My hometown, Xiaobinze, is a large gathering of villages in the northwest of Aomori Prefecture.
Although the village is large, there are only fields and mountains as far as the eye can see, and there is only one road in and out of the village. The entire village is surrounded by forests and mountains.
I have lived in Xiaobinze for as long as I can remember. I have no dissatisfaction with the secluded situation in my hometown, and I have never felt that there was anything wrong with it.
The relationship between the villagers in the village is very good. When I was a child, the villagers would treat children of my age as their own children and take care of each other. To be honest, I really like the simple countryside like Xiaobinze.
To the east of Xiaobinze is the Qingliu family, which has been uninhabited for many years.
Mr. Aoyagi from that family went to Tokyo to make a living a long time ago and is said to have made a lot of money.
In my impression, for young Binze at that time, the old house of the Qingliu family was definitely considered a luxury house.
When Mr. Aoyagi didn't come back, the key to his house had been kept by the village chief. Because it was spacious and grand enough, it was used by the village as a gathering place for occasional drinking parties. It was controlled by the village chief. As a child, I was also taken by my parents.
Been there several times.
Villagers would also use a house of Aoliu's family as a public warehouse, piling up some worthless objects that couldn't be stored at home.
When the adults in the village gathered at Aoyagi's old house to drink, they would praise Mr. Aoyagi who was still in Tokyo at that time.
He said that he had made a lot of money when he went out and was very promising. Thanks to him, even the people in the village were proud of themselves.
Maybe the idea that I would choose to go out and work hard in Tokyo came to me at that time.
Little Binze has always been so harmonious and calm.
Until Mr. Qingliu comes back.
I heard from people in the village that Mr. Aoyagi came home this time because of his mother. His mother was ill. I have no memory of the specific illness now. I only know that when he was in Tokyo, Mr. Aoyagi spent a lot of money to treat his mother.
I made a lot of money and even sold my house in Tokyo.
Later, his mother's illness seemed to have improved, and the mother and son, who had no place to live in Tokyo, simply moved back to their hometown of Xiaobinze.
In the countryside, Mr. Aoyagi's mother can also receive recuperation.
After their mother and son returned to Xiaobinze, the right to use the Qingliu family's old house would of course return to its original owner.
The clutter that the villagers had piled up in their homes was also vacated.
The people in the village seemed to welcome Qingliu and her son back and were very enthusiastic towards them. However, privately, I heard a lot of discussions, including from my parents, who would also mutter complaints to their neighbors behind their backs——
"That family, really, it's already this time, why are they still coming back?"
"As expected, money is not that easy to make in Tokyo. Of course, when you have no money, you will come back in despair."
"Don't say that, even if you have no money, you are still a Tokyoite. Look at their house, that car. Gee, didn't you say that all the houses in Tokyo were sold? Why did you bring the car back? Isn't it just to be here?
Show off in front of us country folk."
"Haha, Tokyoites."
"..."
People in the village would privately call Aoyagi and her son "Tokyo people". That look and tone were definitely not praise.
Because there were so many discussions, I am still deeply impressed.
However, as a teenager, I have a very good memory of Mr. Qingliu. I remember him as a very steady, cheerful and polite man. He must have been in his forties when he returned to Xiaobinze.
Probably because he just moved back, people in the village often ask him to help with chores such as weeding and moving heavy objects. Mr. Aoyagi doesn't complain and always gets things done happily.
He probably wants to have a good relationship with everyone and reintegrate into his hometown.
In my memory, the first time I had direct contact with Mr. Aoyagi was a few months after he came back.
That day I was returning to Xiaobinze from the school in Hakkoda Town. I was walking on the road when I suddenly heard the sound of a horn behind me and someone calling my name.
When I turned around, I saw Mr. Aoyagi's car.
I still remember that car very clearly. It was a very old Toyota AA. It was a rarity at the time and could not be seen even in Hakkoda.
Mr. Qingliu rolled down the window and greeted me: "Xiao Wang, you are tired from walking back to the village. Do you want me to see you off?"
