Chapter 13: Is He a Monster?

Old Madam Lu burst into tears with a wail. “You ungrateful wretch! You’ve learned to hit your own mother now? Go ahead, hit me! Beat me to death!”

She lowered her head and lunged into Lu Zhengting’s arms.

Lu Zhengting raised his hand to stop her, his voice icy. “Don’t touch Lin Wan’s things.”

His anger made his voice louder than he realized. To Old Madam Lu, it sounded like a death sentence.

She wrenched herself free, glaring at him with resentment. “So, you’re not deaf or mute after all! You were just pretending!”

Lu Zhengting lowered his gaze, carefully smoothing out the torn scraps of paper. He noticed that Lin Wan’s handwriting was not only elegant and beautiful but also carried a distinct calligraphic flair. The deliberate strokes and confident flourishes mirrored her spirited personality, filling him with a warm current that instantly dissolved his anger.

Old Madam Lu continued her tirade. “I asked you to find a job for your brother, but you refused to lift a finger. Now you’re pulling strings for your wicked wife? What are you scheming?”

Understanding dawned on Lu Zhengting. He replied, “Fourth Brother doesn’t want to join the army.”

“Nonsense! I told you to get him a government job, but you sent him to the army to be a grunt? What kind of rotten brother are you?” Old Madam Lu raged. His silence only fueled her fury, while any attempt to explain would only feed her tirade.

In truth, back in late 1966, when it became clear he couldn’t attend university, Lu Zhengting had considered sending his younger brother into the army. He’d even asked someone to look after him, suggesting he start as a regular soldier. After a year or two of training, he could transfer into communications or a technical branch.

But then the Martial Struggle erupted, and Lu Zhengqi, busy protecting Jiang Yingyue, missed the opportunity.

Besides, Lu Zhengqi had no interest in military service. He longed for literature, dreaming of becoming a journalist or writer. He craved the energy of big cities, the freedom and clash of cultures, with no desire to return to the countryside.

Eventually, Lu Zhengting gave up trying to persuade him.

Old Madam Lu, however, remained stubbornly narrow-minded, completely misunderstanding her sons’ situations. She believed Lu Zhengting was deliberately sabotaging his brother’s chances, sending him to the army to suffer and return home in disgrace.

Her precious Xiao Si and Xinlian were the apples of her eye, cultured and promising young men. In her eyes, they should either stay in the city as workers, teachers, or government employees—or join the army as officers. Ordinary soldiers? Grueling training? Risking death in combat? Never! If they joined the military, it had to be as officers.

“Go back to the countryside? Does a peasant like him even need connections for that? A high school graduate can at least become a clerk or teacher.”

Back then, to force Lu Zhengting’s hand, she had berated and beaten him, even breaking a stick across his back, before finally believing he truly had no connections.

Yet now, he was using connections for that wicked woman to become a doctor! How could she not be furious?

“Lin Wan passed the exam herself,” Lu Zhengting said.

“What exam? Do you think I don’t know her abilities? When she was chasing after Xiao Si, she couldn’t even write a proper letter without Xinlian laughing at her. How could she possibly pass a medical exam? I’ll change my surname if she did!”

Lu Zhengting ignored her. There was no point arguing with someone who refused to listen; it would only invite more trouble.

He pushed his wheelchair away, intending to find glue to repair his notes.

His indifference only fueled Old Madam Lu’s rage. She pressed him, “Tell me, have you always harbored resentment toward me deep down?”

With his back turned, Lu Zhengting couldn’t hear her and naturally didn’t respond.

But Old Madam Lu took his silence as deliberate defiance. After all, he had clearly heard her earlier. “Stop pretending to be deaf and dumb!”

When he still didn’t react, her anger flared. She wanted to jam an iron rod into his ears to force them open. Grabbing a firewood stick from the ground, she swung it at his head.

As the stick was about to strike, Lu Zhengting caught a glimpse of its shadow and swiftly ducked, raising his arm to block the blow. With a sharp crack, the stick snapped in two.

Old Madam Lu didn’t see this as her own strength; instead, she took it as her son defying her. “So you’re strong now, huh? Daring to strike your own mother!” She grabbed a broom leaning against the wall and began flailing it wildly at him.

As long as the blows didn’t hit his head, Lu Zhengting let her strike him freely. Even when the broom shattered, the pain was minimal.

Outside, Lu Mingliang shouted when he saw his Third Uncle being beaten, but Lu Bao’er blocked the doorway, refusing to let him in.

Mimicking the old woman’s stooped posture, Lu Mingliang charged forward, knocking her off balance. He burst into the room, yelling, “You old hag! You’re beating my third uncle!”

Old Madam Lu ordered Lu Bao’er to punish him, and Lu Bao’er grabbed her younger brother by the ear, dragging him toward the door.

Lu Mingliang broke free and began stomping his feet and jumping up and down like the old woman, all while running outside and shouting, “Just you wait! I’m going to get my third aunt to deal with you!”

—

The third aunt he was referring to, Lin Wan, was currently riding on the back of Zhou Ziqiang’s bicycle, chatting and laughing. Suddenly, System 999 began to sob, [“Waaah, so pitiful! I’m so sad!“] 

Lin Wan closed her eyes and asked, “Little 39, what’s wrong?”

999: [“I feel terrible! I think I’m going to die! Lu Zhengting is going to die too…“]

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Lin Wan said. “He doesn’t have any other illnesses. How could he be dying?”

999: [“But I’m so sad, so sad… Waaah…”] 

Lin Wan’s mind was in chaos thanks to the Little Darling. She wanted it to quiet down and disappear. Usually, when she told the System to be quiet, it would vanish, only reappearing when she called it back. But now, it was like a flower battered by a storm, whimpering incessantly.

