Chapter 3: Father’s Request

Ever since my parents decided to ask Widow Zhou to take a look at me, the place my father visited most often was Widow Zhou’s home. To avoid gossip, he always chose to go after nine o’clock at night.

There was not much entertainment in the countryside, and in winter it got dark early. Widow Zhou’s house stood at the western end of the village, while ours was at the eastern end. The route passed along several narrow, uneven paths between the fields. Being overly cautious, my father did not even dare use a torch. During all those trips back and forth, no one knew how many times he fell, yet he still failed to persuade Widow Zhou to come.

Was it because he was not sincere enough? No! Every time he went, he brought gifts. There was milk powder, a rare luxury in those days, hard candy, cured bacon that the family could barely bear to eat themselves, and he even promised half of the family’s grain supply.

But every time, Widow Zhou’s reply was nearly identical. “Hic... Old Chen... hic... we’re all fellow villagers... hic... if I could help... hic... you, how would I dare accept... hic... so many things... hic... what kind of times are these now... hic... you know better than I do... hic... if something happens to me... hic... it won’t just be my fatherless... hic... child who suffers... hic... I’ll drag down my husband’s family too... hic... don’t make things difficult for me...”

Widow Zhou’s reply, just like her hiccups, made people feel miserable when they heard it. But what could my father do? He could only keep going back again and again.

Eventually, his visits became so frequent that they aroused the Zhou family’s suspicions. They called Widow Zhou over and questioned her. Once they learned the reason, Old Master Zhou spoke first. “Old Chen, this isn’t right of you. Aren’t you trying to harm our whole family? Never mind whether my daughter-in-law can cure your child or not. Even if she could, would we dare? Your child is a life. Aren’t our lives lives too? Go on, go on...”

My father refused to give up and kept going. In the end, Zhou Er picked up a hoe and threatened to beat him without another word. The matter seemed to have reached a deadlock.

My body remained weak. Especially when I cried, the broken, interrupted sobs sounded as though someone were strangling me. It was more like a funeral lament for our family, casting an even darker shadow over our home.

It was still the depths of winter. Although a blazing stove burned in the house, nobody felt the slightest warmth in their hearts. Even my two elder sisters worried constantly. Whenever I cried, they would look fearfully at our parents. They were terrified of hearing Father’s heavy sighs or seeing the sorrow in Mother’s eyes.

Another fit of sobbing came, and little me began crying again. This time it seemed particularly severe. As usual, Mother held me in her arms, patting and rocking me, but nothing improved.

“Could the child be hungry? Why don’t you feed him some milk? There’s still some left from what we brought back today. I’ll heat it up.” To country folk, a baby crying fiercely usually meant hunger. Hearing my strangled cries, Father felt terrible. He stood up, fetched the milk, and set it on the stove to warm.

The atmosphere in the house grew even heavier. Nobody spoke. Apart from my distressing sobs, only Mother’s soft cooing to comfort me could be heard...

At last the milk came to a rolling boil, glug glug, finally breaking the oppressive silence in our home. Father poured the milk into a bowl, blew on it to cool it, transferred it into a feeding bottle, and handed it to Mother. The whole family stared hopefully at the bottle in her hand, wishing that a little milk might ease my suffering. My crying was simply too heartbreaking.

A minute later, Mother’s frightened, shrill voice shattered the temporary calm. “Old Chen, Old Chen... look at what’s happening to our little one!”

Mother’s lips trembled. Father rushed over in a few long strides. One look, and his face instantly turned ashen.

The milk that had just been fed to me never reached my stomach at all. The moment it reached my mouth, my coughing forced it back out. This was not ordinary choking on milk. I simply could not swallow it.

My entire face had turned bluish-purple from the strain. The “hngh, hngh” sounds I made resembled those of an old man. This was the most serious episode since my birth. Looking at the swollen veins bulging on my tiny neck, Father panicked for the first time.

Mother kept patting me, trying to ease my discomfort. My two sisters were so frightened that tears welled in their eyes, yet they did not dare cry aloud for fear of upsetting our parents. Father began breathing heavily. His eyes reddened. Anyone who knew him would have understood that he was angry.

After several seconds of silence, Father suddenly rushed out of the room, charged into the kitchen, grabbed a cleaver, and stormed back. Like a madman, he began waving it around the room.

