The Rake’s Tale of an Orphan

In this world, no one can be relied upon except yourself. Sometimes, when even you can’t rely on yourself, you can only accept your fate. Don’t expect heaven to help you—it always favors the strong. — Random thoughts — My name is Yang Guang, but my life is anything but sunny. I’m an orphan. When I was four, my parents went out on a business trip and never returned. The village head came and told me, “Your mom and dad went to a far place in the West to do business, and they won’t be coming back…” At that time, I didn’t know what had happened. Later, as I grew older, I learned they had gone to the so-called “Western Pure Land.” They died in a car crash, and the driver fled without a trace. There was no compensation, and even the funeral expenses were paid by the government. Both of my parents were orphans, so I had no relatives left in this world. Back then, I didn’t know what sorrow was. I still played with the other kids in the village, running around like a mud monkey. At night, I would sleep alone in the small grass hut that was my home. In that rundown northern mountain village, I began to eat what people called “hundred-family meals.” No one in the village treated me as a burden. If I showed up at someone’s house, they would just add an extra bowl of water to the pot, as if they were helping to raise a stray dog. The northern folks are straightforward and honest, and they don’t usually close their doors at night. When I got really hungry, I would sneak into someone’s house in the middle of the night and quietly steal food. Sometimes, I would get caught, but when they saw it was me, they would just laugh it off. Honestly, before I was six, I was practically no different from a stray dog. After two years of living like this, the village head decided this wasn’t going to work. Using his authority, he arranged for me to stay with an elderly man named Old Wang, hoping he could take care of me. However, Old Wang couldn’t even feed himself, so I had no choice but to go back to scrounging for food. Old Wang, whose full name was Wang Qingshan, was a retired soldier from Jiangnan. When he wasn’t drunk, he would brag about his past, claiming to have fought in various battles, or say that he had trained in all kinds of martial arts. But in reality, he was ugly beyond description. No words could do his appearance justice—he looked like a living ghost. I sometimes wondered if he had been kicked with a big leather boot while still in his mother’s womb, which explained how he turned out so hideous. He was in his forties and had never married. Even the village’s widows wouldn’t go near him. Whenever an introduction came up, they would shake their heads like they were listening to a broken drum. He had grown used to it, though. He didn’t care about women. Old Wang never looked for a steady job and didn’t take care of the land allocated to him by the government. His entire life was spent gambling, and he was good at it—he never owed gambling debts. When he lost all his money, he would gamble away whatever household items he had left. By the time I arrived at his house, it was almost empty. The blanket he used was so filthy that it was even worse than the one I had back home, greasy and stained. Water couldn’t even soak into it. Old Wang wasn’t just bragging—he probably really had some skills. He could climb a two-meter-high wall in an instant, but he only performed these feats at night, just for my amusement. This ugly man would gamble away everything, even the crops that hadn’t been harvested yet. The government’s monthly subsidies would be gone within two hours of his receiving them. So, he resorted to stealing from the village, using the money to buy things for his gambling friends. Everyone in the village knew that Old Wang was the thief, but no one bothered to confront him. After all, he was a lonely old man. Besides, he was always careful with his stealing, never making it obvious. So, people just let him be, and they didn’t bother hiding their valuables. I didn’t like Old Wang. First, because he was ugly, second because he rarely cooked for me, and third because he always took the government aid meant for me, claiming he was “holding onto it for safekeeping,” but actually, he just gambled it all away. Old Wang didn’t like me either. He thought my presence had ruined his free life. In his words, “Damn it, ever since that little bastard showed up, I can’t even j******f in peace anymore!” So, our relationship was never good, and we hardly spoke to each other, each of us living our own lives, too lazy to bother with the other. I got along well with the villagers. The adults said I was sensible and polite. Whenever I saw them, I would bow and greet them with, “Uncle, big brother, aunt, Mrs. Zhang, Mr. Li,” calling them with more affection than anyone would expect. I knew my survival depended on these people. Without them, I would have died long ago. Thanks to my ability to talk and shamelessness, I rarely went hungry, and my life was better than Old Wang’s. Many of the older men in the village would joke around, asking me to call them “father.” I didn’t mind at all. I would happily call them that, and to me, they really were like fathers. But not a single woman would let me call them “mother.” Old Wang, however, wanted me to call him “father” and promised that if I did, he would cook for me and stop gambling, even saving money for my future wife. When I heard this, I shook my head vigorously and told him, “Ugly bastard, don’t even dream about it! I’d rather call Old Li’s big yellow dog ‘father’ than call you that!” Old Wang didn’t say anything, just slapped me hard across the face, nearly knocking me out. From that moment on, I hated him even more. I swore that when I grew up, I would get my revenge on him. I would tear his skin off if it was the last thing I did.