IM300KYAT Chapter 1

On a remote path overgrown with weeds, a plump middle-aged woman was swearing and tugging at the arm of a tall and thin man. A child was staggering and chasing after them.

The woman’s high-pitched voice pierced away many birds on the treetops.

“Are you a stupid pig, a debt collector sent by heaven? They don’t want you, why don’t you kneel and beg? He still doesn’t agree? Then go and die at the door of his house! What are you doing going back to your parents’ house? You don’t want your face, but we Hua family still want ours! ¹ [不要脸 (bù yào liǎn) means to have no sense of shame, shameless. Lit means physical face and also ‘name’ or ‘reputation’. Improper behavior will cause a loss of respect and prestige, which is called in Chinese ‘losing face’. Here, Mother Hua means that by going back to his parents’ house, Guo is ‘losing their family’s face’  Do you still think that you are qualified to pick a serious family? Not to mention the pimple on your face, just look at this little monster with strange eyes,² 杂 (zá) means miscellaneous, so it’s heteromatic eyes. I’m wording it into ‘strange eyes’ to show the hate who would boldly want you? Since Qu Qing dares to molest you, then you will stay at his house! I don’t believe he dares to refuse!”

The man’s lips turned white, and he stared at the woman with resistance, begging, almost crying: “Mother… I’ve been kicked out. He won’t want me. If I get kicked out again, I’ll die! Please don’t drive me away. I’ll do everything. I will divide the food I eat with Mao-er³ [猫 (mao) means cat  in the future. Please, Mother… don’t drive me away…”

The woman’s footsteps stopped and she turned to look at him. She raised her hand to touch his hair and her gaze fell on the red ribbon in his hair. Today is his wedding day and this red ribbon is his only dowry and also wedding dress.⁴ Red symbolizes good luck, happiness, and prosperity and have been used as wedding tradition in Chinese culture. the only red symbol worn for his wedding is this single ribbon, which significe as his wedding dress

She said: “Gou-er,⁵ 狗 (Gǒu), means dog don’t blame your parents for being cruel. Your parents have raised you for eighteen years and let this little monster you raised eat our family’s food for four years. This is already very kind and good. Besides, where in the world is there a reason for a ger not to marry? If you can’t marry and stay in your parents’ house, you’ll disgrace your ancestors. You, an old ger, eat and live at home, also carry an oil bottle,⁶ 拖油瓶 (uō yóu píng) which is a derogatory term referring to ‘underage children from a previous marriage’ who dares to come to propose marriage? Don’t you think about your brothers and sisters?”

The man called the Gou bit his lower lip tightly, unable to refute it. His heart filled with sadness. He was silent for a moment, frozen.

At this time, the child behind him finally caught up with the two of them. He had  fallen several times and had been scratched by broken stones but still chased after him without noise or crying. The child quietly raised his head and glanced at the man promptly. He quickly lowered his head and walked to the man’s side, circling around the woman, and went to the other side to clasp the man’s hand tightly.

The man felt that the child was trembling in fear, so he tightened his grasp.

The woman glanced coldly at the thin, messy, and injured child. She was unsympathetic like usual. He was neither her child nor her kin, so she couldn’t give any sympathy. She continued in gentle voice:

“You also know the situation at home. Your elder sister and younger sister are married, your elder brother is getting married, and your two younger brothers are also getting married. The family really can’t afford to support two extra people. Mother also doesn’t want to beat you, scolds you, and drives you away. But mother has no choice. Although Qu Qing is not a thing, he still has at least a few acres of land in his house. Follow him, work like a cow and a horse for him, bring tea and water, squeeze his shoulders, knead his back, let him beat and scold you. As long as he lets you stay and gives you a bite to eat, at the very least you won’t starve to death, understand?”

Gou looked at his mother, who had never been gentle before. In his heart, he was not happy at all, because he knew that he was going to be completely abandoned so he was treated so kindly. But… he would rather be a animal who was beaten and scolded, working day and night. Call him cheap, but at that time at least he would have one family.

Some children playing in the side saw the red ribbon on his head and the ugly face he was pulling. They immediately understood what was going on, and immediately laughed loudly and exaggeratedly.

“Everyone, come and see, Hua family’s ugly ger is going to be sent away with the little monster! No one wants it!”

The woman angrily blasted away these little kids and took her son to speed up  towards the mountain feet.

Gou was dragged forward in a daze. If someone dared to scold his Mao in the past, he would definitely rush up like an old hen protecting the cubs and scold those little brats. But today, he’s running out of energy to pay attention to these things.

