Chapter 48 Scammer Decides to Be a Good Person 23: People Who Cannot Be Saved

Shi Lan stood in the hallway and did not join the argument among the Du family.

After listening for a while, she more or less pieced together what had happened from the scattered remarks.

The Du family’s wooden house had been built by Father Du when he was young. He had three sons, so the old man divided the house into four parts. But the eldest and second sons had married early, and the portion that belonged to Du Heng had been “borrowed” by his brothers under various pretexts. To be fair, the place really was too cramped.

By the time Du Heng started going out to work, the layout had already been split up: the eldest brother’s family lived in the left wing room, and the second brother’s family lived in the right wing room.

Father Du and Mother Du, the old couple, lived in a small partitioned room tacked on beside the woodshed. It was not part of the main house and was rather crude. After Du Heng started earning money, he sent money home every month. He had even saved up a sum specifically to build the old couple a small house. It was the single-story brick house where Shi Lan was now standing.

The stones had been hauled from the mountain, the timber sawn from the mountain, and the workers hired from the village. The only real construction costs for the little house were cement and rebar, so it had not cost much.

Du Heng had built that house specifically for his parents.

In all his years of working away from home, he had only come back once, just to save on travel expenses.

He had always thought the old couple had received his filial devotion.

It was only just now, when he went looking for a quilt for Shi Lan, that he discovered the people living in the little house were not the old couple at all, but his eldest brother and sister-in-law.

That was what they were arguing about now.

The single-story house had been divided into three bedrooms. Since their return, Du Heng and Shi Lan had been sleeping in two of them. Father Du and Mother Du had both been resting in the wooden house, with the explanation given to Du Heng that old people slept lightly and they were afraid of disturbing Shi Lan.

Now that he thought about it, they had not temporarily moved over there at all. They had been living in the wooden house the whole time. The ones who had truly moved out temporarily were Eldest Brother’s family. No one knew when exactly they had taken over the house.

Eldest Brother and Eldest Sister-in-law argued loudly, and they sounded especially convinced they were in the right.

Du Jing even lectured Du Heng. “Third Brother, what’s with all this yours and mine? That’s awfully distant of you. You’re still not married, and you haven’t split from the family¹ yet. By the old rules, the money you earn should all go to Mom and Dad. Since it belongs to them, how they choose to distribute it is up to them.”

Eldest Sister-in-law said, “Exactly. Mom and Dad haven’t even said anything, so what are you yelling for, Third Brother? You brought your wife home, and your brother and I moved out to make room for you. You didn’t even thank us, and now somehow this is our fault?”

Even Mother Du said, “That’s right, Third. Your dad and I are living just fine here. We’re used to it. A two-story house is too much trouble, always going up and down. Besides, your eldest brother has two boys, and they’re at that age where they’re full of mischief. The side room is too cramped for them too.”

Du Heng was trembling with anger. He had never been much good at arguing to begin with, and now he was facing his own family. With his personality, he simply could not bring himself to say anything truly harsh.

He struggled to reason with his elder brother and sister-in-law, yet at that very moment his own mother was helping the other side.

All at once, Du Heng fell silent.

Shi Lan’s heart ached for him, for the sincerity he had offered so wholeheartedly and that no one had cherished. She ached for how out of place he was in this family. She ached for his naivete, for actually trying to change the deeply rooted, twisted beliefs of his family.

After a long silence, all she heard was his bitter laugh. “Then did any of you ever think about where I’d live after I got married, if I stayed at home?”

“But you don’t live at home, do you?” Eldest Sister-in-law said. “If you did live at home, would your brother and I, as your elder brother and sister-in-law, really mistreat you?”

Shi Lan thought, What pretty words, but she had yet to see any real action to back them up.

The second brother and Second Sister-in-law had not gotten involved at all. They stayed in their own side room as if they knew nothing.

Shi Lan stepped out of the hallway, went to stand beside Du Heng, and took his hand.

She would not join the argument, because her position made it inappropriate, and because it would lead nowhere. Even so, she was willing to stand by Du Heng’s side and support him in silence. At the very least, in this place called home, she did not want him to feel quite so alone.

