"Right, my sister, Xu Nianhua." Xu Nian’an introduced as follows, "This is my classmate Ban Chuan, this is his sister Ban Lin, and he is... Nianhua’s boyfriend, Pei Yicheng."
Xu Nian’an didn’t want to introduce Pei Yicheng that way, but he was worried that if Pei Yicheng said again that he was Nianhua’s boyfriend, it would be better to just say it outright.
Pei Yicheng looked at Xu Nian’an with an approving face.
After everyone got acquainted, Pei Yicheng specifically found a late-night snack bar, picked a small private room where everyone could eat and chat, and, most importantly, avoid standing in the pitch-dark alley freezing.
Ban Chuan and his sister took the initiative to say they still wanted to stroll outside, so they didn’t stay in the private room.
Therefore, only Xu Nian’an and his sister, Pei Yicheng, and Ji Shuqin were left in the private room.
Xu Nian’an asked again the question he asked earlier, "Why were you beaten by them?"
"This is yours." Xu Nianhua handed over the bag containing the CD.
Ji Shuqin awkwardly hugged the bag in his arms and, looking at Xu Nianhua sitting next to him, felt too embarrassed to speak.
"Well, it’s just, I owed some money, so, that’s why they beat me." Ji Shuqin, a thirty-year-old man, felt embarrassed admitting this in front of his cousins, but after today’s events, with Brother Niu having been driven off, he would surely be doomed next time.
"It was Brother Niu who beat me today; I owed him some money," Ji Shuqin said, still seething over it, "I clearly borrowed two hundred bucks, and just in a few days, he claimed I owed a thousand. It’s basically robbery. I don’t have that much money to pay him back, so..."
Ji Shuqin tugged at the bag in front of him, feeling hopeless. He heard that selling these CDs could be profitable, which is why he took the risk. Little did he expect that, just starting out, he would hardly make any money and almost got severely beaten by Brother Niu.
"You’ve been scammed," Xu Nian’an’s mouth twitched, realizing Ji Shuqin had borrowed money at high interest. He asked, "Doesn’t your uncle run a factory? Why do you still need to borrow money?"
Xu Nian’an couldn’t help recalling the time his aunt came back to South City during the New Year, wearing a red fur coat that looked especially affluent. Why then did Ji Shuqin have to rely on borrowing money?
Ji Shuqin helplessly chuckled and said, "The factory my parents ran went under."
"What?" Xu Nian’an’s eyes widened in shock.
Xu Nianhua was also shocked. Last summer, their uncle had still sent five hundred bucks for their grandfather’s surgery.
"It happened last winter." Ji Shuqin didn’t want to talk about it, but he had no choice now, as he needed money.
The money from Brother Niu had to be paid back eventually.
Ji Shuqin slowly explained the situation. Nowadays, the Ji family’s days were not as good as before. The factory had run at a loss, and after paying the workers’ salaries, the factory had been repossessed, and they even lost their previous house.
Ji Lin and Cai Jianhong were now working at a paper mill.
The place they lived in was not the previous two-story house but a welfare apartment allocated by the factory, crammed together.
His younger brother, Cai Shuxue, was living in the dormitory at the factory.
As for himself, he was temporarily living in his father-in-law’s house with his two daughters; fortunately, his in-laws had returned to the countryside, leaving the urban house for their family to live in. The two rooms were small, but at least there was a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom.
After hearing everything, Xu Nianhua couldn’t help but remark, "Mud smeared on the wall, looks smooth on the surface yet falls apart easily!"