Courtyard House: Starting with a 28-inch motorcycle

"Wen Yuan, is this really your internship salary? What about after you become a full-time employee?" Yu Qiuhua pondered the numbers. It was seven times higher than her older sister He Wenhui's salary, which was truly astonishing.

"One thousand one hundred, Mr. Yang said it himself. Three-month trial period, let's see how I do." He Wenyuan smiled and stuffed the money into his mother's hand. "Mom, I'll be living in the company apartment from now on, a single room with a private bathroom. I'll send you two hundred back every month when I get my salary."

I first heard the word "apartment" from Liu Hongchang. He said that calling it "apartment" sounded more respectable, unlike the rougher term "dormitory."

She was assigned a one-bedroom, one-living room, one-bathroom apartment with a small balcony. This kind of treatment is only given to department heads and above. Ordinary employees are crammed into a room with four people. Although there is a private bathroom, the door is thin, the water pipes are noisy, and you are afraid of waking up the neighbors if you turn over at night.

When the employees went home and said they were "living in apartments," their whole families were stunned. Relatives and friends thought they had moved into a small villa. When they came to see for themselves, they found that the doorplates were plain and the corridors were narrow and long. From a distance, it really looked like a villa complex from the early 1990s. But when they got closer, it was just a few brick and concrete buildings painted in beige.

Many people mistook it for a high-end hotel until they saw a girl in work clothes carrying a thermos upstairs, and then they realized: Oh, it's a dormitory.

When Wentao and his brother heard about their second sister's salary, their eyes were glued to her hands as if they'd seen a gold ingot. "Second sister, are you hiring? I'm behaving myself now, you can ask Mom or eldest sister if you don't believe me!" Wentao rubbed his hands together and leaned closer. "I'll do anything—wait for tables, serve food, wash dishes, sweep the floor, I'll do it all!"

"We happen to be short-staffed, so you're welcome to come," He Wenyuan said, his eyes bright. "But remember this—when you enter the company, I'm Supervisor He, not 'Second Sister.' The boss and the eldest sister-in-law both came from service positions; we don't recognize relatives here, we only care about skills. Understand?"

She made it crystal clear – she was telling us upfront that if anything went wrong later, don't blame her for turning her back on us, and don't bring up any sibling relationship.

Wentao nodded vigorously, his eyes shining – getting the job would be great! His brother-in-law worked in a garment factory, while he himself was just a temporary helper, earning a meager seventeen yuan a month; but the wedding planning company was different. People would feel more confident looking for a partner once they heard you worked there. The first month's salary was fifty yuan, and if you worked diligently, you'd be promoted to foreman immediately after becoming a full-time employee.

He'd overheard these things from the gossip of the neighbors. He'd gone to the office several times himself, but they'd just glance at his resume and shake their heads, not even taking it.

Yu Qiuhua lowered her voice and asked, "Wen Yuan, this matter... won't affect your position in the company, will it? If it drags you down and makes President Yang unhappy, then Wen Tao shouldn't go."

Her mind was preoccupied with her daughter's future. It was good that her son could get into the company, but if something went wrong and Wen Yuan was also implicated, everything would be ruined.

"Don't worry, this is a major recruitment drive. We're still short twenty or thirty people," He Wenyuan said confidently. "The Royal Banquet Palace just opened, and all our staff have been transferred there to help out. We can only fill the gaps here with new recruits. I'll take him to get a haircut this afternoon and get him dressed properly—interviews aren't about looks, they're about spirit and energy. If there's a mistake, the company has clear rules: pay will be deducted, or you'll be fired. No one will be treated with leniency."

Now she manages all the documents and reports for the three stores, selecting the most important ones for Yang Maixiang to sign; if there's any trouble in any store, she has to be the first to hear it, the first to relay the message, and the first to implement it.

He Wentao went to the market with his second sister to get a haircut, and He Wenyuan picked out a neat and smart outfit for him. Before leaving, he repeatedly reminded him: "Speak softly, keep a smile on your face, and even if the other party deliberately nitpicks, you have to stay calm. If you can't even swallow this little bit of anger, what will you do if customers give you the cold shoulder or say nasty things in the future? Wouldn't that ruin the company's reputation?"

She paused, then softened her voice: "If the lobby manager can handle it, then there's the police station. Just smile and bear it; that's your duty."

This time, he actually made it through. It turned out that the previous times, they weren't looking down on him at all; they were deliberately setting him up—to see if he'd give up after a few words of criticism, or if he'd just grit his teeth and wait for an opportunity. Those who stayed were given employee badges on the spot. This method no longer works: "New employees are very precious; you have to coax them during training. If they're unhappy after two days, they turn around and leave. If the boss says something harsh, they'll retort, 'Does this manager have poor emotional management skills?' Leaving the room filled with an awkward silence."

After being hired, employees will be assigned to positions immediately. Whichever department is short-staffed will take the job, with seven days of paid training, and employees will start working directly on the eighth day.

He Wentao had only been working for two months when he hit it off with a girl who had been working at the company for half a year. He shamelessly borrowed 1,000 yuan from Wenyuan and took out all the savings he had accumulated with his mother over the years, making a total of 2,000 yuan. He bought an old three-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and bathroom in a tenement building. He held a simple and lively wedding with two tables of food at home.

The new days began so enthusiastically—the two of them worked hard together, paid off their debts together, and ran forward shoulder to shoulder.

