Chapter 11

When Li Hongxia returned to the Accounting Section, someone immediately came over under the pretense of asking about the wage distribution, clearly trying to fish for information. “That child Shu Yuan brought back, was he really picked up? I heard she went to the Northeast?”

Li Hongxia replied casually, “Picked up.”

The person was a team representative, sent on a mission by the others and refused to give up. “The child was brought back from the Northeast? Wasn’t Shu Yuan a sent-down youth in the Northeast? She was down there for six or seven years, and that child looks about four or five?”

The gossipy intent couldn’t have been more obvious.

Those words struck Li Hongxia like a heavy blow to the chest. She straightened her face and said, “This is the Accounting Section. No idle personnel allowed. If a single figure is off, I’ll pin the mistake on you.”

Those words carried real weight. The visitor stopped probing and slunk away, tail between their legs.

Li Hongxia was agitated and unable to concentrate, terrified of making a mistake. She endured until the noon break, then hurried off in the direction of the family housing compound.

Shu Ping had also heard the news. She didn’t stay behind to help serve lunch. As soon as the meal was ready, she too rushed to her parents’ home, arriving at the corridor-style apartment just steps behind Li Hongxia.

Li Hongxia gave her eldest daughter a sideways glance. She had a feeling that seemingly honest Shu Ping already knew the situation, but in a place full of gossiping busybodies, it wasn’t convenient to ask. She had to hold it in and went straight inside.

Ignoring the sour expression on Li Hongxia’s face, which looked like it could drip water, Shu Yuan introduced to Xiao Man, “This is your eldest aunt. And big sister, this is Xiao Man, a sent-down youth’s child. I brought him back.”

Shu Ping understood instantly. Shu Yuan still hadn’t told their mother the truth.

Her round face, red like an apple, lit up with a broad smile as she quickly opened her arms. “So this is Xiao Man? He’s grown so big already. Come, let your aunt hold you.”

“Auntie,” Xiao Man greeted politely.

Shu Ping cheerfully scooped Xiao Man up. Back then, he had been just a tiny little thing, barely a month old when Shu Yuan brought him to the Northeast. Such a young child being placed in foster care had really worried her. She was afraid he would fall ill often or suffer misfortune. But in the blink of an eye, several years had passed, and Xiao Man’s condition seemed pretty good.

“Xiao Man is really such a handsome boy. Mom, look at him. What a lovely child,” Shu Ping praised.

Just judging by Xiao Man’s looks, his father must be quite good-looking. Hopefully, his father was a decent man.

Thinking that, a wave of sadness suddenly welled up in Shu Ping.

Li Hongxia stood to the side, watching coldly. It was over. This was clearly the kind of interaction that only happened between an aunt and her nephew.

There was no way Shu Ping didn’t know something. Li Hongxia wouldn’t believe it even if she were beaten to death.

A few minutes later, Shu He came home from school. She saw that there was an extra child in the house, and her gaze swept over Xiao Man’s handsome little face, then shifted to Shu Yuan, and finally landed on Li Hongxia’s dark expression. A suspicion quietly formed in her heart.

“Xiao Man, this is your little aunt,” Shu Yuan introduced calmly, unfazed by the sharp, needle-like stare from Li Hongxia.

Shu Ping added from the side, “A child a sent-down youth left behind in the countryside. Your second sister brought him back.”

She thought to herself that her ability to lie was getting better and better.

Shu He: “……”

What a clumsy excuse.

She was a high school student, not a little kid. How could they expect her to believe that?

Most likely, her second sister was that sent-down youth.

With her vivid imagination, her thoughts immediately drifted toward something unpleasant, and she responded with a low, dejected “Oh.”

Shu Yuan must have had a truly miserable time in the countryside.

Just thinking about the reason Shu Yuan was sent down there made her angry. She wanted nothing more than to storm over and give Second Uncle’s entire family a thorough beating.

Sensing that the mood in the house was growing tense, Shu Ping quickly stepped in to smooth things over. “You all go ahead and eat. I’ll be heading back. I brought food from the canteen, and those three at home are still waiting for me.”

After scooping out four bowls of rice, Shu Yuan called the other three to eat. Li Hongxia kept a stiff expression and reluctantly sat down at the table.

