The IOU
“You must be Zhuyu. Your dad is always talking about you, saying you’re smart, pretty, capable, that you care about your dad, and that you came all the way back from abroad to help with the family business. You’re such a wonderful girl. Auntie has finally gotten to meet you today. You really are exactly as your dad described you. So pretty!”
Zhuyu had an impulse to take a step back. She resisted it.
The woman standing before her was her father’s... well... current girlfriend. Zhuyu called her Auntie Yu. She was the middle-aged wealthy woman everyone had been talking about, the one who had secretly been in love with Sheng Wenbin for many years when they were younger. But he had a wife and daughter, and had never even known about her feelings. Once he fell on hard times, this wealthy woman devoted herself wholeheartedly to taking care of him, and the two of them naturally ended up falling in love.
Today was Zhuyu’s first time meeting Auntie Yu, and she found that she was somewhat different from what she had imagined. She had thought her dad’s romantic partner would be a rather tough woman, perhaps even a little fierce. After all, a woman who built a business from the ground up had to have some temper.
In reality, Auntie Yu was dignified and gentle-looking, wearing a yellow dress, her every movement soft and graceful. Third Auntie had said she was in her fifties and had two daughters, the younger of whom was even older than Zhuyu.
The age of wealthy women was a mystery. At least, you couldn’t tell from their appearance. Zhuyu felt that her dad had really hit the jackpot.
She restrained herself from comparing Auntie Yu with her mother. Her mom had been hot-tempered for years. She had money, but didn’t care much about dressing herself up. She claimed she was helping her father with the business, but in reality, she had always been secretly transferring his assets. Before the office building was sold, she even had people remove all the air conditioners inside and sell them. Her mother seemed to have always considered money the most important thing in the world. As long as she had money in her hands, she felt secure.
According to Grandma, her mother had been beautiful when she was young. She worked at a factory and often hosted evening performances. Her father, on the other hand, had been somewhat lacking in other respects. He had a handsome face, wasn’t tall, came from an ordinary family, and showed no signs whatsoever of being destined for success. Her mother had considered marrying her father a step down. She had originally been determined to find a man from a good family, but before she knew it, she had grown older. The men who had once pursued her had gradually come and gone, and only then did she begin to consider Sheng Wenbin. He was the one who treated her best, loved her most devotedly, and had persisted the longest. With her family also pressing her to marry, she simply closed her eyes and married him.
A marriage that was a step down probably never felt quite satisfying. When you didn’t love someone, spending too long together didn’t make you love them either. In the end, all that pride and resentment was transformed into ruthlessly squeezing money out of him.
Third Auntie often cursed Zhuyu’s mother, though always behind Zhuyu’s back. For a while, she would video-call her brothers and sisters, and the subject was almost always cursing her sister-in-law. Zhuyu had overheard it a few times by accident. She knew very well that her own mother had a terrible reputation among their relatives and friends.
What made the relatives even angrier was that Sheng Wenbin, despite having been tricked out of such a huge sum of money by his wife, didn’t resent his ex-wife at all. When she told him the money was for arranging immigration for her and the children and buying a house, he willingly let her squeeze him dry.
And when her mother squeezed money out of her father, she showed not the slightest mercy.
The father who had spent half his life being despised by his wife had never expected that, in another woman’s eyes, he would be a precious man she couldn’t have even after wanting him.
“This child is very pretty. Just a little dark-skinned. You must have been out in the wind and rain and gotten badly sunburned, haven’t you? Come, come, Auntie brought you a whole set of skincare products. They happen to have whitening and moisturizing effects. Don’t be shy with Auntie! We’re all family from now on.”
It was a whole Estée Lauder set. It certainly wasn’t cheap. Zhuyu refused to take it, politely declining twice, then suddenly understood.
If she kept refusing to accept it, it would mean she opposed her father and Auntie Yu being together. If she didn’t even want the things, how could she possibly accept the person?
In the end, she still took the skincare set into her hands. It was heavy, and Zhuyu felt extremely uncomfortable.
Not long afterward, her father returned from outside, looking delighted, and took the whole family to a restaurant on Lanqi Street for dinner. It was specifically to welcome Auntie Yu, who had flown from Guangzhou to Nanshi.
As they drank and exchanged toasts, Auntie Yu brought up the matter of selling the mountain. They would have to sell the mountain for 25 million yuan just to break even, and all the money they got would go toward repaying Sheng Wenbin’s debts. She said that no matter what, she would help Wenbin sell the mountain. She would put in all her strength and spare no expense. By now, she had already introduced the mountain to several wealthy businessmen, and they would come to look at it after a while. It would definitely sell. The only concern was that they might not be able to get 25 million for it.
As long as they could sell it, that was good enough. Zhuyu’s father was very easygoing and optimistic about things.
“Then roughly how many millions do you think those people can offer?” Zhuyu was very concerned about the price. If she knew some information in advance, she could make arrangements ahead of time.
Auntie Yu looked at Zhuyu for a few moments longer. She realized that Sheng Wenbin’s claim that his daughter was capable and could help him manage the business seemed to be true. There was something about this girl that suggested she was accustomed to being the one in charge.
“I’m not going to let them offer half the price. They may have no shame, but I still do. If I let us take such a huge loss selling the mountain, I’d be letting Wenbin down. They’ll definitely be able to offer the bulk of it.”
“There’s only one mountain, so we can only sell it to one buyer. Dad’s debts are 25 million. We’ll have to slowly figure out the rest ourselves.” Even so, this was already incredibly good news.
