Every Family Has Its Own Troubles

Fang Bai had no idea what others thought when they saw him riding a new bicycle. Anyway, he was having a blast.

As home drew closer and closer, he felt that strange homesickness—the closer he got to home, the more timid his heart became.

"Hey, isn't that Fang Shi's son? Villagers who work with him at the same Valve Factory said three of his fingers were severed by a machine. Sigh, he's so young. What a terrible fate."

"Exactly. It'll be hard for him to find work or get a wife now. He's really unlucky."

"Whose bike did he borrow? It's brand-new."

Quite a few villagers along the road gave Fang Bai pitying looks and openly gossiped about him.

Fang Bai was not riding very fast, so he heard plenty of it. He said nothing. He had long since gotten used to it in his previous life.

Besides, the villagers were not wrong. With the middle three fingers of his right hand severed, he could no longer exert much strength with it, which meant it would be hard to make a living.

When he was still about a hundred meters from home, he ran into his neighbor, his second aunt. She greeted him, and Fang Bai had no choice but to brake and stop to talk with her.

"Fang Bai, you're out of the hospital?"

"Yeah, I just got discharged."

"Oh, what a mess this has become. What are you planning to do in the future?"

"I'll take things one step at a time, I guess. Heh." Fang Bai smiled and gave her a perfunctory answer. If he said he planned to repeat his studies, people would probably think he could not afford it.

And if he said he wanted to do business, would he not just become a laughingstock? Before a few hours had passed, the whole village would know that he was overestimating himself and wanted to start a business!

"That won't do. You can find some easier work, save more money, and get married early. Look, there are plenty of men in the village over thirty who still aren't married. Don't go joining their ranks."

Fang Bai kept smiling. Nowadays, anyone still unmarried past thirty would be criticized by the villagers as having something wrong with their head. But thirty years later, there would be countless unmarried bachelors over thirty in the village.

After chatting for a while, he continued riding home.

Judging from the villagers' attitudes toward him, none of them thought much of his future. He had basically been handed a death sentence.

Whenever anything new happened in the village, word spread quickly. Those old ladies and old men who gathered beneath the banyan tree at the village entrance to chat were all enthusiastic propagandists, capable of digging through every last detail of a family's affairs.

As he got closer to home, the road ahead became narrow and winding. It had been ravaged by ox carts into layer upon layer of ruts, making it difficult to ride, so Fang Bai had to get off and push his bike.

He ran into several villagers carrying farm tools home from working in the fields, as well as quite a few children. He knew most of them and exchanged greetings.

"Brother Bai, people in the village said your hand was broken, so you can't work anymore and can't get married. Is that true?" A five- or six-year-old child spotted Fang Bai and chased after his bicycle, pestering him with questions. Children had no such tact; they asked whatever they wanted, leaving Fang Bai slightly embarrassed.

"Uh, it was my fingers that were severed, and they've already been reattached. My hand wasn't broken. Who's been spouting that nonsense?"

Seeing Fang Bai get angry, the little brat looked more closely at his hand before running off and shouting to his friends, "Brother Bai's fingers were severed, not his hand! I saw it clearly!"

Hearing the little brat shout that, Fang Bai gave a wry smile and continued toward home.

Fang Bai's village was built at the foot of a mountain. Most of the houses were brick-and-wood structures, with red walls and dark tiles—simple yet warm.

In this era, it was still fairly rare for rural families to build multistory houses. But the countryside in Jiangnan Province was generally prosperous, and such houses were quite common there, most with precast concrete floor slabs.

It could be said that sixty to seventy percent of the rural households in Fang Bai's village had already built multistory houses, most of them in the past few years.

However, his family did not have the money to build one.

Fang Bai's home consisted mainly of three south-facing tiled rooms and two side rooms.

His parents occupied one bedroom. The middle room was the main hall and also served as the living room. Fang Bai and his Younger Sister shared the other bedroom, with one bed each.

The side rooms were the kitchen and bathroom, both extremely crude. The bathroom in particular dripped nonstop inside whenever it rained, and it did not even have an electric light. If they wanted to bathe, they had to do it early.

