Chapter 228 (First Update) Like grasping at a straw...

The Gu family was also saddened by the passing of Mr. Fu.

On one hand, there are the relatives who have always taken good care of them; on the other hand, there is the thought that the person who could help them the most is no longer here, and what will they do if they encounter difficulties in the future.

It has been half a month since Mr. Fu's funeral, but Gu Dazhi and his wife are still heartbroken and beat their chests whenever they think of his passing.

"I told you to go find your uncle, go find your eldest uncle, but you only listened to your son and daughter. Well, now you have to beg them if you want to."

Gu's mother pounded her chest and cursed her husband.

With my uncle gone, I'm afraid there's absolutely no one who can help my son with his job search.

Although Fu Cheng'an and Fu Ci are relatives, no one is as close as one's own maternal uncle.

Gu Dazhi felt extremely remorseful after his wife's words, but when he learned that his uncle was unwell, how could he dare to bother him?

“You’re just talking, all you do is offer hindsight advice. When I said I wouldn’t bother Uncle, why weren’t you more firm?” Gu Dazhi retorted to his wife, “Weren’t you also worried about bothering Uncle back then?”

Gu's mother defended herself: "How could I have known it would turn out like this? I thought it was just a temporary discomfort and that I would get better with rest."

Gu Dazhi sneered, "You're too optimistic. Your uncle is over eighty years old. Even a minor cold could be fatal."

"You're so capable, you know so much, why don't you seize the opportunity to give your son a way out?"

"If you keep babbling on, believe me, I'll hit you."

...

The argument between the two in the room was overheard by Gu Wei when he returned home from get off work.

He initially intended to ignore it, as the family hadn't had a peaceful year. But upon hearing his father's threat to beat his mother, he couldn't stand idly by.

Gu Wei knocked on his parents' bedroom door, paused for a few seconds, and then pushed the door open to go in.

"Dad, Mom, are you arguing about my job again?"

The two elderly people remained silent.

Gu Wei felt both powerless and agitated.

They've argued about this countless times since he was laid off.

"I've already found a job, so what's there to argue about?"

Gu's mother blurted out, "You're working at a small private restaurant now, which isn't stable at all. How can you say you have a job?"

"How is it unstable? Our restaurant business is booming, and the boss pays me more than I did when I worked in the state-owned factory."

Gu's mother didn't care about any of that. All she knew was that when people asked her what her son was doing now, she was too ashamed to say that he was working as a helper in a private restaurant.

"In the end, it's still a matter of face." Gu Wei sighed. "I've said it so many times, face can't put food on the table. Having a job and earning money is the most practical thing. Take Gu Lin for example, how much money has she saved in the past two years since she went to Shenzhen?"

Gu's mother couldn't deny it, but she just felt that her daughter and son were different.

Women are unstable; they can still get married later and have a man support them.

On the other hand, men are responsible for supporting their families, so how can they have unstable jobs?

"What kind of outdated thinking is that? You think staying at one job until you die is what you call stability?"

"What else can we do? Life is so long, do we really want to have to find a new job every few years?"

“I’m not saying this is the best approach, but I’m not the only one being laid off. The large-scale layoffs of state-owned factory workers are a trend in the reform of state-owned enterprises. Since it’s unavoidable, we should go with the flow and find ways to survive within it.”

Gu's mother was confused by the general principles and common sense.

She angrily told her son, "You've been influenced by Gu Lin."

"Yes, I was indeed influenced by my younger sister," Gu Wei readily admitted.

It was thanks to his sister's earnest persuasion that he was able to recover from the blow of being laid off and realize that there are so many ways to make a living in today's society.

He once again advised his parents: "Stop arguing about me. I've told you before that working at this restaurant is only temporary. Once I've figured out what I want to do in the future, I'll quit this job."

"What do you want to do?" Gu's mother stood up nervously and said to her son, "Don't follow Gu Lin's example and go to work so far away. Your father and I only have you as our son. You can't leave this family."

This is what Gu's mother fears most.

Many laid-off workers from the tenement building have already gone south to work, and she's afraid her son will too.

It was precisely because she was afraid her son would leave the family that she regretted not asking her uncle for help sooner.

Seeing his parents so terrified of his departure, Gu Wei felt extremely helpless.

Sometimes he really envied his sister; at least their parents didn't cling to her like she was a lifeline.

He said to his parents, somewhat helplessly, "Don't worry, I definitely won't abandon you. But please don't worry about my job, and don't argue with me anymore. Otherwise, if you really annoy me, I might really pack my bags and head south."

These words probably really shocked his parents. For a long time afterward, Gu Wei never heard his parents argue about his work again.

Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, his wife, Tian Xiao'e, asked him again how he was considering the matter they had discussed earlier.

The factory where Tian Xiao'e works is also not doing well, and she hasn't been paid for three months.

Knowing she would eventually have to follow the same path as Shan, who had just been laid off, she considered offering to buy out her years of service so she could get some money.

However, after buying out their years of service, they will definitely have to find another job.

She thought of her sister-in-law and wanted to work in Shenzhen like her.

She had calculated that if she and her husband both went to work in Shenzhen, with room and board included, they could save at least two-thirds of their salaries. In that case, they would have a substantial amount of savings in just a few years.

However, no matter how excited she was about it, Gu Wei still couldn't make up his mind.

When his wife brought it up again that evening, he sighed and told her his concerns.

