“Fang Shuwen, when you planned to bring Mom and Fang Qingyue to Shenzhou all those years ago, did I ever object? Did I ever say a single ‘no’ from start to finish? You said one was your own mother and the other your own niece, and that you couldn’t just abandon them. Fine. I heard you out, dropped what I was doing, and bought tickets to bring them here.”
“All these years, I’m not saying I’ve been supporting Fang Qingyue on behalf of your younger brother, but didn’t the two of us pay her transfer fees back then? Didn’t we pay her tuition and school fees every year? And didn’t we pay the rent for the room she and Mom were renting when we paid our own rent?”
“Forget all that. I don’t want to quibble over every little thing. But now your younger brother’s out, and he does nothing—eats our food, drinks our drinks, lives under our roof like a parasite. Fang Shuwen, don’t you think that’s outrageous?”
“……”
The argument outside grew louder with every exchange. Fang Zhiwei rubbed his aching eyes and slowly pushed himself upright, bracing one hand on the bed.
He ruffled his unkempt hair again and, for no particular reason, sighed.
There were too many scumbags in the world, and Temporal University was short-staffed, so they’d sent a cook like him over.
How bizarre.
The argument outside went on, and Fang Zhiwei’s thoughts gradually drifted away.
One of the two arguing was the Original Host’s biological older sister, Fang Shuwen; the other was his brother-in-law, Zhou Shengcai. And naturally, the Original Host was the source of their quarrel.
The Original Host’s father had died in an accident when he was very young, leaving him, his mother, and his older sister to depend on one another.
The Original Host’s mother had never gone to school. She couldn’t go out to work while raising two children, so she could only make a living farming at home. The family of three lived in dire straits.
Fortunately, the Original Host did well in school, giving the family a faint glimmer of hope.
To put the Original Host through school, his older sister, Fang Shuwen, had dropped out early and gone to work. He did her proud, making his way from a poor village to a small County Town and eventually becoming the only university student in their extended family.
Although the Original Host had ultimately been accepted into a private university, his mother and older sister thought he was wonderful.
Back then, the Original Host had been incredibly proud of himself, too.
Everything had been moving toward a bright future, but fate had other plans. Before the Original Host could report to university, his mother fell ill from years of hard labor. The exorbitant medical bills forced him to give up his chance to attend university.
At that point, the Original Host said he wanted to repeat the school year, and his older sister agreed. In the end, she paid for him to repeat it.
After repeating the year, he took the College Entrance Exam again, but nothing changed.
It was as if all the praise he’d received as a child had used up his good fortune. It was then that the Original Host suddenly realized he wasn’t smart, and perhaps didn’t have the Talent for Study either.
The world was full of heroes, as numerous as carp crossing a river. But he was just a little fish born in the mountains, unable even to cross them, let alone reach the vast waters beyond.
With things as they were, the Original Host chose to head south for work. The following year, he met a lovely young woman. They fell in love, and before long, they were married and had a daughter.
After much deliberation, the Original Host named his daughter Fang Qingyue.
In the first year after Fang Qingyue was born, the Original Host and his wife took her home for the New Year. They hadn’t managed to get tickets, so after going round and round, they paid to ride home in a relative’s car.
The Original Host’s relatives were the typical sort who looked down on you when you were poor and feared you when you were rich. Along the way, they made plenty of pointed remarks—
'“Zhiwei, honestly, you must be twenty-three this year, right? When I was your age, I’d already bought a car. And here you are, crammed into a relative’s car with your wife and child.”'
'“You did so well in school when you were little. We all thought you’d be different. Who’d have guessed you wouldn’t get into university even after repeating the year? When it comes down to it, there’s not much difference between you and me, and I never even finished middle school. At least I started working and earning money a few years earlier.”'
'“You’re working at a fabric factory cutting material now, right? That’s hard work, too. You’re only earning money through sheer toil. I’ll charge you just half the fuel costs, and you can cover the tolls.”'
'“Good thing I gave you a ride. Otherwise, after getting off the high-speed train, you’d have had to spend the night in the city, take a coach to the County the next day, then get a private car back to town, and finally ride a motorcycle for several more miles before you got home.”'
'“……”'
Actually, the Original Host had heard plenty of remarks like these ever since he’d gone south for work. But this time, perhaps because his wife and child were there, the words cut him deeply.
The long-suppressed frustration and sense of failure changed the Original Host’s outlook. He wanted to turn his life around. He wanted to make a fortune. He wanted everyone who looked down on him to regret it.
