A century of poverty

Chapter 95 Going Back on One's Promises

Guanli was the place my father longed for, the land where he was born and raised. It witnessed his fifty years of life. His relatives and friends lived there. He loved the local dialect, the taste of the grains grown on that land, and the warmth of the local life.

Since moving out, I've gone back almost every year; the place holds an unbreakable bond of nostalgia.

He goes back to share happy occasions with relatives and friends, and he also goes back to seek their understanding in order to heal his emotional wounds.

Grandma has passed away and been laid to rest. Where can he go to soothe his grieving heart?

When Dad returned to the interior this time, he saw that the windows of the new house that his eldest sister had built in the spring were not sealed with mud, but with fine wooden strips nailed on. These wooden strips were better than mud; they were faster and more durable, unlike mud which would fall off when it dried.

The goods were not yet available in Jinhai, but Dad saw the business opportunity and resolutely ordered them. He sent them over, and my third brother-in-law helped haul them home in a donkey cart.

From then on, my father carried wooden strips on his back every day and walked through the surrounding villages to sell them.

In order to expand sales channels, my father brought wooden strips to a building materials store in Jinhai City to promote them, and also stopped by my house to visit me.

When my father arrived, my father-in-law warmly invited him into their room and instructed me to cook for him. We ate in their room, and I did as he instructed.

My father-in-law chatted warmly with my father about his health and what he had been up to lately. My father answered honestly and with a touch of humor.

The father-in-law then feigned concern, inquiring about his sons' well-being and whether they were causing him any trouble. He could see the father's deep affection for his sons. He then subtly probed about his attitude towards his daughters. The father honestly replied that he still adhered to old customs: a married daughter is like water spilled from a cup; she belongs to whichever family she marries, and he wouldn't interfere in other people's affairs. The father-in-law was delighted to hear this.

After lunch, I went to my room and asked my father, "You're over sixty years old, and you're always carrying wooden planks outside. Don't you tire yourself out, no matter how good or bad the weather is?"

Dad said, "Don't worry. Even though I was in such poor health before, I never got tired from walking. While I can still move around, I'll get some income. Before, when your grandma was alive, I didn't dare to move around. Now that your grandma is gone, I have no worries. Even if I go far away and can't come back, I don't have to worry about staying overnight. If I don't ask for money, who will I ask for it from?"

Dad sold timber on foot, while Shuanglai rode his motorcycle everywhere looking for business. He saw that vegetables were much cheaper in the east and north, about a hundred miles away, than in Jinhai City, so he brought them to Jinhai Market to sell. If he couldn't sell them all by himself, he would ask me to help him sell them.

After selling the fish, I didn't have time to change out of my boots before I went to help him sell scallions. Because I was busy, I didn't pay attention to my feet, and my newly bought colorful little boots got a tear, which made me very upset.

Despite my strong support, after months of running around like this, we still had no money left. I said, "So what did you do with all that money?"

Shuanglai replied, "I've already added parts. This car keeps breaking down, and I've sent everything to the repair shop, the 'Parts Shop' under the Shuangxing District Traffic Police Team at the South Bridge. I always go there to buy parts and fix my car. There's a mechanic there named Sun who said that if I'm willing, I can go there and become his apprentice. I haven't decided whether to go or not yet."

I said, "Go on, riding a motorcycle to haul vegetables and sell them isn't going to work. You should learn a trade so you can make money in the future."

Shuanglai: "Then I'll go. They'll provide food and lodging."

And so, Shuanglai became a motorcycle repair apprentice. Since it wasn't too far from here, he would come here every few days to check on things and have a meal.

The father-in-law muttered: "Looking at relatives doesn't make you rich, looking at people doesn't fill your stomach."

Not long after, Shuanglai married Jiang Xiaoyu and rarely came anymore.

Su Zhiru and Zhang Guozhi reaped the benefits of building and selling houses. Last winter, they sold three newly built houses on the land, and this spring they are planning to build all five houses on the land in front of us.

I was surprised and said to my father-in-law, "You gave us those five rooms a long time ago." Before I could continue, my father-in-law said, "I'll tell them to give them to you now."

Me: "How could you do this? People are supposed to be trustworthy."

Father-in-law: "What faith and righteousness? You are my sons, and they are my sons too. There is nothing unfaithful about it."

Me: "But it's different for us! That's not fair."

Father-in-law: "I don't care."

This was beyond my expectations.

Even more unexpectedly, my father-in-law not only had his second son build the house, but also allowed us to share in the profits: that is, Su Zhiru built three rooms on the outside of the five-room plot, and we were to build two rooms on the inside.

