Chapter 5: The Good Person Filter

She silently recited, “Chen Xuan’ang’s fart, floats to Italy, the king is watching a play, smells it and feels delighted…”

If they were closer, she would’ve chanted it out loud to really make fun of him.

Covered in soot like he had just crawled out of a coal furnace, the little pianist ignored Chen Siyu and went straight to the wardrobe, bent down, and picked up a sprouted sweet potato. He cracked open the coal stove and placed it inside to roast.

It was hot, so Chen Siyu had chilled the noodles in cold water. Right in front of her younger brother, she picked a bowl, poured the warm gravy over it, added a splash of vinegar, and slurped down the perfectly chewy noodles in one go.

Though the ingredients were simple, the flavor was divine. The luncheon meat was savory, the tofu had absorbed all the broth and was deliciously tender with a hint of bounce.

A bowl of such meaty gravy noodles for a late-night snack could make your teeth ache with joy.

Starving herself, Chen Siyu deliberately slurped loudly while sneaking glances at her brother. Under the lamp’s light, the thin, tall boy kept pressing his lips together, his long lashes fluttering furiously as he stared intently at the roasting sweet potato.

Impatient, he kept flipping it over, while his stomach growled louder and louder.

“Shouldn’t you wash your hands first?” The sister, who had a thing for cleanliness, couldn’t bear the sight of her little brother’s grimy hands.

When the boy looked down at his hands, even he was startled by how filthy they were. He got up and walked over to the washbasin in the corner. He was about to fetch water when he noticed that the basin was already filled halfway with clean water, and a pink towel was hanging on the rack.

“The towel’s mine, but just use it.” Chen Siyu said. Seeing Chen Xuan’ang dunk his hands into the water, she added, “The soap’s on the windowsill. Use plenty. Otherwise, coal dust and grease won’t come off, and you’ll dirty the bedding later.”

On the windowsill sat a green plastic soap dish holding a brand-new bar of West Lake soap.

This was the best soap one could get at the time, usually only distributed to military units. Chen Xuan’ang remembered that once, when he had visited Chen Siyu’s other home, she had smeared dog poop on his hand on purpose, and it was Chen Nianqin who had washed it off with this very soap. His hands had carried a faint jasmine scent the whole day.

He struggled internally for a moment but, in the end, couldn’t stand the filth and lathered up with the soap. However, he didn’t use Chen Siyu’s towel. Instead, he took an old rag she’d demoted to a floor cloth and wiped his face with it.

After washing, he turned to look at the bed and froze. A thick, soft five-kilogram cotton quilt was spread on it, while his tattered old blanket had been patched into a small mattress and placed on the inner side of the two-meter-wide, intricately carved wooden bed.

Chen Siyu was not only skilled in music and arts; when it came to handicrafts, she was flawless. The small mattress she had sewn was perfectly square and looked beautiful. Because it was stuffed with ample cotton, it was soft and fluffy, visibly inviting comfort.

A flicker of longing flashed in the boy’s eyes—he must have been imagining how wonderful it would feel to lie on that soft bedding. But after just a glance, his gaze dimmed, hollow and devoid of desire.

With his face finally cleaned, Chen Siyu got a good look at her little brother’s features.

She had seen plenty of handsome men in her previous life, but few had such distinctive features as Chen Xuan’ang.

He had high brow ridges, thick eyebrows, and though his eyes were single-lidded, they were large and expressive. His nose bridge was tall and straight, his lips were fuller than most boys’, with a slight upward curve to his upper lip. This gave his profile the chiseled, three-dimensional look of a Roman sculpture.

If he were to sit on a stage under a spotlight, playing the piano, that image would be breathtakingly beautiful.

Unfortunately, he was far too thin. His complexion was sallow, his eye sockets dark and sunken—clear signs of malnutrition.

He was obviously famished. As soon as the roasted sweet potato softened a little, he eagerly grabbed it, tearing off the skin to take a bite. Chen Siyu, who had already finished her noodles, suppressed a laugh and said, “Do you know why you keep farting all the time?”

The boy’s face flushed a vivid red. Holding the steaming sweet potato, his breathing grew heavy, with a mixture of humiliation and disdain. But he endured it, peeled the sweet potato, and was about to eat it.

“Half-raw sweet potatoes are cold in nature. Eat them, and of course you’ll fart all the time. You don’t even know that?” Chen Siyu felt both pity and amusement for her brother. She also worried whether he could withstand such ridicule without crumbling under the humiliation.

But he didn’t crumble. He quietly swallowed his humiliation, put the sweet potato back on the stove, and continued roasting it.

