Xia Yuanlin and Youxi held hands and followed Mei Fang to the ancestral home of Mei Fang's family.
The ancestral home of the Mei Fang family is actually located in the main street of Baimei County. In addition to many commercial shops, there are also many low buildings. The ancestral home is among these buildings, in a relatively remote alley.
In his previous life, Meilijun did not continue to be a civil servant, but chose to go into business, but ended up losing money.
After that, Mei Fang's family sold their new house in the community and moved to their ancestral home where transportation was more convenient. This was also the place where Mei Fang spent the longest time as a student in his previous life, so he had a special feeling for it.
Mei Fang led Xia Yuan Youxi to this small alley. As the demolition and reconstruction plan was gradually advanced, several small buildings nearby had now turned into ruins. The three of them were moving forward among the rubble.
"Here we are. This is my hometown."
"Wow, Fang, your ancestral house isn't that small. It feels bigger than my house." Xia Yuan said in surprise, "I thought it would be a house with tiles."
Mei Fang’s hometown is said to be the ancestral home, but in fact it was rebuilt from the old house that Mei Fang’s grandfather lived in before his death. It is a three-story building with its own yard.
Lin Youxi also observed the distant view of the ancestral house, "But the houses nearby are quite crowded, and the lighting is probably not very good..."
"This house was built in the 1990s, and it was like this back then."
Mei Fang gently pushed open the iron gate of the yard, and the rusty iron gate, which had been in disrepair for a long time, made a sound like branches.
“It feels like exploring a haunted house.”
As soon as Lin Youxi finished speaking, Xia Yuan subconsciously hid behind Mei Fang, "Don't scare me, Youxi!"
"It's not as exaggerated as you say. Just go in."
Mei Fang used the key to open the door of the cottage. The interior decoration was not rustic, but it had an old-fashioned feel of the decoration style at the beginning of the century.
As soon as Xia Yuan and Lin Youxi entered the house, they were attracted by the group photo above the living room.
"Is that the family photo on the wall when Ah Fang was a child? Where is Ah Fang?"
"I'll take it down and show it to you..."
The family portrait hanging on the wall is the one of Mei Fang’s grandfather’s generation. At that time, Mei Fang’s grandparents were still alive and sat in the middle, followed by Mei Fang’s uncle and aunt, father Mei Lijun, and mother Xiang Xiaoxia.
Mei Ya was not born yet at this time. Her cousin Xiao Mei Yue, who was about 9 or 10 years old, was standing next to her grandmother, holding the hand of little Xiao Mei Fang, who was sitting in her grandmother's arms.
"Was Ah Fang so cute when he was a child? How old were you then?"
"I remember I was about two or three years old, after all, my grandparents were still alive."
"Why is Jiji still exposed..."
Lin Youxi's focus is always different. "Ah Fang, why are you still wearing open-crotch pants at the age of 2?"
"Wow... Really..."
"Stop staring at weird places, you guys!"
Mei Fang pushed Xia Yuanlin Youxi upstairs and said, "Go check the other rooms. My mother said that all the things in the house are in the rooms on the second floor."
Xia Yuan and Lin Youxi followed Mei Fang to a utility room filled with all kinds of dusty junk. Xia Yuan immediately spotted a tattered baby walker and hurried over to squat down to take a look. Then he turned around and looked at Mei Fang:
"This car is the one you used when you were a kid, right?"
This type of walker puts the baby in the stroller, and has a bib at the bottom so that the baby can maintain a standing and moving posture, and will not fall while walking in the walker.
"I don't remember that... But it's all here, so it must be."
"I miss this thing so much. I remember I also used a walker like this when I was a kid. It seems that this kind of walker is no longer popular when Xiaoya and her friends are their age. They mostly play with scooters."
"They're not the same age... Slideways are for kindergarteners."
At this time, Lin Youxi's eyes fell on a small cardboard box, and she took out a thick stack of books from the box.
"These are the texts we studied in primary school... and Ah Fang's homework book."
The two girls took Mei Fang's homework book and started reading it.
Xia Yuan smiled and said, "Come to think of it, when Ah Fang was little, he could write a lot of characters, and his handwriting was very beautiful. Everyone else's handwriting was crooked at that time. When I was the Chinese class representative, I was very jealous of Ah Fang, and I was afraid that Ah Fang would compete with me for the position of class representative."
"You were jealous of me sometimes..."
