain amount, there would be no additional charges, only slower speeds. This had little impact for Wen Qian.
There were two seats in the cab. The one in the front passenger seat was Auntie Chen from Chen Lin's village. When she saw Wen Qian, she asked if Wen Qian found a husband's family yet.
Wen Qian shook her head. Auntie Chen then started asking her what her criteria was for finding a husband's family, but Wen Qian just said she had no particular preference.
Auntie Chen then began giving her the "I understand, you're shy" kind of look.
Chen Lin interrupted to ask Auntie Chen if she bought the medicated ointment. Auntie Chen suddenly remembered and hurried off to buy it.
"Young people don't like staying in the village. One reason is it's not fun here. Another is the elders always nagging them with questions," said Chen Lin with a laugh.
Auntie Chen added, "That's right. My family used to just turn our heads away whenever we were asked too many questions. Being nagged too much just makes young people dislike you."
Chen Lin said, "Nowadays young people get married late. In the past, they would start looking at seventeen or eighteen years old. At twenty-five they would say they are getting too old. Now twenty-five is when they start looking, and it's common to only get married at thirty."
Auntie Chen replied, "We got married at eighteen. Our weddings had shadow puppet shows. Times have changed!"
These two clearly understood that each generation was different, so they were not being overly judgmental in what they said or how they acted. They were quite adaptable to the times.
Wen Qian just listened quietly from the side while continuing to help Auntie Chen organize files on her phone, occasionally chiming into the conversation. The discussion topics ranged from appropriate marriage age to the difficulties of raising children nowadays.
Auntie Chen's son was married but had no children yet. She wanted to understand the challenges of raising kids today in advance, worried that she might not be able to keep up with the times and annoy the young couple in the future.
When it was time, Chen Lin started driving.
It was the same people on the ride back, just that everyone had bought a lot more things. For them, going to town might only happen once or twice a week, sometimes even just once every two weeks. Naturally they would buy plenty when they did go to town.
After nine o'clock, Wen Qian arrived at the threshing ground. She and Auntie Chen walked back home together. Along the way, Auntie Chen told her about other nearby villages and families.
There was only Wen Qian left in Yuanao. Xiaochenwa just had Auntie Chen and her husband. There was another who worked outside with irregular hours and hadn't returned from his son's place in town yet.
There used to be eight or nine households in Dachenwa, now there were only two couples, Auntie Chen, and Chen Lin.
There was another household in their village that only had an old man. His son sent him to a nursing home in the city.
While working, the son also took care of his father. But his father's mental state was declining, so he was admitted into the nursing home.
From Auntie Chen's gossiping tone, Wen Qian learned that this old man did not get along well with his daughter-in-law in the past.
Whenever his daughter-in-law was making noodles at home, he would nag her, saying they were too long, too wide, too thick...no matter what she did, he would find fault and nitpick without lifting a finger to help.
His son always took the stance that he should be grateful to have his own father raising him, and did nothing to stop his father's behavior, until his wife was completely exasperated.
In the end, she took their child and left too.
Only when the old man had a stroke in his advanced age did the son panic and frantically try to get his wife back. But she was now working hard to raise their child on her own and very content with her life. She had no desire whatsoever to return.
"When an elder shows no virtue, at fifty they still have the energy to nitpick; at sixty they can still herd cattle and feed pigs, always bragging about not relying on anyone! At seventy their health takes a turn for the worse. Aha! Only now do they shed tears and beg for forgiveness, but it's too late!" said Auntie Chen.
Wen Qian knew she was not only talking about that other family, but also her own family.
Auntie Chen married into the family. Her mother-in-law had three sons. She favored the eldest and doted on the youngest, but for some reason did not like her second son, Auntie Chen's husband.
One can imagine how much grievance and tears she suffered in her youth. Yet in the end, her mother-in-law still died in her second son's home.
The other two treasured sons had no intention of properly caring for their old mother. Just before her death, she deliberately confessed remorsefully in front of her second son that she had done wrong her whole life and now no one was by her side in her final moments.
In the end, it was still Second Uncle Chen who brought her home to personally care for her. At that time, although Auntie Chen still held resentment, she did not object.
Wen Qian had heard bits of this story during the funeral feast at their home in the past. After all, it was a small village and many things were publicly known.
Whether it was the elders recounting the past or telling ghost stories, it repeated every now and then just like the animal programs on television.
As Wen Qian listened to Auntie Chen telling her all this, she comforted her, "Auntie, you have a kind heart. Even if your mother-in-law did wrong, as long as you have a clear conscience, that's good enough. Your children are now very filial to you too. That's wonderful, isn't it?"
As soon as Auntie Chen heard about her children, her expression relaxed. "That's true. My two kids are pretty good. But I don't meddle in those young people's affairs. My husband and I work hard so we can feed ourselves without being their burden. It would be even better if we can leave them something when we pass."
"All parents think that way," said Wen Qian. She often heard people at funerals discussing what the deceased left for their children. Those aging folks greatly hoped they could leave more for their children after they died, as they cared a lot about their posthumous reputations.
When they arrived at her home, smoke was still billowing from Auntie Chen's kitchen. It seemed like Second Uncle Chen was waiting to eat with her.
Wen Qian bid them goodbye and continued uphill.
In her opinion, when one died, everything ceased to be. She did not care what others thought of her after death. But it seemed like the elders, or rather their descendants, cared a great deal.
One of Auntie Chen's uphill neighbors had a water dispute with the household below them, resulting in a decade-long feud where they refused to interact.
Finally, when someone in one family passed away and they held a funeral, they still went to invite the other family to attend. Why? Because they feared gossip.
What kind of gossip?
They feared others would say the deceased was so petty and malicious in life, yet adhering to the tradition of putting the dead first, even their own neighbors refused to attend their funeral after death. Clearly this reflected very poorly on the deceased's character in life.
Thus that family's children swallowed their pride and begged the other family to come. And although the other family was very reluctant, they still ended up coerced into attending by everyone appealing to them with platitudes like "the dead come first."
Afterwards people optimistically felt that this could be an opportunity for the two families to reconcile.
But Wen Qian felt that the other family was extremely aggrieved. She thought this way because she sat at the same table with them during the funeral feast.
