His smile froze instantly. He saw a photo. He couldn’t be more familiar with the man in the photo.
“Who is he?”
Fang Ruxiang put on her presbyopic glasses and looked at it seriously. “Well, this is Mr. He who came her last week. He was quite generous to adopt two child at once and gave a donation.”
He Qiming?! Yes! That was him.
Why should he come to Huibei? Wasn’t Chaozhou his hometown? Pu Yuanhui showed an expression full of confusion.
Fang Ruxiang saw him interested in the man in the photo, so she began to have a gossip with him, “This Mr. He was from Chaosan. He didn’t have a child, that’s why he came here for adoption. But I don’t understand why he should go through our factual data to look for a child born in the autumn in 1987, as he explained. We have so many materials for so many kids, so he failed to find the one. Besides, how could he adopt such a big child, who is twenty-three years old now?”
“Is there his phone number?”
“It was in the register. What do you want it for?” Fang Ruxiang felt strange.
Pu Yuanhui’s hands were trembling, “Will you please find his phone number for me?”
In one corner of the institution, Pu Yuanhui pressed the buttons to dial He Qiming’s phone number, it was on.
He Wiming was simply too excited. How could he be able to contact his old comrade-in-arms again. His voice was choked with excitement. He told Pu he had now married again. Because of his infertility, he was going to adopt a child.
“So why should you guy go to the welfare institution in Xiangfan?” Pu Yuanhui asked.
He Qiming sighed.
“You still don’t know, do you? Do you still remember Liu Manjing?”
Pu Yuanhui said, “I do, isn’t she Dong Chao’s sister? What happened to her? Is she going on well now?”
He Qiming said sadly, “I went back to look for her some time ago. I’ve always felt a bit guilty about doing wrong to Manjing over these years. When I got to the village I asked a lot of people about her whereabouts. Some old men said she married someone at once after you left the army. No young men in their village would marry her because they all knew she had once been in love with a soldier. Her brother had been staying in the mental hospital. Later a relative of hers arranged a marriage to a man in Hubei Xiangfan for her. I looked up a lot of addresses before I found her home in a Hubei country village, where I found her husband who told me she had died of falling down a cliff from her bicycle a long time ago.
Pu Yunahui’s heart sank with a heavy thump. Tears rolled down his face. The girl with a bamboo basket on her back smiling at him in the field, the girl rolling in the sorghum field and putting her arms around his neck saying she liked him very much, the girl choking with sobs to say “You must come back to pick me up”, had died. Together with his youthhood, had died.
He Qiming said in a very low voice, “Her husband said when she first married him she wouldn’t make love with her Hubei husband at all. When asked why, she said she has already been in the family way. Her husband was kind and didn’t beat or abuse her. He only said he could still live with her as long as she wouldn’t bring up the bastard in his family. The child was born and it was a girl. Manjing heard the welfare institution of Xiangfan took good care of the children sent to the institution, so she went a long way by bus to Xiangfan to send the child into the institution, who was then less than one year old. Not long after that, she herself also died of the accident.
Pu Yuanhui’s cell phone slipped out of his hand.
While He Qiming was still shouting in the phone, “What is happening? Her child was born on March the third in nineteen eighty-seven, and was sent to the welfare institution in October. Because it was too late that day, there were still a lot of information I couldn’t check up. May I trouble you for further checkup of the information for me? If you can get any information of the child, please do tell me and I’ll give her financial assistance for her life from now on…”
Jiang Youyou, female, born in March in nineteen eighty-seven, of unknown birthplace. Adopted in nineteen eighty-nine and then returned later. In nineteen ninty-four, she was again adopted and returned to the welfare institution again…
Pu Yuanhui stood rooted to the spot motionlessly, dumbfounded.
Until Jiang Youyou went out of their bedroom and said, “I’m so hungry. Let’s go out to have something to eat.”
Pu Yuanhui looked at Jiang Youyou, up and down. He looked at her slightly swelling belly, slowly crouched down to pick up his cell phone and crazily ran out.
Jiang Youyou didn’t know why he should run away and could be no longer found.
When Pu Yonglin saw his son’s girlfriend, he was greatly disappointed. But he dared not to show his disappointment. He only dared to say to his old wife after the son left, “What a unique aesthetic view he has.”
Although unsatisfied, he took part in his son’s wedding ceremony, but he hummed his discontent hum for more than one hundred times.
He never dared to see the words “Jiang Youyou in his memory. He even dared not eat vegetables whose name contained a word “Jiang”. Sometimes man’s instinct was to shirk.