Du Heng squeezed her hand back. He did not continue arguing.

When Eldest Brother saw that Shi Lan had come over too, he was probably worried that Du Heng might forcibly take the house back. He changed his tone and said, “Third Brother, even if you paid for this house, it isn’t like your brother didn’t contribute any labor…”

Du Heng turned and left with Shi Lan, not listening any further.

Early the next morning, everyone except Du Heng acted as if nothing had happened.

Well, not entirely without reaction. Eldest Brother and Eldest Sister-in-law had already moved back into the vacant bedroom in the little house.

When Mother Du faced Du Heng, she looked like she wanted to speak but stopped herself.

Du Heng silently helped with some chores around the house, then said he would leave the following morning.

Father Du and Mother Du prepared many things for him, but he refused them all, saying he still had to catch a train to Shi Lan’s home and it would not be convenient.

In the end, the family never truly made peace over the matter. Du Heng left with a belly full of grievance.

Shi Lan stayed by his side. She could not add fuel to the fire, so she could only try to comfort him from another angle. “At least your parents are letting Eldest Brother’s family live in the house of their own free will. If you forced them to move back in, the old couple might feel bad too, seeing their son and grandsons living in the wooden house. Filial piety is still about following their wishes too.”

“Then why don’t they think about Second Brother’s family? No wonder Second Sister-in-law has such strong opinions. Second Brother’s probably holding in resentment too. He didn’t even come out during that argument.”

Shi Lan had nothing she could say to that. The old folks simply loved the eldest son and loved their grandsons even more. If their granddaughters had to suffer a little, the old couple probably did not think it was a big deal.

“Don’t be angry anymore. At worst, in the future send less cash and buy things for the old couple instead.”

Du Heng said, “I saw the jacket I bought for Dad in Eldest Brother’s room.”

Shi Lan: “…”

All she could do was gently soothe him.

“Shi Lan’s” father had died early, and her mother had remarried. She had grown up with her uncle.

Her uncle’s family had treated her neither especially well nor especially badly, so this trip there did not turn up anything revolting. Instead, her uncle brought up the dowry they had prepared for “Shi Lan” with Du Heng.

It was not worth much money. Her uncle was a carpenter himself, so he had prepared some furniture.

There was a bed, two hand-sewn quilts, a cupboard, a wardrobe, two rice chests, one set of bowls and chopsticks, a square table, and four stools.

It did not sound like much, but when he took the two of them to look at it, they found that it filled nearly half a room.

They were all good pieces, all made of solid wood. Shi Lan was tempted, but the style was very old-fashioned, and she had no use for them. Besides, it was so far away, how were they supposed to move it?

She directly said what she thought.

Her uncle was not a man of many words. After hearing her out, he bit down on his cigarette holder and said frankly that aside from these things, there would be no extra cash tucked into her dowry chest². Even if she did not want the furniture, it would still be the same.

Likewise, they would not take a single cent of the money “Shi Lan” had earned from working. She was to bring it with her into her new little family.

Both Shi Lan and Du Heng agreed.

Shi Lan noticed that whether it was the Du family or her uncle’s family, both seemed to take it for granted that the property of unmarried sons and daughters belonged to their parents. She did not know whether that was just how the times were, or whether it had to do with the region and the family.

They got their Marriage Certificate³ at the Civil Affairs Bureau in the county town where Shi Lan’s household registration was located. Amusingly enough, Du Heng had only reached the legal marriage age a few months earlier.

But in this era, people generally seemed to marry young. While waiting in line at the Civil Affairs Bureau, they even saw several couples bringing children with them to register their marriages. Some had more than one child, and the oldest looked six or seven years old.

The parents’ faces were still youthful, yet they already wore the deep fatigue of hard living, which was enough to make one sigh. They had probably married and started having children at fifteen or sixteen.

After Shi Lan struck up a conversation with one of the young mothers, she learned that the woman’s eldest son was six years old, but in fact he was already her second child. She had given birth to her first child when she was only fourteen, and that child had not survived.

