Before the ashes of Dad had even cooled, Mom pushed an agreement in front of me.
“The house and the savings belong to me and your sisters. Move out.”
I stared at that piece of paper for a full ten seconds before I realized what she was saying.
Today was the third day after Dad’s burial. His portrait was still displayed in the living room, and a thick layer of ash had accumulated in the incense burner. The whole room was filled with the burnt smell of paper offerings. I was still wearing the black jacket I had bought for the funeral. The zipper was broken halfway and always got stuck at my chest.
“Mom, what did you say?”
Zhou Xiulan did not look at me. Her eyes were fixed on the agreement on the coffee table, as if she were reciting a script she had memorized long ago.
“Your father told us before he passed that he was leaving the house to us, mother and daughters. You’re grown up now and can earn money yourself, so move out.”
Before I could say anything, Su Xue, sitting on the other end of the sofa, laughed.
The thirteen-year-old girl sat with her legs crossed, eating an apple while scrolling through videos on her phone without even looking up.
“Exactly. Since you’re so good at making money, Sister, just earn enough to buy another house.”
My younger sister Su Yao, sitting beside her, gently pushed her.
“Don’t say that about Big Sister.”
Su Xue rolled her eyes.
“But it’s true. She started working when she was in junior high. She’s much more capable than us.”
Su Yao said nothing.
I watched her lower her head, her bangs covering half of her face and the corners of her lips pressed into a straight line.
That was the standard expression she used whenever she pretended to be innocent.
“Why?”
My voice was calmer than I had expected.
Zhou Xiulan finally raised her head and looked at me. Her eyes were red, as if she were the one who had suffered some enormous injustice.
“Nian Nian, Mom doesn’t want to do this either. But your sisters are still young. They still have to go to school and get married. They can’t be without a house. You… you’re a girl. Sooner or later, you’ll belong to another family anyway. There’s no use leaving the house to you.”
“I’m not getting married,” I said.
“You still can’t have the house.” Su Xue threw the apple core toward the trash can. She missed, and it bounced onto the floor beside it. No one went to pick it up. “This house belongs to Mom and Dad in the first place. What does it have to do with you?”
“What does it have to do with me?”
I repeated her words.
Ten years.
For these ten years, ever since I was fourteen, every penny I earned had gone into this family’s pocket.
I turned my head toward Su Yao.
“Yao Yao, where did your university tuition come from?”
Su Yao lowered her head even further, her voice as quiet as a mosquito.
“Big Sister, I…”
“I asked you where it came from.”
“Big Sister earned it,” she said.
I looked at Su Lin.
“Your new phone, your dance classes, the air conditioner in your room. Where did they come from?”
Su Lin’s face turned red. She bit her lip and said nothing.
I looked at Su Shan.
“The down jacket you’re wearing. We bought it last year. It cost 1,800 yuan. Who bought it?”
Su Shan burst into tears and threw herself into Zhou Xiulan’s arms.
“Mom, Sister is being mean to me!”
Zhou Xiulan immediately hugged Su Shan and shouted at me.
“Su Nian! That’s enough! You’re the older sister. What’s wrong with spending a little money on your younger sisters? We raised you all these years. What’s wrong with spending some of your money? Your father just died, and you’re already here keeping accounts with your sisters. Do you have any conscience at all?”
I laughed.
In these ten years, I had heard that sentence countless times.
“Do you have any conscience?”
The first time I heard it was during the winter when I was fourteen.
My father, Su Jianguo, had been cheated in his business and owed 300,000 yuan.
At that time, 300,000 yuan in a small county like ours was enough to bring the sky crashing down.
Creditors came to our house carrying knives and chopped half of our door apart.
My mother knelt on the floor, clinging to the creditor’s leg and crying. My father slumped in a chair, looking as if all the strength had been drained from his body.
My mother turned around and looked at me, her eyes completely red.
“Nian Nian, you’re the eldest daughter. You have to step up.”
I stepped up.
At fourteen, in the second year of junior high school, I started working part-time while studying.
I woke up at five in the morning to help fry dough sticks at a breakfast shop. My hands were covered in blisters from splashing hot oil, and no one asked whether I was okay.
At 7:30, I rushed to school. I was so tired that I fell asleep in class and was dragged to the teachers’ office and scolded by my homeroom teacher.
After school, I went to a restaurant to carry dishes until eleven at night.
When I got home, I still had to wash my younger sisters’ clothes.
During those years, what I feared most was not being tired.
It was the winter mornings before dawn.
The cold was bone-chilling. I rode an old twenty-eight-inch bicycle to the breakfast shop, and my fingers cracked from the cold. Every time I gripped the handlebars, blood would seep from the wounds.
