The dinner table fell silent. While Chu Yi ate, he recalled the memory that Ouyang Yuyuan had interrupted—
The original owner had just turned twenty that year. The reason he had no ID Card was not because he was an unregistered black household, but because Eldest Uncle Chu and Auntie Chu had withheld both it and the Hukou Booklet. They said they would only give them to him after he paid back the fifteen thousand yuan for raising him.
Speaking of which, although his reincarnated Fate Pattern was not as bad as before, his parental affinity was still quite shallow.
When he was six, Father Chu fell from the roof while building a house for their family. His head smashed into a pile of bricks stored behind the house, and he died on the spot.
Of course, the house was never completed.
But even for this unfinished house, the original owner’s grandparents felt it could not be left to outsiders, so they hurriedly moved in with Eldest Uncle Chu’s family.
Eldest Uncle Chu even paid to finish repairing the house. In truth, Father Chu had already bought all the materials before the accident; he just needed to hire workers and pay some labor costs.
Eldest Uncle Chu took advantage of the fact that Mother Chu was a woman, and Father Chu’s friends, out of respect for gender differences, were afraid of gossip and did not step forward to help.
By the time Mother Chu, weeping and wailing, finished handling the funeral and recovered from the grief of losing her husband, not only was their family’s money controlled by the original owner’s Grandma Chu, but the house had also become one that her brother-in-law had funded and labored to complete. Everything was entangled beyond disentangling.
One could imagine what kind of days Chu Yi and Mother Chu had in such an environment. At first, Mother Chu endured it for her son’s sake, but Eldest Aunt Chu and Grandma Chu spared no effort to force her to remarry.
They felt that only if Mother Chu left could they live in this house with peace of mind.
Thus, Mother Chu had to serve the whole family at home and work in the fields outside—not to mention the mental torment that was even harder to bear.
Auntie Chu and Grandma Chu often picked on her over trivial matters. If Mother Chu caused a scene, by the next day the whole village would know, with all the blame on her. Even if she said one extra word to a man in the village, they spread rumors that she was involved with so-and-so, saying she couldn’t stand the loneliness right after her husband’s death.
Mother Chu endured for three years. When the original owner was nine, she finally left home under the encouragement of women from the same village and went south to work.
After Mother Chu left, the one who suffered became the original owner. He turned into the Chu Family’s little slave; even Eldest Uncle Chu’s youngest daughter, his cousin who was a year younger, could bully him.
Fortunately, Eldest Uncle Chu cared about his face, so he could catch a breath at school. Otherwise, he would have been worked to ruin.
Strangely, Eldest Uncle Chu let the original owner finish high school, right up to his adulthood.
At that time, Chu Yi’s cousin Chu Dazhi had also found a girlfriend at university. Eldest Uncle Chu and the others thought left and right, deciding that keeping the original owner at home would no longer be convenient, so they kicked him out and made him earn money to repay their kindness of raising him!
Chu Yi did not even know how to describe this family. Call them stupid, yet they still cared about the eyes of the villagers and the legal bottom line; call them shrewd, yet they kicked the original owner out to make money but refused to give him his ID Card…
Chu Yi resolved to go back once. The original owner did not even have a Mobile Phone; he had to rely on others for everything. He could not stand such days.
Chu Yi finished his boxed meal, bought a bottle of water at a roadside shop, and found an empty flower bed to sit and rest. There were many residents in this area, and it was right at the dinner peak hour. Every time he saw someone in ancient costume holding a Mobile Phone, he felt a sense of temporal dislocation.
With some strength restored, he went to a Shaxian stall and packed a portion of Beef Stir-fried Rice Noodles before heading back.
Passing Shen Zuwei’s door, he heard the sound of him playing online games inside. He breathed a sigh of relief and quickly took a shower in the shared bathroom while no one was around.
When he came out of the shower, Shen Zuwei was already in his room, apparently having rummaged through his things. Fortunately, Chu Yi had rich experience in wandering outside; he always carried his money and important items with him no matter what. Shen Zuwei found nothing good and had actually opened his Stir-fried Rice Noodles.
“Don’t touch that; that’s for me to eat. If you want some, go buy it or order takeout,” Chu Yi said as he casually tossed his dirty clothes onto the bed and grabbed Shen Zuwei’s wrist.
The previous hundred yuan had been given voluntarily, but now he had come in to rummage through his things and steal his food. In ancient times, such behavior could get someone beaten to death as a thief.
