Chapter 170: Aunt who keeps up with the times
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

Zhang Fan intended on going back to accompany Shao Hua some since he finally had a free weekend for once. He also wanted to take Shao Hua and her family to the farm!

Since Zhang Fan had paid for the meal last night, Wang Yongyong kept insisting on treating Zhang Fan to another meal. It took Zhang Fan a lot of talking before he finally convinced the coach otherwise. Wang Yongyong had considerable hand strength, so his grip on Zhang Fan had been too strong!

Shao Hua’s father had two younger sisters. The older sister was a teacher at the farm’s elementary school for employees’ children, while the younger sister was an employee of the local tax bureau. The younger sister enjoyed the best conditions out of the three siblings.

The older sister was quite a wondrous person. She was born in China and had participated in plenty of Communist Party organizations ever since young. However, she started going down the wrong path after joining working society.

She ended up joining Falun Gong as well as similar cults. The school principal talked to her about it. The leader of the farm talked to her about it. She had a good attitude about it, but refused to change.

She then started square dancing, going to school for the elderly, and so on. A few years ago, she almost went south to join a scam group. Shao Hua’s uncle managed to stop her in the end. The school principal no longer let her teach classes and had her manage the school’s finances instead. This was basically the equivalent of letting her have a dead-end, do-nothing job. What finances would an elementary school on the farm even have to manage? There were only run-down tables and chairs. What could possibly be managed about those? Shao Hua’s aunt became even more bored with no classes to teach. She was almost about to retire now, but then started selling fake health products.

Shao Hua had previously told Zhang Fan about her aunt’s life. Zhang Fan had been especially astonished. An old lady from the border province had managed to keep up with everything bad that had been popular in China right when such things started. Information wasn’t as easy to come by in her generation, so just how had she learned about such things? Not only that, she was always a local leader of such illicit activities every time!

When she was younger, participating in such illicit activities would only mean that her family had to waste some money on her, but now that she was older, she joined some sort of scam health product selling chain and really harmed her family.

Not only would she eat those fake health products, she also tried to convince her husband, son, and daughter-in-law to eat them—a classic method of multi-level marketing scams. Her entire family knew of her problems and also knew that it would be impossible to convince her otherwise, so they left her alone. Not a single person in her family would eat her supposed health products.

Currently, she would only eat breakfast. For lunch and dinner, she only ate those health products. Not only did she spend her entire salary on buying these health products, she even secretly borrowed money from all sorts of friends and relatives. When the debtors came asking for money, only then did her family discover that she was more than 200,000 yuan in debt!

The family sold everything they could in order to pay back her debts. But after this, she became ill! She had spent far too long not eating properly along with eating too many fake health products containing unknown chemicals, which caused her to become ill.

The daughter-in-law even wanted a divorce over this matter, since Shao Hua’s aunt had caused way too much trouble. There was no helping it—even though the daughter-in-law had originally been a virtuous and good wife.

Shao Hua’s uncle was the wife-fearing type who was unable to control his own wife. He could only sigh at home every day. Luckily, he also had a job, which provided at least some security for his family!

When Shao Hua’s youngest aunt graduated from high school, Shao Hua’s father had spent some money on connections to get his youngest sister into the finance department of the farm to learn accounting. One year, the local tax bureau had lacked personnel, and somehow the youngest aunt had managed to get hired there. Ever since then, her luck had been quite good. Her family life was peaceful, happy, and healthy. The only non-peaceful part was that Shao Hua’s younger aunt’s husband was rather snobbish. He also worked at the tax bureau, and he looked down on his older brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Not to mention, his sister-in-law was far too active in so many illicit activities, so he looked down on her even more.

Back in the day, the farm built some apartments for its employees in Chasu City, but the farm employees all felt that it would be inconvenient to come to the farm all the way from Chasu City, because it would be too far away, so nobody purchased these apartments. However, Shao Hua’s mother had great foresight and forcefully purchased an apartment in Chasu City despite her family’s objections. At the time, everyone had thought that such an apartment would be useless, but Shao Hua’s mother was proven to have great foresight several years later.

First of all, Shao Hua went to school in Chasu City ever since young. As for Shao Hua’s aunts’ children, they went to the farm’s elementary school, and then the local middle school. In the end, they didn’t even manage to successfully get into high school, much less college. Meanwhile, Shao Hua successfully went to high school, then college, then graduated successfully, and was hired by a bank. In her family, Shao Hua was the one in her generation who had the best job and income now.

Shao Hua’s mother had purchased this apartment in Chasu City for the sake of Shao Hua back then. This had proven to be a successful investment!