Shu Yuan, however, was in good spirits. She picked up some tofu for Xiao Man, then added tender cabbage shoots, saying, “Xiao Man, eat more, okay? Finish this big bowl of rice.”

“Okay, Auntie,” Xiao Man replied cheerfully.

He could tell that in this family, his aunt liked him, while his grandma and little aunt did not. But that was fine. As long as his mom didn’t abandon him, that was enough.

He had wanted to eat less to save food, but since the rice had already been served into his bowl, there was no way he would waste it.

The meal was eaten in silence. No one spoke. The other two finished quickly, taking just a few minutes before heading off: one to work, the other to school.

The room quieted down. Shu Yuan went to the washroom to clean the bowls and chopsticks. When she returned to the room, she first gave Xiao Man his medicine.

“Mom, my leg feels much better now,” Xiao Man said in surprise as he walked back and forth on the floor.

That was wonderful, Xiao Man was going to recover.

Shu Yuan watched his gait. It looked basically normal, so she said, “Take the medicine for two more days. Try not to walk too much these next couple of days.”

She bent down, scooped Xiao Man up from the floor, and placed him on the bed. “Time for a nap. Xiao Man will sleep in the same bed as Mom.”

After all the running around these past few days, she needed to catch up on rest. She had to be well-rested if she was going to deal with her mother.

Xiao Man wasn’t used to taking naps, but when Shu Yuan told him that after a good nap they would go sell pine nuts, the little fellow immediately got excited. He rolled onto the bed and said, “Okay, then let’s hurry and sleep!”

Mother and son squeezed together on the single bed. Shu Yuan felt that the child beside her was soft and well-behaved. He lay very properly, careful not to take up too much space.

Shu Yuan slept soundly. Xiao Man woke up a few times in between but, seeing that Shu Yuan was still asleep, quietly stayed by her side, not wanting to wake her.

She slept deeply and sweetly, only waking up a little after four o’clock. Feeling refreshed and full of energy, she said to Xiao Man, who was lying beside her with wide, dark eyes, “The electronics factory finishes work at five. We’ll set up our stall at the main gate. We’ll head out soon. This is just the right time.”

Li Hongxia didn’t want her taking Xiao Man around the factory, afraid it would damage her reputation. But Shu Yuan knew she would have to make Xiao Man’s identity public sooner or later. She had no intention of hiding at home like an ostrich.

Besides, the money Shu Ping had lent her was borrowed from co-workers. She wanted to repay Shu Ping as soon as possible.

The thing she disliked most was borrowing money from others.

Five minutes later, Shu Yuan was carrying Xiao Man, holding a snakeskin^[1]A snakeskin bag (蛇皮袋) is a large, durable sack made from woven plastic strips, commonly used in China for transporting or storing bulky items such as grains, clothing, or produce. The name … Continue reading bag and two stools as she walked toward the main gate of the family housing compound. On the way, she suddenly remembered a key issue. If she wanted to set up a street stall, she needed a scale, and she didn’t have one. So she entered the factory and headed toward the canteen to borrow one from Shu Ping.

Besides handing her a weighing scale, Shu Ping also gave her a stack of pre-cut yellow paper and said, “When people buy pine nuts, you need to wrap them up. If they can’t carry them, they won’t buy.”

Shu Yuan took the stack of paper and noticed it looked a lot like the kind used for burning offerings, just cut into larger sheets, perfect for wrapping goods.

She smiled and said, “You really think of everything, big sister.”

Before the canteen workers came out to gossip, Shu Yuan swiftly slipped away with Xiao Man and headed toward the main gate.

The electronics factory was a large, profitable one. There were always people setting up stalls outside during lunch and evening hours. Even folks from the suburbs would come to sell their produce here.

It wasn’t quite time for the end of the workday yet, but by the time Shu Yuan and her son arrived, there were already several vendors setting up. Some were selling vegetables, others were selling loaches. Shu Yuan claimed a spot beneath a parasol tree. She set the snakeskin bag on the ground, untied the drawstring, placed the weighing scale on top of the bag, and laid a piece of paper on the ground. On it was written: “Pine nuts, one yuan per jin (500 g).”

