Chi Qing returned to the village (1)

None of that was much of a big deal. What stayed most vividly in Chi Qing's memory was the pit toilet, shared by three families and located in the courtyard. The scene in winter and summer...

Perhaps that had also unwittingly planted the idea of buying a home in Chi Qing's mind, so as soon as she could afford it, she immediately bought her very first apartment. Chi Qing clearly remembered that unfinished apartment. She and her parents went to look at it every day for a week. There was not much to see, but whenever she had time, she just wanted to go and take a look.

Still, Chi Qing was rather remarkable in her own way. She actually did not realize until she was nearly thirty, Oh, so my family was pretty poor...

The credit for that largely went to Yue Meifen. Yue Meifen had barely attended school, but from beginning to end, she firmly believed Chi Qing was the best. She praised her every day, praising her intelligence and her beauty. Even the wheat-colored skin Chi Qing had inherited from her looked snow-white in Yue Meifen's eyes.

As for money, Yue Meifen believed in never letting life get you down, so she always felt her family was doing quite well. "We may not have as much as some, but we have more than others. We don't have money, but we have enough to eat." So the message Yue Meifen had always conveyed to Chi Qing was, "Our family may not be all that rich, but we're still pretty well-off..."

And so, with Yue Meifen unknowingly raising her with abundance both emotionally and "financially," Chi Qing never actually noticed the difference between her family and those of her classmates from town. On top of that, Chi Qing had inherited her father Chi Yongliang's naturally optimistic, easygoing disposition. So Chi Qing, who might otherwise have grown up insecure and timid, instead grew up confident and high-spirited all the way.

Growing up, Chi Qing not only never experienced school bullying, but was often the one who kept everyone laughing and the center of attention. Before junior high, she had even always been class monitor.

So by the time Chi Qing realized that her family had actually been very poor, she had already been working for a long time, could earn her own money, had bought her own little apartment, and was mentally strong enough. Their former poverty had instead become something she could joke about.

But everything had its advantages and disadvantages. Chi Qing's carefree, straightforward personality had made her mentally strong, but it also made her prone to misjudging people. That was how she had ended up with her ex-boyfriend, a stingy, selfish man who flirted around with other women. Yet Chi Qing had never suspected a thing. It was not until she tallied up the expenses after their breakup that she discovered that whenever the two of them spent money, she had paid for anything expensive, while that man had shrewdly calculated things so that he "happened" to pick up every cheap bill.

This was getting further and further off track. Back to Chi Qing's return to the village: because her family had moved away partway through her childhood and then moved back, Chi Qing and the villagers found one another vaguely familiar without actually knowing each other. So every time Chi Qing came back, her father would drive his little runabout to the village entrance to pick her up, sparing her the potential awkwardness of running into village elders she might not recognize on the walk home.

Chi Qing parked beside her father's little vehicle, then began transferring bags of all sizes into it. Her father looked at the things that nearly filled the back seat, a little surprised, but did not say much.

"Mom, I'm home!" Chi Yongliang drove the little vehicle straight to their front gate, and Chi Qing jumped out, pushed the gate open, and called out. "Coming!" Yue Meifen walked out of the house, wiping her hands on her apron. "Why did you buy so much?" She took the bags from Chi Qing's hands, and the two of them carried the things from the vehicle into the courtyard.

Once Chi Yongliang saw that they had finished unloading, he drove off to park in the village committee's little courtyard nearby. "Mom, it's not much," Chi Qing said as she pushed the courtyard gate almost shut.