After the boy finished speaking, he awkwardly turned his head away.
"If you're not going, I'll go myself."
In the days that followed, she was incredibly grateful that she had made the right decision that day and found the most precious thing in her life.
Perhaps some things are truly preordained from the beginning.
For example, she will meet Qiao Yuchu and Jian Changnian. She takes over the wedding quilt sewn by her grandmother, which truly leads to a happy marriage.
For example, the jade that Jian Changnian had turned out to be her grandfather's keepsake.
After they explained their purpose, the shop owner opened the jade box.
"It's quite a coincidence. If you had come a day later, I would have sold this jade to someone else."
Upon seeing the jade lotus flower, Xie Shi'an picked it up immediately, his breath catching in his throat, and his eyes slowly reddened.
"This jade...it..."
Seeing that she was in a bad mood, Jian Changnian quickly comforted her.
"Shi'an, what's wrong with this jade? Tell me slowly."
Xie Shi'an held the jade in his hand, feeling its smoothness and warmth. He blinked, and tears streamed down his face.
"It's...it's my grandfather's keepsake. It's a jade pendant and a bracelet that he carved himself as a token of his love when he married my grandmother. He always wore them until I was six years old. Just six months before he passed away, he went to the countryside with a friend to go fishing and came back to tell me that the jade was lost. So, it wasn't lost after all..."
Jian Changnian was also stunned, memories flooding back.
The feeling of weightlessness when falling into water.
The suffocating feeling of having one's mouth and nose submerged.
Unable to cry or shout, she struggled until she gradually lost her strength and sank to the bottom of the water.
Just as she was about to close her eyes, a figure broke through the waves, grabbed her, and swam upwards.
"Child, don't sleep, don't sleep, hold on."
"It's a success, it's a success, I'm awake."
Someone was performing CPR on her.
She forced her eyes open and saw only a square face; the old man's temples were all white.
"It's good that you're awake. Don't come to the water to play in the future, it's dangerous."
After the old man finished speaking, he smiled at her, didn't ask for any reward, picked up the clothes he had left on the shore, and left.
Jian Changnian was picked up by her grandmother in a daze, her hand tightly clutching a jade pendant.
Perhaps she was accidentally pulled off her benefactor's neck when she was rescued, or perhaps the rescuer left it on the shore.
In short, she held onto it tightly for more than a decade, unwilling to sell it no matter how difficult her family's circumstances became.
She was waiting for the owner of the lost item so she could thank them in person.
In her previously hazy memory, the old man's face gradually overlapped with the portrait hanging in Xie Shi'an's living room.
Jian Changnian's eyes also reddened.
"So, the person who saved my life back then was... Shi'an's grandfather."
Xie Shi'an sniffed and poured all the money from his backpack onto the counter.
"Boss, I want to redeem it."
After listening to their rambling, the boss smiled contemptuously, picked up the money on the table, moistened it with saliva, and tapped it.
"You're telling stories here; if you want to redeem it, you don't have enough money."
“Why isn’t this money enough? It was sold to you for 20,000 yuan back then,” Jian Changnian said anxiously.
"It was the same price back then, but it's appreciated in value over time." Seeing their strong desire to buy, the shopkeeper raised the price again.
"Okay, fifty thousand, fixed price. I'll return this jade to you. Yesterday, a buyer offered eighty thousand, but I didn't sell it."
Xie Shi'an took out his ID card and a photo of his grandfather from his wallet and handed them to him.
“I’m really not making this up. This is my grandfather’s keepsake. He passed away many years ago. I grew up with him and just want to keep it as a memento. Please, please sell it to us at a low price.”
The boss took the ID card and photo and looked at them.
"Wow, he really does have the surname Xie. You know what, it does look a bit like him."
Xie Shi'an and Jian Changnian exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with joy.
The next moment, the shopkeeper snatched the jade pendant back.
"But even if the King of Heaven himself came today, it wouldn't work. Fifty thousand, that's it. If you can't come up with it, you're out."
"You!" Jian Changnian was furious.
"It only cost you 20,000 when I sold it to you, you're asking for an exorbitant price! Besides, this thing originally belonged to Shi'an!"
