I couldn't take it anymore; when I went home for Chinese New Year, the family genealogy book ha

The high-rise buildings are gone.

The glass curtain walls and commercial signs have disappeared, replaced by densely packed corrugated iron roofs and rusty scaffolding.

The road surface changed from a smooth asphalt road to a bumpy gravel road, forcing the convoy to slow down.

Wang Dagou pressed his face against the car window, his nose almost flattened.

"My goodness..."

Outside the window was a narrow alley. The houses on both sides leaned precariously against each other, their walls peeling away to reveal gray-black bricks. Wires tangled overhead like a spiderweb; any one of them could break and electrocute someone.

In the middle of the alley, there was an open, stinking ditch, with green sewage slowly flowing forward. The air was filled with a sour, rotten smell, mixed with the aroma of curry and cooking oil.

Several barefoot children were squatting by the ditch playing in the mud. When they saw the convoy passing by, their eyes widened.

"How come this place is even poorer than our old Qingshui Town?" Wang Dagou clicked his tongue. "Do the descendants of Second Great-Grandfather live here?"

Jiang Chen didn't answer. He stared at the radar screen on his phone; the red dot was getting closer and closer.

"The road ahead is too narrow for the car to pass," the driver said in broken Chinese.

"Stop the car, let's walk." Jiang Chen opened the car door.

The sweltering tropical air mingled with the stench of the sewer, assaulting our senses.

Jiang Chen got out of the car first, then reached out to help the old man out. As soon as Jiang Wanshan's feet touched the gravel road, his leather shoes were covered in a layer of dust.

The old man looked around, his expression shifting from anticipation to shock, and then from shock to heartache.

"Let's go, Great-Grandpa." Jiang Chen supported the old man with one hand and held up his phone with the other to check the direction.

Wang Dagou led the way with six security guards, followed by Ding Xiu. Attorney Zhou followed in the middle, carrying a briefcase.

The group walked through the alley, attracting the attention of many local residents.

Although this group of people were not dressed in a fancy way, their aura was different. Ding Xiu, in particular, was 1.85 meters tall and walked at the back of the group with a blank expression. The oppressive feeling he gave way to the locals who passed by.

It turned two corners.

The red dot on the radar is about 20 meters ahead.

Jiang Chen raised his head.

At the end of the alley is a small crossroads. On the northwest corner of the crossroads, under a crooked palm tree, stands a dilapidated little stall.

A crooked wooden board was propped up on the stall, with three Chinese characters written crookedly on it in calligraphy: "Selling Soy Milk".

Behind the stall was a stone mill. The millstone was very old, the edges were worn smooth, and white soy milk stains remained on the gray millstone.

An old man was hunched over, pushing the wooden handle of a stone mill, turning it round and round.

The old man was skin and bones. He was hunched over, his spine pressing against his worn-out, almost tattered undershirt. His trousers were too long, the cuffs rolled up several times, and he was barefoot, his feet covered in cracks and calluses.

But his movements as he pushed the millstone were very steady. Even with the veins on his arms bulging, the speed and force of each rotation were perfect.

Jiang Chen stopped in his tracks.

He glanced at his phone.

The red dot on the radar completely overlapped with this old man.

Jiang Yaohua.

Ninety-six years old.

The third son of Jiang Fuhai, the second great-grandfather.

Jiang Chen turned to look at the old man behind him.

Jiang Wanshan also stopped.

His eyes were fixed on the old man pushing the millstone, and the cane in his hand trembled on the gravel ground.

The old man pushing the millstone seemed to sense something, and his movements slowed down. He straightened up—with considerable effort—and turned his head, his cloudy eyes looking this way.

In that instant, Jiang Chen saw the old man's face clearly.

The wrinkles were deep, as if etched by a knife. His cheekbones were high, his chin thin, and his eye sockets sunken. But the shape of his brow bone, the curve of his forehead, and the outline of his ears—

He bears a resemblance to Jiang Wanshan, about six or seven points.

The old man tapped his cane on the ground twice and took a step forward.

My throat is as dry as sandpaper.

"You are... Yaohua?"

The old man pushing the millstone was stunned.

He looked at the group of people in front of him—seven or eight burly men in black vests, a young man carrying a briefcase, and a tall man with an intimidating aura—and then his gaze finally settled on the white-haired old man with a cane at the front.

Jiang Yaohua's eyesight wasn't very good anymore. He squinted, struggling to make out the face of the person who had just arrived.

I can't recognize him.

More than seventy years have passed, and the two men have gone from young to old, and neither of them recognizes the other.

But Jiang Wanshan pulled something out of his pocket.

