Chapter 60 Chapter 60 I have to resort to some means, ...
My name is Qin Fang, which means "sun and moon" (日月昉), meaning bright. I have an older brother named Qin Yuejin, a name that sounds very contemporary and even suggests his birth year. When I was ten, he packed his bags and joined the army.
At that time, classes were suspended everywhere. My mother was worried that he would hang out with the young soldiers and cause endless trouble, so she suggested that he join the army. He was already out there with his classmates, enthusiastically engaged in revolutionary activities and preparing to respond to the leader's call to join the movement in Beijing. Naturally, he didn't want to join the army. My father said that he was sixteen years old and needed a job, not just idle around the house. He asked him whether he wanted to join the army or go to the countryside.
He remained silent, pondering all night. The next morning, he told his father he wanted to join the army, but not the army. He wanted to be a navy soldier like his grandfather, defending the nation's seas. His mother was worried, "You're seasick, so you should go to the army. The Air Force is recruiting too, so you might as well sign up and give it a try. You can defend the country wherever you go, so there's no need to be so rigid in the navy."
My brother has been quite stubborn since he was a child. He shook his head and said, "I'm not afraid of seasickness. I'll go even if I have to vomit my intestines." My mother had no choice but to ask my father to use his connections to send my brother to an island of the navy so that he wouldn't suffer from seasickness.
But my father said, "I can't afford to lose face by taking a backdoor and becoming a soldier and enjoying the good life." A few days later, he handed my brother a navy enlistment notice and said, "We don't want you to achieve merit or receive awards, but we just ask that you don't embarrass yourself too much and let people say that all the children in our Qin family are spoiled."
My brother was quite rebellious at the time, and he would often respond to everything our parents said. He immediately said, "Don't worry, I will never tell anyone that he is your son."
His father was so angry that his face turned blue. His mother was afraid that the two of them would start talking, so she quickly took his father out for a walk.
My brother came over and gave me a weird grin that pinched my cheek so hard it hurt. "Second brother, I'm going to the army, so all the stuff in my room is yours. You can take everything, the slingshot, the bullets, etc. There's only one thing I can't do. I spent a lot of time making that tank model out of a shell. You can play with it, but you can't give it to anyone else, and you can't break it."
I nodded rapidly, thinking to myself that he was my brother after all. Even though he was usually overbearing, he would still think of me at the critical moment. I immediately promised, "Brother, don't worry. I will take good care of it for you. When you come back, it will be exactly the same as it is now."
My brother nodded in satisfaction. I don't know what he was thinking, but he smiled maliciously: "No one except you is allowed to touch that tank model, including your child bride, Jiang Miaomiao."
I thought angrily that my brother couldn't say a single nice word, so I retorted, "She's not a child bride."
My brother was lying on the sofa, grinning. He took an apple and ate it while saying, "What's not? When you two were born, they were almost taken away by the wrong parents. Her mother died during childbirth. From childhood to adulthood, she ate and slept at our house five days a week. We even had her room. Is she still your child bride? I see you were very happy about it. You used to be with her every day. When Mom was not off work, you two would do homework together in her office. You are simply childhood sweethearts, two little kids with no qualms."
My face flushed: "You're talking nonsense, I didn't."
My brother nodded and smiled, "Oh, you don't like Jiang Miaomiao. After all, she's dark and skinny, and she definitely won't be pretty when she grows up. The two of you standing together look like a tall bamboo pole and a short stump, right? Last time I saw her, she was learning to knit a scarf with her mom. Didn't she knit one for you?"
Jiang Miaomiao and I were born on the same day, just a dozen minutes older. At the time, my mom had always thought she was pregnant with a girl. When Jiang Miaomiao was brought to us, my parents were overjoyed. But before they could even celebrate for two minutes, the nurse rushed in and announced the wrong baby had been taken.
