Lawyer Zhao’s office was very cool.
The air conditioner was set to twenty-six degrees. Cool air blew down from above. Sitting on the leather sofa, I felt for the first time that perhaps the air conditioning I had been deprived of for the past twelve years had finally been paid back to me.
“Mr. Su Jianguo made his will three years ago.”
Lawyer Zhao pushed a document toward me, his tone calm.
“The house, the savings, and all the property under his name are to be inherited entirely by his eldest daughter, Su Nian.”
I stared at my father’s crooked signature on the document, my fingers slowly tightening.
“He knew his health was failing.”
Lawyer Zhao took off his glasses and looked at me.
“He said that the person he felt most sorry for in his entire life was you.”
I placed the voice recorder on the table and pressed the play button.
My father’s weak voice echoed through the office.
“The house and savings all go to Nian Nian. She went out to work at fourteen to help me repay my debts. In this family, she is the only one who has treated me right. Don’t let Xiulan and the four younger ones bully her anymore.”
After listening, Lawyer Zhao sighed.
“Miss Su, legally, this recording can be used as supplementary evidence. If you want to file a lawsuit, I can help you.”
“I do.”
I raised my head.
My voice was soft, but steady.
“I want to take back what belongs to me.”
The news spread faster than I expected.
The next day, Zhou Xiulan brought my four younger sisters and blocked the entrance to my company.
Su Xue sat on the steps, crying loudly.
Su Lin and Su Shan supported Zhou Xiulan from either side.
Su Yao stood behind them, holding up her phone and recording a video.
“Su Nian! You ungrateful thing!”
Zhou Xiulan pointed at me, screaming until her voice became hoarse.
“Your father just died, and now you want to throw your mother and sisters out! Are you even human?”
My colleagues gathered around.
Someone whispered,
“Isn’t that Su Nian’s mother? What’s going on?”
“Is she refusing to support her mother?”
“She doesn’t look like that kind of person. She’s usually so quiet…”
I stood on the steps, watching them perform.
Seeing that I wasn’t saying anything, Zhou Xiulan cried even harder.
“I raised you all these years, and now that you’ve grown wings, you want to take your own mother to court! Are you even human?”
Su Xue got up from the ground and shouted at me.
“Su Nian! I’m going to post this online! I’ll let everyone see what kind of person you are!”
I smiled.
Then I took a stack of papers out of my bag.
“I’ll help you post it.”
I spread the papers out one by one.
Bank statements.
Transfer records.
Copies of the account book.
Proof that the debt had been fully paid.
Every single page was clear and undeniable.
“These are every payment I transferred to Mom from the age of fourteen to twenty-six, over twelve years. The total is 437,600 yuan.”
I pointed at the densely packed numbers.
“These are the payments Mom continued taking from me under the excuse of repaying the debt after the debt had already been cleared. The total is 185,000 yuan.”
“And these are the transfers she made to Wang Jianguo. The total is 112,000 yuan.”
The surroundings fell silent.
“And there’s this.”
I raised the voice recorder and pressed play.
My father’s voice struck the ground word by word.
“Don’t let Xiulan and the four younger ones bully her anymore.”
Su Yao’s phone fell to the ground with a crack.
The screen shattered.
Zhou Xiulan stood there with her mouth open, as if someone had grabbed her by the throat.
She couldn’t say a single word.
Su Xue was stunned.
She looked at Zhou Xiulan, then at me.
Her lips trembled as she forced out,
“You… you forged it…”
“Then sue me.”
I put everything away and looked at them.
“See you in court.”
The moment I turned around, I heard Su Yao’s voice behind me.
It was very quiet, filled with tears.
“Sis… I’m sorry…”
I didn’t stop.
The day the court delivered its judgment was overcast.
Zhou Xiulan and my four younger sisters sat across from me, crying together.
Su Yao kept her head lowered.
Su Lin didn’t dare look at me.
Su Shan shrank behind her mother.
Su Xue’s eyes were red, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
Lawyer Zhao presented all the evidence on my behalf.
I sat in the plaintiff’s seat and said only one thing from beginning to end:
“Twelve years ago, I was fourteen. My mother knelt in front of me and begged me to go out and make money to repay the family’s debts. At that time, I said yes.”
“For twelve years, I slept only four or five hours a day. I washed dishes in restaurants, handed out flyers on the streets, and cut loose threads in factories. I wore clothes my classmates didn’t want anymore. I ate free rice from the cafeteria with soy sauce. Every penny I earned, I gave to my mother.”
“But after the debt was paid off, she continued lying to me and telling me it hadn’t been paid off. She took my hard-earned money and transferred it to a man named Wang Jianguo. Before my father died, she tried to erase the recording. She brought my four younger sisters with her and tried to drive me out of the house.”
“Today, I only want to ask one question.”
I turned my head and looked at Zhou Xiulan.
“What exactly did I do wrong?”
Zhou Xiulan’s lips trembled.
Tears fell from her eyes.
She said nothing.
Because there was nothing she could say.
The moment the judgment was announced, I felt a kind of relief I had never experienced before.
The house was awarded to me.
The savings were awarded to me.
When I walked out of the courthouse, sunlight fell across my face.
I stood on the steps and slowly let out a breath, as if I were finally breathing out all the grievances I had carried for twelve years.
Three days later, I returned to the home where I had lived for twenty-six years.
