Her stomach growled, and she had no idea what time it was. She hadn’t eaten lunch or dinner.
She went out to find something to eat, groping her way to the kitchen. She planned to grab a few steamed buns from the cupboard, but they were too hard, so she decided to heat them up. When she lifted the lid of the pot, she found rice and dishes inside, kept warm by hot water simmering beneath. The food was still lukewarm.
She stared at the meal in silence for a moment, feeling an uncontrollable urge to cry again.
Holding back her tears, she took the food out and sat on the small stool by the kitchen stove, eating it in big mouthfuls.
This was just like them—just when she felt unloved, they would start doing things that gave her hope.
And most disappointments came from so-called hope.
Jiang Xue was born during the wave of migrant workers in the 1990s.
Shortly after Jiang’s father and mother married, Grandpa Jiang and Grandma Jiang divided the family property among their sons.
Jiang’s father had five siblings: an older sister, Jiang Ping; an older brother, Jiang Tiancheng; Jiang Haiyang, who was the third child; a younger brother, Jiang He; and the youngest sister, Jiang Xiaodie.
At the time, the two youngest children were not yet married, and the eldest daughter had long since married off, so only the two sons were separated from the family.
Or, to be more precise, Jiang Haiyang was the one who was separated.
Because Uncle Jiang had married earlier and the family home was already overcrowded, he had built a house on another plot of land years ago.
That meant he had already effectively left the family.
Although Jiang Haiyang’s marriage was considered a separation from the family, all he and his wife received were two dilapidated tiled rooms. A makeshift kitchen was set up in the courtyard with a separate stove, and that was considered the division of the family.
But life still went on in the same courtyard.
As for money, there was none.
Grandma Jiang’s exact words were: “All the family’s money was used as a bride price for your wife and given to your father-in-law. Jiang He hasn’t married yet, so we won’t give you another cent. Besides, the money borrowed for your wedding must also be repaid by you.”
“You’re grown now and have your own ideas. Make your own way in life.”
These words were partly spoken in anger, blaming the second daughter-in-law’s parents for demanding too high a bride price.
As for Jiang’s mother, Liu Yan, she was praised far and wide for her beauty.
She had an older brother and a younger brother, both of whom were waiting for her bride price to marry.
Because she was beautiful, she had many suitors and initially didn’t take a liking to Jiang’s father at all.
The two were classmates, but she was beautiful, lived in town, and both her parents had jobs, so her family was well-off and she had many admirers. Jiang Haiyang, on the other hand, was dull, from the countryside, his family was average, and he had many siblings.
Jiang Haiyang had liked Liu Yan since their school days.
But Liu Yan’s parents wanted her to marry into a good family.
When she was nineteen, her own brother introduced her to a Hong Kong businessman who had come to invest in the mainland.
The Hong Kong businessman didn’t take a fancy to her. She was beautiful, yes, but she was a girl from a small place, timid and uneducated.
Her brother, Liu Dong, directly sent her to the Hong Kong businessman’s bed.
Just once, and she became pregnant.
Liu Yan’s parents and brother used her pregnancy to demand resources and jobs from the Hong Kong businessman.
The good times didn’t last long. The other party felt the family was too greedy and believed he had been set up. He wasn’t even sure if the child in her belly was his.
So before the child was born, the Hong Kong businessman ran away.
At first, Liu Yan and her parents thought he would surely return. After all, she was carrying his child. They even deluded themselves into thinking their daughter might marry him, rise to the top like a phoenix, and pull the whole family up with her.
Who would have thought that the child's father never showed up again until the baby was born.
By the time the child turned two, they finally accepted that their plan to have their daughter marry into a wealthy family had failed.
During this period, rumors such as "unwed mother, the child's father ran off and abandoned her" secretly circulated. Faced with the strange looks from everyone, she began to regret her choices and resent her parents and brother for taking advantage of her youthful ignorance.
