Poverty Alleviation

The welfare home huddled at the very end of the street, like a rag someone had tossed aside and time had already worn to pieces.

Just one wall away stood a bilingual kindergarten painted with cartoon characters. Its pale-yellow exterior was covered in adorable illustrations, like a candy house from a fairy tale. Every morning, sleek chauffeur-driven cars would file in one after another, and children in little suits would play on the rubber track.

That contrast gave Zhu Qing a sudden, sharp sense of division. Before she could even make sense of it, the feeling shot past reason and struck straight at her heart.

It was an absurd kind of unfairness, a hidden heaviness.

“What are you looking at?” Qian Cancan leaned over and followed Zhu Qing’s gaze.

Zhu Qing pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Nothing. I just feel uncomfortable.”

“You mean this welfare home?” Qian Cancan studied it for a while, eyes narrowed, then said regretfully, “What a shame.”

Zhu Qing asked, “What is?”

Qian Cancan waved a hand. “There’s a commercial street right behind the welfare home. This is prime real estate. I remember property prices in the nearby business district shot up to six figures last year.”

Zhu Qing’s eyes lit up. “You mean the welfare home has money?”

“Think again,” Qian Cancan said, dousing her hopes. “It occupies at least six mu of land. If it could be used as collateral for a loan, or if they could carve off even a small section to transfer or develop, it would’ve had money long ago. Would it still be this run-down? The problem is that welfare land can’t be bought, sold, or mortgaged.”

After thinking it over for two seconds, Qian Cancan looked even more regretful. “Sigh, let’s go. It’s maddening to watch people sit on a pile of gold and still beg for scraps.”

Zhu Qing hurried after her in small steps. “Is there any way out?”

Qian Cancan’s family had been in business, and she’d seen plenty from a young age. She shrugged. “Not easily. You have to understand, disadvantaged groups don’t get to enjoy the dividends of rising land prices.”

Then she seemed to remember something and teased, “You, my former disadvantaged-group member, basically count as my childhood bride. When are you coming to my house to make up an adoption agreement?”

Zhu Qing gave her an exasperated kick. “Get lost.”

The two thanked Yi Xi for showing them around, said their goodbyes, and left the kindergarten.

Even as they went, Yi Xi still looked reluctant. With Zhu Qing gone, her communication with the others wasn’t very smooth.

“She’s like a lady in Burberry drinking coffee by the Thames,” Qian Cancan said after getting in the car, still replaying Yi Xi’s every gesture. She was completely entranced. “Honey-brown hair, gray-blue eyes, and such a literary vibe. Amazing.”

Zhu Qing stared at the welfare home entrance flashing past outside the window and said nothing.

Qian Cancan went on, “It’s just that her accent swallows a lot of the words. I can barely understand her English. It feels like a string of English letters rushes into my brain and then rushes right back out in the exact same form. Ah Qing, can you understand everything?”

The welfare home slipped behind them and disappeared in the rearview mirror. Zhu Qing came back to herself. “Hm? Yes, I can understand everything.”

Qian Cancan sighed. “What a shame. Language barriers are worse than long-distance relationships. Oh right, do you still take translation work? A friend asked me about it.”

Zhu Qing’s strengths were in foreign languages. She’d scored an IELTS 8 in high school; if she had just tutored IELTS on the side, she could have made steady money. But she worried her English would get rusty, so she mostly took company work, running around with foreign firms and handling partnerships. Her English kept improving.

“Find me some Japanese work instead,” Zhu Qing said hesitantly. “I feel like my Japanese has rusted.”

Actually, she felt both her English and Japanese had gotten a little rusty, but it wasn’t obvious in English; it was more that speaking felt rougher than she remembered. Japanese was more noticeable. She’d tried several times to think in Japanese, and it felt painfully sluggish.

“Really? I can’t tell,” Qian Cancan said with the ease of someone well fed and untroubled. “Japanese only started in college for you anyway; unlike English, which basically counts as your native language. I’ll reply to them then.”

Zhu Qing nodded and didn’t dwell on it.

Her childhood had actually been quite eventful. In the first few years after she was born, her parents made a fortune quarrying stone in Xinjiang. In order to make even more money, they were away year-round, with no one to take care of her, so they dumped her at a private daycare near home.

The daycare was a husband-and-wife business. The woman was Chinese-American, the man an Italian who had grown up in Britain. Their clients were the children of the entire villa district.

Qian Cancan was there too back then. The two of them had known each other since they were in open-crotch pants, though Qian Cancan was spoiled by her parents and only went a few times a week, unlike Zhu Qing, who practically lived at the daycare.

If it weren’t for little Qian Cancan, who spoke with a hilarious Dongbei accent she’d picked up from her grandmother and who dragged Zhu Qing off to play with her every day, Zhu Qing’s first sentence might have been “I don’t want it” instead of “Get lost.”

Later, her parents ran out of money and couldn’t afford the daycare fees. But by then, she had already grown attached to the couple. Zhu Qing knew how to read the room; she understood she had to be obedient if she wanted to stay, so she helped the couple take care of younger children and talk to them. When the parents saw how fluent her English was, they were even more willing to send their kids over, so Zhu Qing stayed at the daycare as a sort of worker until she was eleven, when the couple had saved enough and returned to their hometown.

When exactly did her parents disappear from her childhood?

Zhu Qing couldn’t remember.

