The family of three squeezed onto a dilapidated bicycle. Liu Xiangdong and Liu Yihang took turns riding, while Lin Guihua sat on the front bar. The handlebars were covered with various bags, making them look extremely disheveled.
The bicycle, unable to bear the weight, made creaking and groaning noises. Liu Yihang was really afraid that it would suddenly die, and the whole family would have to walk back to the village.
Fortunately, despite the creaking sound of an old ox pulling a broken cart, it was still quite sturdy and successfully brought the three of them back to the village.
I staggered home.
They were met with a torrent of abuse from Ge Cuihua: "You've been gone for a month or two, and you still know how to come back?! All the housework has fallen on this old woman like me, are you trying to kill me with exhaustion?!"
Liu Xiangdong and Lin Guihua were already used to being subservient to Ge Cuihua.
If she talked back, Ge Cuihua would definitely turn the house upside down.
Over the years, they have compromised with Ge Cuihua countless times for their son's education, and they feel naturally inferior to her.
Liu Xiangdong silently pushed his bicycle into the yard.
The second son's wife, Bai Ying, glanced at the bicycle and found only a pile of broken metal. She then turned and went back to her room.
Her youngest daughter, Liu Xiaoya, came out of the kitchen and greeted them quietly.
"Uncle, Aunt, Second Brother, you're back?"
Lin Guihua's face finally showed a slight smile when she saw Liu Xiaoya.
"Xiaoya".
Liu Dahai and Liu Xiaohai from the third brother's family also stared longingly at their bicycles, noticing that they hadn't bought any food.
Liu Xiaohai muttered under his breath, "Poor bastard."
The two brothers were happily munching on a handful of red dates each.
Liu Yihang recalled his previous life, where his grandmother, Ge Cuihua, held the reins of the family's finances, and she had the final say on how the family's output was distributed.
Once, when the family harvested some red dates, I only wanted to try two, but Ge Cuihua snatched them away and cursed me as a starving ghost and a debt collector.
He was young at the time, a sensitive age, and this humiliation caused him great pain.
Any good things in the house are never for me.
However, the children of my second and third uncles could freely enjoy whatever they wanted in the house.
His grandmother's differential treatment made him very upset in his previous life.
But he will never feel anything again in this lifetime.
He will get what he wants through his own efforts.
Having been reborn and returning to this old house, Liu Yihang's state of mind is completely different, and what he sees is also completely different from his previous life.
He used to feel guilty because he had focused solely on his studies and hadn't done anything for his family.
No matter what bad things anyone did to him, he would swallow his anger and suffer in silence.
Ultimately, these so-called relatives did not offer him any help or love.
Everything he has is earned by his parents through hard work and has nothing to do with these vampires.
He lives only for himself, and no one can bully him or his parents.
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His grandfather, Liu Zhuzi, was an honest man who was strictly controlled by his grandmother, Ge Cuihua, his whole life.
They had three sons and one daughter.
The eldest son, Liu Xiangdong, is Liu Yihang's father. He married Lin Guihua, and they had only one child, Liu Yihang.
The second son, Liu Xiangxi, married Bai Ying and they had a son and a daughter. The son, Liu Dacheng, is a bit older than Liu Yihang and is currently working in a factory.
Liu Xiaoya, the only relatively kind girl in the family, dropped out of junior high school to work as a helper.
The third child, Liu Xiangnan, is a girl who married far away and can only come back once a year. However, her husband's family seems to be quite capable, as she always acts arrogantly whenever she comes back.
The fourth son, Liu Xiangbei, married Fang Fang and had two sons, Liu Dahai and Liu Xiaohai. These two boys dropped out of school early and stayed at home, unwilling to work in the factory because they thought it was too tiring, and spent their days sponging off their parents.
Liu Xiangdong and Lin Guihua used to be the main force in doing farm work in the family, along with Liu Zhuzi.
All three of them were excellent workers.
Ge Cuihua stopped working in the fields years ago and spent her days at home giving orders and pontificating.
My second uncle, Liu Xiangxi, is a drunkard who spends all his time hanging out with his cronies.
Bai Ying always managed to control Ge Cuihua with the phrase "divorce."
Ge Cuihua was very concerned about her image and loved her two sons dearly, so how could she bear to see her second son get divorced?
Therefore, Bai Ying always shirked her responsibilities and didn't like to do any housework, let alone farm work.
Bai Ying spends her days going out shopping and playing cards.
Bad bamboo produces good shoots, and her son and daughter were quite good.
Although Liu Dacheng was also a coward, at least he was self-reliant.
Liu Xiaoya was treated like a maid by Ge Cuihua all day long, and she did a lot of chores both inside and outside the house.
The worst off is my third uncle's family.
Liu Xiangbei and his wife Fang Fang secretly opened a grocery store in Lushui Town with the money that Ge Cuihua had privately compensated them, and the business was quite good.
Since the family hadn't divided the assets, the money earned should have been handed over to Ge Cuihua for unified management. Ge Cuihua disliked anyone challenging her authority.
So they simply kept it a secret from Ge Cuihua, and lied to the whole family, saying that the shop was owned by Fang Fang's older brother, and that they and their husband were just employees.
They would give Ge Cuihua a few yuan or ten yuan each month as a token gesture, and Ge Cuihua would praise her youngest son every day for being so successful and earning a lot of money every month.
Therefore, she treated her two grandsons, Liu Dahai and Liu Xiaohai, better than her other grandsons.
They openly and subtly mocked Liu Xiangdong and Lin Guihua, saying they were only good for scraping a living in the fields and had no ambition whatsoever.
She doesn't even consider who worked so hard to grow the food she eats every day.
During the off-season, Liu Xiangdong and Lin Guihua would go to town to work, and they would hand over every penny of their earnings to Ge Cuihua.
There's no way to hide it. The house is only so big. No matter where you hide it, as soon as you leave, Ge Cuihua will find it no matter how hard she searches.
Liu Yihang remembers when he was little, he was begging for candied hawthorns. Lin Guihua secretly bought him a string of candied hawthorns after returning from working in town and hid them.
When Ge Cuihua discovered this, she confiscated the candied hawthorns and gave them to Da Hai and Xiao Hai. She also made Lin Guihua and him kneel under the eaves to reflect on their actions and forbade them from eating dinner that night.
Liu Xiangdong decided to save his own dinner and give it to them, one in half.
Lin Guihua cried very sadly at that time. She felt that such a life was too meaningless. Liu Yihang also hugged his mother's legs and cried. The mother and son cried together.
After Liu Yihang finished crying, he said to Lin Guihua, "Mom, I don't want anything anymore."
He will always remember the look in Lin Guihua's eyes at that time—bitter, helpless, and indignant, which in the end turned into a sigh.
Because of these inhuman experiences in his childhood, Liu Yihang knew from a young age that only by making something of himself could he give his parents a good life and prevent them from being insulted. Therefore, he studied hard and never dared to slack off.
He was never a naturally gifted player; everything he has today is the result of more time and effort than others.
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