After Wen Qian left, Ren Jie introduced her in the group chat, and quite a few people came out to greet her. Wen Qian also sent a friendly sticker.
She answered one question at a time, quite uninterestingly and without much enthusiasm to start new topics. The chat soon quieted down.
As for the classmate reunion they mentioned, she could find a time and say she couldn't make it when it came.
Or perhaps she would be gone from here even before the reunion.
For Wen Qian, whether in the past, present, or future, interpersonal relationships were never a necessity, or one shouldn't invest too much thought into them, that's just how it was.
Of course, she understood that if she were a bit more flexible, things might be a little easier.
But her flexibility would only be applied to work, when she needed a job to earn a living.
Her best friend from before gradually lost contact with her after getting married and having a child. Now, even when Wen Qian reached out, they could hardly chat. She didn't force it.
Relationships were never one-sided.
After returning home, Wen Qian immediately set out, walking up the mountain, crossing over two peaks through a large Oak Forest to a small village called Oak Bay.
Five households were scattered here, the last remaining being an elderly couple.
Other families had either moved to the nearby Liuhe Village streets or went to the cities.
By the time Wen Qian was in high school, only that one elderly couple remained.
Later on, it was said that the grandmother passed away due to illness, and with their family members all studying or working outside, the grandfather could hardly take care of himself.
Wen Qian's grandmother had mentioned that the old man would often go to town to buy food because he couldn't cook well himself. Luckily, he had some money to frequently buy things in town.
A few years later, the grandfather became increasingly senile until one day he passed away, leaving the village completely deserted.
The houses in the village gradually became overgrown with weeds and trees.
After returning home from wandering about, Wen Qian had passed through that area. Below the old houses were ponds and terraced fields, with two or three adjoining ponds.
When her grandfather was still around, she had used a fishing net to catch fish there. There was even a pond where they grew lotus roots.
Wen Qian's memories of this village included beautiful lotuses and emerald green lily pads.
Now, she thought, it must all be in disrepair. She didn't know if she could still dig up any lotus roots.
However, the ponds now were probably quite deep. Even if there were free lotus roots to dig up, she wouldn't risk it.
For the other two ponds, she tried using a fishing net to catch fish. At home, there was an old dragnet as well as a sticky net she had bought herself.
She set up the sticky net in the first pond and tried using the dragnet in the second.
The sticky net needed time, while the dragnet was truly tiring. Mainly because the pond was now deep, making it difficult to haul up. She had to tug the rope like a porter, yet ended up catching hardly any fish.
She realized her grandfather had probably only used these when the water was low. Using them now seemed like the wrong approach, so she decided to try a cast net instead.
However, cast nets require strength to open into a full circle. As a beginner, Wen Qian first practiced in the pond with the sticky net, which could also scare the fish into the net.
Once she could open it somewhat, she went to cast the net in the pond and actually caught some fish, though her casting circles gradually became smaller until she almost threw herself in.
These ponds had no one to tend to them, and the fields were also untilled.
She had originally come to see if there were any usable bricks or tiles but ended up only catching fish on the first day.
Having caught some fish was good. By the pond, Wen Qian used buckets and basins to process all the fish, then washed the nets clean.
Her haul was not small, mostly small fish but with a few larger ones as well.
After storing everything in her spatialrent, she began clearing a path to the houses with a sickle.
The five houses reflected the changes in construction over the years: a very old rammed earth house that had collapsed long ago, a gray brick house, two red brick houses - all single-story.
There were also two two-story small buildings, likely where the elderly couple had lived.
The rammed earth house was unrecognizable, its roof tiles having caved in, littering the interior and exterior with shards.
Wen Qian didn't know the condition of the wooden beams underneath, so she probed them with a stick before shifting one with her foot. Three beams seemed intact, so she collected them.
As it was getting late, Wen Qian didn't linger and returned home.
The next morning after eating, she went back.
The roofs of the brick houses had varying degrees of damage, the walls still standing but with large cracks and peeled plaster exposing the bricks.
Wen Qian cleared a path, deciding for the slightly damaged houses to dismantle from the top down.
If the roof only had a few large holes in the center but the tiles on both sides were intact, she would set up a ladder, collect the remaining tiles from the sides, check the wooden rafters, and remove any good ones along with their nails, then collect the wooden beams before knocking down the walls to collect the bricks.
This process carried some risk, so she used her spatial rent as much as possible and set up a sturdy tripod ladder.
The wooden beams were large and thick - they must have been carefully selected from sturdy, straight trees in the mountains when the houses were built. Wen Qian collected every good one.
She also dismantled a few door and window frames. With the corrugated iron sheets in her spatial rent, she could nail them onto the door panels to make new doors.
When knocking down walls, she would lean salvaged concrete slabs against the fragile walls from the side before pushing them over.
The resounding crash echoed, making Wen Qian feel she didn't need to be discreet anymore.
From the fallen bricks, she collected any intact ones.
To save costs when building, these single brick walls were made hollow, using single bricks for non-load-bearing walls.
The back wall of Wen Qian's own house was also a single brick wall, allowing her to easily punch a hole for the stove's chimney pipe when installing a heater.
Now that it was Wen Qian's turn to dismantle walls, she could easily identify the ones prone to collapsing without needing to judge the structural integrity. For walls already fallen, she just needed to remove the bricks, leaving behind any adhered mortar to be cleaned later. For now, she prioritized collecting the bricks.
This solo demolition was physical labor for Wen Qian. She started meticulously but became more haphazard later on.
She used her spatial rent's power to directly collect the scattered wall sections, leaving the task of sorting them into individual bricks for when she had time. Now, she just collected them en masse.
She also didn't want to make too much noise in the village for long in case someone passed by. How would she explain herself?
So it was better to work quietly. As for the crashing sounds of falling walls, if anyone heard, so be it.
She could just hide in the woods. Who would know what she was up to amidst the overgrown vegetation?
Collecting the walls crudely in large chunks like this and moving swiftly to the next house, Wen Qian spent three days amassing quite a collection of bricks.
The last building was a two-story house that Wen Qian initially thought she shouldn't touch.
But upon closer inspection, it seemed this house was also abandoned.
The sand, stones, and bricks that had once filled the walkway under the front porch had collapsed.
The concrete slabs above were also in shambles, and the steps in front of the main entrance were impassable.
A tree had grown as thick as Wen Qian's calf by the steps, its branches reaching up to the second floor.
The wooden windows had rotted away, and peering through the broken glass, the first floor's ceiling had grown moss from the leaks.
Both stories seemed to have been leaking, rendering it uninhabitable.
However, demolishing the two-story house was too difficult a task, so she only took away the bricks from the adjoining kitchen and the livestock shed.
If the two-story house were to accidentally collapse, Wen Qian's life could be in danger, so she decided to let it be.
But she was determined to take away all the scattered sand and bricks from the hallway downstairs.
After removing the last of these items, it was already noon. Wen Qian did not return home to rest but instead went to the edge of the pond, where she found a grassy spot to sit and eat her lunch.
As she ate, Wen Qian's gaze turned towards the lotus pond.
It seemed she had found herself another task to do.
