Chapter 22

Chapter 23: A sudden awakening

His eldest uncle, Zeng Qu anming, rubbed his forehead, lit a cigarette, and smoked it one drag at a time, staring at the chart in the stock-trading software on his computer screen. He seemed to have run into a problem.

Trading stocks was his eldest uncle's hobby, and he was quite well known for it in his circle. His uncle enjoyed things like studying stocks, collecting stamps, and collecting antiques. His fondness for playing the stock market was probably also because the personnel matters at work had already worn him out. In Su Can's memories, after lecturing the younger generation and laying out their study and grade targets for the coming year, his uncle would always light a cigarette, clasp his hands behind his back, walk into his study, and turn on the computer to study stock market trends.

After growing up, when the demands of work kept Su Can from returning home for the Spring Festival for several years, recalling this scene always filled him with boundless gratitude toward his eldest uncle. He genuinely wanted all of them to have good lives in the future. Though he spoke rather stiffly, deep down he very much hoped that their generation would surpass his own.

Even on the few occasions when Su Can talked back and argued with him, he could see a gleam in his uncle's eyes. His uncle often argued with his own superiors, too, looking as though he feared nothing in the world. Perhaps he felt that Su Can's personality resembled his own, so although he sometimes got angry, he never truly took it as defiance or disliked him for it. On the contrary, he rather admired Su Can's character.

Su Can looked at his eldest uncle's back. He was still wearing that old leather jacket from his memories, a cigarette held between his fingers, thin wisps of smoke rising from it.

After his rebirth, as he thought back on everything that happened in the years to come, his gratitude toward this man was like a slowly simmered soup of pickled radish and old duck, its flavor enough to bring tears to a person's eyes.

Zeng Qu anming sank into deep deliberation. The stock market had been doing well since May, with a bull run lasting nearly a month. After June began, it had reached the year's high of 1422.98 on the fourth. Although it had dipped slightly recently, the current signs clearly showed that China's stock market had not been swayed by the Asian financial crisis. The biggest question was whether it was worth continuing to buy in.

When his wife and younger sister had said earlier that the family had only fifty thousand yuan, they had concealed nothing. Zeng Qu anming had already put more than a hundred thousand into the stock market, and after riding this bull run, his holdings had an estimated market value of three hundred thousand.

With a few ripples beginning to appear, should he keep buying a few promising stocks, or quit while he was ahead? That was a difficult question. Even for the most seasoned veteran, it was a perilous dilemma caught between the clashing blades of profit and risk.

Zeng Qu anming considered himself an experienced stock trader, yet the current situation had his blood running hot. After all, the hundred thousand yuan in stocks in his account had suddenly tripled in value, and the sense of achievement from winning through his own trading was enough to send his confidence soaring. Still, he also had a cool head. The broader market had dipped slightly, but if he seized another opportunity, it was not impossible to reap even greater gains. Yet his years as a stock trader also sounded a faint warning in his mind. Never be greedy-this was an old rule of the stock market, but how many people could honestly say they clearly understood and abided by it?

A fierce battle raged within him, sparks flying.

Seeing his eldest uncle frown at the price charts and holdings charts, Su Can's heart stirred. That was close. I nearly overlooked something this important.

One of the disastrous repercussions of the 1998 floods was the trouble in the stock market. The arrival of floods on a scale unseen in decades caused enormous loss of life and property, and the public's fragile psychological defenses collapsed all at once. The stock market kept falling and fluctuating, leaving investors in utter misery during that period. Su Can did not know much about his eldest uncle's situation, because even when his uncle was unhappy, he always wore that same stern face. No one could tell what he was thinking. Only later, as he grew older and became dispirited after being stripped of his authority, could they gradually sense a trace of bitterness.

Although he had no way of knowing how his eldest uncle had fared in the stock market during the 1998 floods, during the market upheavals that followed, his uncle always quit while he was ahead. He was distinctly cautious in the face of falling prices, with none of his former boldness, like someone who had been bitten once and still felt lingering fear.

Putting it all together, Su Can felt that his eldest uncle's later timidity stemmed from a breach in his spirit. He no longer had the confidence to draw his sword, which directly led to his opponents gradually eating away at his position at work, forcing him into retreat after retreat in every contest. The root of it could very well have been the stock market plunge brought on by the floods of 1998.

