On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, Li Ye did as he had the year before, following Wen Qingsheng and Wen Guohua around to pay New Year visits. They made do with a meal outside at noon and did not return home until the afternoon.
But when he got back, he found the entire courtyard packed with people who had come to offer New Year greetings.
Li Ye was not particularly fond of certain hollow pleasantries. For example, every year, Aunt Li from the neighborhood would bring a group of boys from neighboring households to pay him a New Year visit because he had helped arrange jobs for them.
But whenever Li Ye saw how restrained and nervous they were around him, he felt such New Year visits could just as well be skipped.
Yet the people who had come to offer greetings today truly delighted Li Ye.
Hu Man, Li Dayong, Fu Yingjie, Jiang Xiaoyan, Yan Jinbu, Han Xia. The little group of eight from back then had, remarkably, gathered together again after several years.
After the eight of them had walked out of the back courtyard of the Second Grain Store and headed for the capital together, they had still met up for meals often. But after they started working, Hu Man, Han Xia, and Li Dayong had remained in the capital, while Han Xia, Yan Jinbu, and Fu Yingjie had returned to Dongshan.
Although they still sought Li Ye out to catch up during the New Year holidays, with the eight of them scattered across two places, getting everyone together was no longer so easy.
Often, when Li Ye returned to his hometown to visit the graves, Han Xia and Yan Jinbu, the married couple, would join Fu Yingjie in looking him