Reborn to Strive

 The journey from J City to Changxi District took 50 minutes by public bus, and the tickets were ¥4. Shi Zhen’s net worth was less than ¥100. The two’s bus tickets came to ¥8 in total, which was a lot of his remaining money.

    Shi Xinghuo had already eaten the six baozi, and excitedly gazed out the bus window.

    Shi Zhen also looked out the window, quietly gazing at the scenery.

    J City in 1994 was not as developed as in later years, and the houses beside the road were only single family farmhouses. Nearly all of them were two story buildings, but these small buildings could not compare to the later western style ones. For the most part they had extremely boring and unadorned exteriors. The walls were merely whitewashed and roofs were made of broken black tiles.

    Shi Zhen recalled that in the following years J City would develop rapidly. When that period came, those families in the countryside who had money would all tear down their houses to replace them with the newest style, complete with tile decorated walls. Some families’ new homes would be even nicer than the villas built in the cities.

    Driving along the national highway, they arrived in Changxi District and Shi Zhen pulled Shi Xinghuo onto another bus heading for Anshan Town. J City’s rural areas had developed very well. Changxi District was in the top 100 counties nationwide, and the towns under its jurisdiction were prosperous with large populations. 

    The bus from Changxi District to Anshan Town would leave in half an hour. In order to board, they needed tickets, which cost ¥3 per person. All along the route, the bus kept stopping to let people on and off.

    The clothing style of Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo stood out as particularly shabby. Nowadays, people coming from rural areas to work in the cities were rare, but later they would be numerous. Being so out of place, the two of them were subject to many curious stares.

    When he was a youth, Shi Zhen had detested this kind of attention. At that time, his ego had been quite large, and he had always felt that people were looking down on him. So when he had earned a bit of money, he had become obsessed with dressing well and eating well. But, that was a long time ago in his past. Now, he no longer cared about what others thought.

    Sitting on the bus, the two of them soon arrived in Anshan Town.

    Anshan Town’s name contained the word ‘shan’ [mountain], but in fact there was no mountain there. Instead, the region was densely covered with lakes and rivers and it was a Jiangnan1 village with fertile soil. In antiquity, it had even been the county seat.

    Guan Baiyu resides right here.

    Thinking of Guan Baiyu, Shi Zhen’s heart trembled. A numb and tingly sensation spread out from his heart across his entire body, rendering him unable to take another step.

    In his previous life, after bringing Shi Xinghuo to J City, he had not headed to Anshan Town, but rather remained in J City to hunt for work. After finding work, he stayed at the construction site where he was a ‘small worker’.

    There were many types of work on a construction site: masonry, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and so on were all necessary skilled trades. The wages for those workers were high, and they were addressed respectfully as ‘shi-fu’.2 The jobs that didn’t require skilled labor were called ‘small jobs’ and those who worked on a construction site without training in a trade were called ‘small workers’.3

    On a construction site, there was always a need for those who could do hard physical labor, such as someone to mix cement, or someone to do all kinds of odd jobs. Naturally, the demand for unskilled laborers on a job site was high. 

    That kind of work was difficult and exhausting. Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo had worked as unskilled laborers. They worked ten hour days, and were promised ¥10 a day by the site contractor.

    They had dug silt from a river, moved bricks, demolished buildings, working from dawn to dusk performing every kind of job imaginable. But the contractor had always held back some of their pay, and procrastinated on giving them their wages.

    But Shi Zhen had borne the hardship. He had reckoned he could learn trade skills on the construction site.

    He had it all planned out already. When he had learned those skills, he would then return to the mountain hamlet and invite the villagers to come out and work for him.

    He wouldn’t be able to take on large projects, but in J City’s rural areas, there would be no shortage of people wanting to build houses and he could build farmhouses according to the usual method. In J City there were groups that built houses for people, but there were never enough of them. As long as you didn’t charge too much, you never had to worry about finding work!

    He had been thinking about it constantly, but then an accident occurred.

    Shi Xinghuo had been working that day, when a pile of bricks fell on him due to being stacked negligently. He hadn’t been wearing a safety helmet and was badly injured. [It was the contractor’s job to provide helmets, but that guy was a cheapskate.]