“No. I’m not going to let Wenbin be in debt again. Let the buyer cover the bulk of it, and I’ll pay the remaining few million. We’re all businesspeople. If we don’t keep the accounts completely clear, even if I don’t care about it, Wenbin won’t agree. So just treat the money I’m putting up as a loan. We’ll draw up an IOU. I have a company, a site, equipment, a team, workers, everything is already in place. All I’m missing is someone capable of handling major things and coordinating everything. Wenbin can come manage the company for me then, and the money on the IOU can be deducted from his salary. That’ll settle it.
“Really, it’s just a formality. Wenbin and I are going to be family soon anyway. I’ll help him repay his debts, and he’ll help me manage the company. What’s mine and what’s his, we won’t distinguish between them.”
Auntie Yu’s generosity and the scale of her offer secretly surprised and impressed everyone at the table. Sheng Wenbin had been trapped in a debt crisis for several years, and things had been getting worse and worse. He had almost developed depression. Then, suddenly, a benefactor had appeared, sparing no effort to help him. It would not be an exaggeration to say she had saved his life.
Only Zhuyu felt a trace of unease. Why did this IOU feel so much like a contract selling himself?
She didn’t care if her father wanted to date this beautiful middle-aged woman, even if they were going to get married right away.
It was just that marriage and money shouldn’t get mixed together. Otherwise, things would become very troublesome.
They were both women. Zhuyu could guess most of Auntie Yu’s thoughts after turning them over in her mind for a moment. When you loved someone, you would want to keep that person by your side and never let him leave again. In a society governed by the rule of law, you couldn’t illegally imprison someone, so a several-million-yuan IOU could record both the favor of saving his life and the debt between them.
But people changed. She treated her father like a treasure now, but how could she know whether she might make him suffer in the future?
If he ended up with another woman like her own mother, someone who casually hit and berated her husband and never gave him any respect in public or private, her father’s life would not be easy. More frighteningly, he had already decided to move to Guangzhou with her and settle there. He didn’t know the place or anyone there. Who knew what his life would be like in the future...
Zhuyu felt that as she grew older, once her father could no longer control his own fate, she had begun considering things for him. She was no longer like a daughter who relied on her father for help. Instead, she was beginning to resemble a mother who constantly made plans for him.
“Auntie, how about this? I have some friends too. They’re all second-generation entrepreneurs, and they’re all thinking about investing in real estate. While you’re busy with things on your end, I’ll put in some effort too and invite those friends up to the mountain to have a look. Maybe one of them will offer a price that everyone can be satisfied with.
“If we’re really that lucky, then there’ll be no need to trouble you to put up such a large sum. Dad can go to Guangzhou with you debt-free and travel around. He’ll definitely be much happier that way.”
What Auntie Yu wanted was for Sheng Wenbin to settle down in Guangzhou with her. Zhuyu subtly changed it to “travel.” The two women sat close together, smiling warmly as they raised their glasses to one another, each hiding a clash of strength in her eyes.
Yu Airong knew that she had encountered an opponent today. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this girl was the biggest obstacle to taking Wenbin away on this trip to Nanshi.
“Once Wenbin gets used to living there and has settled in nicely, you can come over too, girl, and live with us. The scenery is beautiful where we are, and there’s plenty of produce. I’ve got a little business there myself. I can help you find a stable job, introduce you to a handsome young man, and then buy you a house. For the rest of my life, I’ll practically have a third daughter.”
She stroked Zhuyu’s hand, praising how pretty her hands were, only the palms had become rough from doing too much work. Next time, she would take her along to get some hand care, then have her nails done beautifully. They would surely look good.
Zhuyu smiled as though none of it mattered. “No need, Auntie. I’m used to doing rough work. If I put on fake nails, I won’t be able to work anymore. I’m a rough sort of person, so I should do rough work. I just want to focus on helping Dad.”
After they got home, Yu Airong immediately began crying to Sheng Wenbin that night, saying that Zhuyu was still unhappy and unwilling to accept her, and that she must still have her biological mother in her heart. She wished she could tear her own heart out and give it to Zhuyu, that she wanted to treat her as her own daughter, so how could the girl not even give her a chance?
Sheng Wenbin hadn’t picked up on any of it. He thought his daughter and Airong had gotten along quite well, so there must have been some misunderstanding. That evening, he called his daughter and asked whether she wanted to go with the two of them to eat at a farmhouse restaurant the next day.
“Xiao Yu, what do you think of Auntie Airong?” He didn’t dare ask her directly, so he could only wind his way around the question.
Zhuyu first brought up the matter of the “contract selling himself.” “Is that woman saying that I don’t like her, and she forced you to come probe me for my opinion? Just tell me if that’s what happened.”
She was holding all that anger inside. Her dad was practically an idiot, running off with someone, only to get sold off by that same person, and he couldn’t even call back for help.
“Child, if your dad could sell himself and get a good price for it, then you wouldn’t have to suffer anymore in the future. What family’s boy would want to marry a girl whose family is in debt? You’re running yourself ragged up here in the mountains, scraping together a little money here and a little money there, getting sunburned until you’re all dark and pretty, and even your hands have become rough. It breaks your dad’s heart. I’m already an old vegetable leaf. There’s nothing on me worth tricking me for. You’re different. You still have a bright future ahead of you. At worst, at worst, all that’ll happen is that I’ll have to endure a little hardship in a new place and keep my head down and get along. Auntie Airong is a kind-hearted person. She won’t mistreat me. I know what I’m doing.”
After the call ended, Zhuyu squatted in the courtyard, peeling chestnuts. She peeled them one after another and stuffed them into her mouth. With no water nearby to drink, she nearly choked and couldn’t catch her breath.
“What’s so good about a farmhouse restaurant?” she thought indignantly.
Just then, a message came through.
【I’m back tomorrow. Are you busy?】
【No, the tree’s been sold. Let’s go out and walk around. Want to?】
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