On My Way - Chapter 64
Chapter 64 - You Have to Raise Yourself All Over Again
After returning home, I first confirmed the work process with Yu Shixuan.
She was going back to revise the blueprints with her team, while I was responsible for registering the company and handling all the miscellaneous tasks before she came over.
“We’ll each hold fifty percent of the shares,” she said. “I’ll put in a larger portion of the capital, but I honestly have no patience for all this paperwork. You’ll be in charge of everything.”
“Understood.”
She sat at the desk revising the design drafts, while I lay half-propped on the bed, researching from scratch. I had never considered starting a business in my entire life—I thought it was too much trouble—but once I actually started, I realized...
It was even more troublesome than I imagined!
First, I needed a business location, but every place I looked at was either too remote or too small.
Next, I needed personnel; for instance, a project manager with a Level 3 qualification or higher was required, but our company was just a one-woman army.
Then there was the running around to the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, the tax office...
Just as I was feeling frazzled by the research, Yu Shixuan asked out of the blue, “Have you and Cheng Xia... slept together?”
“What?”
I was stunned for a moment before I processed it. “What nonsense are you spouting! I was arguing with Old Wang until midnight, then had a meal with Cheng Xia, and by then it was already morning.”
“Oh. I thought the harmony of life had opened up your meridians, which was why you were so obediently listening to me and starting this company!” she remarked.
Just as I was about to pummel her, our door opened. Grandma appeared at the threshold, her face livid. “Ren Dongxue, are you not going to work anymore?”
Before I could speak, Yu Shixuan piped up from the side, “She quit. We’re starting a business together from now on.”
“You had a perfectly good job! Why would you just stop working like that!” Grandma’s temper flared, and she began to bellow at the top of her lungs.
I hurriedly got up and pushed her out the door. “Go, go, let’s talk outside.”
“Talk about what! Are you burning money or something? You were living a perfectly good life, why are you causing such a mess!” She hit me several times in her rage. Exhausting all the reasoning of an elderly woman, she finally slapped her thigh and exclaimed, “Did your boss get angry at you! Did he fire you!”
“Ah, yes...”
She took off in a hurry, grabbing her coat to head out.
“What are you doing!”
“I’m going to find your boss! I’ll kowtow to him! I’ll stake my old life on this; I won’t let you lose your job!”
Though the old lady had been ill, she still had plenty of strength. I nearly failed to hold her back. “Where are you going! I—I lied to you. It’s not that; I just don’t want to work there anymore. I want to start my own business.”
“I knew it!” She jumped, her spirits rising. “Was it that little vixen Yu who put you up to this? I saw it coming! She doesn’t want to live a good life herself, so she has to drag you down with her!”
Ever since I started making money, Grandma had always treated me with a measure of caution. This was the first time she had gone completely unhinged.
She rushed into my bedroom, pointed at Yu Shixuan, and cursed viciously: “You came here, and we treated you with the best food and drink. You’ve stayed for months without saying a word—why do you have to ruin her! I saw long ago that you’re a rotten piece of work; your heart is black to the core...”
What followed was a barrage of unspeakable profanities. Grandma grew up in the streets; she could curse for hours without repeating a single word.
Yu Shixuan was stunned. She was generally quite indifferent to people she wasn’t interested in; she hadn’t even realized that Grandma disliked her.
Much less had she ever been cursed at like this since she was a child.
“Enough! I already said this has nothing to do with anyone else!”
I desperately pulled Grandma out of the room. The old lady was truly stubborn, clinging to the doorframe without letting go while continuing to spout filth.
Yu Shixuan stood up. She said, “Grandma, the total amount of money you’ve earned in your entire life probably isn’t even a fraction of what Dongxue has earned, right?”
Grandma froze, and I did too. I hadn’t expected her to talk back.
“Then why do you think you can see things she can’t, or that you have the right to direct her life?”
Grandma trembled with rage and rushed over, intent on slapping her: “Because I’m her grandma! I’m doing this for her own good! Who do you think you are!”
I hugged Grandma tight while Yu Shixuan packed her things, grabbed her suitcase, and left. Before leaving, she left one final sentence: “She has done more than enough for you. Stop dragging her down.”
“Yu Shixuan!” I shouted to stop her.
She was gone.
I wanted to run after her, but Grandma roared, “If you leave, I’ll die!”
