NFBE Chapter 268: So we knew each other so early?
Chapter 268: So we knew each other so early?
Hey.
Zhao Xiaojing also sighed in her heart. The two of them were inexplicably silent for a while. After Zhao Xiaojing thought about it, she spoke.
"Aunt San, then you won't be working this afternoon?"
"No, we can just go and meet at four or five. There's a new bridge and beach built by the Yangcheng River. I'll take you there this afternoon."
Dong Mei will be retiring in another year. She has been transferred to an easy nursing job. There is not much work to do. She can work when she wants to, and sign in when she doesn't want to, or just not go. Everyone turns a blind eye.
Zhao Xiaojing was relieved and no longer worried about affecting Dong Mei's work. "I see you have cleaned up the guest room. When will Third Uncle come back?"
"Tomorrow night. Every year it's the night before New Year's Eve. The sun rises from the west early in the morning. When he comes back he has to drink with his friends. He doesn't know what time he will get home. Whatever you want." Dong Mei sneered. Her face suddenly became much gloomier when she mentioned Zhou Jianye.
"... Third Aunt, I rarely saw the husband of the landlord in Jiangcheng later on. I didn't dare to ask because I wasn't familiar with him." Zhao Xiaojing looked at Dong Mei's face and started talking.
"Oh, it's okay. It's my own fault that I made you worry about me. I'm about to retire anyway. After retirement, I will go to Mingcheng. I will do nothing but keep an eye on Zhou Jianye to see what kind of son he has hidden. After so many years, I don't believe he still can't figure out whether he is dead or alive!" Dong Mei spoke sarcastically, the corners of her mouth raised slightly, but there was no smile in her eyes.
Zhao Xiaojing looked up at Dong Mei's face and knew that she would never be in a good mood when this matter was mentioned. Instead of waiting for Dong Mei to be in a good mood to tell her, it would be better to tell her one minute earlier so that she could be relieved one minute earlier.
"Third Aunt, I won't hide it from you." Zhao Xiaojing took out her phone and swiped a few times to bring up a photo. "Although I didn't ask the landlord, I found a photo while browsing blogs online these days. Take a look."
Dong Mei took the phone doubtfully, looked at the photo puzzledly, and was about to ask who this was, but her eyes moved upwards and after a moment her eyes widened.
"..." Dong Mei opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say something, but her throat seemed to be blocked and no sound came out for a long time. Her left hand holding the phone began to tremble slightly.
Dong Mei hurriedly stretched out her right hand and tried to pull the screen with it. After several unsuccessful attempts, she put the phone on the coffee table beside her and tried hard to control the trembling of her fingers. Finally, she succeeded in enlarging the photo.
When the photo was enlarged, the three smiling people were particularly conspicuous. Dong Mei stared at it for a long time, then suddenly stood up, pushed open the door of Zhao Xiaojing's bedroom, ran in hurriedly, and frantically searched in the bookcase beside the bed.
Zhao Xiaojing followed him in and stood aside watching Dong Mei pull out several thick photo albums. She squatted on the ground and quickly looked through them one by one. After searching through several albums, she locked onto an album that had turned yellow and had an exaggeratedly curled cover. Dong Mei only flipped through a few pages and pulled out two photos. She then hurried back to the living room and compared the photos carefully with her mobile phone.
"Is it really her?" Dong Mei was shocked and angry, and even her lips began to tremble as she muttered.
Zhao Xiaojing stood aside and widened her eyes. "This, this is, Third Uncle?"
Dong Mei didn't say anything, but nodded while breathing heavily. Zhao Xiaojing looked at the photo again, her heart filled with turmoil.
The photo Dong Mei was holding was of three youthful-looking boys and girls, probably about seventeen or eighteen years old, standing arm in arm in arm at the entrance of Yulu Temple, a former tourist attraction in Yangcheng, with bright smiles on their faces.
There are two men and one woman in the photo. The only girl is the woman outside the third uncle in the photo on the mobile phone. The two photos seem to be taken several decades apart, but she has hardly changed in these decades, except that her temperament has become much more mature. There are only slight wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and her face is a little sunken, but her expression and smile are exactly the same, making her recognizable at a glance.
If Dong Mei hadn't nodded, Zhao Xiaojing really wouldn't have believed it. At first, she just felt that his eyes and eyebrows were somewhat similar to her third uncle. After looking hard for a while, she realized that the man with white teeth, red lips, starry eyes, sword-like eyebrows and a rogue smile seemed to be Zhou Jianye.
It's no wonder that Zhao Xiaojing couldn't confirm it. The current Zhou Jianye and the man in the photo were completely similar, except for some traces in his eyebrows and eyes.
No one would believe that this man with a beer belly, a big bald head, deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that look huge even when he's not smiling, and a mouthful of yellow teeth and a chin due to years of drinking and eating, would be related to the fair-faced, handsome and cool guy in the photo.
Zhao Xiaojing took a long time to recover from the shocking visual impact, and then began to feel angry belatedly.
Wang Jiandang said at the time that the woman Zhou Jianye had outside was also from Yangcheng, and it seemed that they had known each other for several years. Zhao Xiaojing didn't think too deeply about it.
Now that I’ve seen the photos, I realize that we actually knew each other so many years ago?
The three people in this photo look so young, perhaps they have known each other longer than my third uncle and aunt?
Zhao Xiaojing was so angry that she was fuming. She looked at another photo in Dong Mei's hand. It was a group photo with "Graduation Photo of Red Star No. 3 Middle School" written on it. At this moment, Dong Mei was controlling her trembling hands to count the photos one by one, and then she kept turning to the back, muttering to herself, looking for the name written in sloppy handwriting on the back.
When she looked again, the person Dong Mei was pointing at turned out to be the woman in the photo. Zhao Xiaojing frowned even deeper and glanced at the faces of the boys standing in the back rows of the photo one by one.
Sure enough, in the middle of the second to last row, I saw Zhou Jianye, who looked even younger than in the first photo, and still had a bit of childishness.
So that woman and Zhou Jianye were classmates in junior high school? Earlier than I thought?
Zhao Xiaojing looked at Dong Mei with full of questions. Just as she was about to ask, Dong Mei paused as she was looking for her name.
"Zheng Zihui?" Zhao Xiaojing looked at the name silently, then shifted her gaze to Dong Mei.
Dong Mei's reaction was strange. She seemed puzzled, but also as if she had suddenly realized something. She sat there staring at the photo with a frown on her face. After a while, she looked at her cell phone and hurried into the bedroom again. This time, she took out the entire photo album with the curled edges.
This time Dong Mei didn't look through the photo album. Instead, she flipped to the first page and pointed at the child in the middle of a group photo. "Do they look alike?"
The voice was slightly choked with sobs and fear.
When Zhao Xiaojing saw him, she recognized him at first glance with the reference of his youthful photos. This was Zhou Jianye as a child.
They are said to be children, but they are not that small. Judging from their stature, they are probably about seven or eight years old. They are standing sideways, with two adults on their left and right, who seem to be their parents.