Divorce Is An Absolute Must! - Chapter 15
Chapter 15: Poverty Alleviation
◎She’s a 0, she can’t be a 1.◎
The orphanage was huddled at the end of the alley, like a rag that had been discarded and gnawed away by time.
On the other side of the wall, there was a bilingual kindergarten covered in cartoon paintings. The goose-yellow exterior walls were decorated with lovable cartoon characters, like a gingerbread house from a fairy tale. In the mornings, shiny nanny vans would pull in one after another, and children in little suits would play on the plastic track.
This gave Zhu Qing a strong and sharp sense of discord. It bypassed her reason and went straight to the deepest part of her heart without a second thought.
It was a preposterous injustice, a hidden burden.
“What are you looking at?” Qian Cancan leaned in, following Zhu Qing’s gaze.
Zhu Qing pursed her lips and shook her head. “Nothing. I just feel very uncomfortable.”
“Are you talking about this orphanage?” Qian Cancan squinted for a long time and said with regret, “What a shame.”
Zhu Qing asked, “What is?”
Qian Cancan gestured with her hands in the air. “Behind the orphanage is a commercial street. This is prime real estate. I remember the price in the nearby business district soared to six figures last year.”
Zhu Qing’s eyes lit up. “Are you saying the orphanage is rich?”
“What are you thinking?” Qian Cancan said, pouring cold water on her idea. “It covers at least six acres. If they could get a mortgage, or sell and develop a small piece of land, they would have been rich a long time ago. How could it be this run-down? It’s probably because the land is for welfare purposes, which prevents it from being sold or mortgaged.”
Qian Cancan thought for two seconds, looking even more regretful. “Ugh, let’s go. It’s annoying to see someone holding a golden bowl but begging for food.”
Zhu Qing followed her with small steps. “Is there any way out for it?”
Qian Cancan’s family was in business, and she had seen plenty of this since childhood. She shrugged. “It’s very difficult. You have to understand that disadvantaged groups don’t get to enjoy the benefits of land value appreciation.”
Then she thought of something else and teased, “You, a former disadvantaged person, are also my future daughter-in-law. When are you coming to my house to fill out an adoption agreement?”
Zhu Qing gave her a helpless kick. “Scram.”
The two of them thanked Eos for showing them around, said goodbye, and left the kindergarten.
Eos was still very reluctant to see them go. Without Zhu Qing, her communication with others wasn’t very smooth.
“She’s like a lady wearing Burberry and drinking coffee on the Thames,” Qian Cancan said as she got into the car, still lost in thought about Eos’s every move. “Honey-brown hair, grayish-blue eyes, and an air of scholarly elegance. She’s amazing.”
Zhu Qing stared out the window at the entrance of the orphanage that flashed by and didn’t say anything.
Qian Cancan continued, “It’s just that her accent swallows her words a bit. I can barely understand the English she speaks. It feels like a string of English characters rushing into my head and rushing out again. Ah Qing, can you understand her?”
The orphanage was left behind and disappeared in the rearview mirror. Zhu Qing came back to her senses and said, “Huh? Yes, I can understand everything she says.”
Qian Cancan sighed. “What a shame. A language barrier is worse than a long-distance relationship. By the way, are you still taking on translation jobs? A friend of mine asked me.”
Zhu Qing’s skills were in foreign languages. She passed IELTS with an 8 in high school. She could have made a steady income working as an IELTS teacher, but she was worried about her English skills deteriorating, so she basically only took on corporate jobs, running with foreign companies and handling collaborations, which kept her English improving.
“Give me some Japanese jobs,” Zhu Qing said hesitantly. “I feel like my Japanese has deteriorated.”
In fact, she felt that both her English and Japanese had deteriorated a little, but it was less obvious with her English. She just felt a little rusty when she spoke. Her Japanese was more obvious. She tried to think in Japanese a few times, and it was very choppy.
“Really? I can’t tell,” Qian Cancan said with a carefree attitude. “After all, you only started learning Japanese in college. It’s not like English, which is practically your mother tongue. I’ll go reply to them then.”
Zhu Qing nodded and didn’t dwell on it.
She had a very eventful childhood. In the first few years after she was born, her parents made a lot of money digging for rocks in Xinjiang. To make even more money, they were away for many years. With no one to take care of her, they left her at a private nursery near their home.
The nursery was a husband-and-wife business. The wife was a Chinese-American, and the husband was an Italian who grew up in England. Their clients were the children from the entire villa community.
Qian Cancan was there too. They had known each other since they were toddlers, but Qian Cancan was spoiled by her parents and only went a few times a week, unlike Zhu Qing, who practically lived at the nursery.
If it weren’t for a young Qian Cancan, who spoke a magical Northeastern dialect she learned from her grandmother, constantly grabbing Zhu Qing to play with her, Zhu Qing’s first words might have been “I don’t want it” instead of “滚犊子” (a Northeastern dialect term for “get lost”).
Later, her parents ran out of money and couldn’t afford the nursery fees. But by then, she had already developed a bond with the couple. Zhu Qing knew she had to be a little more obedient to stay, so she helped the couple take care of the younger children and talked to them. When the parents saw that Zhu Qing’s English was fluent, they were even more willing to send their children over. So Zhu Qing stayed at the nursery by working until she was eleven, when the couple had saved up enough money and returned to their hometown.