She was exasperated. You call yourself my System, but are you telepathically connected to Lu Zhengting?

Zhou Ziqiang, hearing no response from her for a while, asked, “Wanyuan, what are you thinking about?”

Agitated by 999’s constant crying, Lin Wan couldn’t calm down.

She decisively jumped to her feet. “Brother Qiangzi, I just remembered I forgot to bring the gifts for my parents. Go back and tell them I’ll visit tomorrow morning.”

Zhou Ziqiang saw through her forced smile, sensing she wasn’t telling the truth, but he didn’t press further and offered to escort her home.

Lin Wan declined, saying she hadn’t gone far and could run back herself.

—

Meanwhile, at the Lu Family residence—

The broom had shattered, but Old Madam Lu’s fury only intensified. She loathed Lu Zhengting’s outward compliance—his refusal to argue, yet his stubborn gaze, ramrod-straight posture, and every fiber of his being radiating defiance.

“You’ve been like this since you were a child!”

She threw the broken broom aside, stormed into the house, grabbed a rolling pin, and swung it at him. “I’ll teach you to betray your own family! How dare you be so selfish! Finding a job for that hussy but not your own brother? Hiding money for that hussy instead of your own mother!”

Lu Zhengting raised his hand, snatched the rolling pin, his eyes icy, his face expressionless.

Old Madam Lu couldn’t see through him. She resorted to her usual tantrums and unreasonable behavior. “What, you want to hit me now? Go ahead! You monster! You’d devour your own brother, and soon you’ll be beating your own mother to death!”

At her words, Lu Zhengting’s ramrod-straight back suddenly slumped, and the rolling pin clattered to the ground.

He clenched his fists and asked in a low voice, “Even now, you still think I’m a monster?”

Since his return from military service, she hadn’t called him a monster. He’d hoped that even if she didn’t love him, she’d at least stopped hating him.

Burning with rage, Old Madam Lu snatched up the rolling pin and swung it at him with renewed fury. “Yes, you are a monster! A jinx! Misfortune follows anyone who gets close to you! You should have been thrown to the wolves at birth!”

Lu Zhengting gripped the rolling pin, his gaze fixed on her dark, bitter face. He understood that Old Madam Lu would never reflect or reason. Her life was like an ant’s, confined to the narrow, self-serving space of immediate gains and losses, never transcending her petty concerns.

Suddenly, it dawned on him: she was merely his biological mother, not the mother of his heart and soul.

When Old Madam Lu was pregnant with Lu Zhengting, she was carrying twins. During the pregnancy, she was plagued by nightmares, haunted by visions of monsters devouring her. When the twins were born, only Lu Zhengting was healthy; the other was deformed and died shortly after birth.

Old Madam Lu fainted in terror on the spot. When she regained consciousness, she was never the same. She became convinced that Lu Zhengting was a monster who had devoured his own brother, and she demanded that he be drowned.

Old Man Lu, indifferent since he already had many children, listened to her and threatened to abandon the boy in the wilderness to be eaten by wolves.

The eldest brother and his wife couldn’t bear to see such a healthy child labeled a monster. They consulted village cadres, who explained that the deformed twin’s condition was due to malnutrition and developmental issues, unrelated to any monstrous nature.

Old Madam Lu refused to listen. Convinced the child was a monster, she threw a fit, demanding he be killed, declaring it was him or her.

No one could reason with her. It took the half-paralyzed old woman, carried from her bed, to deliver a scathing lecture, accusing her of spreading superstitious nonsense and deserving a beating. She even slapped Old Man Lu before forcibly keeping the child. The old woman forbade anyone from calling the boy a monster, insisting he was born on a thundering day in June, destined for righteousness and success. She asked the Cadre to give him a fitting name: Ting, meaning “thunder.”

Old Madam Lu both hated and feared the old woman, fueling her resentment toward Lu Zhengting. She secretly cursed him as a monster, a freak of nature.

In truth, Lu Zhengting was an easy child. Aside from occasional illnesses, he never caused any trouble.

From birth until he learned to walk, his eldest sister and Grandma cared for him. By the time he was just over a year old, he could hold a large bowl and feed himself porridge.

Later, when Lu Zhengqi was born, he helped look after his younger brother.

Yet Old Madam Lu still couldn’t stand him. After the old woman died, she finally lost all restraint, seizing every opportunity to curse Lu Zhengting as a monster. Under her influence, some village children began chasing him, chanting the same insult.

The relentless daily and nightly abuse left a deep shadow on Lu Zhengting’s young heart, crushing it under the weight of a mountain: I am a monster who devoured my own brother.

In reality, aside from being more intelligent, handsome, quiet, and sensible than other children, there was nothing monstrous about him.

At three or four years old, while other children were still mindlessly eating and sleeping, he was already learning to read and write alongside the village cadres.

By six, he was caring for his younger brother, cooking meals, and tending the fire—all without neglecting his studies.

Old Madam Lu deliberately tried to sabotage his education, claiming either they had no money or that he needed to work and care for his brother. The Production Brigade intervened, applying to the Commune for tuition waivers and providing him with textbooks and stationery.

Lu Zhengting lived up to expectations. Despite being two or three years younger than his classmates, he consistently ranked first in his class. By the end of first grade, he had mastered the second-grade curriculum. By fourth grade, he had already grasped the entire elementary school curriculum.

He was a genuine child prodigy.

Town cadres made a special trip to meet this young prodigy, and the village elders declared their intention to nurture him into Dawan Village’s first university student. They warned Old Madam Lu to stop deliberately making things difficult for him—a blow straight to her heart.