PCJ – Chapter 760 Waiting Is a Kind of Suffering

Zhang Manyin went out early in the morning. The autumn wind was bleak, and the temperature in Meizi’ao was a little low in the morning. The wind cut through clothing and made people shiver. Because Meizi’ao had become a nationally famous tourist area, the rice fields of Meizi’ao villagers had all been converted to mechanized farming. There were very few households in the village still raising cattle. Yet Zhang Manyin still kept a big water buffalo. This water buffalo was even a few years older than Zhang Jiaohua—already over thirty years old.

The lifespan of a water buffalo is usually just over thirty to forty years, but in the countryside, no one keeps a buffalo until it dies of old age. Once it loses its ability to work, the owner sells it.

But Zhang Manyin’s old buffalo was different from others. Although it was elderly, it still looked strong and sturdy. Zhang Manyin couldn’t bear to sell it; instead, he treated it like a family member. This buffalo had been trained by Jiaohua back then—placed beside the rice fields, it would never eat the rice seedlings nor steal vegetables. It would go into the mountains to graze by itself and return home on its own when night fell. Still, every day Zhang Manyin would bring it to where the grass was the most tender.

The villagers would greet the big water buffalo whenever they saw it.

Old carpenter Zhang Jiwang came out and greeted him when he saw Zhang Manyin pass by. “Brother Manyin, going to graze the buffalo? Come, have a smoke before you go.”

Zhang Manyin stopped and patted the water buffalo. “Go graze by yourself.”

The big buffalo walked to the roadside to graze. Because the roadside grass was regularly trimmed, it wasn’t very long or messy. In autumn, the grass in many places had already turned yellow, but the buffalo had no interest in that. It carefully searched for blades of grass that still held a hint of green.

“Brother Manyin, Jiaohua has been gone nearly three years now, hasn’t he? Take it easy, don’t think about him too much. That rascal is probably out there having his fun—he might just come back any time.” Zhang Jiwang lit a cigarette for Zhang Manyin.

“I’m not worried about that brat. Why would I worry? He’s probably lively and kicking wherever he is,” Zhang Manyin said stubbornly, but his eyes were already filled with tears of age.

“Sigh, life keeps getting better, but we old folks just keep getting older day by day. Tell me, if the village had been like this when we were young, how great would that have been? I remember back then we didn’t even have enough to eat. When winter came, there were barely a few lads or girls in the village who owned even two pairs of pants. When I went to meet my wife for the first time, I even had to borrow pants from you. Back then, even skill alone couldn’t get you a bowl of rice,” Zhang Jiwang said nostalgically, as if everything from decades ago was still fresh in his memory.

“Hehe, that was your own fault. You tried to go into the mountains to hunt a deer as a meeting gift for your wife’s family. In the end, you didn’t catch a deer, but you tore several holes in your pants and even exposed your eggs!” Zhang Manyin burst out laughing and accidentally choked on his smoke, coughing hard for a long while before finally calming down.

Ma Donghua walked over and saw the two old men secretly smoking together. She immediately began scolding them. “You two old rascals—smoking in secret again! Jiwang, did you give Brother Manyin that cigarette? Just wait—I’ll tell Hongying to give you a good beating. Brother Manyin has been coughing badly lately and you still dare give him cigarettes!”

“Sister Donghua, you can’t blame this on me. I only picked up smoking because of Brother Manyin. Back in the production team days, I didn’t smoke at all. But Brother Manyin told me, ‘A man who doesn’t smoke doesn’t look like a man.’ So I started smoking with him. All my shredded tobacco came from him. Why didn’t you keep an eye on him back then?” Zhang Jiwang laughed.

Zhang Manyin and Ma Donghua both burst into laughter. Ma Donghua scolded jokingly, “Jiwang, you ungrateful wolf! Do you remember how many meals you mooched off us back then? I remember the year you went to meet Hongying—went into the mountains but didn’t catch a deer, tore up your pants instead. And in the end, I was the one who patched them up for you! You ended up wearing your brother’s pants and still took away the deer we had at home!”

“You two still bringing that up? You’ve told that embarrassing story for decades now!” Zhang Jiwang blushed.

At that moment, a melodious mountain song drifted down from Heiyan Ridge of Meishan.

“When the ninth month comes it’s Double Ninth Day,
We climb high together—hey hey yo,
Frost coats the fields, oh my dear sworn brother,
The bitter frost kills the grass by the river,
My dear man, my sweet girl,
Rules choke the heart—hey hey yo,
Young man come to me, my dear brother…”

“That’s Chen Crazy again—his singing is still so good,” Zhang Manyin said with a smile.

Zhang Jiwang grinned. “If you want to talk about good singing, his wife Chen Fang is truly amazing. Chen Crazy is a lucky man.”

In the president’s office of Biyu Immortal Beverage Group, Zhang Youping stood up from his seat. Chen Crazy’s singing had stirred something deep in him.

“Three years…” Zhang Youping sighed heavily. The stronger his business grew, the emptier he and his wife felt inside. Instead of fulfillment, their hearts were weighed down with loneliness. Zhang Youping usually suppressed his emotions, because he was now the only emotional support his wife had.

Hearing the song, he hurried to Liu Qiaoye’s office. As expected, Liu Qiaoye had been moved by Chen Crazy’s singing as well, and was quietly crying inside her office.

Even though she knew that Zhang Jiaohua had ascended to the Immortal Realm, Liu Qiaoye still worried about him day and night—and missed him terribly. She couldn’t understand why he had to go to the Immortal Realm. Wasn’t life on Earth good enough? The whole family together, living happily—why go somewhere so distant?

“Missing our boy again?” Zhang Youping asked.

“How can I not miss him? He came out of my belly—he’s my own flesh and blood. Why wouldn’t I worry? That brat—what did he go to the Immortal Realm for? Wouldn’t it have been better to stay home?” Liu Qiaoye said resentfully.

“Jiaohua has his own ideas. Don’t worry—maybe one day he’ll just come back. Think about it—he was able to go from Earth to the Immortal Realm. You think he can’t come back from the Immortal Realm to Earth? He must’ve just been delayed by something. Our boy is so capable—what trouble could stop him? Don’t worry. I heard from Jiaxin and the others that preparations here are accelerating too. If they still don’t get any word from Jiaohua in the Immortal Realm, they’ll be ready to go look for him,” said Zhang Youping.

“I know, but they still don’t know where Jiaohua went. Where will they even find him? Think about it—if he hadn’t gone to the Immortal Realm, he’d be married by now. Both Jiaxin and Xiaoting are wonderful girls. Even Teacher Mei isn’t bad—so what if she’s a few years older? Isn’t she a cultivator? What’s a few years to them? I’d be happy if Jiaohua chose any one of them,” Liu Qiaoye said. She herself still looked like a twenty-seven-year-old woman.