This summer is exceptionally hot, with people living in the city feeling like they’re being roasted by the sun every day, enduring temperatures over 40 degrees from the ground, their baked-dry figures moving listlessly, the cacophony of cicadas almost unheard in the city, with only the sound of cars and their wheels, and occasionally a whiff of exhaust sprayed onto your legs by a passing vehicle, which really makes you want to die.
At this moment, those sitting in air-conditioned vehicles can’t help but feel grateful for the chilling cold wrapping around their bare legs.
Industrial exhaust is still being emitted, filling the entire high-tech city with murky smog, amassing a variety of strange odors.
Qin Xiangnuan suddenly awoke with her head feeling muddled, as if haunted by intermittent, disjointed dreams; moments from childhood, adulthood, her previous existence all replaying like a rewind, fragments of nearly forgotten things beginning to piece together again.
The air-conditioned coach is of the enclosed type, with the air conditioning set very cold, not knowing how many degrees exactly. She opened her bag and took out a coat, a common canvas bag that could be bought outside for dozens of yuan, and the piece of clothing, a grey shirt washed to fading, but she still couldn’t bear to toss it away.
"Younger auntie, where are you heading?" asked the young man sitting next to her with a grin.
That one term, "younger auntie", felt to Qin Xiangnuan like a thorn deeply pricking her heart.
"I’m going back to my hometown," she managed to squeeze out an awkward smile on her face, reflected by the bus window, revealing her current look.
She didn’t like looking in the mirror on normal days. The mirror showed the time ripped away from her, as well as a face that once seemed young, starting to wither day by day, turning ugly and aging. She says she’s only thirty-nine. Would anyone believe that?
To be called "auntie" by a young man in his twenties, as she was, well, she could only suppress the taste of bitterness in her mouth.
With her dry complexion, somewhat ugly features, out-of-date clothes, and lackluster hair tied back casually with a simple rubber band. Qin Xiang lived an unremarkable previous life and now, she didn’t even know why she kept on living. Having experienced hardship since childhood, continuing to endure, eating through it till now, when will it ever end?
She’s divorced with no children, renting a small self-constructed dwelling of about fifteen square meters, forced to bathe in public bathhouses, and sharing unclean and stinky toilets. In summer, you could smell the toilets from meters away, almost burning your eyes.
She has no home, no relatives, no money, no property, alone in the world.
"Auntie, where’s your home?"
The young man lifted his face from his latest-model smartphone, probably tired of looking at it, and looking for someone to chat to.
Qin Xiangnuan’s lips lightly met, but instead caused a sting of pain; her throat felt tight as if stuffed with a wad of cotton.
Actually, she has no home to speak of.
"Home is in Dadao Village."
"Dadao Village, that’s an unusual name?" The young man had not heard of the village before, but guessed it must be hidden away in some small mountain hollow.
"Small villages are good," the young man put his smartphone on his lap, "Look at how serious industrial pollution is these days, everywhere there are sandstorms, and the heat in the city, that’s why people are starting to go for ecological tourism, farm stays and such, in the big mountains, it’s just scenic, drinking spring water, eating vegetables you grow yourself, no fear of pesticide contamination."
"Yes," Qin Xiangnuan agreed, turning her head towards the bus window, having to once again take a clear look at her own face, resembling that of an auntie, with the heart of a matron, and the spirit of a granny.
She has aged, truly aged.
The bus cannot navigate the roads leading to the village, so, it stopped far from the village entrance.
Qin Xiangnuan collected her things and got off, the bus doors closing instantly behind her, spraying her legs with some exhaust, the scorching sensation actually hurting a bit.
She shouldered her bag and turned, making her way toward the village that felt both familiar and foreign.
Actually, the young man was mistaken, Dadao Village is not some village nestled in the mountains. Decades ago, the village indeed drank spring water and ate their own homegrown vegetables, but now, the village has cement roads, with each household erecting their own small buildings, equipped with running water, and several small shops have sprouted up.
The weather is a bit hot, and although not as scorching as in the big city, the heat waves still roll through.
It’s exactly noon. The sun at its most fierce, sweat drenching her body, the exposed skin turning sore from the burn.
Naturally dark-skinned, after years of weathering, her skin had become like tree bark, losing its luster, so she no longer cared if she darkened any further, already scorched as it was. The bag on her shoulder felt heavier and heavier.
The honking of a car came from behind.
She hastily leaned aside, a rush of hot air engulfing her as a black sedan whizzed past.
Staring at the car growing more distant, she couldn’t help but feel choked up inside.
Some people just lived lives so different from hers.
If she had spent a lifetime of unending hardship, then there were others, endlessly blessed with fortune.
Like the owner of that car.
Indeed, it wasn’t the car she envied, but the person inside she knew.
Blood related, they indeed were close relatives, but too bad, she doesn’t have any relatives now.
She continued walking under the blazing sun, unsure how long, half an hour or an hour, before she arrived at her seldom-visited home. She sort of forgot where her home was exactly, the village had changed so much over the years, with every household building up their own small buildings, two-story, three-story, and the streets no longer the muddy paths they once were but now smooth and leveled cement roads. She tried to find it with her waning memory.