Family

"God knows how much I regret giving birth to you! God knows!"

A hoarse female voice, laced with a natural rap cadence, harshly shattered Song Ya's dream. He sighed, sat up helplessly, and slowly fished a sweater from the bedside to pull over his head.

He had been transmigrated for over ten days now, and whether he was used to it or not, he had no choice but to endure it.

Of course, his name was no longer Song Ya, and he was no longer Chinese. His full name was now Alexander Song, a fifteen-year-old boy whose biological parents had died in a car accident, and who was currently living with his aunt in the South Side of Chicago.

The soundproofing was practically non-existent, and a barrage of vulgarities fired like a machine gun from downstairs. Aunt Susie was "educating" her seventeen-year-old daughter, who was also Alexander Song's cousin, Connie.

Biological, indeed, Song Ya sighed to himself.

"Yeh, yeh! Speaking of bitches, I don't know who had two kids by the time she was seventeen!"

After years of this, Connie had clearly grown thick-skinned to the scolding and immediately retorted without showing any sign of weakness. Aunt Susie had given birth to her eldest son, Tony, at sixteen, then had Connie the following year, and after that, the man who did the deed had vanished without a trace...

Hey, hey, the point is staying out all night, right? Song Ya grumbled internally once more.

On this issue, if they were in China, parents would never lose focus on the main point, but Aunt Susie kept arguing until she completely forgot about the fact that cousin Connie hadn't come home all night...

After getting dressed, Song Ya went out and turned into the nearby bathroom, turning on the faucet to wash up.

The sound of rushing water temporarily blocked out the argument downstairs. He looked into the mirror and examined himself in this life once again.

By Chinese standards for Black aesthetics, he had a decent, slightly boyish face. Because he was half-Chinese, his skin tone was a bit lighter. At fifteen, he was already over 1.7 meters tall, and his build was quite balanced... Of course, as a transmigrator, his future success went without saying, so the quality of this physical shell didn't really matter. After all, this was the USA, a capitalist society where you could buy anything if you had money.

But here's the problem: it's fine if you don't give me any special abilities after transmigrating, but it's too much to not even let me keep my memories from my past life!

For the past ten days, no matter how hard Song Ya tried, his memories of his previous life remained a total blur. Aside from his math grades skyrocketing, he couldn't recall any major historical events, or books he had read, or games he had played in his past life. And those math grades didn't prove much; the South Side of Chicago was mostly a poor neighborhood with a high concentration of Black residents, and the community school had poor teaching quality with low-difficulty exams. If he hadn't even brought over that bit of Chinese racial talent, Song Ya would truly be unable to play this game.

"And where's that lazybones? Get down here and eat breakfast!"

With many children, there wasn't enough energy to treat them differently. Aunt Susie treated everyone the same, never giving Song Ya any abuse or special treatment—of course, that applied to her verbal style as well.

"Coming!"

Song Ya quickly finished getting ready and hurried downstairs.

The creaking of the floorboards indicated that this house had seen better days. It was a standard small house in a poor neighborhood—detached, but with little space between it and the neighboring houses, and built almost entirely of wood. The second floor originally had one large bedroom, one small bedroom, and a bathroom. The large bedroom had been partitioned into two; Song Ya and his cousin Tony shared one, while Connie and her ten-year-old sister Emily shared the other. Aunt Susie and her baby brother, Little Freddy, who was under a year old, lived in the original small bedroom.

The first floor was an open-plan living room, kitchen, and dining area, with only a small half-bath under the stairs.

Despite the fierce arguing, everyone went about their business. Aunt Susie held a spatula in one hand to tend to the golden scrambled eggs in the pan, while the other arm cradled Little Freddy, who was looking around with big blue eyes. Aunt Susie's latest boyfriend was white, which was why Little Freddy was biracial.

At the dining table, Connie and Emily were taking turns dumping bulk-sized milk and cereal into their bowls.

Meanwhile, Tony tilted his head back and crudely sprayed canned whipped cream directly into his mouth.

"Open up."

He swallowed the mouthful of cream and turned the nozzle toward Song Ya.

"No thanks."

Song Ya shook his head in refusal. The soul inside this body had changed; with Aunt Susie and Tony's barrel-like figures and Connie's visible tendency to grow horizontally as cautionary tales, obesity was definitely an enemy he had to be wary of in this life.

"You've changed a lot lately, Ya Li," Tony said.

"Really?" Song Ya felt a pang of tension. "In what way?"

"Hmm..."

Tony began to finish off his cereal and milk. "It's just... it's just a feeling... you know."

"Such a simple thing! It's because of a woman, obviously!"

Connie teased Song Ya, "Who are you hooking up with?" She successfully steered the topic off course again.

"I..."

Before Song Ya could keep up with the train of thought, Aunt Susie divided the soft, Western-style scrambled eggs onto the plates in front of the four siblings. "Shut your X-mouth, finish eating quickly, and don't miss the school bus!" She was currently very displeased with Connie.

"Let me change my clothes! Be right there!" Connie didn't talk back this time; she sprang up and dashed upstairs at full speed.

For an American girl, wearing yesterday's clothes usually meant she hadn't been home for the night, so Connie's main purpose for coming home this morning was to change.

"Who dropped her off this morning?" Aunt Susie took the opportunity to ask in a low voice. It turned out she hadn't forgotten about that.

"How would I know? I only heard the engine," Tony replied, then secretly stepped on Song Ya's foot.

Song Ya shook his head; he really didn't know, and little Emily shook her head along with him.

Aunt Susie didn't press the matter further and went back to cleaning the kitchenware. "Sigh! Black women..." she lamented in a low voice.

Milk, cereal, scrambled eggs—it only took Song Ya three minutes to get it all down. It was 1990, and the welfare system in the USA probably wasn't as good as in the era he came from, but for a single-parent family with five children, meeting the most basic needs for clothing, food, housing, and education didn't seem to be a problem; in terms of food, there was even an excess of calories.

Once Connie had changed her clothes, the four siblings said goodbye to Aunt Susie and stepped out of the house together.

Unlike Song Ya's impression of the USA before he transmigrated, there were no lush green lawns in front of or behind the houses in this neighborhood, only withered weeds, randomly piled debris, dilapidated wooden fences, and various models of broken-down cars. Including Aunt Susie's home, several other houses in the vicinity had small Cameroonian flags hanging by their doors, signaling that they still remembered their roots far away on the African continent.

"So cold!"

In February, Chicago was not only low in temperature but also very windy. Emily shivered and quickly hid her small frame behind Tony.

Tony turned around, pulled Emily into his arms, and used his hand to shield her face. Everyone hunched their shoulders and walked quickly toward the school bus stop a few hundred meters away.