Ten Thousand Soul Banner: Deceased, do you have any unfulfilled wishes?
Chapter 90 Alone on a Journey

Chapter 90: Chapter 90 Alone on a Journey

Zhou Jinbei took a few photos, and then took a selfie before shouldering his backpack and heading down the mountain.

This year, the fifteen-year-old Zhou Jinbei looks very thin, giving the impression of malnourishment.

However, his physical constitution is actually not bad, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to cycle around the island. Considering the entire Qionghai, cycling around would cover a distance of more than a thousand kilometers, which most people simply cannot endure.

But Zhou Jinbei, with a knapsack on his back containing only a few changes of clothes, set out on the road directly.

Since he started his journey, he has already completed half of the distance. Along the way, he’s faced high temperatures, headwinds, uphill climbs, mosquitoes, bicycle tire blowouts, and even a typhoon. It’s been a truly arduous journey, enough to deeply worry Chen Haiyan.

Of course, during his travels, he also encountered many kind-hearted people, some were local residents, others were travelers driving cars.

Seeing Zhou Jinbei so young, they either invited him for a meal, bought him some drinks and snacks, or gave him money...

Apart from the first two options, Zhou Jinbei would decline the money.

"I am not a beggar; I am on an island-hopping trip," he would say.

Every time like this, his thoughtfulness would bring tears to Zhou Haiyan’s eyes.

She knew why her son chose to cycle around the island. It was all for a wish she had long ago. She had passed away nearly ten years ago, and to her surprise, her son still remembered.

That’s why, after the middle school examination, Zhou Jinbei took a picture of her and hit the road straight away.

Zhou Jinbei came down from the mountain, found his locked bicycle, skillfully placed his backpack on the rear seat securing it with a rope, and then took a long sigh of relief before opening his water bottle, and went on to gulp down the water...

The weather was too hot. When he first left home, he didn’t consider it thoroughly and quickly got sunburnt. Over time, he gained experience and learned how to protect himself from the sun.

His shoulders, hips, the soles of his feet, and many other parts of his body, at the beginning, developed many blisters due to friction. Once the blisters popped and got soaked with sweat, the pain was simply unbearable.

But as time passed, calluses formed, and he gradually got used to it.

During the journey, he thought about giving up countless times, but in the end, he persevered, and by now, he had cycled halfway around Qionghai.

Zhou Jinbei had been cycling for nearly a month, and theoretically, a thousand-kilometer journey should have already ended.

But on the one hand, Zhou Jinbei didn’t have much experience, and on the other hand, his bicycle was just an ordinary one, bought by his father for convenient travel to and from school, which had given him lots of trouble on the way.

Another reason was that every time he arrived at a tourist attraction, he had to explore, not solely for the sake of cycling.

Coming down from the mountain, Zhou Jinbei followed the planned route and cycled another stretch. He still had several scenic spots to visit; he wasn’t ready to leave Bin Hai just yet.

As noon approached, feeling thirsty and hungry, he found a shaded spot near the sea to stop, planning to eat something before continuing on his way.

His backpack was full of food—bread, instant noodles, and some biscuits.

At first, he thought he could buy food on the roadside, but once on the journey, he realized that many stretches of the coastal road around Qionghai were desolate with no supermarkets or restaurants around, almost starving him at one point. Fortunately, he met some other travelers who gave him food.

Zhou Jinbei took out the bread and started eating it with water, choosing bread not because he liked it but because it had the shortest shelf life, which made it susceptible to spoiling in the heat over time.

One advantage of tourist cities is that there are many places with drinking water, allowing him to fill up his water bottle. This way, he could save the money he would have spent on water. After all, he didn’t carry much money with him when he left, and he needed to be frugal.

Zhou Jinbei felt that after completing the island cycling trip, he would become incredibly strong. If he could persist through an island-hopping cycling journey, what else could he not endure in the future?

However, this cycling trip indeed allowed him to grow a lot. He learned to budget carefully, to persevere through gritted teeth, to communicate with people, and also how to repair a bicycle...

Sea Wind rides the waves to shore, passing through the crowd on the beach, sweeping over the treetops by the coast, and finally arriving by Zhou Jinbei’s side.

It lifts the hair of the youth, giving him a big embrace, bringing him streaks of coolness.

Zhou Jinbei takes out his phone with a broken screen, opens the gallery, and starts deleting some old photos to free up some memory.

He got this phone from his aunt who no longer used it; with its limited memory, it couldn’t store many photos—good for calls and texts only, nothing else.

Zhou Jinbei flips through each photo, deleting them one by one.

Just then, a voice suddenly says near his ear: "This photo is really well-taken; it’s a pity to delete it."

Startled by the comment, Zhou Jinbei had not noticed anyone approach and quickly turns his head to ask, then freezes.

A familiar face appears before him, it feels like a dream.

Could it be that the heat is too much, and he’s suffering from heatstroke, causing him to hallucinate and see his mother?

Thinking so, Zhou Jinbei hastily opens his backpack and pulls out a laminated photograph.

In the photo is Chen Haiyan.

Chen Haiyan sits down beside him and doesn’t speak, just smiles and watches his movements.

Zhou Jinbei looks at the photo in his hands, then at the person before him, and back at the photo again...

After several such repetitions, he finally stammers: "Auntie, you... you look just like my mom."

Until now, Zhou Jinbei did not believe the person before him was his mother, just thought they bore a resemblance.

Chen Haiyan replies: "Is that so? I take that as a compliment."

As if worried Chen Haiyan wouldn’t believe him, Zhou Jinbei quickly adds: "I’m telling the truth, look if you don’t believe me."

With that, he hands the photo to Chen Haiyan.

Chen Haiyan already knows about this photo, but still reaches out to take it.

"It’s been a long time."

Looking at her own image in the photo, Chen Haiyan can’t help but feel emotional.

It was taken when she went to work in the north, serving at a hotel, wearing a blue uniform, and back then, she smiled brightly, full of hope for the future.

Yet, unexpectedly, over a decade later, she passed away from an illness, leaving behind a child who had just turned five.

"This is a photo of my mom at work; do you think you look alike?" Zhou Jinbei leans in and says.

"We do look alike, but maybe I am your mother," Chen Haiyan tries to suppress the sorrow in her heart and forces a smile.

"That’s impossible; my mother... my mother has passed away," Zhou Jinbei says.

His tone is even, seemingly without sadness, but when you think about it, it’s not surprising, after so much time, the grieving is already done.

Chen Haiyan hears this but doesn’t know how to offer comfort.

At this moment, Zhou Jinbei’s face fills with indignation as he says: "She was a big liar."