Usury, compound interest, borrow a hundred, and you end up owing more than double?
Qi Taiguo looked at Chen Shouwang as if he had been struck dumb, holding a cigarette between his fingers that burned down, its long ash nearly dropping onto his hand before he realized and shook it off.
"Two hundred twenty yuan?" Oh my God, so much money, what on earth had he done!
Chen Shouwang, clutching his head, said, "How could I dare tell you guys? If it got out, my military career would be over!"
This was the truth Chen Shouwang couldn’t bear to reveal.
A youth enlisted; all his parents’ and younger siblings’ hopes rested on him. Therefore, they put everything they had into securing his marriage to Hualing, who came from a cadre family, hoping the Yue family would help and support him, enable him to have a limitless future, bring honor to his ancestors, and provide for his siblings in the future.
If the news about him borrowing from usurers got out, whether he would face dismissal or punishment from the military, what future could he have in his military career? His parents would be utterly despairing.
So he couldn’t speak of it; he mustn’t!
Once he did, he would be like falling into Avici Hell, with no hope of turning back.
But no matter how he tried to avoid it, the usurers were like a spider web, entangling him tightly, leaving him no escape, no way out. They came to demand repayment every day.
The more they pressured him, the more he feared discovery. As he watched the interest snowball, panic set in. With the creditor hounding him and no way out, he could only think of selling his blood.
Having sold a thousand milliliters of blood, the money he received was a mere pittance—merely enough to barely make a dent in that vast debt, and that was already his limit.
"You’re so foolish, utterly foolish!" Qi Taiguo glared at him in frustration and asked, "Does Hualing know about this?"
"How could I dare tell her? When it’s time to give out the allowances, she still fusses about buying a new dress. Back home, several siblings need to go to school, and my parents’ health is failing. If I don’t give her money for living expenses, she picks a fight with me. That day, we argued, and I didn’t go home. Later, with great difficulty, I gave her twenty yuan and sent a bit back home. I didn’t even have money left to buy cigarettes," said Chen Shouwang, his face etched with bitterness, his eyes filled with an unmistakable despair.
"A man needs to have limits. In a marriage, there should be discussion, negotiation—that’s how it lasts. You keep indulging her without any limits, how can you expect to carry on? Look where that has gotten you, what have you done? And even now, with things this bad, you are still only thinking about your pride, not telling her. What am I supposed to say to you? What if next time she insists on you buying something you absolutely cannot afford? Are you going to give her your life too?"
Chen Shouwang laughed at himself bitterly, "It’s my own fault, I deserve to suffer."
Qi Taiguo then asked, "How much do you still owe now?"
"One hundred seventy yuan," Chen Shouwang replied.
"I advise you to come clean with Hualing. Let her understand that you’re not a money-making machine, and that everything should be done within your means. Digging your own grave like this is foolish enough once! Such a lesson should be remembered forever," Qi Taiguo finished speaking and said, "Go in for training. As for the money, I’ll think of something to help you."
Chen Shouwang looked up in surprise.
Seeing this, Qi Taiguo said, "Don’t get your hopes up too high. We’re comrades-in-arms living in the same place. You’ve been in the military for a while now, and I don’t want to see you ruined over some messy, nonsense issue. Be more considerate of your own actions!"
Having said this, he strode into the military district.
Chen Shouwang pursed his lips, sat for a while, then stamped out the cigarette butt in his hand and followed him in.