A New Year

At nine o'clock on the morning of the fifth day of the 2010 Lunar New Year, twenty-three-year-old Li Yang was still dreaming beneath his warm blankets. He had drunk at his childhood friend Xu Rui's place until midnight the night before and only stumbled home drunk afterward. Once back, he filled a basin with hot water at the kitchen stove and carried it into his small room.

He soaked his feet comfortably, then leaned against the bed and casually flipped through the channels on the Konka TV in his room.

Li Yang had bought that TV three years earlier when he worked at the factory near his home. To kill the boredom, he had gritted his teeth and spent more than seven hundred yuan at an appliance store on an old-fashioned boxy television. Then he had called the cable company and gotten the line connected at home so he could watch stations from every province.

From then on, the TV had accompanied Li Yang through three long, boring years, giving him something to do in his spare time.

He switched to Hunan TV, where all sorts of New Year celebration shows were playing. Li Yang lay there casually, listening to Zhang Jie sing a newly released New Year song and watching with great interest.

From time to time, firecrackers sounded outside. There were always night owls in the countryside who stayed up all night, wandering around the village like lonely ghosts and making themselves thoroughly annoying.

After tonight, it would be his family's turn to host the drinking gathering tomorrow.

For many years, this had been an unchanging New Year tradition for him and his childhood friends.

Starting from New Year's Eve, they would keep going until everyone had hosted once, only then calling it finished.

Whenever they drank, there would be bickering, arguments, drinking contests, and chaos enough to make anyone's head hurt. Even so, it was a ritual they had to attend every year. Unless you were away from home for the holiday, no one could escape.

After a while, the foot-soaking water gradually cooled. Li Yang grabbed a towel, quickly dried his feet, put on a sweater, and went outside to pour the water onto the snowbank in the yard.

A heavy snow had fallen all night on the first day of the Lunar New Year, which delighted Li Yang, who hated visiting relatives.

The snow made travel inconvenient, so relatives who lived far away naturally did not need to be visited just for the sake of going through the motions. It saved him plenty of trouble.

Even now, he was still a single loser with neither love nor a career. If he went, people would inevitably gossip about him, so staying home was much better.

There was a little alcohol to drink every night. Usually, Li Yang rarely even drank beer, but he could not escape the holiday routine. If he did not drink a little, there was no way to muddle through.

Tomorrow, he needed to remind his mother early to cook a few dishes that evening, or else he would not know how to cook himself.

The alcohol hit him, and a wave of drowsiness came over him. Li Yang could not help turning off the TV, stripping his upper body bare, and climbing under the covers in only his underwear. Luckily, the electric blanket had been plugged in beforehand and was now hot and comfortable.

After lying down, Li Yang casually switched off the bedside lamp, and the room immediately fell into darkness.

Gradually, Li Yang drifted off to sleep...

At half past nine in the morning, Li Yang slowly opened his eyes. He had not woken up in the middle of the night even once, so sleeping after drinking really was more comfortable.

His mother had not come to wake him either. It was already the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, and the ritual of visiting relatives had basically come to an end.

He lay awake under the covers for a long while before slowly getting dressed. The room was freezing, and putting on clothes was miserable. There was no heating in the countryside.

The moment he got out from under the covers, it felt like he was standing in the middle of nowhere. After a round of grimacing and shivering, Li Yang finally got into his thick winter clothes.

No wonder the beautiful women on TV did not like winter. They probably did not want to wear so many clothes either. Lost in wild speculation, Li Yang could not be bothered to make his bed and staggered out of the bedroom into the yard.

His family's financial situation was very ordinary. His father had long since been unable to shoulder the family's burden, and they had stumbled along all these years.

Luckily, both he and his older brother Li Guang were working and earning money now. Whether they could save anything was another matter, but it was already good enough that they could at least take care of themselves and keep the family from worrying about them.

Last year, Li Yang and Xu Rui had returned from working in the provincial capital. They had thought Zhengzhou would offer good prospects, but once they got there, they realized that if you had no real skills, going abroad would not make a damn bit of difference. They had drifted around Zhengzhou for a year without earning much money, wasting an entire year for nothing.

As the year drew to a close, the two of them handled their resignations early and took the train home with bags large and small. Luckily, Luoyang was not far away, and a train ticket only cost twenty yuan.

They discussed going to the job market after the New Year to see whether there were any good jobs available.