In front of the house was a small vegetable patch of about one-tenth of a mu, planted with seasonal vegetables.

Just as Fang Bai parked his bicycle in front of the main hall, his Younger Sister, Fang Tingting, heard movement outside while reading in the bedroom. She came out, saw her older brother, and immediately beamed with joy.

She boarded at Oubei No. 1 Middle School as a second-year junior high student. She had returned from school yesterday afternoon and would go back on Sunday.

"older brother, you're back from the hospital! I was going to visit you, but Mom said you'd already been discharged, so there was no need." As she spoke, her eyes reddened. "I only found out what happened when I came home yesterday and heard the villagers talking about it. It scared me to death."

As Fang Tingting spoke, she examined her older brother's hands. When she saw the obvious scars on the middle three fingers of his right hand, tears began streaming down her face. "Brother, does it still hurt?"

Fang Bai rubbed the head of his Younger Sister, who was a head shorter than him. Looking at her thin, frail figure, as if a typhoon could blow her away, he did not feel very good inside either.

His Younger Sister might have been carefree, but her grades were quite good. She got into an ordinary teachers' college and became a teacher after graduation.

When he got married, she had been as happy as a blooming flower. Her laughter could be heard everywhere in the village. To her, having an older brother marry a beautiful, educated sister-in-law made her immensely proud.

Later, when she learned that her niece and sister-in-law had passed away one after another, she was devastated as well. Seeing her older brother so grief-stricken that he choked up and could not cry, she hugged him and wept bitterly.

In her eyes, her older brother was the family's pillar of support. He had sacrificed his own chance to repeat his studies and worked to earn money for her education. She felt she owed him far too much, but with her personality and limited abilities, she had always carried that guilt.

During those muddled years of Fang Bai's life, his Younger Sister lost much of her former cheerfulness and vitality, doing everything she could to help him regain his fighting spirit.

Setting aside the past, Fang Bai smiled gently. "It doesn't hurt anymore. I've recovered. Don't worry. Are Mom and Dad home?"

"Dad is. Mom left not long ago. She said she was going to Second Aunt-in-law's house. Hey, whose bike is this? It's so new. Brother, don't tell me you..." Fang Tingting wiped away her tears, her surprise replacing her sadness.

"Get lost. I bought it." Fang Bai rolled his eyes at his Younger Sister and snapped, "Can't you think in a better direction for once?"

He did not intend to hide the matter of the bicycle. After all, having one made things more convenient. He could use it, and so could his family.

He planned to tell his family that he had gotten back One Thousand Yuan in compensation from the boss, along with his wages. He intended to give his family eight hundred yuan for emergencies and keep some money for himself to make plans.

Fang Bai did not plan to mention the remaining money. Equipment would cost three thousand yuan, renting a house had already cost another 360 yuan, and there would be other unknown expenses. He needed to keep some capital for turnover. Once he made money, he could make it up to his family. A month or two would not make much difference.

Fang Bai now had to plan every cent he spent. He wished he could split one yuan into two.

"Ah, where did you get the money?"

"I robbed a bank. Good thing your brother runs fast."

"Tch, fine, don't tell me. Mom will ask you tonight, and then you'll have to come clean. Do you think you can escape Mom's needles?"

"Heh, I remember the year before last, someone was naughty and did something bad. Her hand got pricked by a needle, and she cried her eyes out, hiding in the corner and saying, 'No, no...'"

"Ah! Don't say it! Don't say it!" Embarrassed by the humiliating story, his Younger Sister hurriedly covered his mouth so he could not continue.

Fang Bai burst out laughing, pushed away her little hand, wiped his mouth, and said in disgust, "Your hands are filthy. Did you not wash them after using the toilet?"

"Hehe, you actually found out." Fang Tingting joked.

"Gross. Let's be serious. Why did Mom go to Second Aunt-in-law's house?" Fang Bai was somewhat curious about why his mother had gone there at this time, though he could roughly guess. She had most likely gone to borrow money for him to repeat his studies.

