Chapter 6

Chapter 6

As soon as we arrived in the south, I went looking for work the very next day.

KFC was such a prestigious place back then. I managed to get hired because the manager said I was “neat-looking, quick-handed, and proactive.”

I treated those words like a trophy and worked myself to the bone.

Hot oil splattered and scalded my hands; the mop handle rubbed my palms raw.

I lived off staff meals and rotated between the same two outfits I’d brought from home.

I gripped every penny I saved with a white-knuckled fist. In my heart, I was calculating a future for Elder Brother and me-a future that was invisible but absolutely necessary.

And what about Elder Brother?

What kind of filthy, backbreaking labor hadn’t he done?

At construction sites, bags of cement bent his spine; at the docks, he hauled sacks until sweat poured into his eyes, stinging and salty. When he demolished old buildings, he’d emerge covered in gray dust, looking like someone who had crawled out of a grave.

He would stuff the money he earned into my hands-crumpled bills smelling of sweat, salt, and dirt.

I saved it for him, dime by dime.

He smoked the cheapest cigarettes, and sometimes he couldn’t even bring himself to buy those. He’d just squat on the curb, watching the cars go by.

Whenever he looked at the women on the street wearing red dresses, I would lower my head.

He’d tug at my hand. “When I have money, I’ll buy one for you too. A red one. You’ll look way better than them.”

I even forgot my own birthday.

But one day, he held out his blackened palm. Resting there was a small red velvet box. Inside was a thin gold chain, just short enough to sit right below my collarbone.

“Bought it at a street stall… just a small token. Someday, I’ll replace it with a real one.”

That chain was ice-cold against my skin, yet it felt like a piece of glowing coal.

We were exhausted.

So tired that when we lay down at night, we didn’t even have the strength to speak.

Sometimes he would lean in for intimacy, his movements a bit rushed, a bit rough, as if he were taking out his frustrations on life itself.

When it was over, he’d roll over and fall asleep, his snoring so heavy it felt oppressive.

Lying there in the scent of his sweat, listening to that snoring, I felt a sense of peace.

Despite my aching body, I kept our home spotless every day and carefully used our meager funds to prepare every meal for him.

I looked after him with the utmost care.

This was our life: sticky, heavy, and seemingly endless, but every inch of it was tied together.

How could anyone say I didn’t love him?

What did Ah Mian know?

She was a graduate of a top-tier university who wore high heels and sat in a CBD office. Does she understand the love of people like us?

My love grew in this moldy rental room, on his calloused shoulders and my blistered hands, and within that thin, nearly invisible fake gold chain.

My love wasn’t pretty. It was actually a bit ugly, a bit calculating, a bit desperate-the frantic scramble of someone grasping at anything just to survive.

But that was my love.

By what right… does it not count?

Ah Mian looked at me, enunciating every word: “But Zhao Qian, you don’t love yourself at all.”