It takes about an hour to walk back to Xiaobinze from the school in Hakkoda. Even as a child, I can see that the people in the village, including my parents, don’t really like Aoyagi and her son. But I like it very much.
Mr. Qingliu, who was smiling, happily accepted his invitation and got into the car and asked him to take me back.
Mr. Aoyagi's mother was sitting in the passenger seat at that time. She was a very kind grandmother.
They seemed to be coming back from the hospital over in Hakkoda, where Grandma Aoyagi had to go for regular check-ups.
"The car is so awesome."
I got in the car and was very curious about the two Toyota AAs.
"Actually, it's not that powerful. It's just a second-hand car. I bought it before I came back to make it easier to go to the hospital."
Mr. Aoyagi just said this.
Along the way, he told me a lot about Tokyo. He said that he actually did not make a lot of money in Tokyo as the people in the village said. He said that life in Tokyo was actually very hard, but what Mr. Aoyagi talked about on TV
Airports, shopping malls, underground trams, high-rise buildings...
What he described was a world that I had never seen or been exposed to, which made me full of longing for Tokyo.
"Xiao Wang, as long as you study hard, you can also go see the outside world." Mr. Qingliu said to me with a smile while driving.
After that, on the way back from school, I would occasionally meet Mr. Aoyagi and his son, and they would still invite me to get in the car and give me a ride.
When I returned to Xiaobinze, Mr. Qingliu would invite me to his home and treat me to snacks.
I had quite a happy time there.
My parents also knew about my contact with Mr. Aoyagi. Although my father said, "Don't stay with outsiders all the time," he didn't stop me too much.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Until that thing happens——
That day, the villagers gathered together for a drink again, and the venue of the reception was of course Mr. Aoyagi's house. Mr. Aoyagi was semi-forced to drink a lot of wine, and he soon became drunk and unconscious.
After the meeting, my father returned home and said in a proud tone: "Tokyo people are not good at it. They only drank half of the drink and then left us country folk to fall asleep."
The next day, a huge commotion broke out in the village.
Originally, on this day, Mr. Aoyagi and the village chief agreed to drive him to Hakkoda. However, because Mr. Aoyagi was drunk the night before, he probably didn't tell his mother about it, so he couldn't wake up in time in the morning.
come over.
The village chief waited for him at his house until noon, and became angry because of this. Feeling that he had been slighted and insulted, he became furious.
I followed my father to the old house of the Qingliu family in the east, which was surrounded by villagers.
The villagers, who were usually a group of amiable people, blushed and cursed at the Qingliu family:
"That's outrageous!"
"Do the people in the city look down on us?"
"Get out! Bastard!"
Just because Mr. Qingliu overslept, the villagers scolded him fiercely, and finally had to kneel down to apologize to the village chief.
But this matter did not end there.
The most powerful person in Xiao Binze is the village chief. Perhaps under his instruction, or perhaps the villagers reached an agreement based on rural rules - Xiao Binze implemented the "eight points of the village" against Qingliu mother and son.
.
The villagers completely ignored the existence of Qingliu mother and son.
Even if Mr. Qingliu greets other people, they will only sneer, look away with disdain, and say: "Oh, oh, that's strange, where did the fool come from to scream?"
Or if you meet Mr. Qingliu on the road, the villagers will walk past him and take the initiative to find trouble, yelling: "Don't block the way, do you want to die?"
This kind of childish isolation and bullying is completely unlike what a normal-thinking adult would do, but everyone in the village continued this behavior uniformly, as if everything was going according to plan.
My parents are the same. They yelled at me more than once: "You are not allowed to go to Qingliu's house again, you are not allowed to ride in his car, and you are not allowed to interact with him! If you dare to contact that kind of unruly person,
Our family will end up like that!"
Mr. Aoyagi probably knows this too.
Anyway, after that, even when I came back from Hakkoda's school and met Mr. Aoyagi's car, he never stopped to invite me to get in the car.
I really have never been to Qingliu’s house again.
Later, everyone in Xiaobinze still lived in harmony with each other, but they still isolated Qingliu mother and son, and the troublemakers in the village would find trouble with Mr. Qingliu from time to time.
To be continued...