When he heard Jiang Cheng's question, the honest smile on Chen Ping's face froze.
The hand he had clenched tightened quietly, knuckles paling.
First he stared at the toe of his army boot, then lifted his eyes and flicked a glance at Jiang Cheng.
His Adam's apple bobbed twice before he forced out the words: "The secretary is over there... the work's moving steadily. It's just that the site selection for some herders' settlement in the cattle-and-horse zone got stuck for a few days."
Having said that, he seemed to feel the rest was best left unsaid.
But Jiang Cheng had asked; he had to answer.
After a pause, his fingers rubbed the hem of his uniform without conscious thought.
After running the words through his mind, he lowered his voice even further.
"Well... a few old herders are used to living on the grasslands, but the land was grabbed by them. When the secretary went to negotiate, they refused to move. And there are some outsiders—troublemakers—paid by neighbors or even Pretty Country who keep sabotaging the settlement's water, power and road supply. This forced the Young Master to camp on the pasture for a week, herding sheep with the herders, pitching tents, then sitting round the bonfire at night explaining policy. Later he got the provincial water team to lay irrigation pipes to the chosen site ahead of schedule..."
At that point Chen Ping stopped abruptly, as if realising he had spilled everything.
He hurriedly added, "But rest assured—it's all solved! The foundations for the settlement are almost finished; the old herders even help watch the building materials. It's just... Secretary Jiang ran round the grasslands every day and ended up darker than me."
Hearing this, Jiang Cheng's expression darkened.
This was already 2018; what herders still needed to be "herded"?
Anyone who needed "herding" was certainly not a proper herder.
Most likely they were outsiders paid by neighbors—or even Pretty Country.
Still, since Chen Ping was back, things must be going smoothly.
Otherwise his grandfather would never have relaxed.
Fingertips resting on the doorframe, Jiang Cheng absently brushed the cold metal and said to Wang Sheng and the rest, "You lot go rest at the Courtyard House. Tonight I'm staying at Grandfather's."
"Yes, Young Master Jiang."
Soon the three cars left the airport through a private passage.
They avoided the newly widened ring road and turned onto a quiet avenue lined with poplars.
Fresh asphalt lay under the wheels; in the distance, signal towers stood on hillsides, figures in camouflage patrolling beneath them.
The route was the exact opposite of the bustling streets Jiang Cheng had driven through before.
There was almost no traffic, hardly a house in sight.
The police car in front ran silent, only its faint beacon flashing.
The convoy raced along; every checkpoint seemed to expect them.
When the guards saw the licence plates they simply saluted and waved them through.
After about twenty minutes the cars entered an area ringed by pine woods.
There was no sign, only an inconspicuous iron gate across the road.
Behind it two soldiers with loaded rifles stood motionless, eyes sharp and vigilant.
As the convoy approached they first scanned the vehicles with instruments; finding nothing amiss, they slowly pushed open the heavy gate.
Once past, the street-lamps changed style.
They became antique palace lanterns, the sudden shift feeling like a leap through time.
Ahead, several small red-walled villas half-hid among the pines, like a hidden paradise.
Plain though they looked, the buildings exuded quiet dignity.
No visible security was installed outside.
But if you looked closely, plain-clothes figures flickered beneath the trees, silent ghosts guarding the compound.
Only then did Jiang Cheng feel a flicker of familiarity.
Rounding the bend he finally saw his grandfather's villa.
He had visited Beijing only twice, yet this time a strange nostalgia rose in him.
People say you miss a place only when someone there misses you—or when you miss someone.
The couplets on the gate were still the ones his grandfather had written at New Year: "Mountains and rivers for ten thousand years inherit our last wish; sun and moon for a thousand ages shine on our original heart."
Horizontal scroll: Spring for Family and Country.
Reading them, Jiang Cheng felt his own political awareness was far too shallow.
On his first visit he had merely sensed the Courtyard House was extraordinary, without grasping the meaning of every brick.
Only after his father's detailed explanation last time did he understand its uniqueness.
This was no ordinary old Beijing courtyard; it had been rebuilt to exact specifications.
Grey tiles and red walls preserved, yet every detail held subtle refinement.
The stone lions at the gate were not fierce but reclining and gentle.
The white marble was quarried in Quyang, Hebei, and carved by an old stonemason for half a year.
The carvings on the lintel were not the usual birds and flowers
but simplified "return" patterns entwined with pine branches, hinting at "upholding integrity and constancy."
Stepping inside, he crossed the first courtyard; crushed stone set between grey bricks muffled every footfall.
These "silent bricks" had been chosen so passing steps would never disturb the peace.
No rare plants grew; only two old locust trees stood east and west, trunks so broad two men could not encircle them.
They had been transplanted the year his grandfather retired; now their dense shade covered half the yard.
The second courtyard was the main one, dominated by the great hall.
The door was heavy redwood, free of ornament save for two small characters engraved below the ring: "Guard Simplicity", written by his grandfather himself.
Under the eaves of the main room stood two cane chairs polished bright, beside them a bronze censer still wisping sandalwood—the same scent that had floated in the ancestral hall at New Year.
After too long in the money-scented bustle of the capital of commerce, Jiang Cheng could not help pausing for several seconds before such refined traditional elegance.