Chapter 1

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

On the highway of the famous development zone in W City, a young couple was talking sweetly to each other and from time to time the husband, who was driving, would glance at the belly of the charming wife sitting on the passenger’s seat.

Today was the weekend and the two had discussed about going to a village further down from Tao Xian City, which was further down W City. Zhou Jiao’s mother happened to be 60 year’s old tomorrow.

Yesterday, the couple had bought gifts that were sitting in the trunk of the car. Although Zhou Jiao is the second child at home, she was never spoiled by her parents nor received their complete love. Since she was a child, she had to rely on volunteer support to complete her junior high school, then when it came to finishing high school she relied on part-time job scholarships. After graduating from a good university, she stayed in the school and became a professor. These achievements made her stand out amongst her siblings—they paled in comparison, but in the eyes of her parents there was still only the eldest daughter and the third son.

On the highway of the famous development zone in W City, a young couple was talking sweetly to each other and from time to time the husband, who was driving, would glance at the belly of the charming wife sitting on the passenger’s seat.

Today was the weekend and the two had discussed about going to a village further down from Tao Xian City, which was further down W City. Zhou Jiao’s mother happened to be 60 year’s old tomorrow.

Yesterday, the couple had bought gifts that were sitting in the trunk of the car. Although Zhou Jiao is the second child at home, she was never spoiled by her parents nor received their complete love. Since she was a child, she had to rely on volunteer support to complete her junior high school, then when it came to finishing high school she relied on part-time job scholarships. After graduating from a good university, she stayed in the school and became a professor. These achievements made her stand out amongst her siblings—they paled in comparison, but in the eyes of her parents there was still only the eldest daughter and the third son.

The second child was stuck in the middle. The eldest was born during the parent’s newly-wed stage, when they became first time parents, and they were still happy and fine that the first child was a daughter. Thinking that the second child would be a boy, they had chosen a good character for his name. In the end, they gave birth to another “loss merchandise”*, but since they already gave birth to her she might as well be ignored. After a few more years, with much effort, they were pregnant for the third time, so in order to keep this third child they had to go against the family planning policy, which resulted in them having to pay high fees and the loss of their jobs, but fortunately the third child was a fat boy who could pass their name down from generation to generation.

But as filial piety goes, Zhou Jiao also paid in full for them and her husband, an orphan who grew up in a welfare environment, Zhang Guo Qing, always felt that filial piety is a must and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

The day he was abandoned at the orphanage also happened to be China's National Day (Chinese for National Day is Guo Qing).

The dean of the orphanage was surnamed Zhang, and compared to the other orphans, Zhang Guo Qing was a month old, developed normally, and was a healthy baby boy. Up and down the whole orphanage, everyone was curious about the abandonment of such a healthy boy at this time of year, but regardless they still enjoyed his arrival.

Perhaps God blessed him to grow up healthy with the care of the dean’s mother, but when he was a sophomore in college, she passed away and left him a 50 square meter small house she had bought when she became a widow.

Compared to Zhou Jiao, who had all her family members, and except for the lack of parental love from his absent parents, he was much more fortunate than Zhou Jiao. After graduating from senior year in college, spending two years as acquaintances then two years as lovers, he and Zhou Jiao agreed to marriage. Now that they have married for two years the small family of two were planning for a new addition. For Zhang Guo Qing, he believes that his life has been very fulfilling and fortunate.

“Jiao Jiao, push your seat a little further back and take a rest. Wait until we’ve reached Tao Xian and I’ll call you, ok? Be good, listen to me.”

Zhou Jiao said: “It’s fine, just focus on driving. I’ll keep you company by talking to you and you won’t feel sleepy that way.”

The corners of Zhang Guo Qing’s mouth hooked up into a smile. Towards his wife’s care he was very accepting and he softly said: “Then rest when you are tired! After two more months, our baby will be born. Have you thought about what to name our baby?”

“You still haven’t thought it through yet? Choose one of the names I have thought about.”

