Global Film Emperor

Chapter 60 At Home (First Update)
"Brother, let me help you carry your things. I'm starving. Let's hurry home. Mom has already cooked dinner."

Lu Ze didn't refuse and handed the luggage to Lu Nan directly. He felt that it would be meaningless to be a brother if he didn't let his younger sister do any work. He even threw the backpack he was carrying to Lu Nan.

"Dad, it's so cold, why are you out here? Come on, let me help you, let's go home."

Reaching out to take Lu Weiguo's arm, Lu Ze felt a pang of pain in his heart as he looked at the two missing fingers on his father's hand. He then helped Lu Weiguo slowly walk home.

"I've gained a little weight since I went out, but it's fine."

Lu Weiguo did not refuse Lu Ze's help, because he had arthritis in both legs, and his legs would hurt so much that he could not walk when it snowed. He usually had to use crutches if no one was there to help him.

Lu Weiguo is forty-eight years old this year, but he looks like he is fifty-eight. Only by looking at his photos when he was young can you see that he was in his prime and was even more handsome than Lu Ze is now.

However, his fate was much more difficult than his appearance. He dropped out of school at the age of fourteen and started working at a sand quarry loading sand onto large trucks, using a shovel to load the sand onto the trailers one shovel at a time.

He got married at the age of twenty. Since selling sand could no longer make ends meet, he went to the logging camp to carry trees down the mountain. For logs with a diameter of thirty or more, two people would carry them one after the other, while for logs with a diameter of less than thirty, Lu Weiguo would carry them down the mountain by himself, load them onto a truck, and haul them away.

Lu Ze still remembers his father wearing a hooded hat while working, carrying a large piece of wood and sweating profusely. Even now, Lu Weiguo has calluses on his shoulders that are thicker than the heels of a normal person.

At the age of thirty-eight, he quit his job carrying timber because his knees had developed many problems. He had no choice but to leave his hometown with Li Yumei and go to the city to work as a laborer. He found a job as a manual laborer on a construction site, while Lu Ze and Lu Nan became left-behind children.

Although being a migrant worker meant being covered in dust and dirt all day, the income was indeed good. However, the good times didn't last long. Two years ago, Lu Weiguo made a mistake while working on steel bars and his right ring finger and little finger were cut off. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that the steel bar bounced up and poked Lu Weiguo's left eye.

The critical condition notice was issued four times, and he almost didn't survive when he was first sent to the hospital. That was the darkest time for the Lu family. Although the compensation from the construction site covered most of the medical expenses, the remaining expenses were still too much for the family to bear.

They emptied their savings; the money they received from handing over seven mu of their ten mu of land to the brigade was barely warmed before it went straight to the hospital, leaving them with over 100,000 yuan in debt.

Fortunately, just when the family was about to reach the end of their rope, Lu Weiguo finally pulled through. However, the two fingers that were cut off had lost some tissue due to the serrated edges, and could not be stitched back together. He also lost sight in his left eye.

Because of this unexpected turn of events, Lu Ze had to drop out of school to work and support his family. It took him four years to finally pay off the debt with interest.

However, things have calmed down now. With the spare money at home, they bought two machines, one for threshing rice and the other for grinding flour. During the harvest season, they can earn a thousand or eight hundred yuan a month in labor fees. With the money Lu Ze sends back, they can barely make ends meet.

"I bought some plasters in my suitcase. Go back and try them on. See if they work. If they do, I'll mail them back to you monthly."

Helping Lu Weiguo along, the three chatted about everyday things before returning home. The snow in the courtyard had been swept clean, and smoke was billowing from the chimney on the roof.

"Mom, my brother is back!"

Pushing open the iron gate to the courtyard, Lu Nan, who was never well-behaved, started shouting as soon as he entered the yard.

"Can't you act like a girl? Do you need a beating?"

After scolding Lu Nan, the girl pouted and deliberately stomped her feet hard on the ground. Lu Ze didn't tolerate her behavior and kicked her in the butt.

Pushing open the door, the room was much warmer than the outside. Both stoves in the east and west rooms were burning, and the temperature must have been around 25 or 26 degrees Celsius. You wouldn't feel cold even wearing short sleeves.

"Mom, I'm back."

Lu Ze swept the snow off his shoes with a broom and saw Li Yumei busy in the kitchen, so he greeted her.

"I've just finished cooking, let's put the food on the table. Xiaonan, hurry up and get your rice bowl. Daze, do you want some sweet potatoes? Mom will roast a couple for you. They're freshly picked from the field, yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes, they're so sweet."

"Okay, let's make two hot ones."

When he got home, there wasn't that clingy feeling. His whole family were people who didn't express their feelings much verbally, so Lu Ze didn't say much. He just felt much more comfortable at home.

He took off his coat and long-sleeved shirt, opened the closet and rummaged through the clothes to find two old clothes to change into. Strangely enough, Lu Ze was already 1.83 meters tall when he was in the third year of junior high school. The older folks all guessed that Lu Ze would grow to two meters tall. But in the three years of high school, Lu Ze only grew one centimeter, and after graduating from high school, he didn't grow a centimeter at all.

