Good Luck in the Year of the Pig

The traffic jam made it difficult to move, and the lady in the car was in a daze, listening to the tender singing of someone else’s child, her thoughts wandering.

“The hour is too late, Sister, let’s go to that expert tomorrow. I never thought it would be so cold in winter in Caifeng City.” The woman sitting next to the lady was slightly younger, and the two looked a bit alike.

The lady returned to her senses and replied to her sister’s words, “It’s a cold winter this year. I’ve never been so cold before. It’ll be good if those people on the bikes out there who have children with them don’t get sick from the cold. The traffic is heavy, the roads are slippery and there’s not enough light. It’s too dangerous to ride.”

The younger sister felt a little sad. Her sister loved children and did charity work every year for children around the world, so she couldn’t bear to see them suffer. Outside, the sky was dark, cold and rainy, only dimly lit by street lamps and headlights of the cars, and among tiny electric bikes driving alongside big four-wheeled vehicles, many carried children. After all, it was the time when school ended. It was indeed heart-wrenching to look at, but this was the reality of a suburban town like Qixia. Not everyone’s family could afford to buy a car to shelter their children from the wind and rain.

The sisters were lamenting the difficulties of the people of the lower class when on the side of the road a brightly decorated electric moped slid to the ground with a crash, with the adult and child thrown off in an instant.

“Ah!” The two women inside the car shrieked in unison as the road filled with countless harsh sounds of brakes and horns.

“They really fell! Are they okay?” The younger sister clutched her heart nervously.

The driver hurriedly said, “Don’t worry, Madam, I can see them getting up. They look like they should be fine, bruised at most.” He added helplessly, “It’s the driver of the Buick that was hit by the moped that is probably going to be unlucky.”

“Why?” The older sister asked.

The driver sighed, “Touch the porcelain, I guess(1).”

The owner of the electric moped was a fifty- or sixty-year-old grandfather who rode his moped every day to pick up his grandson from the kindergarten. The moment he fell he panicked, flung helplessly off the moped; and then boom, the moped crashed into a Buick next to him while he and the child both fell in the middle of the traffic. Fortunately, because of the traffic jam the cars didn’t move, so they didn’t get any secondary injuries.

The old man got up and hurriedly went to check on his crying grandson. Luckily, the child was not in any serious trouble. His clothes were thick and he was probably just a little bruised. But the old man didn’t know if there was some hidden injury and he couldn’t help being flustered when he thought that it would be hard to explain the accident to his son and daughter-in-law when he went home.

With barely any thought, the old man pointed furiously at the white Buick that had its headlight cracked: “How do you drive! Are you blind?! If you kill my grandson, my whole family will make you pay!”

As soon as the driver of the Buick heard that, he got out of the car to face the old man, saying angrily, “You think the surveillance is just a decoration? You want to touch the porcelain? Damn it, it’s my bad luck to run into people like you!” After yelling for a while, the driver hastily called his insurance company.

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“You hit my grandson, you should be responsible for the medical expenses! Take us to a big hospital for a full body check-up!”

“Nice try! I won’t pay a dime, it’s none of my business if you’re looking for death!” The driver of the Buick was not a good-tempered guy either.

The old man was so angry that he simply sat down on the ground and rolled around, wailing.

……

“Ai.” The sisters in the car shook their heads and sighed, “Tarnishing the reputation of the elderly.”

“Look at this, everyone, this son of a bitch kills people in the broad light and doesn’t want to take responsibility!”

“Even the elderly and the children are not spared!”

“What the hell are you howling about? Go and cry on the pavement, don’t block the road!” The rest of the drivers who were watching the show grew impatient, trying to squeeze past the rowdy scene. 

Lu Ying parked his moped on the edge of the flower bed. His mood changed from the initial worry to the current contempt and disgust as he said to Lu Zaizai, “Zaizai, don’t be like the old grandpa, it’s bad and embarrassing!” He had been scammed once before and had to pay a full two hundred yuan to get out of it, so from then on he was very wary of old men and women on the road.

Lu Zaizai nodded sensibly: “I saw that the old man fell down by himself, so he can’t blame anyone else. He also crashed into the uncle’s car.”

The more the old man howled the more energetic he became. Lu Ying could not help but take off the hood of his raincoat and say in a loud voice: “You are so old, are you not afraid of shame, coming to touch the porcelain? Please look at your grandson, he is all wet and shivering. Take care of the child!”

After yelling that, Lu Ying didn’t care what the old man’s reaction was, put on the hood of his raincoat and rode away calmly.

Until Lu Ying’s electric moped completely disappeared into the night, the woman with grey hair inside the luxury car still hadn’t come back to her senses.

