Chapter 3: The Invitation from the Villa

  It was easy to get through the class, hastily packing up things and rushing straight to Hou Dayong. Hou Dayong was carrying his school bag and was about to leave when I took a swift step forward and caught him.

  "The story just told is only half of it!"

  "Oh, you're so interested!" Hou Dayong said with a smile, looking at me. "This afternoon we don't have class, a friend has invited me to his home to look at stamps. Bai Huahui might go too, do you want to come along?"

  I was taken aback by his words. Being able to make friends on the first day of a new class and being invited to visit their home is truly an exciting thing. However, after my initial excitement, I still had some doubts, "Will your parents agree to me going with you?"

  "It's okay, I'll call him right away and tell him. He's actually a nice person to get along with."

  Hou Dayong connected the phone and started talking with the other party in a loud voice. The call ended in less than two minutes.

  The big monkey said proudly: "Alright, we'll go eat in the cafeteria later and then go see the stamps."

  Then, Hou Dàyǒng took me to the school cafeteria for lunch and then we boarded a bus heading straight to our destination.

  The destination is a villa area in the western suburbs of Fragrance City. We took two buses and transferred to the subway, taking more than 2 hours to arrive at this extraordinary place. It's not ordinary because the scenery is breathtakingly beautiful. With lakes, mountains, small bridges, and flowing water, it has everything. Only the rich or noble can afford to live in a place like this, definitely not ordinary people. Ah, not ordinary people... This makes me think of that person. Talking about his family background, living in a villa should be within reason. We're going there soon, could it be his house?

  People without cars living here must be a kind of torture. When I first saw the villa area gate, I thought the 25,000-mile Long March had ended. Who knew there was still a long way to go in the community? After walking for another twenty or thirty minutes, I finally arrived at a small house in the middle of the lake, and it really lived up to the saying "the higher you go, the colder you get".

  Ding dong, ding dong... Hou Dàyǒng rang the doorbell. All along the way, he talked non-stop about his stories with another girl. Although I wasn't very interested, it wouldn't be polite to interrupt him since we just met. Actually, I was still thinking about the unsolved mystery from this morning. Dàyǒng said Báihuā Qián might come. Was she already in this small house? Maybe it's her who is opening the door.

  Alas! The one who opened the door was not a young girl, but an old man. He was hunched over, leaning on a cane, with snow-white hair and a pair of old-fashioned glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. The style of the glasses was very ancient, as if they could only be seen in historical movies or museums.

  "Hello, Uncle! " Hou Dàyǒng's face was full of smiles as he very politely greeted the old man.

  Being kind to the elderly is a virtue. I learned from Hou Dàyǒng's example, with a smile all over my face and a bow, I greeted the old man.

  The old man didn't say a word, but smiled and let us in.

  The entrance is the first landscape of a house, and the owner's habits, tastes, and hobbies can be seen here. Owners who don't like to tidy up their homes usually put some miscellaneous items on the shoe cabinet, such as keys, shopping receipts, plastic bags, parking tickets, coupons, and shopping advertisements. My home's entrance has a shoe cabinet full of various posters and flyers that my sister collected while shopping. Other people's homes have vases with fresh or artificial flowers at the entrance, but mine has beer cups filled with advertising flyers - this is the owner's characteristic. However, one family's owner didn't put any vases, beer cups, or messy advertisements. Their entrance was unique, with an upper half made of semi-transparent glass and a lower half consisting of a small shoe cabinet. The shoe cabinet was very tidy, except for a copper-plated 7-inch photo frame and a few philatelic magazines that were casually placed on top. There were no extra items.

  The frame holds a black and white old photo. It should be some years old, the people in it are not very clear. I leaned forward to take a closer look for half a day before recognizing that it was a man dressed up in the Republic of China era, holding a book in his hand, leaning against an empty chair. His leaning posture and smiling eyes were exactly like the pose often taken by grooms in wedding photos. The only discordant place is that the chair next to the "groom" is empty.