Sudden wealth, paranoia?

Newly rich, Chi Qing let her imagination run wild, worrying that someone with ulterior motives might have noticed her shopping spree. What if they followed her and something happened?

So she carried her large bag full of jewelry and her various clothes into the restroom, changed into the new clothes she had bought that day, and let down her tied-up hair. After leaving the restroom, she even glanced warily from side to side to see whether anyone was watching her.

This prompted the cleaning lady, who had not noticed her before, to give her a deliberate look. Watching the people coming and going, Chi Qing suddenly felt that she really was a poor person who had come into sudden wealth. The clown was me all along. Her fussing had drawn attention instead, so she relaxed, picked up her things, and strode out with her head held high.

She checked the time. It was already noon, so Chi Qing grabbed a quick meal at KFC, then got into Little White and headed straight for the city's well-known high-end food market. Sea cucumbers, crabs, abalone, mantis shrimp, and all sorts of other seafood, along with beef, lamb, and various nutritional supplements, filled her car to the brim.

Finally, she stopped at a nearby Cantonese restaurant that served delicious food and ordered four dishes and a soup to take home, so her mother would not have to cook that evening.

After taking care of all that, she had 216 yuan left. Chi Qing filled up Little White, then called her parents to say she was setting off and expected to be home at five that afternoon.

Administratively, Chi Qing's hometown belonged to the same district where she worked and lived, but it was in a village, about fifty kilometers away by car, roughly an hour's drive. The route followed national highways all the way, with exceptionally beautiful scenery.

Having just finished the first lavish shopping spree of her life, Chi Qing was in a wonderful mood. Listening to energetic music, she sped along and caught sight of the nearly hundred-year-old crooked tree at the village entrance fifteen minutes sooner than usual. Sure enough, her father's tiny, battered old mobility car was already waiting beneath it.

The village roads were all narrow, and Chi Qing's driving skills were only average. The first time she had driven her newly bought car back to the village, she had scraped its paint in the narrow lane outside her home, so from then on, she always parked in the little square at the village entrance.

Chi Qing's parents were both from the same village, where generations of their families had lived. Until she was seven, Chi Qing had also been a born-and-bred little country girl. Later, however, her father's eldest brother had an opportunity to work away from home, and her parents began considering it too, mainly so that Chi Qing could attend school in town. Even now, looking back, Chi Qing still admired their courage.

They had given up their thriving village shop and the red-brick, tiled-roof house they had just bought to squeeze into a shabby little courtyard in the county town.

Fortunately, Chi Qing had lived up to their expectations. She had always been well-behaved, and although she had not studied particularly hard, her grades had been very good. Perhaps she did have some talent. Later, although she had underperformed on the college entrance exam, she had still scored more than thirty points above the cutoff for key universities and entered a fairly good school. After graduation, a twist of fate had brought her into real estate, and she had bought a home through her own efforts. Thus, Chi Qing had become the village's "other people's child." Of course, only Chi Qing knew the pressure behind that label.

After Chi Qing started university, her parents moved back to the village. Before that, they had always rented rooms in a shabby three-sided courtyard house in an urban village. This three-sided courtyard was worlds apart from a Beijing courtyard house; it was really just the sort of old house found in the countryside, shared by several renting families. To save money, Chi Qing's family had rented the east wing.

Chi Qing clearly remembered that the house had no finishing whatsoever. The walls were white lime plaster that shed powder, and the floor was uneven cement. The wood-burning stove was connected to the kang bed, and whenever they lit a fire, smoke and dust billowed through the room. Running water and heating were, of course, out of the question. Their water came from a well in the courtyard that they had to pump by hand, and at peak times, the three families often had to line up.