Li Lanlan wouldn’t dare suggest that Wang Dashan knew nothing of the matter; if she’d said that, her mother certainly wouldn’t have helped her make enquiries.
In their part of the world, a daughter who’d married out was truly like water spilled on the ground—she was now part of another family.
“Let’s wait until this afternoon. Once we’ve had lunch, we’ll go to the shop and ring Caixia directly to ask her; that’ll save us having to pass the message on.”
“Fanghua, Fanghua, come out for a moment and help unload the bricks.” Li Lanlan recognised her father Li Tianci’s voice; she told Jia Fanghua to start cooking the noodles whilst she ran out to help unload the bricks.
“Lanlan’s here!” Li Tianci pulled the handcart inside and carefully unloaded the bricks from it.
By this time, Li Lanlan’s two nieces had also returned from school. Jia Fanghua had cooked the noodles, and the family sat down to eat. Li Lanlan polished off three bowls in one go—one more than her father—leaving the rest of the family staring at one another in astonishment.
Fortunately, no one asked her about it; after all, she didn’t have a history of such behaviour like her eldest sister.
After the meal, those who had to go to school set off, whilst Li Tianci and his wife accompanied Li Lanlan to the corner shop to make a phone call.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Beijing, Wang Caixia was also growing anxious. With her due date just a few months away, she still hadn’t found a suitable replacement to cover for her. She couldn’t very well let her employer hire someone new; if that happened, she might not be able to return.
She simply couldn’t bear to give up this high salary of a thousand yuan a month; where else could she find such a good job? Never mind that she was from the countryside, even city folk rarely earned such a high salary these days, not to mention the many hidden perks.
The moment the phone rang, Wang Caixia couldn’t wait to pick it up. “Hello, Auntie, all right, all right, send Lanlan over. I’ll pay her four hundred yuan a month—after all, she’s my own sister.”
With that sorted, Wang Caixia breathed a huge sigh of relief and prepared to speak to her employer. She planned to train Li Lanlan herself for the first two months before handing the role over to her.
The employers were from the same north-western region as them, so as long as Li Lanlan didn’t fall too far short, things would work out fine—after all, her main task here was making noodles.
With the matter settled, Li Lanlan didn’t linger at her parents’ house any longer. On her way back, Jia Fanghua packed half a basin of fried dough sticks for her and gave her plenty of snacks; the dough sticks went in the front basket of the bike, whilst the snacks were tied to the back seat.
It was only the end of February, and the days were short. Jia Fanghua and her husband didn’t try to keep her for long, and as the ice on the road would freeze over again if she left any later, they urged her to head home straight away.
As Jia Lanlan walked along the road, she found herself craving cold noodles again. Her route home took her past the Central Market, which had always been the liveliest spot in Ningzhou City. Knowing her way around, she bought a portion of cold noodles for fifty pence, asked the shopkeeper to mix in some wheat flour noodles, and, together with the fried dough sticks from her mother’s house, enjoyed a lovely meal.
She also bought two portions that hadn’t been mixed yet, asking the shopkeeper to pack the seasoning separately so she could take them home for Wang Dashan and the children.
Then she pedalled hard all the way home. By the time she reached Wangjia Village, the sun was nearly setting, and the air was filled with the scent of smoke as every household was heating their kang.
Li Lanlan hurried home too. As soon as she entered, she saw the door curtain hanging high on the door. The children were all sitting on the kang, whilst Wang Dashan was stoking the fire with a poker, pushing wheat straw into the embers, with a basket of wheat chaff standing nearby. The room was thick with smoke and heat, so Li Lanlan set her things down and stood by the doorway.
By the time Wang Dashan had shovelled the wheat chaff into the stove opening with his iron shovel, one scoop at a time, and closed the stove door, the smoke had mostly cleared. He lit the kerosene lamp, called Li Lanlan in, lowered the curtain, and shut the door, and the family settled in to see out the winter.
“What on earth is all this?” Wang Dashan looked at the pile of things Li Lanlan had brought back, guessing that her parents must have felt sorry for their daughter and sent her off with a huge parcel.
Every time Li Lanlan visited her parents, it was as if she’d brought a set of scales with her: the things she took there were the heavy weights, whilst the things she brought back were the goods themselves.
“I’ve brought some fried dough sticks and snacks from my mum’s. Go and warm up the dough sticks; I bought some cold noodles in the county town. You and the children should have some!”
After dinner, she lit another kerosene lamp and placed it on a small desk so that Wang Zheng could do his homework by the light. As it turned out, that little rascal was still just as she’d always been.
Her mother had been sent back to live her life all over again, yet this little brat was still the same child who, the moment she sat down to do her homework, would start running back and forth to the toilet.
Li Lanlan was truly at her wits’ end.
She was so angry she nearly forgot the main reason she’d come. She mentioned her plan to go to Beijing to help her cousin for a few months, and, as expected, Wang Dashan refused.
“If you go to Beijing, what about Liangliang and Yanyan? They’re only one year old—they’re at an age where they can’t be left alone.” Wang Dashan was also displeased.
He’d already been more than patient with Li Lanlan, never striking back when struck or retorting when insulted, yet now she was becoming increasingly bold, even trying to dump the children on him.
Deep down, he harboured an even more secret fear: could Li Lanlan be planning to run away?