Chen Siyu didn’t want to push him further. She dumped the dirty water, fetched a clean basin of water, and placed it by Chen Xuan’ang’s feet. Then, she turned to leave, tossing him a sentence on her way out:

“What kind of family do you think we are to afford leftovers? If you don’t eat, and it goes sour tomorrow, you’re wasting the socialist people’s grain. That sweet potato is also socialist. I won’t let you waste it by turning it into farts while it’s still raw. Put it back—I’m cooking it properly tomorrow.”

This was textbook moral coercion—not eating her food equaled having ideological problems.

Chen Xuan’ang’s gaze finally shifted to that bowl of noodles. The diced luncheon meat formed a golden mound, the tofu cubes were milky white, and the celery leaves, somehow perfectly blanched, were a vibrant green. The bowl didn’t just smell good—it looked beautiful too.

Under the moral pressure, the boy didn’t dare waste food. He picked up the bowl.

He first fished out a tofu cube, probably surprised by its springy texture, and gave a couple of muffled coughs.

He probably didn’t intend to eat so fast, but the noodles were too slippery. Once they touched his lips, they slid right down his throat.

By the time he realized it, the bowl was licked clean as if a dog had gotten to it.

No one knew what kind of inner struggle he had to go through, but after eating and washing up, he went straight to the bed. He lay down on the soft mattress, curled up, facing the wall.

When Chen Siyu was about to get on the bed, he suddenly sat up and placed a buckwheat pillow upright between them.

Chen Siyu burst out laughing. What a cunning little brat!

In her past life, she had spent 25 years in a wheelchair. That had made her extremely sensitive, quick-tempered, and picky about her sleeping environment. She had switched mattresses from 10,000 yuan to 100,000, even to 200,000 yuan ones, yet she still suffered from insomnia every night, lying alone until dawn.

But here, in this shabby, empty little room, she had slept soundly until morning the previous night. And tonight, even with a stinky little boy beside her, as soon as she closed her eyes, sleep embraced her.

Half-asleep, she heard Chen Xuan’ang timidly ask, “Where’s Sister Nianqin? Did she go to the countryside?”

“She… joined the Arts Troupe,” Chen Siyu mumbled, pulling herself back from the edge of sleep.

Chen Xuan’ang finally revealed a hint of childish mischief, curling his lips into a cold smile. “So you’re a little deserter from the revolution, huh? A coward who didn’t want to go to the countryside!”

Chen Siyu didn’t hear his mocking tone. Sleep had already dragged her into a deep, fragrant dream.

—

At the First Military Academy, in the Fang family’s home.

Father Fang worked on the Ideology Committee and was extremely busy. After finally finishing his paperwork, he got home at nine in the evening. Seeing his wife with a streak of white foam at the corner of her mouth, he grumbled, “You’ve been a housewife so long you’ve stopped caring about appearances. If you’re going to eat candy, at least wipe your mouth clean.”

Speaking of candy, Wang Fenfang’s eyebrows lifted. “Hey, do you know who sent this candy?”

Another flash of excitement hit her, and she fetched a new military cap from yesterday, placing it on her husband’s head to replace the old, faded one. Calling their son over, she said, “This cap—guess where it came from?”

Father Fang froze, his face darkening. “Wang Fenfang, I’m in a position where I offend people for a living. You didn’t seriously accept gifts from wealthy landlords and business owners, did you? Are you trying to get me killed?!”

Wang Fenfang quickly explained, “No, no! It’s from little Siyu of the Chen family. Remember how Xiaohai used to bring her candies and fruits all the time? Well, she’s moved back to her own home at the Ink Factory now. She might not be fully enlightened, but she knows she was wrong before. So, she returned everything Xiaohai ever gave her.”

Fang Xiaohai was dancing with a radio in his arms when his mother mentioned Chen Siyu. Guilt flickered across his face. After all, it was Chen Nianqin who had deliberately jumped off the stairs yesterday, yet out of spite, he testified falsely, saying Chen Siyu had pushed her. He was just a half-grown kid, acting out of anger, and once he’d vented, he went off to play without giving the Chen family another thought.

Now, hearing that Chen Siyu had actually been sent back to her original family over such a trivial incident, he was truly shocked.

His gaze fell on the bright green army cap, triggering another thought: “Mom, isn’t their family background questionable? Siyu’s been chasing after Gao Daguang like crazy lately. If her background worsens, how will she ever marry him?”

Father Fang snorted heavily and said, “That girl, if she lived in ancient times, would be like Bao Si or Diao Chan.”