The price was based on peanuts. Peanuts went for seven mao (0.7 yuan) per jin (500 g) because they were an oil crop, rarely available under regular supply, and required ration coupons.

She figured she couldn’t set the price of pine nuts any lower. Xiao Man was so small that it took him a long time to gather just one jin (500 g).

Xiao Man was excited. He had originally wanted to sell the pine nuts to use as travel funds, and now he was selling them together with his mom.

“Mom, do you think anyone will buy pine nuts?” he asked.

Shu Yuan wasn’t sure, but she encouraged him, “Of course they’ll sell.”

At five o’clock, as the factory workers began to stream out, the entrance grew livelier and livelier. Xiao Man, not shy in the least, began calling out in his soft, childish voice, “Wild pine nuts! Don’t miss out as you pass by!”

The gossip-loving aunties and grannies, of course, wouldn’t miss a chance to check out the mother and son. They had already been curious and eager for information, now it practically fell into their laps. Very soon, the stall, or rather the mother and son, were surrounded tightly on all sides.

“Oh my, this child is so handsome. Was he really picked up from a trash heap?”

“You brought him back from the Northeast? Who was raising the child before this?”

“Who are the kid’s parents? He’s so good-looking, his parents must not be bad-looking either, right?”

Their chatter was endless. Out of courtesy, they were still holding back, not daring to directly ask whether this child was actually Shu Yuan’s own.

Shu Yuan didn’t feel embarrassed at all. Without changing her expression, she casually folded the opening of the snakeskin bag shut. Some people were already sampling the pine nuts, and she wasn’t about to let them snack while gossiping about her at the same time.

“Auntie, you’ve already tasted a whole handful. Aren’t you going to buy a jin (500 g)?”

“Ma’am, look at your daughter-in-law, she’s pregnant and still loves eating pine nuts. Why not buy some for her?”

Only if they actually bought pine nuts would Shu Yuan consider telling them which trash heap she had supposedly picked Xiao Man up from.

She wasn’t very good at using the scale, fumbling clumsily with it, so Xiao Man took over. He handled the weighing while Shu Yuan took care of wrapping, and the two of them were busy and full of energy.

As for the obvious tall tales being told, the customers listened with great interest.

When word got out that Shu Yuan was setting up a street stall, Li Hongxia came rushing over to tell her to go home. By then, the mother and son had made quite a bit of progress. They had already sold seven jin (3.5 kg) of pine nuts.

Shu Yuan had personally experienced the power of attention-based economy. Even in the 1980s, popularity could be converted into profit.

Though Li Hongxia wore a dark expression, she still helped Shu Yuan carry the weighing scale and the snakeskin bag. Shu Yuan patted the loose bills in the bag and said to Xiao Man, “Pine nuts are selling really well. We’ve made seven yuan already. We’ll be able to sell out completely by tomorrow.”

Xiao Man’s lips curved into a smile. “Auntie, you’re amazing.”

Shu Yuan praised him instead, “No, Xiao Man is the amazing one. You picked all the pine nuts.”

Xiao Man snuggled into Shu Yuan’s arms, proudly puffing out his little chest.

Li Hongxia was quite surprised. Shu Yuan had previously been unemployed at home, waiting for the electronics factory to recruit workers. She had also been close to a writer, aiming to marry that divorced man and become a stepmother to his son. Who would’ve thought she’d now come back with a child and start enthusiastically selling at a street stall?

After they got home, Li Hongxia busied herself with cooking. When Shu He returned from school, she even brought a malt candy stick for Xiao Man, though her tone was quite haughty. “It was originally for me. I forgot there’s a little brat at home now. Fine, you can have it.”

“Thank you, Auntie,” Xiao Man said crisply as he took the candy.

Looking at the well-behaved, polite child, Shu He’s heart softened for a moment. She thought maybe she shouldn’t project her hatred for the child’s father onto Xiao Man.

Dinner was corn porridge and stir-fried shredded potatoes. With Xiao Man there, they even splurged a little and made a plate of golden scrambled eggs.

The four of them ate quietly as usual. But this was just the calm before the storm. When dinner was over and they were about to clear the table, Li Hongxia suddenly spoke.

“Shu Yuan, Xiao Man is your child.”

A statement.