“Let’s go too, the traffic police are already coming over.” The younger sister ordered the driver.

The car slowly moved forward, but the elder sister suddenly opened the window and craned her neck to look out.

“What are you doing, Sister?” Her younger sister was astonished, completely confused by the lady’s dangerous behaviour.

Embarrassed, the lady returned to her senses and whispered, “I saw an acquaintance.”

“Who was it?” The woman was really curious about someone who could get her elder sister so excited.

The lady shook her head and said nothing.

How could she bear to tell her sister that years ago, she had done something very embarrassing to force that young man to leave her son?

After all these years, the young man had actually become a father.

But her son, on the other hand, could not have a child no matter how she begged.

This… could it be retribution?

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The lady’s mood was particularly complicated. In the past two years, she had been seeking medical treatment, begged gods and Buddhas, and looked for masters and experts, all for the sake of continuation of the Qin family’s bloodline. Her sister told her that there was a very powerful mysterious doctor in Qixia Town of Caifeng City. The two made a lot of inquiries and as soon as they were sure that the reputation of the doctor was true, they immediately set off to the town.

When the lady heard the strange and familiar name of Qixia Town, there was a slight hesitation in her heart. The young man she had driven away was born in the remote mountains near Qixia Town. Since the young man had disappeared from sight just as she had hoped, it was most likely that he had returned to Qixia, his hometown.

In any case, she did not want to run into him, or rather, did not dare to see him again. The only bad thing she had ever done in her life was related to that young man.

She never expected to see him again after all these years. The young man’s face had barely changed at all; the only thing that had changed about him was the aura of being a grown-up.

Yes, he was a father now, and he looked much more stable than before, ah.

The lady suddenly realised something. Since the other party had become a father, and judging by the age of the child, the young man likely got married and had children as soon as he returned to his hometown. Thinking about it, she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

At least it proved that she had made the right decision back then.

The boy was, as she predicted, simply young and ignorant, uneducated and unintelligent. He fell in love without understanding anything, not even knowing what he really needed in the future. The so-called love was not worth mentioning in the face of reality.

Even though she kept reassuring herself, Mrs. Qin still couldn’t control her insomnia that night. After tossing and turning on the hotel bed, she simply got up, took her mobile phone and hesitantly sent a message to her son far away in Guanlan City. 

“Zhuopu, are you asleep?”

As soon as the message was sent, the phone in Mrs. Qin’s hand rang. She hastily picked it up and couldn’t help but preach as soon as she opened her mouth, “Zhuopu, why are you still up at two o’clock? You can’t ruin your body like this. It’s not that you don’t understand how much it harms your health to stay up late.”

Qin Zhuopu’s low and quiet voice over the phone sounded exceptionally calm: “Mom, I’m in England. I’ll probably go back tomorrow.”

“…Why did you run away again all of a sudden.” Mrs. Qin felt helpless and didn’t know what to say: “You get even more tired from running around all day.”

“I know what I’m doing. Why is Mom still awake?”

“Oh, Mom drank too much tea with your aunt in the evening and is having a little insomnia at the moment.”

“Try to sleep, don’t stay up late at your old age.”

Mrs. Qin let out a soft sigh.

“Zhuopu, Mom today…”

“What?” He could sense through the phone that his mother had something on her mind, and Qin Zhuopu was both worried and frustrated. He felt that with 80% probability it was about the matter of him having a child again. He could understand his grandfather’s and his mother’s desire, but that didn’t mean he approved of all this tossing and turning. Once or twice wasn’t enough, now it had been five or six times, and to be honest, he almost despaired himself, thinking that he might be on the verge of dying in his middle age. The good news was that the doctors told him that he was perfectly healthy, so what else was there to fear?

Qin Zhuopu also liked children, but that kind of thing depended on fate. If you have one, you can be a good father; if not, forget it. It’s fun to keep challenging yourself in your career.

In a distant country, sitting in front of a bright floor-to-ceiling window, Qin Zhuopu flipped through a thick file while absent-mindedly reassuring his mother, “Mom, rest early, don’t be so old-fashioned, you’re making it hard on yourself by putting pressure on me.”

“It’s not like our Qin family has a throne to inherit, the child is not a necessity.”

The assistant who was sorting out the paperwork at the side couldn’t help but take a quick glance at the boss. Mr. Qin’s net worth was a mystery, plus all the assets of the Qin family and Mrs. Qin’s assets; if they were converted into gold, what a huge throne it would be!

Ba ba, I want to inherit (个_个).

To scam sb by setting up an “accident” in which one appears to have sustained damage or injury caused by the scam victim, then demanding compensation (variations include putting “expensive” porcelain in a place where it is likely to be knocked over by passers-by, and stepping into the path of a slow-moving car)