“But I want to choose a name that commemorates our love, besides we still don’t know the gender yet. If it’s a girl, I will definitely name her Zhang Xin Yue, Xin Yue as in my heart is happy with you, hehe.”

“Hehe, you’re so nauseating, but I like it very much. Then what if it’s a boy?”

The whole car ride was filled with laughter and smiles. Summer just passed and the shade from the trees on the side of the road were yellow. Looking out over the empty farm fields, the rice patty fields were already cut.

The fields had rice residues left over, and if one went over you can touch the snails, loaches, and eels. But that was before, now because of pollution many of these things are gone and has become a rarity.

Driving by these areas, you can even see dirt flying around outside. Under the setting sun, the closer you get to the village the more crowded it becomes on the road- making it impossible to not drive slowly.

The couple fell silent as they slowly approached Tao Xian. Zhou Jiao, depressed, said: “Brother*, I don’t really want to go back. The usual phone call from them is to ask for more money. My younger brother is married, doesn’t work, and only relies on our parents to borrow money every day. I’m guessing this time they’re going to say they want to buy a house and will want to ask eldest sister and us to provide subsidies. If it’s like last time and we didn’t give money and they wanted us to leave right after, let’s just leave right after this time. We’ve already discussed this before, but the things we should give have already been given, the things that we don’t need to give should not be given. My parents know you’re nice so they’ll keep asking you.”

“I know, so don’t be mad anymore, you’re pregnant right now. I’m guessing brother-in-law will say something about it later, and I’ll listen to him. The eldest sister doesn’t have it so easy, her family is not generous either. Xiao Kang also needs to go to elementary school, which I heard has a subsidy fee of 50,000. We haven’t worked for that long either, besides the house Mother Zhang gave me, right now we only have 100,000 in our hands. But don’t worry wife, my salary will increase after the year and it is predicted that my position will also be adjusted.”

“En, you know what you’re doing. For me, I have a fixed monthly salary I give to my parents. They don’t have to spend so much because they live in the rural areas and I didn’t spend their money growing up, so it’s almost the same now. Village girls, they’re not like us. Every month, in addition to the regular allowance, we also need to add some courtesy money for them. Plus, you gave them 50,000 when we got married. Eldest sister, even though she doesn’t give as much as we do, also pays them 5,000 to 10,000 every year. In actuality, they don’t lack money in their hands. Just look at my aunts, which family’s daughters would take care of their elders like we do, especially you and brother-in-law? If it wasn’t to take care of the elders, why would they want a son? They said they wanted a son to take care of the them when they grow old, and they always said back then that girls are a waste of money—just to give birth to this son they even lost their jobs. And now, they’re still taking care of this son, his wife, and wait until they have a child—they’re going to need to raise the whole family.”

“Should I look for someone to see what job is suitable for the younger brother-in-law? In the end, he should still be responsible for his family,” Zhang Guo Qing furrowed his eyebrows and comfortingly said.

“No, don’t introduce him to anything. With his personality, he’ll quit even before a month has passed. Then how will you explain it to people? Eldest brother-in-law also introduced his relative to him before. The salary was more than 5,000. In the end, within a month he complained that he was tired and felt that he should be working at an office job for college graduates. Heh, my mom also thinks that my eldest brother-in-law was incapable of introducing a better job for him. From then on, everyone was afraid of introducing him to anyone, there’s no good returns from him.”

“En, I’ll listen to you. You’re in charge of our family. After passing this road, we’ll arrive.”

These days, the country side isn’t that far off from the city. On both sides of the road are newly built small two floor buildings. Most of the walls of these buildings are covered with white tiles and fruit trees are planted next to them.

In recent years, relying on the money from the two son-in-laws and Zhou Jiao’s timely allowance, their father Zhou Da Fu was much wealthier than the brothers from his family. The five newly built rural villas had three stories and the exterior tiles were bright, not to mention the furniture. There were rules in their village. For new houses, daughters had to pay for the furniture and likewise the son-in-laws had to build the houses. Compared to their two uncles, when the topic is brought up, who doesn’t mention how fortunate Zhou Da Fu is with two such filial daughters and son-in-laws.

