Chapter 4: Cell Phone

Almost as a reflex, Yu Wei quickly bent down and shielded the little guy in her arms, and the feather duster landed squarely on her thin back.

“Ugh…”

A stifled groan escaped from Yu Wei’s nose.

This was the first time she had ever been hit. Even as a mischievous child, her father had only ever scolded her harshly but never disciplined her with such brute force.

Yuan Guifang froze for a few seconds, and seeing Yu Hui suddenly rush out, she didn’t react in time, so the stick came down anyway.

Fortunately, Yu Wei reacted quickly; otherwise, if that hit had landed on the frail Yu Hui, he would have at least shed a layer of skin even if he survived!

“How did I give birth to such a useless child!”

Yuan Guifang’s eyes reddened, and she angrily threw the feather duster to the ground. The force was so strong that several feathers flew out, scaring her sister-in-law Jiang Min, who hurried out to continue cooking.

“Look at you, I worked so hard to raise you, and this is how you repay me!” Yuan Guifang switched to using the ‘soft’ approach.

Yu Wei was still recovering from the fatigue and soreness in her body, feeling the unease of the little guy in her arms. She lowered her head and gently stroked his hair, the soft and delicate strands soothing to touch, while he stared up at her without blinking.

Looking into his bright, doe-like eyes, the cloud of gloom in Yu Wei’s heart lifted slightly. She then raised her head and said each word firmly to Yuan Guifang, “I will earn money to pay you back.”

The two of them remained silent for a long time, with Yuan Guifang sitting in the spot where Director Luo had previously sat, frowning and glaring at Yu Wei, while she sat at the edge of the bed playing with the child.

Although the little guy showed no expression, his tender little hands were trembling as he clung tightly to Yu Wei’s clothes.

In 1985, just a few years after the opening-up, a typical lunch for an average worker’s family in the town wasn’t particularly lavish. Today’s meal had more dishes because Luo Dongshen was here.

There was a plate of stir-fried pork with chilli, a bowl of egg soup, and three plates of stir-fried vegetables. Though grain and food supplies were no longer as scarce as they were before the opening-up, families like Yu Wei’s still couldn’t afford to eat meat at every meal.

About ten minutes after Luo Dongshen left, Yuan Guifang finally grew tired of scolding and sat down to catch her breath. Yu Wei’s older brother and father had also returned from work.

Both her father and older brother were ordinary workers at a textile factory. Her brother had good technical skills, and with Director Luo’s connection, he had recently been promoted to a second-tier worker last month.

The two men, exhausted after a day’s work, were delighted to see the table full of good food and cheerfully asked Yuan Guifang what the occasion was.

“What occasion! It’s the day your younger sister decided not to listen!” Yuan Guifang, still furious, responded with a sarcastic jab.

“What happened?” Yu Yi asked in confusion, turning to ask his wife, Jiang Min.

“Ask your sister!” Jiang Min snapped at him angrily, then sat down and began breathing heavily alongside his mother.

The two men looked curiously at Yu Wei, but the young girl was just sitting by the bed soothing the child. When they asked her what was going on, she remained silent.

Well, it seemed that the women of the house had all gone mad today.

Eventually, Jiang Min couldn’t hold back any longer and tearfully began recounting how Yu Wei had been ‘disobedient’. Yu Yi and Yu Da Chao, after listening, also joined in criticising her for not behaving.

Yu Wei was speechless, her head throbbing from their reprimands. She finally picked up her son and walked directly into her room, shutting the door behind her. She no longer cared about the scolding outside and sat on the edge of the bed in a daze, holding Yu Hui.

In such a family, in such an environment, it was not easy for a single mother to raise a child and survive.

With a long sigh, she heard the clinking of enamel bowls outside—they had started eating lunch.

Although Yuan Guifang had said some harsh words earlier, she wasn’t really going to let the whole family go hungry. The women might be able to skip a meal, but the men needed to eat in order to work at the factory. How could they go without food?

“You dead girl, get out here and eat!” Yuan Guifang shouted angrily.

“Can you stop being so harsh with your words?” Yu Wei responded irritably. She glanced down at the quiet little guy in her arms and, in the end, carried him outside.

“If you didn’t keep doing things to anger me, would I need to speak to you like this? Why don’t you think about why I don’t get mad at anyone else!” Yuan Guifang snapped.

Yu Wei gave up trying to reason with her and simply ignored her.

The five of them sat down at the table for lunch. Yu Hui, sitting quietly beside Yu Wei, wasn’t allowed at the table because of his young age. Instead, he sat on a small stool, gnawing on a hard, grey bun.

The little guy didn’t even have fully developed teeth, yet he had to chew on such tough food.

Yu Wei frowned, softened the bun in water, and then gave it back to him once it had softened enough.

They hadn’t been sitting peacefully for long when Yu Wei’s mother started again.

She put down her half-eaten bowl of food, waving her chopsticks as she sighed at Yu Wei.

