Chapter 27: Fate Strikes the Afflicted, Misfortune Seeks the Wretched

“Uncle, you were a big boss back in the nineties?”
Lu Yuanqiu let out a surprised “Oh!”
How to put it… The man in the overalls really did have a special air about him. If he didn’t speak, one wouldn’t be able to tell there was anything wrong with him at all.
He was handsome, and though his clothes were old, they were clean and carried a faint scent of laundry detergent.
Lu Yuanqiu patted the man’s shoulder, his smile tinged with both emotion and helplessness.
“Then how did he end up like this… Grandpa, do you know?”
With nothing else to do, Lu Yuanqiu asked curiously.
The sanitation worker set his broom on the steps beside him, gazed at the sky, and started to chat. “I know him. He lives in the same alley as me.”
Lu Yuanqiu looked in the direction of the urban village he pointed out.
He’d been there once—it was rundown, the electrical wires above twisted together like braids, and the alleys inside wound and turned like a maze.
He remembered that after 2016, the place was demolished and turned into a park.
“He used to be the boss of a big company, managed several hundred people. His wife was a bal… bal… something, a dancer.”
Lu Yuanqiu filled in, “Ballet?”
The old man nodded at once. “Yes, a ballet dancer. That guy, his wife looked like a movie star, had real grace. When the two of them stood together—wolves and tigers…”
Lu Yuanqiu interrupted, “A talented man and a beautiful woman.”
The old man laughed, “That’s right, a perfect couple. They were a sight to behold.”
Lu Yuanqiu asked, “And then?”
He looked at the man in overalls, chewing his lollipop with a silly innocence, knowing there had to be a twist.
The old man sighed, “Later, it seems he was tricked by someone. The company went bankrupt, lost a lot of money, sold the house and the car. The whole family had to squeeze into a shabby rental.”
Lu Yuanqiu winced. “That’s rough.”
“That’s not even all of it.” The old man turned to the boy, a faint, weathered smile on his lips tinged with sympathy.
“He had a son and a daughter. The four of them, poor as they were, still managed to get by.”
“Then one day, his wife fainted during a dance class. She was diagnosed with leukemia.”
“The sky fell. They had no money for treatment. She held on for a year, then died… Lost all her hair. Such a beautiful woman, too. Sigh.”
Lu Yuanqiu fell silent at that.
The old man continued, “After his wife died, the man kept going for the sake of his son and daughter.”
“A few years later, as if heaven had gone blind, his son was hit by a car a few days before the high school entrance exams. The boy thought he was fine, took the 500 yuan the driver gave him and limped home. He died that very night.”
“Ha, 500 yuan for a life.”
Lu Yuanqiu practically forgot to breathe.

“How does the saying go, fate always…”
Lu Yuanqiu murmured in a low voice, “A rope snaps at its thinnest point, misfortune seeks out the wretched.”
The old man exclaimed, “Exactly!”
“And after that?”
“After all those blows, he just couldn’t take it anymore. Lost his mind.” The old man shrugged, then sighed. “He’s had a tough life.”
Lu Yuanqiu silently glanced at the man in overalls, who was still eating his lollipop.
“Delicious! So good!”
He beamed innocently at Lu Yuanqiu, swinging his lollipop and stamping his feet with joy.
Suddenly, Lu Yuanqiu looked up. “But doesn’t he still have a daughter…?”
The old man shook his head with a bitter smile. “She’s the saddest of all. When the family went bankrupt, the girl was only three—never had a good day since she could remember.”
“Her brother died, then her father lost his mind not long after. A little girl, so small, going to school and taking care of her father, and she’s managed to keep him so well. What a remarkable child.”
He raised his hand to indicate the girl’s height.
Lu Yuanqiu couldn’t help saying, “Grandpa, are you kidding me? Who could have such bad luck?”
The sanitation worker stood up, smiled at Lu Yuanqiu, and said, “If you think I’m joking, it just means you’ve had a pretty good life, young man.”
“I’d better get going, still have a street to sweep.”
“Damn, talked all this time and didn’t even get a smoke…” the old man muttered as he walked away.
Lu Yuanqiu sat there in silence, glancing again at the man in overalls beside him.
The handsome man, childlike, swayed his head back and forth. “So good, really good, lollipops are delicious!”
Lu Yuanqiu didn’t speak for a long time.
After a while, he headed to the shop, bought a big bag of bread, and placed it in the man’s arms.
As he stood up, he saw Lu Yidong had already come out of the school gate, waving to him.
Lu Yuanqiu took out a prop—a little mustache.
He stuck it to his upper lip in front of his phone screen, then practiced, “Watashi wa Lu Yidong’s uncle…”
…
It was only when evening study period began that Lu Yuanqiu finished the parent-teacher conference and returned to Lucheng No. 7 Middle School.
Fortunately, his sister’s homeroom teacher hadn’t given him a hard time, so the meeting went fairly well. But the grade supervisor for the second year almost recognized him.
It was only after the meeting that Lu Yuanqiu realized what his sister meant when she said she hadn’t scored in the top twenty of her class—she actually meant she was in the bottom ten.
No wonder she refused to tell their parents the truth.
Back at the classroom door, Lu Yuanqiu saw Bai Qingxia coming out of the office.

“Where did you go this afternoon?”
“And why were you in the office?”
They looked at each other, both stopping in their tracks, both speaking at once.
The sudden synchronicity made Bai Qingxia lower her head, a little embarrassed.
Lu Yuanqiu smiled. “I went to the parent-teacher meeting for my sister. What about you, why were you in the office?”
Bai Qingxia shook her head lightly. “It’s nothing.”
After she said this, she walked into the classroom, and Lu Yuanqiu didn’t press further, following behind her.
During evening study, while others did their homework, Lu Yuanqiu simply read through the theory in his textbooks. He didn’t plan to do any assignments for now, except for English.
After all, all the teachers had already given up on him.
He finished reading the entire first volume of required math, then closed the book and turned his gaze to the group of underachievers at the back of the class.
There were fifty-three students in the class, which meant he needed to beat eighteen people to reach the top thirty-five.
But Lu Yuanqiu knew that being in the top thirty-five was far from his real goal.
He was absolutely confident about English—he even thought he might outscore everyone in the class, perhaps even Bai Qingxia.
But the other subjects, especially math and physics, he couldn’t be sure about.
As he watched, his gaze landed on Zheng Yifeng, who was snoring at his desk.
Zheng Yifeng’s grades were always in the bottom ten of the class, but in his previous life, this guy scored over 600 on the college entrance exam.
He truly was a legend.
The person who changed him completely was the English teacher, Su Miaomiao.
Lu Yuanqiu later heard that Zheng Yifeng married Su Miaomiao and they had a child, living very happily together.
But it was only the first semester of their senior year now—Zheng Yifeng’s turning point would come next semester.
All for the sake of a woman, in just one semester, he’d climb from the bottom ten of the class to a score of over 600 in the college entrance exam. In Lu Yuanqiu’s mind, the “God of Sleep” Zheng Yifeng was truly a man’s man.
Putting down his book, Lu Yuanqiu left the classroom for the restroom.
When he came back, he suddenly noticed Bai Qingxia was gone, her backpack missing as well.
“Where did Bai Qingxia go?”
He tugged at the desk in front of him to ask.
“No idea. She just left with her backpack, and even the homeroom teacher didn’t say anything.”