Liu Yan didn’t dare give birth at home. She rented a place in the county town, and when the baby arrived early, she struggled to get to the hospital. There, she ran into her old classmate Jiang Haiyang.
He took her to the hospital and signed the paperwork for her.
He stayed by her side until her parents arrived.
Afterward, Jiang Haiyang continued to check in on her and show his care.
Even though he knew about her past—that she had given birth—he said he didn’t mind, that what he loved was her as a person.
The two secretly started dating.
When it came time to discuss marriage, Liu Yan’s parents were utterly unwilling. They were already looking for a match for her.
Even though their daughter had given birth, the child was registered under her brother’s name. If no one talked about it, who would know? So, the matches they picked were undoubtedly all decent prospects.
They objected to their daughter choosing her own partner because they thought Jiang Haiyang was too poor.
Liu Yan threatened to die rather than not marry Jiang Haiyang.
Only then did her parents relent, but they made it clear: if the agreed-upon bride price was even a penny short, he could forget about marrying their daughter.
The Jiang family exhausted all their resources, borrowing from every relative they could, just to scrape together the money.
So, the bride price they paid was essentially like throwing meat to a dog—there was no chance of it ever coming back.
It wasn’t until after the wedding, with the money already spent, that Grandma Jiang found out her newly married second daughter-in-law had given birth to a child before joining their family.
Arguments, curses, and outright refusal to bring that child into the household ensued. So, Jiang Xue actually had a half-brother from her mother’s previous relationship, raised at his maternal grandparents’ home.
Grandma Jiang cursed both her son and daughter-in-law, and the constant fighting eventually led to the family splitting up.
Newly married, forced to live separately, burdened with debt, and so poor they could barely put food on the table—they had to rely on the crops in the fields, but even that meant waiting until harvest time.
Right around then, many people were heading to big cities to work. At the time, Jiang’s mother was pregnant with Jiang Xue, so Jiang Haiyang set off alone to find work in the south.
But without education or specialized skills, he ended up working in a factory run by a fellow villager, earning a limited wage.
This income had to support his pregnant wife and their soon-to-be-born child, as well as pay off the debts from the wedding.
On top of that, his in-laws’ family—his wife’s older and younger brothers—were getting married and needed money for their weddings.
As the only daughter of the Liu family, she couldn’t show up empty-handed for her brothers’ weddings. Plus, there was a child being raised there, so Liu Yan’s parents frequently came asking for money.
During those years, even though Jiang Haiyang worked outside for several years, he hardly saved any money.
Meanwhile, during those same years, Liu Yan lived in the same courtyard as her mother-in-law. Already unhappy about her past childbirth, though the neighbors were kept in the dark, Grandma Jiang found more reasons to resent her: besides having a child, Liu Yan wasn’t good at chores and was overly delicate. Seeing her daughter-in-law constantly giving money to her own family only added fuel to the fire, leading to frequent arguments between the two.
At times, the fights turned physical, but Jiang’s mother was no match for Grandma Jiang. Grandma Jiang was stout and strong, capable of farm work like a robust laborer. When she hit Jiang’s mother, it was like hitting a child. Once, Jiang’s mother was so furious she threatened to jump into the river with Jiang Xue, but she was stopped by others.
Unable to win in fights or arguments, and seeing each other constantly in the same courtyard, Jiang's mother had already considered going out to work at that time, but Jiang Xue's presence was the biggest obstacle.
Her sister-in-law, Aunt Jiang, encouraged her a few times: "No matter how much Mom dislikes you, Xiaoxue is still her granddaughter, and she does like Xiaoxue quite a bit." Jiang's mother also thought that no matter how much her mother-in-law hated her, her daughter was her own granddaughter, and it was only natural for a grandmother to take care of her grandchildren.
With this thought, everything suddenly became clear. She packed her luggage and, without even saying goodbye, left behind the two-year-old Jiang Xue to go find her husband.