“To hell with your mother! I, Chen Junhong, have never cheated, swindled, or done any rotten thing in my entire life! Why are you tormenting my son? If you want someone, come for me! Come for me! Don’t touch my child! Damn you! How can you do this to a baby? How can you be so cruel to a little baby? Come out! You sons of turtles, get out here! I’ll fight you to the death!”

Father looked as though he had fallen under some kind of spell, but no one could really blame him. After the township clinic found nothing wrong with me, he had refused to give up and took me to several more hospitals. Not only hospitals in town, he even made a trip to the city. Every doctor said the same thing: I was not sick, merely malnourished.

If I was not ill, especially not with any respiratory disease, then how could my condition be explained? And it was not just my parents. According to my sisters’ recollections, I truly looked as though someone were strangling me.

Because of what Grandma Liu had said, Father had already begun to believe that something had set its sights on me. Combined with what he was seeing now, he became convinced that some unseen thing was tormenting his son. That was why he had gone mad that night.

Father’s outburst finally frightened my two sisters into tears. The situation in the house became even worse. Yet at that moment, Mother displayed a uniquely feminine resilience and strength. She was the calmest person present.

While gently patting me, she grabbed Father’s arm, the one still waving the cleaver. “Old Chen, our little son isn’t the only one in this family. If you keep acting like this, what will the rest of us do? Look at our eldest girl and second girl, see how frightened they are. Pull yourself together.”

Those words finally brought Father back to his senses. Strangely enough, after his fierce outburst, my condition actually improved somewhat.

I no longer struggled to breathe. My distressing cries gradually subsided. My little face changed from bluish-purple back to its usual pale colour. Seeing that I was better, Father finally calmed down completely.

Mother laid me on the bed, comforted my sisters, and then coaxed them into their room to sleep.

When she returned, she looked at Father and said calmly, “Old Chen, I’ll go find Widow Zhou. Tonight.”

“It is said that ghosts fear vicious people. Xiuyun, I think I finally understand what’s happening to my son. I feel the same way. We’ll go tonight. If we drag this out any longer, I’m afraid we won’t be able to keep this son of ours.” Father completely agreed with Mother.

Since they had made up their minds, neither of them hesitated any longer. This time they were truly determined. They picked me up and set out immediately. Perhaps my earlier condition had shocked them too deeply. For the first time ever, Father switched on a torch. His son’s life was at stake. At that moment, how could he still worry about being cautious? All he wanted was to reach Widow Zhou’s house as quickly as possible.

Braving the cold wind, they hurried along without speaking. A journey that normally took more than twenty minutes was finished in just over ten. After I grew up, I often thought that if they had not been carrying me, they might have gone even faster.

Human potential is limitless. In the metaphysical arts, the Mountain lineage emphasizes self-cultivation. To put it simply, it is a method of drawing out one’s hidden potential.

When they arrived at the Zhou household, it was only around eight or nine o’clock. But there was little entertainment in the countryside, and during winter, every household had already shut its doors tight by that hour.

The Zhou family’s gate was closed as well. Father said nothing. He rushed forward and pounded on it loudly, Bang! Bang! Bang! In the stillness of the night, the urgent knocking sounded especially harsh.

Perhaps because the knocking was so loud and insistent, voices soon emerged from inside the courtyard. It was Zhou Er. “Who’s there?”

Father remained silent and would not let Mother answer either. He simply knocked even harder.

He was afraid that if Zhou Er realized it was our family, he would refuse to open the door. Father’s persistence over the past weeks had genuinely irritated and exhausted the Zhou family.

“Which bastard is it? Say something!” Zhou Er’s voice rose. He was clearly growing angry.

Father continued knocking stubbornly.

“If you don’t answer, I’m not opening the door!” Zhou Er roared.

Mother grew anxious and whispered, “Old Chen, just say something.”

“Say my foot. Zhou Er’s famous for being stubborn as a mule. If he knows it’s us, he really won’t open the door. I’ll keep knocking until he gets fed up. If he can’t make up his mind, he’ll open it eventually. You know what he’s like. He’s got guts.”

There was a bit of a rogue’s streak in Father’s personality, though it rarely showed.

Just as Father predicted, after ten minutes of relentless knocking, Zhou Er angrily opened the gate. He even carried a woodcutting blade in his hand, clearly assuming some troublemakers had come.

