«A Wish»
Shred the radish and add it straight to the pan to cook; do not add the Chinese cabbage just yet.
Transfer the braised meat to a serving dish. The braised pork was sold uncut, so Li Lanlan sliced it herself into even, thin slices. Lightly smash the cucumber with the back of a knife and finely shred the onion.
Mix the braised pork, cucumber and onion together, then scatter some dried chillies on top. As the braised pork is already salty, use just a little salt and seasoning powder. Drizzle some hot, cooked oil over the top to bring out the aroma of the chillies.
Stir everything together until well combined. Li Lanlan picked up a clean pair of chopsticks and plucked out a strand of onion to taste; it was delicious.
By now, the shredded radish had cooked until translucent; it snapped easily when pinched with chopsticks and had lost the pungent, raw taste of uncooked radish. Li Lanlan added the Chinese cabbage and turned up the heat to boil it.
She mixed in some flour dumplings, poured them into the pot, and after a brief boil, they were cooked. She turned off the heat.
The steamed buns just needed to be warmed through slightly. She took them out, placed them in a basket, and covered them with a clean cloth.
She put the stove on and boiled the leftover noodles from lunch, rinsed them with cold boiled water, and served them in two large bowls. Uncle Wang and Aunt Wang were having noodles for dinner, so these two bowls were for them; Li Lanlan would be eating steamed buns and vegetables for the next two evenings.
After dinner, Wang Caixia was ready to go home. She hadn’t actually done much work all day; she’d originally thought she might lend a hand if Li Lanlan struggled to get to grips with things.
It now seemed there was absolutely no need. Li Lanlan was even more capable than she was. Although Aunt Wang hadn’t said anything, a professional’s skill is evident the moment they set to work.
The way Aunt Wang devoured her noodles at lunch clearly showed she was thoroughly pleased.
If it weren’t for the fact that Li Lanlan was only taking over for a short while, she wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving this place in anyone’s hands—not even her own cousin’s.
“Aunt Wang, I won’t be coming over for a while. I’d like Lanlan to take over for me for the next few months. Do you think that’s alright?”
“Of course, why not? Lanlan’s excellent. Just focus on your pregnancy with peace of mind. I heard from Zhigang that you’re expecting twins, so you really must take extra care—children are a matter of the utmost importance!”
Li Lanlan hadn’t expected things to move so quickly; she’d assumed Wang Caixia would be staying on for a while longer.
It was getting late, so she walked Wang Caixia home. “Sis, thank you so much. I can see straight away this is a great job—and I can earn this much in a month!”
“Don’t mention it. You’re helping me out too.”
She patted Li Lanlan’s hand. When they reached Wang Caixia’s house, Bai Zhigang hadn’t returned yet. Li Lanlan watched as Wang Caixia went inside, then headed back to the small flat.
The housekeeper, Li Zhou, happened to be there. They exchanged greetings, and Li Lanlan went into her own room to rest. It was a south-facing room; having basked in the sun all day and with the heating on, it was warm and cosy the moment she stepped inside.
Lying on the soft duvet, Li Lanlan finally felt a sense of relief. Her current living conditions had returned to the standard of her previous life—albeit only temporarily—but it was a good start nonetheless.
She couldn’t help but think of the children and elderly relatives back home. As for Wang Dashan, in their previous life, the two of them had essentially worn away all their affection amidst the daily grind of trivial, mundane matters.
Had she returned earlier—before they were married, or just after they’d tied the knot when they had no children—she would certainly have divorced him!
But now, with four children, and her being only twenty-eight this year, wasn’t this age the very prime of life for anything?
In their previous life, the two of them had argued time and again over household trifles, truly living up to the old saying that ‘a couple in poverty face a hundred sorrows’. Raising four children and sending them all to university had almost drained their entire lives’ energy.
Countless times she had asked herself: was it really worth it?
Was it truly worth sacrificing her entire life for this?
Anyone could tell from the family structure that having so many children wasn’t out of love for them, but to produce a son. In her youth, Li Lanlan had watched her parents make countless sacrifices time and again in their quest to have a son.
In the countryside, long-held notions have shackled the people of this land.
For centuries, the rule of the jungle has prevailed here; countless labourers bound to the land are forced to numbly abide by this so-called custom, ingrained in their very skin and seeping into their very bones.
The more sons a family had, the greater the labour force they possessed; moreover, men naturally held the upper hand in physical strength, giving them an advantage in fights and the scramble for resources.
People flocked to this way of life.
Long-standing conditioning—the pursuit of gain and avoidance of harm—had robbed the people of this land of their ability to think, for they had confined themselves within self-imposed boundaries, trapped in their own stagnation.
Li Lanlan originally had a younger brother, but he died in an accident. Unwilling to accept this, her parents adopted another son. This child had been born with an illness, and as his own family had no shortage of boys, they gave him to the Li family in exchange for a sum of money, to which they agreed.
So much time has passed that Li Lanlan can no longer recall the details of that time; she only vaguely remembers that her parents, who had argued constantly for years, were remarkably gentle during that period, and the house was filled with laughter and joy.
Perhaps it was a case of misfortune piling upon misfortune, or perhaps misfortune always finds those who are already suffering, but this younger brother could not be kept alive either, and a look of numbness returned to her parents’ faces.