Every time he came home, Lu Ze didn't want anything else, except for the food Li Yumei cooked. It smelled so much better than anything you could get outside. He washed his hands, sat down on a stool, and Lu Nan warmed up some white wine for Lu Weiguo and Lu Ze. Once the chopsticks were brought out, they started eating right away. "How were your exams? Did you fail any?"

After picking up a bite of food, Lu Ze, as usual, asked about Lu Nan's grades. This was a topic that Lu Ze always asked, without his parents having to say a word. If she didn't do well on the exam, Lu Ze would just grab her hair, drag her out, and beat her up without his parents having to lift a finger.

"You did very well on the exam! You'll definitely get your scholarship this year, six thousand yuan!"

“We’re not short of six thousand yuan at home. You can keep the money you earned yourself, just don’t spend it recklessly. Come on, Dad.”

Since Lu Nan's academic performance was acceptable, Lu Ze didn't ask any more questions. After all, she was a young woman and it was only right that she had some privacy.

After clinking glasses with his father, Lu Ze thought for a moment and then brought up the next topic.

"Let's demolish the old house and build a new one next spring. I'll earn some money after the New Year, enough to build a new house."

These words surprised all three of them. Li Yumei felt a little sorry for the money and genuinely thought that the house was quite nice and didn't need to be repaired, so she voiced her objection.

"Why build a house? It's just your dad and me living here. You two are both away now. This house is enough. There's no need to build one."

Lu Weiguo didn't speak. He had become taciturn since the incident, but Lu Ze seemed to think that Lu Weiguo shared the same attitude.

I took another sip of baijiu. It was pure grain liquor brewed by a master distiller in the village, with the family paying for the grain and labor themselves. It was strong, around 56 or 57 degrees, and tasted pretty good.

“Here’s what I’m thinking: either build you a new house, or buy you an apartment in the city. All the capable people in the village have moved away. I actually wanted you to live in the city, but I don’t think you could manage.”

Lu Ze had thought about this question carefully. Would moving to the city really be a good thing? Although many of their relatives had moved to the city, they were too far away, and the elderly couple would indeed feel lonely without any close relatives around them.

Moreover, if the houses in the countryside are well-built, they are no worse than those in the city, and may even be more comfortable. After all, with Lu Ze's current financial resources, he can't afford a very nice house. Once the salary for "Youth in the Capital" comes through, based on Lu Hua's housing price of more than 5,000 yuan per square meter, it will actually be enough to buy a house of about 100 square meters.

Most importantly, my parents still have many acquaintances in the village. The neighbors on both sides have lived there for decades and have an extremely good relationship. If anything happens, they can help each other out. In the city, everyone is a stranger, and not many good neighbors will care about you.

Anyway, I think this house is pretty good.

"Mom, believe me, this house was built by my grandpa. It should have been built a long time ago. Listen to me, I'll pay for it."

Li Yumei fell silent. Ever since Lu Weiguo lost his ability to work, Lu Ze had been the pillar of the family. Even if Lu Weiguo had something to do, he would call his son to ask for his opinion. Now that Lu Ze had really made up his mind to repair the house, then so be it. After all, it was his son who wanted to do his filial duty.

The meal was almost over, and the father and son had drunk quite a bit. Lu Nan poured them tea, then cleared the table and washed the dishes.

"Xiao Nan, come out and play! Come out!"

"Brother, I didn't go out with them. You know I'm annoyed by them."

When Lu Nan heard someone shouting outside, she immediately panicked, fearing that her brother would beat her up, and quickly distanced herself from the situation.

Hearing Lu Nan's explanation, Lu Ze's expression turned sour. With a cigarette dangling from his mouth, he put on a coat and went out the door. He pushed open the door and saw a brick on the ground. He picked it up and, without caring whether it would actually hit anyone, threw it forcefully out of the yard.

"Come on, let me see who loves to play like this. You son of a bitch, if you come any closer, I'll come to your house and come play with you! I'll break your leg, you bastard."

"Holy crap, Daze's back! Run!"

A group of eighteen or nineteen-year-old boys dropped out of school and didn't go out to work. They just stayed at home and became good-for-nothings. Knowing that the second son of the Lu family was handsome and often had a flirtatious way of talking, Lu Ze used to go from house to house with a stick and beat him. Their parents were all acquaintances and could be relatives in the village. As long as they weren't seriously injured, they would sit on the kang (a heated brick bed) and eat melon seeds, letting Lu Ze discipline their good-for-nothing sons.

Even so, these bastards still had no shame and would always try to flirt with Lu Nan when Lu Ze wasn't home.

Upon seeing Lu Ze return, his psychological trauma resurfaced. He got on the electric scooter, quickly turned off the subwoofer, and sped off like a madman.

(End of this chapter)