"You were a kid back then, so of course you would. My mom would often praise you in class, and I would feel jealous."
"What are you looking at so intently?"
"Afang seems to be different from other boys since he was very young. Whether it's the way he treats people or the handwriting and writing style in his homework, he always feels like a little adult..."
"That's why I liked playing with Ah Fang when I was a kid. Aren't you the same, Youxi?"
Lin Youxi shook her head. "I like playing with Ah Fang because Ah Fang is willing to play with me."
"You always have to attend cram school or learn piano on weekends, so I often go to Ah Fang's house to play computer games, and Ah Fang will patiently teach me how to play."
"Come to think of it, you two were secretly playing games behind my back. You must have been playing for many years, right?"
Lin Youxi nodded, "I have been playing games with Ah Fang since the first grade of elementary school. We didn't tell you this secret until the fourth grade."
"Now that I think about it, I was really easy to talk to!"
Xia Yuan muttered, "You two have kept a secret from me for four years. If it were me now, I would be so angry."
"Yuanyuan was very angry at that time."
Lin Youxi tilted her head and thought, "I remember that I was scared to death at that time. I was so afraid that you would break up with me because of this. If you broke up with me, I wouldn't be able to go to Ah Fang's house to play."
"I'm angry, but I won't break up with you."
Xia Yuan smiled and said, "Now I've figured it out. Even if we are close friends, we can't say that we have to share all our secrets..."
"Hmm... So now you must be hiding a secret from me, right?"
Xia Yuan broke out in a cold sweat upon hearing this. Lin Youxi's gaze made her feel a little overwhelmed. "Uh... well... I can't say there is no... but anyway..."
"It's okay. I have a secret from you too."
Lin Youxi patted Xia Yuan's shoulder to tell her not to be too nervous. "I won't deliberately ask. I will tell you everything I think I should tell you. You should do the same, right, Yuanyuan?"
"Hmm... yeah, yeah... let's look at something else..."
The three found a lot of magazines in the utility room. Mei Fang's pile of books was filled with magazines and periodicals such as "Youth Digest", "Reader", "Story Club", "Kung Fu Heroes of the Past and Present", "Sprout", "Fireworks", and "Zhiyin Manke".
These were the things he read when he was daydreaming in class or after class when there were no smartphones. They also helped Mei Fang gradually recall the trends of that era, and it is very interesting to look back at them now.
In his previous life, Mei Fang could only borrow magazines of a certain period or parts of novels from his classmates or rent them from bookstores. After becoming rich in this life, Mei Fang could read all the books he wanted to read, and the endings and beginnings of many stories that had been bothering him in his childhood were all completed.
In fact, Mei Fang had made up for the small regrets of the past many times in his childhood. For example, he bravely stopped a boy who cut in line, stopped an older elementary school student from asking a younger elementary school student for pocket money, and raised his hand to point out that the teacher was biased, etc.
There are many things that Mei Fang didn't dare to do in his previous life because he was young and inexperienced, but now he doesn't have any psychological burden.
Like in his previous life, he suffered from a certain degree of inferiority due to his family's debt. His mother always advised Mei Fang not to cause trouble outside and to be honest and abide by the rules.
He also knew that his family was poor and powerless, and could not stand his misfortunes, so he never dared to stand up for others, and silently endured any injustice or unfair treatment.
Looking back on these experiences, I feel a little sad...
Just as Mei Fang was sighing, Xia Yuan and Lin Youxi dug out a set of CD boxes from the box. The CD boxes contained many CDs, but there were no prints on the CDs, as if they were burned CDs.
"Fang, do you know what this disc is? It's labeled "Childhood Memories" and there are some weird numbers written on the disc."
"Ah, that... It should be a recording of a primary school art performance, sports meet, wedding, etc. My dad used to like to do this, taking a camera and recording it everywhere."
"I want to see it, I want to see it!"
Xia Yuan said excitedly, "Since this is such a precious childhood memory, you must let me take a good look at it!"
"I want to see it too." Lin Youxi nodded.
Mei Fang reminded, "Maybe there are pictures of you two as kids in there, don't you mind? I remember there is a DVD player in our ancestral home that we can use."
"Take it now and let it out and see!"
Xia Yuan is very interested in memories of the past.
The next chapter will be released in about an hour, at 12:30, so you can stay up late and wait for me.
(End of this chapter)