Chapter 68 The First Meeting

Not long after, I saw my mother coming out with a steaming bowl of egg noodles. In the porcelain bowl were only pure white noodles topped with two poached eggs and a single sausage.

"Mom, there's even a sausage!"

"I bought it yesterday and hadn't eaten it yet, so I put it in your noodles. Otherwise, it would be too plain and you definitely wouldn't like it. You've been a glutton since you were a child."

I hurried over to the dining table, took the bowl of noodles, and first took a deep breath of the savory aroma, then picked up my chopsticks and impatiently wolfed it down.

"You, you never learned to chew your food slowly. If you eat like this when you're out negotiating business, people will laugh their heads off."

I bit off a mouthful of the noodles, raised my head, and smiled brightly at my mother. "The food outside doesn't taste half as good as what my mom makes!"

My mother smiled and sat down beside me. "You just know how to flatter your mother to make her happy."

After finishing the meal, I insisted on washing the pots and bowls before heading to the village committee office to find the village chief. The chief's house had already been leveled, but the chief and village officials had to stay in the village until all the issues were completely resolved.

Seeing me arrive, the village chief, who had been sitting on a stool smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, stood up to greet me. "Little Si is back. Just in time, these are the remaining slips for the demolition housing allocation. Your family gets three apartments, you draw first."

The village chief pointed to a box on the table.

I reached into the cardboard box and rummaged around. There were only a few slips left inside. I casually pulled out three of them, which had the names of the residential complexes, building and unit numbers, door numbers, and floor areas written on them.

Two two-bedroom apartments and one three-bedroom apartment. The location, area, and floor were all quite decent. The village chief leaned over to take a look. "Oh, truly not bad. Little Si, you've got good luck."

Having stayed in Changshui Village for a week, I cooperated with the village committee, the demolition contractor, and the real estate management bureau to handle all the matters regarding the demolition transfer of ownership and compensation funds. Then I prepared to take my mother and set off back to Tianhai.

If my stomach cancer ultimately could not be cured, I would entrust Lin Xingfan with selling these apartments and investing the money into a nursing home.

At the very least, I had to ensure that after my death, my mother could live out the rest of her life in peace, safety, and without any financial worries.

Looking at the several large cardboard boxes piled up in the west room, I couldn't help but frown, stepping forward to open and check them one by one.

My mother didn't understand what I was doing and tried to stop me. "It was so hard for me to pack all this up. Why are you undoing it? Wouldn't it be better to just load them straight into the car?"

I rubbed my brow, pointing to a battered pot and broken bowls wrapped in old clothes inside one of the boxes.

"Mom, these things aren't worth anything, and they take up space. Why bother packing them and taking them along? Even if we bring them over, they'll just end up gathering dust in the utility room. Let's just pack the important things."

"Otherwise, my trunk won't even be able to fit it all."

Hearing that I wanted to throw things away, my mother hurriedly blocked the front of the cardboard box and glared at me. "You wasteful child! They're all still perfectly usable, why throw them away? Isn't that just squandering things?!"

"Besides, I've used these pots and pans for most of my life. Without these utensils, my food doesn't even taste good. You can throw anything away, but not these!"

My mother had lived a frugal and thrifty life for most of her years, and asking her to voluntarily throw anything away was like taking her life. After much coaxing and pleading, she finally relented and let me throw away two-thirds of the items. As we got into the car, my mother hugged my father's urn, looking as if she were about to burst into tears.

"Mom, out with the old, in with the new. Once we get to Tianhai, I'll get you brand new things from head to toe, so you can enjoy some comfort too."

Yet, upon hearing this, my mother didn't show a smile. She only gently stroked my father's urn, staring back toward the village through the car window, her eyes filled with turbid tears.

Until the car drove far away and Changshui Village could no longer be seen at all, I heard my mother murmur, "My husband is gone, our home is gone... I have nothing left to hold onto..."

I knew that what my mother couldn't bear to leave behind wasn't the dilapidated old house, nor the antique objects that were about my age, but rather every single memory of our family living together in that small courtyard.

"Mom, as long as our family is together, wherever we are, that is home."

"Sigh."

Because my mother was in the car and elderly people cannot handle long and arduous journeys, we stopped at every service area to let her rest.

As for the hotels at the service areas, we couldn't expect much from the environment, but my mother secretly checked the prices on the front desk sign and roughly figured it out in her head.

She quietly pulled me aside. "Dabao, this little dump is actually so expensive. Let's just keep driving, Mom can hold on."

Thinking to myself that the old lady had quite sharp eyes, and realizing that staying at a service area really would be mistreating her, I drove right off the highway and found a chain hotel with a fairly decent environment in a nearby city.

I booked it on my phone so she wouldn't see the price again.

As a result, the old lady still wasn't happy when she saw the hotel's interior decor, pulling me and insisting on leaving. "This place clearly isn't cheap. Let's go, let's go, we can make do with a twenty or thirty-yuan hostel."

I grabbed her directly. "Mom, don't people earn money just to enjoy it? Besides, this place isn't expensive. I'm often on business trips and I'm a member of their brand, so I get a discount."

My mother looked at me half-believingly. "Really or not? You aren't trying to pull a fast one on your mother, are you?"

I pulled her to sit on the sofa in the lobby, stuffing a handful of small snacks from the coffee table into her hands. "I'll go handle the check-in, you wait here first. Once it's done, I'll take you out for a good meal."

"Hah, you just know how to waste money..."

Despite saying that, a look of gratified satisfaction lingered in my mother's eyes.

I booked a business suite, with my mother and me staying in separate bedrooms. After all, a grown son should keep a proper distance from his mother, not to mention my stomach was a ticking time bomb—if my illness suddenly acted up in the middle of the night, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hide it from her.

After checking in, I took my mother to a rinsed-mutton hotpot restaurant that had a pretty good online reputation.

Watching the soup broth rolling in the copper pot, my mother's gaze dimmed slightly. "Your father loved eating this stuff his whole life, but he never got to eat anything this good before he died. If he were still alive..."

"Mom, it's all in the past now, let's not bring it up again, or else Father's spirit in heaven won't be able to rest easy."

"Yes, it's all in the past."

The next day, we continued our journey toward Tianhai, arriving at Xu Zhihai's villa before noon.

I subconsciously tightened my grip on the steering wheel. I hadn't told Xu Zhihai in advance that I was bringing my mother back, and I had no idea how she would react.

Never mind, we would only be staying here temporarily anyway. If worst came to worst, I would just rent a place nearby for her first.

Driving the car into the garage, Xu Zhihai's car was parked right inside. At this hour, she actually hadn't gone to the company?

My mother nervously straightened her clothes and hair. She had only ever seen pictures of Xu Zhihai and had never met her in person; this would be their very first meeting.

Unlocking the door, I first moved the luggage into my room.

As I went upstairs, I happened to run into Xiao Zhu.

Xiao Zhu's gaze swept past me and landed on my mother, and she said with some surprise,

"Brother Jiang, you're back, and Auntie Jiang is here too..."

Before I could even speak, Xu Zhihai's voice came from the stairway.

"Xiao Zhu, who did you say is here?"