Chapter 2: The Rain When I Was Fourteen
I sat in an internet café chair until dawn.
The transfer records on the screen had been scrolled all the way to the bottom. The oldest entry was from ten years ago. The amount was 200 yuan, and the message attached to it contained five Chinese characters: Mom, I got paid.
Sender: Chen Mo.148Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1YcC85ZuxW
Recipient: Liu Guilan.
It was the first paycheck of my life.
I was fourteen, working as a construction laborer for thirty yuan a day. After seven days, the contractor paid me 210 yuan. I kept ten yuan for myself, bought two packs of the cheapest cigarettes, and gave them to Old Zhou to thank him for bringing me along. I sent the remaining 200 yuan home in full.
Back then, there were no mobile payment apps. I walked three kilometers to the post office in town. My hands trembled as I filled out the money transfer form.
The woman behind the counter asked, “Little boy, who are you sending the money to?”
“My mom,” I replied.
She looked at me but said nothing more.
It was the first time I had felt useful.
But that morning, as I sat in the internet café staring at that ten-year-old record, I suddenly remembered a small detail I had forgotten for years.
After sending the money that day, I called my mother. She cried. She cried so hard that she could barely speak. In the end, she managed to say just one thing.
“Mo, you're the pillar of this family.”
The pillar of the family.
I was fourteen.
My father had fallen ill that year. He suffered from a herniated disc and could no longer do heavy labor. He had to lie at home most of the time. My mother washed dishes for people in town, earning 1,200 yuan a month.
My eldest brother, Chen Qiang, was in his second year of high school. His tuition, accommodation, and living expenses came to nearly 5,000 yuan each semester.
My second brother, Chen Hui, had just been accepted into a vocational college. He said he didn't want to study anymore. Instead, he wanted to start an internet café with a business partner. He asked for 20,000 yuan right off the bat.
Our family couldn't afford it.
That night, I heard my mother crying in the room next door. She kept her sobs low, muffling them under a blanket as if she were afraid someone might hear. My father said nothing. Every now and then, he let out a sigh.
I lay on my wooden bed, staring at a crack in the ceiling, thinking for a long time.
The next morning, I told my mother, “I'm quitting school.”
She was tending the fire at the stove. Her hand froze, and a piece of firewood fell to the ground. She turned to look at me. Her eyes were swollen, and her lips trembled for a long time before she finally asked, “Have you made up your mind?”
“Yes.”
“You're a good student…”
“Big Brother is even better,” I said. “He can go to university. I'll go out and work. It's the same either way.”
My mother said nothing more. She crouched down to pick up the firewood, her shoulders shaking. I thought she was crying.
Many years later, I would learn that perhaps she had actually been relieved that day.
Old Zhou was from a neighboring village, ten years older than me. He worked on construction sites all over the country and was rarely home. That year, he happened to return to recruit workers.
I went to find him. He studied me for a long moment before asking, “How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” I lied.
He didn't call me out on it. He simply patted my shoulder and said, “Tomorrow morning, five o'clock. Tractor at the village entrance.”
When I left the next day, the sky was still dark. My mother boiled six eggs, put them in a plastic bag, and stuffed them into my backpack.
My father stood at the doorway, leaning on his crutches. He glanced at me and said, “Work hard. Don't bring shame on yourself.”
My eldest brother, Chen Qiang, was still asleep.
My second brother, Chen Hui, had gotten up, though. He stood in the courtyard, watching me sling my backpack over my shoulders. Then he suddenly said, “Little Brother, once I make money from my business, you won't have to work so hard anymore.”
I believed him.
I really did.
The construction site was in the city, where a residential development was having its foundations built. It was my first construction site and the turning point of my life.
Before that, I thought the world consisted of textbooks, exams, and the three tiled-roof rooms of our family home.
Afterward, I learned that the world was made of cement, steel bars, concrete mixers, and fingernails that could never be cleaned properly.
Old Zhou assigned me what he considered the easiest job: carrying bricks.
But carrying bricks was no easy task.
A stack of twenty bricks weighed around thirty kilograms. I carried ten bricks at a time, walking from the storage area to the bricklayers. Each trip was fifty meters.
After finishing my first day, I could barely close my fingers. They wouldn't bend properly, and I couldn't even hold my chopsticks at dinner.
I squatted outside the workers' shed, shoveling rice into my mouth with a spoon. Tears rolled into my bowl, one after another.
Old Zhou came over with his lunchbox. He sat beside me without looking at me and said only one thing.
“Once you've finished crying, you'll feel better.”
I finished crying.
Then I went back to carrying bricks the next day.
I earned thirty yuan a day, with meals and accommodation included.
We ate cabbage and tofu, with meat occasionally. It was usually fatty, glistening with oil, and the workers would scramble to grab it.
We lived in a makeshift workers' shed built from corrugated metal. It was like a steamer in summer and an icebox in winter.
Seven other workers and I squeezed onto one long shared bed. If we wanted to turn over, we had to count to three together.
I kept only 200 yuan for myself each month. It covered toothpaste, soap, and cigarettes.
