Chapter 6: Courtyard No. 9, Donghua Street

Lin Xiyu’s biological father was a soldier who fought in the counterattack war against Vietnam and died when she was eight years old. Her mother remarried, and after the second marriage, gave birth to a son. The blended family was fraught with disputes; her stepfather had a daughter from his previous marriage, who was a year older than Lin Xiyu. The stepfather’s daughter looked down on Lin Xiyu and her mother, and often bullied and insulted them, emboldened by her father’s affection. Fearing that Lin Xiyu would continue to be mistreated by the stepfather and his daughter, her mother left her in the care of her maternal grandmother.

From a young age, Lin Xiyu was raised by her grandmother. Her grandmother had two daughters and one son. The elder daughter, after her marriage, was allocated an apartment in the railway workers’ housing, and the family moved out of the old courtyard house. The second daughter—Lin Xiyu’s mother—lived with her new husband after remarrying, returning home once a week with her young son to visit her daughter and elderly mother.

Now, in the courtyard house, those living with the elderly grandmother were Lin Xiyu, her uncle, and her aunt. Both her uncle and aunt had been laid off from the Fourteenth Plastics Factory. After losing his job, her uncle worked at a privately owned hotel, delivering goods and vegetables on an electric tricycle. Her aunt rented a public phone booth, where she also sold newspapers, magazines, and cigarettes, earning a little extra to support the household.

The couple had a harmonious and loving relationship; their only regret was that after many years of marriage, they remained childless. Because of this, her aunt had taken a lot of traditional medicine and endured much gossip, often quarreling with neighbors over the matter.

No. 9 Donghua Street was not home to just one family, but rather four households sharing the courtyard. The landlord, Old Mr. Huang, lived alone in the best position in the courtyard after his wife passed away—a three-room suite facing south. Lin Xiyu’s grandmother’s house was directly opposite, also three rooms, but with the door and windows facing north. The south side was bordered by the courtyard wall, right next to a small alley.

On the east side of the courtyard lived the Wang family. Old Mr. Wang, skilled in making noodles, had converted two of his rooms into a noodle workshop with Old Mr. Huang’s permission. The elderly couple, their son, daughter-in-law, and grandson—five people in all—found the remaining single room too cramped, so they widened the kitchen and turned it into a small bedroom. Without a kitchen of their own, they used Old Mr. Huang’s kitchen to cook. Each day, they would also prepare meals for Old Mr. Huang. At eighty-two, with limited mobility and his son living elsewhere, Old Mr. Huang lived comfortably under the care of the Wang family.

On the west side of the courtyard lived the Zhang family. After the elderly couple passed away, their son and daughter continued to live there. The western rooms were the smallest, as Old Mr. Huang had planted two pomegranate trees and set up a grape trellis outside the windows of his west room, taking up nearly two-thirds of the space. Thus, only two rooms remained on the west side: one with an east-facing window, slightly larger; the other, in the courtyard’s northwest corner and adjoining Lin Xiyu’s grandmother’s house, had a north-facing window and was smaller.

Zhang Dafen’s brother, Zhang Dashan, was an honest man, eight years her senior, and like Lin Xiyu’s uncle and aunt, had been laid off from the Fourteenth Plastics Factory. After being laid off, he took odd jobs wherever he could; his wife was unemployed, and they had a daughter, so life was far from easy.

Zhang Dafen was different. She was bright, attractive, and excelled academically, gaining admission to a technical secondary school. After graduation, she was assigned a formal position at a bank. This made her somewhat proud, and she was picky about finding a partner, not settling until she was twenty-eight. Her chosen husband was six years her senior and worked for the provincial government, reportedly as a section chief. After marriage, she would move into the provincial government compound. Conscious of her elevated status, she became even more aloof, looking down her nose at the neighbors in the alley.