"My parents simply cannot accept that their only son is not by their side."

Tian Xiao'e had already figured out that her husband's hesitation was definitely because of his parents.

She said, "My in-laws aren't old yet, and they can take good care of themselves and the children. While we can still work, let's work hard for another two years. Not just for ourselves, but also for our children's future. They'll need money for high school and college."

When he thought of his child, Gu Wei couldn't speak.

His children are all intelligent and certainly have the potential to succeed in their studies.

After a long silence, he said to his wife, "Give me some more time, and I'll work on my parents' mindset."

“Okay.” Tian Xiao’e didn’t press him, but told him, “Anyway, I’m going to submit the list of those who voluntarily buy out their years of service at the factory. If Mom and Dad really refuse to let you leave, I’ll go find Gu Lin by myself.”

"you……"

"What? I'm already forty. In a few more years, I might not even be able to get a factory job."

Gu Wei couldn't argue with his wife, or perhaps he knew in his heart that his wife's considerations were correct.

"Okay, I'll find an opportunity to have a proper talk with my parents."

Tian Xiao'e sneered: "It's our own home, our own parents, why do we need to find another opportunity to speak?"

Gu Wei was speechless after being asked that question.

"Okay, I'll tell my parents tomorrow."

Tian Xiao'e was finally satisfied, but she still wouldn't let it go: "Whatever, I don't care."

-

The next day, after Tian Xiao'e went to work and the children went to school, Gu Wei earnestly told his parents about his and his wife's plan to go south to work.

As he expected, his parents were very agitated after hearing this and were unable to calm down and listen to his explanation.

Gu Dazhi: "You think you're all grown up now? Trying to get rid of us."

Gu Wei retorted, "What nonsense are you talking about? We're not coming back for the holidays."

Gu's mother retorted to her son, "How many holidays are there in a year? Are you saying that we're getting old and it will be difficult for us to see you even a few times a year?"

"Then what can we do? We have to think about the next generation."

"Why can't we consider the next generation if we stay in Guangcheng?"

Gu Weizhen felt a sense of powerlessness that he couldn't explain, and scratched his head in frustration.

When Gu's mother saw this, she became even angrier.

She felt that it must have been Gu Lin who started this trend, which led her son and daughter-in-law to have such an idea.

Ultimately, the reason Gu Lin started this was because the Fu family helped her.

The more Gu's mother thought about it, the angrier she became. In the end, she disregarded everything and pulled her husband along to go to the Fu family to reason with them.

At first, Gu Wei didn't realize what they were up to, but by the time he guessed what they were planning to do, the two elderly people had already walked away.

Gu Wei quickly chased after them and, sure enough, spotted them at the bus stop in the distance.

He shouted to stop them, but he still couldn't stop them from getting on the bus.

Having no other choice, Gu Wei got on the next bus.

The three arrived at the Fu family's house one after the other.

Gu Wei was more than ten minutes late, and those ten minutes made him extremely anxious. He was really afraid that his parents would say something hurtful that hurt the Fu family, who had just lost a loved one.

Fortunately, when we arrived at the Fu family home, the conversation between the parents and the cousin's wife seemed to be quite pleasant.

joy?

Gu Wei found it amazing. He knew his parents' temperaments all too well. How could they come over so angry and then talk to people in a friendly manner?

But he soon understood.

All I can say is that my cousin's wife is incredibly eloquent.

No matter what her parents complained about, she would agree with them and never argue back, which made her parents feel better.

After feeling relieved, one's speech naturally becomes much more pleasant.

Mother Gu's words were no longer as sharp as before. She sighed and said, "A-Ci's wife, you are a reasonable person."

Tang Mingli smiled and accepted the praise without feeling guilty.

Mother Gu continued, "Since you also think our concerns are reasonable, why don't you talk to Gu Wei about it?"

“Okay.” Tang Mingli agreed, then turned to Gu Wei. “Cousin, we should also consider the opinions of our elders. Don’t think that just because you see people going south to work and earning money, wearing nice clothes, buying TVs, and having fashionable furniture, and sending their children to tutoring classes to give them a head start and increase their chances of getting into good high schools and universities and bringing honor to the family, you should also go. That’s because no one in their family objects.”

Gu's mother frowned.

What's going on? She was clearly trying to persuade her son, but the more she listened, the more upset she became.

Wear beautiful clothes, buy a TV, replace the furniture with trendy ones, send your children to tutoring classes, get them into good high schools and good universities, and bring honor to your ancestors.

Each word felt like a hammer blow to her heart, causing her excruciating pain.

"Of course, what I just mentioned is only what we can see now. We also need to think about what might happen decades from now. Those people who make money while they're young will naturally have money to treat their parents' illnesses and take good care of them when they get old. But it's okay if they don't have money. Many elderly people in the past have lived without money. They just take some medicine and tough it out when they get sick. It's impossible for them to get good treatment. They're just happy to have food to eat. They shouldn't think about taking ginseng and lingzhi tonics when they get old. Of course, since they need to keep making money to survive, they shouldn't expect their children to stop working to take care of them when they get too old to get out of bed. After all, if you stop working, you stop eating."

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Author's Note: I posted at midnight yesterday, but I got a real shock. Posting at midnight is the same as posting 3,000 words a day. I wrote 9,000 words while wiping away tears. [Laughing and crying while covering face] Novelists are so fragile yet so resilient.