Chapter 39: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s 39

When the Step-grandmother saw that the old man seemed reluctant to intervene, she began to cry even harder.

“The second son is so wealthy. If he just gave our daughters eight hundred thousand or a million a year in dividends, they wouldn’t have to go abroad to scrounge for a living. This was all forced by your second son. If you won’t look after our daughters, then I’ll go find him myself. We are a legally married couple, which makes me his mother. Let’s see if he dares to ignore his own younger sisters! I don’t care about my reputation anymore; I’ll ruin his whole family’s name. Even if I die, I’ll drag them all down with me.” Even Old Master Yu, who had always been muddled when it came to family matters, could no longer listen to the Step-grandmother’s words.

Only someone without a brain would think that way. Go ahead and try to make a scene.

He was a man who already treated the three of them – mother and daughters – as if they were invisible. If you provoked him, he could make you truly vanish into thin air. If you don’t believe it, just try.

“I’m out of options. If you don’t believe me, try your own methods. But let me give you a fair warning: even if the second son stops using my surname, he is still my son. He definitely inherited my ruthlessness. No matter how much friction there is between the four brothers internally, they stand united against outsiders. If you really want to provoke the second son, be prepared to face all four of my sons.” Go ahead, if you want to seek death, hurry up. If you’re really dead, I might actually get to live in peace for a couple of days.

All she did was cry in front of him all day, as if she were mourning him while he was still alive. How unlucky could one get?

How old was he now?

He didn’t need to worry about his sons and grandsons, and his daughters had already managed to drain his finances. What more did they want from him?

So be it. Old Master Yu planned to spend his remaining years living for himself. Sons, grandsons, daughters, wife?

They could all get lost.

After being tormented into cold-heartedness by his two daughters and his wife, this was how Old Master Yu thought, and it was exactly what he did.

He submitted an application; he was going to retire.

The second son didn’t need him; he had his father-in-law’s family to rely on.

The eldest, third, and fourth sons were all over fifty years old. Their career paths had already reached their limits. Whether he retired or not, their paths had come to an end. To put it bluntly, it was their own lack of ability that prevented them from using their father’s position to soar to greatness.

If he couldn’t count on them when they were young, what hope was there now that they were old?

His grandsons were all doing well, each pursuing new professions, though not a single one was in politics or the military.

As for his two daughters, they had never amounted to anything. Perhaps only after he lost his power would those two daughters finally grow up.

And so, he truly retired.

Immediately following that, Old Master Yu informed the second son and his wife to oversee the move, and he returned the house in the Military Compound to the state.

Since he no longer held power, why continue living in the high-ranking Military Compound?

It would only be an eyesore.

In turn, the state assigned him a two-story house in a Retired Cadres’ Residential Compound¹ for his retirement.

Old Master Yu didn’t want to go there. He let his wife live there instead. As long as he was alive, she could stay in that house. If the daughters ever truly returned, they would have a temporary place to stay.

As for Old Master Yu himself, he moved into a sanatorium² and refused to leave.

Whoever missed him could come there to visit.

As it turned out, his life actually became quite flavorful this way.

There were old comrades-in-arms there. They would wake up early together to do drills and exercise, play chess in the mornings, and review various historical battle records in the afternoons, sitting in the same conference room to hold debates based on their own experiences.

Heh, living like this actually made him feel younger.

Old Master Yu felt that life after retirement was truly wonderful beyond words.

The people living in the sanatorium were all from the same social strata as Old Master Yu, which naturally formed another social network.

Because of this, even if the eldest, third, and fourth sons were too busy to visit him personally, they would send their sons or wives to the sanatorium to see him.

He actually received more care than he had when living in the Military Compound.

Who cared if his sons had ulterior motives?

At his age, receiving care was the only thing that mattered.

As for the second son’s family?

They didn’t visit often, but they always sent someone to deliver some tasty meals that suited his palate.

With all this, it was a life fit for an immortal.

While Old Master Yu’s “immortal life” had begun, things were going poorly for the Step-grandmother.

The house in the Retired Cadres’ Residential Compound was free, but you couldn’t expect the state to pay for your electricity, water, heating, food, and drink, could you?

If the Old Master lived there too, she could have relied on his benefits and wouldn’t have had to worry about anything. But now?

The Old Master wasn’t living in the Retired Cadres’ Residential Compound. He claimed his health was poor and he had to stay in the sanatorium, saying that if something happened and he was away for even a day, it would be too late.

Under these circumstances, even if the Step-grandmother wanted to call the Old Master back, she didn’t dare.

As long as the Old Master was alive, she still had her comforts. If he passed away, what would she have to look forward to?

The Step-grandmother had once been a young nurse. After she destroyed someone else’s family and became a general’s wife, her workplace had fired her anyway.

She wasn’t a very far-sighted person and had assumed she could be a general’s wife forever, so she never thought about getting another job. Now that she was old, she had no pension, no retirement salary, and no medical insurance.

The money she had saved in the past had all been taken by her two daughters. In the end, she had no cash left, only a few pieces of gold jewelry to keep up appearances.

But gold jewelry was expensive when you bought it, yet when you tried to sell it, you couldn’t get a good price. She didn’t want to sell it anyway; it was all she had left to remember her better days, so she kept it.

So, what kind of life was the Step-grandmother living now?

Every month, she received half of the Old Master’s retirement salary. This money came in every month, but once the Old Master died, she wouldn’t even have that.

For the Step-grandmother living alone, this money was just barely enough if she budgeted carefully.

Utilities and heating had to be paid, food and basic necessities cost money, and she had to save a little for the future in case she got sick.

Right?

She was someone without any social security, and her daughters were unreliable. If she didn’t save money for her own medical bills, who could she count on?

Therefore, after moving out of the Military Compound, her finances were tight, and her standard of living plummeted.

She felt that even decades ago when she was a young girl earning a salary of ten or so yuan, she hadn’t lived such a difficult life.

Back then, she lived with her parents. She spent her own salary and her parents didn’t ask for any of it. They ate whatever was at home. At that time, everyone’s standard of living was about the same; even if you had money, you couldn’t buy anything better, so she never felt like she was living poorly.

But now that she was getting old, how had her life turned into this?

Even though the old man had retired, he was still a general, and she was a general’s wife. Why was life still so difficult?

“In this life, if you reach old age and have a comfortable home, no worries about food or clothing, and children who keep you in their thoughts and find time to visit no matter how busy they are, then your life hasn’t been in vain. That is exactly how I am now, living in happiness,” Ms. Zhou told her daughter-in-law, Ms. Meng.

Ms. Meng’s eyes darted as she thought about what others had told her recently regarding that step-mother-in-law’s current stingy lifestyle, and her expression instantly brightened with satisfaction.

Exactly. One didn’t necessarily have to wish for that kind of home-wrecker to die, as that would be too much malice.

But a mistress like that deserved to end up old, alone, and living a precarious, hand-to-mouth existence.

Translator’s Notes