“I know you’re angry at me for sending you to the countryside instead of your younger brother to be an educated youth, but I had no choice!”

So, she had a younger brother? Where was he now?

Yuan Guifang sighed deeply and even shed a couple of tears. “But you didn’t have to do something like this just to spite me!”

Yu Wei was confused and asked while chewing on her dry bun, “What did I do to spite you?”

Yuan Guifang glared at her, pointing at the little guy gnawing on his bun beside her. “That little brat! You had him just to spite me!”

“If it weren’t for me sending you to the countryside, would you have ended up messing around with some random man and giving birth to a burden like him? Look at what you’ve done! Ever since you came back, people can’t stop gossiping. Every time someone sees me, they make some snide remark. They say that I, Yuan Guifang, raised an unchaste daughter. And now, you won’t even consider getting married! If this were the old days, you’d already have been… punished long ago!”

“Punished how?” Yu Wei genuinely didn’t know.

Yuan Guifang, furious, said, “Punished! You would have been drowned in a pig cage!”

Yu Wei was speechless, “Oh.”

After all, this wasn’t the old days, so why mention being drowned in a pig cage?

So far, Yu Wei still wasn’t clear about the original owner’s situation. She deliberately tried to gather information while eating to understand more about the original owner’s life.

Now, she knew that the original owner was 23 years old, with the same name as her, Yu Wei.

Her personality was completely different from Yu Wei in the 21st century; she was rebellious from a young age. This time, when she went to the countryside, she brought back a child, which was the result of her rebellion.

But as for Yu Hui’s father, the original owner had never mentioned him to her family, and aside from herself, few probably knew.

Yuan Guifang’s family didn’t want Yu Wei to marry a poor farmer from the countryside, so they didn’t suggest going back to find the rural man to take responsibility. Instead, they claimed to outsiders that the child’s father had died.

The original owner’s academic performance was decent. She managed to complete elementary, middle, and high school during turbulent times, and due to the shortened schooling system back then, she finished quickly. 

Later, her mother decided that she would replace her brother and go to the countryside as an educated youth for five years. When she returned, everything seemed fine, but four months later, they discovered she was pregnant!

By the time they found out, the baby was already seven months along, too late to abort. A doctor’s examination revealed that her health wasn’t great; at best, she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant again, and at worst, she might die on the operating table!

At that point, not only did the original owner not dare to abort, but even her mother, Yuan Guifang, didn’t dare to force her. So they had no choice but to wait carefully for the child to be born, and they’ve been raising him ever since.

“Alright, alright, just looking at you makes me angry. Go wash the dishes and then go apologise to Director Luo. I have some errands to run!” Yuan Guifang was a housewife, but ever since her daughter returned from the countryside, all the household chores had fallen on Yu Wei. After her older brother married Jiang Min, the two of them shared the housework.

However, most of the time, it was still Yu Wei who did the chores, as Jiang Min had to go to work, and Yu Wei was the only idle person in the house.

This morning, Yuan Guifang had arranged with her old friends to go to the wholesale market to buy some yarn, but not only did Yu Wei make her break the appointment, she also made Director Luo leave in anger.

The more she thought about it, the angrier Yuan Guifang became. She really wanted to pry open her daughter’s head and see how much water was inside!

Jiang Min was also furious, watching helplessly as Yu Wei drove away the wealthy benefactor. Her heart was full of frustration, and she glared at Yu Yi, seething, “Your younger sister is truly hopeless!”

Finally, the family left for work, leaving only Yu Wei, jobless, at home to clean up.

Looking at the mess on the table, Yu Wei felt like crying but had no tears.

She sighed, placed Yu Hui on the bed, and resigned herself to cleaning up the dishes, while her mind pondered how she would survive in such an economically backward era.

And she had a free son to raise.

After tidying up the house, Yu Wei started to feel lightheaded and dizzy again. Yu Hui had already fallen asleep on the bed. She picked him up and carried him to the inner room, as she had woken up in that bed earlier in the morning.

The room was very small, cramped to the point where there wasn’t much space. There were only two beds and two small wardrobes, and nothing else could fit.

The bed was small too, just big enough for Yu Wei to sleep alone, but now with the little Yu Hui, it felt even more crowded.

However, there was nothing she could do. Since she was feeling quite unwell, she laid down with the little boy and soon fell asleep.

When she woke up again, it was because of the heat.

She looked down and saw that Yu Hui, who had originally been placed at the far end of the small bed, had somehow moved into her arms. His small, fair hand was tightly clutching her shirt, his forehead covered with beads of sweat, and his little shirt was soaked through. However, unlike her, he hadn’t woken up from the heat.

Yu Wei rubbed her eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling, breathing in the baby’s milky scent.

Without an electric fan or air conditioning, she felt that every step forward in life would be an ordeal.

“Buzz—”

In the silence, an unexpected buzzing sound startled Yu Wei. Something seemed to be vibrating on her thigh. The sound was so clear, it didn’t seem like an illusion.

Moreover… why did it sound like a phone vibration?