Call Me Daddy

“Isn’t that Er Bai from Cai Hua’s family? Why is he dragging a suitcase back at this time of year?”

In Tuanjie Village, some villagers watched as the educated young son of the Su family, Su Aobai, dragged a large 30-inch suitcase, with big and small bags hanging from his back, hands, and suitcase handle, as if he were moving house.

“Ah, Aunt Ma, Uncle Guo, Uncle Ah San…”

Su Aobai greeted the people coming toward him.

Wow, it really is the Su family’s boy!

Everyone nodded in response. Among them was a middle-aged woman with a long face who looked somewhat harsh. She stared at his luggage with a curious expression and asked, “Er Bai, with all these big and small bags, are these all gifts for your mother and Su Su?”

This woman was Aunt Ma, whom Su Aobai had just addressed.

In Tuanjie Village, there were two women who were notoriously difficult to deal with; one was his biological mother, Deng Caihua, and the other was the woman before him, Ma Aifang.

These two had always been at odds since childhood. If you have something, I have to have something better; if you have something good, I have to have something better and stronger.

First, they compared their parents, then their husbands, and later they compared their sons. For decades, Deng Caihua had always been a step ahead of Ma Aifang. Both women’s husbands were well-regarded transport drivers of the time, but Deng Caihua’s husband was more skilled and eventually became the team leader, while Ma Aifang’s husband continued working under Deng Caihua’s husband.

However, during those years when the security wasn’t as good as it is now, there was an incident when the two men were out on a job together and encountered a roadblock. The assailants were ruthless, not only stealing but also killing people. As a result, both women became widows.

Life as a widow was tough. Although there was a pension from the transport team, young widows with young children often attracted unwanted troublemakers. The two women were forced to arm themselves with fierceness, cunning, and unreasonable behavior, turning themselves into infamous shrewd women who no one dared to provoke.

In the village, the only people who could give them a hard time were each other.

Without their husbands, the two women began to compare their children.

Deng Caihua had two sons; the eldest, Su Yiqing, and the second, Su Aobai.

The Su family’s deceased father had already thought of names for the first two children before Deng Caihua even became pregnant. He had planned to name them Yiqing and Erbai. Yiqing was fine, but the character “Bai” for “Er Bai” sounded like an insult. So, the couple decided on a homophone instead.

Unfortunately, finding a good homophone for “Er” was challenging; it always seemed to carry a slightly negative connotation. Deng Caihua’s husband consulted his driving instructor, seeking a character that sounded similar to “Er” and settled on “Ao”.

(T/N: ‘Er’ sometimes refer to ‘second’ like ‘second choice’, or belittling/ ‘Ao’ means ‘pride’ or ‘unyielding’.)

Deng Caihua raised two sons on her own, without any support from in-laws, making her situation much more difficult compared to Ma Aifang, who had only one son and still had her in-laws.

But Deng Caihua not only raised both her children to adulthood, but they also made her proud. Since elementary school, their academic performance had always been excellent, and they eventually got admitted to good universities.

In stark contrast was Ma Aifang’s son, Lin Zhiyong. From a young age, he had little interest in studying. He barely managed to get into a vocational high school, and after graduation, he went to work.

Those years were also the most humiliating for Ma Aifang.

Who would have thought that fortunes would turn around? Although Lin Zhiyong wasn’t good at studying, he had other kinds of luck. The daughter of the boss at the auto repair shop where he worked took an immediate liking to him. Unable to refuse his daughter’s wishes, the boss not only bought the couple a house and a car after they got their marriage certificate but also gradually handed over the repair shop to Lin Zhiyong.

It turned out that Lin Zhiyong was quite enterprising. Under his management, the repair shop expanded several times, and he earned enough to build a three-story villa for his mother. Every time he came back, he always gave her plenty of pocket money.

Lin Zhiyong also suggested bringing her to the city to live with him, but Ma Aifang always declined, saying she wasn’t used to city life. When Lin Zhiyong offered to hire a maid, Ma Aifang refused, saying she was used to doing things herself and didn’t want to be served by others.

Thus, Lin Zhiyong could only compensate for his inability to be with his mother by providing more financial support.

As a result, Ma Aifang, who lived in a villa and adorned herself with gold and silver, quickly became the proudest woman in the village.

As for Deng Caihua, she didn’t have a bad life, but compared to Ma Aifang, who flaunted her wealth every day, her life wasn’t as glamorous.

Deng Caihua’s eldest son, Su Yiqing, passed the civil service exam in his senior year of college and successfully landed a stable job, becoming a respected and influential civil servant.

In his second year at the job, he was introduced to his current wife, Kong Yao, by his unit’s leadership. She was a regular elementary school teacher.

Kong Yao’s family lived in another village in the same county, where her parents farmed. As an only child, Kong Yao and Su Yiqing were considered a good match, but it also meant that neither set of parents could offer much financial support.

After getting married, the couple saved up together for a house down payment. They later had a son, Su Yuan. With the need to support their child and pay off their mortgage and car loan, these relatively decent but not high-paying jobs made it difficult for them to help their parents.

Of course, Deng Caihua would never ask her children for money. At most, she would accept the generous red envelopes her son and daughter-in-law gave her on her birthday and during the New Year.

Su Yiqing and his wife, Kong Yao, were also very filial. Every month, they would visit the countryside several times with their son, bringing their mother some hard-to-find local foods for her freezer and spending time with her, allowing their child to see his grandmother.

Similarly, the couple would also visit Kong Yao’s parents, treating both sets of parents equally.

Thus, Su Yiqing, with his respectable job and family, was considered quite successful among his peers.

What caused the villagers to sigh was Deng Caihua’s second son, Su Aobai.

This child lost his father before he was even a year old. Unlike his elder brother, Su Yiqing, who was seven when their father died and had already experienced his father’s love and the comfort of a well-off life while his father was alive, Su Aobai never had such experiences.

Su Yiqing matured early and, like their mother, was particularly sympathetic toward his younger brother who had grown up without a father. Thus, from childhood to adulthood, Su Aobai lived under the protection of his mother and elder brother. However, because Su Yiqing was busy with school, the person most affected was still their mother, Deng Caihua. As a result, Su Aobai grew up to be somewhat of a mama’s boy, unable to handle matters without his mother’s decisions.

Due to this indecisiveness, although he consistently ranked first or second in the civil service exams, he was always overtaken by candidates who ranked lower than him during the interviews.

Eventually, Su Aobai worked in a regular enterprise, leading a life of exploitation typical of the 996 work culture.

(T/N: 996 = a work schedule practiced illegally by many companies. Employees work from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, 6 days per week; i.e. 72 hours per week, 12 hours per day.)

Su Aobai had good academic results, and the university and major he graduated from were highly sought after in the job market. Although he lacked charisma, his solid knowledge allowed him to gradually gain recognition from his superiors. His salary increased several times, and before long, although his job wasn’t as prestigious as his elder brother and sister-in-law’s, his salary surpassed their combined income.

With his good income, Su Aobai quickly found a partner and, after some time together, entered into marriage.

In the second year of their marriage, they had a daughter, Su Su. That same year, Su Aobai’s wife received an opportunity to work abroad. She was an ambitious woman who had married and had a child early to quickly complete what she considered the two most important milestones in life, according to her elders. She intended to focus entirely on her career thereafter.