My father’s illness became worse and worse.
To save money, he refused to go to the hospital. He lay at home coughing, coughing through the entire night without being able to sleep.
I heard him crying in his room, suppressing his voice because he was afraid we would hear him.
Every month, I gave the money I earned to my mother. She said she would use it to repay the debt.
I asked her how much had been repaid and how much was left.
She never told me.
She only said, “Don’t worry about it. Mom knows what she’s doing.”
I believed her.
I believed her for ten years.
“Mom, where are the records of all the money I gave you over the years?”
Zhou Xiulan suddenly screamed.
“What records? We used it to repay your father’s debt! Do you think that little bit of money you earned was enough for anything? Three hundred thousand yuan! The little money you made wasn’t even enough to cover the interest!”
I took a deep breath.
Then I pulled out my phone, opened a photo, and held it up in front of her.
It was a photo of a bank transfer slip I had found yesterday while sorting through my father’s belongings.
It said:
Transfer amount: 100,000 yuan10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ07nIJrAECE
Recipient: Wang Jianguo10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUCx5JEu7IL
Date: Three days before my father died.
“Three days before Dad died, you transferred 100,000 yuan to Wang Jianguo.”
I looked at her and spoke word by word.
“Who is this person?”
Zhou Xiulan’s face instantly turned pale.
Su Yao suddenly stood up from the sofa and snatched my phone.
“Big Sister, what are you doing! Are you suspecting Mom?”
“Give me my phone.”
“Why do you have the right to check Mom’s accounts? Who do you think you are—”
“Give it back.”
I reached out to take it.
Su Yao stepped backward.
The phone slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a loud crack.
The screen shattered, spiderweb-like cracks spreading from the center.
The living room became so quiet that I could hear the sound of incense ash falling.
Su Yao stood there, her lips trembling.
A strange emotion flashed through her eyes, something I couldn’t understand.
But she quickly lowered her head and whispered,
“I’m sorry, Big Sister. I didn’t mean to…”
Zhou Xiulan suddenly began wailing.
“Su Nian! You might as well just force your mother to death! Your father just died, and you’re already checking my accounts! Do you think I’m a thief?”
All four of my younger sisters gathered around her.
Each one cried louder than the last.
I stood there, looking at the shattered phone on the floor.
The people in this family looked so unfamiliar.
Ten years ago, at fourteen, I had cut off every possibility my life could have had and exchanged it for this family’s chance to live well.
Ten years later, they stood together crying in front of me, as if I were the villain.
I turned around and walked toward the door.
Behind me, Su Xue’s clear voice followed.
“Sis, when are you moving out? I want to turn your room into a study.”
My footsteps stopped for a moment.
I didn’t turn around.
“Whenever.”
The moment I walked out of the house, the sunlight was glaringly white.
The forty-degree heat hit my face like a slap.
I didn’t cry.
I stood at the entrance of the residential compound, watching people come and go along the road.
Suddenly, I felt that these ten years had been nothing but a dream.
When I woke up from the dream, my father was gone.
My home was no longer mine.
And I didn’t even have anywhere to go.
My phone was broken.
I took the only 137 yuan left in my pocket and went to a roadside shop to buy a bottle of mineral water.
The shopkeeper asked if I wanted to buy a piece of bread too.
I shook my head.
I wasn’t hungry.
I just missed my father a little.
By the time I returned home, it was already dark.
Zhou Xiulan and my sisters seemed to have gone out. The house was unlit.
I felt my way into my father’s room and began sorting through the few belongings he had left.
Old clothes.
Old glasses.
An electric shaver he had used for more than ten years.
Several old almanacs that had been flipped through until they were worn out.
I folded and arranged everything one by one.
I couldn’t explain what I was feeling.
Finally, when I was clearing out the bedside table, I pulled open the bottom drawer.
There were only a few old books inside.
I took the books out.
At the very back of the drawer, I felt something hard.
I pulled it out.
It was a black voice recorder.
Underneath it was a letter.
The handwriting on the envelope belonged to my father, crooked and uneven, as if he had used all the strength left in his body to write it.
“Nian Nian, Dad is sorry. In this family, you are the only one who has treated me right.”
I stared at those words.
My eyes suddenly burned with tears.
I held the letter and the voice recorder tightly in my hands, crouching in my father’s room for a very long time without moving.
Outside the window, the summer night wind carried waves of heat into the room.
In the distance, cicadas were calling, their cries becoming hoarser and more strained with every sound.
I tightened my grip around the voice recorder.
Dad, did you leave something else behind for me?
ns216.73.216.103da2
and then Add to home screen.