The cigarettes weren't for me. I handed them out to the other workers.
Old Zhou had taught me that. He said, “You're young. If you want people to look after you, keep your words sweet, work hard, and share your cigarettes.”
I did exactly as he said.
As a result, nobody ever bullied me.
I sent every remaining cent home.
In the first year, my mother called to tell me that my eldest brother had gotten into a university. It was an ordinary second-tier university, and the tuition was 5,000 yuan.
I sent home 6,000 yuan.
I told her to use the extra 1,000 yuan to buy my brother some new clothes so his classmates in the city wouldn't look down on him.
In the second year, my father was hospitalized. His surgery cost 12,000 yuan.
I sent 15,000 yuan.
In the third year, my second brother, Chen Hui, said he couldn't continue studying at college. He wanted to quit and start a business by opening an internet café.
He was short by 20,000 yuan.
I sent him 22,000 yuan.
That was my entire savings from two years of work.
Whenever I sent money, I never asked why it was needed.
When my mother called and started crying halfway through the conversation, I would say, “Don't cry. I'm here.”
Whenever my father called, he always said the same thing: “Everything is fine at home. Take care of yourself.”
My eldest brother never called me.
My second brother called occasionally, but every time, he wanted to borrow money. After borrowing it, he would say, “Once I make money, you'll be the first person I pay back.”
I believed him.
I believed him for ten years.
When I was seventeen, I was promoted from a laborer to a skilled construction worker. My daily wage rose from thirty yuan to eighty.
At eighteen, I followed Old Zhou and learned to read blueprints, set out building lines, and lay bricks.
At nineteen, I was leading my first crew.
At twenty, I began taking on small construction jobs of my own.
The money I sent home increased from 200 yuan to 2,000, then 5,000, and eventually 10,000 yuan at a time.
My family renovated the house. My father got a new wheelchair. My eldest brother got married. My second brother's internet café went bankrupt, and later he started a company.
As for me, I grew from 165 centimeters to 178 centimeters on construction sites.
I went from weighing 45 kilograms to 70.
I went from wearing out a pair of cheap white sneakers to being able to afford a pair of 200-yuan sports shoes.
The most expensive thing I had ever bought for myself was a smartphone that cost 1,200 yuan.
I needed it to transfer money, read blueprints, and record every phone call.
It was my second brother, Chen Hui, who taught me to record calls.
The year he started his business, he borrowed money from me. During one phone call, I asked him, “Brother, when are you going to pay me back?”
He laughed and said, “Little Brother, don't worry. It's a loan. I'll pay you back double.”
After hanging up, Old Zhou, who had been standing nearby, remarked, “That's just a verbal promise. You have no proof.”
I thought about what he said.
From then on, I recorded every phone conversation involving money.
I didn't know why I had developed that habit.
Maybe it was because I'd spent so many years on construction sites, witnessing workers being cheated out of their wages by contractors or swindled by their own coworkers.
Or perhaps, deep down, I had understood long ago that in this family, I needed to keep some evidence in reserve.
Still, I held on to a little hope back then.
I was twenty-four when I bought the house.
I'd spent ten full years working on construction sites and managed to save 370,000 yuan.
My parents said my eldest brother was getting married and needed a house.
I found a second-hand apartment with two bedrooms and one living room. The down payment was 350,000 yuan.
I told my mother, “Mom, I'll pay for the house. You can put anyone's name on the title. As long as you all have somewhere to live, that's all that matters.”
She replied, “Put your eldest brother's name on it. It'll make getting a loan easier. We're family anyway. It doesn't matter whose name is on the title.”
My eldest brother, Chen Qiang, nodded beside her.
My second brother, Chen Hui, added, “That's right, Little Brother. Don't worry. This house will always be yours.”
I transferred the 370,000 yuan and wrote House Payment in the transaction note.
On the day the paperwork was completed, I was away working on a construction project and couldn't attend.
When the property certificate was issued, my mother sent me a photo.
Only one name appeared on it: Chen Qiang.
I didn't think much of it.
I really didn't.
Not until four years later, on that rainy night when Chen Hui threw my suitcase down from the third floor and my mother nearly blurted out, “You are—”
Only then did I finally understand.
From the very beginning, that apartment had never been intended to have my name on it.
Just like the first 200 yuan from my paycheck. Once it entered the family home, it became the family's money.
Just like the 22,000 yuan I gave my second brother to start his business. That was simply a “voluntary gift.”
Just like the fact that I dropped out of school at fourteen. That was what I was “supposed” to do.
Just like the money I'd sent home for ten years. That was merely my “filial duty.”
Because I had never truly been part of this family.
Outside the internet café window, the rain had stopped.
Dawn had broken.
I took a screenshot of the ten-year-old transfer record that said Mom, I got paid.
I put it in a folder together with Chen Hui's words from the previous night and the unfinished sentence my mother had almost said.
I typed three Chinese characters as the folder's name:
“Who Am I?”
ns216.73.216.62da2
and then Add to home screen.