Her emotions were so volatile that her entire body was shaking. I could only support her and pour her some water. “Why are you getting so angry over something like this? I went to Africa, I quit such a big institution like S-Construction—you weren’t this angry then!”
“That’s not the same! You ancestor of mine!” She finally caught her breath before growing agitated again. “You’re already thirty! You don’t have a job, how will you ever get married!”
I finally understood.
Her breakdown this time wasn’t about my job at all; she was just terrified that I wouldn't be able to get married.
I felt only exhaustion. I didn’t know how to explain it to her—should I tell her I don’t want to get married, just to spite her to death?
I could only offer a vague comfort: “I have money, and I’m going to be a boss soon. I can marry anyone I want!”
“Stop with the damn daydreams!” she snapped. “You’ve been messing around with Cheng Xia for years; what has that ever gotten you! People have to know how to be content! Look at Zhou Ting, how good he is! Quitting at a time like this, aren’t you just looking for trouble!”
“He won’t care, okay! Don’t worry.”
I finally coaxed Grandma into lying down. She clutched her electric hot water bottle, groaning in pain, but she still didn’t forget to pull me close to give me instructions: “Go talk to your boss, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Swear to me you’ve broken it off with Cheng Xia! No lying!”
“I swear.”
After a full day of chaos, once she fell asleep, I went to the kitchen to make dinner. Just like many dusks in my youth, Grandma used to collect bottles in front of those big restaurants while I came home after school to cook. I looked up and saw the grease-stained windows, dim and yellow—just like my future.
A teardrop fell into the frying pan, making a sizzling sound.
—
“The things she said were harsh, but that’s just how it is in families where the guardians have low capacity,” Yu Shixuan said over the phone. “She educated you for the first eighteen years; now you have to take a longer time to educate yourself all over again.”
“That’s too harsh, stop,” I said. “Have a safe trip. I’ll rent a studio for you over here.”
“Okay.”
I started looking for a business site.
The place needed to be large, the rent couldn’t be too high, and the location had to be convenient.
With the New Year approaching, I wandered through various wilderness areas until I finally found a dilapidated, abandoned old factory.
More than thirty years ago, it had been a textile factory. After it went bankrupt, it was split apart. One part continued as a textile factory until it went bankrupt again; another part was divided off to build residential apartments; and other parts were used for various other businesses.
I actually had some memories of this factory, but by the time I was born, it was already a broken, gloomy mess. According to my father, during its glory days, it had supported half the city.
The owner was a middle-aged man with a bloated face, constantly wearing an impatient expression. “What else is there to pick? It’s spacious! Just tidy it up a bit, and you can do any kind of business here.”
I said, “I don’t think ‘tidy up a bit’ covers it. Your crumbling building has been covered in garbage for ten years; I don’t even know how to begin...”
“Let’s not talk nonsense. How about this: if you lease it for ten years, you pay me one hundred thousand yuan a year.”
My heart fluttered.
You couldn’t even rent a good apartment in a big city for one hundred thousand a year.
But to be able to rent such a large space, and it wasn’t far from the vegetable market...
“Is it a deal or not? I’m short on money, and there are plenty of people waiting to rent it!” he urged me.
Just as I was about to agree, Cheng Xia called me. “Don’t be in a rush to lease that textile factory space, okay?”
“Huh? How did you know?”
“Yu Shixuan told me. I looked into it; the place is tied up in a lot of lawsuits. It used to belong to the old factory manager, but after he passed away, his three sons fought over it until they broke it apart. It’s also been mortgaged multiple times. There might be landmines there in the future.”
My heated brain suddenly felt like it had been doused in a bucket of cold water. “No wonder it was cheap!”
Cheng Xia smiled. “These old factory buildings all have similar problems. You have to be careful.”
“Got it.”
“Are you at the factory? I’m off work. Should we have dinner together tonight?” His voice was light, as if he were ready to laugh it off with ‘no big deal’ at any moment.
I said, “Sorry, I’ve made plans with someone else.”
He truly did laugh it off with indifference. “That’s fine, another time.”
I sighed. “Maybe there won’t be time another time, either.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end, then Cheng Xia asked, “Are you meeting Zhou Ting?”
“Yes.”
Zhou Ting’s car had already pulled up from the distance.