Before eleven, Zhu Qing lived at the daycare. After eleven, she lived at school. As for home? She’d long since lost any impression of it.

Thinking of that, Zhu Qing remembered the welfare home again.

In this vast world, there were all kinds of orphaned children, and the distant memories of childhood made Zhu Qing feel a faint sense of kinship with them at that moment.

It was just that she had been much luckier; even without biological parents, she still had friends beside her, and in the end, she grew up safe and sound.

“Oh right, my mom invited you to come over,” Qian Cancan said as she smoothly took a turn and shook off the car trying to cut them off. “She probably misses you.”

“Okay,” Zhu Qing said, coming back to herself and quietly tightening her seat belt. “I haven’t visited Auntie since I lost my memory.”

“She’s on a trip to Antarctica and won’t be back until next week. The signal’s bad there too. I only got through yesterday when I called her. She told me to take good care of you and said we should all have dinner at home when she gets back.” Qian Cancan sounded annoyed just talking about it. She’d been spoiled rotten as a child, but once she grew a little older, her privileges vanished and she went from the jewel everyone held in their hands to a free-range chicken.

That had suppressed all her young-lady airs before they even had a chance to fully develop.

Zhu Qing’s eyes curved with a smile as she thought of Qian Cancan’s mother, a hint of fondness in her gaze. “Antarctica is so far away. Tell Auntie to be careful.”

“You tell her,” Qian Cancan said, tossing her phone over to Zhu Qing. “Send her a voice message from my account and prove I’m taking good care of you. Otherwise she’ll dock my allowance again.”

Zhu Qing pressed the voice button and spoke gently for a few sentences, reminding Auntie to stay safe and not worry about her, since she was doing fine.

As always, Madam Qian, who usually took half a day to reply, sent back a voice message at once.

In the affectionate tone Qian Cancan rarely heard, she said, “My girl, don’t keep yourself too busy. What’s work compared to your health? Auntie thinks it’s wonderful that you’re starting a business with Cancan. She does the work and you follow along to take the dividends; your family isn’t short of the two of you making money.”

Zhu Qing and Qian Cancan exchanged a helpless smile. Qian Cancan snatched the phone back. “Mom, stop nagging. She has hands and feet; she can make money. And remember, you still have a biological daughter.”

Madam Qian: [How come you’re everywhere.jpg]

Qian Cancan: …

Zhu Qing couldn’t help laughing. Before she could say anything, a text message popped up on the phone.

[West Garden Bank] Fan Yueping transferred 111111 yuan to your account 2561 on 2024 x month x day at 11:47.

Fan Yueping was Madam Qian.

Qian Cancan was furious. “That’s my living expenses. Mine!”

Zhu Qing said, “Then I’ll transfer it to you.”

Qian Cancan held out her hand in alarm. “No. If Madam Fan finds out, I won’t have next month’s living expenses either.”

Though she was joking, there was a smile in her eyes. “For the next month, we’re eating, drinking, and having fun; all my expenses too. Be ready to pay.”

Zhu Qing didn’t know what else to say. She looked down for two seconds. “Thank you both.”

After the daycare closed, Zhu Qing packed her things and moved into the school. Her grades were excellent, so tuition and miscellaneous fees were all waived. Every day after class, she only needed to sprint to the cafeteria and help Auntie serve food during the busiest twenty minutes; then, after most of the students had finished eating, she could get a free meal.

That was how Zhu Qing got through the first part of it. She thought it was fine, because there was always plenty of leftover food in the cafeteria and she never went hungry. The aunties always thought she was too thin and would deliberately save some meat for her.

The only bad part was probably the mockery from her classmates.

Qian Cancan first saw her in the third week of Zhu Qing serving food. Qian Cancan wasn’t in the same class as Zhu Qing, and she never ate in the school cafeteria, so it wasn’t until someone secretly photographed Zhu Qing and posted it on the school forum that she found out.

Qian Cancan was loyal by nature. Since Zhu Qing had once rescued her from a cellar when they were children, she had always treated Zhu Qing as her best friend. Seeing her best friend having to rely on serving food just to fill her stomach, Qian Cancan secretly stood at the cafeteria door and watched Zhu Qing for a long time. When she got back, she broke down crying and came down with a high fever. Only then did Madam Qian learn about it. After that, there was one more person in the family car every day: Zhu Qing. Her meals and lodging were shared with Qian Cancan, and she never suffered any hardship again.

Zhu Qing thought that without Qian Cancan, she would definitely have had a much harder time in her teens.

More often than not, a sapling is actually quite strong to begin with; it only needs a little water and oxygen so it won’t die when it’s at its most tender. Once it grows a little older, it can withstand wind and rain on its own.

Zhu Qing was deeply grateful for the shelter they had given her. To them, it might have been nothing more than a casual favor, but to Zhu Qing, it was priceless.

Qian Cancan had never been able to stand Zhu Qing getting sentimental, and goosebumps rose all over her instantly. “No need to thank us, really. Actually, my mom was implying something about you.”

Zhu Qing looked up. “Hm?”

Qian Cancan lifted her chin and pointed at the string of numbers.

“Look,” Qian Cancan said solemnly, “six ones transferred to zero. My mom’s doing precise poverty alleviation here. You’d better hurry up and catch on.”

Zhu Qing: …？？？

————————!!————————

Zhu Qing exploded in anger: I’m clearly the one!

Li Lan only smiled without speaking.

Zhu Qing: ??