After Shi Zhen left, Guan Baiyu waited for a bit and then opened the door.
There was a dirt road next to his house, which led through a vegetable field to his adoptive father’s house.
His adoptive father’s house looked like a two-story building from the front, but it only had one floor at the back, and the outside had not yet been plastered – there was no money to finish building the house.
In addition to farming, some people in the village also worked in factories or did other things, so they could earn a living. If they worked hard, even if they couldn’t afford to build a big house, they could still build a small house. But his adoptive father never found a job. Although he did some work such as selling bamboo shoots and fish in town, he didn’t make much money.
Their main source of income was farming and raising silkworms.
It was still early. When Guan Baiyu arrived at his adoptive father’s house, although the door was closed, there was light coming from inside.
Guan Baiyu knocked on the door and heard the sound of the door bolt sliding out. His adoptive mother opened the door.
Guan Baiyu’s adoptive mother’s surname was Zhang, and her full name was Zhang Xiumei. She was very beautiful when she was young, but now in her forties, she was dark, thin, and a little hunchbacked, and she had long lost her youthful charm.
Seeing Guan Baiyu, Zhang Xiumei was a little unhappy.
She didn’t like Guan Baiyu.
Her father-in-law passed away a long time ago, and her mother-in-law had always been in charge of the house. But her mother-in-law didn’t like her from the beginning, thinking that she was too thin and unable to work.
Later, she miscarried several children and was unable to conceive. Her mother-in-law even disliked her and was very nitpicky toward her.
She remembered that in the past, when her mother-in-law bought a piece of tofu to add to the dishes at home, she would be scolded if she took more than one piece.
Later, her mother-in-law directly brought Guan Baiyu back.
She really couldn’t like a child who was not her own, especially when she later had her own child.
When she was pregnant, her mother-in-law showed rare kindness toward her, but when she saw that she had given birth to a daughter, her mother-in-law turned around and lay down in bed, saying that her back hurt and she had no time to take care of her.
She could only take care of the baby by herself.
When her daughter was a few months old, her mother-in-law turned sixty, and her eldest sister-in-law gave her mother-in-law a chicken.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
It was still the 1980s at that time, and it was not easy to eat meat. When she gave birth, she only had eggs, not even a chicken.
Seeing her mother-in-law stew the chicken, she eagerly waited for it to be done, thinking she could definitely get a few bites. However, her mother-in-law didn’t even give her a bite.
There were too many things that happened one after another.
When her natal nephew came over, her mother-in-law stopped him from entering the house.
When her mother-in-law couldn’t find something, she said it was her who stole it.
Her mother-in-law would also buy some food and hide it all in her room without letting her eat a bite.
Before Guan Baiyu came to their house, her husband and her did all the work in the fields. Her mother-in-law was taken care of by them, but her mother-in-law still cursed at them all day long.
So she didn’t have a good impression of her mother-in-law, or Guan Baiyu, who was raised by her mother-in-law.
After giving birth to her daughter, she thought about giving Guan Baiyu to someone else to raise, but her mother-in-law insisted on keeping Guan Baiyu because she only gave birth to a daughter.
Fortunately, her husband, like her, was still partial toward his own daughter.
”What are you doing here?” Zhang Xiumei asked.
Guan Baiyu said, “Mom… I have something to tell you.”
Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father’s house also had dirt floors. As for the second floor above, the floors were all made of wood. The stairs were also made of wood, but they were narrow and small.
At this moment, the three of them were all in the main room on the ground floor. His adoptive sister was doing homework and his adoptive father was fixing a broom.
Seeing him come in, they both looked over.
Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father was named Guan Guangguo. At that time, all the male cousins of his generation* were named “X Guo”.
Guan Guangguo didn’t get married late, but he and his wife gave birth to a child late. Although his daughter was two years younger than Guan Baiyu, he was already in his early forties and his hair was gray.
”Do you have a matter to discuss?” Guan Guangguo asked.
Guan Baiyu said, “My cousin came to see me.”
Guan Baiyu told them about Shi Zhen.
Shi Zhen had come to see him several times, but he always came at night. It was cold and there was no one outside at night, so no one saw him.
Even if someone saw, they wouldn’t say anything. So even though Guan Guangguo’s house and his house were only about ten meters apart, Guan Guangguo didn’t know about it.
Guan Guangguo asked subconsciously, “You want to go back? Then you have to pay back the money you owe me.”
Guan Baiyu froze. “I don’t want to go back… My cousin is a relative on my mother’s side, and my mother is dead…”
Guan Guangguo frowned.
Zhang Xiumei usually chatted with her neighbors. After hearing Guan Baiyu say that his cousin’s name was Shi Zhen, she asked, “Is your cousin the one who is renting a room from Jianguo’s family? He himself has to rent a room, and he really can’t take care of you. You be careful. Don’t let him cheat you out of your money.”
When Zhang Xiumei said this, she glanced at Guan Baiyu again.
There was another reason why she didn’t like Guan Baiyu.