Wenda and his mother scavenged for recyclables, a habit he had long since developed. When his classmates compared their clothes and schoolbags, he never dared to look up; the year he entered high school, he was still wearing his older brother's hand-me-downs. Yu Qiuhua never made him a single new piece of clothing.

He Wenhui regularly sent her retirement money every month, but never gave her two younger brothers a single penny of pocket money. Wenda was much quieter now; his thin shoulders could carry sacks and withstand cold stares. That day, he was carrying half a sack of waste paper home when he saw a gleaming, brand-new racing bicycle parked in front of his house. The frame shone with a blue light, and the bell rang crisply. He stood there, staring intently, his hand hovering in mid-air, hesitant to touch it.

My mother's words were etched into my bones: "What belongs to others, no matter how good, is still theirs. If you want it, you have to earn it with your own two hands and fight for it. God is fair; He never fails those who work hard."

Hearing the commotion, Yu Qiuhua came out and saw her son standing there dumbfounded. A slight smile appeared on her lips: "Do you like it?" She walked over and ran her hand over the cold handlebars. "Mom sees you always standing around the bike shop for ages every time you go to collect recyclables. Over the years, the money we've earned from exchanging a pound of paper and a can of bottles is 750 yuan, enough to renovate the whole house. This bike, half of it is what you earned, and the other half... is a gift from Mom."

Wenda didn't say a word, but suddenly rushed over and hugged his mother tightly, tears streaming down his face and falling onto her shoulder. When his older brother got married, his mother only took out a hundred yuan; but for him, she was willing to spend seven or eight hundred yuan to buy a new car—just because he glanced at it a few more times.

His throat was choked, and he couldn't say anything, only burying his face even deeper. All those images of his youthful willfulness, sulking, and slamming doors all rushed up, burning his heart, and he wished he could slap himself a few times.

"Silly child, don't cry." Yu Qiuhua gently patted his back with one hand and wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes with the other. "The college entrance exam is coming soon, don't pick them up anymore. This year, focus on getting into a good university without any distractions. After that, you can earn and buy whatever you want yourself."

Years later, this scene remains as vivid in his heart as ever—the first truly valuable thing in his life that belonged to him was not something that fell from the sky, but something that he and his mother painstakingly dug out of the dust, basket by basket and penny by penny.

Eight years later, Wenda finally fulfilled his mother's wish and entered university. Yu Qiuhua personally saw him off as he boarded the green train bound for Kyoto. On the platform, she waved with a smile, her figure slender yet upright.

Tears streamed down his face through the car window as he gazed at the increasingly smaller, solitary figure standing alone in the wind—his eldest sister had married far away, his second sister was busy with her career, his eldest brother had long since established his own household, and he himself was heading off into the distance, leaving his mother alone behind that familiar, weathered tin door.

He never expected that his mother's life would change so quietly after he left: she would be fed and clothed without lifting a finger, and no longer had to bend down to rummage through the garbage.

……

When Yu Qiuhua saw Wenda off and turned to go home, Li Jianbin and He Wenhui were already waiting at the gate, helping her pack her luggage in preparation for moving in with Wenyuan. He Wenyuan had bought a courtyard house in the provincial capital and hired a housekeeper, hoping that his mother would come and keep her company.

The couple escorted Yu Qiuhua into Wen Yuan's house. The moment they pushed open the courtyard gate, it felt like stepping into a bygone era: gray bricks and tiles, winding corridors, wind chimes hanging from the eaves, the fragrance of osmanthus trees in the courtyard, and several rows of lush green vegetables. Of the 55,000 yuan for the house, half was saved by Wen Yuan, and the other half was borrowed from Yang Maixiang; the final payment for the renovations still owed Liu Yunchang more than 2,000 yuan.

She preferred courtyard houses because she often ate at Liu Hongchang's house. Later, she also saw tenement buildings—the difference was obvious: in tenement buildings, dozens of families were crammed into one building, and if someone was frying an egg, the smell of cooking oil could be smelled from the next door; while courtyard houses were independent, each with its own door and a private world, where one could plant flowers and vegetables as one pleased, and standing in the courtyard made one feel relaxed.

Yang Maixiang had already told her the whole story: all the businesses in the provincial capital and her hometown would be under her management from now on. Yang Maixiang and Liu Hongchang's family had already settled in Beijing, and their focus had shifted entirely there; Liu Yunchang had also already taken his people and settled down there earlier.

Many veteran workers in the second canteen were laid off and had nowhere to go. They shamelessly approached Liu Zi and Liu Hongchang, just asking for a job and a meal.

Liu Zi and Liu Hongchang immediately agreed. As longtime partners who had worked together for decades, they knew each other's temperaments, backgrounds, and weaknesses very well.

The day after Liu Yunchang's family boarded the southbound train, Wang Cuilan couldn't sit still on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed). She grabbed her old cloth bag, pocketed the money she'd saved for the tickets, and rushed to the train station to buy a hard-seat ticket to Kyoto. She murmured her grandson's nickname, her steps quickening. The two courtyard houses in Kyoto were acquired by Liu Hongchang years ago; this time, he simply brought Wu Xiaoying and her son there, preserving their family while ensuring the child could attend school nearby. Yang Maixiang and Liu Hongchang stayed in the provincial capital to settle things. Once their current affairs were settled, they would head north to start a new chapter: the wedding company would continue operating as usual, and the catering business would also expand simultaneously.