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Chapter 055 : Bamboo Forests' Lurker

Once again, He Jin couldn’t sleep because of Qin Yu’s remarks.

Qin Yu was right. His problem wasn’t laid in his financial aspect, but in his relationship with his mother, or, bluntly said, because of his mother.

His mother was the power holder in his life, even his financial was controlled by her. Meanwhile his father was someone who couldn’t beat one person with three sticks– a boring and truly honest man. At home he would always listen to his wife. Whatever his mother said, his father would follow them without question..

All his life, He Jin witnessed his father giving all his monthly wages to his mother. He only asked for 10 yuan every three days to buy a pack of Camel cigarettes. He Jin remembered that on one occasion his father bought Yellow Crane Tower cigarettes, which was more expensive than the Camel, and his mother questioned him about it all night. Later on they learned that his father had been hiding some of his wages. The whole house was turned into chaos that night.

His mother wasn’t angry because his father bought different cigarettes, but because his father was out of her control.

He Jin also remembered something that happened to his grandpa. He Jin’s grandpa was still alive, a retired cadre with a very high retirement wages. In their home, his grandma was also the one who manage the household money– as if it was an hereditary trait, passed from generation to generation.

Grandpa had no hobbies and only liked to read newspapers. He Jin heard that every morning, grandma would give grandpa five cents to buy a local daily newspaper. Then, he would go home and read it with a magnifying glass, even the ads in the middle was not left out by him. In the past few years, he had gotten a few bonuses from the newspaper company for finding typos.

He Jin’s mother always had such a proud expression on her face every time she talked about it. Saying how grandpa was such a dependable person, that letting women be in charge of money would make a peaceful home. Then, she’d continue by giving example of various households which had men gambling money, or those with men spending money outside on some woman.

But He Jin didn’t think so, he always felt that grandpa and father were pitiful. He secretly vowed that he wouldn’t become like them when he grew up. A man whose financial independence was bound to others, like a bird with its wings cut, was not like a man at all.

But he rarely said these ideas in front of his mother. The few times he tried to, his mother always used a bunch of other people’s experiences to refute him, making He Jin felt particularly powerless.

Being controlled since childhood had made He Jin forgot about his inner instinct to resist. He kept on waiting– waiting for a redemption, or waiting for his mother to realize the wrongness in this situation. For her to let go of her control and give him more freedom. But deep down he also feared that these “fantasies” would never happen…

***

He Jin was startled awake from his nightmare. A look outside showed it was only dawn.

Last night, because of Qin Yu’s words, He Jin was restless and went to sleep very late. But unexpectedly he still woke up early…

He felt tired, but because there was something in his mind, he did not intend to go back to sleep.

Shrinking in the quilt, he saw the helmet on the desk. He thought for a bit before he finally got up and had putted it on.

He laid back down on the bed and landed in the game’s interface smoothly – Eh, He Jin was surprised, we can play while lying down? This is quite nice!

Since it was only five o’clock in the morning, Fire wasn’t online. Even the world channel which was usually so noisy with people chatting felt a bit quiet now, only a few messages emerged from time to time.