On My Way - Chapter 71

Chapter 71 - Your Daughter Is a Boss Now

On New Year’s Day, I packed an envelope of cash and went to my mother’s place.

She had finally divorced that man and was now working as a scrub nurse at a bathhouse. Her shift ran from five in the evening until nine the next morning, and she didn't get time off even for holidays or festivals.

When I arrived, she had just finished her shift and was sitting by the window, struggling to dye her hair.

I said, “Mom, let me help you.”

I applied the pungent hair dye to her hair bit by bit. The gray strands were so stark they were impossible to hide, and she kept grumbling, “Hair dye these days is all such cheap garbage; it doesn't cover a thing.”

I said, “If it doesn’t cover it, why bother? It’s fine to just leave it as it is!”

“That would look too miserable!” she said. “You know your mother—I’ve never been the type to just settle for a half-assed life!”

She narrowed her eyes, seeming to find my movements comfortable, and let her head droop as she started to doze off.

She was old now. The woman who had been fiercely, undeniably cool in her youth had lived to become the pathetic figure people saw in their eyes: living in a rented room, still working at her age, without a husband, and with a child who didn't feel close to her.

I asked, “Mom, after all these years, do you have any regrets?”

I thought she had fallen asleep, but with her eyes closed, she mumbled, “No regrets.”

She said, “Everyone told me that since I was getting on in years, I should have just stuck it out with Old Zhao until the end. They said I’d regret divorcing him, but look at my life now—it’s quiet and peaceful. I don’t regret it one bit.”

She added, “In this life, all I ever wanted was to live freely.”

I smiled and took the showerhead to rinse her hair. That wasn’t really what I had been asking, but I already knew the answer.

As the hot water poured over her hair, she suddenly said, “The only thing I feel sorry for is you. For your sake, I should have stayed with your father, but I’m not the kind of woman who lives solely for her children. I wasn’t satisfied. Seeing those other women, I just… I couldn’t settle.”

Back then, she had set up a clothing stall, and some of the waitresses from the Jinbo Hotel would always come to buy clothes.

They were so magnificent, wearing beautiful uniforms and stockings, flashing smiles trained to show exactly eight teeth. My mother had dreamed of getting in there to be a waitress.

She met a man who claimed to be a low-level manager at the Jinbo Hotel. He said he could help her get a job there.

I remembered that man—shifty-eyed and cunning. He later opened a Shaxian Snack shop, which I even went to eat at once.

My father had beaten her within an inch of her life. She had moved out, bruised and swollen, to live openly with that man. Perhaps he hadn't had the capability to help her, or perhaps he had been a con artist from the start.

In any case, the outcome of her abandoning her husband and child was that she never made it into that hotel. Later, she broke up with the man and went back to running her stall.

“At the time, your father was a security guard at the factory, and your grandmother was picking up trash. Our whole family was squeezed into that old house where giant cockroaches crawled on the floor… I didn’t mind the bitterness, but I couldn’t stand not seeing a glimmer of light…” she sighed.

I didn't speak; I just kept rinsing her hair.

She continued, “All my life, I wanted to get into the Jinbo. I heard the toilets inside were made of gold… funny enough, the bathhouse where I work now actually looks a bit like that place did back then.”

“I know,” I said with a small smile. “So, if you could get into the Jinbo Hotel now, would you?”

She glanced at me sideways and said, “What kind of nonsense are you talking? That place went bust ages ago.”

“I’m not talking nonsense.”

I wrapped her hair in a towel and led her to the window, from where you could see the old Jinbo Hotel. It had later become a private restaurant, which went bankrupt, and then an upscale portrait studio, which also went under…

“I’ve leased it,” I said. “Your daughter is the boss there now.”

——

After comparing various options, I ultimately decided against opening a company in Feng City.

The reason was simple: the costs were too high, and the construction industry there was already saturated.

The world is that cruel; places with great environments are already full of everything they need, yet massive amounts of human and material resources continue to flood into them. Meanwhile, the places that truly lack resources see their populations dwindle.

Of course, I wasn't harboring any grand, noble goals. I just felt that if I could build my company in my hometown with the highest professional standards, then even if I only had one project, I could still carve out a substantial slice of the pie—instead of fighting a hundred people for ten scraps.

Choosing the Jinbo Hotel was actually quite an unexpected turn of events. Cheng Xia’s mother had once been a manager there, and the person who killed her had also been a waiter at the Jinbo Hotel back in the day.

Cheng Xia had investigated for a long time to uncover the truth, and in the process, he had clarified the complex debt situation surrounding the hotel. The land was tangled in claims from many parties; an average person would have fallen into a trap if they didn't know the ropes.

But we had figured it out.

“With the shift of the city center, this area is quite desolate, so running a restaurant or something similar would be hard. But if you’re opening a company, it’s actually perfect,” Cheng Xia had said. “Convenient transportation, spacious, and the rent isn't high.”

I had gone to look at it and was still hesitating, but while I was on the train back from Feng City, I miraculously received a call from the current owner of the Jinbo Hotel. He said the contract with the driving school that had been using the space was expiring, and if I could sign a five-year lease, he would rent it to me at an extremely low price.

The golden toilets had been ripped out, the beautiful revolving door was gone, and the whole place was dusty and gray. But that didn’t matter; I was confident I could renovate it into something beautiful again.

