Chapter Eighty-Nine: Uncle Fourth Has Arrived

Dong Yanyan sighed inwardly as well: in relationships, men usually look downward, women upward, and in principle that was true enough. But Xinran always fell for men whose circumstances were far better than hers, wasting no one knew how many years. Cinderella stories did exist, but not everyone was lucky enough to stumble into one. Yanyan herself had spent more than ten years without meeting even a single such miracle. Whenever she saw the diamond-bachelor type, she would throw herself into adoring him, while he at most treated her as an ordinary friend. Not one had ever wanted to be her boyfriend. Later, when she grew older, she had looked at quite a few men who were her equals in every way. To her own eyes they were perfectly decent, but the moment the conversation turned toward marriage, she would hesitate, always feeling that this was lacking or that was not right, and unwilling to settle. And once that unwillingness set in, everything fizzled out. It was enough to make one worry herself sick.

If she had truly liked freedom and wanted to remain single forever, that would have been one thing. But she was exactly the sort of woman who dreamed of family life, of helping her husband and teaching her children. That made it nothing less than a tragedy.

The door of the reading room opened soundlessly again, and Gu Xiaohan slipped in on tiptoe. She greeted Teacher Zhao, who was on duty, then darted to Dong Yanyan like a gust of wind and said in an urgent whisper, “Yanyan, there’s a phone call for you!”

“Hm? Who is it?” Yanyan asked softly.

“It’s your Fourth Uncle!” Xiaohan said with a grin.

The moment she heard it was her Fourth Uncle calling, Dong Yanyan came alive at once. She asked Xinran to watch her books for her, then ran back to the dormitory with Xiaohan. Snatching up the receiver, she shouted, “Fourth Uncle!”

The person on the other end chuckled warmly. “Yanyan, it’s your Fourth Aunt.”

“Oh? Fourth Aunt! You sound absolutely radiant today. What’s the happy news?” Yanyan asked with a laugh.

“Yanyan, I’m pregnant. We just found out.”

Her Fourth Aunt’s voice brimmed with joy. Even through the telephone, Yanyan could picture her face blooming like a flower. They had been waiting for this child for more than ten years.

“Really? That’s wonderful! Congratulations, you’re going to be a mother! When my little brother is born, I’ll give him a huge red envelope!” she cried gleefully.

“It’ll still be several months yet. Oh, and weren’t you saying you wanted to buy a house there? Once we get our year-end bonuses this year, we’ll help you look for one next spring. Don’t rush.”

“My business isn’t urgent. Right now, you and the baby are what matter most. When winter break starts, I’ll come visit you,” Yanyan said, smiling.

“All right, all right. Oh yes, your Fourth Uncle went to the provincial capital on a business trip today. He just left a little while ago. I told him to stop by and see you on the way. He should arrive around three or four.”

“Really? That’s great!” Yanyan said happily.

Of course she was happy. No one had come to see her in the last six months, and today, at last, a relative was dropping by. She had always envied other people when family came to visit. Now let them envy her for once.

At four in the afternoon, her Fourth Uncle called to ask how to get to the school. After giving him detailed directions over the phone, she ran to the school gate to wait. More than ten minutes later, she saw a Santana speeding toward her and pulling up at her side. Her Fourth Uncle had driven that car for years, so Dong Yanyan recognized it at once. Delighted, she waved at the driver.

The driver’s surname was Zhang, a man in his twenties. Back then, she had even called him Uncle Zhang.

He got out of the car and opened the back door for her. She thanked him and climbed in.

Her Fourth Uncle turned around from the front passenger seat and said with a smile, “Your school is really hard to find. You haven’t been waiting long, have you?”

“You did all right—you found it pretty quickly. Last time, the father of the sixth girl in our dorm drove around half the city before he got here. Our school is hidden in plain sight,” Yanyan said with a laugh. “Your car can go inside. Since you’re already at the gate, why not drive in and have a look? I’ll treat you to dinner tonight.”

Her Fourth Uncle chuckled. “Your Fourth Aunt’s second elder sister lives in this city. Tonight her husband is treating us. There’s still plenty of time, so keep me company while I look around a bit, and then I’ll take you along to mooch a meal. Since he’s from your Fourth Aunt’s side, just call him Second Aunt’s Husband. And don’t stand on ceremony with him—order whatever you want!”

“All right, all right,” Dong Yanyan agreed cheerfully.

Of course she knew what that title implied. A brother-in-law was precisely the sort of person younger sisters-in-law and younger brothers-in-law were free to exploit at will—and indeed obliged to exploit at will. Back in the day, Xu Cheng had been just that sort of brother-in-law. On her side of the family there were plenty of younger siblings and cousins, but hardly any older brothers and sisters, which meant he ended up with a whole crowd of younger brothers-in-law and younger sisters-in-law. Once those kids grew up, one would come to him today, another tomorrow, all looking for their brother-in-law, and he was kept spinning like a top.

Her Fourth Uncle, on the other hand, was truly fortunate. Her Fourth Aunt was the youngest in her family, and her older sisters adored her like a treasure, so their husbands, by extension, treated him with special warmth as well. Everywhere he went, someone entertained him. After eating his fill, staying at the hotel, bathing, steaming, and enjoying himself to his heart’s content, he would even snatch away the receipts and submit them to his work unit for reimbursement, turning them into cash. It was shamelessly glorious.

“Yanyan, I came this time to tell you some good news.” Her Fourth Uncle turned around again, his face shining with satisfaction.

