Chapter 83 Publication Feedback 2: Chen Family Orphanage is Full! ...
The people in the teahouse were used to the hardships of life. When they went out to work in the winter, they often brushed past the corpse-collecting teams. The story of the child bride was just an ordinary thing for them, but for some reason, tears just kept falling uncontrollably.
"My little girl—"
A bald, burly man was crying with snot and tears streaming down his face. He had just randomly chosen a teahouse to sit in, but an article had stirred up his sad memories. His friend patted him on the shoulder to comfort him.
"It's good that they found it; we can just take care of it slowly."
In this world, it's incredibly lucky for a kidnapped girl to be found healthy and intact.
The burly man understood this principle, but the thought of his sweetheart at home made his heart ache.
He wasn't this strong when he was young and wasn't favored by his parents. He married a woman who had fled famine when he was in his twenties, and had a daughter when he was in his thirties. He saw a doctor and knew that he might only have this one daughter in his life, so when his wife was giving birth, he took in an unwanted baby boy and raised him as a twin—he was the only one in the family who was doing well, and everyone else was waiting to eat his family's food!
He raised the boy as his son, but the girl was his precious child, and he cherished her like the apple of his eye. Her formal name was Tian, and her nickname was Tiantian. Not only did he not bind her feet, but he also gritted his teeth and sent her to school. He said that a girl who had received an education could marry into a wealthy family, which would make it easier to help her family later. In reality, he just didn't want his daughter to suffer in the future. But on her way to school, his Tiantian disappeared without a trace.
When they found her again, his daughter, Tiantian, was starving and looked like a skeleton, with chilblains all over her hands and feet. He still had to smile and thank them—if they hadn't raised their daughter as a child bride, she might not even be a complete person!
They brought their precious daughter home and raised her for three months, but she was still like a frozen cat. His wife cried buckets of tears, and when he looked into Tian Tian's eyes, his heart bled.
The burly man's tearful behavior continued until Old Han continued telling the story. He had originally planned to listen to the whole story, but things didn't go as planned, and he became lost in thought after hearing the first part.
Bao'er never quite understood what a child bride was, but she didn't want to be one anymore. The adults all said that the girl had a good life when she was alive, and Bao'er sincerely wished that these adults could live a life just as good as the girl's.
"Do you know whose family this child bride belongs to? I want to buy her a coffin."
Zhuang asked his friend in a low voice that he had originally wanted to build a grave for the child bride, but he had limited funds. He suggested buying her a thin coffin so that she wouldn't have to live as a wandering ghost.
That couple was so cruel! They treated their child bride badly while she was alive, and now that she's dead, they don't even give her a tattered straw mat. They're deliberately trying to prevent her from being reincarnated!
"...I remember you weren't this generous?"
My friend was a little confused. The strong man had a hard childhood and was afraid of poverty. He was very frugal except in necessary situations. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gone to this teahouse. Buying a coffin for his child bride was clearly a non-essential situation.
"I've thought of a way to mess with that family, consider it a thank you gift."
The burly man didn't hide his thoughts. He wouldn't say anything if the family he adopted had to eat coarse food with their daughter, or even if they ate rice and meat while Tian Tian was full of cornmeal. But this family made Tian Tian do all the chores, yet only gave her a bowl of dishwater!
He really didn't understand how to treat it, but when he heard Bao'er's thought just now, his eyes lit up—
He gave the money as a thank you, and it's time to settle the score: how long has Tian Tian been with their family, and what kind of life has she been living? Should this group of people be treated the same way and live for the same amount of time?
Every cause has its effect. Whatever kind of life that family made of Tian Tian, that's the kind of life I'll live. It doesn't matter if they make things up—they have no privacy where they live. Just ask the neighbors, and you'll know exactly how my daughter is being treated.
He used to be so dense that he would get angry every day. The old doctor even advised him to let out his anger when he took his pulse. He said that a man's mammary glands are still mammary glands, and that keeping his anger bottled up would be bad for his health. Now he finally has an outlet for his anger.
I'll ask which newspaper published this article. Although it was upsetting to hear, it was genuinely useful.
After Old Han finished telling the story, he didn't make any witty remarks like he would when reading a short story about a small fish. The crowd didn't look too relaxed either. Someone suggested buying a straw mat for Bao'er. People who would fight over a few copper coins in the past surprisingly didn't object and started chipping in the money, one coin at a time.
...
In a courtyard in a county town in Shanghai.
