My classmate who became a mistress
Column: Essays Added Time: March 31, 2011 15:25:48 Source: admin Clicks: 15
Rong Rong was my classmate in junior high school. I knew very early that she was being kept by someone as a mistress, so I wasn't very close to her. But since we were in the same city and from the same village, we still occasionally interacted. If it weren't for the year I was so destitute that I had to borrow money from her, perhaps we would still be in touch, but that time, she really broke my heart.
That time, I had spent all my money, was looking for work but couldn't find any, and with an empty stomach and a terrible mood, I came to Rong Rong's place and mustered the courage to ask her for help. Rong Rong didn't refuse, and I took the hundred yuan she gave me with gratitude, not knowing what to say. Then Rong Rong suggested we go buy groceries together. Her place was much better than mine; there was a market downstairs. At a meat stall, Rong Rong bought twenty yuan worth of pork. After the meat was weighed and it was time to pay, I thought she would pay, but Rong Rong gestured for me to pay, so I handed over the hundred yuan I had just borrowed.
Not long after, I finally found a job paying three hundred yuan a month. When I got paid, I quickly went to return the money to Rong Rong. I gave her a hundred yuan, expecting her to politely decline, but she accepted it without hesitation. After that, I rarely contacted her again.
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, more than ten years have passed. I am now married with children, and through my own efforts, I have a car and a house. When I returned to my hometown recently, I met one of Rong Rong's neighbors, and when we talked about Rong Rong, she mentioned Rong Rong's past.
When Rong Rong's father died, her youngest brother, who had been born after years of hiding to avoid family planning policies, was only one year old. The oldest sister was twelve, and there were two other sisters aged ten and seven. At this time, Rong Rong, with her small frame, became the pillar of the family. Her father suddenly passed away in April, and in May, during the wheat harvest, Rong Rong and her mother worked hard all day to finally finish cutting the wheat in their fields. By the time they loaded the cart, it was already late at night. Other families had long finished and gone home, leaving the mother and daughter unable to pull the heavy cart out of the wheat field no matter how hard they tried. In despair, the two cried in each other's arms in the wheat field. Neighbors, seeing how difficult their lives were, arranged for Rong Rong, who had a pretty face, to find a partner during the busy wheat season, helping their family get through the exhausting summer months.
Having a partner reduced some of the physical labor, but as summer was coming to an end, all three sisters needed money for school. The man could help with the work, but he certainly didn't have the means to fund the education of all her sisters. Out of desperation, Rong Rong decided to work. In those days, it wasn't easy to find work, and soon Rong Rong fell into depravity. After working in a dance hall for a year, she met a man in his thirties or forties whose child was already in elementary school. The man was very ugly, less than 160 cm tall, and when he rode his motorcycle, his legs didn’t even touch the ground. However, he had some money, though not a lot. What mattered most was that he seemed reliable and not too slick. Rong Rong then started keeping him company, stopped working at the dance hall, and relied on him. This way, her younger siblings' tuition fees and the family’s living expenses were covered, and she herself didn't have to degrade herself anymore, which seemed like a good deal at the time.
Rong Rong's older sister, only two years younger than her, had also graduated and quickly came out to work. Under her sister's care, her path went smoothly, and she soon found a boyfriend who worked for the government in this city. He had a stable income and was a good person. They got married after dating for a year and lived happily ever after. However, their happiness was just their little world. After getting married, Rong Rong's sister never contributed a penny to the family again, while Rong Rong continued to bear the burden of supporting the family. Seeing how heavy the burden was on Rong Rong, their mother urged Rong Rong's sister to contribute money to the family, but unfortunately, it was useless. She always claimed she had no money. Faced with such a selfish sister, Rong Rong never complained. In fact, once when her sister was buying a house and asked Rong Rong for money, Rong Rong actually gave it to her.
Seeing that Rong Rong's family was doing relatively well, her grandmother, who was good at small businesses and not poor, actually asked Rong Rong to repay a debt when she came home one time. She said that Rong Rong's father had borrowed five hundred yuan from her when he was alive. Now that the son was gone and the daughter was 28, it was time for her to repay her father's debt. Rong Rong was so shocked that she almost fainted...
Listening to Rong Rong's neighbor recount these stories, I changed my previous view of Rong Rong. Actually, her stinginess was something several of us fellow townsfolk had noticed, but now I understand that she was stingy towards outsiders. To her family, she was absolutely selfless and tolerant.
After returning to the city, I drove with my daughter to visit Rong Rong, whom I hadn't seen for more than ten years. Unexpectedly, in this fast-changing city, Rong Rong was still renting the same apartment. The spacious and beautiful house I remembered from years ago now looked old and cramped. Rong Rong still relied on the short man. She had given birth to a boy for him, who was already seven years old, but she was still not officially recognized. The man's wife was still in her rightful position, and although wrinkles had appeared on her forehead, Rong Rong was still a third party, a person without status, and a morally corrupt mistress in others' eyes. But I no longer looked down on her. I know that she doesn't like that man either. I know that she wants to find a handsome man she likes and live a good life, but for some people with bad backgrounds, it's so hard to walk the path according to their own will. In the eyes of others, I seem to be much better off than Rong Rong in every aspect, but is doing business really my choice? No, from childhood, what I liked was painting. But if I made a living by painting instead of making money through business, my father would have to endure the pain in his legs and bow humbly to pull a cart on muddy rural roads, and my mother would forever struggle in poverty. My younger brothers and sisters would never have a chance to rise above their circumstances. So, even though I don't want to, I still have to do it.
Maslow said: Human survival is divided into five levels. The first level is survival issues, the second is safety, the third is social interaction, the fourth is respect, and the fifth is self-actualization. From the first level to the fifth, the span is enormous. Given the current stage of social development, for us, living according to our own will is unrealistic.