    Shi Xinghuo was taken to the hospital in plenty of time that he could have been treated, but the contractor refused to pay a single dime of medical expenses.

    Although Shi Xinghuo had an intellectual disability, his ability to work was never an issue. He always listened to what he was told, and when it came to manual labor, he worked extremely hard.

    On the construction site, he was honest, and his work was no worse than any other laborer’s. In fact, he even worked more diligently than them.

    Even though Shi Xinghuo was injured by a hidden safety hazard on the construction site, not only did the contractor refuse to pay for the medical expenses, but he also protected the bricklayer who had dropped the bricks on Shi Xinghuo, just because the bricklayer was from the same village as the contractor.

    At that time, in order to pay for Shi Xinghuo’s medical expenses, Shi Zhen knelt down and begged for help. But in response, the contractor drove his car around and ate out at hotels, only giving them a few hundred out of the backpay he owed them, and repeatedly said it was Shi Xinghuo’s fault for not being careful.

    After Shi Xinghuo’s initial stopgap surgery, they had no money left over for the follow up treatment. Shi Zhen was at his wit’s end trying to think of a way to get the contractor to pay out, and had some people kidnap him to force his family to pay a ransom.

    The contractor’s family reported Shi Zhen to the police for kidnapping and extortion, and he was locked up on those charges.

    He had kidnapped a person for the purpose of paying medical expenses, so wasn’t punished in the end, but was still locked up for several months. When he was finally released, Shi Xinghuo was already dead.

    That contractor later lost 50,000 kuai, but never suffered any consequences for his negligence.

    Shi Zhen was young and aggressive at that time in his life, and naturally couldn’t stand for his cousin to just die in such a manner. He had made up his mind to retaliate against that contractor, and was determined to stand head and shoulders above the rest of the world so as never to encounter this kind of situation again.

    Later, according to his original plan, he had brought a group of village youths to the rural part of Changxi District to live, and employed them to build houses.

    By collecting those villagers, he was able to build up his initial profits. After that, Changxi District, as well as the neighboring small villages, began a period of demolition and new construction, and he was able to take on some somewhat larger projects. 

    In a large metropolis like J City, he couldn’t compete, but in smaller places, he could swim along like a stranded fish returned to the river.

    He had met Guan Baiyu in 1998.

    He was 22 years old then, and had a bit of money. He had begun to think about getting married and having a child, but he had yet to marry when he met Guan Baiyu.

    At that time, Guan Baiyu was brought to work on the job site as an assistant to a master mason Shi Zhen was familiar with.

    The 19 year old youth had looked exceedingly handsome, and had a fresh appearance. At first glance, Shi Zhen thought Guan Baiyu shone.

    He had paid close attention to Guan Baiyu, not for his appearance, but because a person like Guan Baiyu was incongruent with the environment of a construction site. He was gentle and frail-looking, wore wire frame glasses, and didn’t look like a manual laborer one bit. During the daily lunch break, other people played cards, while he read.

    Shi Zhen had glanced at the book as he passed by, but was unable to understand it.

    Later, he found out it was a coursebook for adult self study.4 Guan Baiyu had dropped out of school during high school, but wanted to continue studying, so he was in the middle of working on it at that time.

    On the construction site, the workers greatly respected a scholar, so they had all treated Guan Baiyu pretty well. In order to look after him, Shi Zhen came into contact with Guan Baiyu more and more frequently, and became more and more fond of him.

    At that point in time, Shi Zhen had never heard of homosexuality. He was completely clueless about his own feelings, until one day when he went out drinking, he walked Guan Baiyu home afterwards, then hugged and kissed him, and became aware of his own illness. Following that, he had been concerned only with his own happiness, and coaxed Guan Baiyu into treating him well.

    In those years, the internet was underdeveloped, and people were even more strictly on guard about sexuality in general. Guan Baiyu was only 19 years old, and didn’t have any knowledge. Shi Zhen coaxed him and took advantage of his naivety to convince Guan Baiyu to be together with him.

    Shi Zhen and Guan Baiyu lived each day like husband and wife.

    But he was unworthy of Guan Baiyu.