Just as Li Lanlan felt her parents had given up once more, they found a husband for her second eldest sister to live with them. Yet this too did not go as they had hoped; after giving birth to two daughters, her second eldest sister passed away, leaving behind a helpless infant not yet two months old and a two-year-old girl.
At times, Li Lanlan admired her parents’ tenacity; they were determined to have an heir.
After her sister’s death, they adopted her sister’s husband as their son and arranged for Li Lanlan’s adoptive brother to marry a widow with two sons. Finally, this new sister-in-law lived up to everyone’s expectations and gave birth to a son bearing the Li family name.
But as the saying goes, ‘the rope breaks where it is thinnest’; before long, her adoptive brother’s health began to fail, and he too passed away.
The new sister-in-law could not support three sons on her own, so she remarried an elderly bachelor, taking her two older sons with her. This man’s family was the exact opposite of the Li family; they had produced a string of sons.
In the countryside, sons are highly valued, though not entirely for their monetary worth; after all, when something is in abundance, it loses its rarity. In such circumstances, the older sons, taking advantage of their age and their parents’ means, all married while they were still young.
Only the youngest remained. By the time he came of age, his parents were no longer able to support him, and he hadn’t saved any money himself, so he didn’t marry at a young age and became an old bachelor. At that age, he had little choice but to find a woman with grown sons of his own, so that when he grew old, there would be someone to tend to him.
Those who have never grown up in the countryside simply cannot fathom that atmosphere of the survival of the fittest. Although Li Lanlan’s family—with her father serving as the brigade accountant and her mother as a barefoot doctor—was considered a respectable household in the village, they still adhered to the most ancient convention: having a son was non-negotiable.
Their thinking was that a son would provide for them in their old age, ensuring they had a meal to eat when they were old.
People living in the twenty-first century find it hard to imagine this so-called ‘child-rearing guarantee’; sometimes it is even difficult to distinguish whether what they truly want is a child, or simply to secure a form of pension insurance for themselves.
But whether this pension insurance provides adequate support in old age depends entirely on one’s conscience.
Without the gift of foresight, it is hard to see that, decades later, New China would cover the ground of several centuries in just forty years, with living standards rising by leaps and bounds. People today simply cannot imagine that, in less than a decade, the word ‘hunger’ will only appear in the evening news.
One must also admit that raising so many sons serves little purpose; it would be better to pay into a proper pension scheme.
Growing up in such an environment, it’s no surprise that Li Lanlan went off the rails, becoming someone who was determined to have a son. She was one of the lucky ones: her first two children were daughters, but when she had her third, she gave birth to twins—a boy and a girl—and finally had a son. From then on, she began a life of tireless toil.
As for those less fortunate, I’ve heard of a woman who gave birth to ten daughters before finally having a son with her eleventh child. Sadly, he was stillborn, and the couple were utterly devastated.
The husband hanged himself, leaving the woman to raise ten children on her own. I’ve only heard this second-hand; it seems that when one can’t sleep, the mind tends to wander, recalling past events.
Having lived for so many years in her previous life, Li Lanlan had finally come to understand a few things. Her deepest realisation was that one must save money and look after one’s health; everything else is fleeting.
When they grew old, their children were all very dutiful, which was Li Lanlan’s greatest comfort—it was as if the crops she had sown had finally yielded a bountiful harvest.
Whenever people praised the couple for their remarkable achievement—raising so many children and seeing them all through to university—the children would gradually fall silent.
They had nothing to say to one another; after exchanging a few polite inquiries about each other’s health, silence would descend on both ends of the line.
Li Lanlan felt she had achieved success in the conventional sense, yet her heart was far from filled with joy.
She simply felt a sense of loss, though she could not quite put her finger on why—until one day, when her second daughter graduated with a master’s degree. She invited her to attend the graduation ceremony and even placed her own academic cap upon her head.
Only then did Li Lanlan realise what she truly longed for. After finishing junior high, she could have gone on to senior high, but she had heeded her family’s advice and enrolled in a technical college instead; back then, technical college was still free.
If she could do it all over again, back when she was a teenager, she certainly wouldn’t have married so young, let alone had so many children. She wanted to live a life for herself.
In her previous life, she had also become obsessed with audiobooks. In those stories, whether the protagonist or a supporting character, they always returned to the past before they’d had children, and when it came time to leave, they did so decisively—unlike herself. But now that things had turned out this way, she could only take it one step at a time.
Yet this too was a stroke of luck. Only those who are truly elderly can appreciate that every year one is younger is a bonus, and Li Lanlan felt quite content.
She set the alarm and drifted off in a daze.
Meanwhile, in Ningzhou, Wang Dashan had settled the children in. His daughters were sleeping in the side room with their mother-in-law, whilst he and his father-in-law were in the kitchen with his youngest son.
Both earthen-walled rooms had heated beds, so they were quite warm. Lanlan had only just left for Beijing; he had no idea how things were going for her there.
Over the past couple of days, odd jobs had been easy to find in the county town, and the pay had been decent enough; on a good day, he could earn fifty or sixty yuan, but on a bad day, he’d come away empty-handed.
Wondering whether things were going smoothly for Lanlan, he drifted off to sleep, lulled by the steady sound of breathing beside him.