“What do you suggest we do? Are you telling me not to go? Am I supposed to give up a monthly wage of three hundred yuan? Just how rich are you, Wang Dashan, that you don’t even bat an eyelid at three hundred yuan? Five months’ wages come to fifteen hundred. Hand over fifteen hundred right now, and I won’t go. Pull it out! Pull it out so I can see!”
Li Lanlan had never been one to mince her words. Her parents had no sons, so she had no brothers to compete with for things; what’s more, her parents were capable and well-respected, so she’d always been full of confidence from a young age! She’d never been one to shy away from a fight!
As she spoke, her voice grew louder and louder. The children were so frightened they scurried to the side, and Wang Zheng stopped going to the toilet, sitting there quietly and dutifully doing her homework.
Seeing how frightened the children were, Li Lanlan found herself speaking more softly. She and Wang Dashan had bickered constantly throughout their previous life, and the children had suffered greatly as a result.
Sometimes, thinking she was acting in the children’s best interests, she realised it would be better to simply show them more care and provide a warm, nurturing environment for them to grow up in. She would have to rein in her temper a bit from now on!
As soon as those words came out, Wang Dashan fell silent. It’s so hard for poor people to make a living; a man with no money in his pocket is worse off than a dog.
These days, if you go out to work, two hundred yuan a month is the absolute limit; where on earth are you going to find a job that pays three hundred a month?
“Is that for sure? Why don’t I go with you?”
Li Lanlan noticed his tone had softened, which she took as his agreement, so she stopped getting angry.
“It’s my cousin—the one in Beijing. She’s pregnant and due to give birth in a few months. She’s looking for someone to take over for a few months; she’ll have to give it back then.”
Although Li Lanlan said this, that wasn’t what she was thinking.
She’d worry about the rest later; first, she had to take this step. If it went well, perhaps she could find similar work nearby—after all, it was several hundred yuan a month.
Once she’d settled in, she’d bring the whole family over and send the children to school there; it would broaden their horizons.
In her previous life, although she’d gone to Wushan, she’d taken the children with her; their horizons were indeed broadened, and all four of them went on to university.
In the whole of Wangjia Village, which other family could boast such a situation?
Her eldest daughter had even become the first female university student in Wangjia Village; she was incredibly proud of her.
The couple discussed it and began packing their belongings for Beijing, making arrangements for the children.
“You take these ones to my mum’s. The eldest is due to start school. What sort of education is this? She’s been at it for a whole term and still can’t even write her name. And it’s so far away—one teacher for four classes. She hasn’t learnt a thing, except how to run off to the toilet whenever she’s given homework.” Just mentioning this made Li Lanlan furious.
The eldest child had been completely held back by this. In her previous life, her academic performance had always been poor; at first, she’d assumed he’d inherited the Wang family’s genetic aversion to studying. It was only when she realised she’d have to go to Wushan for work that she reluctantly sent the child to her parents’ home to attend school.
After all, there was no one reliable on her husband’s side. Wang Dashan’s mother had to look after a whole string of children from his brothers’ families. The old lady had said she could take the child in, but Li Lanlan knew full well that whilst she might look after him, there was no telling what sort of upbringing he’d receive.
Especially with the example of that dim-witted cousin—with neither of them living in their hometown, Li Lanlan dared not leave the child there.
Once they moved to her parents’ home, the children’s academic performance improved immediately; it really was all down to the environment.
“Now that the second child is a bit older, we’ll send her to nursery too. My mum will look after the two younger ones during the day, and you’ll take care of them at night. I’ve already sorted everything out with my parents: during the day, you’ll go into town with my dad to look for work. You’ll help with the farming, and come back to harvest the crops when the time comes.” Li Lanlan had everything arranged.
There was no need to make a special announcement to her in-laws about leaving; they’d long since gone their separate ways. Over the next few days, Wang Dashan loaded several sacks of grain onto a handcart and transported them to Jia Fanghua’s house. He went to the train ticket sales point in the county town and bought a hard-seat ticket, which cost nearly a hundred yuan.
They also transferred their eldest child to a new school. Yulong Primary School was right next to Jia Fanghua’s house, less than a hundred metres away as the bird flies. However, the school felt the girl’s academic foundation was a bit weak and feared she might struggle to keep up in Year 1, so they placed him in the pre-school class alongside her younger sister.
After all these expenses, the family’s savings were down to just a few hundred yuan.
Meanwhile, Li Lanlan had packed her bags and boarded the bus from Ningzhou to An City in the neighbouring province. After a six or seven-hour journey, she arrived at An City Train Station.
These days, train stations were teeming with thieves; if you weren’t careful, your belongings would be stolen, and there were countless dodgy guesthouses and the like.
Li Lanlan hardly dared to close her eyes the whole journey. It was only once she boarded the train that she breathed a slight sigh of relief, though she didn’t dare to relax too much; there were just as many thieves on the train as there were on the platform, though at least the area was more confined.
By a little past five o’clock the next morning, it was already light. They had reached Ji Province, where dawn came much earlier than in the western regions; had they been in Long Province, it would still have been pitch black.
It wouldn’t be fully light until after seven o’clock.
The train meandered slowly through patch after patch of farmland, with villages dotting the landscape. After 2003, the area had developed rapidly; skyscrapers had sprung up one after another, with changes occurring by the day as the region accelerated towards modernisation.
Li Lanlan couldn’t help but think of the changes in her home city’s administrative district. When they visited the district in 2002, there were only about two main thoroughfares—one running east and one west—but in 2003, the eastern route began to extend, and the area developed rapidly.