Ready to Go

Jiang Danhe listened to Xiaoguo’s sigh and reached out to rub her chubby face.

“How’s the situation?”

Although Jiang Danhe was outside paying the bills, he was also paying attention to the situation in the house. When he saw Shu Botong running out in a bad mood, his first reaction was to worry about her safety.

Xiaoguo shook her head at him and said, “It’s hard to say. Let’s see what he does next.”

She had already spoken. If he still wanted to play dumb, she didn’t wish to deal with him anymore. She could look for another place. The two-storey building was not the only option.

The two craftsmen waited for the crowd to disperse before walking forward. They looked at the two of them hesitantly. “Are we still going to do the site inspection?”

Jiang Danhe reacted quickly and said to the two of them with a smile, “I’m really sorry to have made you come all the way here for nothing. We’ll invite you two again after things are settled here.”

As he spoke, Jiang Danhe gave each of them a silver coin before they could show their dissatisfaction.

Instantly, their faces lit up with joy. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just send us a letter when you’re done. We’ll come over immediately.”

Jiang Danhe nodded calmly and watched the two of them leave.

Xiaoguo looked at the dirty house and sighed.

She hadn’t planned to make it clear so quickly and was prepared to take it slow, but who could have expected Shu Botong to give her such a big surprise this morning?

The money they had was all their hard-earned money. They couldn’t afford to have him spend their money like that. Going out and spending a few taels every day was not sustainable. She believed that Shu Botong was capable of doing just that.

Actually money was really a small matter. More importantly, If he offended someone while he was out, she would be kept busy paying money and apologizing every day.

It would be fine if Shu Botong was really a sick man, but he was not sick. He was a normal person.

She didn’t mind being a busybody—she just wanted to help as much as she could.

If Shu Botong could come to his senses, she would take care of him for the rest of his life. However, if he continued to run away from reality, she would part ways with him.

Jiang Danhe came to Xiaoguo’s side and put his arm around her shoulders.

Looking at the house that was impossible to walk in, Jiang Danhe silently pulled her back a few steps. “These?”

“He can clean up the house when he comes back.”

Because of those debt collectors, the house that was barely decent was now dirty and messy. Muddy footprints could be seen everywhere. There were also mysterious stains on the walls that might have been made by some mischievous little imps.

The person who created this mess would have to settle it.

—-

Shu Botong ran all the way to the end of Yonghai County before he finally stopped.

He was panting so hard that he almost fell to his knees. Even so, the items in his arms were still well-protected. There was not even a speck of dust on them.

The black mud on his face looked even more glossy due to his sweat. The stench on his body became even more pronounced as the sweat evaporated.

Along the way, the people he bumped into instinctively pinched their noses and dodged from him.

He was usually unmoved when he saw people behaving that way towards him. However, for some reason today, he could sense an indescribable emotion rising in him. It was a bitter feeling.

Shu Botong walked along a small path that was surrounded by green grass. This path was so heavily trodden that no grass was growing on it. It seemed that many people walked on this path regularly.

Walking alone, his back view looked inexplicably desolate.

At the end of the path was a lonely grave mound. Standing on a half-slope at the end with withered grass growing around, it looked clean and well-maintained, probably because someone regularly cleaned it.

Shu Botong knelt down skillfully and laid out the items on the ground.

Food, drinks, fabrics, and shoes were all placed neatly together.

He casually took out the last matchstick he had and lit the joss paper and incense sticks with some struggling.

As the fire grew stronger, more joss paper was added to the pile. After putting down the last stack of joss paper, Shu Botong kowtowed a few times to the simple tombstone.

He muttered to himself, “Father, Mother, how are you? I’m still the same. Yesterday, I gave the two-story building to someone else on the condition that they take care of me for the rest of my life. At first, my thoughts were very simple. Since I have nothing left now, if I am fortunate enough to survive in the future, at least I can live without having to worry about my basic meals. It’s good enough to live like this. Being this way, I don’t have to face the sympathetic, disdainful, and disgusted looks of others. It’s pretty good…”

As he spoke, Shu Botong’s gaze gradually became doubtful. “But, is this considered cowardly behavior on my part?”

“When I was clean and tidy, people still sympathized with me. Now that I’ve become like this, I just get a few more disgusted looks from them. It seems that there is no difference. Anyway, no one is going to look at me in a normal manner.”

As Shu Botong spoke, he revealed a despairing smile. But then a voice sounded in his mind, filled with regret and disappointment.

The feeling was like a sudden awakening, and he became clear-headed in an instant. Then, a long-lost vitality arose in his heart.

Shu Botong’s lips curled up slightly. He slowly covered his heart and said calmly, “So there is still shame in me.”

Just because of a few words from Qin Xiaoguo, he found something that he was unaware of.

Shu Botong laughed at the thought.

No one had ever said those words to him before. In his heart, he was probably unwilling to go on living like this. He was just waiting for someone to knock him out of his senses.

Unfortunately, all these years, he had received nothing but pity and disdain. This had caused him to fall into despair. After all, no one cared about him anymore, so it didn’t matter.

At this moment, a gust of wind lifted his long hair that was covering his eyes. Being exposed to the sunlight all of a sudden, Shu Botong’s eyes were not accustomed to it. They were blinded by the sudden glare of the sun. It had been many years since he had seen this world. He really missed it now.

When he closed his eyes in discomfort and opened them again, the wind was already blowing in the opposite direction.

Shu Botong’s heart skipped a beat. He looked at the tombstone. “Are my parents rooting for me too?”

The tombstone didn’t answer him, but his inner voice had already answered him.

After thinking it through, the man vigorously patted the dust off his body. However, he realized that dirt was not coming off. Instead, he seemed to be making it worse.

Shu Botong looked at his hands helplessly. After thinking it through, he couldn’t bear to see himself in this state.

He wiped his hands on the wrong side of his clothes, which was still relatively clean. Although his hands were still dirty, he had already done his best.

Then, he squatted down and picked up everything on the ground. Without looking back, he walked towards the direction where he came from.

It was a rare moment of good weather and a rare moment of good mood.

Shu Botong greedily admired the sky, the sun, the shade of the trees, and the passing crowd.

Although there was still disgust in their eyes, Shu Botong’s thoughts were now different because of his changed mindset.

Seeing that they were retreating in disgust, Shu Botong waved his hand graciously and said, “I’ll be clean soon.”

Then, he ignored their expressions and walked towards a shop by the road.

The few people behind him seemed to have seen a ghost. A sentence quietly appeared in their minds.

“What’s wrong with this lunatic again?”

Each time Shu Botong entered a shop, there would be one less item with him and more money in his hands. Apart from food and drinks, which couldn’t be returned, he returned the remaining fabrics, clothes,and shoes. As for the incense, gold ingots, and joss money, he had burned them, so they couldn’t be returned.

However, just the fabrics and clothes alone were worth a considerable sum of money. For him at this moment, it was a huge sum of money.

He was initially planning to return the money to Xiaoguo and her friends, but after some thought, he decided to walk into a nearby shop.

When the shopkeeper of the fabric shop saw him, he was so frightened that he immediately became nervous. He almost closed the door and invited him out.

Shu Botong did not care about his actions. Instead, he generously threw the silver on the table.