Had an Idea

Standing outside the prison gates, Cheng Jianjun felt lost for a moment, unsure where to go or what to do.

He looked around and, unsurprisingly, saw no family or friends waiting to welcome him home. Letting out a long, stifled breath, he shook his head with a bitter smile. For once, he felt some empathy and could understand his parents and relatives.

His parents had married young, but they were still nineteen years older than him. They were already sixty-five. He himself often felt weighed down and short of strength; how much worse must it have been for parents in their sixties? It took several days to travel from Jingcheng to this place on those slow green trains. How could his parents endure such exhausting travel? Besides, there was their disappointment and heartbreak to consider. During his years in prison, he had written home whenever he could, asking after their health and inquiring about Wang Yan and Han Chunming. Yet the replies he received had been few and far between. He could feel how unwelcome he was to his aging parents.

As for his younger brother, he was already in his thirties. He had a wife and child, a job to support the family, and parents to care for. He had even less time to bother with an older brother who had gone to prison twice and served thirteen years.

He had no other friends. Most of them had been victims of his scams.

Looking at the newly risen buildings outside the prison, he was struck by a sense of how much things had changed. Nine years ago, as he remembered it, this had been barren wasteland. Though the south had once been full of mountains, water, and lush greenery, there was now not a trace left of how it