"I remember the first time I went to your house. It was so dirty and messy. The floor was covered with garbage, and the room was pitch black and dusty. Your father was sleeping on the kang with his head covered. The huge kang was covered with wine bottles, and the two quilts on the kang were so colorful that you couldn't tell what color they were. I thought at the time that a pigpen would be three times cleaner than your house."
Chen Tianci's face showed a complex expression of shyness and sadness.
"From the day my mother left, I felt like my father had become a different person. He was depressed and listless. He worked three days at work and two days off. Then he was fired from the factory. He also stopped caring about me. He didn't care about my schooling, my clothes, or even my meals. From that time on, I became a wild child with no one to take care of me. When I grew up, I was almost never at home."
Having said that, Chen Tianci picked up the wine glass and drank it all in one gulp, with tears in his eyes.
"So, losing your wife in middle age is one of the three greatest misfortunes a man can have."
"If I hadn't met you, what would have happened to us now? Time is a magician. Ten years ago, my mother left and our family collapsed. Four years ago, we met you, and life began to see sunshine again. Brother! Your kindness..."
Wan Feng quickly stopped him, "Don't bring me up. Today we're not talking about me. Your father is about to start a second life, and I noticed you have a big knot in your heart. There's an old Chinese saying: A harmonious family is the foundation of everything. Think about your father getting married, and you have a knot in your heart. If you resolve this knot, a rift will appear between you and your son, and the rift will only get bigger and bigger. This is not what I want to see. Let's talk about the knot in your heart today. Do you feel that your father has let your mother down?"
Chen Tianci shook his head.
The impression of his mother has become vague in his mind, and his mother is just a noun in his memory.
"So you feel ashamed that your father remarried at his age?"
Chen Tianci also shook his head.
"Or is it because Qi Hong will share your father's inheritance with her children in the future?"
"Neither! I have my own property. I don't even care about my father's property."
"That's strange. I can't think of any reason why you're so unhappy. Could it be Sister Hua'er's fault? If it's her, I'll go find her."
"No, no, it has nothing to do with her. She even forced me to help my father this morning."
Wan Feng was really confused. Why was that? There must be a reason!
"Is it because of Sister Hong and your father's age?"
This time Chen Tianci didn't shake his head.
It turns out the lump is here.
"Go ahead and tell me all the reasons why you're unhappy."
"Actually, there's no other reason. Qi Hong is four years older than me. Normally, I should call her sister, but from now on, I have to call her mom. I feel uncomfortable when I think about this. Very uncomfortable."
Just because of this?
Wan Feng was a little amused and confused. What was going on?
"No more?"
Chen Tianci remained silent.
"Perhaps you still have some idea in your mind that your father married a girl who was not a decent man, right?"
Chen Tianci nodded silently.
"Actually, your father didn't initiate this. Qi Hong was the one who pursued your father. Isn't this story fantastical? It's unbelievable that a girl would pursue a man who is almost twenty years older than her. But this is exactly what happened."
Wan Feng picked up the wine glass, clinked it with Chen Tianci's, swallowed it in one gulp, and took a bite of the food.
"Speaking of which, Qi Hong's experience is very similar to yours. She is also a woman with a miserable life."
"She also lost her mother at a young age."
Wan Feng shook his head. "That's not the case. Her parents are still alive, but it's not much different from missing one of them. Her father was a lifelong alcoholic and gambler. As far as she can remember, he never seemed to care for her. You lack maternal love, and she lacks paternal love. Therefore, she has a latent Oedipus complex."
"Oedipus complex?"
It’s a bit far-fetched to discuss Oedipus complex with Chen Tianci in this era.
"You don't understand this. It could be explained by her preference for mature men who are much older than her. When she was in Heihe, she lived at my base for a while. Your father was managing the warehouse supplies there at the time. When she had nothing else to do, she loved listening to your father talk about his life experiences. Of course, I also unintentionally told her about my own life experiences. It was around that time that she probably developed a kind of dependence on your father, or perhaps a secret crush on him."
"My father never told me any of this."
"At that time, your father didn't know what Qi Hong was thinking. He probably thought of her as a passer-by in his life. What was there to talk about?"
Chen Tianci thought about it and it made sense.
"If Qi Hong hadn't come to Jiangwei, she might have just been a passing figure in your father's life. Bringing her to Jiangwei inadvertently changed that reality. After arriving in Jiangwei, she became fascinated with machine tools and became a technician in my factory. Your father was the only one she knew in the huge Nanwan factory, and she took him as her apprentice, which is how this relationship came about."
Chen Tianci lit a cigarette and smoked silently.
"Later, Qi Hong began pursuing your father. Your father initially refused, and his attitude was very firm. He couldn't accept that a girl nineteen years younger than him, and also his apprentice, actually expressed her love for him."
"And then?"
"Later, Qi Hong came to me, weeping. After I realized Qi Hong was sincere, I talked to your father a few times. That's how it ended. So if you have any resentment, first, you shouldn't resent Qi Hong. She has the right to pursue her own love. Second, you shouldn't resent your father. At first, he just passively accepted it. The person you should blame the most is me. It was me who changed your father's ideas and thoughts."
To resent Wan Feng? How is that possible!
"Brother! Actually, the reason I'm unhappy is that I can't accept the reality that I have to call a woman who is only four years older than me "Mom". I can't bring myself to say that, but there's really nothing else to it."
"Haha, Tianci! Is that a big deal? Why don't you change your mindset? If you can't call it that, you can just not call it that, or just call it your own."
Chen Tianci was puzzled: "How can we keep calling each other names?"
What's so strange about this? In rural areas, there are many things that are entangled with the generations. From one side, you call them brother or sister, and from the other side, you might call them grandpa or grandma. How can you sort it out? In the end, you can only call each one its own.
"After your father and Qi Hong get married, you can call them separately. Call your father Dad and call Qi Hong Sister, isn't that enough?"
It seems to be a good idea.
"But there's another question. Calling me that is fine, but if Qi Hong has a child in the future, when the child grows up, will he call me brother or uncle? We have to call each other by their own names."
Wan Feng was dumbfounded. Yes! This question still has continuity.
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