Reborn with a Cell Phone 2007

Ji Shulang has been away from home for three days.

Qin Yun and Ji Shiqian searched all the Internet cafes in Dalaihub Town but couldn't find it.

Qin Yun sat on the bed, feeling more and more uncomfortable the more she thought about it. She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes, crying, "It's all your fault. Why couldn't you just talk it out calmly? You had to hit him..."

Thinking of the bruises on Ji Shulang's body before he left home, Qin Yun could no longer utter a word. She buried her head in her palms, sobbing with her chest heaving.

Ji Shiqian's hands were also shaking as he smoked. It was July, the height of summer, but he felt cold. Even his toes seemed numb from the cold.

Why is it so cold?

Why hasn't Shulang come back yet? This kind of waiting is so terrible, as if I can't wait for my son to come home...

Ji Shiqian was shocked by his own thoughts and kept cursing himself in his heart for scaring himself.

"Yes, it's all my fault." Ji Shiqian sighed and put out his cigarette butt on the concrete floor. "It's all my fault. It's my fault that I made you suffer..."

Three days ago, Ji Shiqian was driving a truck after delivering bricks and passed by Ji Shulang's cram school. Seeing that the cram school was about to end, he thought of picking up his son on the way home. But Ji Shiqian waited for a long time and Ji Shulang did not come out. He went to the training institution to ask the teacher and found out that the day after they enrolled Ji Shulang in the cram school, the child said that his mother was sick and needed money, and took the refunded tuition and left.

Ji Shiqian was so angry that he was shaking. Where did Ji Shulang go this month? Where did he spend the 5,000 yuan tuition fee?

Ji Shiqian suppressed his anger and went home, not revealing a word to his wife. They cooked dinner together and waited for Ji Shulang to come home to eat. When the meal was cold, Ji Shulang went home with his schoolbag on his back.

"Oops, I didn't notice the time while I was doing the test paper. When I looked up after finishing it, it was already dark."

Fourteen-year-old Ji Shulang is almost 1.7 meters tall. He is tall and slender, and smiles before he speaks, like the rising sun, making people's hearts warm. When he talks to his parents, his tone is unconsciously intimate and coquettish, and the more Ji Shiqian listens, the more chilled he feels.

Qin Yun's eyes were gentle, following him as he put down his schoolbag, washed his hands, and sat down on the small stool in front of the dining table: "That proves that you have learned it well."

The house where their family of three lived was old and narrow. There was no room for more people to pass through the dining table in the living room, so they used a small foldable table for eating, and folded it up and put it against the wall when they were not eating.

"Mom, you don't know, the cram school teacher is really good, he can teach four or five solutions to a problem..."

Ji Shiqian felt a splitting headache as he looked at his chattering son. He had never felt that this son was so hateful. Resentment permeated his bones and anger filled his chest. He seemed to have forgotten everything and just wanted to stuff this son into his mouth and chew him up bite by bite to vent his hatred.

When Ji Shiqian reacted, his slap had already landed on Ji Shulang's face. In Ji Shulang's surprised and stunned eyes, everything seemed to make sense.

He knocked his son to the ground, picked up an old wooden stool and smashed it on him again and again. The more he smashed, the less clear he could see, and his whole body seemed to be soaked in tears.

He hit Ji Shulang hard and fast, holding his head and crying for mercy. Qin Yun reacted and quickly stood up to stop him. The hem of her dress got caught on the corner of the table, and the food on the table fell to the ground with a clang because the table was tilted, and the soup spread on the concrete floor.

The bench in his hand almost hit Qin Yun. Ji Shiqian staggered to retract his hand, and his rationality gradually slipped away from his anger.

Qin Yun opened her arms to protect her son behind her, anxious and angry, crying and asking, "Ji Shiqian, what are you doing?"

"Ask him what he did?" Ji Shiqian said in a trembling voice. He threw away the stool in his hand and pointed at Ji Shulang who stood up behind her. "He, the day after we enrolled him in a cram school, he told people that you were sick and needed money, and asked the cram school to return the money to him. In this month, he didn't go to the cram school for a single day! All our hard-earned money was spent on your good son in the Internet cafe!"

After Ji Shulang entered junior high school, he often skipped classes to go to the Internet cafe.

Qin Yun turned around suddenly and asked, "Is what your father said true?"

When other parents say “all the money you spend is our hard-earned money”, it may be an exaggeration, but that’s not the case for Qin Yun and Ji Shiqian. Every penny they earn is mixed with blood and tears.

Alxa League is located at the westernmost end of Inner Mongolia. The climate is extremely bad, with little rain, strong winds and lots of sand, cold winters and hot summers, and a large temperature difference between day and night. Qin Yun and Ji Shiqian are in the brick factory, moving bricks, loading trucks, and transporting goods. No matter how bad the weather is, whether it is a sandstorm or snow, as long as there are empty trucks in front of them, they will keep busy until all the trucks are full and leave the brick factory.

In recent years, Qin Yun's health has been getting worse and worse. He has been suffering from minor pains and illnesses all the time. He has to put on plasters all the time. Every time he can't bear it anymore, he just takes some painkillers, lies down at home for half a day or a day, and then continues to move bricks.

Fortunately, the rewards of this job are quite good.

Ji Shulang slowly uttered two words: "Yes."

Ji Shiqian was enraged again. He reached out his hand over Qin Yun and pinched Ji Shulang's face: "You little bastard! Do you know that we are all doing this for you..."

Ji Shulang let out a roar like a young animal, interrupting him, and at the same time waved his hand away and took two steps back.

"Yes, it's all for me, for my studies, and for me to buy a house and get married in the future." Ji Shulang said as he retreated to the door, tears falling uncontrollably, flowing across the wounds on his face, "Have you ever thought that I don't want to study at all, and I don't want to get married or buy a house. I want my mother to be well, I don't want my mother to be reluctant to treat her illness, if I don't even have a mother, what's the point of having a house!"

"Kid, how could you think like that?" Qin Yun stepped forward and wanted to hug him, but Ji Shulang dodged her.

Ji Shulang quickly picked up the schoolbag on the shoe cabinet: "Without me, you wouldn't have to do such hard work."

After he finished speaking, he opened the door quickly and left without waiting for his parents to stop him, then closed the door again. Ji Shiqian hurriedly chased after him, but only saw his son's back flash past the dark alley and then disappeared into the night.

------

"Xiao Yun, why don't we go back to our hometown?" Ji Shiqian said, "Let's go back. We'll buy a house in the county town. You don't have to work anymore. Shu Lang is right..."

If the son is afraid of losing his mother, why shouldn’t he be afraid of losing his wife?

Whenever Ji Shiqian thought of Qin Yun fainting in the brick factory last month, he shuddered and the blood vessels in his brain felt like they were about to burst.

If Shulang knew about this, who knows what would happen.

Ji Shiqian said bitterly: "It doesn't matter if we are poor. It's fate. Nothing is more important than our family being together."

Qin Yun sobbed, "As long as I can find my son, anything is fine."

There was a knock on the door, and the person outside asked loudly, "Excuse me, is this Ji Shulang's house?"

Ji Shiqian rushed forward and opened the door. The person with his head lowered between the two policemen, who else could it be but Ji Shulang?