Chapter 195 - 138: [Zhang Shufen’s Memory Fragments]
He bought a jug of wine at the bridgehead and headed straight for the old family home in Zhou Village.
When Zhou Yan arrived home on his bike, his grandmother was locking the door.
"Grandma, where are you going?" Zhou Yan parked his bike and asked with a smile.
The old woman turned around, looking a little surprised to see Zhou Yan. "I was about to go next door to play long cards. What brings you here?"
"I brought you some wine, a pig’s trotter, and some pig’s ears. There’s something I want to ask you." Zhou Yan lifted the items from his bike basket and said with a smile, "It won’t take long."
"You could have just come yourself, no need to bring so many things. Come on in. Playing cards is just a way to kill time anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I go or not." The old woman reopened the door and walked into the courtyard first.
Zhou Yan followed her inside, carrying the items. On the courtyard wall, a tabby cat stretched languidly, lifted its eyelids to glance at Zhou Yan, then turned its head, tucked its paws under its body, and went back to sleep.
His grandmother took out a bowl, placed the braised pig’s trotter Zhou Yan had brought inside, and then covered it with a plate, creating a perfect seal.
Pig’s trotters were her favorite. She could just heat it up with a spoonful of the braising liquid for dinner and wouldn’t have to cook.
Zhou Yan placed the wine on a nearby cabinet for her. Looking at the black-and-white photograph hanging on the wall, he mimicked Zhou Momo and greeted it, "Hello, Grandpa."
The old woman looked at the photo and said with a smile, "Next month is the anniversary of his death. If you’re free, you should come with us to sweep his grave at the martyrs’ cemetery on Laoxiaoding."
"Of course. I’ll close the shop for the day if it’s on a weekday." Zhou Yan nodded. He looked at the middle-aged man in the photo frame, dressed in a military uniform with a resolute face. His eyes glinted with a ruthless, battle-hardened aura; even in black and white, the photo was incredibly imposing.
When he was little, he had heard his grandmother tell stories of his grandfather’s deeds fighting the Japanese. In recent years, she rarely spoke of these things with the younger generation, as if she were gradually sealing those memories away.
"So, what’s this big secret you had to ask that required bringing braised pig’s trotters and wine?" his grandmother asked with a smile, pouring him a cup of tea from a thermos.
"Today, a customer came in who’s returned from Xiangjiang to find her relatives. She said her grandmother..." Zhou Yan sat down at the table and directly told his grandmother everything about Duan Yu Yan and Mrs. Qiu’s situation, leaving out no details.
His grandmother was a methodical person; embellishing the story would only cloud her judgment.
"Qiu Qi and Duan Xingbang from Jiazhou City? And a missile engineer?" His grandmother thought hard for a long time before shaking her head. "I don’t recall any customers like that. Aside from the first year when I went to Jiazhou City to promote my braised meat and met some restaurant owners, they all came to me to pick up the meat themselves later on.
"When I went to Jiazhou, it was always for fun or to shop. The only people I knew there were restaurant owners and Knife Makers. This Qiu Qi, the missile engineer... I definitely don’t know them. They most likely ate our braised meat at Feiyan Restaurant and wouldn’t have made a special trip to Suji just to buy it."
"And I don’t think there were any prominent families with those two surnames in Suji. I’m not familiar with the ones in Jiazhou City, but I can basically name all the big families over by Yang Pier."
After hearing this, Zhou Yan felt his world collapse.
He had come running over, full of confidence, thinking he would hear a moving and epic love story from his grandmother, but instead...
’I haven’t gotten a single piece of useful information!’
’Good thing I didn’t bring Duan Yu Yan here directly, or our partnership would have fallen apart on the spot.’
"She knew about my braised beef, so someone probably brought it to her once, but she usually ate at Feiyan Restaurant," his grandmother speculated. "There were many wealthy families in Jiazhou City back then—silk merchants, salt traders, landlords, shipping magnates at the pier... Feiyan Restaurant’s business was booming. Its clientele was all rich, prominent families."
Zhou Yan nodded. ’It seems I’ll have to go to Jiazhou to investigate when I have time. The simplest method would be to find the elders of Mrs. Qiu’s family; I can probably pry some secrets out of them.’
’Of course, this course of action also carries a certain risk; I might get caught and beaten up by the Qiu family for having ulterior motives.’
"By the way, do you know an old man named Wang Ran? He’s tall and thin, probably around seventy now, and works as a librarian at the town library," Zhou Yan asked. "He said he used to come here often to buy your braised meat and asked me when I’d be making braised beef."
"Wang Ran?" His grandmother thought for a moment, then shook her head again. "I’ve never even heard that name. Besides, back in those days, anyone tall was usually tall and thin. Only the masters of rich families were chubby. The young masters from those prominent families, they’d all be dressed in modern-style suits, with so much wax in their hair a fly would slip if it landed on it."
"The Wangs were a major family in town, producing several prominent households. That largest courtyard house over by Yang Pier belonged to Master Wang Zhenyu back in the day. The biggest silk factory in Suji at the time was theirs, and many silkworm-farming households in Jiazhou depended on the Wang Family for their livelihood."
"The one I remember most clearly was the fourth son, Young Master Wang Yu. He’d go out every day carrying a birdcage with a talking bird inside, a... what was it called... a parrot."
"He came every week to buy a portion of braised beef. He didn’t want it wrapped in my oil paper; he brought his own beautiful little blue-and-white porcelain bowl. It had a blooming peony painted on the bottom, held about a catty of beef when full, and he even had a custom-made wooden lid that fit it perfectly. He said he was taking it to his fiancée in Jiazhou City, who just loved my braised beef."
"Later, when the little devils invaded, your grandfather was heading out of Sichuan to fight them. That Wang Yu, instead of living his comfortable life as a young master, insisted on climbing over his family’s wall to run away and join the army with your grandfather."
"After that, his fiancée married someone else. Some people said he became a traitor, others said he joined the KMT. In those turbulent times, the Wang Family was targeted by warlords because of their wealth. The family was utterly destroyed—Master Wang, his three older brothers, and all the younger ones were all killed in a great fire."