There was too much farm work to do, so they had not originally planned to come get the certificate. It was only because her eldest son had reached school age and needed a household registration that they had come to register the marriage.

When she talked about getting the certificate, her attitude was completely indifferent. She even complained that the processing fee was expensive, saying the certificate was useless and that it was just the state finding another way to take ordinary people’s money.

And that view was even supported by other people.

Shi Lan was stunned.

She held back for a while, but in the end couldn’t stay silent. She tried to keep her tone from sounding preachy.

“It’s still very useful. After you register your marriage, your marriage and property can be protected…”

That young mother cut Shi Lan off. “That’s just nonsense to fool people, meant to trick naive girls like you. If getting the certificate means protection, then when my man beats me, how come nobody ever comes to protect me?”

Another woman chimed in, “Protect property? I spent months digging kudzu root⁴ in the mountains to sell so I could make my kid some clothes, and my man snatched the money and lost it all in two or three hands of cards. So where’s the protection, huh? You’re too innocent, girl.”

The little boy playing on the ground suddenly said, “Let her husband beat her a few times, then she’ll know.”

The two mothers laughed, as if the child had said something clever.

Encouraged, the boy got even more excited. He bounced and hopped around, then even reached out to hit Shi Lan. “I’ll beat you, you disobedient lazy wife.”

The boy’s mother actually didn’t stop him. Instead, she praised him. “My boy really is smart. He’s so little, and he already knows how to keep his wife in line.”

Shi Lan stepped back and didn’t let the boy hit her.

A crushing sense of suffocation pressed down on her.

What kind of life could make these women talk about their own suffering as if it were a joke, and even raise their children to become the same kind of person as their fathers?

Du Heng came back after buying water for her.

“Why are you standing out here?”

Shi Lan shook her head. “It’s too stuffy inside. I just needed some air.”

Du Heng unscrewed the cap and handed her the bottle. “I saw a potato starch noodle place next door. It looks pretty good. You’d probably like it. Want to try it after we’re done with the paperwork?”

“Sure. I’ve never had it before.”

Now that the Marriage Certificate was in her hands, it didn’t seem as delicate as the ones she had seen online before. Maybe the material was different?

It was her first time holding a Marriage Certificate, so it still felt new and oddly fascinating.

Du Heng turned it over and over in his hands, looking at it from every angle.

But Shi Lan felt the photo hadn’t turned out well, so she closed it and stopped him from staring at it any longer.

“Confiscated.”

Du Heng smiled brightly. “Alright, I’ll listen to you.”

Who would’ve thought their first meal as newlyweds would be such simple, rustic potato starch noodles.

It was delicious, though.

Shi Lan even specifically asked the owner how it was made.

It turned out they used potato starch, mixed in mashed potatoes and beaten egg, then cooked it into a thin pancake on a griddle, sliced it into strips, softened it in boiling water, and finally added seasonings. You ate it like noodle soup.

It didn’t sound hard, so Shi Lan decided to try it when she got back. If it turned out well, she could even add it to the shop as a specialty dish.

This trip had been worthwhile after all.

They finally got home after six days away.

It felt as if several months had passed.

She was tired, physically tired, mentally tired too.

She wanted to do something, but it seemed she couldn’t do anything at all.

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Translator’s Notes

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1. split from the family: Refers to ‘fenjia’ (分家), the formal process of dividing a multi-generational household’s assets and living quarters among sons. Until this occurs, all income and property are traditionally managed by the head of the household. ↩
2. dowry chest: A reference to ‘jia-zhuang’ (嫁妆). Traditionally, a bride’s family provides furniture, bedding, and household items to be brought to the groom’s home, symbolizing her status and the family’s support for the new couple. ↩
3. Marriage Certificate: In China, a marriage is legally binding only upon registration at the Civil Affairs Bureau (Minzhengju), where a red booklet is issued. This is distinct from a wedding ceremony, which is a social rather than legal event. ↩
4. kudzu root: A wild tuber (ge-gen) often harvested in rural China for its starch or for use in traditional medicine. Foraging for it is a common way for impoverished rural residents to earn supplementary income. ↩