When did her parents disappear from her childhood?
Zhu Qing couldn’t remember.
Before she was eleven, Zhu Qing lived at the nursery. After she was eleven, she lived at school. Home? She had no memory of it.
Thinking of this, Zhu Qing thought of the orphanage again.
In this world, there were orphans everywhere who had lost their parents. Her distant childhood memories created a subtle resonance with them at this moment.
She was just much luckier. If she didn’t have her birth parents, she had friends by her side. In the end, she grew up unscathed and without worry.
“Oh, right, my mom invited you to come over,” Qian Cancan said, drifting into a turn and leaving a car that tried to cut her off behind her with a flourish. “She probably misses you.”
“Okay,” Zhu Qing came back to her senses and quietly tightened her seatbelt a little. “I haven’t seen Auntie since I had amnesia.”
“She’s traveling in Antarctica and won’t be back until next week. The signal there is bad. I only got through to her yesterday when I called. She told me to take good care of you and that you should go to our house for dinner when she gets back.” Qian Cancan was annoyed when she mentioned this. She was doted on when she was little, but as she got a little older, she lost her privilege. She went from being the family’s beloved pearl to a free-range chicken.
This caused her arrogant spoiled-girl habits to be stifled before they could even be fully formed.
Zhu Qing smiled, and a look of filial piety appeared in her eyes when she thought of Qian Cancan’s mother. “Antarctica is so far away. Tell Auntie to be careful.”
“You tell her yourself,” Qian Cancan said, throwing her phone in front of her. “Send her a voice message on my account to prove that I’m taking good care of you, or she’ll take away my allowance again.”
Zhu Qing pressed the voice message button and said a few gentle words, telling Auntie to be careful and not to worry about her.
Qian Cancan’s mother, who usually only replied after half a day, immediately sent a voice message back.
In a loving tone that Qian Cancan rarely heard, she said, “My dear girl, don’t be too busy. Your health is more important than work. I think it’s great that you’re starting a business with Cancan. You can just get a share of the profits while she does the work. Our family doesn’t need you two to make money.”
Zhu Qing and Qian Cancan looked at each other with a helpless smile. Qian Cancan snatched her phone. “Mom, stop nagging. She has hands and feet and can make money. You have to remember you have a biological daughter too.”
Qian’s Mother: [Why are you everywhere.jpg]
Qian Cancan: …
Zhu Qing couldn’t help but laugh. Before she could say anything, a text message popped up on her phone.
【Xiyuan Bank】Fan Yueping transferred 111,111 yuan to your account 2561 at 11:47 a.m. on x day of x month, 2024.
Fan Yueping was Qian’s mother.
Qian Cancan was furious. “That’s my allowance, mine!”
Zhu Qing said, “Then I’ll transfer it back to you.”
Qian Cancan stretched out her hand like Er-kang from Princess Pearl. “Don’t! If Ms. Fan finds out, I won’t have an allowance next month either.”
She was being playful, but her eyes held a smile. “For the next month, we’ll go out to eat, drink, and have fun. And I’ll need you to pay for all my expenses. Get ready to pay the bills.”
Zhu Qing didn’t know what to say. She looked down for two seconds. “Thank you both.”
After the nursery closed, Zhu Qing packed her things and moved into the school. She had good grades and her tuition and fees were waived. Every day after class, she just had to run to the cafeteria and help the cafeteria auntie serve food for the busiest twenty minutes to get a free meal after most of the students had finished eating.
That was how Zhu Qing spent her time at first, and she felt it was pretty good because there was a lot of leftover food in the cafeteria, and she was never hungry. The auntie always thought she was too thin and would deliberately save some meat for her.
The only downside was probably being laughed at by her classmates.
Qian Cancan saw her in the third week of her working in the cafeteria. Qian Cancan was not in the same class as Zhu Qing and never ate at the school cafeteria. She only found out about it when someone secretly took a picture of Zhu Qing and posted it on the school forum.
Qian Cancan was very loyal. Zhu Qing had once saved her from a cellar when they were children, and she had always considered Zhu Qing her best friend. When she saw that her best friend had to work in the cafeteria to get a meal, Qian Cancan secretly hid at the cafeteria entrance and watched Zhu Qing for a long time. She went back and cried hysterically, and even got a high fever. Later, Qian’s mother found out about it. From then on, there was an extra person in the car that picked up and dropped off Qian’s family. Zhu Qing ate and lived with Qian Cancan and never had to suffer again.
Zhu Qing thought that if it weren’t for Qian Cancan, she would have been much sadder in her teenage years.
Many times, a sapling is very good. It just needs a little bit of water and oxygen to keep it from dying when it’s most tender. Once it’s a little bigger, it can stand on its own.
Zhu Qing was very grateful for their protection. Although it was just a small favor to them, it was invaluable to Zhu Qing.
Qian Cancan was never one to listen to Zhu Qing’s heartfelt words and immediately got goosebumps. “You really don’t have to thank me. My mom is actually hinting at something.”
Zhu Qing looked up. “Huh?”
Qian Cancan raised her chin and made her look at the numbers.
“Look,” Qian Cancan said seriously. “Six 1s transferred to a 0. My mom is doing targeted poverty alleviation. You better hurry up.”
Zhu Qing: …???