Chapter 684: Not Considering Marriage
The moonlight climbed up the chimney of the brick factory, stretching the shadows of the two people very long.
Zhao Shuzhuo bent down and picked up an angular blue brick at his feet. He rubbed it repeatedly in his palm, and the rough surface of the brick made his palm slightly hot.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wang Jianguo tilting his head back to drink from the kettle, his Adam's apple sliding up and down as he swallowed.
Suddenly I realized that the young man who used to run around with me now has broader shoulders than mine.
"Founding of a Nation,"
Zhao Shuzhuo gently put the blue brick back into the brick pile, and his voice softened unconsciously.
"I'm about to get married, what about you?"
He deliberately wiped his forehead with his sleeve to avoid the other person's gaze.
"You can't always lead everyone to build houses while you don't have a home yourself, right?"
Wang Jianguo’s kettle lid clicked shut, and the sound of metal collision was particularly clear in the silent brick factory.
He stared in the direction of the production team in the distance, where the lights flickered in the night fog.
When Zhao Shuzhuo said this, his mind suddenly flashed back to He Yushui squatting at the entrance of the village teaching the children to read. Her blue headscarf was blown up by the wind, revealing a gentle smile on her ears.
That day he went to deliver bricks to the children to make desks, and saw that her hands holding the chalk were white and slender, which formed a sharp contrast with his own hands which were covered in mud.
"What's the hurry?"
Wang Jianguo bent down, picked up the half length of hemp rope, and began to tie knots in it.
"The brick factory has just been put on track. Once the profits are better and the road to the village is repaired, we will consider these things."
He said this, but in his heart he was thinking of the bowl of ginger soup that He Yushui had brought him in the rain last week. The edge of the porcelain bowl was still stained with water droplets that she had accidentally dropped.
Zhao Shuzhuo kicked a stone at his feet, and the stone rolled into the gap between the bricks.
Of course he knew what Wang Jianguo was avoiding.
Since the two came to the Great Northern Wilderness, although they were cousins, He Yushui and Wang Jianguo always deliberately avoided each other's sight when they met, but would secretly glance at each other when the other turned around.
The last time when the canal was being repaired, Wang Jianguo took a detour to bring her work protection gloves; and when He Yushui was correcting homework late at night, a few roasted sweet potatoes would always appear inexplicably on the windowsill.
“Don’t always use work as an excuse.”
Zhao Shuzhuo reached out and patted Wang Jianguo on the back, neither too hard nor too soft.
"Look at our village, which family doesn't move in with their new daughter-in-law as soon as a new house is built?"
He paused and looked at the red tips of Wang Jianguo's ears.
"I heard that Sister Yushui is preparing for a night school recently and is short of tables, chairs and benches..."
Wang Jianguo's fingers suddenly tightened, and the hemp rope snapped. The moment he bent down to pick up the rope, he hid the smile on his face.
Zhao Shuzhuo was not talking about the tables and chairs, he was clearly giving him a way out.
The night wind blew up the fine dust raised by the brick factory, and in the distance came the voice of the production team's breeder calling the cows, long and warm.
Perhaps it is really as Zhao Shuzhuo said, it is time to build a wall to protect your own worries from wind and rain.
The brick factory's searchlights cast two intersecting beams of light in the night. Wang Jianguo leaned against a pile of green bricks that had just come out of the kiln and casually pulled off the sweat towel from around his neck to wipe his face.
Zhao Shuzhuo caught a glimpse of a half-pen sticking out of his work clothes pocket, with the blue ink soaking the fabric. He suddenly remembered that at the commune meeting last month, Wang Jianguo always kept his head down, writing and drawing on his notebook. He didn't know whether he was recording brick factory data or something else.
"Me? I haven't thought about my life-long affairs."
Wang Jianguo suddenly grinned, revealing two rows of teeth stained gray by brick dust. He picked up the bamboo ruler at his feet and gestured in the air.
"Look at this brick factory. From the foundation to the kiln, everything has to be monitored. I want to try my luck while I'm young. I don't want to be tied down by marriage. I must be a romantic young man."
These words startled Zhao Shuzhuo so much that he almost dropped the enamelware pot in his hand to the ground, and the tea spilled out, leaving dark marks on the blue bricks.
In the twilight, the sounds of workers finishing work and laughing could be heard in the distance.
Zhao Shuzhuo glanced around hurriedly and saw several female workers pushing a wheelbarrow full of tools towards the village entrance. The old kiln workers gathered in front of the duty room to share cigarettes. He then breathed a sigh of relief.
He grabbed Wang Jianguo's arm, pulled him into the shadow of the brick pile, and said in a low voice:
"Jianguo, are you crazy? If this word gets out..."
His eyes swept over the sunburned skin on the back of Wang Jianguo's neck, and he remembered the accountant in the neighboring village who was criticized and lost his job last year just because he said a few more words to a female educated youth.
Wang Jianguo shook off his hand nonchalantly, took out a half-smoked cigarette from his trouser pocket and lit it.
The firelight illuminated his angular profile, and cigarette ash fell on his collar as he moved.
"Brother Shuzhuo, I'm just telling you."
He flicked the ash off his cigarette and watched the sparks draw tiny arcs in the night.
"You don't know me yet? No matter how romantic you are, can you escape from the black soil of our Great Northern Wilderness?"
Before he could finish his words, the sound of a dog barking was heard in the distance, startling both of them into silence.
Zhao Shuzhuo reached out to grab the cigarette from Wang Jianguo's hand, but was gently avoided.
"You, you,"
He was so anxious that he stamped his feet.
"Now the higher-ups are stressing the issue of work style every day, and even the city's newspapers are publishing critical articles. If you really want to say something, just keep it to yourself!"
He lowered his voice and leaned close to Wang Jianguo's ear.
"I heard that the new working group in the county is keeping an eye on the lifestyle of unmarried young people..."
Wang Jianguo smiled and poked a small hole in the blue brick with his cigarette butt, and sparks splashed on Zhao Shuzhuo's Liberation shoes.
He looked at the bricks drying not far away, and suddenly remembered He Yushui standing in front of the classroom window, his white shirt blown up by the wind like a white dove spreading its wings ready to fly.
"I know, I know,"
He responded perfunctorily and patted Zhao Shuzhuo on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, I'll just talk about my romantic ways in front of you."
The night wind swept past with the residual heat from the kiln, making the red flag at the gate of the brick factory flutter.
Zhao Shuzhuo looked at Wang Jianguo's back as he turned and walked towards the duty room, and watched him bend down and pick up the fallen tool rack.
Suddenly I felt that this young man who always loved to grin might really have many unspoken thoughts.
And those jokes about "romanticism" are nothing more than self-protection hidden behind the jokes.
The twilight dyed the outline of the brick factory into dark brown, and the figures of Zhao Shuzhuo and Wang Jianguo were stretched out under the searchlight.
As the two were talking, the clear sound of a bicycle bell suddenly came from the distance, getting closer and breaking the silence of the night.
Wang Jianguo subconsciously straightened his back and squinted his eyes to look in the direction where the sound came from.
I saw a green figure bumping along the dirt road, with the mail package hanging on the handlebars swaying slightly with the vibration of the wheels.