Chapter 5
Uncle Zhou and Auntie Liu stayed the night. Early the next morning, they drove all of us to the county town.
It was my first ride in a car.
Overloading laws were not enforced as strictly then. We children squeezed together in the back seat, excited and uneasy.
At the hospital, Mom was begging the doctor to operate on Dad.
There was nothing the doctor could do without the money.
Uncle Zhou said little. He immediately paid Dad’s surgical deposit.
The hospital director appeared and assigned their best specialist to Dad.
That afternoon, a potbellied man with a leather briefcase brought Dad’s contractor to the hospital. Both bowed and scraped before Uncle Zhou, calling him “Director Zhou” every other breath.
The contractor paid every yuan of Dad’s overdue wages and promised to cover the entire cost of his treatment.
Our family stood there in a daze. It felt like a dream.
Mom thanked them again and again. Auntie Liu clutched her hands.
“If it hadn’t been for you, the traffickers would have taken Gungun. If I lost him, what reason would I have to live?”
Her eyes reddened. Soon the two women were crying into each other’s arms.
Slowly, I pieced together the truth.
Uncle Zhou and Auntie Liu were important officials in the provincial capital. They had returned this time to visit their ancestral home for New Year.
Both were devoted to their careers and had not had Gungun until they were in their thirties. A nanny usually cared for him, but she had not come on this trip. One moment of inattention at the market had allowed human traffickers to seize him.
Mom’s warm heart had saved him.
Not only had she kept him from being taken, but by some strange twist of fate, the ordeal had also cured the silence that had plagued him.
Dad emerged from surgery. The doctor announced that his leg had been saved.
Only then did I realize it was New Year’s Eve.
Our reunion dinner that year was a hotel banquet Uncle Zhou ordered for us.
So many foods in the world tasted hundreds of times better than braised pork. I had never known.
After dinner, Uncle Zhou’s family prepared to leave.
Gungun held tight to my hand and stammered, “Little sister… come.”
Auntie Liu spoke privately with Mom, then crouched in front of me.
Would I like to go with them? I could be with Gungun every day and eat braised pork whenever I wanted.
I looked at Mom in panic.
Did she think I brought bad luck too?
Her eyes were red when she touched my hair.
“Auntie Liu and Gungun love you. You would have a better life with them.”
I gripped her hand and shook my head as hard as I could.
Auntie Liu hugged me.
“A child doesn’t despise an ugly mother or a poor home. You’re a good girl. We’ll see one another again.”
As I watched them leave, I reached into my pocket and found a thick wad of cash Auntie Liu had slipped inside during the hug.
Dad’s surgery had been delayed too long. Even with the best surgeon, his leg never fully recovered. Whenever he tried to run, he limped.
Still, saving the leg at all was a miracle in those days. Many people became permanently disabled or died simply because they could not afford treatment.
Mom told everyone that if I had not spotted Gungun’s distress, our whole family might have fallen apart.
Even Dad called me his lucky star.
Everyone praised me except my birth parents.
“If it weren’t for her,” they said, “maybe Big-Head Wang would never have fallen off that roof.”
They still did not like me.
It no longer mattered. Mom, Dad, and my brothers loved me, and that was enough.
On the tenth day of the new year, Uncle Zhou and Auntie Liu drove back with Gungun to pay us a New Year visit.
They unloaded malted milk, bottled milk, orange juice, and other expensive gifts. They had even bought new clothes for each of us.
But the visit was not merely social.
Auntie Liu said she could arrange a temporary security job for Dad at a factory. It paid five hundred yuan a month and included a meal, and the work would be far easier than construction.
Mom could apply as a substitute teacher at a new school in the provincial capital. If she was hired, worked hard, and produced strong results, she might eventually receive a permanent post.
As for us four siblings, Auntie Liu could arrange school transfers.
My parents feared imposing on them, but she insisted these were small favors.
All she wanted was for us to spend time with Gungun. After returning home, he had stopped speaking again. He had only managed broken words when she told him they were coming to see us.
News of such miraculous good fortune swept through the village.
Before Uncle Zhou and Auntie Liu could leave, my birth parents arrived.
My birth mother wore a sweetness I had never seen before. She clasped my hand.
“You have no idea how much I suffered to give birth to Minmin. I’m her real mother.”
Her fingers tightened painfully around mine as she stared greedily at Auntie Liu.
“If you want to repay anyone, you should repay us!”
My birth father grabbed my arm too.
“Big-Head Wang, we’ve thought it over. We can’t bear to part with our daughter. We’ll raise Minmin ourselves.”
Mom rushed forward and tried to pry their hands loose.
“Careful. You’ll hurt her.”
They did not loosen their grip.
Uncle Zhou frowned but remained silent.
Auntie Liu crouched before me.
“Are they really your birth parents?”
I pressed my lips together and said nothing.
My birth mother shouted, “Of course we are! The whole village knows it.”
Auntie Liu looked troubled.
My birth mother smiled eagerly.
“I’m not asking for much. Just arrange for my son to study in the city and find secure government jobs for my husband and me. I hear you’re very powerful officials. That should only take a word from you.”