Encounter on the Road

Encountering on the Road

Rumble~

The weather in July changed in the blink of an eye. One moment the sky was clear and sunny, and the next it was covered in dark thunderheads with rolling cracks of thunder.

A heavy downpour could strike at any moment.

Gao Jing, riding his motorcycle along the mountain path, looked up at the sky and cursed his bad luck inwardly.

He was still thirty or forty kilometers away from the provincial capital. There was neither a village ahead nor a shop behind, and he could not even find a place to take shelter from the rain. He was definitely going to get soaked like a drowned rat.

If he had only known, he should have brought a raincoat. He had been tricked by the weather forecast!

With no other choice, Gao Jing could only twist the throttle all the way and charge forward at top speed.

Optimistically thinking, as long as he rode fast enough, the heavy rain would not be able to catch up.

Bang!

He never imagined that just as the motorcycle surged forward about a hundred meters, the front tire would run over a muddy pothole and instantly lose its balance, sending him crashing heavily to the ground.

Gao Jing took a glorious face-plant right on the spot—the kind where his face hit the earth first.

The stinging sensation was simply impossible to describe in words!

Fortunately, he was wearing a safety helmet, so despite the wretched fall, his most important head was completely unharmed.

That could be considered the greatest of misfortunes' lucky breaks.

Gao Jing struggled to climb up from the ground, only to see that the skin on his right hand was scraped raw, oozing bright red blood.

Luckily, the situation wasn't too serious.

Bringing the bleeding wound to his mouth, he sucked on it to clear away the clinging sand and dirt, then turned his head and spat out the blood-stained saliva.

Compared to this minor injury, he cared much more about his eight-hand-me-down old motorcycle.

Wrecked as it was, he had still bought it with over a thousand large silver dollars.

He had to know that this was Gao Jing's most important tool of productivity, and he relied entirely on it for commuting and running errands for work every day.

As a result, Gao Jing discovered with depression that the front tire of the motorcycle had already blown out, pierced through by something that had ripped open a large gash.

There was no way to patch it!

Rumble!

The thunder grew even louder, sounding like a landlord roaring to collect rent.

Soul-stirring and bone-chilling.

Gao Jing smiled bitterly as he sat down by the roadside, fished out a cigarette and a lighter from his pants pocket, and lit one for himself.

He basically never smoked ordinarily; carrying cigarettes on him was entirely for work needs.

But he wanted to smoke now.

The cigarette smoke curled and drifted, blurring Gao Jing's eyes.

His life over the past twenty-six years was like a traditional Chinese tea table, covered entirely with tragedy cups.

Ever since he had memories from childhood, his parents' relationship had been extremely wretched, spending whole days either quarreling or fighting without a single day of peace.

The year he was five years old, his parents divorced and quickly established new families respectively.

And they had new children.

Gao Jing was dumped on his grandfather to raise; although both parents were still alive, it was entirely the same as having none.

When he was eighteen years old, his grandfather fell severely ill, burning through all his savings along with selling his only house, yet still failing to reclaim his life.

Before passing away, his grandfather was still full of guilt, believing that he had dragged Gao Jing down.

This was an eternal pain in Gao Jing's heart.

That same year, he failed the college entrance examinations; with the foundation of a key university, he ended up barely passing the tier-two threshold.

Gao Jing chose not to retake the exam, finishing university by relying on student loans and odd jobs.

After graduation, he entered a trading company in the provincial capital to work, slogging diligently for four years, during which he experienced several setbacks, friends turning hostile, his girlfriend breaking up...

Until now, he was still a low-level junior sales clerk.

Today Gao Jing had run over to a remote small factory here to press for a debt collection.

As a result, the money hadn't been secured, and he had crashed halfway.

Taking a fierce final drag of his cigarette, Gao Jing pursed his lips, which still carried a bloody taste, and stood back up.

Refusing to give up, he inspected the front tire of the motorcycle once more, vainly attempting to find a remedy.

Eh?

Gao Jing noticed an object that appeared to be made of metal, stuck deeply into the tire rubber.

This was obviously the culprit that caused the blowout.

Driven by a trace of curiosity and resentment, Gao Jing reached out and pulled it out with great effort.

He wanted to see what on earth had made him so unlucky!

This was an anchor.

It was merely the size of an infant's palm, showing a bronze color. Whether it was the left and right curved flukes, the cross-shaped shank, or the circular ring anchor shackle at the very top, it was crafted with exquisite precision.

And it was heavy with a solid weight to it.

What made people marvel was that the shank was shaped like a flood dragon, opening its wide mouth to bite the shackle. The dragon's body scales were dense and distinct piece by piece, among which several scales on the neck gleamed with a light resembling pure silver.

Whose was dropped here?

Gao Jing could not help feeling somewhat astonished.

This thing looked like a work of art and seemed rather valuable.

