Chapter 686 Bad news comes
The moment the letter paper was unfolded, the scent of ink mixed with an unfamiliar mint scent hit Zhao Shuzhuo's face, and his pupils suddenly contracted - that was the mint scent that Yang Xiaohua was used to.
When the first few words hit his eyes, Zhao Shuzhuo felt a buzzing sound in his ears. His temples were throbbing, his fingers began to tremble uncontrollably, and the letter paper rustled in the night wind.
"Brother Zhao, it's nice to meet you."
Under a few neat regular script characters, the densely packed words were like countless ants gnawing at his heart.
Wang Jianguo was the first to notice something was wrong. He leaned over and startled Zhao Shuzhuo so much that he hurriedly took a half step back. His back hit the brick pile heavily, and the blue bricks hurt him.
"Brother Shuzhuo?"
Wang Jianguo's voice suddenly became distant.
"What did the letter say?"
Zhao Shuzhuo's eyes were fixed on the letter, and his throat felt like there was a piece of sharp-edged broken brick stuck in it.
Every word in the letter was like a cold iron clamp, crushing his expectations.
His eyes swept across the date at the signature, which was the day before he sent out the confession letter - it turned out that all his expectations were in vain from the very beginning.
"Captain? Why do you look so grim?"
Cheng Erhua's voice was timid, and the crowd suddenly became eerily quiet; even the roar of machines in the distance seemed to be cut off.
Zhao Shuzhuo felt as if countless gazes were burning on him, and each one turned into a sharp steel needle.
He wanted to laugh, but the corners of his mouth pulled out an expression that was uglier than crying. The voice that escaped from his throat was so hoarse that even he himself was unfamiliar with it:
"No... nothing, just work."
But the hand holding the letter gave it all away. His knuckles turned white from the force he exerted, and deep wrinkles appeared on the edge of the letter, with a few spots of ink smudged, like his embarrassment after being defeated.
Wang Jianguo suddenly reached out to take the letter, and Zhao Shuzhuo reflexively crumpled up the letter and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. This action startled everyone and they let out a low cry.
He staggered back two steps and knocked over the toolbox at his feet. The sound of metal collision was particularly harsh in the silent brick factory.
“All gone!”
His voice was trembling with suppression, but he tried to roar loudly enough.
"There are still two kilns of bricks to be produced tomorrow. Don't you want to earn work points?"
The crowd was in an uproar. The workers looked at each other, but were reluctant to move. Zhao Shuzhuo turned his back to the crowd and stared at the darkness outside the brick factory wall. His eyes suddenly felt hot.
The night wind wrapped in brick dust blew on his face. He wiped his face fiercely, rubbing all the sourness into his palms.
Wang Jianguo wanted to go forward, but Liu Erzhu grabbed him by the corner of his clothes. Several old masters silently picked up the tools on the ground.
Amid the sound of the crowd's footsteps that gradually dispersed, someone whispered, "Did they have a quarrel?"
Zhao Shuzhuo stood there until the searchlight went out, until the moonlight climbed up the brick pile, and until the crumpled paper in his trouser pocket became hot from his body temperature.
He knew that some words had not yet been spoken but the chance had been lost forever; some expectations had not yet blossomed but had withered into ashes in reality.
The brick factory's searchlights swayed in the night sky, casting Zhao Shuzhuo's shadow on the neatly stacked blue brick wall, which distorted as his slightly trembling shoulders.
Wang Jianguo stared at his friend's tense neck and his Adam's apple rolled up and down twice.
The bustling crowd just now has dispersed, and the night wind blows brick dust across the empty venue, rolling up a yellowed newspaper in the corner, making a rustling sound.
He suddenly remembered how Zhao Shuzhuo's ears looked red half an hour ago when he was surrounded by people, but now the blush had already faded into pale blue.
"Brother Shuzhuo?"
Wang Jianguo tentatively took half a step forward, his work shoes crushing the gravel on the ground, making a crackling sound.
Zhao Shuzhuo's back suddenly tensed up like a startled wild cat. When he turned around, the emotions surging in his eyes made Wang Jianguo's heart tighten.
It was a turbid pain, like a pond in the Great Northern Wilderness in late autumn, calm on the surface but with broken ice churning deep inside.
His fingers unconsciously stroked the crumpled paper in his trouser pocket, and he suddenly realized that things were far worse than he had imagined.
"Brother Shuzhuo, what's wrong? What happened?"
Wang Jianguo grabbed the other person's arm, and when he felt the cold sweat on his palm, his heart skipped a beat.
Zhao Shuzhuo lowered his head, and his Adam's apple rolled three times with difficulty before he could make a sound, which was so hoarse that it seemed like it had been repeatedly polished by sandpaper:
"Xiaohua wrote to me saying... that her father... had passed away."
These words hit the open space like a heavy stone, startling the crickets in the distant grass and making them stop chirping.
Wang Jianguo's fingers suddenly tightened, and he vaguely recalled the scene in the county hospital a few months ago - Father Yang was lying on the hospital bed, wearing reading glasses and reading old newspapers, with the infusion tube winding like a snake on the pale back of his hand.
Before leaving, the old man smiled and patted them on the shoulders, saying that he would try the sauerkraut stewed with vermicelli from the Great Northern Wilderness after he recovered.
At this moment, the images suddenly distorted and turned into the trembling letter paper in Zhao Shuzhuo's hand.
"Dead? How could it be so sudden!"
Wang Jianguo's voice rose, startling the night owl on the brick pile. His eyes swept across Zhao Shuzhuo's sunken eye sockets, remembering that they had been guarding the door of the medicinal materials company for three days and three nights in order to raise medicine.
The imported penicillin that was hard to come by obviously made Technician Yang look much better, and he was even able to write technical improvement suggestions for the commune while lying on his hospital bed.
The night wind blew in, carrying with it the dampness from the distant canal, bringing with it a bit of a bone-chilling chill.
Zhao Shuzhuo slowly squatted down, supporting his knees with his hands, and beads of sweat on his forehead dripped into the cracks in the blue bricks.
“It’s getting better, but it could also be a flash in the pan.”
His voice was mixed with heavy breathing.
"Director Zhou said at the time that even if we get the medicine, it's just..."
The words stopped abruptly, and he slammed his fist hard on the brick surface. The dull sound startled Wang Jianguo's heart. The moonlight illuminated the blue veins on the back of his hand, like a twisted dead vine.
Memories came flooding back. Wang Jianguo recalled technician Yang teaching them how to adjust the temperature of the kiln. The old man's calloused fingers moved on the dashboard, saying, "The temperature is like living life, you have to get it just right."
I remember Yang Xiaohua running in the fields with a book on agricultural techniques in her arms, her ponytail swinging with her steps and her trouser legs covered with mud from the black soil.
At this moment, the old man who always wore round-frame glasses and spoke with a southern accent stayed in the hospital in the provincial capital forever.
“Maybe this is God’s will.”
Zhao Shuzhuo stood up and looked up at the night sky. The stars were looming behind the clouds. His voice suddenly became very soft, as if he was talking to himself:
"Xiaohua must be heartbroken."
Wang Jianguo saw the water droplets condensed on his eyelashes, flashing in the moonlight and finally falling into darkness.
The dogs of the production team in the distance suddenly started barking, one after another, echoing in the empty fields, bringing waves of chills.
The two stood there in silence. The sound of machines in the brick factory stopped at some point, and the only sound in the whole world was the sound of each other's heavy breathing.
Wang Jianguo remembered that Zhao Shuzhuo once said that Yang Xiaohua's laughter was like the first cuckoo's call in spring.