In the small southern town of my hometown, it always rains several times before autumn.
There is the scent of jasmine flowers in the humid air, which is cool and sweet.
The raindrops rolled down along the umbrella’s edge and sank into the dark concrete ground. The pedestrians on the street hurried to their destination.
The water vapor was wiped back and forth by the wipers. The car windows were foggy, probably because Lu Yongfei turned on the heater casually.
His daughter’s voice was loud at the other end of the phone. “Dad, Dad, did you bring me chocolate?”
“He must have bought it, you glutton.” Lin Wenfang grabbed the phone and said to the child: “Lu Miao, hurry up and finish your radish soup.”
“Oh,” said the girl. As soon as she agreed, she asked in a loud voice: “Dad, when are you coming back?”
The phone was put down, a hurried voice came from there: “Don’t be loud, your dad is driving.”
Lu Yongfei laughed.
After a while, the phone picked up again, and the woman said concisely: “Lu Miao’s father. Lu Miao is waiting for chocolate. Come back early.”
He responded in a row.
It was raining harder outside. As the car drove to the path, there were many fewer pedestrians.
There is a mahjong parlor on the corner of Panhua Road, and the business is better on rainy days.
In the room of less than ten square meters, the people were shouting to deal with the cards. The sound of card shuffling throughout the day was temporarily cut off by a thin curtain of rain.
Elementary school was over for a long time, but Jiang Haoyue did not come home for a long time.
With his schoolbag on his back, he squatted across the road from the shop’s entrance, where there was a simple flowerbed made of cement as he was intently observing snails.
A snail stuck to the leaf motionlessly.
Jiang Haoyue wondered if the snail also found him. Because it was in the shell at first, it only came out after he looked at it.
He watched as the tiny snail’s fleshy brown, soft body gradually stretched out, from a little bit to the length of a knuckle of his.
Its two antennae extend very high.
Jiang Haoyue let out “Yeah” in surprise, and he seemed to be staring at it.
The rain bends the leaves, and his small palm arches like an eave to shield the snails from the rain.
When the car came around the corner, Jiang Haoyue didn’t see it.
He saw that the tiny snail’s shell suddenly became so bright and glazy, and the leaves were shiny, and then he looked at his hand in a trance.
The next moment, he was knocked down.
When the pain hit, Jiang Haoyue was already caught under the wheel.
The wipers made two “swishes” sounds, and there was an illusion of tingling nearby for a second.
Lu Yongfei rolled down the car window, and the rustling rain caught the wind as if the seal had been lifted. It greeted him one after another on his face.
Apart from that, there was no other sound on the road.
The sky was terribly cloudy.
Lu Yongfei knew when he turned a corner that the car must have hit something because it was obviously shaking, but he didn’t see what it hit.
After hesitating for a moment, he decided to get out of the car and have a look.
Lu Yongfei couldn’t think that the matter would be so severe — He bumped into a little boy.