Returning to 1949, I decided to hand it over to the state.

When he was a child, his grandfather once told him that his great-grandfather was a very skilled carpenter when he was young, and that he had once made him a wooden rattle drum by hand.

That thing is very special. It's like a regular rattle drum with two small wooden balls tied to the sides with ropes to strike the drumhead.

But my great-grandfather made something different; it was a hollow drum with a movable wooden bead embedded in the center, which would make a sound when shaken.

Most importantly, the character "奎" is engraved on the drumhead.

If we can find that rattle, then it will be solid proof.

Jiang Fan first searched the windowsill in the yard, but found nothing.

His heart began to race. He walked to the front door and called out towards the kitchen:

"Aunt Su, I'll come inside and sit for a while."

Aunt Su, who was busy in the kitchen, didn't even turn her head, and responded in a loud and carefree manner:

"Go ahead, make yourself at home, sit wherever you like!"

Jiang Fan pushed open the wooden door and walked into the main room.

He didn't rummage through the drawers and cabinets; he simply scanned the furnishings in the room from left to right.

Suddenly, his gaze froze.

Right on the edge of the wooden cabinet against the wall, there was a small object.

Jiang Fan walked over quickly and carefully picked it up.

After seeing the thing in its entirety, I felt a tingling sensation running from my fingertips to my scalp.

Wooden rattle drum.

It was exactly the same as the one his grandfather had given him when he was a child.

However, the one in my hand is much newer, with the wood still showing its original light yellow color, without the patina that comes with age.

And in the very center of the drumhead, the character “奎” is clearly engraved.

Jiang Fan gripped the rattle drum tightly, frozen in place. He placed the drum flat in his palm and shook it slightly.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

The wooden beads inside rolled back and forth in the hollow drum.

In that instant, childhood memories sealed away for more than twenty years surged forth.

In my memory, Grandpa sat on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), clutching this rattle drum, gently shaking it while humming the Northeastern children's rhyme he had heard countless times:

"The moon is bright, the wind is still, and the leaves are rustling against the window..."

"The crickets chirp and sing, just like the sound of zither strings..."

"The cradle rocks gently, little baby, grow up quickly and make great contributions to the motherland..."

Back then, whenever Grandpa shook this drum and hummed this tune, he would miraculously quiet down and fall asleep quickly, even if he was crying.

I never expected him to actually show up here, wouldn't that mean...?

Before he could even begin to process his thoughts, the curtain was lifted, and Aunt Su came out of the kitchen.

She saw Jiang Fan holding the rattle drum and couldn't help but smile:

"Tiger, that's a little wooden toy your Uncle Jiang made for your brother Shunzi. If you like it, you can take it and play with it. Anyway, Shunzi has grown up, and it's just gathering dust there."

Jiang Fan opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word. He could only nod twice in response.

Aunt Su didn't pay attention to his unusual behavior and hurriedly turned around and went back to the kitchen to get busy.

The room fell silent once more.

After a long silence, Jiang Fan slowly lowered his head and uttered two very soft words:

"grandfather……"

Is this fate?

Why did I arrive at this point in time just to see where this family started?

Jiang Fan turned the wooden handle of the rattle, his mind a jumbled mess.

He remembered his family, which had always lived a life of poverty since he could remember.

Grandpa said that he later moved his whole family from Anshan to another place, and they lived a very hard life.

When Jiang Fan was old enough to remember things, there was still a list of people receiving poverty subsidies posted on the wall of his house by the neighborhood committee.

It wasn't until he was in the third grade that his family was barely lifted out of poverty, but even then, they were only able to afford enough to eat.

Later, because she was too poor, her mother insisted on leaving the Northeast, a place with no opportunities for development, and married a man in Shenzhen. However, the marriage ended in divorce a few years later.

Since then, my connection with my hometown in Northeast China has become increasingly weak.

Therefore, poverty is the root of all tragedy.

If... if I were here right now, at the very beginning of this family.

If I could leave some clues for my great-grandfather and point out the right path for this family, wouldn't everything that followed be rewritten?

The family no longer had to endure such hardship, and my mother would no longer have to leave her hometown because she disliked the poverty of Northeast China.

"I have to leave something behind... I absolutely must leave something behind!"

As he thought about it, he felt he should do something, so he immediately found a piece of paper in the room.

But he searched all his pockets and found no pen.

He rushed to the kitchen doorway, peered in anxiously, and asked:

"Aunt Su, do you have a pen at home? Can I borrow it?"

Aunt Su was arranging the rolled-out noodles on the cutting board to rest when she heard this. She turned around and smiled a little embarrassedly.

"Tiger, you know, no one in our family is literate. We've never had any of those educated people's things at home."

But after thinking for a moment, she pointed outside again:

"However, there seems to be half a talcum pencil under the windowsill in the outer room. If you don't mind, you can use it."

Jiang Fan frowned.

Talc pen?

That thing can only leave white marks on stone slabs or hard surfaces; it can't write complex characters at all.

But it's better than nothing.

He took two steps to the windowsill, grabbed the slate pencil, squatted down, and his mind raced.

If you could only leave one brief and direct piece of advice, what path would be the most reliable?

1949 was almost over. Once Beiping was peacefully liberated and the overall situation in the country was settled, the capital would be established there.

If we could get my great-grandfather to move to Beijing in a few years, we could just buy a run-down courtyard house within the Second Ring Road and hoard it...

Decades later, its value will be unimaginable.

No, you don't even need to buy a nice house. As long as you can settle down and put down roots in Beijing, your descendants will all be able to enjoy the benefits.

Yes, write this!

[Going to Beijing and settling down!]

Jiang Fan squatted down and used the slate pen to press down on the blue brick floor.

"Click!"

Whether it was because the ground was too rough or the stone pen was too weathered, the pen tip shattered into powder the moment it touched the ground.

A strong sense of anxiety welled up in Jiang Fan's heart.

He raised his left wrist and glanced at the holographic countdown.

【32: 15】

Half an hour left!

"If I run back to the Ansteel building now, grab a pen and write it down... I should have enough time."

Thinking of this, he threw the broken slate back onto the windowsill and ran out of the yard.

But as soon as he rushed out of the house, he heard Aunt Su's loud voice behind him:

"Hey, Tiger, the noodles' in the pot! Where are you going?"

Jiang Fan paused, about to turn around and say "I'll be right back," when a figure blocked the entrance to the courtyard.

Jiang Daiji came home from get off work.

When he saw that he had bumped into Jiang Fan, his eyes lit up, revealing a set of bright white teeth:

"Hey, Tiger, what are you doing here?"

He immediately grabbed Jiang Fan's arm: "Didn't you hear your Aunt Su calling you? The food's ready, where are you going?"

Those hands, used to exerting force for years, possessed astonishing strength; Jiang Fan couldn't even pull them away.

"Come on, come on, let's go inside and eat!" Jiang Daiji was so enthusiastic that he didn't allow any refusal, half-pulling, half-dragging Jiang Fan into the house.

"This young man is so big, and he still has to run around at mealtimes. No matter how important the matter is, he should eat his fill before he goes to work."

Jiang Fan was held tightly by the arm, staggering backward as he cried out in despair in his heart.

Brother, I really don't have time to eat, my time is almost up!

But after struggling for a couple of seconds without moving, Jiang Fan looked at his great-grandfather's honest and warm face and suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

Wait... I can't write without a pen.

I have a mouth!