Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Jiang Min stood in front of me.

Her hair was dyed in streaks of blue and pink, and one side of her face was flushed red, with a glaring handprint stamped across it.

My mother stood opposite us, her chest heaving violently.

“So this is how you fool around at school? What are you going to do with your future, Chen Miao? What are you going to do with your future…”

Back then, what did I understand?

I didn’t know that after my dad died, every time my grandparents came to our house, it was to pressure my mother into dumping me, the burden dragging her down, so she could remarry.

I didn’t know that more than half of my father’s funeral compensation had been pocketed by the head of his taxi fleet, and that when my mother went to demand it back again and again, they beat her and threw her out.

And I certainly didn’t know that Uncle Li from downstairs had followed my mother on many nights when she went to work the night shift, saying he wanted to “make friends” with her.

I didn’t understand any of it.

All I knew was that as my mother spoke, she started slapping her thighs in the teachers’ office and sobbing at the top of her lungs.

Jiang Min was chased out by the homeroom teacher.

Before she left, she still shouted at me like some gang boss, “Chen Miao! Don’t be scared! I’ve got your back!”

But the disappointment in my homeroom teacher’s eyes when she looked at me was plain as day.

“Chen Miao, you used to be such a good, well-behaved child. How did you become like this?”

But I was stubborn, my mouth clamped shut like a sealed gourd, refusing to say a single word.

My mother wiped her face and asked me woodenly,

“Can you study properly from now on?”

“Can you stop being friends with that delinquent?”

“Chen Miao, think about your dad. Think about him. Do you still remember him?”

To be honest, I barely did.

He had been gone for too many years.

I didn’t remember his face. I only remembered how he liked to make my mother laugh, how he drove that red taxi all over the city with us inside, and that huge pool of blood soaking through my little pink-and-green blanket.

I also remembered him saying, “Miaomiao, it wasn’t easy for your mother to give birth to you. You have to treat her well.”

Before we left, the homeroom teacher said something loaded with meaning.

“Chen Miao, do you know what Jiang Min’s father does?”

I turned back blankly.

“Jiang Min’s father is the director of Furui Factory. Even if she doesn’t study, her future will still be bright.”

“Chen Miao, do you understand?”

Furui Factory.

The major chemical plant in our city.

My mother worked there, just the most ordinary worker on the assembly line, the kind whose wages would be docked even for taking a single day off.

In that instant, a shame called inferiority swept over me like a tide, almost drowning me whole.

That night, my mother and I sat at opposite ends of the dining table.

She was silent for a long time. In the end, she still went into the kitchen, stir-fried a plate of shredded potatoes, and tore half a sausage into pieces by hand.

The plate with the sausage was always placed on the side closest to me.

“Eat.”

She sighed.

I picked up my chopsticks and had just taken a bite of rice when I saw a glossy, marinated egg buried underneath.

I whipped my head around to look at my mother.

But she only focused on eating, taking one small bite after another.

Only when she finished the last mouthful and set down her bowl did I see that it was spotless inside. Other than rice, there had been nothing else.

She took me with her to work the night shift.

A seven-hour night shift.

I waited outside, while my mother walked nonstop inside the workshop.

A little after three in the morning, my mother raised her hand like an elementary school student and said she needed to use the restroom.

Then her line supervisor stormed over and roared at her at the top of her voice, “Why are you the only one with so many problems? How come nobody else needs the restroom, but you do?!”

“A lazy donkey always has the most piss and shit!”

She cursed for about two or three minutes before my mother finally came out of the workshop.

I hurriedly stood up, but she didn’t look at me at all. After using the restroom, she rushed back into the workshop, then kept working without a moment’s pause.

When the sky finally began to lighten, my mother got off work.

The two of us walked one behind the other. She was in front, and I followed behind in silence.

We lived on the sixth floor. We had just reached the fourth when the security door of 401 suddenly opened.

I saw Uncle Li, who had always been so gentle and refined in front of the neighbors, narrow his eyes and reach out toward my mother. “Juan, your sister-in-law isn’t home today. Why don’t you come over tonight? I’ll give your shoulders a massage.”

Standing in the shadows of the stairwell, I felt a bone-deep chill run down my spine.

How dare he?

How fucking dare he?!

When my dad was still alive, our families had even eaten together. At the dinner table, my dad drank and bragged with him, while he showed off about how wonderful his wife was, how happy his family was, and how obedient his daughter was.

But now, the man behind that crack in the door was staring at my mother with those lecherous eyes.

In that instant, it was as if something tore a massive crack through my head, reached inside, and hammered me awake.

Was I really going to keep drifting through life like this?

No!

Goosebumps erupted all over me, every hair on my body standing on end.

I heard my own voice, shrill enough to split the air.

“If you fucking dare touch my mother, I’ll chop your hand off!”

“Your Li Duoduo goes to No. 2 Middle School, right? You don’t want her finding out her own father is low enough to bully a widow and her orphan, do you?!”