Chapter 45: Snow blocks the mountain and delays return

Then, after sending his little cousin home, Li Yaoguang went to the market the next morning and bought daily necessities such as oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, and coarse cloth, cotton and cloth shoes. He also asked the child to shout in their village and spent several hundred yuan to buy two laying hens, a hundred eggs, and a bus of winter vegetables such as turnips and radishes that they had stored in the autumn.

After the two sides dealt with each other more and more, they gradually became familiar with each other. Li Yaoguang also knew that the child who spoke to him at the beginning was called Sandan. So he found an honest young man through Sandan's family, and renovated their house that was leaking at night. He also hired a hardworking and clean woman to work as a temporary worker in his house. Li Yaoguang paid her 600 coins a month, but the work was just some washing and cooking. She worked during the day and went home at night. The money was not much but not too little. She did not stand out and did not attract the attention of the village head.

Three days had passed when everything was settled.

Li Yaoguang was also afraid that he would lose his job if he took too long a leave, so after dinner that night, Li Yaoguang told his aunt and uncle that he wanted to return to Beijing the next day.

Yu Meixue and Cheng Su both knew that she was going to tell stories to earn money. In the end, it was the three of them who had implicated the child. They felt heartbroken to see the child returning to Beijing alone to support the family.

Yu Meixue worked hard at night, holding the cloth and cotton bought by Li Yaoguang, thinking about making a thick windproof cloak for the child as soon as possible. She was reluctant to leave and made preparations for separation. However, the weather was not good. In the middle of the night, it started to drizzle with freezing rain. Within half an hour, the freezing rain turned into icy snow, which continued to drizzle, and then turned into heavy snow. In almost the blink of an eye, there was only white between the sky and the earth.

Li Yaoguang got up early the next morning and prepared to go out. Looking at the thick snow on the ground and the roof, she couldn't help but feel lucky that she had spent a few taels of silver to renovate the house. Otherwise, with such heavy snow, wouldn't their roof beams have collapsed last night?

It snowed heavily for most of the night, and the snow on the road was as high as her calves. However, Li Yaoguang did not want to go back on her word. She thought that the small road was difficult to walk on, and she should be able to walk on the official road, so she insisted on going. Yu Meixue's persuasion was in vain, and she could only watch her niece go to the village to find a car.

Li Yaoguang was fully armed and wearing the cotton cape newly made by his aunt, he went to Sandan's village. Before he entered the village, he heard the shouts and the sound of sweeping snow from afar. It turned out that no one expected the snow to be so heavy this year, and they were afraid that the house would collapse, so they were sweeping the snow on the roofs and in front of and behind the houses.

Sandan's family was delighted to see Li Yaoguang coming, but when they learned that he was coming back to Beijing, Sandan's father looked miserable.

"Master Guang, it's not that I don't want to take you, it's just that the heavy snow has blocked the road and the oxcart can't go, and it's snowing in this weather! I'm afraid the official road is also blocked. In this situation, the carriages and horses of the big caravans can't move, how can Master Guang go? Master Guang, if you believe in me, why don't you wait for a few days, until the snow melts and the sun comes out for a day or two so that the road is easy to walk on, and I will take you to Beijing without saying anything, okay?"

Li Yaoguang looked at the heavy snow still falling from the sky and sighed. He still underestimated the road traffic conditions at that time. It was completely incomparable to the large-scale infrastructure of later countries.

Li Yaoguang went back home with a desperate hope, thinking that he would just wait, but several days passed by and the day was like a leak, with heavy snow coming on and off, and the snow on the ground was not melting, but piling up higher and higher. The road out of the mountain was completely blocked, and the whole world was white and silent.

Li Yaoguang was getting really anxious waiting for the snow to stop and melt. The three-day holiday was delayed for almost a week. She didn't know what was happening with Weimeilou and Yaxiange. Would they suffer losses because of her? Would they come back to settle the score with her?

Even if she doesn't look for him, as a person who relies on others for a living, she can't just eat from the bowl and then throw it away and deny her responsibility, right?
For the sake of her professional ethics, Li Yaoguang, feeling uneasy, decided to go back. If she couldn't rent a car, she would think of other ways.

In the daytime, she was sitting in the yard in the wind and snow, making a lot of noises and no one knew what she was doing. Yu Meixue came up to ask out of curiosity. When she learned that her niece was actually trying to get a snowboard and was even planning to go back to Kyoto, she was so anxious that she couldn't help but pull her husband to persuade her. "Sister Guang, there is so much snow that you can be buried in it. How can you go out? Be obedient and don't make trouble! This is a matter of life and death!"

Li Yaoguang waved the simple ski in his hand to comfort him, "It's okay, uncle, and aunt, I can walk on the snow normally with this thing in my hand, and I won't sink into it, don't worry."

Seeing that Li Yaoguang was being stubborn and being looked at by his wife, Cheng Su turned around and expressed his firm disagreement.

"You can't get stuck in it. It's such a long way back to Kyoto. Even if you take a carriage, you have to spend a night on the road. What's more, you plan to walk there alone, especially in such weather! No, absolutely not. You have to listen to me this time. Anyway, your aunt and I don't agree!"

"uncle!"

"You can't call me uncle anymore!"

Seeing that her husband was rarely tough, and also afraid that her niece would be stubborn and run away without saying goodbye, Yu Meixue grabbed Li Yaoguang's arm tightly with her cold hands and tried to persuade her earnestly.

"My son, please listen to your uncle's advice, okay? I know you are anxious, but my son, no matter how anxious or important other things are, they are not as important as your life! My son, if something happens to you on the way, how can I live? Be good, be obedient, and let's wait a little longer. When the snow melts, we will never stop you."

"But Manager Qian and the others..."

"I think Manager Qian and the others can understand! Sister Guang, with such heavy snow, not to mention you, even in Kyoto, I'm afraid every household will be shut up and no one can move. Even if the situation in Kyoto is still okay, Yaxian Pavilion and Weimeilou are really anxious for you to go back. Seeing that you haven't returned yet, they will definitely send someone to inquire, right? Since they haven't come, the situation is still stable. In this case, why don't you wait a little longer, my son?"

"Yes, yes, cousin won't leave. Be good, Yangyang, cousin won't leave..."

Well, they wouldn't let her leave, even her little cousin came to join in the fun. Li Yaoguang could only suppress her anxious heart and calm down temporarily, thinking to herself, "Just wait." She just didn't believe that the snow would fall endlessly and last for the whole winter.
But, this snow is really fucked up.

There was no rain for the entire next winter, but it still drizzled on and off for more than a month, and it seemed that it would not stop completely until the end of the year.

Being pestered by her family again, Li Yaoguang waited patiently for several days. When the sky cleared up, Li Yaoguang could not even wait for the snow on the ground to melt completely. The muddy ground was not dry yet. She rented a car from the village and went to the official road. On the way, she stopped a caravan that was also blocked by heavy snow and hurried into Beijing.

(End of this chapter)