He didn’t even know if he would be able to live through today with Mao.

—

Qu Qing was lying in a drowsy state. Before waking up, he sniffed unpleasant smell of sweat, which made him wish he could lose his sense of smel. His body was heavy. After a long time, he tried to lift his eyelids, and the first thing that caught his eyes was thatched… roof?

This realization shocked him, he suddenly rolled over and sat up straight, staring wide-eyed to look around—except for the wooden bed lying under him in the dirty and small room, there was only one lame square table, two benches, and an old broken cabinet that could be called decent, while most of the other things look tattered.

The uneven wall made of adobe looked like it would collapse in the next second. It was not surprising that through the tatched roof he could even see the sunlight and there were scattered spots of light fall on the ground. His chest heaved violently and he didn’t even know what kind of expression he should make to face such a situation.

He was about to get out of bed and go outside to have a look. He put his hand on the bed. The feeling of the surface on his palm made him look down. He opened his mouth in shock. The bed he slept in turned out to be made of straw. The quilt covering him was not only thin, but also exuded a strange stench, as if it hadn’t been washed for hundreds of years!

Qu Qing, who loved cleanliness, felt that his mood was a little broken. He lowered his head and pretended to be calm as he put on the cloth shoes with holes in front of the bed. As soon as his feet entered, he felt weird. He bent over and took off his cloth shoes. There was dirty mud and sand inside. He held back his disgust and shook off the mud and sand before reluctantly putting his shoes. He got up and looked at the dirty and messy environment around him while walking out.

The door was open and the weather outside was fine. It could be seen that it was approaching noon. Outside the house was a yard surrounded by adobe  about two meters high. The yard was also open to the outside. It seemed that the original owner was not afraid of being stolen. But then he thought again, this family was so poor that thieves might not even want to come, so how could he be afraid? There was really nothing to say about sleeping with the door open like this.

There was a pear tree in the yard, with blooming snow-white flowers. The wind that blows also carries the coolness of the warm and cold in spring.⁷ 乍暖還寒 (Zhà nuǎn huán hán) means temperatures fluctuating between warm and cold, it’s not as cold as during winter, yet it’s not as warm as during the summer

He stood in the yard and looked around outside the house, found that there was a big mountain behind the house. The mountain was full of colorful wildflowers. He couldn’t see what kind of variety it was, but it revealed wild natural beauty everywhere. The air was also very fresh. For the time being, these things eased a little bit of the bad mood caused by the harsh environment he saw when he first woke up.

He saw that there were two more rooms next to the house. He went in and took a look. Sure enough, he was not disappointed. One was still a messy woodshed and kitchen. There was a large jar in the corner. When he opened it, there was rice in it, probably only one-third. Although it was not much, he should be able to make do with it for a while. Suddenly he noticed that something seemed to be moving inside the rice. When he took closer look, he found out that it was rice worm! And it seemed that there were quite a few!

For the first time, Qu Qing, who was well-educated, had the urge to curse.

He slammed the lid back on the rice jar with a bang and took a deep breath.

Calm down, he needed to calm down!

Turning around, he was about to go to the other room to have a look. He pushed open the door, and it was covered with dust. There was only one small and high window in the room, but there were several boxes full of things in the middle of the room. The clean bags were a bit out of place compared with the poor environment. He went over to take a look and found that several bags contained the seeds of potatoes, corn, and rice.

Looking at these things, he suddenly remembered the small advertisement he saw on the wall before crossing:

[Sincerely recruiting!

The treatment is favorable, annual salary of one million, five social insurance and one housing fund, private estate, beautiful companion! Only ten years of work and you can retire! What are you waiting for?]

If he hadn’t been desperate, he would never have looked at such an advertisement. At that time, he went there, thinking that the big deal would be that he had to give up his life, and if he tried his luck, there might be a way to survive.

The mysterious man told him that he would never lie, but it should be noted that the annual salary of one million was before tax, and living accommodation and tax expenses must be deducted, so the real amount was only 300,000 and the money could be paid in full at once, but there was an important point that must be stated in advance, that was, the location and content of his work were a bit special. He had to live in ancient times, like an ancient man, without any golden fingers,⁸ 金手指 (īn shǒuzhǐ) means golden finger, a cheat, that is implausible plot beneficial to the character  without any outside help, honestly relying on his own skills to live there for ten years. There was an additional condition in which the money he saved during the ten years in ancient times could be exchanged for equivalent modern coins according to the purchasing power.

