Cheng Peng drank himself blind drunk, and the friends who had come to cheer him on had already given up and left before the party was over.
Hu Li, on the other hand, held her liquor quite well. After seeing her friends off, she finally couldn't hold on anymore either. She took off her high heels directly, standing barefoot on the floor. The ground was cool and slippery, so I had her wear my canvas shoes. I would stay here with her tonight, because she had to keep Cheng Peng company.
A phone call came in, from an unfamiliar number.
"Bao Zhu, this is Li Zhiyuan," he said. "Cheng Peng has already taken hangover medicine. Tomorrow morning at 10:30, I'll come pick up you three. Please let Hu Li know, she didn't answer my call just now."
Since this had already been agreed upon with Hu Li, I only needed to pass on the message.
In the middle of the night, Hu Li went crazy, insisting on squeezing in with me, flaunting the ring on her index finger that shone brightly. I was truly somewhat tempted to roll my eyes at her.
Hu Li held her face in her hands, staring blankly with a smile: "I really wish we could get married tomorrow."
I really couldn't hold back and rolled my eyes at her, making her burst into giggles.
The next day when Director Li came, Cheng Peng who had a pounding headache was arguing with him about wanting to drive himself. When Hu Li and I came out, those two were still locked in a standoff. Only Hu Li could stand his disgusting booze breath to persuade him. Director Li and I stood on the side watching the show.
After much cajoling, Cheng Peng finally agreed to take Director Li's car. He wanted me to drive his car back into the city.
Hu Li complained to him: "I already told you before, Bao Zhu can't drive just like me."
Cheng Peng guffawed and said: "Bao Zhu, is it true you failed the driving test three times? Wasn't it said you used to have the best grades?"
Hu Li chided him, slapping his arm to get him to shut up. I said: "I guess I just don't have the talent for driving."
Cheng Peng tossed the keys to me. "Come on, I'll teach you," he said, about to come over and pull me. I really didn't want to smell the booze on him, so I took a small step back.
Director Li happened to step over at that moment. "Are we going or not? I got up early and rushed over to treat you to lunch later."
At his words, Cheng Peng hurriedly got in the car. "Let's go then, I'm starving too. Didn't eat anything last night, just had some porridge from Li Li this morning. Now that you mention food, I'm famished."
I held onto Hu Li to say goodbye to them, telling her I had to stop by my home first.
Director Li wanted to drop me off first, but I politely declined. My home wasn't far from here, I didn't lie.
When I was about 9 years old, dad brought mom and me from our hometown to move to this city, where we stayed for 21 years.
The lakeside was a relatively quiet, remote area of the city. The bus went north, with each stop very far apart. To the right was almost all grassland, interspersed with some vegetable plots people had reclaimed.
This place was originally the rural outskirts of the city, but was later requisitioned because a certain real estate group wanted to build a villa district here.
The bus passed through the villa district, and the final stop was near my home.
Along the way there were 12 surveillance cameras. No one could perfectly avoid all the cameras. In this day and age, all your information is transparent, all your actions are monitored and grasped by big data.
Luckily, I didn't need to evade every camera, just two of them - one at the village entrance, one at the bus stop by the villa district.
The houses in the village were all the same, built uniformly for all the villagers when the real estate group requisitioned the land. When grandma passed away, she left half of the old house to mom, so during the demolition and relocation mom got her own single building. After mom passed away, dad transferred the property directly to me in front of my aunt and uncle as witnesses.
After that, I was alone, because dad took half of the demolition compensation and left. The day he left, he gave me a card, a key, and some words.
The road home seemed even longer now because of the memories. The path I was walking on, dad and mom had walked before, and I had walked before. My sister hadn't - she was buried in our hometown. I had only gone back twice - once before grandma passed away, once after she passed away.
