Chapter One The Sunset of August Fourteenth

  The ancient capital of Qin, Xianyang, is now just an ordinary county in the northwest. However, with its rich historical heritage and numerous related scenic spots, it attracts a large number of loyal fans of Qin to pay their respects and have fun. Gong Sun Ce and his good friend Ma Cheng are among them, from the legendary end-of-the-world summer to now, almost half a year has passed.

  The end of the world is just a legend, Gong Sun Ce is just using this legend to motivate himself and his friends to travel all over the country.

  Gongsun Ce grew up in the mountains of Longxi in his early years, mischievous and unruly, and his grandmother at home could not control him. His uncle was busy with business trips and lacked necessary discipline for him. So he was taken to his parents who worked outside and spent his teenage years in the largest province in Northwest China.

  In high school, I dropped out for several reasons and spent my days idly at home. With 50 mu of cotton fields, there was nothing much to do from beginning to end of the year, and our family lived a relatively warm and comfortable life.

  In the blink of an eye, four years have passed and it's already the year of doom. The 17-year-old Gong Sun Ce has become a 21-year-old young man, and his family's cotton fields have also expanded to over 100 mu. With no worries about food and drink, he naturally started having other ideas.

  Gongsun Ce gathered a group of friends and traveled together. First, they went to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, gazing up at the snow-capped mountains, visiting the Potala Palace, drinking butter tea, and buying some local handicrafts. Then, they arrived in Sichuan Province, taking pictures at the temple of Zhuge Wu Hou, before heading east along the two lakes, having a fish dinner by Yellow Crane Tower, and then starting their journey northward.

  I watched the flag-raising ceremony once, but didn't go to the Forbidden City, and then headed west along the Great Wall. The photos taken along the way were all posted on my personal space, a classmate who was interning in Xianyang saw them and greeted me, and Gong Sun Ce and others arrived in Xianyang again.

  He received a call at his home in Xianyang, but there was nothing important, just asking him to hurry back for a blind date. Gong Sun Ce directly refused and stayed in Xianyang, not going back!

  Of the seven friends who followed him, only Ma Cheng stayed behind. The other five returned to their base after touring Chang'an as planned. Gong Sun Ce disobeyed his parents' military orders and naturally had his supplies cut off. Without a salary, Gong Sun Ce could only find work with his good friend Ma Cheng in Xianyang.

  He dropped out of high school and didn't learn any skills afterwards, only knowing how to drive a car and grow cotton. Ma's family ran a small underground workshop, and after tearing up his college entrance exam admission ticket, he helped with transportation and sales at home. He also had no skills, only knowing how to drive a car. The pitfall is that neither of them has a regular driver's license, both are unlicensed drivers.

  The idea of going to a restaurant to clear plates was killed in the womb, not because of the nature of the work, but because the salary is too low. The two are used to living large and spending lavishly, how much salary can a restaurant afford to pay for someone who clears plates?

  Fortunately, the two of them were tall and strong, and found work on a construction site. Although the work was hard and there were no bonuses or insurance, each person earned more than 3,000 yuan per month. They could barely make ends meet.

  It's already the 14th of August on the lunar calendar, and the weather is getting colder, with longer nights and shorter days. The construction site will soon be shutting down, and Gong Sun Ce can't help but think about what to do next. After finishing installing the last piece of glass on the rooftop of the newly built building, sweeping away the trash, they sat in a corner, facing the sunset, one of them puffing on a cigarette.

  "It's been almost half a year since I've been away, and I miss home. My brother has already returned home, and the family gave him the car. According to my younger brother, they're going to find a wife for that useless guy by the end of the year, what a joke!" Ma Cheng said with smoke coming out of his mouth, his face filled with nostalgia and anger.

  The two had been classmates since high school and knew each other inside out, so Gong Sun Ce naturally knew what was going on. Ma Cheng had always been running around for family matters, with only a small amount of money every month, nominally called "rice money" but actually used for smoking and drinking. His older brother had gambled heavily outside two years ago, losing tens of thousands of yuan and running away with the family's money. Now he was back, with a car and even a woman. This made Ma Cheng feel very uncomfortable.

  "Go back! I still have over 20,000. This winter will definitely be able to get through. Wait until that girl gets married, and then I'll go back. I'm not happy either, before even getting married, she's already living in my house!" Gong Sun Ce was also extremely depressed.

  The girl his family found for him, he knew her. Her parents were friends with his own parents from their days struggling to make a living together. The two families had a good relationship, and he was familiar with the girl, and even better friends with her older brother.

  "Damn it! Why don't I have such good things?! Although I'm more handsome than you......" Ma Cheng threw away the cigarette butt and lit another one. Pointing at Gong Sun Ce's nose with a face full of indignation: "Xiao Xiangzi is so lovely, she has looks, figure, and even an extraordinary temperament. Otherwise..."

  "Get out! You're a piece of trash, she'd rather marry the crippled Wang Ying than you!" Ma Cheng's next words were obvious to Gong Sun Ce from the suddenly lewd and flattering expression on his face. He snatched the cigarette that Ma Cheng had just lit and started smoking it himself.

  Besides, he is very confident in his appearance, and although he can't be compared to Pan An or Song Yu, he has thick eyebrows and big eyes, with a dignified appearance. He once had long hair, tied up in a ponytail, wearing a Han Chinese robe, and it's unknown how many young girls were infatuated with him.