Not only that, housing prices in Chasu City constantly increased, while fewer and fewer people now lived on the farm. The best education and medical facilities were all in the city. Who would still want to live on the farm now? Only a few years had passed, but the price had increased by an incredible amount if you wanted to purchase an apartment in Chasu City now.

Previously, when Zhang Fan and Shao Hua weren’t official yet, Shao Hua’s parents hadn’t dared to tell their relatives about Shao Hua’s relationship, but the relationship had now progressed to the point where only getting married was left, so this was no longer a secret. Zhang Fan had met Shao Hua’s younger aunt once so far, although he had yet to meet the older aunt or either of her uncles 1.

Shao Hua’s father kept nagging every day about going to the farm to buy some chickens. Actually, his true wish was to go see how the older of his two younger sisters was doing. Originally, it should have been fine to just openly visit his sister. However, Shao Hua’s father had secretly loaned a lot of money to Shao Hua’s older aunt back in the day. Right when Shao Hua was about to graduate from college, Shao Hua’s mother had wanted to spend some money on establishing some connections so that her daughter could find a good job. However, it turned out that there was no money left!

Not only had Shao Hua’s mother scolded her husband severely over this, she even went over to Shao Hua’s older aunt’s place and had a huge argument with the older aunt. Even someone as gentle as Shao Hua’s mother had become truly infuriated. It was only natural for all mothers to be so defensive when it came to their own children. Luckily, Shao Hua was mature and a hard worker. She managed to get a job at the bank through her own merits. Otherwise, Shao Hua’s mother would probably hold an even bigger grudge against Shao Hua’s older aunt.

Due to this argument, the two families were now quite distant from each other! Shao Hua’s mother never visited the older aunt’s family even once after that. Shao Hua’s mother kept worrying more and more. What if her daughter hadn’t managed to get a job at the bank due to her own skills? What if they had needed that money to establish connections so Shao Hua could get a good job? The money that Shao Hua’s father gave to his sister was impossible to get back. What would have happened then?

Shao Hua’s mother could tolerate other matters, but she would never compromise on anything regarding Shao Hua. Although Shao Hua’s father nagged every day, Shao Hua’s mother refused to have anything to do with the older aunt!

Only after Shao Hua had a good job and a boyfriend that her mother was highly satisfied with did that anger slowly diminish.

Shao Hua’s father was using the excuse of buying chickens from the farm to take his entire family to visit his sister. Over the years, Shao Hua’s older aunt’s body was becoming worse and worse. She now had high blood pressure, diabetes, and her vision was also getting worse!

The farm was in terrible decline. There were almost zero young people working on the farm. While some still worked here, even more had left the farm. Here in the border province, a few decades ago, people had been proud to call themselves farm employees, but now, being known as a farm worker was something negative for exactly one reason: they would be poor!

Shao Hua’s parents still had some former coworkers still at the farm. When Zhang Fan arrived at the farm in his new car, the farm workers saw that it was Shao Hua’s family. The farm workers with a closer relationship to them came up, while the ones who didn’t know them as well still watched from a distance.

No matter if they were envious of Shao Hua’s family or not, China indeed owed these people who sacrificed their youth and children a great debt! Just a few years ago, some people had wanted to eliminate this strange farm organization that wasn’t exactly military or civilian run.

However, a major incident then occurred. More importance was gradually placed upon the farms again. However, the farm employees were already heartbroken. They were far more willing to work elsewhere instead of on the farm. In the end, people in the future were really impressed with the person whose face was printed on the face of the Chinese yuan! Mao Zedong had such amazing foresight! He really was like half a god with how far his foresight was!

While the farm did have cars, the best car on the farm belonged to the farm leader, and it was only a Santana, an ordinary car that many people could afford. When Zhang Fan drove his large SUV onto the farm, all of Shao Hua’s father’s former coworkers were astonished. Everyone everywhere would always be the same.

Shao Hua’s father brought out the good smokes that Zhang Fan had given him before. Usually, he didn’t want to smoke such expensive smokes, but right now, he gave them out for free to everyone as if the smokes were only water. Today, he was filled with energy and had a bright expression despite getting older already.

After chatting with some friends that he was really close to, Shao Hua’s father stalled for time and didn’t want to leave. Shao Hua’s mother knew what he was thinking, so she sighed, and said, “Today, I’m giving face to Zhang Fan. Otherwise, I would never go to visit your sister Shao Ping ever again.”

“It’s all in the past, it’s all in the past. Just look, we’re doing so well now. Look towards the future, the future!” Shao Hua’s father tried to get into his wife’s good graces by saying this.