"Brother Jin, when are we finally going to start work? My mom is nagging me to death at home," Qian Mingjun wailed on the phone.
"I just had dinner with Brother Zhong and the others a while ago. They said we'd have to wait a bit longer, but it should be soon." Ren Jin took a drag of his cigarette and chuckled, asking, "What? Is your aunt pressuring you to get married again?"
Qian Mingjun is the son of Ren Jin's aunt, Ren Xiaojuan. Like him, he dropped out of high school and started working. However, Qian Mingjun was playful and didn't amount to much. Later, Ren Xiaojuan sent him to work on construction projects with Ren Jin. After a few years, he settled down.
"That's right. He's always either dragging me to the next village to meet girls or bringing girls to my house. I don't even dare to stay at home anymore."
It was raining heavily today, so Ren Jin didn't go out to deliver food, and he had time to chat with Qian Mingjun.
"If it's a good match, then get married. Why are you avoiding it? Are you afraid of marriage?"
"What's there to be afraid of? I'd find a girl in the village, marry her, have her live with my parents in the village, and then I'd work in the city. What's the difference between that and being single? I'd rather not get married at all."
"You can bring your wife to the city."
"Where will we stay if we take them to the city? Our construction site? If they shout from that shipping container, the whole floor can hear them. How can they live there? Besides, do you even agree to this?"
Indeed, Ren Jin explicitly forbade the construction team members from bringing their families to live on the construction site because of an incident that had occurred before.
At that time, Ren Jin considered that it was not easy for his fellow workers to go home. Whenever a worker's family came to the construction site, he would arrange a separate house for the worker and his family to stay in. Until one time, a worker's wife had an affair with another worker who had a family while she was staying at the construction site. She was caught in bed with him in the separate house he had arranged. The two workers fought so badly that they almost got into a fight and their families were broken up. From then on, Ren Jin explicitly prohibited bringing family members to stay at the construction site.
"Then what do you want?" Ren Jin asked.
Qian Mingjun said in a nonchalant tone, "I'll get married after I have enough money to buy a house in the city. Anyway, I'm still young and there's no rush. Anyway, brother, you have money and you're good-looking, why aren't you getting married?"
Ren Jin put his feet up on the coffee table, with an ashtray beside him, and looked at the torrential rain outside the French windows.
He hasn't considered marriage yet, probably because no one around him is pressuring him, and he's been used to being alone since childhood, so he doesn't feel the need to find someone to accompany him, plus there's no one around him he'd like to marry.
As he was thinking, he inexplicably thought of Gu Yueji, but then he smiled wryly.
Didn't she say he was her cousin? They weren't even boyfriend and girlfriend, so why would he have any idea of marrying her?
He hadn't seen Gu Yueji for half a month. He used to think it was okay to have some fun, but now he suddenly felt bored. There was no point in continuing to date a woman who was still thinking about other men.
He didn't specifically try to clarify things with Gu Yueji, since their relationship was just something people talked about casually anyway, so he didn't feel there was anything to explain.
Moreover, Gu Yueji hadn't contacted him proactively for the past two weeks. They were all adults, and some things were better left unsaid. If they didn't contact each other for a long time, they would naturally forget about it and act as if nothing had happened.
"It's great to be free and independent," Ren Jin said, biting his cigarette butt.
Qian Mingjun then asked in an ambiguous tone, "Are you surrounded by too many women? Haven't you had enough fun yet?"
Over the past few years, Qian Mingjun had followed Ren Jin to various events and witnessed many women fawning over him. Ren Jin wasn't some aloof, ascetic man; when people flirted with him, he could easily win them over. His skillful seduction techniques, though Ren Jin had never formally introduced any women to him, made Qian Mingjun realize that Ren Jin was never short of female company.
Ren Jin smirked. "Exactly. Why give up a whole forest for a single tree?"
"I'll go talk to my mom in a bit and ask her to find you a few blind dates to pressure you into getting married."
Ren Xiaojuan married into the village next to her grandparents' house. When Ren Jin was little, she would often come back to visit her grandparents and bring him all kinds of food. Almost all of his new clothes were given to him by Ren Xiaojuan. When her grandfather was seriously ill, Ren Xiaojuan and he took turns taking care of him. Therefore, among the relatives, he only listened to this aunt.
"I won't trouble you, my sister-in-law. I have my own plans."
Qian Mingjun was just saying it casually. Ren Jin has always been very opinionated and is the kind of person who wouldn't even obey his own parents or grandparents.
Speaking of his parents, Qian Mingjun suddenly remembered something, "Oh right, your uncle might be coming to see you soon, so be careful."
Ren Jin, however, didn't seem to care. "Let him look for someone if he wants. What do I have to worry about?"
Since the demolished houses were built, Ren Yayong had contacted him many times, but he didn't know where he lived and kept harassing him with phone calls. Later, Ren Yayong blocked his number, and he could no longer find him.
Qian Mingjun said, "This time is different. He told my mom that he knows where you live now, and his whole family is going to your house to confront you and demand that you hand over the house."
Ren Jin glanced instinctively at the door. "How did he know where I live?"
"I don't know either. My mom said he'd been asking around about you, and it just so happened he asked about you. How shameless of him."
Qian Mingjun disliked his uncle, Ren Yayong, from a young age. Not only was Ren Yayong stingy with New Year's red envelopes, only giving him 10 yuan each year, but more importantly, Ren Yayong was a snobbish and materialistic person. Qian Mingjun's family wasn't as well-off as his aunt's family, who had married into the city. Whenever relatives gathered, Ren Yayong liked to compare him to his aunt's son, belittling him to praise how outstanding his aunt's son was, which disgusted Qian Mingjun utterly.
Ren Jin frowned in disgust when he heard that Ren Yayong was coming to his door.
Two years ago, the village underwent land requisition and demolition, and Ren Jin received two resettlement houses and some compensation. Logically, the land and houses in the village were in his grandfather's name, and after his grandfather's death, Ren Yayong, as the only male heir, was the most entitled to inherit them. However, a few years ago, when his grandfather was seriously ill, Ren Yayong refused to pay for his medical treatment. In a fit of anger, his grandfather transferred all the land and houses to Ren Jin's name. This is why the resettlement houses ended up in Ren Jin's hands instead of Ren Yayong's.
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