Every holiday is a big deal. Just by looking at how the uncle’s cousin takes rather than gifts to her family already shows how incomparable the situations are. But of course, everyone also knows this cousin has always been spoiled since childhood—so much so that she’s become overbearing and only knows how to say sweet words to manipulate them.

At first, their grandparents stubbornly refused to accept their oldest son with two daughters. After they split the family up, the grandparents followed the younger son. However, later on because the third son, Zhou Da Fu lost his job, the grandparents felt even more unsatisfied towards this son. That was until Zhou Jiao got accepted into college—and they still wanted to stop that. If it wasn’t for Zhou Jiao’s smart foresight in applying for school earlier, she would have most likely been forced to get married earlier on to get the wedding gift money.

Therefore, some things from the Zhou family are known throughout the village. However, no one was able to get their daughters to be as filial as the two sisters. Just take a look at Mother Zhou—just for her birthday the two daughters drove all the way over here in their cars, while the son was still at the outskirts of the village playing mahjong.

In actuality, Zhou Jiao did not want to come back at all, but if she didn’t come back her mother would go all the way to her school to make a fuss and cry about it. That was how the wedding gift money was taken. She may be a college professor, but which college professor wouldn’t understand the social norms of the Chinese. Her office isn’t all that peaceful either. People will gossip and talk behind other’s backs all the time. No one would look upon her with understanding eyes if she didn’t care for her elders, even if the elders never cared for her.

Zhang Guo Qing always tries to lessen the problems so he willingly gave 50,000 dollars as the wedding gift money.

Upon arriving and getting off the car, Zhou Jiao’s mind was filled with all these thoughts. Her mother greeted Zhang Guo Qing warmly. There was no way for the mother to not know that the daughter didn’t come because she was soft-hearted. Fortunately for her, the son-in-law really treated her like a mother. In her heart, she really liked this son-in-law unlike the other one who had a cold façade. Every time she went into the city, her youngest son-in-law would take her shopping, and when he wasn’t too busy he would drive her back to her village. She was also happy to go to her younger daughter’s because there were no in-laws. Not to mention, her son-in-law really knew how to be a good person. His work position gave bonus trips to Hainan, which he gave to them instead every year and he would give an addition 5000 for them to spend.

Fortunately, Father Zhou looked favorably upon this orphan of a son-in-law or else he would’ve married his daughter off to a country-side boss for 20,000. Rumor has it that this country-side boss had married three wives within three years. His second daughter’s personality was slow and a pushover, but within her heart she has things planned—she definitely wasn’t someone who could be controlled. If she doesn’t agree to it, there wouldn’t have been any wedding gift money and she would have already certified her marriage. Who even knew she had gotten into college at the beginning? While others were partying, she had already moved her bank account and address to the college where she began to study and work at the same time. She has been saving money since she was little. Who knows who she takes after. There were no reported college fees either—compared to the eldest daughter, she was much more calculative.

If it wasn’t for their son-in-law, this second daughter would’ve been raised for nothing. Father Zhou’s father once questioned if this is the family of the second daughter or is this the second daughter’s family? If the second daughter was really filial, not to mention buying a house in the country-side, buying a house in the city wouldn’t be a problem.

If Zhou Jiao know what her parents thought, she wouldn’t know whether to cry or laugh. But even if she knew, it wouldn’t have mattered. Unless it was said during that time, the parents still couldn’t have wasted more money on useless things. After a few more months, the baby will be born and the family fees will increase. Besides, her parents had savings on hand, a new house, and no worries in regards to eating and dressing. As a daughter, Zhou Jiao has done enough. But of course, this was what she thought before knowing that last night her maternal family members, including her grandparents and excluding her eldest sister’s family, had discussed how the two daughters will be the ones to buy yet another house. If she did know, she would have gone straight back into her car and left.

Translated on 5/19/20

Hello readers! This is Hunne :) hope you enjoyed the first chapter of There is Room for Rebirth in the 1950's! Honestly very excited for this novel. I enjoy the slice of life genre and anything heartwarming really.