  "You think you can bully me, but don't think I won't dare to take revenge on you..." Ma Cheng muttered to himself, then pulled out a cigarette and started puffing away. Although the two were equally tall and sturdy, his physical quality was far inferior to Gong Sun Ce's, and Gong Sun Ce had nothing better to do, following his uncle from the clan to practice for a while.

  "Really thinking of going back?" Gong Sun Ce asked again after finishing his cigarette. If Ma Cheng was gone, this very unfamiliar city would be very lonely for him alone, although there was still a classmate accompanying him, but the other party was an in-school student, who would not accompany him to play around. Moreover, that classmate was a girl.

  "It's a must, that damned thing is obviously taking advantage of my old man. The family property is just that much, but there are three people who want to divide it up. If I leave for too long, they'll think I've given up!" Ma Cheng crushed the half-smoked cigarette and said viciously. He had been busy with family matters for over two years, and during his school days, he was a regular worker in the workshop. The family business, calculated by salary, should at least have something to do with him.

  "It's really going back, your dad is ruthless. Directly sending the small factory to your brother, and the house to your younger brother... This kind of thing, he can do it, indicating that there is no pressure." Gong Sun Ce had a sympathetic face and a pitiful tone. Ma Cheng heard this with a black line on his face, but he knew that since he was young, he didn't get along with his dad, so this kind of thing might happen.

  "You just hide here, be careful that Xiaoying really becomes someone else's wife! At that time I'll see how you cry!" Ma Cheng said and got up to collect his tools.

  Gongsun Ce gazed at the setting sun in the west, narrowing his eyes as he thought of Xiaoxingzi. That girl was indeed pretty, but a bit too young. Honestly, it was hard to make a move on her. Otherwise, how could he face Han Yunlong? And if he married Xiaoxingzi, that scoundrel Han Yunlong would become his own brother-in-law - this was really a difficult thing to accept!

  The sunset was about to fall, and a faint mist spread over the top of the city, with wisps that seemed very lively, as if they had life. Gong Sun Ce looked at it, and couldn't help but feel a little dazed, the beautiful fog, although it appeared a bit strange.

  "What's wrong? It's time to go, finally got through the last day. Tomorrow I'll go buy tickets, booking tickets is not a human thing!" Ma Cheng had a large bag of tools on his back, he didn't know what Gong Sun Ce was doing staring at the sky that had already turned a deep blue, and just thought he was spacing out.

  Gongsun Ce turned his head and asked him, "Didn't you see? The mist in the sky is quite beautiful, comparable to Huangshan." Ma Cheng felt very depressed when he heard this. He looked up at the sky again, but it was still clear and cloudless, with only a few bright stars twinkling faintly, nothing else.

  "What did you see? You said it was a ghost, I'd believe that. Your nerves aren't what they used to be. Stop messing around, if you don't want to use the tools just speak up!" Ma Cheng rolled his eyes and picked up the two tools on the ground, then headed downstairs.

  "Strange, am I seeing things again?" Gong Sun Ce rubbed his chin, but the entire sky was foggy, and it was getting thicker. He took out his phone and snapped a photo of the dense fog that had condensed into a ball in front of him.

  But when he looked at the photo taken with his mobile phone, he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine! There was not a single speck of fog on the screen of his mobile phone! Not even a wisp of cloud, just a vast expanse of deep blue, and nothing else!

  He took a deep breath, knowing he had encountered another ghostly encounter. He remembered that when he was in the fourth grade, it was spring, and the snow had just melted, the road was muddy, and he saw a familiar little rascal at the corner of an alley while riding his bike home, and they even greeted each other. He remembered very clearly that the guy's teeth were very white.

  However, when he got home, his mother told him that the little rascal and his cousin had been missing for three months and were found. They were not clean-handed, and one night they went to the vegetable market to steal meat, but were discovered by the butcher's boss, stabbed to death and stuffed directly into the iron cabinet where the meat was stored, and it was a whole winter.

  The weather had been hot for two days, and the iron cabinet where meat was stored always had a stench. Adding to that, the original butcher had run away, and the contract had expired. When the management personnel started cleaning the iron cabinet, they discovered the bodies of the two brothers! Then he warned him not to tell some friends, leaving 11-year-old Gong Sun Ce's hands and feet cold, at a loss for what to do.

  He also met a friend on the road, and they chatted for a long time. When he returned home, his parents were wearing formal clothes and told him to change quickly. Because they had to attend a funeral, that friend of his was run over by a car while working at night on a highway in another place...

  He had seen many such things before, so he didn't care. Now it was the same, although it was the first time he saw such a strange fog, but he quickly adjusted his mentality. After lighting a cigarette and putting water on the corner of the rooftop, he turned around and went downstairs.

  This period of work is considered complete, the two are a group, and the wages were settled that night. Each with their own worries, they returned to the Baifa Xiang community. The two live on the sixth floor, with all kinds of facilities and furniture available, and the annual rent is 200,000 yuan. At first, Gong Sun Ce's family had put in all their savings, renting it for a whole year.

  Then the two of them worked hard, pinched and saved, just to earn back the rent. Back in their temporary home, each returned to their bedroom, starting a endurance test to see who would give in first and go cook dinner...

  It was clear that neither of them had eaten. Moreover, they didn't have the idea of going to work the next day either. So with empty stomachs, they both lay awake. One thinking about things at home, one thinking about things in heaven...