He turned it over in his hand to play with it, but unfortunately, blood oozing from his wound accidentally brushed against the bronze anchor.

Drip, drip!

The sudden sound of a horn ringing from behind startled Gao Jing back to his senses.

He whipped his head around to look, seeing that a Jeep had arrived from somewhere behind him, parked just a few meters away.

"Sorry about that."

Gao Jing hurriedly waved at the other person, rushing over to prop up the fallen motorcycle and prepare to push it to the side of the road.

The mountain path wasn't wide, and he was blocking the other person's way.

As for the bronze anchor that caused all this, Gao Jing casually stuffed it into his pants pocket.

"Friend, what's going on?"

A burly man wearing a cowboy hat stepped down from the Jeep.

Gao Jing said helplessly, "Blown tire."

The man leaned in to take a look. "That's blown pretty badly. You'll need to change the tire."

Gao Jing was depressed. "Yeah."

The man looked up at the sky and said, "It's about to rain. Are you heading back to Cloud City? I'll give you a ride back."

Gao Jing expressed his gratitude. "Thanks, brother."

Yet thinking about how his motorcycle was going to be abandoned in the wilderness, he inevitably felt tangled up inside again.

A poor man could not afford such blows.

Reading his expressions, the man smiled and said, "Bring your motorcycle along too; the truck bed of my vehicle can fit it."

"Then thank you so much!"

Gao Jing was truly endlessly grateful—he had run into a good person.

The man drove the Jeep forward, and the two of them worked together with one heart to lift the motorcycle onto the truck bed of the Jeep.

Just as Gao Jing sat down in the front passenger seat, raindrops the size of beans descended from the sky, pattering loudly as they struck the windshield.

He said sincerely, "Brother, thanks to you this time truly. I'll treat you to a meal when we get back."

"No need to be so polite."

The man shook his head. "Everyone encounters difficulties at times. When you can help, of course you should help; it's not a big deal anyway."

Gao Jing didn't speak, only feeling warmth arise in his heart.

Only after witnessing the coldness of the world and the shifting warmth of human relationships did he realize how precious a stranger's help and a word of warm speech were.

There were still many good people in this world.

The man reached out to open the glove box, took out a first-aid kit, and handed it to Gao Jing. "There's iodine and hemostatic bandages inside. Wrap your hand up yourself so it doesn't get infected."

"Thank you."

Gao Jing hurriedly took it, and while cleaning and bandaging himself, he asked, "What is your honorable surname, brother?"

This warm-hearted, burly man was named Jing Zhiyong, in his thirties, and his profession was a traveler combined with a meteorite hunter.

The traveler part needed no further explanation; the so-called meteorite hunters were treasure seekers roaming Gobi deserts, barrens, great mountains, and ice fields to search for outer-space meteorites.

A week ago, a shooting star had fallen in the Lion Peak Mountain Region, and Jing Zhiyong had come specifically hearing the news to hunt for the meteorite.

Gao Jing listened with interest. "Then did you find any meteorite?"

He had seen local news on his Moments about a star falling on Lion Peak Mountain, along with videos and photos.

"I searched for five or six days and didn't see even a single grain of meteorite dust."

Jing Zhiyong replied while driving the car, "Meteorites in the mountains are the hardest to find. I just treated this as coming out to play."

This hunter brother was quite talkative, and having traveled north and south, he was broadly knowledgeable. Along the way, he chatted and laughed with Gao Jing, telling strange anecdotes and interesting stories that quickly swept away his depression.

Gao Jing also told Jing Zhiyong some things about himself.

The two of them grew familiar with each other because of this.

By the time they reached the provincial capital, the heavy rain had stopped.

Jing Zhiyong drove Gao Jing straight to a repair shop and helped unload the motorcycle from the truck bed.

"Xiao Gao."

Once it was all done, Jing Zhiyong said to Gao Jing, "You're busy, I have things to do and I'll be heading out."

Gao Jing was surprised. "Brother Jing, let's grab a bite to eat together before you go."

The other man had helped him with such a huge favor, and if he didn't express some gratitude, he truly wouldn't feel right about it.

"No need."

Jing Zhiyong smiled. "We'll meet again if fate allows."

He patted Gao Jing on the shoulder. "There's no hurdle in life that can't be crossed. As long as you keep living well, there is always hope."

Gao Jing nodded silently.

Although they had exchanged contact information, the possibility of the two of them meeting again was really quite small.

He watched as Jing Zhiyong's Jeep merged into the rolling stream of traffic and vanished from sight in the blink of an eye.

By the time he got the car fixed and returned to his rented room, it was already pitch dark.

For dinner he made do with a pack of instant noodles. After finishing them and taking a shower, Gao Jing lay down on the bed laden with exhaustion.

He quickly sank into a deep sleep.

He had a dream.