My name is Chen Xiang. I was born in 1988, the Year of the Dragon.
As far as I can recall, my parents must have chosen this name for our little family, hoping for everything to go smoothly and auspiciously.
However, the elders in the countryside often said that when naming a child, one should choose a name that is easy to raise, one that the child can bear. If the meaning of the name is too profound, it might weigh down the child instead.
My name seems to have perfectly interpreted and affirmed this unscientific notion!
In my infancy, when I was just learning to speak and toddle, my mother left me and my father behind and passed away due to a car accident.
It was from that moment on that my home… never knew a single peaceful day again.
Perhaps the sudden death of my mother was too great a blow to my father. From then on, heavy drinking, gambling, and not coming home at night became his norm.
Since my father's personality changed drastically, the most frequent memories of my childhood were of having one meal and then starving for three, and of the constant fear of those who lent money at exorbitant interest pounding on our door, almost every night of the year!
The new second floor, which hadn't even been roofed, was directly halted!
The furniture and appliances in the three rooms on the first floor, including the main hall, were all cleared out!
Even the crops in the few mu of farmland were basically ruined by those who lent money at exorbitant interest!
After our home was emptied, my father ran away to hide from his debts. There was no other way; the interest kept compounding, and he simply couldn't pay it back anymore.
If he couldn't offer anything to settle the debt, and if he didn't run, he would lose his life!
In the rural areas of the 1990s, money was more important than life. There were plenty of people who would risk their lives for money!
Which of those usurers didn't have blood on their hands?
To them, human life was merely a matter of more or less blood.
I can understand my father's actions, and I can also accept them.
After all, it made no difference whether he was there or not!
For a long time after my father fled, it's no exaggeration to say that I wasn't just waiting for rice to cook; there was no rice, and no pot either!
If it weren't for the relief from the villagers, a meal here and a bite there, I would have starved to death long ago.
Therefore, I truly understand the saying that a near neighbor is better than a distant relative.
However, nothing in life is absolute. The only absolute thing in this world is that there is no absolute!
It wasn't until much later that I realized not all neighbors were genuinely helping me.
Among them… some were coveting my home!
That home, though empty, could still shield me from the wind and rain.
There's a saying that goes, "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here on earth!"
I will never forget how, on my fourteenth birthday, I was driven out of my own home by the village chief, Wang Yangming…
This conniving old man, in order to seize my home, had started to deliberately approach and care for me from the first year my father fled.
He first used his son, Wang Yu, who was my classmate, to invite me to his house for meals from time to time.
Then, after we became familiar with each other, he used his status and connections to draft a guardianship change application, brought me to the police station to get a red stamp, and signed as proof.
Finally, on my fourteenth birthday, which was also exactly six years after my father fled, he coaxed and tricked me into going to the police station in town again, where I signed my name for the second time on another piece of paper with a red stamp.
This piece of paper with a red stamp was called a "Rural Homestead Usage Rights Transfer Statement."
From that moment on, my home… was gone!
On the night I received the "Rural Homestead Usage Rights Transfer Statement," shortly after returning home from dinner at Wang Yangming's house, Wang Yangming and Wang Yu, who had followed me, ganged up and kicked me out of my home.
"You bastard with no father or mother! Did you really think you could eat and live at my place for free for years!"
"Get lost and don't ever come back!!!"
This was my classmate Wang Yu, standing at my doorstep, holding the "Rural Homestead Usage Rights Transfer Statement" with my signature on it, saying his last words to me.
Yet, strangely, I didn't retort or cry at that moment.
Perhaps it was because I had cried too much when I was younger.
After being driven out of my home, the only thought left in my mind was: Kill them!
That night, homeless and with nowhere to go, I slept on my mother's grave.
I thought I would be terrified, but I wasn't.
There are no ghosts in the world; ghosts reside in people's hearts!
Although it was a bit cold sleeping on my mother's grave that night, my heart was warm.
Perhaps it was because my mother's spirit was protecting me from above, I slept very well that night, and I even had a dream.
In the dream, my teacher called on me to recite Yu Kwang-chung's "Nostalgia"...
In childhood, homesickness was a small postage stamp. I was on this side, and my mother on the other.
When grown up, homesickness was a narrow boat ticket. I was on this side, and my bride on the other.
Later, homesickness was a low grave. I was outside, and my mother was inside.
Wang Yangming, Wang Yu, one day, I will bury both of you in the ground!
………………
In 2002, the Young and Dangerous film series was all the rage.
At that time, all I could think about was getting out there, making a name for myself, and making Wang Yangming and his son pay!
However, to my regret, the local triad bosses in town simply didn't take me, a little kid, seriously.
Unable to do anything else, and to avoid starving before I could make a name for myself, I had to abandon my plans of joining the underworld and went to work as a laborer in a textile factory in the neighboring town.
The price for this was giving up the high school entrance examination!
Six hundred yuan a month, which broke down to twenty yuan a day, with food and lodging provided.
It was in this textile factory that I met someone who completely changed my destiny.
Uncle Tuo.
An uncle who wasn't hunchbacked but was crippled all over.
In private, I called him Uncle Tuo Liu.
I added "Liu" to the original appellation because he was missing his index finger, middle finger, and ring finger on his left hand.
Whenever Uncle Tuo Liu greeted me, he would extend his left hand with only his thumb and little finger raised.
That gesture looked like he was making a "6."
Besides that, his right leg was also lame.
At first, when I started working the night shift with Uncle Tuo Liu, I asked him why he had lost three fingers and broken a leg.
His answer at the time was, "The factory machines ran over me."
Uncle Tuo Liu's answer made me believe him, and I didn't think much of it.
It wasn't until later, when I was working the night shift with two other young men, and because young people can't sit still, that I got caught up in their repeated coaxing and started playing poker with them.
The stakes were one yuan to start, with a maximum of ten yuan.
I remember at the beginning of the game, I was winning against both of them in the first half of the night, and I won over two hundred yuan.
But by the time the game ended at dawn, I had lost all the wages I had painstakingly saved for two months!