In fact, when Qu Qing heard half of it, he was basically sure that the other party was a liar, even a liar with a brain problem. But when he heard the other party said that the money could be paid in one lump sum, his heart moved. He agreed, but the other party had to pay the money first.

What he didn’t expect was that the other party took him to the bank directly, transferred three million to his card without any hesitation, and told him the work would start after five days.

At that time, Qu Qing hadn’t believed it yet, but because of the strange uneasiness in his heart, he immediately went to the hospital to pay off the debts and expenses needed for his mother’s hospitalisation for the next ten years. He entrusted all the remaining money to a trusted friend and asked him to visit his mother every year if anything happened to him.

On the fifth day, when he woke up and confirmed that he was still in modern times, he thought that the mysterious person must really be a person with a brain problem. He was thinking of going to see the person, planning to contact him to promise that he would return the money to the other party in the future. But as soon as he saw the other party, he lost consciousness. Indistinctly, he seemed to hear the words that the seeds were ready.

It seemed that the seeds he saw now was the mentioned seeds of this year.

He was glad everything was arranged before. Otherwise, if he really disappeared suddenly and came here, what would his mother do?

Recalling the conditions in the advertisement, he corresponds to the past sentence by sentence, the annual salary was one million, um, it was actually three hundred thousand which was true as he already accepted the sum. Then five social insurance and one housing fund, the other party seemed to have asked him to sign a similar contract. And assuming that he was sincere about the private estate…, Qu Qing rummaged around, and found a few land deeds, this broken thatched house plus a few acres of land. Generally speaking, although the environment was bad, but the conditions stated in that small advertisement were generally true.

Now, just waiting for him to survive ten years, if the situation was good enough, he could even work hard to earn some money to bring back.

After recognizing the environment and his current situation, he quickly walked out of the gap between imagination and reality, rolled up his sleeves and prepared to clean up his dilapidated and dirty house, when suddenly a woman’s sharp voice came from outside the door.

“Qu Qing! Come out for this old lady!”

Qu Qing was a little surprised, how could people know his name? Only then did he notice that he didn’t know whether he had crossed into someone else’s body with his soul or crossed with his body. He didn’t have time to think about it. He quickly walked out and saw standing outside were a middle-aged woman and a man with a red ribbon tied to his hair, followed by a timid child, hiding behind the man.

As soon as the middle-aged woman saw him, she changed the expression on her face fiercely, made a vicious appearance, and roughly pushed the man on her side forward to Qu Qing. Seeing that the other party was about to fall, Qu Qing subconsciously stepped forward and helped the other party. He frowned at the middle-aged woman’s behavior: “What do you mean?”

The woman was surprised when she saw that he would take the initiative to help her son, but she also thought it was probably a play.

The man who was helped up by Qu Qing seemed to be frightened by his displeased tone. He shrank for a moment, looked up at him, and then buried his head and stepped back a few steps. Only then did the child dare to go over and grab his hand, but continue to hide. Judging from the direction he was hiding, Qu Qing could see that the child seemed to be afraid of himself.

The moment the other party looked up, he saw that the man had a lot of pimples on his face, which was not very good-looking. But Qu Qing had grown it himself, so he didn’t show any expression when he saw it.

The woman raised her voice three times: “What do I mean? That’s what I want to ask you! You have tainted my ger’s innocence, but you want to pat your ass⁹ 拍拍屁股走人 (pāi pāi pìgu zǒurén) lit to dust off one’s bum and head off”, meaning to make oneself scarce/slip away.  and deny the account today? I’m telling you, there is no way! Today, my son enter your family. He was born to be a member of your Qu family and died to be a ghost of your Qu family. You have to recognize it today, and you have to recognize it if you don’t recognize it!”

The middle-aged woman, after just saying that, left her son and child behind.

Qu Qing looked at the child who seemed to be three or four years old, and thought to himself that the original owner’s son was so old?

Wait a minute!

Did this child turn out to be born to this man? Otherwise, how could there be ‘tainted innocence’, ‘admit the account’, or something?

Wasn’t it too magical? But when he thought about the fact that things like time travel had come true, it didn’t seem surprising that a man gave birth to a child.

He suddenly remembered that he had just missed the last sentence on that advertisement.

Beautiful companion… It seemed that there was also a companion. As for beauty…

Let’s just say that this one was half true. If it was counted like this, the mysterious people really didn’t lie completely.

Qu Qing sighed slowly, turned around and walked into the house. After taking a few steps, he felt that there was no movement behind him. He turned his head and said to the big and small people standing stupidly outside: “Come in.”