The moment the gate opened, Father lowered his head and pushed his way inside. The move startled Zhou Er. Who was this fool charging around like an idiot?

“Stop right there! What are you doing barging into someone else’s house?” Zhou Er shouted hurriedly as Father squeezed past him into the courtyard.

Father reacted quickly. He pulled Mother inside, then turned and shut the gate behind them before finally speaking. “Zhou Er, it’s me, Old Chen.”

“So it’s you, Old Chen. What exactly are you...” Zhou Er sighed in relief. At least they were not troublemakers. In those days, everyone feared that a group of people might suddenly appear and smash up their home.

But he still found Father’s behaviour both irritating and ridiculous, and his tone remained unfriendly.

“Zhou Er, we’re all fellow villagers. Can we go inside and talk? You know I won’t force your family to do anything. Just let me finish speaking tonight. Tell me honestly, have I, Old Chen, always been a decent man in this village? Have I ever treated you or the Zhou family poorly?”

The way Father spoke combined softness and pressure. It was impressive that a simple countryman could wield words so skillfully. Circumstances had forced him to learn.

The villagers all knew Father as a decent man with many friends, and our family had often visited the Zhou household in the past. Those things softened Zhou Er’s heart. People in those days were still simple and sincere. Added to Father’s assurance that he would not force the family to do anything, Zhou Er’s expression finally eased.

“Fine, come in then. I really don’t know what to do with you, Old Chen.”

Father let out a sigh of relief. The hardest member of the Zhou family to deal with was Zhou Er. If he had gotten past him tonight, there was still hope.

Once inside, the entire Zhou family was gathered in the main hall warming themselves by the fire. Several sweet potatoes were piled beside the blazing stove. This family certainly knew how to spend the winter comfortably, a warm stove and piping hot roasted sweet potatoes...

When Old Master Zhou saw the visitors, he looked up and recognized Father. His expression remained blank, and he snorted softly through his nose. But when he noticed Mother holding a child, his expression softened somewhat, though he still could not help sighing.

Widow Zhou seemed as though she wanted to say something, but after two hiccups she closed her mouth again.

Clenching the stem of his pipe between his teeth, Old Master Zhou took a puff of tobacco and said, “Yueshuang, take Zhou Qiang and Zhou Hongjun to bed.”

Yueshuang was Zhou Er’s wife. Hearing the order, she quickly answered and began leading Zhou Qiang and Zhou Jun away. Zhou Qiang was Zhou Da’s posthumous son, while Zhou Jun was Zhou Er’s son. Both boys were already attending primary school.

“No, Grandpa, I want to eat a roasted sweet potato first,” Zhou Qiang protested.

“I want one too before bed,” Zhou Jun chimed in after hearing his cousin.

Zhou Er glared and roared, “The sweet potatoes aren’t going to grow legs and run away. Get to bed now, or I’ll treat you to bamboo shoots fried with meat!”

Zhou Er clearly carried authority in the household. After that shout, neither child dared make another sound. They obediently allowed his wife to lead them away.

“Junhong, I know exactly why you’ve come. I’ve already made myself clear. We’re fellow villagers, but you can’t force our family.” Old Master Zhou tapped out his pipe and spoke calmly. There was not the slightest sign of yielding in his voice.

It was not that they were heartless. Leaving aside whether they could solve the problem, the political climate alone made it dangerous. If someone let something slip one day, they would become a prime target. Besides, Widow Zhou was already under scrutiny.

Father stared at Old Master Zhou with pleading eyes. His teeth were clenched tightly, as though making some difficult decision. After several seconds of silence, tears suddenly streamed down his face. Then he dropped to his knees before Old Master Zhou. Immediately afterward, Mother knelt beside him while still holding me.

A man does not shed tears lightly, only because his sorrow has not yet reached its deepest point.

Father had cried only a handful of times in his life. If he was crying now, then he was truly heartbroken. Heartbroken that his only son had become like this. Heartbroken that one day even a man as strong and upright as he was would have to kneel before someone else.

Such a heavy debt of parental love truly is the hardest karmic bond to repay in any lifetime. That is why filial piety stands foremost among virtues. To fail one’s parents is the gravest wrongdoing.

“Junhong, what are you doing? You child, ah... why are you kneeling?” Old Master Zhou had clearly never expected this. He sprang to his feet at once, his voice tinged with panic.