My mother was completely skeptical. She personally checked the hospital records from that day, and even the director personally apologized. Only then did she, half-believing, take me home. However, she always suspected Jiang Miaomiao was her biological daughter, and she made no secret of her love and concern for her. She told my father that Jiang Miaomiao's eyes and eyebrows looked a lot like his. My father said, "That girl is obviously not yours. You're so fair, it's impossible for you to give birth to someone so dark."
My mother said my father was ignorant, saying that some people are dark-skinned when they are young but become fair and beautiful when they grow up. My father did not quite agree with this statement.
However, Jiang Miaomiao's mother died during childbirth, and she lived with us for most of the week, so she was no different from my mother's daughter. When I was seven, my mother gave birth to a little sister. She thought Jiang Miaomiao was good luck, so she loved her even more.
My brother and I both found my mother's feelings for Jiang Miaomiao illogical and incomprehensible. Jiang Miaomiao was, after all, a very unpleasant girl. From childhood to adulthood, she'd always strive to be the best at everything she did, always aiming for first place on tests and even in running. If you ran up to talk to her, she'd definitely pick up her pace, leaving you behind. She wasn't popular, either; she had few friends, either at school or in the compound. If someone pissed her off, she wouldn't say anything at first, but after school, she'd pick up a brick and hit them on the head—she was truly a ruthless person.
I shook my head: "Brother, I don't want to be slapped on the head."
As I was talking, I heard Jiang Miaomiao calling me from outside: "Qin Fang, who are you talking about? Who do you want to be slapped on the head?" I was shocked and quickly closed and locked the door: "No one, no one."
Jiang Miaomiao knocked on the door hard: "Open the door for me, you are a thief with a guilty conscience."
I was afraid that she would be angry and hit me, so I looked through the crack in the door and said, "Miaomiao, I didn't do that. My brother said that."
When my brother heard this, he immediately stood up and grabbed my ear: "Okay, you traitor Pu Zhigao, you betrayed me before I was even tortured. Then I can't help you..." Then he opened the door.
Jiang Miaomiao rushed in and grabbed my ear: "Are you going to talk or not? Are you going to talk or not?"
I had no choice but to beg for mercy: "No more, never again."
Jiang Miaomiao clapped her hands: "I won't bother with you today, you have guests at home."
I looked outside the door and saw three people standing there, two women and one man. One was older and looked to be in her fifties, and the other two looked to be in their twenties, about the same height as my brother.
My brother immediately invited them in, poured tea and greeted the guests: "My name is Qin Yuejin, my parents are out for a walk. What can I do for them?"
The older one said, "Our last name is Lu. We are your mother's family. You should call me aunt. These are your cousins, Yan Zi and Xiao Gang."
My brother knew this. My mother sent money back home every month, and she did so until the year my younger sister was born, when she stopped sending money every month. My mother's only family member was my grandmother, and she would take leave every year to go back to Jiangzhou to visit her. My brother also went with her many times. My mother once wanted to transfer my grandmother to Fujian, but she had lived in the mental hospital there for a long time and was very familiar with the doctors and nurses. Although she didn't recognize anyone, she would make a big fuss and refuse to eat when she was told that she was going to Fujian. My mother then gave up, and except for calling frequently to inquire about her situation, she would definitely go back to Jiangzhou once a year.
My brother, despite his bad temper, is very presentable in front of outsiders. He is very generous and pretentious. He immediately took out some snacks and said, "Aunt, cousin, please sit down for a while, have some tea and something to eat. I'll go find my parents and come back."
When my mother came home and saw them, her face was a little grim, especially when she heard them ask my father to help find them a job. After all, they were family, or the only family she had, and my mother's behavior was truly unusual. My brother and I hid by the door at night, quietly eavesdropping on my parents' conversation, hoping to get some inside information.
My father comforted my mother: "Forget it. They are your family after all. They are not doing well right now. There is nothing wrong with young people wanting to have a decent job. It is also a sign of ambition."