The young woman, a bit older than last year, hurriedly took a large stack of newspapers and flipped through them rapidly. The slightly thinner, but still kind-faced and plump old lady quietly approached and peeked out from behind the young woman, wanting to see what story her granddaughter was going to read to her. Then she heard her granddaughter's loud sobs and was immediately shocked.
"What's wrong, little one?!"
Her granddaughter has always been carefree, otherwise the family wouldn't have chosen her to go to the countryside to keep this old woman company. The eldest daughter cries, the second daughter makes a fuss, the third daughter holds grudges, but the fourth daughter never stays angry overnight. She doesn't care about anything, and once she gets over the initial urge, she'll find her own fun.
But who in this world truly doesn't care about anything? A few months ago, when the old lady got up at night, she often heard sobbing coming from her crib, as well as sleep-talking asking why her parents didn't want her. The old lady would pat her back every night, and later she would even sleep with her to help her fall asleep.
Now this girl can sleep through the night, but the old lady knows perfectly well that her granddaughter has completely lost interest in the family!
The old lady tried to comfort her for a long time before the young woman finally raised her red, swollen eyes and explained part of the reason:
"Bao'er is so pitiful..."
Most of her tears were for Bao'er, but many were for the young lady who only appeared twice in the story. If Bao'er made her feel sorry for her, then the young lady made her feel terrified, because she could not imagine herself becoming Bao'er, but the young lady's appearance might really be her future!
The young lady only appeared twice in the story. Once, when she got married, Bao'er fainted in the procession of the bridal sedan chair. The young lady asked her maid to give Bao'er a box of snacks to fill her stomach, and also casually gave Bao'er a lucky cloud hairpin, asking Bao'er to say some nice things on her big day.
The second time, Bao'er saw someone scattering paper money. She secretly followed behind and picked it up, wanting to exchange it for money. The procession, draped in hemp cloth, was very grand, just like the ten-mile-long red bridal procession of the previous year. The well-educated young lady married her childhood sweetheart and consummated their marriage. The following month, she was diagnosed with pregnancy, but unfortunately, the baby was breech, and in the end, both she and her unborn child died.
What the young woman feared was ending up like that young lady. In conventional education, it was taken for granted that a woman would marry into her husband's family and bear children, but few people cared about the survival rate of childbirth. It wasn't until Miss Qiu gently blew away this fog that the young woman belatedly realized that childbirth was a life-or-death ordeal for a woman.
She was crying for her baby, and also for her own naive and ignorant self.
"Grandma, this article is very good. Let me read it to you."
Bao'er's story was not short, and it took the young woman a long time to finish reading it, her eyes aching terribly—the power of reading aloud is much stronger than just reading; she started crying after reading about a third of it.
"...Where is Bao'er's grave? I'll give some silver dollars to fix it up."
After listening to the story, the old lady remained silent for a long time before slowly speaking, but she still felt some sympathy for the poor old woman.
I met the old lady at her birthday banquet in the winter. Her story was very simple: she was a widow who raised her son with great difficulty. Her son said with tears in his eyes that when he celebrated his mother's fiftieth birthday, he would let her sit at the main table. But when she actually turned fifty and was happily dressed up to eat at the table, her son sent her back to the kitchen.
"Don't spoil everyone's fun."
These are the son's exact words.
The old lady kept nagging at Bao'er, but Bao'er was only focused on eating the steamed bun in his hand. When he came back a few days later, he heard that the old lady had passed away.
That old woman was confused. Even on her deathbed, she kept muttering about how unfilial her son was. What a grand funeral she held! If this is considered unfilial, then what kind of person is truly filial?
The little old woman wearing glasses thought about the old lady's final fate and sighed deeply. When she was a child, she would say all sorts of nice things to keep her mother useful. But now that her mother was old and useless, she couldn't even recognize the words carved in stone.
“I’ll add some silver dollars too…Grandma, I plan to send some food to the orphanage.”
The young woman didn't think that Bao'er was a real person, but there were Bao'er everywhere in the world. This amount of food couldn't feed all the Bao'er in the world, but it would be good if one "Bao'er" could survive.
"Please send one for me too."
The old lady took off her gold bracelet and placed it in the young woman's palm. Before the young woman could even be surprised by the old lady's generosity, she was terrified by the old lady's words.
"Tell me your plans for the future,"
These words were clearly not the usual way of saying a bride marrying a man. The young woman originally wanted to deny it to the death, but she was so shocked by the old lady's next words that she almost strained her back.
"See if you can bring me one."
The old lady gave her granddaughter a sly smile. She was old, but there was a difference between being old and being dead.
