Rebirth: Not Being a Waste - Chapter 5

Zhang Shu hesitates at the door, unsure whether he should go in. His grandparents passed away when he was 26, but now, they are still alive and well.

He doesn’t know how to face them. His grandparents have always loved him dearly. As the eldest son and grandson in the family, he has always received more than others. Except for the fact that they concealed the affair between Wu Liniang and Zhang Huai, they have never wronged him. But that incident stripped him of his dignity as a man.

His grandparents have done nothing wrong in the matter with Little Mujin. It is he who has failed to take responsibility. If he had been more capable and determined at the time, things would have turned out differently.

Moreover, he has lived until 18 without ever leaving home to work. Other young men his age have some savings, but he has nothing. Even when he wants to give Mujin a present, all he can offer is a simple trinket made from horsetail grass.

“Shu? Why are you standing at the door instead of coming in?”

A short, thin old woman wearing a dark blue apron appears at the door. She looks at Zhang Shu with affection and asks gently.

“Grandma…” He lowers his head, trying to conceal the lump in his throat. Seeing his long-dead loved ones again, he can’t help but feel emotional.

“Ah, were you bullied again? Grandma will go straight to their house! Tell me, was it Er Gouzi or San Lai’er?” Grandma Zhang fumes. Her grandson is honest and filial, but a little timid. The village troublemakers always seem to target him.

Zhang Shu blushes. Er Gouzi and San Lai’er are only thirteen or fourteen this year. Back then, they used to bully him constantly. Thinking about it now, it’s embarrassing how cowardly he was.

“Grandma, no! I fought with Wang Changfa on the mountain today and knocked him down!” Zhang Shu declares proudly. He has always felt more at ease around his grandparents and Mujin.

“Hey, Shu, why are you so impressive today?” The old lady’s face lights up with a smile. “Yes, that’s the way! You fight back, and next time, he won’t dare to mess with you.”

Zhang Shu nods, his eyes slightly wet. His grandmother truly loves him. But then why did she help that vile woman and Zhang Huai keep secrets from him? Why did she let him live as a fool, oblivious to the betrayal?

But it hasn’t happened yet. He doesn’t know their reasons. If he asks now, will the love they have shown him all this time prove to be false?

“Come in quickly, don’t just stand there. Your grandpa is back from the fields. Let’s eat. Grandma steamed two egg custards for you—both just for you!”

Zhang Shu follows his grandmother into the yard. Everything is as he remembers, as if nothing has changed.

Under the jujube tree, a stone table stands in its usual place. His grandfather sits beside it, pipe in hand, puffing leisurely.

Seeing Zhang Shu return, the old man removes the pipe from his mouth and taps it a few times against the large bluestone under the table, knocking out the ash before tucking it back into his waistband.

“Ah Shu, come inside and eat. We have bird eggs after dinner. I found a nest in Yezhu’ao today—I’ll give them all to you. Just don’t tell Ah Huai and the others.” Grandpa Zhang whispers conspiratorially, his wrinkled face full of warmth. In front of his beloved grandson, he becomes as mischievous as a child.

Zhang Shu feels a pang of sorrow. He realizes that, despite everything, he can’t bring himself to hate his grandparents for something that hasn’t even happened yet. They truly have treated him well. But he also knows he can never trust them as completely as before.

Forget it. He will just let things take their course. In any case, he will never marry Wu Liniang again, so that event won’t repeat itself.

Though he tells himself this, after dinner, he recounts the story—framing it as a tale—to his grandparents and asks for their thoughts. He wants to know what they truly think.

Grandma Zhang initially sighs over the fate of the dead man, thinking his temperament is much like Ah Shu’s—honest and pitiful.

When Zhang Shu asks why the man’s parents hid the truth from him, she thinks for a moment before replying.

“They probably knew it wouldn’t do any good to tell him. Even if they had, what could he do? At most, he could divorce his wife. But our laws are lenient—when dealing with pregnant women, the most they’d do is scold her a few times and lock her up for a couple of days. That’s it. But what about him? He’d have no wife, just a six- or seven-year-old child by his side, and aging parents who wouldn’t live much longer. What would he do then? His wife had an affair with his younger brother—there’d be no brotherly bond left. He’s soft-hearted, and without anyone to support him, how would he survive? If no one helped him, he might not even have enough to eat.”

Zhang Shu then asks, “But that man had someone he loved before. Why did his parents insist he marry such a fierce woman?”

“The woman he liked was probably gentle, right?” Grandma Zhang muses. “That’s fine for a wife, but not for the head of a household. A weak woman wouldn’t be able to hold the family together, and they’d end up being bullied by others, left with nothing. He needed to marry a strong woman to protect the family.”

Zhang Shu falls silent.

So, this is how his grandparents have seen things. They have done everything they could to arrange the best future for him. But reality has unfolded far differently than they expected.

In the end, it hasn’t mattered. He has still failed to live up to their hopes. No wonder they have always worried about him.

Maybe, in their eyes, survival is more important than dignity.

But what dignity does he even have? There is probably no one as useless as him—not just in the village, but in the entire county…

Zhang Shu drifts off to sleep, sinking into a dream filled with scenes of both his past and present lives, all of them showing him being bullied.

Only by watching from a third-person perspective does he realize how cowardly he has been. He has spent his life like a frightened rat, hiding in a bottomless pit—timid, pitiful, and even he wants to beat himself up.

When Zhang Shu wakes, daylight has already flooded the room. Who else but his family would let a young man like him sleep in so late?

He wipes his face, gets up, and steps outside. After rinsing his mouth and washing his face with cold well water, he enters the kitchen.

On the small table, covered with a woven basket, are two white flour buns and a bowl of pickles.

After eating, he washes his bowl, grabs a sickle, and heads to the fields.

It is late June, and the morning sun is already scorching, the heat rising steadily.

He walks for nearly a quarter of an hour before spotting his grandparents harvesting wheat. Without a word, he steps into the field and begins cutting alongside them.

It takes a while before the elderly couple realizes a grown man has joined them.

“Shu, go back. Grandpa and Grandma can handle this much work. Our land isn’t as big as others’. You should go play,” Grandma Zhang says, wiping her sweat and rubbing her sore waist with a loving smile.

But this time, Zhang Shu doesn’t drop everything and run off like before. He keeps cutting the wheat and says, “Grandpa, Grandma, I’m grown now. In two years, I’ll need to find a wife. If I don’t work, who will marry me?”

Grandma Zhang chuckles. “Our Shu is finally thinking about marriage? When your father was your age, he was so shy he couldn’t even talk to your mother.” Then, with a touch of melancholy, she adds, “Our Shu has really grown up.”

Zhang Shu thinks to himself, I suppose I have. It only took me more than sixty years to finally grow up.