"Once it's sold to me, it's mine. Don't cause trouble and disrupt my business. Let me tell you, even if you call the police, I'll still be in the right. If you can't pay up, get lost!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Xie Shi'an bowed deeply.
"You have parents and children, right? Put yourself in their shoes. If one day your relatives and friends also pass away, we can't hold back time, but at least we can keep some things with us. Looking at these old objects, it's as if our loved ones are still here."
"Shi'an, don't do this!"
Jian Changnian tried to pull her, but Xie Shian didn't budge.
“If I had money right now, I would give you 500,000, let alone 500,000. But this is all the money I have on me. Please give it back to me for the sake of my deceased grandfather.”
Having known each other for so long, Xie Shi'an had never humbled himself to beg anyone. Seeing her like this, a surge of passion rushed to his head.
Jian Changnian was furious. Her eyes reddened, she gritted her teeth, suddenly turned around and rushed out of the store, running all the way to the nearest bank.
She inserted her card into the ATM, withdrew all the remaining balance, and stopped at a sugarcane stand on her way back.
"Boss, two sugarcanes."
"Should I chop it?"
"chop."
Jian Changnian looked at the thin, long, and sharp sugarcane knife in his hand.
"I'll give you another hundred, sell me the knife too."
Jian Changnian carried the fruit she had bought, entered the pawnshop, and pulled the roller shutter door halfway down.
The light dimmed.
The boss narrowed his eyes.
"What are you doing?! You're trying to rob me?!"
The boy didn't say a word, carrying the peeled sugarcane in one hand and slamming his backpack on the counter with the other.
"Twenty-five thousand, we won't haggle. There's a saying: 'Courtesy first, then force; leniency is the best policy.'"
The boss swallowed hard, still wanting to ask for an exorbitant price.
Jian Changnian slammed the plastic bag containing sugarcane onto the counter and pulled out a fruit knife from it.
The boss trembled with fright, his face turned pale, and he shrank back.
"What...what are you doing...robbing...robbery!"
"You know perfectly well who's robbing you. Here, take this sugarcane as an apology, and this money too—"
Jian Changnian also emptied all the money out of her backpack.
"I'll give it all to you. I'll say it again: be lenient when you can. You're not afraid of shortening your lifespan if you make too much money by dishonest means."
The shopkeeper glanced at her, then at the fruit knife in her hand, swallowed hard, and carefully lunged forward to gather the money into his arms.
Jian Changnian placed the fruit knife on the counter with the blade facing her.
"This knife is great for peeling fruit, so I'll give it to you too."
After receiving the jade box, Xie Shi'an opened it and took a look, a smile appearing on his lips.
Jian Changnian thought about it for a moment.
"We also found the receipts that were drawn up when the mortgage was made and destroyed them together."
"Hey, you're not that old, but you know a lot. Okay, okay, wait here, I'll go check the ledgers."
The money and goods were settled.
Xie Shi'an left the shop with the jade pendant he had lost and found.
"Wow, you're really something, you even came up with this idea."
Jian Changnian scratched his head and smiled somewhat embarrassedly.
"Actually, I was also very scared. My hands were shaking when I confronted him, but my grandma said that you don't need to reason with unreasonable people."
Xie Shi'an looked at the jade pendant with a lingering affection.
“My grandfather was always concerned about the whereabouts of this jade before he passed away, and now I have finally found it for him.”
Seeing her happy, Jian Changnian was also in a great mood.
"Why don't you go see him? There's still plenty of time."
The boy lowered his eyes, as if afraid of being reminded of something he had been looking for.
Jian Changnian said.
“I think Grandpa would also like to hear this good news with his own ears.”
***
Today is the second day of the Lunar New Year.
There were quite a few people visiting the cemetery to sweep the tombs.
Xie Shi'an threw paper money into the copper basin, and the black ash that rose up was blown far away by the wind.
“My grandmother passed away early, and I never met her after I was born. I only know that my grandfather never remarried all these years. He raised my father and took care of me all by himself, and in the end…”
Jian Changnian gently placed her hand on her shoulder, comforting her.