11. The Home Visit (Part One)

Mid-November brought a chill wind morning and night, a sharp contrast to the daytime heat, with the temperature swinging wildly. On one such evening, Wen Mingjuan planned to pay a home visit to You Chunjing's family.

You Chunjing's father used to run a fairly successful business, and the family had lived in a grand villa. But over the past year, business had gone downhill and he had become addicted to gambling. The villa had long since been sold, and after changing hands several times, the family now lived in a low, run-down old bungalow.

Was this not the very meaning of the old saying, "The swallows that once nested beneath the eaves of noble halls now fly into the homes of ordinary folk"? She had once seen that palace-like mansion; compared to the shabby little house before her now, it was hard not to sigh.

She felt deep sympathy for what You Chunjing had gone through. Sometimes she would let the child postpone payments, and for fees that couldn't be delayed—like registration fees—she simply covered them herself. But after much thought, she realized this was no long-term solution, so she decided to visit the You family.

The bungalow wasn't easy to find. Following the address through winding lanes, twisting through a narrow footpath, she finally managed—where there seemed to be no road at all—to make out the crooked, tilted house number.

She knocked on the half-open door, and after a long moment, a voice answered from inside. Wen Mingjuan recognized it as You Chunjing's voice.

"Teacher, you've come?" You Chunjing opened the door and invited Wen Mingjuan in to sit.

"Our house is so run-down, please bear with it, Teacher." You Chunjing looked embarrassed.

"Don't say that." Children don't get to choose their parents; when parents fall on hard times, the children naturally suffer along with them. Wen Mingjuan felt for her deeply, because You Chunjing was a child who strove to do well—despite the family's repeated upheavals and the chaos of daily life, her grades still managed to stay in the top five of the class.

"Are your parents home?" Wen Mingjuan looked around the cramped, narrow living room and asked, puzzled, "Didn't I tell you I'd be coming for a home visit tonight?"

"My dad's not here, probably off gambling somewhere again. My mom's in the back doing laundry," You Chunjing answered. "I'm helping my brother review his schoolwork."

"What grade is your brother in?"

"He's in his third year of middle school this year. His grades aren't good, he's too fond of playing around, but there's no money at home to send him to cram school, so I have to teach him myself."

"I see." Wen Mingjuan acknowledged her.

What a sensible, considerate, and well-behaved child.

You's mother came out shortly after, wiping the water from her hands as she greeted Wen Mingjuan.

"Teacher." She smiled and said, "Please, sit down."

Wen Mingjuan sat down and studied Mrs. You. Her once slightly plump figure now looked noticeably thinner, and her once-glowing face was now full of fatigue and a grayish pallor.

Seeing her like this, Wen Mingjuan didn't know quite where to begin. After considering for a long while, she finally said quietly, "Mrs. You, Chunjing can't afford to pay the fees due at school. Do you have any thoughts on this matter?"

"I'm truly sorry. If I could scrape together even a little money, I would pay on time without fail. It's just that the children's father—" Before she could finish, Mrs. You suddenly began to sob.

"I understand your difficulties, but I can't think of a permanent solution to this problem either. Money can't be owed indefinitely. Chunjing is only in her second year of high school; even if she doesn't go on to further education after graduating, she still has over a year of schooling left. This can't go on like this, can it?"

"Teacher Wen has been covering for us all this time, and I'm deeply grateful, but obviously this can't continue forever. In a couple of days I'm thinking of trying to find some hourly jobs, but..." Mrs. You trailed off, hesitant to continue.

"But what?" Wen Mingjuan pressed her.

"Not to mention how fiercely the gambling den comes to collect debts—even Chunjing's father, the moment he gets home, holds out his hand demanding money from me. Where would I get money? He's already gambled away and squandered everything long ago. When he can't get money, he starts using his hands and feet. The other day Chunjing pulled her father away to protect me, and got caught in the crossfire—her father hit her several times." Mrs. You's tears poured out like a faucet someone forgot to shut off. "Even if I manage to earn a little money, it's immediately snatched away either by that gang of thugs from the gambling den or by Chunjing's father."

"How could things have gotten this bad?" Wen Mingjuan had never encountered anything like this. Growing up, her own life had always been smooth—simple, one might say. Both her parents were teachers; she only knew what it was like to be a teacher, and knew nothing of the dark side of society.

Perhaps because her parents had a good relationship, Wen Mingjuan was utterly astonished by what Mrs. You had told her.

For a woman, marriage seemed to be a very risky gamble—one that could go either way, fifty-fifty odds. If a woman lost that bet, the outcome was utterly wretched.

Wen Mingjuan felt a flash of anger. This society was so twisted, offering women far too little protection—a woman's fate in life depended entirely on whether the man had any promise, or even just whether he treated her well. Thinking of this, she felt sick.

She had barely finished this train of thought, and before the tear-tracks on Mrs. You's face had even dried, three or five men, muttering some incomprehensible nonsense, came clattering and shouting outside the door.

"Open up! Everybody dead in there?" They pounded hard on the door.

"Don't come here anymore, my husband's not home, I really don't have any money," Mrs. You cried out shrilly toward the door.

"Who is it?" Wen Mingjuan stared blankly at Mrs. You.

"It's people from the gambling den." You Chunjing looked terrified, saying agitatedly, "They're back again, why do they keep coming to collect debts from us?"

Why had her luck been so good lately? Coming to do a home visit and running into debt collectors too?

"Your old man's got no money and still dares to hide, we're gonna beat him dead," the people outside shouted loudly.

"What did you say?" Hearing this, Mrs. You was somewhat startled, and hurriedly opened the door.

"Damn it, took you long enough to open up." The first "big brother" to charge in said with an irritated look, "No manners at all, no money but still puts on airs, and keeps gambling."

