The Game of Life

Chapter 443: Chapter 441 Waiting for the Lantern Festival (Part 1)

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“Eat what? You’re a curse, something that should have been strangled at birth, and now you still have the face to sit here eating and eating and eating!”

Before he fully emerged from the fog, Jiang Feng heard a shrill and somewhat hoarse female voice spouting the kind of harsh and venomous words that seemed only to exist in soap operas, while the faint crying of a child could still be heard beneath the woman’s berating.

Who’s cursing a child? And doing so like it’s not even their own kid.

Jiang Feng vaguely remembered that when Sir used to scold them, it was at most for being piglets that knew nothing but eating, worse than piglets, telling them it would be better to feed the pigs instead.

Worse than pigs.

In other places, this might be an insult, but in the Jiang family, it was an undeniable truth.

The fog cleared.

Jiang Feng realized he was in a room, a little girl’s room. The decor was simple—a white-walled room, a small square desk, an ordinary desk lamp, a short three-tiered bookshelf, and a single bed with pink sheets composing the entirety of the room.

He appeared in front of the bookshelf and couldn’t help but take a second look.

The shelf was mostly filled with textbooks, ranging from first to sixth grade, interspersed with a magazine or two, as well as some classic novels that Jiang Feng used to buy at his teachers’ recommendation when he was young.

The desk held a stack of first-year middle school textbooks and nothing else besides the desk lamp—not even a pen—making the small desk seem empty.

The room wasn’t large and could be taken in at a glance. Jiang Feng guessed this must be Ji Xue’s room, judging from the textbooks on the desk, deducing that Ji Xue must now be in her first year of middle school.

First year of middle school.

Ji Xue’s turning point in life.

Jiang Feng didn’t know much about Ji Xue’s family situation, but he had a general idea.

Their family was typically one brought down by illness, once well-off with some savings but ruined by successive diseases in the parents, the loss of their labor force, two young children, exorbitant medical bills, and the indifferent attitude of aunts and uncles, dragging the family down step by step until everyone was pulled into the abyss.

Jiang Feng remembered, Ji Xue seemed to have dropped out of school to work at the Tan Family Small Restaurant during middle school. The absence of holiday homework among the textbooks on the desk suggested that Ji Xue must have already decided to drop out and start working at the Tan Family Small Restaurant.

But… where is Ji Xue?

“Thud.”

“Crash.”

Two loud bangs came from outside, as if something had fallen over, followed by the piercing female voice Jiang Feng had heard through the fog.

“Cry, cry, cry, do you still have the face to cry? You’re a curse, a blight that kills the entire family, and now you’re crying? Whose death are you mourning during the New Year? Trying to curse your parents to death wasn’t enough, now you want to curse me too, huh? Such an unlucky, damned creature,” scolded the voice, by any standard harsh to the ear.

Jiang Feng hurriedly ran out; when he was in the fog earlier, he didn’t catch the words distinctly and thought Ji Xue’s neighbor was scolding their child on New Year’s. Now, it was clear the voice was coming from the living room.

When Jiang Feng quickly dashed through walls to reach the living room, he found a small figure sitting on the ground—it appeared to be Ji Xia, given the age, with thirteen-year-old Ji Xue squatting beside her amidst a scattering of candies on the floor.

A five-year age difference might not seem much among grown sisters, but for the two around ten, it made a vast difference.

One could already be called a young girl, while the other looked every bit a child.

The candies strewn across the floor were of very low quality, wrapped in transparent plastic paper, providing a colorful but cheap assortment. A plastic dish that had probably been used for candies was also overturned beside the coffee table.

Standing in front of the sofa was a middle-aged woman in her fifties, dressed in a bright red coat, her face full of anger as she pointed at the two girls on the floor, speaking rapidly.

“What sins have I committed? I raised a son who never found any good fortune; he can’t even bring me any comfort during the New Year, instead letting me, his old mother, toil to take care of you two money-losing burdens. And one of you is a curse bearer, such bad luck,” she complained bitterly.

“You and your sick mother really know how to scheme, don’t you? Making it sound so nice, saying she needs to keep your dad company at the hospital since they have no time to look after you two. What, has she lost the use of her hands, legs or mouth? Will she starve to death at home? I never hear from you when there’s good to be had, but you sure remember me when there’s someone to take care of. What a mess,” she berated angrily.

“You can’t talk about my mom like that!” Ji Xia screamed, sitting on the ground, her eight or nine-year-old voice shrill enough to drown out her grandmother’s cursing.

With Ji Xia’s current understanding, she might not grasp that terms like “curse bearer” and “bringer of death to the entire family” referred to her, but she did understand that “sick mother” was an insult against her mom.

Ji Xia’s grandmother, already extremely reluctant to take care of her granddaughters for half a day, was now furious to see Ji Xia daring to talk back. In rage, she kicked the coffee table in front of her.