The house was quiet. His parents had probably gone out for a stroll. Older people in the countryside often liked visiting one another, endlessly chatting about this family and that family. As someone born in the eighties, Li Yang simply could not understand what was so meaningful about that hobby.

Li Yang walked into the kitchen. The stove built in rural homes burned honeycomb coal, and it was quite warm there, much more comfortable than the bedroom.

He lifted the lid off the pot sitting over the coal fire. Inside was the meal his mother had left for him: steamed buns, rice porridge, and stir-fried dishes.

Li Yang slowly carried it out by hand, sat at the dining table, and began eating and drinking in big mouthfuls. Boys raised in the countryside had one major advantage: they were easy to feed. Having grown up enduring all kinds of hardship, they never fussed over food, clothing, housing, or transportation. A full meal and a bed to sleep in were enough.

Li Yang had grown up eating his mother's cooking. To be honest, her skills were pretty average. It was not especially delicious; barely filling his stomach was the best praise Li Yang could give her cooking.

After eating, he did not wash the dishes. He casually tossed them into the sink, wiped his mouth, and walked out.

He checked his phone and saw it was only ten in the morning. What should he do? Li Yang stood dazed at the gate for a long while before finally deciding to visit Xu Rui's place.

Since they lived nearby, and Xu Rui's parents were warm and hospitable people, Li Yang often hung around with Xu Rui whenever he had nothing to do. His parents did not object to the two spending time together, unlike some parents who judged people by their appearance and liked choosing their children's friends for them.

It was pretty ridiculous, Li Yang thought. If he had children in the future, he definitely would not interfere with who they associated with. Everyone had the right to choose. Whether it was love or friendship, as long as the children liked it, why not?

Lost in thought, Li Yang shoved both hands into the pockets of his thick cotton coat and slowly walked toward Xu Rui's house over the nearly melted snow. Whenever he met someone he knew, Li Yang greeted them warmly.

Quite a few people in the village knew him. That was also thanks to the fact that Li Yang had spent nearly a year hanging around in the city a few years ago. As the saying went, good news never traveled far, but bad news spread a thousand miles.

Rumors that Li Yang had been running with the wrong crowd outside eventually reached his family's ears.

His mother did not understand grand principles, but she used what she believed was the most correct method to cut off Li Yang's path of continuing down that road. Even now, Li Yang did not know whether leaving that circle had truly been the right choice.

His mother's reasoning was simple: anyone who did not live properly was classified as a no-good hoodlum, someone who would be drowned in people's spit.

Li Yang had actually been doing fairly well in the city back then and had already achieved a little success, but his mother still forcibly dragged him back and made him work honestly.

After working for several years, he had not saved much money. He had only bought a TV and had a few thousand yuan left in his account. He had nothing else to his name. When he went out, he either rode a bicycle or took the bus, and he could count the number of times he took a taxi each year on one hand.

Before long, he arrived at Xu Rui's door. Without even knocking, he walked into the yard as if it were his own home.

Xu Rui was sitting in the yard, looking completely baffled as he tended the firewood. He had no idea what was steaming in the large pot over the stove.

When he saw Li Yang walk in, his face immediately broke into a smile. Turning his head, he said, "You just woke up, didn't you?"

Li Yang walked over and sat on a small stool beside him, his brows creasing slightly.

"What, you thought I drank too much? Don't you remember what you looked like last night?"

The two began mocking each other over how drunk they had been the night before. Both were stubbornly refusing to admit whose alcohol tolerance was worse.

Xu Rui pulled out a five-yuan pack of cigarettes, took one, and handed it to Li Yang.

Li Yang looked at him disdainfully. "I've told you hundreds of times that I quit. You still trying to tempt me? Get lost."

"Oh, look at you. Fine, you've got backbone. Let's see how long you can keep it up." As he spoke, he lit one for himself, took a blissful drag, and deliberately blew a huge cloud of smoke in Li Yang's face.

"You'll smoke yourself to death sooner or later."

"You're gonna die of envy."

The two started bickering again while stretching out their hands over the bright red coals in the stove. The warmth made their whole bodies feel wonderfully comfortable.

"Oh, right. Tonight we go to your place, and tomorrow we go to He Junjun's for the last gathering. Then this year's round is over."

Xu Rui casually laid out the schedule ahead.

"So when are we going to look for work?" Li Yang asked the most important question.