Even if Second Aunt-in-law had money, she would not lend it to them. In his previous life, after his accident, his father had gone to borrow money and failed.

Fang Bai knew Second Uncle and Aunt's family all too well. There had always been plenty of conflict between the two families, mainly because their grandparents had played favorites.

His grandfather had four children. The eldest and fourth uncles had died young, while Fang Bai's father was the third.

Second Uncle, Fang Lei, was five years older than Fang Bai's father, Fang Shi, and had better grades. Their grandparents had given him their full support, while they had only shown ordinary affection toward their third son. When naming Fang Bai's father, they had even simply taken a character from Second Uncle's name to save trouble.

His grandfather had made Fang Bai's father give up school to earn work points and support Second Uncle's education. Later, Second Uncle got into a technical secondary school, which was an impressive feat back then. But after graduating and being assigned a job, he looked down on his farming third brother.

After Fang Bai's mother married into the family, she had always complained about this matter and had quarreled with their grandparents, saying they had been unfair. It was one thing to let Second Uncle attend technical secondary school, but even when she married into the family and they divided the household, they had been unfair—she had received nothing.

Over the years, Fang Bai's mother had harbored resentment and did not want contact with Second Uncle's family. They did not want dealings with Fang Bai's family either.

These past few years, Fang Bai's mother had worked in logistics at Yongjia Middle School. Whenever she ran into Second Aunt-in-law, who taught there, she could only force herself to greet her.

Now that the children had grown up, Fang Bai's mother was truly out of options. She had borrowed from every relative she could, so she could only swallow her pride and ask for help, hoping Second Aunt-in-law would put the past aside and help for the child's sake.

If Fang Bai's mother really went there to borrow money, she would most likely be turned away.

Around 2010, Fang Bai's hometown underwent development, and the demolition compensation was substantial. Second Uncle and Second Aunt-in-law came forward again, claiming they deserved a share.

Fang Bai's mother immediately cursed at them. "When the production brigade divided the farmland back in the eighties, it had nothing to do with you city people!"

Though they got nothing from Fang Bai's family, the grandmother who was still alive gave her own and her late husband's share of the demolition compensation to Second Uncle's family.

However, Fang Bai's mother could not be bothered to argue anymore. Maybe if she cursed the old woman a few times, she would be buried in the ground. Besides, her relationship with the old woman over the years had been neither good nor bad.

Fang Bai remembered these matters clearly. This was not unique to his family; plenty of families were like this.

He could not say he hated his grandparents or Second Uncle's family. He was simply very distant toward them. It did not matter. Everyone could live their own lives.

Sigh, every family had its own troubles.

"I don't know. Ask Dad."

As the siblings talked, their father, who had been busy in the kitchen, heard them and came out. Seeing his son return pushing a brand-new bicycle, he was surprised too. But he cared more about his son's hand. After examining it closely and seeing that his son did not seem concerned, he felt relieved, though he was also somewhat guilty. If the family had not been poor, his son would not have had to work in a factory.

"Your mom went to Second Aunt-in-law's house to talk to her about you repeating your studies. She hopes you can repeat at Yongjia Middle School. After all, the teachers there are good, and it would be easier for you to get into university."

"What's the point of going to her? I've already decided to study at Oubei No. 1 Middle School." Fang Bai frowned.

Yongjia Middle School was a key high school, much better than Oubei No. 1 Middle School. He had not gotten in back then.

"I told her that too, but your mom wouldn't believe it. She just wanted to give it a try." Fang Shi sighed. He had also gone to borrow money from his older brother, but he had failed and been mocked by his sister-in-law. She said that even her own son's schooling did not cost much and that they could not even come up with two or three hundred yuan. But he did not intend to tell his son this.

"I'll go over there. I'll tell Mom to stop putting herself through this." After speaking, Fang Bai turned the bicycle around, quickly got on, and rode away, not caring about the bumpy road.

Fang Shi watched his son leave, too late to stop him.

Still, he hoped his son would make it in time, so his sister-in-law would not nag him again.

Seeing his son leave, Fang Shi decided to buy some pork. Tonight, he would make a meat dish for the children to eat.