Rebirth 90: The Long Road to Finding a Son

Seeing that the villager had left, the few of them finally breathed a sigh of relief. But what should they do next?

Before they could figure out what was going on, someone came out of Cao Guohua's yard.

The person who came was an old lady with gray hair, probably Cao Guohua's wife.

The old lady asked, "Who are you looking for?"

The few people had no choice but to ask for directions.

Sun Aimin, who was still sitting in the passenger seat, took the lead. He opened the door and got out of the car, saying to the old lady, "Auntie, we are here to visit a relative. I have never been to that relative's house. My mother came here once about 20 years ago, when we were still working in the production team. My mother said that her house seemed to be in the innermost corner of the village."

The old lady asked again: "What is your relative's name? Let me see if I know it. I know almost all the elderly people in the village, but I can't recognize all the young people now."

Sun Aimin replied, "It's an old sister from the same village as my mother. Her last name is Qin. She said she married into this village and asked me to come and see her. She's old now, and in recent years she's always thinking about her good friends from the past. She wants to know how they are doing now. If they have a phone at home, she can still keep in touch. My mother can't remember the last name of that family."

The old lady was also a little emotional when she heard Sun Aimin say this. Who hasn't been young and didn't have a few good friends? But the women who married into the village basically hid their names automatically, and when they talked about it, they would just say "so-and-so's family".

Especially for older women, except for their own family, basically no one knows their surnames and names. This makes the old lady a little troubled.

She said to Sun Aimin, "Young man, you don't know the man's surname and name, so it's not easy to find him. Not to mention us, even the village chief can't figure out the surnames and names of us old ladies."

As she spoke, the old lady pointed to an alley not far from her home and said, "Go out from here and keep going straight. When you get to the end, turn along the road and you will reach the innermost part of our village. Go ask the old Li family and the old Han family which one has the person you are looking for. Those two families have the oldest people."

After listening to the old lady, Sun Aimin and his companions thanked her repeatedly and drove along the road the old lady pointed out. Of course, they still drove at a slow speed to find the van.

Compared to the densely populated residential areas in the village, the place the old lady described seemed a bit desolate. There were basically old and dilapidated houses here, and some of them were empty houses with no one living in them, which could be seen from the dense and tall grass growing in front of the door.

Master Chen parked the car at the foot of an uninhabited house and turned off the engine. After getting out of the car, the men began to check the conditions in the yards of each house. The walls of the old houses were relatively low, which provided convenience for the men.

Also because this place is relatively remote, they are now a little bolder.

These old houses are not like the later ones, which are all one-story deep and have their own doors and courtyards. Instead, they have several houses in the front and back yards, forming a long strip. They can only see the situation of the outermost house, but not the second and third courtyards inside.

Just as they were cautiously circling the walls of the houses, they heard the sound of a door opening, and they were all startled.

Master Chen signaled Sun Aimin, Wu Xing, and Zhao Hongjun to stay behind the courtyard wall. He walked out and saw an old man in his seventies opening two wooden doors and walking out, carrying a hoe on his shoulders. It seemed that the weather was a little cooler, and he was ready to go to the fields to do some farm work.

Master Chen walked over and took the initiative to greet the old man, and asked in the local dialect: "Uncle, are you going to the fields?"

The old man looked at the man in front of him and felt that he was unfamiliar. He nodded and said "Hmm", then asked, "Whose family are you from? Why haven't I seen you before?"

Master Chen replied, "Uncle, I'm not from Shengli Village. I live in the city. Cao Guohua is a relative of mine. I heard from him that there are some old houses here that are unoccupied, so I came to take a look. I want to buy a small yard here, rent some land, and let my parents come here to live in their old age. They also left the village, and they couldn't stay idle after retirement, so they insisted on coming to the countryside to farm."

After hearing what he said, the old man replied, "The old houses here are old, and many families have moved away to build new houses elsewhere. There is no life in the houses, and they will deteriorate quickly. Some houses are about to collapse and cannot be lived in. If your parents want to live in the village, you can ask the village chief to help broadcast and ask who has a slightly better vacant house to rent."

Master Chen thanked him repeatedly: "Thank you, uncle, you go and do your work, I will go to the village committee to ask now."

After the old man walked away, Master Chen turned into a corner, and the others began to walk around the surrounding old houses carefully.

But whether we can find those people with such a random search is another matter. There are suddenly a few sneaky strangers in the village. If they are mistaken for bad people with ulterior motives, it will be a big trouble.

Just when everyone was at a loss, Wu Xing glanced at the grass behind him that had just been trampled down, and suddenly had an idea.

He whispered to the others, "I think we should focus on looking for wheel tracks. There's either no grass growing where people came in and out, or the grass has been trampled down."

Several people slapped their foreheads: "Oh, why didn't I think of this just now?" They were so nervous that they ignored such an obvious clue.

Once we have a clue, things will be much easier. In order to improve efficiency, several people will discuss and act separately, and shout if they encounter any danger.

Soon, Zhao Hongjun found tire tracks, which were separated from the path they drove from by a road, and there were four courtyards between the two roads. Following the tire tracks, they found that the two tire tracks followed the path out of the village, and if they went further, they should be the road leading to another village.

He hurried back to meet up with the other three and briefly explained the situation.

Apart from this clue, the few people did not find anything else, so they quickly returned to the car. Master Chen started the car, increased the horsepower and drove along that road.

They found that the road was very long, with fields on both sides and no trace of houses at all.

When the path was about to end, a large orchard appeared in front of us, and the path continued into it. There was also a wider road that intersected the path perpendicularly.

A few people stopped the car to check the tire tracks and found that continuous tire tracks led into the orchard, so they followed them into the orchard.

The fruit trees are growing very lushly in this season, with many fruits hanging on the trees. You have to go in to understand what is going on inside.