I rushed back to Wuleji Village without stopping. The first thing I did was go find Ha Rina.
She was putting on makeup in the internet cafe. She lifted her eyes to look at me and snorted coldly, “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“If I don’t come back, who’s going to build you a big house!” I said. “Come on, take me around the village. I’ll treat you to a meal.”
She twisted around and said to the boss, “My sister’s back, I’m going out this afternoon!”
The boss was her uncle. He glared at her. “Where did you get a sister from?”
“None of your business!”
We pushed aside the cotton curtain and walked out. Cheng Xia was standing outside waiting for me.
He’d just vomited three times and was rinsing his mouth with mineral water. He stood there looking lifeless, but still as fresh and handsome as a young scallion.
I said, “This is Ha Rina, my little translator. This is our architect.”
Ha Rina let out a small shriek, covered the eye she hadn’t finished applying makeup to, and ran back into the room in a flash.
Cheng Xia looked bewildered and asked me, “What’s wrong with her?”
When I went back, I had a very vague plan in my mind.
Actually, fundamentally, this wasn’t a conflict between Wuleji Village and Jiaolong Village.
Rather, it was the chronic illness afflicting rural architecture itself.
The houses in Wuleji Village were too old—they neither retained heat nor resisted wind. The roads in front of and behind the houses were muddy, mixed with the feces of cattle and sheep, making walking too painful.
It was unrealistic to make them watch with their own eyes as outsider villagers moved into new houses.
And the county had no money. It was impossible to actually allocate a budget to renovate the entire village. This was a deadlock.
But I was thinking—was there a possibility of solving the problem from another direction?
“Ha Rina said their biggest headache is the problem of staying warm in winter. Coal and such aren’t enough to burn. People can grit their teeth and get through it, but every year a batch of livestock freezes to death,” I said during the company briefing. “If we can guarantee that we’ll help them solve this problem, they’ll definitely make some concessions.”
“That still requires additional budget, and will this make them get along harmoniously with the people of Jiaolong Village? I doubt it,” someone objected.
“I’ll tell them—either we go build the village somewhere else and they can continue freezing,” I said. “Their lowest temperature reaches negative thirty-seven degrees. This is a matter of survival.”
Next came the question of how to produce this plan.
The designer for this project wasn’t skilled enough, and we didn’t have the budget to find a more advanced designer to produce drawings. And for every day of work stoppage, we lost a day’s worth of money.
And I had to quickly produce drawings to negotiate with the villagers.
“I’m not the best designer, but I’m definitely your best choice,” Cheng Xia said to me after hearing all this.
I’d originally just been complaining to him, but he immediately got up to pack his things. By the time I came to my senses, the two of us were already standing at the airport.
Spring had arrived with warm weather and melting snow, and the dirt roads in the village were especially muddy. One step down and you couldn’t pull your foot out for ages. Cheng Xia’s face was deathly pale. Every few steps, Ha Rina and I had to wait for him to vomit for a while.
At first, Ha Rina kept asking me in a low voice, “Sister, is this leader of yours a celebrity or something?”
Later she had a look of complete disdain. “Good-looking but useless! You can’t find a man like this type.”
Cheng Xia said, “No, I feel like my whole foot stepped into cow dung… ugh—”
We toured every single house in the entire village. By the time the sky had darkened, I’d originally wanted to take him to stay at a hotel in the county but it was too late. We could only stay in the prefab building at the construction site.
This place neither retained heat nor prevented theft. Apart from having two boards to block the wind, it was no different from lying in the open field to sleep.
Cheng Xia also quite admirably immediately developed a fever.
I laid out four layers of quilts, stuffed in hot water bottles, and borrowed three small space heaters aimed at him.
His face was bright red, only sticking out one head, like a silly goose.
“I’m so useless!” he let out a goose-like cry.
I comforted him. “It’s okay. I told them you’re from the south. You didn’t embarrass us Northeasterners.”
“That’s great.” He was delirious with fever and quite happy about it.
I laughed uncontrollably and asked him, “Do you still want to stay with me through life and death?”
He smiled very shyly and nodded forcefully.
“Alright, tomorrow we’ll go to a hotel in the county,” I said, tucking in his blankets to comfort him.
Cheng Xia asked again, “Did you always live in this kind of house in Africa?”
“Ours was a long-term project. The walls were much thicker,” I said. “But construction sites—the environment is never that great anywhere.”
But I actually felt it was fine.
The house I grew up in was actually only about thirty-some square meters, stuffed full of junk my grandmother had picked up. In summer it was hot like a steamer, in winter it was too cold. When I did homework, if I didn’t hold a hot water bottle, my hands would be stiff.
So after growing up, no matter how harsh the environment, I never felt particularly unable to adapt.
What really made me feel uneasy was actually going to those high-end hotels, the wine-filled banquets with toasting all around, including Cheng Xia’s home.
These all made me feel at a loss.
Just like how Cheng Xia couldn’t adapt to the construction site’s prefab building.
We came from different worlds. Whether it was me climbing up to the clouds or him descending into the mire, going to each other’s world would be very uncomfortable.