“His dad, I think we can’t go on like this, or Chengcai’s life will be over.”
Liu's mother carried a stack of bricks and said to Liu's father.
"Don't mention that good-for-nothing to me. Do you really think there's any hope for him?"
The images that flashed through his mind made Liu's father feel nauseous, and he almost vomited up the steamed buns he had eaten that morning.
Liu's mother put down the brick and wiped away her tears.
“No matter what, he’s still our son, the only son of your Liu family. We can’t just watch him like that and do nothing about it.”
"Bullshit." Liu's father got angry as soon as he heard this.
"He's already lying under a man's body, he's disgraced the entire Liu family for eight generations, and besides, he can't carry on the family line. Why should I care about him?"
As Liu's father spoke, he became increasingly angry and threw the stroller he was holding.
"I'm quitting. It's not like I owed the money. Let him do whatever he wants. I don't care anymore."
Liu's mother cried, "If it weren't for Liu Zhaodi who... he would have been messing around with men after losing his manhood. It's not Chengcai's fault."
Her son used to be well-behaved and sweet-talking. Every month after she transferred money to him, he would even know to weigh out two pounds of pastries for her.
Although two pounds of pastries only cost about ten yuan, it was a token of her son's filial piety.
“It’s all that debt collector’s fault that ruined my son. My son used to only like women.”
Liu's father slapped Liu's mother across the face.
"It's all your fault! I threw that debt collector into the urinal back then, and you fished her out again. Now look what's happened, she's going to ruin my family line."
It's like how he was the one who said he was lucky he didn't drown the money tree.
Liu's mother covered her face and cried for a while, then suddenly paused, remembered something, and took out a flyer from her pocket.
Someone handed it to me on the way to the construction site.
"Actually, there is a way, his dad, you see."
Mr. Liu took the flyer and it took him a while to roughly understand what it meant.
You mean IVF?
"right."
"Who will have his baby? What girl would want to be with him in his current state? Besides, IVF costs a lot of money, and where are we going to get that kind of money?"
“We still have a house in our county town, right? We’ll have money after we sell it. We can pay a higher dowry and find a girl whose family is so poor they can’t even afford to eat. I don’t have to worry about her parents disagreeing.”
Mr. Liu was deeply tempted: "What about Liu Zhaodi?"
Liu's mother said, "We don't know anyone in the city, and nobody will care about us. Once we run back to the village, everyone there will be someone we know. I don't believe she can do anything to us. Besides, I haven't vomited blood for the past few days, so the effects of the medicine have probably worn off by now."
Father Liu gritted his teeth: "Alright, let's do it this way. The Liu family line must never end with me."
Also, he really didn't want to do manual labor anymore.
He wants to go back to the village, live in a small villa, and hold his grandson.
The two discussed some specific operational details, such as secretly saving a little money each day when paying to cover travel expenses.
Just then, Old Li suddenly shouted, "Old Liu, come over and give me a hand!"
Old Li worked so hard that he went from being a bricklayer to a skilled worker who could work on scaffolding.
There was another man surnamed Zhang with him, but today was his daughter's birthday, so Old Zhang took a day off.
Old Li laughed and said, "Old Zhang took leave to celebrate his daughter's birthday. You can cover for him for a day and you'll get double the pay you do for carrying bricks."
Mr. and Mrs. Liu, who were just planning to save up for their escape, suddenly had a bright idea.
"No problem, I'll be right up."
Liu's father climbed onto the scaffolding, while Liu's mother continued moving bricks.
The two chatted as they worked.
Liu's father scoffed, "Taking one day off will cost you three days' pay. That idiot Zhang, she's just a little girl, what's so special about her birthday?"
"That's right." Old Li also looked disdainful.
"His wife died young, and he never remarried. He just kept this one girl, supporting her all the way through university, treating her like the apple of his eye. Isn't that just plain stupid? She's not his son, what's the point?"
Liu's father chimed in, "Don't end up like your Panzi, who becomes more selfish the more he studies."
"Of course! The biggest regret of my life is sending that ungrateful kid to school. You know what? Old Zhang actually told me he wanted to earn money to buy a house for his daughter."
"What?"
Mr. Liu's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Is he crazy? Who buys a house for a girl? What if his daughter gets married and the house becomes someone else's?"
"That's what I advised him too. But he said that a girl needs a house to have confidence, and he was afraid that if he died, his daughter would be bullied and have nowhere to go."
She keeps telling me that boys and girls are the same, isn't that ridiculous?
Mr. Liu gloated, "Haha, has he lost his mind? How can a girl compare to a son? He'll regret it later."
The two laughed so hard they were doubled over, freely mocking Old Zhang, who doted on his daughter.
Perhaps they were laughing too hard, and the swaying was too great. With their smiles still on their faces, the scaffolding collapsed without warning.
Old Li was standing to the side when he screamed and fell backward, grabbing at the ground in his haste.
Liu's father was holding onto the shelf next to him, but he was also pulled down by Old Li.
The next second, a tooth-grinding sound rang out, and the screams of the two echoed throughout the construction site.
Liu's mother scrambled over, and upon seeing the scene before her, her legs gave way and she collapsed to the ground.
The old man lay on his back, like a string of candied hawthorns, pierced by a steel bar erected on the ground.
Father Liu was on top, and Old Li was below, with Old Li's body still half a meter off the ground.
Blood stained the steel bars, dripping onto the sand.
The two screamed in agony, mouthfuls of blood gushing from the corners of their mouths.
The workers were terrified, and the foreman immediately called 120 (emergency services), his voice trembling.
The biggest fear on construction sites is safety accidents. How unlucky he is!
"Old Liu..."
Liu's mother was so frightened that she couldn't even cry, and her legs were as weak as noodles.
Qi An and Fu Gui, who were watching the "construction site live stream" at home, fell silent while holding watermelons.
They really didn't do this.
By the time the ambulance arrived, the two had already slid to the bottom of the steel bars and were piled on top of each other like a human pyramid.
Upon seeing the situation, the doctor instructed the workers to cut the steel bars from the bottom, and then they lifted the two men, who were strung together, into the ambulance.
Outside the operating room, Liu's mother, completely distraught, called Qi An and asked her to bring money to the hospital.
"Waaah, your dad is dying from trying to earn money for you, please come to the hospital!"
Qi An said coldly, "First, he's paying off his son's debts. Second, why would I go to the hospital?"
Liu's mother cried, "Your father's lungs and kidneys have been punctured by steel bars. The doctor said the surgery is very risky and requires a family member's signature."
Qi An said directly, "Oh, then let's give up on treatment. Anyway, even if it's cured, the person will be crippled; why waste the money?"
Liu's mother screamed, "That's your own father! Are you even human?"
"Of course not, I'm an ungrateful debt collector."
Liu's mother: "..."
"I'm hanging up now, busy having hot pot. Call me again if you die."
When I called Liu Cheng, his phone was immediately switched off.
Liu's mother sat in the hospital corridor and wailed loudly.
The surgery was eventually performed, since it was a construction accident and the construction company owner paid for it.
Liu's father and Old Li barely survived by having one kidney removed from each of them.
Both of them had holes in their lungs, which will cause them difficulty breathing and essentially render them useless.
However, there was a benefit: because the construction company failed to take proper safety measures, the construction site compensated each of the two individuals with 500,000 yuan.
Old Li finally managed to earn enough money for his son to buy a house after going out for a while.
Father's love is as strong as a mountain.
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