Fang Xiaohai leaned in, puzzled, “Dad, I know Diao Chan, but who’s Bao Si?”

Father Fang glared at him furiously, “Don’t you know how to pick up a book?”

Wang Fenfang, softening after Chen Siyu’s few tears and now feeling sympathetic, wanted to speak up for her. But her husband was an intellectual, and she didn’t know how to refute him. After thinking for a while, she murmured, “She’s just a child. If you saw how she cried, you’d know she’s changed.”

Father Fang flared up, “Changed, my foot! Of all the children in the entire compound, she’s the rudest. She’s never once greeted me properly, not even a ‘hello uncle,’ yet she sweet-talks Gao Daguang endlessly, calling him ‘brother’ till it echoes through the sky. She’s a disgrace to the good looks her parents gave her, a shame to the family of a war hero!”

He was exasperated beyond words.

Chen Siyu’s past antics were hard to defend, but Wang Fenfang had already put on her “good person filter” and muttered softly, “I still think Siyu has changed.”

Fang Xiaohai chimed in, “She was the one desperately chasing after him. Now with her family status going downhill, Gao Daguang probably won’t even look at her anymore.”

Father Fang shot him a glare, “Background isn’t the real problem. It’s ideology that matters. Chen Siyu’s family background isn’t as serious as her own ideological problems. And you! If I catch you having any funny ideas, I’ll beat you half to death!”

Fang Xiaohai nodded frantically, “Dad, I’m still a kid, I don’t have those thoughts.”

But in his heart, he was already thinking: Since Chen Siyu’s background is now considered bad, she won’t be able to cling to Gao Daguang anymore. When I go mess around with her later, she probably won’t dare to hit me with a belt again, hehe!

Chen Siyu was well aware that redeeming her reputation would be harder than changing her household registration, but she didn’t know that Father Fang’s impression of her was so terrible, to the point of comparing her to Diao Chan and Bao Si. Even in her dreams, she was contemplating how to persuade Chen Xuan’ang to agree to transfer the household registration today. Time was running out; if she didn’t act soon, she’d be branded a deserter and forcibly sent to the countryside by the Zhiqing Office.

She was woken by a series of tapping sounds. Opening her eyes, she saw Chen Xuan’ang under the lamplight, tapping on the bed frame, making dull thudding noises.

Seeing his sister awake, he said gently, “It’s solid. There’s nothing inside.”

He got off the bed and began tapping on the bricks on the wall, one by one. After finishing the lower bricks, he climbed onto the table and tapped the higher ones as well, stirring up a musty dust that filled the room.

Chen Siyu ignored him and picked up a broom, sweeping away the debris he knocked loose until the room was spotless again.

Finally, Chen Xuan’ang finished tapping all the bricks and said, “You hear that? All solid.”

With that, he buried himself into a broken, doorless cupboard in the corner, fumbled for a while, and pried off a panel. He pointed to the cracked bricks behind it, pulled one out, and revealed a hole.

Through that hole, they could see right into Aunt Xu’s home next door—where Aunt Xu, pants down, was mid-squat. Oh, the sight—truly eye-searing!

“A single brick wide. You can’t hide anything in there,” Chen Xuan’ang said, letting out a long sigh of relief. As if making a firm decision, he walked over to the door frame, reached into a crevice in the wall, and came back with his hand spread open—five silver coins lay in his palm.

Chen Siyu had mingled in the arts circle in her past life, where art and antiques overlapped. She could tell at a glance these were just ordinary silver dollars. At current prices, each would fetch at most five yuan on the street.

“Our family did have some things once, but they were all taken by Maomu. This is all that’s left that’s worth anything. I’m giving them to you. Take them and go.” He placed the coins on the table and turned to leave when he saw his sister wasn’t reaching for them.

If she hadn’t read the novel, she might’ve believed him. But she knew the truth—that the things he had hidden were things even their own grandmother Maomu couldn’t extort from him, no matter how she threatened, coerced, or even nearly tortured him to death. In the end, all those treasures fell into Chen Nianqin’s hands.

But now, looking at this skinny, stubborn, yet helpless boy, Chen Siyu felt an overwhelming sense of shame—for herself, for the original owner of this body.

If the original owner had just reached out a helping hand back then, this boy wouldn’t have ended up in such a wretched state.

“Xuan’ang,” she called softly.

The tall, thin boy turned around, spreading his arms open. “If you want to sell me, go ahead. Sell me. As long as someone’s willing to buy, who cares—you’re my blood sister. Aren’t family members meant to feed off each other’s flesh and blood?”

What kind of despair must a boy feel, to be driven to this point of view about family and the world?