Chapter 105 Sheep Prison
Chapter 105 Sheep Prison
The public transportation system in Yundu has been around for quite a while. After the construction of the urban rail network in the past decade, the number of passengers on passenger buses and public buses has continued to decline every year. Most office workers take the subway. Today, the only people who still take the bus in the city are students who swipe their cards to go to school, and the elderly who get up early every morning to take the free bus and go all the way to the rural market to buy cheap vegetables.
Oh, there are also tourists, but tourists usually charter a car.
Sitting at the West Suburb Station from dusk until dark, the number of people on the bench gradually decreased. Ji Taixuan was restless and kept trying to contact his mother, sending text messages, making phone calls, chatting on WeChat... He wanted to know what her letter meant, but he never got any reply.
Not only was his mother out of contact, his father was also out of contact, and even his sister who was recuperating in the countryside and his grandparents were inexplicably out of contact. Feelings of unease continued to accumulate in Ji Taiyu's heart, making him feel very uneasy.
"Waiting like this is not a solution..." Ji Taixuan looked down at the electronic clock on the screen of his mobile phone and gritted his teeth secretly.
The last bus at 10pm is still a few hours away. I don't know what happened at home. Should I just sit here and wait? At least I should go home to see how my mother is doing. After all, the distance is not too far. It won't be too late to come back and take the bus after confirming that she is okay.
Thinking of this, Ji Taiyu could no longer sit still. He sat up from the bench and walked out of the waiting hall.
The waiting hall was empty, there were no people there for a long time. Under the empty steel structure ceiling, only one's own voice was echoing, the sound of breathing, footsteps, the friction of clothes when walking, rustling, rustling. It was so quiet that it didn't seem like a public place where people came and went on weekdays.
A moist wind blew from the direction of Yunmeng Lake, rustling the evergreens outside the station wall. The tender green branches were covered with white flowers, and the tiny flower buds as small as rice grains hung densely on the treetops, like clusters of white ears of wheat wafting in the wind, emitting a sweet fragrance that was intoxicating.
When Ji Taixuan walked out of the station gate, two stone statues, one on the left and one on the right, came into view.
"Huh? Was there this at the door before?" Ji Taiyu couldn't help but wonder. He didn't seem to see any stone statue when he entered the door just now?
Looking down, I saw two stone statues standing on either side of the gate of Xijiao Railway Station. They were not the common stone lions used to guard houses, but two goats standing on their two feet with their upper bodies straightened. Their heads were tilted backwards, and their long curved horns pierced their backs. Their faces were full of twisted pain, and a weird feeling came over me, making me feel very uncomfortable at first glance.
Who would put such a thing at the door? It looks unlucky. Ji Taiyu frowned and said "tsk", looking at the painfully twisted faces of the two goat statues, and suddenly felt a little familiar.
I vaguely remember that when I was a child, my mother held my hand and took me back to my mother's home in the countryside to visit relatives. We also took a bus at that time. The station was full of people. I was so scared that I huddled in my mother's arms and cried loudly...
...Are you really shy?
The two goat faces on both sides of the gate were still twisted in pain, groaning silently. A pool of memories that seemed not to belong to him emerged faintly from Ji Taiyu's mind, like a faint fragrance of water lilies wafting in an empty old house. At that time... there were also two such statues.
"I...I...I think? I was scared to tears by these two sheep." Ji Taiyu held his head with both hands, his breathing became rapid. He remembered that he was taken back to the countryside by his mother to visit his grandparents and his sister who was recuperating in the village... So his sister was already sick at that time?
Unexplained palpitations filled his chest, and Ji Taiyu's face turned pale. He remembered something:
——The Xijiao Bus Station stopped operating 10 years ago. The buses in the old city of Yundu have been integrated into the Yunmengze Scenic Area as tourist buses and are under the unified management of the City Tourism Administration.
"But if that's the case, then what about those buses I just saw leaving the station?" Ji Taiyu slowly released the two hands that were holding his head, and his eyes slowly unfocused: "Where are those buses going?"
For the first time in more than a decade, the boy felt that this city where he was born and raised was so unfamiliar. Uneasy, hesitant, fearful...all kinds of emotions flooded his heart. Ji Tai wanted to hold his mother's hand tightly like when he was a child, curl up in his mother's arms and cry wantonly, but the woman who loved him most in the world was no longer there.
The child has grown up today, and there is no one to accompany him on this journey from now on.
Ji Taixuan took stiff steps and walked into the station in a daze. The cry of a child came from the empty waiting room. The noisy voices were overflowing. Ji Taixuan raised his head and the electronic screen on the top of the waiting room showed the current time:
2008年07月01日，晚21时58分。
There are still 2 minutes until the last bus.
Ji Taixuan reached out and touched his chest. The paper his mother left for him was placed in the pocket inside. He didn't know if it was because of the effect, but the piece of paper in the pocket seemed to be slightly warm. The warm feeling dispelled his uneasiness and fear. He took a deep breath of the damp and moldy air, walked through the waiting hall, and got on the only bus parked on the left edge of the parking space.
The bus's front windshield has a sticker with its route:
[Yundu——Yanglao]
Yanglao Village is the village where Ji Taiyu's mother was born. It is about 15 kilometers away from the western suburbs of Yundu City. It is a good place surrounded by mountains and rivers. In 2015, it made a fortune by taking advantage of the popularity of farm stays.
But this isn’t 2015…
Ji Taiyu walked onto the bus. The bald driver was sitting in the driver's seat with his legs crossed, smoking. The conductor was sitting by the door with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He said slowly, "Where are you going, young man?"
"Sheep prison." Ji Taiyu said truthfully: "I'm going to the sheep prison."
"One way or round trip?"
"round trip."
"18 yuan." The ticket seller took a 20-yuan cash note from Ji Taixuan and gave him a 2-yuan note in return. He also handed him a white handwritten invoice along with the note.
Ji Taixuan walked through the aisle between the two rows of seats with the change and receipt and sat down in the last row by the window.
At ten o'clock, the sky outside the window was pitch black. There was not a single star in the gloomy night, and the moon seemed to have disappeared. A faint smell floated in from the car window. There were only Ji Taixuan, the driver, and the conductor in the long carriage.
The 2 minutes passed quickly, and at 2008:07 p.m. on July 01, 22, the last bus from Yundu West Suburb Station departed on time.
(End of this chapter)