"After the New Year. This time, we're not running around anymore. I'm never going out of town again. It's a complete waste of time." Thinking of his years working in Guangdong made Xu Rui's head hurt. It had all been a scam. He would never take another step outside Luoyang again. Xu Rui silently made up his mind.

Without realizing it, the two had sat around talking by the fire until lunchtime.

At that moment, Xu Rui's mother came over and lifted the pot lid. Inside were steamed white buns.

"Stay and eat, Yangyang," Xu Rui's mother invited warmly.

"No, Auntie. I need to head back. My mom has already cooked. You all eat." As he spoke, he stood and stretched lazily.

"That fire felt so good. I'm sweating, and my face is burning red." He quickly greeted Xu Rui and his mother, then headed home.

When he got home, his mother was just about to call him in for lunch. His older brother Li Guang had also come over from his own house.

Li Yang called out, "Brother," but said nothing else. The two had fought often as children, and after growing up, they did not interact much either. Despite being blood brothers, they felt a little distant, not as close as he felt with his buddies.

Since it was the New Year, the family meals were much better than usual. At the very least, there were several dishes with meat and vegetables. The family of four sat around the dining table in the kitchen and started eating.

His mother had steamed rice, and Li Yang ate two bowls before reluctantly putting his bowl down.

"Mom, it's my turn to host the drinking gathering tonight. Remember to cook a few dishes. They don't need to be too fancy; there aren't many of us." Now that Li Yang was grown up, he spoke quite confidently about drinking with his family.

"Alright. Is six dishes enough?" his mother replied after taking a bite of rice.

"That's enough. We'll mostly be drinking and won't eat much. There were plenty of dishes left over at Xu Rui's last night."

Li Yang reminded his mother ahead of time so she would not be caught off guard later.

"Then go to my place. The alcohol is already there. Just have Mom cook a few dishes," his older brother Li Guang suddenly suggested.

"Alright." Li Yang did not refuse his brother's kindness. Being too polite between blood brothers would only make things awkward. They were both adults now, and Li Yang did not want to hurt his brother's feelings, so he readily agreed.

A few years ago, the village had allocated another homestead to Li Yang's family. To avoid delays, his mother had gone around borrowing from relatives until she gathered enough money to build a one-story house. Only after moving in did the family finally feel at ease.

Although his older brother was not married, the two brothers had already tacitly agreed on how the houses would be divided. Their old home would go to Li Yang, and it was much larger than his brother's place.

The two brothers had no disagreement over it. His brother normally lived in his new house.

After lunch, Li Yang was so bored that he wandered out to the small supermarket by the road at the village entrance.

When the shop owner's wife saw Li Yang arrive, she enthusiastically began calling around to gather people for a card game.

Li Yang's only hobby was playing mahjong. Although the stakes were not high, he had still lost plenty of money. Sometimes he even bought things on credit there, but he generally settled his debts every few months. The shop owner's wife trusted Li Yang's credit, after all, they were from the same village.

Some migrant workers from nearby factories also often came to play.

Before long, they had gathered four people. They were all regular card partners and familiar with one another.

The supermarket had limited space and could barely fit two automatic mahjong tables. Even so, they were full every day. Mainly because the stakes were small enough for both men and women to accept.

A few minutes later, the other table also started playing, and the room suddenly became crowded. Since it was the New Year holiday, most people were bored with nothing to do, and those who brought children out made the supermarket noisy and chaotic.

Li Yang was feeling irritated. He finally endured it until after five o'clock, when the four discussed it and decided to quit after one last round.

After settling up, Li Yang had actually won sixty yuan, which made him quite happy. His luck had been terrible at first, but just before the end, it suddenly turned around. He made several kongs and ended up going from losing to winning.

After taking the money the shop owner's wife handed him, Li Yang quickly headed back to his brother's house.

His mother had already started getting busy, and his brother had helpfully set up the table in the living room. Four bottles of Dukang Old Cellar baijiu sat on it, along with two cold dishes: cold sausage and Pork Head Meat. They were both drinking snacks. Once they stir-fried four hot dishes, everything would be ready.

"Hurry and call them to hurry up, or the food might get cold," his mother reminded Li Yang from the kitchen doorway.

"Alright, I'll call now." Just as he finished speaking, Xu Rui walked in alone. "Come on in. I was just about to call you guys. Call a few others too—I can't drink all this by myself." Li Yang spoke to Xu Rui, then called the rest of his buddies.