Zhou Xiulan and my four younger sisters’ belongings were still piled up in the living room.
I didn’t touch anything else.
I simply carried their luggage, one piece at a time, to the doorway.
Su Xue stood beside me, her eyes full of tears.
“Sis, I know I was wrong. Please don’t kick us out, okay? I’ll definitely listen to you from now on…”
I continued carrying the luggage without looking at her.
Su Lin ran over and grabbed my arm.
“Sis, I really didn’t know Mom had been lying to you. I really didn’t know anything…”
I turned around and stared into her eyes.
“Then did you know that the money for your dance lessons, the money for your phone, and the money for the air conditioner in your room were all squeezed out of me?”
She let go of my arm.
Su Yao remained silent the entire time.
She stood at the doorway and watched me throw the last piece of luggage outside.
Only then did she softly say,
“Sis, I’m leaving.”
I nodded.
She turned around and left.
The other three sisters followed her, crying.
Zhou Xiulan stood at the doorway.
Her hair was disheveled, her eyes swollen and red.
Her lips moved several times before she finally forced out,
“Nian Nian, Mom knows she was wrong… Mom is sorry… Please let Mom stay. Mom can’t live without you…”
I stopped what I was doing and looked at her.
I remembered twelve years ago, when she had knelt in front of me, crying and saying,
“Nian Nian, Mom can’t live without you.”
Twelve years.
The exact same sentence.
Only back then, she was the one kneeling.
Now, she was the one standing.
And the person who had been kneeling for twelve years was me.
“Mom.”
I looked at her.
“I don’t owe you anything anymore.”
Then I closed the door.
The day I moved into my new apartment, I bought two things.
An air conditioner.
And a desk lamp.
After the air conditioner was installed, I stood directly beneath the vent.
Cool air blew against my face.
I raised my head and stood there for a very, very long time like an idiot.
I sold the original house.
On the day the house was sold, I signed the real estate agency contract without the slightest hesitation.
There were too many memories in that home that didn’t belong to me.
I didn’t want to go back anymore.
I returned to school and started studying again.
I attended classes during the day and organized my notes in the library at night.
There was no more smell of cooking oil from restaurants.
No more freezing wind in the early hours of the morning.
No more endless piles of dishes.
I rented a very small apartment.
It had an air conditioner, a desk, and hot meals.
I placed my father’s photograph on the desk.
Beside it, I placed the voice recorder and the letter.
On the weekend, I cooked myself a meal.
Two dishes and one soup.
I placed them on the table, steam rising from them.
I took a photo and posted it on my social media feed.
The caption was:
“The first summer that belongs to me.”
What happened afterward was something I heard from the neighbors back in my hometown.
Not long after, Zhou Xiulan and my four younger sisters scattered.
Zhou Xiulan went to look for Wang Jianguo, only to be beaten and driven out by Wang Jianguo’s wife.
Su Yao was investigated by her school for her involvement in transferring the inheritance and eventually dropped out.
Su Lin went to another city to work and never came back.
Su Shan was sent to live with relatives in the countryside.
Su Xue had it the worst.
Zhou Xiulan moved several times with her, and eventually they ended up living in an urban village.
She even stopped going to school.
Whenever they mentioned me to others, they used only one word:
Ungrateful.
I no longer cared.
My mother and sisters came looking for me one summer a year later.
It was another forty-degree day.
I came home from work and saw several people crouching near the entrance of my apartment building in the distance.
Only when I got closer did I realize it was them.
All four of them.
Zhou Xiulan had lost a great deal of weight.
Half of her hair had turned white.
She was wearing a faded floral shirt.
The three sisters stood behind her, each one looking more haggard than the last.
Su Xue’s school uniform had become too short, exposing part of her wrist. The bones of her wrist protruded sharply.
When she saw me, Zhou Xiulan dropped to her knees with a thud.
“Nian Nian, Mom was wrong! Mom really knows she was wrong! Please forgive me! We’re family!”
Su Xue also began crying.
“Sis, I miss you…”
Su Lin lowered her head and cried.
Su Shan hid behind her and didn’t dare look at me.
I stood there, watching them cry.
During that year, I had imagined many times what I would do if they came looking for me.
Would I soften?
I was afraid I would.
I was afraid the habits I had developed over those twelve years would make me instinctively reach out and help them up.
But at that moment, I felt only calm.
Zhou Xiulan knelt on the ground and crawled forward two steps before grabbing the hem of my pants.
“Nian Nian, Mom is begging you. We really have nowhere to go… Let us stay for one night. Just one night…”
I lowered my head and looked at her.
Her eyes were full of tears, just like they had been twelve years ago when she begged me to go out and work.
Back then, I was only fourteen.
I didn’t understand anything.
I only knew that Mom was crying.
Mom needed me.
Now, I understood.
I bent down and removed her hand from my pants.
“No one asked you to come.”
I looked at her and spoke word by word.
“You chose to come yourselves.”
I stood up and walked to the entrance.
I opened the door, then stopped.
“Don’t come again.”
The door closed.
Heart-wrenching cries echoed through the hallway.
I changed my shoes, washed my hands, and sat down at my desk.
I switched on the desk lamp.
Cool air blew through the room.
My father’s photograph quietly watched me beneath the light.
I smiled.
“Dad, look. I’m doing very well.”
Outside the window, the cicadas cried louder and louder.
This summer somehow didn’t seem quite as hot.
(The End)
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