This wasn't the result of our discussion; it was my father-in-law who instructed Zhiqiang to do it. I got the information out of Zhiqiang, word by word, that I disagreed.

The reasoning is perfectly valid: the father-in-law should be able to make his own decisions. These five rooms were given to us long ago; we have absolute say, and anyone who wants to squeeze in needs our permission.

I asked Zhiqiang what to do about this, and he said anything was fine. I asked him what he meant by anything was fine.

He said, "Just like his father said."

I said, "I disagree. Either we build it ourselves as originally agreed, or let him build it and we won't get involved. The reason is: if we build five rooms, we can sell half and live in the other half to avoid famine."

Otherwise, we won't build it, and we won't make a big deal out of it, but we absolutely cannot build two rooms. Building two rooms and having them sandwiched inside would be inconvenient. The land is ours, so it's already generous of us to let him build it; whether it's inside or outside should be our choice.

Besides, building two rooms would cost a lot of money, and we don't have that kind of money right now. Where are we going to find such a large sum of money?

Zhiqiang: "My dad told me to borrow it from my older brother."

I said, "Money needs to be repaid. Even if he's willing to lend it to you, neither of us has a job or a stable income. We rely on your fishing, and you're only free for a few months a year. When will we ever be able to pay back such a large sum? If that's really what he said, we should prepare for the future. It's absurd to expect us to immediately follow through on a plan that's suddenly changed!"

My words went in one ear and out the other. Su Zhiqiang borrowed eight thousand yuan from his elder brother.

I couldn't stand it anymore, so I went with Yang Liu from the backyard to Tiantai Town in Pingwa County to learn sewing.

The master tailor and his wife are in their fifties, their eyesight is failing, and they speak with a Jiaodong accent. They run a tailor shop in town, taking on some simple jobs, but mainly focusing on teaching. Their two sons are both married and have started their own businesses; they are also tailors and are very skilled.

The teacher's wife sent us to stay in two simple houses next to her eldest son's house. There was a pile of firewood in front of the houses for us to use for cooking. We cooked for ourselves. There was a free market next to the road on our way to and from the study class. We just bought whatever we wanted to eat from the market and cooked it ourselves.

Yang Liu is from Changli County, Hebei Province. She is a year younger than me. Since we are from the same hometown and live nearby, she and her family feel comfortable getting along with me. So we learned sewing together and lived together for three months and got along very well.

After completing her studies, Yang Liu went back to her hometown to get married.

Su Zhichun and Su Lei celebrated the birth of their son's one-month birthday with a joyous occasion.

Su Zhiru and Zhang Guozhi have already moved to their new house.

After we finished building our two rooms, we faced an additional famine of 12,000 yuan. Zhiqiang listened to his father and borrowed 8,000 yuan from his eldest brother and 4,000 yuan from his second sister.

I will continue to live in the east room and refuse to move. I don't acknowledge these two rooms in my heart. My in-laws also know that I disagree with building this house, and they have started to persuade me to move, but I remain unmoved.

It got cold, and it became difficult to sell fish. I went to the market to try my luck at selling frozen fish. The water in the basin would freeze over in no time. I used a homemade scoop to repeatedly remove the ice from the basin. But when weighing the fish, I still had to use my hands because the fish were alive, and using the scoop to weigh them wasn't convenient. After a few days, I felt unwell due to the cold. My hands and feet ached, and I developed hemorrhoids from a prolapsed anus. I was too ashamed to talk about it, so I endured it.

Seeing that I insisted on not moving to the front house, my in-laws talked to me. My mother-in-law said, "The house has already been built, it's yours even if you don't move. It's just sitting there doing nothing. It's getting colder every day. If you buy cabbage and pickle it, you won't be able to move it. Won't it freeze if you leave it all winter? Your second sister-in-law has been living there for so long, and her new house is so nice! What's the point of living in this dilapidated house? Look at the mud wall at the back door, there's a huge crack that even dogs can run through. The windows can't be closed properly either. It's not good for the new house to be empty all the time."

I said, "This is really not what I want. You promised us five rooms, but two of them are still inside, making it inconvenient to come and go. Building those two rooms has caused a huge problem. When will you be able to pay us back? You said you would build five rooms, live in half and sell the other half. How are you going to fulfill that promise?"

Father-in-law: "That's your second brother outside, not a stranger. There's no such thing as inconvenience. If you want to come to the backyard, just walk under his window! The money you borrowed isn't from anyone else, it's from your eldest brother and second sister. They can't ask you for it even if you don't have it. The deed is done, and there's no point in saying anything else."