“I know—you’re going to be a father! You came all this way just to tell me that? Fourth Aunt was much smarter than you. She called me directly—faster and much more convenient,” Yanyan said with a laugh. “So? How does it feel, becoming a father? Wonderful, right?”

Her Fourth Uncle nodded. “The happiness came rather suddenly. This child has a strange affinity with you. Not long after your last visit to our house, your Fourth Aunt conceived. Neither of us had any experience, and we thought her stomach trouble had flared up again. She even took quite a bit of herbal medicine. It wasn’t until the baby was over three months along that we found out she was pregnant.”

Perhaps he had not considered whether such a topic was suitable to share with a seventeen-year-old girl. In any case, Yanyan had felt deeply awkward hearing it, thinking that such intimate matters were not things she ought to know. She had been so innocent then.

“Fourth Uncle, now that there’s going to be a baby, you need to be more attentive to Fourth Aunt. Don’t keep going out drinking all the time,” Yanyan said with a smile.

“I know, I know—but work requires it!” he said with a laugh, then added, “Yanyan, your Fourth Aunt told you, didn’t she? About the house—you needn’t worry. Money definitely won’t be a problem. But you absolutely mustn’t tell your parents. No need to make them uneasy.”

Dong Yanyan nodded. “I understand.”

If he had not mentioned it, she would have forgotten. If her parents found out, they would certainly never agree to let her borrow money. At a time like this, ten or twenty thousand was no small sum to them. Given their temperament, they would rather die than ask someone else for that much money. But she truly needed it, and time would not wait. If she did not move now, then in a year or so, once rumors of demolition and redevelopment spread, housing prices here would rise with the tide. By then, buying a home would not be so easy. In this city, without a house of her own, she felt rootless, never fully at ease.

“Fourth Uncle, do you also think I’m terribly unreliable?” she asked tentatively.

“No. I think it’s a good thing that you’ve grown up and have ideas of your own. Since I’m in a position to help, of course I should help you.” He smiled at her kindly.

Dong Yanyan smiled too. Ever since she had left home to study, the elders in the family really had begun to treat her like an adult. They spoke to her and dealt with her as though she were one, and she herself felt she had grown up. But why was it that Nannan, even in her twenties, still saw herself as a child? She relied on their parents and elder sister for everything, and their parents indulged her as though she were still little, reminding her several times a day even to eat and sleep.

There was a ten-year gap between her and Nannan. Ten years—truly, they belonged to two different worlds, two different generations.

That evening she went with her Fourth Uncle to the Land and Resources Guesthouse to meet the second brother-in-law and several of his friends. They all ate together. After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, her Fourth Uncle, though flushed with drink, still retained enough sense to remember that before going out to enjoy the night, he ought to return his precious niece to school. Before leaving, he even slipped five hundred yuan into her hand—his private stash.

Dong Yanyan could not refuse, so she accepted it. “Fourth Uncle, I’ll take it this time. But once you two have the baby, you mustn’t keep secrets from Fourth Aunt anymore. Hidden money that ought to be handed over should be handed over, understand?” she said with mock solemnity.

Her Fourth Uncle smiled and nodded, half annoyed, half amused. “I know, I know. You and your Fourth Aunt are closer than you are to me.”

“That’s because she treats you well, so I’m close to her too,” Yanyan said with a grin.

Compared with that Third Aunt of hers, who had cheated and driven someone to death, Fourth Aunt was immeasurably better. Her Fourth Uncle and Fourth Aunt were a classic match of a poor man risen from the countryside and a delicate city woman. She had followed him for so many years, bringing countless things and countless sums of money into her husband’s family, worrying over all these relatives no one knew how many times. Yet she still managed to maintain fairly good relations with the family, never quarreled with her husband, never fought with his brother or elder sister, and certainly never went online to complain about her husband’s outrageous relatives. Such character was exceedingly rare. Where could one find such a good wife?

When Dong Yanyan returned to school, she looked at the clock—it was nearly nine. That one meal had lasted more than three hours. Eating like that was exhausting. Fortunately, she had had the foresight to ask Xiaohan to help her request leave in advance.

Back in the dormitory, she found a huge bouquet of roses on her desk. In an excellent mood, she hummed a tune, found a vase, and arranged the flowers, then took her thermos and washbasin to the washroom to freshen up. When she finished, evening self-study had not yet ended, so she lay on her bed and read for a while. The dormitory was unusually quiet. Every now and then, it was rather nice to enjoy such quiet alone.

When Leng Yue and the others came back, Dong Yanyan was reading with the radio playing softly beside her.

“Fifth, you’re back—why didn’t you go to evening study? Ren Jiaxuan was looking for you like a madman!” Leng Yue stood by the lower bunk beneath her and shouted up at her.

Dong Yanyan took off her earphones and smiled. “Didn’t I just get back? Ren Jiaxuan came looking for me? Didn’t you tell him where I’d gone?”

“How would I know what you were off doing? You didn’t tell me!” Leng Yue said with a laugh.

“But I told Xiaohan!” Still lying on the bed, Yanyan turned her head and asked, “Xiaohan, didn’t I ask you to help me get leave?”

Xiaohan nodded hurriedly, looking utterly innocent. “Yanyan, I did help you ask for leave. When that Ren Jiaxuan came, I didn’t know about it. Later, when he came to our class looking for you, I just happened not to be there. Then I thought, as a girl, it wouldn’t look good for me to go out during evening study to find a boy from another class, so I didn’t go tell him... Is everything all right?”