Forest Memories

Chapter 12. Leave

Considering that she was in class, Anna controlled her outburst and cried for two or three minutes before slowly stopping.

She washed her tears with tap water, dried them and patted her face, but her tense eyelids and nose were clearly marked by the wash. She forced a smile with her teeth, trying to neutralize the sadness with a smile.

I laughed so hard that my face was almost stiff, but my mood didn't improve much. Fortunately, my eyes weren't so swollen and my nose wasn't so stiff.

Anna swept the long bangs from her forehead and brought them all to her eyelids, covering her eyebrows and confusing the visual message.

It took about half an hour to stop crying and get back on track.

At that time, Anna came out of the bathroom.

"Hey, where are you?"

As Anna stepped out of the bathroom door, she suddenly saw Jack walk out of the bathroom and ask a question first.

Anna didn't have time to guess how long Jack had been there, so she just followed his question and said, "I still want to ask you, why are you in the bathroom when you're not in class?"

Jack shrugged and smiled, "I ate something bad this morning to release my nature."

After that, he made a gesture to express the ease of "releasing nature".

"Hey!" Anna flapped her fingers and made a disgusted face.

"Look at you. Who doesn't have......"?

"Stop. It's vulgar." Anna said, covering her mouth, with a wry smile in her palm.

"Haha~" Jack raised his hand in surrender, "Ok, I won't say anything, I'm out."

The young man said and turned away.

My head was hot and I smelled the smell in the bathroom for half an hour. Looking at the girl who was smiling in front of me, I felt it was worth it.

He did not know why she was crying, but he saw that she had all her sadness buried in her heart, and still smiled without a care on the surface. His heart and eyes were extremely painful.

When the teenager turned his back on her, the smile on Anna's face disappeared.

"Jack, wait." Anna called him out of the blue.

The boy looked back. "Hmm?"

Until the boy turned around and came over, Anna didn't know why she had stopped him.

Looking at each other, there was a strange sense of long absence. It was a feeling of trust, even though they were not very familiar with each other.

Anna gently pursed her lips and smiled. "Jack, can you do me a favor?"

Jack nodded, "You say."

"The next class is math. Could you please ask Lao Niu for leave? I said that something happened at home and I needed to go home urgently. I won't be away for long, but I will be back before the evening study."

"Sure. Just......"

"What is it?" Anna asked urgently.

"You don't have a leave note signed by the old cow, so the security guard won't let you out of the school."

"Ah! It seems so. What should we do?"

"I'll take you there."

"Oh?"

"You're in a hurry, I know those two security guards, I should be able to vouch for you."

"That would be great."

She was glad that she had not made a mistake in calling him. It was a predestined fate.

The two men started from the outer wall of the bathroom, bypassed the view range of the Rite class, and walked briskly to the school gate.

Jack was familiar with the doorman and settled it in two sentences.

"Yes, but once you leave school, your classmates are no longer protected by the school," the security guard said in advance.

The word "security" was so familiar that Jack hesitated.

Song's hesitation was understandable to Anna, after all, he would be responsible as a guarantor if anything went wrong.

Anna smiled. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. If anything happens, it won't be the school's fault. Really, I promise."

Seeing Anna's sincerity, the security guard took out a pen and paper and handed it to her, clearly intending to —— write a letter of guarantee.

Jack spread his fingers on the paper and covered his palm with a short black water pen. "Go ahead," he said to Anna. "I'll take care of it if anything happens."

Just then, the bus passing by the school and the station stopped at the gate of the school. Anna hurriedly bowed to the three people, waved goodbye, and quickly boarded the bus.

Watching the bus drive away, Jack thanked the security guard and went back to his classroom.

Anna took the minibus home at lunchtime.

Grandpa cooked the food and stood at the door waiting for grandma to come back from the field.

Anna's grandfather had too much physical work when he was young, which led to hidden diseases. As a result, he began to suffer from physical weakness at the age of less than 60 and could only do some easy things. All the farm work in the family was done by his father and grandmother.

When Anna saw her grandmother, who was nearly 70 years old, pushing a farm cart back from the fields, her eyes were moist.

With a sore nose, Anna looked up and took a breath. She smiled as she walked out from behind the big tree in her neighbor's house to greet her grandparents.

"Grandpa, grandma, I'm back."

Grandma: "Oh, Iyi is back. Come on, it's time for dinner."

Grandpa: "Oh, you said that National Day only has three days off. Why did you come back today?"

Anna explained, "Dad went to my school, and I knew about it. I took leave to ride my bike to school and bring a set of eating utensils for dad on the way. The food in our school cafeteria is clean and cheap, so I plan to bring food to dad every day."

Grandpa and grandma looked at each other, with a mixture of approval and concern.

Grandma: "It's good, but it's not convenient for you to go to school. It takes a long time to send food to your father after eating. Do you have time to rest?"

"I've done the math. Time is not an issue. It doesn't matter if I take a break. It's a good time to lose weight, hey!"

Hearing her granddaughter say this, grandma nodded, "Ok. Then you should pay attention to safety when riding a bike. Keep your distance from the car, and don't rush when you get to the county. Ride slowly."

"Know, know."

"Come and eat. The food will be cold if you keep talking." Grandpa reminded him with his chopsticks in his hand.

After having dinner with her grandparents, Anna packed up and set off on her bike. Before leaving, she secretly took her mobile phone, which was a reward from her father after the success of the high school entrance examination. She thought it would be much easier to take it to the hospital to find her father.

The bike was also an old one. Anna bought it when she was in junior high school. Soon after, the school required her to live on campus, so she had to ride it back and forth every weekend. After she went to high school, she seldom rode it. Her riding skills were rusty, and the heavy Anna swayed as she rode.

The home was forty kilometers away from the school, but most of the road was unobstructed, and Anna rode very carefully on the right side.

Canglang County, though lacking prominent mountains, has many winding and undulating roads. Moreover, Canglang is abundant in water, with most major routes built along rivers. For example, the route Anna took was like this: not only did it have continuous slopes both uphill and downhill, but on one side of the road were long stretches of rivers crossing through villages, while on the other side stood sheer cliffs over ten meters high. Below the cliffs lay rice fields and crops.

The downhill road is very easy to walk on. It goes by in a flash.

The uphill road was very difficult, especially for a body like Anna's, which consumed a lot of energy and spirit to climb the hill. The first one or two were ok, but she couldn't get up the hill, so she had to come down and push.

It took nearly two hours to walk halfway up and down, but the rest was winding and the road was flat.

Anna got on her little bike and finally felt relieved.

Walking on the county road, blowing a cool autumn breeze, smelling the fresh rice fragrance, the sadness in my heart gradually disappeared, Anna even hummed a song

The straight road has a 90-degree turn before entering the county, with a low valley on the left and the end of the river on the right, which is perpendicular to the opposite intercity highway.