"Did you catch him? Where is he?" Mrs. You panicked and blurted out the question without thinking twice.

At this point, Wen Mingjuan felt that the man looked familiar, as if she'd seen him somewhere before, and unconsciously glanced at him a couple more times, which drew the "big brother's" glare back at her.

"What are you looking at? I'll kick you down!" he threatened Wen Mingjuan.

But apparently the moment he finished saying it, he regretted it.

"Te... Teacher Wen, why... why are... you here?" He froze, suddenly stammering, looking very nervous.

"We've met before, haven't we? Long time no see," Wen Mingjuan said, remembering—he was one of the two thugs who had brought Chen Hongjia back to school that day.

"Long time no see?" He scratched his head, frowning. "What long time no see? Hey! Teacher Wen, I have no idea what you're talking about!"

At this point, a few other men came closer, asking coldly, "Who's she?"

"Idiot! You don't even know Teacher Wen?" He smacked them hard on the head.

"How would we know who this Teacher Wen is?" two of them replied, displeased.

"A-Cai from the Red Courtyard Gang said Teacher Wen is Brother Wei's woman, understand?" The leader deliberately lowered his voice, but every word still reached Wen Mingjuan's ears.

"I—" Wen Mingjuan was about to set the record straight, but was immediately cut off.

"Sister-in-law Wei! Hello there." The group greeted her in unison, all staring at her with a strange look.

"Sister-in—sister-in-law my foot!"

Wen Mingjuan was furious; to her this was nothing short of an outrageous insult. Though they'd caught one flasher, there was no guarantee there weren't two—Gao Weizhao still hadn't fully cleared his own suspicion of being the other one. If she was called "Sister-in-law Wei," wouldn't her reputation be utterly ruined?

"No wonder you're Sister-in-law Wei—only you would dare scold Brother Wei like that." The five of them arrived at this consensus in unison.

"I—" Wen Mingjuan tried to protest, but the five of them gave her no chance at all.

"Wait a moment, let's settle his matter first before we talk," they cut her off again, bluntly.

"What matter?" It was only now that Wen Mingjuan remembered they still hadn't clarified what was going on with Mr. You being held at the gambling den—she'd somehow gotten completely sidetracked and rambled on about nonsense with this group of men.

"Don't do anything reckless, let's talk this over properly." Wen Mingjuan hadn't thought that much about it—she simply didn't want to witness a violent, bloody scene, so she spoke up to dissuade them.

"Can't do that! If we go back after just talking nicely, it'll be hard to explain ourselves." The leader made his position clear, speaking to Wen Mingjuan in a tone that was almost pleading. "Just stay out of it, Teacher Wen!"

"How can I not get involved when it's about my student?" Wen Mingjuan shot back without thinking. "What exactly do you want, anyway?"

"We want her to pay up to get her old man back, or else he's dead meat."

"I really don't have any money," Mrs. You said, both flustered and afraid. "Please don't make things hard for us."

"Screw you." The big brother made as if to strike her, and Wen Mingjuan quickly stepped in to stop him.

"Don't you dare hit her!" Wen Mingjuan practically roared, startling the big brother so badly that he stumbled back three full steps.

"Where's Gao Weizhao? Call him over here. I want to see what he has to say about this—is this how you people were taught?" The words burst out of Wen Mingjuan's mouth, and the five men were stunned into a long moment of shock.

They actually began seriously whispering among themselves.

Meanwhile, the You mother and daughter huddled together, at a complete loss for what to do.

"Who is Gao Weizhao?" Mrs. You suddenly asked, puzzled.

"He's the little uncle of Tao Muwei, our classmate." You Chunjing answered.

"What... what does he do?"

You Chunjing merely murmured something into her mother's ear, and Mrs. You's face went slightly pale.

"Teacher, could you... could you call that... that person over here?" she asked timidly.

Before Wen Mingjuan could even answer, the leading big brother walked over, looking troubled, and said, "Brother Wei... someone just spotted him at the gambling parlor. We've sent two guys to fetch him, but if he doesn't feel like coming, there's nothing we can do about it!" Before he even finished speaking, two of the brothers had already stepped out the door.

"Is your gambling den far from here?" Wen Mingjuan asked.

"More or less nearby," the leader said.

Waiting was always especially hard to bear. The two brothers had been gone for only about fifteen minutes when the remaining three seemed to grow a bit bored, yet couldn't find anything to do. One of them reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. The three exchanged glances, and someone else soon produced a lighter to light up all three cigarettes.

Wen Mingjuan had just come out of the bathroom when a wave of cigarette smoke hit her square in the face. Her face went pale instantly, and just as she was about to yell at them, her throat refused to cooperate, and she began coughing desperately.

"Don't... smoke..." She no longer had the ability to say another word; her flushed face spoke of her difficulty breathing.

"What's wrong? Teacher Wen?" Seeing her in this state, everyone rushed over anxiously. But as the three brothers drew closer, the smoke made her cough even more violently.

She could only shake her head frantically, unable even to pull the tissues from her bag to wipe her tears and blow her nose.

"Teacher..." Seeing this, You Chunjing immediately dashed into the bathroom, grabbed an entire pack of tissue, and rushed back out to Wen Mingjuan, asking in shock, "How could this happen?"

Wen Mingjuan practically collapsed onto the coffee table, forcing herself to grab the tissue with what little strength she had left to cover her nose, but she kept coughing violently. Fortunately, it had been a while since dinner, otherwise the contents of her stomach would surely have come up entirely.

Just as everyone was baffled and at a loss for what to do, the door opened once more, and the two brothers who had left earlier walked in with Gao Weizhao. But the scene before them instantly made the three grown men's eyes widen in shock.