I said, "Have you thought about how we'll manage in the future?"

The mother-in-law and father-in-law fell silent.

With no resolution in sight, and this dragging on going on like this not going to work, I gave in and had no choice but to move.

The new house is of excellent construction quality, but the layout is poor. It is narrow from east to west and long from north to south, with the kitchen located at the back on the shady side. It is a brick-concrete structure, making the house very cold and damp.

With a debt of over ten thousand yuan, we dared not buy coal to light the stove for heating, and we practiced strict frugality to save money to pay off the debt.

Zhiqiang goes out to work in the winter to work as a boiler operator, while I work as a tailor and sewer, finishing jobs at 1 a.m. We are under tremendous financial pressure.

The spittoon in the front room froze solid at night, and I was freezing even though I was wearing a cotton-padded jacket, cotton-padded trousers, and an army overcoat when I went to cook in the back kitchen.

We nailed the windows shut with large cardboard sheets, making the room pitch black; we had to turn on the lights even during the day.

The tap water pipes froze, so we had no water to drink. We carried buckets of water from the backyard to boil two large pots of water to scald the pipes. The kitchen was filled with steam, and as it cooled, a layer of ice formed on top. We scalded the pipes every few days, countless times throughout the winter.

After a year of hard work and saving, we sold our motorcycle: a Suzuki AS-100, and raised 8,000 yuan to send to his older brother's house.

Gradually, my health deteriorated, and I couldn't cook anymore. I just sat on the kang (a heated brick bed) waiting. It was nine o'clock, and Zhiqiang still hadn't come home from get off work. I was starving, so I staggered out of bed to try and start a fire. I tried three times to get some straw but couldn't get it going. I couldn't bend down to add coal, so I had no choice but to go back to the kang and cry.

Zhiqiang came back and started a fire, then brought me water to wash my face. I rubbed my face a couple of times, but I was worried about how to reach the towel from a meter away.

I miss home and my family. My physical condition makes me worry all the time.

On the 24th day of the first lunar month, Dad came back from inside the pass. Zhiqiang propped up his bicycle at the door, helped me onto it, and took me back to see Dad.

At this time, after Shuanglai and Jiang Xiaoyu got married, they divided the main house into inner and outer rooms, and placed the Chinese toon wood chest that their father had brought from the interior on the kang (a heated brick bed). Their father lived in the outer room, and Shuanglai and Xiaoyu lived in the inner room, where they built a stove to heat the kang.

Jiang Xiaoyu: "I'll cook, and we'll invite Dad to eat with us."

"Okay, I'm too weak, I'll lie down and rest for a while." He said, lying down on the warm kang that Xiao Yu had heated.

Once I lay down, it was difficult to get up. I tried to get up several times, but I couldn't turn over or get up. I held onto the seat with both hands, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't lift my waist.

It was past one o'clock in the afternoon when Dad came to me and said, "I'll go find a doctor from the clinic to take a look at you!"

I hummed in agreement.

A little while later, Dr. Qu Shujie from the clinic arrived.

I said, "You found it so quickly?"

Dad said, "Jiang Xiaoyu found them. I went to the main road, and they were heading this way!"

Qu Shujie, known as Second Sister, has a large face, big eyes, and freckles. She speaks kindly and warmly, and without asking about my illness, she directly dispenses the medicine via intramuscular injection.

I said, "You didn't even ask me what's wrong, yet you know what medicine to mix?"

Qu Shujie: "I know, this is a hormone injection. Once you get it, you'll be able to get up. This medicine doesn't cure the disease, but it works quickly. Right now, getting up is the most important thing. Let me tell you where to get this treated. There's a doctor named Zhang near the Liaohe Bathhouse on Jinhai Street. He's a traditional Chinese medicine doctor. He can cure your illness. Go see him."

You know my aunt Dong Shulan, right? She had a similar illness to yours, so much pain that she could only walk with her feet facing each other, unable to take a step. She was the one who cured her.”

"Oh—I don't know much about Dong Shulan. I noticed she walks strangely, but I didn't know she had this illness."

Qu Shujie: "He's better now. He runs a building materials store in the north of 'Art Post.' Your home is in Qiaotou Village, not far from there. When you go to see a doctor, just ask my aunt. She can tell you."

"Okay! Okay! Thank you, I'll go check it out as soon as I get back." The dark clouds in my heart dissipated, as if I had seen hope.