The garden that used to house white peacocks had become a practice yard for the driving school; now, it could park my cement trucks.

We were set to sign the contract after the New Year.

I said, “Mom, I’m starting a company. I’ll give you a living allowance plus a salary—five thousand yuan a month. Can you come help me supervise the renovations and handle the logistics later?”

My mother froze for a moment. “Can you get me a uniform too?”

“Sure thing.”

She grinned so wide her gums showed. “That’s great. My daughter is really something!”

Her face was full of pride.

——

After giving her the money, I went to my father’s house.

After all the conflict, I couldn't be bothered to fake affection. I watched television in silence for a while, then stood up and said, “Well, Dad, I’m off.”

My father said, “The dumplings are already boiled. Have a couple.”

“Alright.”

My younger brother was supposedly seeing a girlfriend and had gone to her place for lunch, only returning in the evening.

My stepmother, my father, and I—this strange trio—sat there eating in silence.

My stepmother coughed, trying to make conversation. “Once your company is open, why don’t you let your brother come over and help you out?”

“No,” I said.

The dinner table fell back into an awkward silence. I ate two dumplings, tucked the red envelope under the bowl, and said, “Enjoy your meal, I’m heading back.”

I was halfway out when my father chased after me. “The snow is too heavy, let me walk you.”

He rambled on about how my brother didn’t have any sense, how my stepmother was giving him the cold shoulder, and how I would have to be the one to support them in the future.

Ever since I got my first paycheck over ten thousand yuan, he would spout this nonsense whenever we were alone, only to stand with my stepmother and brother the next time they were present, united against me.

“If they really stop caring for you in the future, you can go to a nursing home. I’ll cover the costs,” I said. “But that’s all I’ll do.”

His expression shifted, and he couldn’t find any words.

I said, “Dad, do you know why I give you a red envelope every year? Because whenever I went to your place to ask for money when I was little, I used to fantasize that one day, when I was rich, I’d slap the money right across your faces—to show you how blind you were to look down on me…”

Often, as I thought about it, I would laugh out of catharsis, using those fantasies to cover the humiliation of the moment—that had been my winning secret to survival as a child.

“But later, I realized that I just wanted you to know that you were wrong. You abandoned me, chose her and her son—it was your bad judgment, and you’d regret it sooner or later.”

My father offered a bitter smile. “I wouldn’t call it abandoning you. I gave you the money I was supposed to give, and there was your grandmother…”

“But now I know that no matter how successful I become, you guys are the only real family.” I smiled. “You are my father, but you are not my family. You are just my grandmother’s son.”

There are seven billion people in this world; that means there should be seven billion kinds of relationships.

Who says parents and children must be family? They could just as easily be an investor and an entrepreneur.

Those who invest money get money back; those who invest emotion get emotion back.

Once I understood this, I didn’t have to keep a tiny, secret hope alive in my heart, only to have it shattered over and over again.

The chain wrapped around me finally snapped.

——

When I got home, my grandmother had already finished the New Year’s Eve dinner. She asked, “Did you eat at your father’s?”

“Had two dumplings,” I said while taking off my coat. “I told them I wanted to come home to eat.”

Grandma had stir-fried four or five dishes and set out the Laba garlic to eat with the baijiu. The TV was blaring away.

Just like all the years before I started making money, it was a New Year’s Eve dinner for only the two of us.

She didn’t apologize to me, nor did she bring up the topics of marriage or starting a business again.

But since I had returned from Feng City, I noticed she was already at home.

I knew she might never understand why I didn’t want to get married.

But she surely understood that in this house, only one person could call the shots—and that was me.

Grandma asked, “Do you need someone to cook at your construction site later on?”

“We’ll definitely need someone,” I said.

Grandma said, “Then let me come cook for you all!”

I said, “There are too many people; it’ll be too much work for you. Just sell some steamed buns at the site entrance.”

Grandma: “Deal!”

This year’s gala hadn't started yet; the TV was playing last year's. I watched it half-heartedly while replying to New Year’s greeting texts.

Harina: Sister, Happy New Year! We bought two more ponies. One is waiting for you to come; I’ll teach you how to ride.

I replied: Feed them a little more so they get fat.

Yu Shixuan didn’t say anything; she just sent a photo of herself in a swimsuit on the beach.

I replied: You photoshopped your legs way too much!

I was immediately blocked.

Tyrannosaurus sent a chain of copied-and-pasted New Year blessings and then said: Boss, when can I come to work?

His leg still affected his work at S-Construction, and combined with his explosive temper, he was gradually being marginalized. Hearing that I was starting a business, he wanted to come over.

I replied: Come over after the New Year and take a look. Bring your daughter; treat it like a vacation.

He said: She’s a sophomore in high school, and her studies are heavy. She won’t come.

I asked: How’s her studying? Where does she want to apply?

He said: She can do whatever she wants. I’ll just keep grinding away myself and try to make her a second-generation rich kid.

I laughed.

Engineer Li, Batu, President Wang, Sister Shen…

My phone wouldn't stop ringing for a while. I laughed one moment and sent red envelopes the next, busy and having the time of my life.

Just then, I received a message on WeChat from Zhou Ting.

He said: Are you there?

He said: Can we meet up?