My mother snorted. "Other people get ahead on their own, but they rely on connections. They insist both of their children join the army, preferably in Jiangzhou, saying it's closer to home so they can take care of Grandma. Mom was in the hospital for so long, and they were in Jiangzhou, and I haven't seen them visit many times. And Yan Zi, a very cute little girl when she was little, is now organizing everywhere, even raiding other people's homes and beating up engineers who had been reformed for years. When I went back last year, she was leading people in putting dunce caps on people, criticizing them, and parading them through the streets."
I thought, isn't this exactly what my brother wants to do? Even though my mother had ruined all his plans and didn't allow him to participate. Sure enough, when my brother heard this, he pushed the door open and said, "Mom, you're wrong to think this way. Treating class enemies means being as cold as winter. Your revolutionary will is too lax. When dealing with those landlords and traitors, you must use force and severely reform them. With such a revolutionary will as yours, you're still an outstanding Party member in your unit, and a key professional. Now we have to talk about political awareness. Mom, I'm not saying anything bad about you, but your political awareness is far worse than my cousin's."
Under normal circumstances, my mother would have thrown something at him, but this time my brother was making a big deal out of it, and she couldn't say anything. She snorted, "You're the only one who knows so much? You're the only one who's conscious? Do you have the final say on whether I'm conscious or not?"
My brother wanted to say something, but he saw his father glaring at him and said, "Get out."
I didn't dare to contradict my parents, so I quickly pulled my brother out and closed the door. I pushed him back into his room and listened for a while while pouring tea.
My father pulled out a medicine bottle from a drawer. "Your joints and back hurt. I've applied some medicated oil and will massage you. These are the root causes of your third child's illness, and you haven't taken good care of yourself."
My mother shook her head. "I just twisted my leg a few days ago. What does this have to do with having children? If it's my opinion, I just don't want to associate with my sister-in-law. I never liked her in the first place. We already agreed to send money until the two children are adults. Now she's coming to me again. It's really annoying. If the children are well-behaved, it's not impossible. I'm really worried that they won't behave themselves in the army and cause you trouble. You didn't even use connections for your own sons, yet you're using them for them?"
My father said, "Joining the army now is conscription, and they don't guarantee they'll stay. It all depends on their own behavior." He then asked, "You're going to be transferred to be a judge in Court No. 1. I think it's better than before. They're full of serious criminals there, but at least there's less civil mediation involved, so you can relax a little. In my opinion, a more relaxed position is better than the court."
My mother didn't answer. After a while, I heard my father coming to turn off the lights. I was so scared that I quickly slipped away along the corner.
The next day, my father agreed to their marriage over dinner. However, during the political review, my cousin's uncle was arrested for a fight, and they failed the review. My mother even said, "Some things are truly fate." Later, the two of them went to the countryside. My mother was soft-hearted, and when she saw how hard life was for them in the countryside, she used her connections in Jiangzhou to transfer them back to the city for work, though their interactions weren't frequent.
When my brother passed away, our whole family went to take a family photo, and Jiang Miaomiao also went with us.
My brother whispered to me in a strange voice, "You said she wasn't your child bride, but look, she even has a place in the family portrait. I don't think you can escape her clutches."
However, my brother joined the army, and my mother breathed a sigh of relief: "At least the army is in charge now, so there won't be any big trouble."
My father extended his hand to my mother and invited her, "Come on, the sunset is so beautiful today, let's go for a walk."
My mother laughed and said, "What kind of stroll is that? It's just a stroll for the elderly."
"He's only forty, not old. He's in the prime of his life, okay?"
"Working is the prime of life, but life is the real life of an old man. Speaking of which, I haven't seen a movie in a long time..."
"It's a new one, let's go see it tomorrow..."
Jiang Miaomiao stood behind them, looking at their silhouettes stretched out by the setting sun, and sighed, "I really envy your parents."
I looked at her cheek and screamed in my heart, I don’t want to be a child bride, and ran away quickly.
Jiang Miaomiao chased after him: "Why are you running so fast?"
Aunt Hu was at the back, holding her three-year-old sister in her arms. She smiled and said, "Run slower, be careful not to fall."
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