Chu Zihang wanted to cover his ears—it was chaos, the whole world was in disarray.
“Idiots! What’s there to argue about with two beat-up cars? The insurance company will pay anyway,” the man muttered. “I still have things to do after dropping my son off…”
He craned his neck to look around, his gaze falling on an exit in the rain. It led to the elevated road, just a step away, with the sign partially obscured by the thrashing branches of a willow tree. It was strange—an empty road. The blocked cars should have rushed over there, yet no one had. Chu Zihang felt a strange sense of unease, as if only they could see the road, or maybe everyone else knew it was a dead end. His biology teacher had once said that animals had an instinct for finding the right path. Wild camels in the desert knew which paths were wrong and would refuse to take them, even if humans tried to make them.
“That road should lead to the elevated road, but it might be closed now,” the man said, steering towards the exit anyway.
As they got closer, the sign read: “Elevated Road Entrance…” followed by an entrance number. Chu Zihang glanced at it, but just then a splash of rain burst across the windshield, and he couldn’t see clearly.
The Maybach ascended the ramp, and the elevated road stretched out like a gray arc, vanishing into the white rain.
“What if it’s closed and we can’t get down?” Chu Zihang asked.
“If we can get up, we can get down,” the man said, unconcerned. “At most, I’ll just give a cigarette to the cop at the exit.”
“The broadcast said wind speeds on the elevated road are high and visibility is low, advising detours.” Chu Zihang was a bit worried. He didn’t know the wind speed outside, but the howling sounded like a whistle.
“No worries,” the man patted the steering wheel. “What’s there to fear about high wind speeds? Only tiny cars need to worry. Do you know how heavy a Maybach 62 is? Two-point-seven tons! Even a Category 12 wind can’t budge it! With my driving skills and this car, we’re solid! Don’t worry!”
The Maybach sped along the deserted elevated road, sending up splashes as high as a person. The man took the liberty of turning on the music, playing “Daily Growing” by the Irish band Altan:
The trees, they grow high, and the leaves, they do grow green
Many is the time my true love I’ve seen
Many an hour I watched him all alone
He’s young but he’s daily growing
“Not bad, right? They all said it was a good album, so I bought it. It’s about a father’s love!” the man said.
Chu Zihang couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Can’t you tell? This song is a conversation between a girl and her father, not a boy. It’s not appropriate for me.”
“What’s the difference between a son or a daughter? It’s all fatherly love.” The man said nonchalantly. “You understand it? I heard your English is the best at your school, even won competitions. But your mom didn’t tell me a thing. What’s the song about?”
“It’s about a father marrying his twenty-four-year-old daughter off to a fourteen-year-old rich boy. The daughter doesn’t want to, worried that by the time her husband grows up, she’ll already be old. But her father insists he made the right choice, marrying her to a wealthy young man so that when he grows old, she’ll have someone to rely on.” Chu Zihang explained, “But then the rich boy dies before he grows up. The girl is devastated and knits a shroud for him from flannel on the green, grassy grave.”
“What kind of song is that? Makes no sense—the girl’s husband dies before he does anything?” The man clearly wasn’t a sentimental person. Chu Zihang knew since he was young that his biological father was anything but delicate.
“Let’s just chat,” the man turned off the music. “Did I tell you about the new building our company built? The boss put in a steam room and a gym, and we get to use them for free. The stuff in there is really top-notch…”
The man was too talkative his whole life, which was why he ended up such a failure… but if he weren’t talkative, maybe he’d have ended up an even bigger failure, Chu Zihang thought silently.
It was his ability to talk that won his mom over until she agreed to marry him. It was well known at Shilan Middle School that Chu Zihang was handsome enough to coast through life on his looks—all thanks to his mom’s genes. She used to be the star dancer at the city’s dance troupe, her performance of “Rain on the Silk Road” like a heavenly goddess from a mural, with countless admirers. But in the end, the one who managed to win her over was this man, who waited outside the dance troupe every day to pick her up after work, weaving a beautiful future with just his words, mesmerizing her completely. She finally agreed to marry him on a trip to Hangzhou in his car, and that was also when she became pregnant with Chu Zihang. It wasn’t until they signed the marriage certificate that she realized the car wasn’t even his—he was just a chauffeur for his workplace.
The political science teacher put it well—economic foundations determine the superstructure. A man like that couldn’t support a stunning wife. In reality, Chu Zihang’s mother was always confused, never one to want much, but the man was just too incompetent.
And so, crack, it fell apart.
When they divorced, the man patted his chest and promised his ex-wife that he would send money every month to support her and their son, that he’d prove he could make something of himself, and that he’d come back to propose again once he’d made it. He was quite boastful, and immediately quit his stable job at the state-owned enterprise to go out and find something that could make him money. He spent three or four months in the labor market, but no one hired him. Finally realizing that driving was all he could do, he went to a private company to look for driving work. The boss of Black Prince Group saw that he was good at talking and let him drive the Maybach. A driver needed to be good with words—so that when the boss couldn’t boast himself, the driver could do it for him.
The car was better than before, but his salary hadn’t changed much. After deducting his own expenses, he couldn’t even afford to keep a cat.
Fortunately, Chu Zihang’s stunning mother finally showed some determination. She had no intention of waiting for him. After crying her eyes out for a few days, she sent Chu Zihang to his grandma’s house, bought new makeup, dolled herself up, and went out clubbing with her friends. In less than a month, she brought home a new “dad” for Chu Zihang. She learned her lesson this time and chose more carefully. The new “dad” owned three companies, was divorced with no children, and when he proposed, he promised never to have more kids and to raise Chu Zihang as his own.