Sold into a ghost marriage? Four-year-old and his thuggish father go on a killing spree.

"Looking for someone? Looking for a truck driver named Zhang Dacheng?"

In the dispatch room of Qinghe County Automobile Transportation Company, a middle-aged man in charge of registration looked up from a thick pile of files, glanced at Gu Yanqiu and his daughter, and said in a somewhat impatient tone.

"Our company has at least 80 to 100 drivers with the surname Zhang, and seven or eight of them are named Zhang Dacheng! Which one are you talking about?"

In an era without computers and the internet,

Finding one person from hundreds or thousands of employees is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Gu Yanqiu smiled and handed him a "Daqianmen" cigarette.

"Comrade, please think of something for him. He's probably in his thirties, and he drives a blue Jiefang truck."

It mainly runs long-distance coal transport routes to the south.

There's a cigarette burn scar on the back of my left hand.

The dispatcher took the cigarette, tucked it behind his ear, and softened his tone.

He looked down and flipped through a thick, yellowed driver's roster, muttering to himself.

"Zhang Dacheng... ran the southern route... drove the Liberation Army..."

He flipped through several pages, his finger suddenly stopping on a name.

"Huh? There's actually one that matches!"

The dispatcher pointed to an entry on the roster, "Zhang Dacheng, thirty-three years old, from the third team, he does indeed run the coal transport line to Jincheng. However... he went on a long-distance trip this month and won't be back for at least ten days to two weeks."

"Then... then can we know which specific route he's running? Where will he stop and rest along the way?" Gu Yanqiu hurriedly asked.

"The route is fixed, and we usually rest overnight at the service station in Shuanghe Town." The dispatcher thought for a moment and then added, "But don't make a wasted trip. Long-distance drivers don't have fixed schedules, and sometimes they don't even stop in order to get to their destination."

Although the chances are slim, this is the only clue.

Gu Yanqiu thanked the dispatcher and left the transportation company with Niannian.

For three consecutive days, after school each afternoon, Gu Yanqiu would ride his bicycle with Niannian for dozens of miles to the dusty service station in Shuanghe Town to wait for her.

Service stations are places where truck drivers traveling north and south can rest and have a break. The air is always filled with a complex smell of sweat, smoke and low-quality diesel fuel.

Every day, countless large trucks roar past, kicking up clouds of dust.

Gu Niannian stood at the entrance of the service station, her eyes wide open, not missing a single blue Jiefang truck.

Whenever a car stops, she runs over and politely asks the driver if he knows a driver named Zhang Dacheng.

Some drivers waved their hands impatiently, while others looked at the pretty young girl with curiosity, and still others kindly told her that Zhang Dacheng might have changed routes.

Hope was ignited time and time again, only to be extinguished time and time again.

By the evening of the fourth day, it was already getting dark.

A blue Jiefang truck, covered in mud and panting heavily, slowly drove into the service station.

The car door opened, and a tall man with a full beard jumped out.

He took off his greasy gloves, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and took a deep drag.

it's him!

When he raised his left hand to brush off the cigarette ash, Gu Niannian clearly saw the small, round scar on the back of his hand!

"Uncle Zhang!"

Gu Niannian could no longer contain her excitement and ran towards him, shouting loudly.

The burly man who was wolfing down a bowl of vegetarian noodles looked up in confusion when he heard the shout.

He looked at the little girl in front of him with pigtails and big, bright eyes, completely bewildered.

"Little girl, did you call me?"

"Uncle Zhang, it's me!" Gu Niannian ran up to him, panting, her face flushed. "More than a year ago, in winter, you saved me by the roadside outside Baima Town!"

Zhang Dacheng was stunned, and he tried hard to search his memory.

Having driven long distances for so many years, he has encountered too many things on the road to remember them all.

"Did I save you by the roadside?"

"Yes!" Gu Niannian reminded him urgently, "I was wearing red clothes, lying in the snow, almost freezing to death! You carried me into the car and took me to Baima Town, where you entrusted me to an auntie at the supply and marketing cooperative!"

"Red clothes...snowy ground..."

Zhang Dacheng's pupils suddenly contracted!

He remembered!

How could he possibly forget!