Her mother-in-law must have saved some money in her early years, and since she brought Guan Baiyu back, Guan Baiyu’s biological grandfather must have also given some money.
Logically speaking, when her mother-in-law died, she should have left a few hundred or even a thousand yuan. But in the end, they didn’t see a penny, and they even had to spend money on the funeral.
They had just built a house at that time. Where would they get the money? In the end, they ended up borrowing and owed a lot of debt.
Zhang Xiumei felt that the money should have been hidden by Guan Baiyu.
”I have no money,” Guan Baiyu said.
Zhang Xiumei didn’t take it seriously, and was even a little annoyed. “Okay, you have no money! Your cousin is here, so if you want to study in the future, go ask him for money. Don’t come to us to ask for money. We don’t want you to support us in our old age anyway.”
Her mother-in-law was obviously rich, but Guan Baiyu had been taking money from them while studying. They had long been unhappy.
Her mother-in-law had already been dead two years, but they still had to pay for Guan Baiyu’s education, which made her even more unhappy.
Actually, Guan Baiyu wrote them an IOU, so they continued to take care of his tuition.
”I borrowed that money from you…”
”Then we don’t have any money to lend you! Before, when Jinjin* was sick, I took her to the town to see a doctor, and even needed to go back to my maiden family to borrow money!” Zhang Xiumei said.
She was telling the truth. She really had no money! When she and her husband went to her mother-in-law’s younger brother’s house to borrow money for her mother-in-law’s funeral, they even cried, but they still only got fifty yuan.
The two children needed to study, and the family had a lot of expenses. Even now, she had not paid off the money she borrowed to build the house and hold her mother-in-law’s funeral two years ago.
Guan Baiyu froze.
In fact, he never knew what he wanted to do in the future.
His grades were very good, but he was a little thin. The villagers said that he didn’t look like he could work, so they told him to go to a technical secondary school and become an elementary school teacher after graduation.
He himself had this plan, but studying in a technical secondary school cost money. It might be better if he didn’t continue studying and went directly to find a job.
But he couldn’t find a job.
During the previous winter and summer vacations, he had gone to town and wanted to find a job. However, he was too young, not even sixteen years old. Plus, he was skinny, so no one wanted to hire him.
He did the math and felt that it would be better for him to go to school. Although it cost money to study, he could definitely find a pretty good job after finishing technical secondary school in three years. For this reason, he even talked to his adoptive father and said that he wanted to borrow money to study.
His adoptive father was not willing to lend him money. In order to reassure his adoptive father, he wrote an IOU of four thousand yuan, which he would repay when he earned money in the future. From when he was a baby to now, the total amount spent on his food, drink and education wasn’t even this much, although it was not short by much.
Now his adoptive father was unwilling to continue lending him money.
Guan Baiyu was a little worried and thought of Shi Zhen again.
Would Shi Zhen be willing to lend him money? Or… he wouldn’t attend technical secondary school anymore?
***
T/N: Honestly, I don’t like the adoptive parents’ attitudes. Guan Baiyu said before that his adoptive parents weren’t bad because they continued to pay his school tuition, but now we’re learning he had to write them an IOU for that money and it’s not even just the tuition – it’s literally an overestimate of his entire living expenses from birth to now. What shitty parents. Like I know they didn’t want to raise him in the first place and it was the grandmother’s decision to bring him back, but they have to take some responsibility since in the end, they accepted the child. For me, basic responsibility means providing for him (including education) until he is 18. Although I guess it was a different time period and many rural families simply couldn’t afford to send their children to school.
*Naming all children born in a generation of a family with one matching character is very common in China. It is an easy way for outsiders to tell you are related. So Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father is named Guan Guangguo and his uncle (the one Shi Zhen is staying with) is named Guan Jianguo – they share the 国 guo (country) character in their names. Other male cousins born in their generation would also be named Guan [something]guo.
*This is Xiao Hong (小红) = little red in the raws. I thought it was a nickname for her daughter and that her daughter’s name was Guan [something]hong at first, but it’s revealed later her daughter’s name is Guan Jinjin, so I’ve changed this to Jinjin. Honestly, it’s common in rural areas for children to have a nickname different from their given name too, so maybe Xiao Hong wasn’t just a typo, but the author literally never uses it again, so I’m going with Jinjin.
Hmm to be honest, I dont find the adoptive parents attitude strange because they really didnt want to take care of a child whom they didnt give birth. They were forced by the grandmother and according to those time life outlook, it is generally normal for younger generation to obey in family decisions according to older generation wishes. I actually appreciate how they didnt completely abondened ML after the death of the grandmother. Of course they didnt do well enough but their attitude is not malicious at least.
This is the definition of you could be a hero in your story but a villain in someone else’s. The grandmother was some nasty work towards her son. But the karma was paid back on her beloved grandson.
Uhhh I feel like maybe we’re not reading the same story here. The author never said the grandma loved Baiyu at all. She brought him home to raise because she wanted the Guan family name to continue. That was pretty much it.