"Would you go with me if I went abroad?"
The young woman asked jokingly, but her smile gradually froze when the old lady nodded.
After chatting for a while, somehow, the woman revealed her true thoughts.
"In China, you can only go up to middle school, but I want to go to university."
"I don't really want to get married, but I don't know what I want to do either. However, I think it's always useful to learn more..."
The old lady had lived a life of conformity, but her granddaughter's words stirred her heart. As she thought of the snow-capped mountains and icy lakes her granddaughter had described, her eyes gradually brightened.
"Let's go together."
The old woman's tone was firmer than ever before. She was old and didn't have many years left to live. She only wanted to see more of the world in the time she had left. Even if she had to die, she wanted to die on the road!
"……good."
Their families would definitely think they're crazy.
The young woman should have readily agreed, but her mind wandered uncontrollably. What should their group be called—The Escape Route of the Crazy Older Woman and the Mad Girl?
...
The Chen family.
Facing their daughter, who was tearfully saying she wanted to donate money to Bao'er, Chen Yuzhu's parents only focused their attention on one sentence in the article.
"If there were more orphanages, maybe we could take that child in."
This was a remark made by an employee of the orphanage, but it helped the parents, who had discovered that their daughter was a promising talent but had no suitable help, to see the light at the end of the tunnel. After exchanging a glance and confirming that they were on the same page, Chen's mother wrote a check to send her daughter away before turning serious and asking Chen's father a question.
Do you have a suitable place in the Chen family's orphanage?
It doesn't matter if there are no suitable helpers. What the world has no shortage of is homeless children. If these old men can hold on for more than ten years, the children in the orphanage will have grown up.
"Yes, but the children we've taken in..."
Mr. Chen hesitated for a moment, and Mrs. Chen made a decision directly.
"We accept both men and women, but we can only train women for positions like shopkeeper."
There are still too few women working in the business world. Chen's mother wanted to find some suitable helpers for her daughter. The environment has a great influence. When Chen Yuzhu looked ahead, there were more men than women, and when she looked back, there were only men. Subconsciously, she would doubt whether she could hold her position.
Seeing that Mr. Chen remained silent, Mrs. Chen thought for a moment and tried to persuade the man from another angle:
“If we raise a boy, they might think we want to adopt a son to inherit the family business…”
"What a load of rubbish about adopted sons! It's all girls now, we're raising girls!"
Upon hearing this, Chen's father flew into a rage, forcefully banishing any other thoughts. He had his own offspring; why would he need an adopted son?
A subtle smile crept onto Chen's mother's lips. Three days later, a piece of news quietly spread in Shanghai.
"Really? You'll get a silver dollar just for bringing the girl back alive?"
The pregnant woman asked excitedly, and the woman dressed as a matchmaker nodded.
"Anyone under ten years old who is sent there will receive one silver dollar, with food and lodging provided, so they will have no worries about making a living."
Before the woman could nod, the woman dressed as a matchmaker continued:
"However, they also said that these girls are to be taken abroad by ship to become wives for their men after they grow up, and they will never come back. If you regret selling them, you will have to compensate them ten times the cost of their food, clothing and lodging, plus an additional two hundred silver dollars."
The pregnant woman, who had been thinking of raising the child and bringing her back, froze. Her hands, which had been like iron clamps, loosened their grip quietly. She felt both disappointed and that it was only natural—how could there be a fool who would raise a wife for someone else for nothing?
"...My family can still afford to raise the child, so we won't send him there."
When boys grow up, they will get married. Girls, as long as they are given some food, can do all kinds of housework and handicrafts. When they grow up, they can also exchange for money, which is more than a silver dollar.
"Okay, tell me if you have a suitable person. If it really works out, even a child can get a copper coin."
The matchmaker was not surprised; everyone was thinking of getting something for nothing, but there's no such thing as a free lunch.
While some people couldn't bear to part with their children, others were willing to. Before the Chen family's orphanage was even built, girls started arriving in droves, ranging from newborns to seven or eight years old. They came from all over the place, including homeless children caught on the street. This kept Chen's mother busy every day, either looking for ewes or for a cook.
Yes, this news was released by the Chen family to prevent some people from taking advantage of the situation. The price of two hundred silver dollars was also carefully set. In some places, there is still a custom of paying a lot of money to marry a bride. The general standard is about one hundred silver dollars, including the bride price, banquet, and household items. Two hundred dollars plus ten times the compensation is enough to make parents who want to exchange the bride price give up their hopes.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