That day, the snow was falling as big as goose feathers. As he was driving, he saw a glaring red patch in the snowdrift by the roadside in the distance.

He thought it was a lost package, but when he stopped the car, he found a little girl whose lips were purple from the cold and who was barely breathing!

He was terrified and didn't even have time to take the child to the hospital. He had no choice but to try anything, so he put the child in the car, wrapped him in his cotton coat, and drove all the way to the nearest town, Baima, where he handed the child over to a kind-looking older woman.

He inquired about it later, but nothing came of it.

He always thought that the child wouldn't survive.

A four-and-a-half-year-old child, in the dead of winter,

Lying half-dead in the freezing snow...

To survive is like the King of Hell falling asleep and releasing the wrong person!

"You...you..." Zhang Dacheng's lips trembled, and his hands holding the bowl of noodles shook. "You...you're that...that little girl we picked up by the roadside?!"

"You're still alive?!"

His voice suddenly rose, filled with immense shock and ecstasy!

"Yes! I'm still alive!" Gu Niannian nodded vigorously, her eyes reddening.

She opened the cloth bag she had been holding and took out two pounds of brown sugar wrapped in red paper and a pair of black cloth shoes with layered soles.

"Uncle Zhang, thank you for saving my life. This is a small token of my appreciation; please accept it."

She had to beg Aunt Wang for several days before she learned how to make those cloth shoes.

The soles are thick and evenly stitched with fine stitches, showing that a lot of effort has been put into them.

Zhang Dacheng looked at the cloth shoes, then at the lively, bright-eyed little girl in front of him.

This rugged man, who had traveled all over the country and seen countless storms, suddenly had tears welling up in his eyes.

He abruptly put down the bowl of noodles in his hand, grabbed the pair of cloth shoes as if they were some rare treasure.

He turned around, faced his stunned coworkers, and roared with all his might:

"See that?! Look carefully, you bastards!"

"I've never done anything particularly significant in my life! I just damn well saved a little girl's life on the street!"

"She's come to repay my debt of gratitude!!"

The roar echoed through the noisy service station, drawing everyone's attention with surprise and admiration.

Zhang Dacheng pulled Gu Niannian to sit next to him and insisted on pushing his half-eaten bowl of noodles to her.

The father and daughter talked with him for a long time, about the changes over the past year, the promotion station, and interesting things that happened at school.

Zhang Dacheng listened with a mixture of sighs and laughter, as if he were releasing all the worries and fears he had accumulated over the past year.

It was completely dark by then, and the father and daughter should go home.

As she was leaving, Gu Niannian turned back to the tall figure and said loudly again, "Uncle Zhang, I will remember you for the rest of my life!"

Zhang Dacheng stood beside the truck, waving his hand vigorously. In the moonlight, two streams of hot tears could be seen on his dark face.

On her way home, Gu Niannian put a checkmark next to Zhang Dacheng's name.

She felt a sense of peace she had never known before.

There are still a few names left on the list of people to repay kindness.

Aunt Li Huilan lives in the county town; she's not hard to find.

Aunt Wang lived in the village, and we saw her all the time. The way I repay her is through the constant companionship and filial piety I show her.

The hardest person to find was Cheng Fulai, the first benefactor who pulled her out of despair.

The old man who took her to the brigade headquarters, watched her reunite with her father, and then quietly left.

Gu Yanqiu took Niannian and searched the county town for several days.

They asked everyone they might know, but to no avail.

Cheng Fulai seemed to have vanished into thin air, never to be seen again.

Where is he?

Did they return to another village? Or did they go to a place even further away?

Just when Gu Niannian was feeling somewhat discouraged, while inquiring about information at the transportation company, she overheard a place name from two drivers chatting.

"...You mean that schoolteacher from the south? I've heard of him. He's in the Red Star Commune. His handwriting is absolutely beautiful! It's a pity, I heard he used to be a professor at some university, but he was labeled a rightist..."

The driver didn't dare say anything more.

But the words "Red Star Commune" and "schoolteacher" were like nails, firmly etched into Gu Niannian's mind.

Could Grandpa Cheng Fulai be there?

Or, what might that schoolteacher know?