    He was obsessed with ambition at that time, yearned for position and wealth, and wanted to stand high above everyone and be wealthy.

    This desire cannot be overstated.

    Though his initial desire to make money was for the sake of living the best quality life, as time went on it evolved, and had long since deviated from that initial intention.

    Because of his pursuit of profit, he fell out with family and friends. Because he was always busy, he and Guan Baiyu saw each other less and less frequently, and they grew more and more distant.

    During that time, he had no sense of responsibility. He was obviously already together with Guan Baiyu, but he still thought he needed to get married and have kids. 

    But . . . before he had made any attempts to do that, something bad happened.

    At that time, he had already been with Guan Baiyu for six year. During those six years, he had taken advantage of J City’s development to take on large construction projects and his career was soaring.

    Those years, his behavior was a little extreme. After flourishing, he got into a dispute with the contractor who had refused to pay for Shi Xinghuo’s medical bills. The two of them snatched up laborers and projects, always vying for dominance. For the sake of keeping that person down, Shi Zhen went to great lengths, first doing things that disgusted him, and finally becoming someone he himself was disgusted with.

    He had fought to win.

    As for the contractor, he had gotten rich too quickly, and had many bad habits, one of which was gambling where he had lost huge amounts. In order to earn back what he’d lost, he began to speculate in stocks and just happened to encounter a bear market. It was pointless to invest money elsewhere to try to make back the loss . . .

    Because that contractor had connections with nearly everyone in J City, he always found various ways to borrow money to invest, wheedling friends and family to take out private bank loans to lend to him.

    He also never stopped taking on construction projects and vying for contracts.

    Time and time again Shi Zhen had caused trouble for that person, robbing him of his contracts he’d been grasping at as a life raft, even after the news of his bankruptcy had already been made public knowledge.

    That contractor had robbed Peter to pay Paul, all his dignity dissolving in a flash. He defaulted on wages for his workers, and the friends who had lent him money for numerous investments, as well as the family he had cajoled into taking out bank loans for him . . . all those people came looking for him.

    Shi Zhen recalled the matters of those years in a disturbed state of mind.

    His own personal enemy had gone bankrupt, and he was jubilant, buying firecrackers to set off in celebration, but never thought of what would happen after that contractor had come to an impasse. Thinking he would take them down together, that man had driven his car into the one Shi Zhen was driving.

    Shi Zhen survived, but Guan Baiyu died.

    Encountering him had really been Guan Baiyu’s misfortune.

    He was bamboozled into walking a crooked road with another man, taking on all the household chores as well as work affairs, and in the end he even lost his life.

    After Guan Baiyu’s death, Shi Zhen was lost in grief for a long time, even giving the company’s affairs to someone else to handle. Every day he stayed at home, looking at the books Guan Baiyu had brought home.

    When he was young, Shi Zhen didn’t read books. At most, he used the radio to listen to wuxia tales. After Guan Baiyu’s death, he read a lot.

    Reading many books, his ideas began to transform.

*****

    Shi Zhen grasped the snakeskin pouches, and exited the cramped bus station at Anshan Town.

    Everything in this era looked so small to him.

    The ‘Great Bridge’ was a little bridge with only two lanes. The national highway that looked spacious to other people looked small to him, and the bus station was even more miniscule.

    After all, 20 years in the future, all of J City would be torn down and rebuilt, with nearly every year bringing a major change.

    Here, there were countless opportunities, and the future was boundless. 

    More importantly, it had Guan Baiyu who was alive and kicking.

    Shi Zhen smiled with all his heart.

The author has something to say:
    This chapter is from Shi Zhen’s perspective. Guan Baiyu never felt that he was taken advantage of when he was with Shi Zhen. 

Chapter Notes:

1 – Jiangnan – Literally translates as ‘south of the river’, and refers to the region south of the Yangtze River, primarily the Yangtze River Delta region.

2 – ‘shi-fu’ – in this context, means master of the trade, or a journeyman in US trade terms

3 – ‘small workers’ – unskilled laborers in English, but the term seems to be less neutral in Chinese

4 – adult self study – the best comparison I can make is it’s like studying for the GED in the US