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With a loud ‘bang’, Ji Xia’s grandmother raised her voice, “What did I say wrong? When you were born, I had a fortune teller predict your fate, and they said you were a ‘heaven’s lone star’ that would doom your husband, mother, and the entire family. I said from the start that we should have thrown you out, but your sickly mother wouldn’t listen. A barren hen that can’t even lay an egg had the nerve to show attitude towards me. If it weren’t for my several sons, your sickly, barren mother would have led our Ji Family to a point of no descendants!”

“If I hadn’t been so careful over the years, keeping you, the disaster star, away from your cousins and uncles, who knows what disaster you would have brought upon our family. Now look, both your father and mother have been cursed by you. Are you satisfied now?”

“Oh, I see now, your mother just wanted you to curse me. I thought so, that sickly ghost never meant well, pretending to be kind, saying she wanted me to come stay for a while, pah! How could anyone live in a hellhole like this?”

Jiang Feng, dumbfounded by all this, could only think: ???

What is this sexism and feudal superstition all about? It’s the 21st century, yet why are they living as though it’s still feudal times?

The more she cursed, the angrier Ji Xia’s grandmother became, kicking the coffee table yet again. Jiang Feng, seeing her expression, felt she might actually want to kick Ji Xia but seemed to be holding back for some reason.

Looking down, Ji Xia’s grandmother spotted a small bag of Dove chocolate she had kicked aside.

A small bag that seemed to contain only about ten pieces of chocolate, give to any youngster in the Jiang Family other than Jiang Feng, and it would be gone in 10 minutes.

“Well, well, hiding things here now, are you? Getting pretty clever,” Ji Xia’s grandmother stepped forward, picked up the bag of chocolate, and turned to leave.

Ji Xia, who had been sitting on the ground, suddenly stood up and, like a cannonball, charged at her grandmother. Unable to reach the chocolate in her hands, she clung desperately to her coat.

“Those were bought by my mother-in-law for us, you’re not allowed to take them, you’re not allowed!” Ji Xia cried out loudly while sobbing.

“Don’t touch me, you’re bad luck.” Ji Xia’s grandmother shook off Ji Xia. Perhaps because she felt Ji Xia was bad luck, she didn’t want any physical contact with her and quickly left, slamming the door behind her.

Leaving behind a mess.

Ji Xia sat on the ground and cried her heart out.

Ji Xue, who had been squatting and silent the whole time, finally moved, slowly standing up. Perhaps because she had been crouching for too long, her legs were numb, and she was a little unsteady.

Ji Xue silently picked up the plastic tray that had been holding candies and placed it back on the coffee table. Then she slowly collected each scattered candy, not even missing those that had fallen under the couch and the TV cabinet.

In the end, Ji Xue took a green candy to Ji Xia, inserting it into her hand.

“Xiaxia, no chocolate, but eating candy is just the same,” Ji Xue said.

“They were bought by grandma,” Ji Xia whimpered, “They were bought by grandma.”

“I know,” Ji Xue said softly.

“They were for our New Year’s,” Ji Xia continued, as if speaking to Ji Xue, or perhaps to herself.

“They were bought by grandma,” Ji Xia’s voice grew lower and lower.

For a child who had just started third grade and who had always lived in a well-off home, understanding words like breast cancer, diabetes, medical expenses, family decline, and crippling debt was far too difficult.

From Ji Xia’s point of view, she just noticed that since she started school, snacks at home had gradually decreased until there were none, her mother’s smile became rarer until it vanished, turning irritable and short-tempered, her father’s time at home grew shorter, but his visits to the hospital became more frequent. Her parents were seldom at home, and the cooking shifted from her father to her sister. Meat started to disappear from their dinner table until it was only seen during festivals.

Some things couldn’t even be had during festivals, like chocolate. The small bag of chocolates that had just been taken away by Ji Xia’s grandmother had been specially delivered to their home by their grandmother on the eve of the Lunar New Year. Their grandmother had counted the pieces; Ji Xia and Ji Xue could have one a day from the Lunar New Year’s Eve until the Lantern Festival.

Now, six days were left until the Lantern Festival.

The chocolates were gone, and so was the New Year’s joy.

“Xiaxia, can sister tell you something?” Ji Xue squatted in front of Ji Xia, looking at her as if she’d made a decision.

“Sister has been busy these days and needs to go out. Can you stay at home and be good? In the morning, I’ll leave you two extra buns. You can heat them up for lunch yourself, and I’ll bring dinner for you in the evening. Stay at home alone, don’t go out, and don’t open the door to strangers,” Ji Xue instructed.

Ji Xia, still unable to recover from the sadness of losing the chocolate and the New Year’s celebrations, looked up at Ji Xue: “Sister, are you going out to play?”

“Yes, sister is going out to play.”

“When sister is done playing, shall I buy you chocolates for the Lantern Festival?”

“Okay.”