Chapter 3

Tanghezi Village is located south of Jiangzhou, twelve kilometers from the city center.

Zhou Andong stepped off the bus, and before him appeared a cluster of low, dilapidated cottages; the smoke rising from their chimneys was instantly torn apart and scattered by the howling north wind, vanishing without a trace.

“Brother!” A girl’s voice suddenly called out.

Zhou Andong looked up and saw two girls, one tall, one small, trudging through the deep snow against the biting wind—it was his two younger sisters.

The older one was Zhou Anqin, eighteen, still studying at Jiangzhou Petrochemical Technical School; next year she would be assigned to City Petrochemical Plant No. 2. That was Jiangzhou’s largest state-owned enterprise, among the top in the entire province—far beyond any distillery.

“Brother!” The little girl scrambled forward on her short legs and threw herself into Zhou Andong’s arms.

The younger one was six, named Zhou Anning, because she had cried so loudly at birth that they gave her the name “Tranquility.”

Zhou Andong held her frail little body, gazed at her frost-red cheeks, and lovingly cupped her face in his hands: “Cold?”

“Cold!” The girl pressed her icy little body closer into Zhou Andong’s arms.

Zhou Andong carried the little girl toward home: “It’s this cold—where were you two going?”

Zhou Anqin said, “Mom made dumplings and told me to bring them to you. Lucky we ran into you here, or you’d have made a wasted trip.”

The little girl chattered excitedly: “The dumplings are filled with sour cabbage and meat—so delicious!”

Zhou Andong said, “It’s this cold, and you came all this way just to deliver a few dumplings? Don’t do that again.”

Zhou Anqin suddenly stopped walking, turned to face Zhou Andong with serious eyes: “Brother, when I graduate and get a job next year, you won’t have to work so hard anymore, and your wife won’t leave you.”

Zhou Andong’s heart felt as if gripped by an invisible hand. He looked at his elder sister’s frail frame, then at his younger sister’s yellowed hair from malnutrition, and forced back his tears.

He reached out and put an arm around his elder sister’s shoulder: “Foolish girl, your sister-in-law left me not because of you, but because she’s going abroad.”

Zhou Anqin opened her mouth to speak, but Zhou Andong cut her off: “Enough. Don’t think nonsense. I’ll make sure you both live well—live in apartments, drive cars, eat whatever you want, travel wherever you like—even abroad.”

Zhou Anqin smiled softly, lowering her head: “You’re just bragging again.”

Zhou Andong declared with bold confidence: “We’ll see if I’m bragging.”

At the front gate, Zhou Andong stared at the three mud-brick houses, their walls peeling in patches like ancient scales of time, making the already low and shabby dwellings look even more decrepit.

Inside the courtyard, the side room on the east was where he and his brother Zhou Anbei lived; the main house had two rooms on either side with a central entrance hall containing a stove—the classic layout of a Northeastern rural home.

“Creak—creak!” The old wooden entrance door, its hinges rusted, groaned with a grating sound that made your teeth ache.

“Mom, I’m back.”

As Zhou Andong stepped inside, the heavy smell of Chinese medicine filled his nose.

His mother, Yuan Liying, was straining the dregs through a fine cloth sieve; upon hearing his voice, she looked up: “Why are you back alone?”

Zhou Andong said: “We’re divorced.”

Yuan Liying’s hands paused for a moment: “Divorced… well, divorce is fine. You were never a good match to begin with. When you married, I knew this day would come.”

Zhou Andong stared at his mother’s thin back, took a deep breath, then turned to his father—crippled by a traffic accident, not yet fifty, already snow-white-haired, emaciated from malnutrition and lack of treatment, reduced to a shadow of his former self.

Once weighing over seventy kilograms and standing 1.76 meters tall, he now weighed less than eighty jin; apart from his face, which still had a little flesh, his body was nothing but skin stretched over bones. Two years later, this man, when no one was home, crawled out and drank pesticide—leaving not a single word behind.

“Dad!”

To Zhou Andong now, meeting his father felt like a reunion across lifetimes. He thought of riding on his father’s shoulders as a child, of his father’s loud, hearty laughter—he longed to shout “Dad!” aloud, but his throat felt clogged; the word came out only in his own mind.

Zhou Xiao, propped up by rolled-up quilts, was smoking. He seemed to sense Zhou Andong’s unease: “What’s wrong? Trouble at the factory?”

Zhou Andong shook his head: “No.”

“Smoke, smoke, smoke!” Yuan Liying walked over with a bowl of medicine. “Smoke yourself to death. If you die, we’ll all have peace.”

Watching his mother scold his father, then seeing his father’s vacant smile, Zhou Andong’s eyes grew wet. His father was his mother’s entire world; as long as he lived—even lying motionless on the kang, barely breathing—the family remained whole.

After his father drank the pesticide, his mother’s world collapsed. Her spirit vanished overnight, her personality grew strange, she became impossible to get along with—even her own children couldn’t bear her.

To escape this home, the elder sister married a man over ten years older; after marriage, she rarely came back, because every visit ended in a fight.

His younger brother, Zhou Anbei, went south alone to work. At over thirty, he married a widow with two children—and she was dominant, never bearing him a single child in her entire life.

After entering middle school, the little sister became rebellious. If Zhou Andong hadn’t kept a tight rein on her, the two of them would have torn the roof off. But Budebushuo , despite her rebellion, her grades were always excellent, and she got into university.

As for him, the eldest, after being introduced to several girls, all relationships were ruined by the old woman. Whoever mentioned setting him up with a girlfriend would shake their head like a rattle. By the time he was reborn, he still hadn’t found a wife.

“Brother, eat the dumplings first—they’ll get cold.” His elder sister unbuttoned her cotton coat and pulled out an aluminum lunchbox wrapped in cloth, stamped with the words “Jiangzhou Distillery.”

Opening the box, the dumplings steamed warmly. Zhou Andong picked one up and bit into it—he could see bits of fatty pork inside, and his eyes nearly welled up, but he held back. He was the pillar of this family; he couldn’t show weakness in front of his parents, especially not his sisters.

“Tasty?” The little girl looked up, big eyes wide, fixed on Zhou Andong.

Zhou Andong ruffled her hair and smiled: “Delicious.”

“Hehe!” The little girl patted her belly. “I didn’t lie, did I? I ate a bunch!”

“Mom!” Zhou Andong whined. “I’m thirsty!”

Yuan Liying said: “There’s a big tub of water out back. Drink it if you’re thirsty.”

Zhou Andong smacked his lips: “The water’s too bland. No flavor.”

Yuan Liying snorted: “There’s half a bucket of wastewater by the door. That’s flavorful—drink that.”

Zhou Anqin giggled, brought a bowl, and poured from a half-empty bottle of baijiu—the Jiangzhou Distillery’s Da Gaoliang, 3% alcohol, six bottles total. Actually, the liquor tasted quite good, given its century-plus history.

But due to rigid management, bloated staffing, lack of competition, and the declining baijiu market in recent years, with other distilleries slashing prices, Jiangzhou Distillery’s leadership stubbornly refused to lower theirs. Within a year, they were driven out of outside markets, their annual sales plummeting from two tons to seven hundred tons.

Only then did management realize the severity of the crisis. Da Gaoliang finally dropped its price—from eight to six yuan—but it was too late. Last year’s sales fell below four hundred tons; workers’ wages couldn’t even be paid in full.

Frontline workers, including bonuses, used to earn about 230 yuan a month; now, getting 130 is a blessing. And because he offended the deputy factory director and was transferred to the factory radio station, his monthly take-home pay is barely over 100 yuan. In another two months, even that hundred might not come.