Chapter 36 Record of Moving to the City in the 90s. 36

Su Huandan gave birth to a pair of twin boys.

They were fraternal twins. The older brother looked like Yu Zexiu, while the younger brother looked like Su Huandan.

So if you paid close attention, you could tell that Ms. Meng preferred holding the older one, while Jiang Chunhua, their maternal grandmother, clung to the younger one and never wanted to let go.

Old people, after all, usually liked the grandchildren who looked more like their own side of the family.

Of course, wise elders would never show it. That would just make them annoying.

Yu Zexiu loved both his sons equally, but Su Huandan had mixed feelings when it came to the younger one, who was always quiet and only made little noises when he wet himself, dirtied himself, or wanted food or water.

This child was the big shot that her Horse-Face boss had stuffed into her womb.

He had been reborn with the help of her and her husband’s genes.

According to her Horse-Face boss, this child would not remember his memories of the prehistoric world in this life. Only after death, when his consciousness truly condensed again, would he recall them.

So Su Huandan was supposed to treat him like a normal child.

But there were many strange things about him.

He did not cry even once after he was born. He responded to the outside world, and his reactions were sharp, yet he remained quiet the whole time.

Yu Zexiu and the rest of the family all said the boy was naturally calm, but Su Huandan knew that was not the case.

This little brat, aside from his birth mother Su Huandan, was openly disdainful toward everyone else.

He did not like being held by anyone other than Su Huandan.

He did not like formula milk and insisted on breast milk, and he was so overbearing that he would not even let his older brother have any.

The older one was a real baby, silly and clueless. Even when his younger brother shoved him, he had no idea what it meant.

And even so, everyone praised the younger one for being smart, saying that even from infancy he knew how to guard his food…

Su Huandan felt that the younger boy was indeed overbearing, did indeed guard his food, and was indeed smart, but she worried that he might grow up to be very withdrawn.

“Have you picked names for the two children yet?” Jiang Chunhua did not come until the third day after Su Huandan was discharged from the hospital.

Jiang Chunhua and her husband had originally planned to come take a look, and if their daughter’s condition was not very good, then as her mother, she would shamelessly stay and help her through her confinement month¹.

At a time like this, there was no point talking about those supposedly scientific foreign ideas about postpartum recovery. During confinement, a woman should eat well, drink well, sleep well, and nurse her body back to health. That was what confinement was for.

But when she arrived and saw her, good grief, aside from her stomach not having gone down yet, her little face was rosy and glowing. No matter how she looked at her, she did not seem like someone who had just given birth.

She was even carrying the baby around and darting all over the house, and her steps were so quick she looked ready to take off.

That sight made Jiang Chunhua furious.

Your health is good, fine, but you shouldn’t show it off like this. You should be lying in bed, looking a little weak, so your in-laws can see that giving birth to two sons was hard work.

But those thoughts could only stay in her head. She could not say them out loud, especially with the children’s grandmother sitting right there.

So the one who answered Jiang Chunhua was not Su Huandan, but Ms. Meng. “Their pet names² are Baobao for the older brother and Beibei for the younger one. It means treasure. As for their formal names, the older one is called Yu Pengcheng, and the younger one is called Yu Wanli. Pengcheng Wanli³.”

Jiang Chunhua blinked. Pengcheng Wanli?

The meaning behind those names was certainly grand. In any case, they were completely different from how her own family named children.

Seeing that her third daughter was in good health, Su Dakui and Jiang Chunhua stayed for lunch and then went back. A car had been sent to pick them up when they came, and another was sent to take them home when they left.

When they got home, both of their older daughters were there, and they asked, “How was it?”

After sitting down, Su Dakui first drank a cup of tea, then pulled his youngest son into his arms before finally saying, “She’s doing well. The two kids look pretty good too. They’ve only been born a week, and they already look plump and round. You can tell they’re being raised well.”

As long as things were good, that was enough. The eldest sister turned and went to the kitchen to make dinner. That night, they would all gather at their parents’ home.

The second sister, meanwhile, watched the four children by herself and urged her mother to hurry and get some sleep.

Jiang Chunhua was probably getting older. She had developed a tendency toward motion sickness. It was not serious, but after riding in a car, she had trouble focusing. A short nap, not even for long, just half an hour lying down, was enough for her to recover.

After Su Huandan finished her confinement month, she learned that her parents were going back to Shangsha Village to relocate graves.

Her parents had actually gone back every year.

They would visit the graves of the Su Family elders, and every time they went back, the Jiang Family and the Mu Family would make a scene and hound them for money, acting utterly shameless.

In the past, Su Dakui had still given the Jiang Family some benefits out of consideration for Jiang Chunhua.

But now?

As for the Jiang Family, Jiang Chunhua herself had already shut them down.

And this time?

It was said that the government was organizing the relocation of graves. The land over by the burial grounds had been bought by some company, supposedly to build a factory.

Su Huandan did not know whether this had happened in her previous life or not. Back then, she had been gravely ill, and no one had told her about things like this.

So less than half a month after her parents left, they came back carrying three urns.

They were buried in the public cemetery on this side, which also made it more convenient to visit the graves.

“This time we sold the courtyard at home. Your dad insisted on keeping the farmland instead of selling it, so we’ve let Auntie Liu’s family farm all of it for now, and the courtyard was sold to her family too. People in the village are talking like crazy, saying the farmland might also get requisitioned or something. I don’t think that’s likely. They’ll be lucky enough if even one factory gets built over there. Are they really going to open eight or ten plants? Besides, there is still plenty of wasteland around our town. The boss opening the factory isn’t some idiot. Why would he ignore wasteland and buy fertile farmland instead? Isn’t that a joke?” That was what Jiang Chunhua said to Su Huandan over the phone.

But on the other end, Su Dakui did not think the same way.

“I feel like it’s not completely hopeless that the farmland over there will be requisitioned. Years ago, they already planned a highway there, part of a national route, they said. If that really gets approved, then part of the farmland will definitely be purchased, and it’ll just depend on whose land happens to get taken. But if you ask me, there’s not much point in compensation for just that little bit. Once the land is gone, if you don’t have some other way to make money, how many years can that compensation money last? It’d be better to keep the land. At least farming can feed a whole family.” Less than half a year after Su Dakui said that, part of Shangsha Village’s farmland was requisitioned.

And would you believe it, the Su Family’s land just happened to be among the plots taken.

So Su Dakui and Jiang Chunhua rushed over there again. This time, they could not even come back for the New Year.

Su Huandan was in the capital, so the news reached her a little later. It wasn’t until her eldest sister called to say that her second sister and second brother-in-law had personally gone over and brought their parents back that Su Huandan learned her parents had been beaten over the relocation compensation.

She drove back that very day.

How could she just let that slide after they were beaten?

Who did it?

Yu Zexiu hadn’t even figured out what had happened yet, and he was already saying they should just throw the people in prison. What were they waiting for?

Su Dakui had needed seven stitches on the left side of his scalp. Hearing that, he waved his hand and told his youngest son-in-law not to worry or get anxious.

“They’ve all been arrested. Relax, not a single one of them is getting away,” said the second brother-in-law.

Xiao Jianguo at least had the status of a police officer. He was the one who had gone over to handle it, so he knew the situation best.

Su Huandan lowered her voice and asked her second sister, “Was it the Jiang Family or the Mu Family?”

Her second sister curled her lip. “You’re giving them way too much credit. It’s possible they’d shamelessly come knocking to squeeze a little money out of us, but ambushing someone in the dark, stuffing them in a sack, smashing them with bricks? Those two families don’t have that kind of nerve.”

Translator’s Notes