Life was unpredictable. How could Zeng Qu anming, the warrior who leaped and dodged through the stock market armed with guns and arrows, have foreseen that, just as he was bounding through the forest, a flood would come crashing down on his head and render his light-footed skills useless?

It seemed that the onslaught of these floods had not only left many people with an inescapable shadow, but would also bring his eldest uncle a nightmare that clung to him like maggots to the bone.

Su Can understood that his strength was still slight. He could not yet change the world or bend events to his will, but he could start with those around him, protect the people close to him from the assaults of an unpredictable fate, and fight for them!

Su Can approached the desk. His younger cousin Zeng Yuan was fidgeting where he sat, bitterly wondering why his eldest uncle still would not leave. Seeing his older cousin step forward, he thought, Can he actually understand Uncle's charts?

Beside his eldest uncle's hand sat a crystal ashtray, supposedly a gift from a property developer for whom he had gotten something done. It was very expensive. His uncle used it with great care and washed it once every week. This time, however, after he had spent several days absorbed in this deliberation, the ash inside had accumulated into a little mountain.

Su Can came up beside him and said, "Uncle, the ashtray's full."

His eldest uncle gave Su Can a puzzled look, thinking he meant to help empty it, and flicked his cigarette ash inside. Perhaps people absorbed in an obsessive line of thought tended to take an interest in certain words. Su Can's word "full," for instance, sent him back into contemplation of his present situation. "Mm," he said. "Yes, it's full."

On the sofa behind them, Zeng Yuan scoffed and cast him a scornful look. Since when did you start sucking up, too? You're even going to fawn over Uncle by emptying his ashtray? What a phony! I really look down on you!

Without changing his expression, Su Can picked up the ashtray, drew a deep breath, and swung it up. As his younger cousin Zeng Yuan's eyes shifted from confusion to horror, he slammed it down onto the marble floor!

An enormous crash erupted in his older cousin's home.

Clang! Crash, clatter!

"He's gone mad! Your son's gone mad!" His aunt, her face livid, stared at his parents, who looked panicked and at a loss.

Surrounded by the entire family, Su Can had become the biggest-headed, darkest chimpanzee in the zoo.

Shards of the shattered glass ashtray covered the floor. Black powder still drifted through the air, and cigarette butts lay scattered everywhere in a complete mess.

His older cousin Zeng Na knew how much that ashtray meant to her father. He had used it for a very long time, and even the Jingdezhen porcelain ashtrays people gave him later had never replaced it. He personally washed it every week for his own use, treasuring it almost as much as his red-clay teacup, which he also rinsed himself. Whatever madness had possessed Su Can this time, he had destroyed her father's most cherished possession.

In the end, Su Can's family was practically driven out of his eldest uncle's home.

Seeing his eldest uncle's ashen face, no one in the extended family, including his younger uncle Zeng Zhaoding, dared linger. They all left with their tails between their legs. Only Zeng Zhaoding shot Su Can a vicious glare as he left. It was because of Su Can that they had to leave in such disgrace.

His mother and father were equally unable to understand what Su Can had done that day. On the way home, his father, Su Licheng, sternly reprimanded him. "Su Can, what got into you today? What exactly were you doing? Do you know how much your uncle loved that ashtray? It was worth a lot of money! What on earth were you doing? Why can't you ever listen?"

Although Zeng Ke was angry too, seeing everyone gang up on Su Can that day had been more than she could bear. "Su Can, did your hand shake? It's all right if you broke it by accident..."

"By accident? He swung it up and smashed it onto the floor, and you call that an accident? Your brother loved that thing so much... This boy's temper is just like your brother's, if you ask me. Far too strange!"

Su Can suddenly raised his head, looked at his father and mother, and said calmly, "Mom, Dad, I have my reasons. Don't worry."

Whether it was Su Can's composure or the confidence he displayed as he spoke, Su Licheng and Zeng Ke were actually left speechless for a moment. Knowing that blaming him was useless, they instead began discussing the consequences. "You need to see Sister Yin in the next few days, too. With this happening..."

His mother shook her head. "Sister Yin isn't that petty. I'll go over tomorrow and apologize to her. Honestly, look at this child. Just when your mother's at a critical point in her career, you have to stir up trouble. What did your uncle do to upset you today, anyway? Honestly..."