A jade pendant.

It's a family heirloom from the Jiang family. A palm-sized, emerald-green piece of Xiuyan jade, carved with an old pine tree. When the old master's father passed it down to him, he said, "You can lose anything, but you can't lose this jade. If one day your second uncle's descendants return, show this to them, and they'll know they're family."

The jade pendant gleamed with a warm glow under the tropical sun.

Jiang Yaohua's gaze fell on the piece of jade.

His body seemed to have been paused. He froze in place, the wooden handle of the millstone slipping from his hand and crashing down on the side of the millstone with a loud thud.

A good ten seconds or so passed.

"Big...Big Brother?"

Jiang Yaohua's voice was so hoarse that it was almost inaudible, like a piece of old paper that had been crumpled for seventy years, with each fold making a sound when it was unfolded.

He took a step forward.

Her legs were too thin, and her knees bent too much, causing her to fall forward.

Jiang Chen reacted quickly, rushing forward and catching him in his arms.

The arm of the 96-year-old man was as light as a piece of withered wood.

After Jiang Chen helped Jiang Yaohua steady himself, he reached out with his other hand, which trembling, and grabbed Jiang Wanshan's arm.

Those withered hands had soybean residue embedded in their fingernails.

"Big brother!"

The shout pierced his throat.

Tears welled up in Jiang Yaohua's cloudy old eyes, streaming down his face and dripping onto the gravel ground beneath his feet.

"Brother, I've let the Jiang family down!"

As soon as he finished speaking, all his strength dissipated, and he leaned on Jiang Chen and Jiang Wanshan, his voice broken and intermittent.

"Back then, I was swindled out of all my savings in business... My father told me to go back before he died, but I was too ashamed... I had no face to go back and face my ancestors..."

He raised his hand, which was covered in soybean residue, and pointed to the dilapidated soy milk stall behind him.

"I've been selling soy milk here for forty years... and I can't even afford a decent shop... I've brought shame to the Jiang family!"

When he called out "Big Brother," his voice had already turned into a sob.

Wang Dagou, a burly man over 1.8 meters tall, stood behind and hissed, turned his face to the side, and rubbed the corner of his eye hard with the back of his hand.

Attorney Zhou hugged his briefcase to his chest, and his glasses fogged up.

Ding Xiu stood at the very back, his expression still cold, but the hand that was twisting the lid of the thermos stopped.

Jiang Wanshan patted Jiang Yaohua's thin hand.

He was also shedding tears.

The 78-year-old man, who rarely shed tears and kept his copper pipe tucked in his pocket, now had tears welling up in his eyes.

"As long as the person is still alive, that's fine."

Jiang Wanshan's voice was hoarse, but every word was spoken with force.

"Your older brother has come to take you home."

He freed one hand and patted Jiang Yaohua on the back. The bones on Jiang's back were hard to the touch.

"Our Jiang family is not short of money now. Better days are ahead."

Jiang Yaohua clung to Jiang Wanshan's arm, his face streaked with tears and snot, repeating the same few words over and over.

"I'm so sorry to my father... I'm so sorry to my father... When he passed away, he kept thinking about our old home, the ancestral hall, and that old locust tree..."

Jiang Chen squatted down beside him, supporting Jiang Yaohua's back with one hand and taking out a tissue from his pocket with the other and handing it to him.

He didn't urge him.

Some things can't be rushed.

More than seventy years of separation cannot be explained in just a few minutes.

Beside the stall, a man in his forties poked his head out of the tin shack.

The man was dark-skinned and thin, wearing a ripped blue short-sleeved shirt and clutching half a steamed bun in his hand. Seeing so many people gathered at his doorstep, he turned pale with fright.

"Grandpa...Grandpa? Who are these people—"

Jiang Yaohua wiped his face, turned around and looked at the man, his voice still trembling.

"Ming'er, come here. These are relatives from your great-grandfather's generation. They're from our hometown."

The man named Jiang Ming stood frozen at the doorway, half a steamed bun falling to the ground.

Jiang Chen stood up and glanced at the tin shack.

The situation inside the room was immediately apparent—a wooden bed with a missing leg propped up by bricks, a blackened old iron pot, several bags of soybeans piled on the floor, and a broken fan in the corner, its blades covered in dust.

This is all the wealth that the descendants of the second great-grandfather have accumulated over seventy years of hard work in Southeast Asia.

Jiang Chen took all of this in without saying anything.

But his hands were already clenched.

At the street corner, several locals were peering in this direction, whispering among themselves.

Then, the roar of a motorcycle came from deep within the alley.