In the following months, many things happened.

My life slowly returned to normal, and I told the people under me as "Uncle Three” that I would be gone for a long time inspecting other places and that I needed to hand over the shop"s business to my nephew.

Xiao Hua"s men then came from Changsha and removed my mask at a hotel.

When I saw my face again, I burst into tears. I didn"t think I would be vulnerable at this time. I felt as if I had unloaded countless burdens of strength, courage, responsibility, determination, bloodshed, and cruelty. I finally changed back to Wu Xie.

Finally, I was the naive Wu Xie who could shrink back, be weak, laugh and smile, be embarra.s.sed, and be half dead every day. I could ask others “why” and “no” without hesitation and could even scold others without hesitation: “f.u.c.k you, if you don"t know, then who am I going to ask?”

I cried for a long time. Was it because I was finally back or having an emotional breakdown? Either way, I did nothing but shed tears and held the girl in my arms as she patted me on the back without saying anything. When I let go of her, I found tears in her eyes, too. She said she had never seen anyone cry so sadly before.

I drank a lot of wine that night. I placed a lot of cups on the table so all those lonely spirits and ghosts could come cheer me up. I hoped there were some people I knew who could see me now and feel really relieved.

Although the mask on my face was taken off, the mask on my heart was harder to get rid of. In the next few days, I often suddenly spoke in Uncle Three"s tone, and I suddenly woke up from my sleep, feeling that I had betrayed myself and lost all my achievements. I even felt strange when looking in the mirror. Fortunately, my illusion gradually faded with the pa.s.sage of time.

Fatty was right, I was at least a very adaptable person.

After the break, I went back to my shop. When w.a.n.g Meng saw me, he showed a strange expression and it took me a long time to realize that it was because I was back. He had gained some weight and became decadent. I looked at the rubbings placed on the shelf and saw that there seemed to be less than before. It seemed that if there was no business, there would always be one or two gifts from heaven.

I lay on the reclining chair in the back room, looking at the familiar and unfamiliar surroundings, and began to live as if I were in a daydream again. But I soon realized that it was impossible, as the heavy business on Uncle Three"s side forced me to work hard.

w.a.n.g Meng offered me his resignation for the first time that night and I had to give him a higher salary before he agreed to continue working.

Even the most stable and simple person"s heart was always slowly changing. Of course, this change was positive, and the mistakes were more on my side.

In fact, I wanted to fire him so badly before, but now I just wanted to have more things that could validate my real existence and try not to make any changes. I didn"t know what kind of mentality this was, but on the internet, many people called it: getting old.

There were still some difficulties in taking over Uncle Three"s business as Wu Xie, and I had to get help from my Uncle Two on some issues. I always stumbled in management, but I wasn"t afraid anymore, because even if I lost everything I had now, I didn"t care. Once one had this mentality, they could judge those important things more calmly and objectively.

During this period, I also got some information about Xiao Hua. All of this wasn"t too hard on him, but there were some difficulties.

His injury was very serious so he stayed in Xiehe for a period of time after returning and then transferred to the United States for treatment. He didn"t return until about two months later, and a few days after his return, I received an email from him, in which he told me about his situation.

He didn"t attend Granny Huo"s funeral, but according to her instructions, the Huo family would be succeeded by Xiuxiu. With her own strength, however, Xiuxiu could hardly balance all the various disputes in the family. Xiao Hua cut off all business with the Huo family and managed to keep the situation under control. It sounded like there were various kinds of performances by all manner of ghosts and monsters, but Granny Huo"s letter decided that everything could only be carried out under the water.

The days ahead would be quite difficult, but Xiao Hua said that compared with his childhood, it was already a very good situation and he told me not to worry.

I also stated my position on behalf of the Wu family in Hangzhou. I knew that with Xiao Hua, Xiuxiu would certainly be able to go on and walk very smoothly, and I would certainly help where I was needed. Although there would probably be a lot of stumbling in the future, we could only take one step at a time.

About three months after my return, I held a small funeral and memorial service for Pan Zi. His cenotaph was six memorial tablets away from Qiu Dekao"s grave, which looked like n.o.body had bothered to visit. It was a mess so I simply cleaned it up a little. After that, I helped Pan Zi deal with some trivial matters that he hadn"t had time to deal with before his death.

When I entered Pan Zi"s rental house, I saw a bowl of rotten and moldy noodles on the table, chopsticks resting on the edge, and a pile of musty tofu in the bowl that had completely turned black and dried.

Obviously, Pan Zi was eating this bowl of noodles and didn"t even have the time to tidy up before he left and never came back.

I constantly felt that he knew he would never come back, so he didn"t bother doing anything about it.

I sat at the table for a while, opened two bottles of beer, drank one myself, then poured out the noodles and washed all the bowls. Then I went out to find Pan Zi"s landlord and made up for all the back rent.

The landlord was still curious: “Where is that guy?”

I thought for a moment and then said to him, “He went back to his hometown and got a wife.”

This was what I thought was the best ending for Pan Zi. He had a chance to break away from this circle, but he chose the old way, although I didn"t know which ending he preferred. For Pan Zi, he might have preferred his current ending, but to outsiders, he made the wrong choice.

Fatty had been staying in Banai. It was inconvenient to contact him by phone so I could only call Agui and ask about Fatty"s recent situation. Agui said his life was very regular now, doing farm work during the day, shaking the dustpan and cooking at night, and looking at the moon in a daze. Most of the time, he and Fatty would only say two or three words a day.

I asked if Fatty had any mood changes, or if he was still as lifeless as before.

Agui said he couldn"t see any emotion, but Fatty worked very quickly and didn"t speak much. Better than before, there were many times when he would make a few witty remarks.

I told Agui that if Fatty was short of money over there, just to tell me directly and I would remit it to him.

I figured Fatty would get better. He wasn"t the type of person who could immerse himself in depression and he knew that Yunyun certainly wouldn"t want to see the fat boss become less fun. He would slowly get better, although his heart would definitely have scars that couldn"t be healed after this matter. But Fatty was a good man, and Heaven wouldn"t make things difficult for him for too long.

After I raised his salary, w.a.n.g Meng took a positive att.i.tude towards his work. I also returned to my shop so Uncle Three"s business would have to report back to me there. Many people didn"t know my relationship with w.a.n.g Meng and thought he was my close friend, so they flattered him. The value of his life seemed to be slowly increasing, and his spirit was much better.

Seeing his good att.i.tude in doing things, I slowly began to teach him to deal with some work matters. He got started very quickly and was able to help me a lot later. Although I didn"t expect him to be a right-hand man like Pan Zi, I slowly began to feel that I could rely on him.

Lao Hai contacted me several times later for business matters. His business had developed rapidly, but it seemed to be targeted by some relevant department. His taxes hadn"t been clean and antique trading had always been an underground cash transaction, so he was very cautious in doing things later. In order to avoid implicating him, we used many strange tricks. He didn"t come forward for many transactions, so I contacted the buyer directly and then exchanged the money for real objects or gold and then brought it to his niece.

His niece was originally my favorite type, a charming little Huang Rong. But since that meeting, we seldom met. She slowly grew up and matured, and my love for her gradually faded away.

Once when I was driving around bored, I pa.s.sed by Yingxiong Mountain. It was the weekend so there was a huge crowd of people. I found Lao Hai"s shop hidden among a variety of shops, but the shutter door was locked. I knew he was inside, but I felt too tired at the thought of all kinds of greetings and turned to leave. With the pa.s.sage of time, gradually the connection between us became even less and I didn"t know whether he went further inland or fled out of the country.

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