But the Original Host had no start-up capital, no connections, no exceptional intelligence, and no solid skills. How could making money and turning his life around possibly be easy? Instead, he only dug himself into a deeper hole.
By chance, the Original Host was introduced to online gambling. Like a drug, it took hold of him, and he couldn’t stop.
The Original Host did win sometimes, but most of the time he lost.
Even so, the Original Host never came to his senses. Online gambling was a whirlpool; once it pulled him in, there was no way back.
The savings his little family had painstakingly accumulated were soon gone, but that wasn’t enough. The Original Host started borrowing money. He borrowed from people around him, and when that still wasn’t enough, he took out loans online.
At first, he could borrow from one source to pay another, but the debt snowballed until he could no longer hide his online gambling. Calls from debt collectors from every direction rained down on the Original Host’s family and friends.
By then, the Original Host had rotted away in silence.
Knowing he couldn’t recover his online gambling losses, the Original Host resorted to a little suicide stunt. It softened his mother, older sister, and wife, and the three women scraped together more than three hundred thousand yuan to fill the hole.
All three thought the Original Host would stop and turn over a new leaf, but who could have guessed that after making easy money and becoming addicted to gambling, he would no longer be able to settle down and work steadily?
This time, the Original Host didn’t return to online gambling, but gambled in person instead. His wife was the first to find out. She simply couldn’t put up with it anymore and asked for a divorce.
The Original Host naturally refused to divorce her. He even threatened her with their child, claiming that she could divorce him if she wanted, but she couldn’t take the child.
But the Original Host’s wife had made up her mind. She was determined to divorce him and didn’t want to drag things out any longer, so she agreed to all his demands, just to get the divorce over with quickly.
Her original plan was to wait until the divorce was finalized and she was settled before fighting the Original Host for custody of their three-year-old daughter. But things didn’t go according to plan: she soon found a new boyfriend, and before long, had another child.
The Original Host only fought for custody to make things difficult for her. He could barely take care of himself, and after the divorce, he sent the child back to his Hometown to be raised by his mother.
After the divorce, the Original Host remained stubbornly unrepentant. Not only could he not quit Gambling, but he even turned to fraud, and eventually landed himself in prison, where he stayed for ten years.
During those ten years, the Original Host was rehabilitated in prison, while his daughter was raised by his mother. His older sister felt sorry for the elderly woman and young child, who were facing mistreatment and being swept up in gossip back in their Hometown, so she brought the grandmother and granddaughter to the city where she and her husband worked.
The Original Host’s older sister and her husband opened a Fresh Noodle Shop in the Shenzhou market. They sold fresh noodles, Dumpling Wrappers, Wonton Wrappers, and other noodle products, while the Original Host’s mother helped with odd jobs.
The family’s life wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t especially good either.
That was until the Original Host got out of prison and shattered the peace.
Ever since leaving prison, the Original Host had been cooped up in a rented room, doing no work at all and even expecting others to wait on him.
At first, everyone could understand that he’d been out of touch with society for too long and needed time to adjust. But as time went on, who could tolerate a parasite lounging at home like a granduncle?
So today, the Original Host’s older sister and brother-in-law had a fierce argument. The things his brother-in-law said were also meant for the Original Host to hear, in the hope that he’d show some self-awareness.
Ten years in prison had long since worn away the Original Host’s character. He didn’t care at all about his brother-in-law’s accusations; instead, he became even more shameless.
The Original Host also turned a blind eye to everyone around him and went on doing as he pleased. He didn’t care that his ailing mother was constantly wearing herself out for him and his child, that his older sister had a family of her own, or that his daughter was sensitive and fragile.
Before long, the Original Host had fallen back into his old ways: Gambling, fraud, and even Alcoholism. With a criminal record, he couldn’t get online loans, so he started borrowing from loan sharks.
When it all came to light again, the Original Host chose to run away, leaving his family to deal with the mess.
Unable to find him, the creditors kept harassing his older sister’s family, as well as his mother and daughter.
During one debt-collection visit, the Original Host’s mother suffered a sudden heart attack and died. His older sister also divorced her husband, and a once-happy family was shattered.
The Original Host also became his daughter’s nightmare. At school, she worried that debt collectors might suddenly appear at the classroom door. On her way home, she was afraid someone would block her path, abduct her, and humiliate her. She lived in constant fear.
Before she was even an adult, she developed severe depression and ended her young life far too soon.
As for the Original Host, he illegally fled overseas and, within a few years, met his own death.