Chapter 2: Family Life

Back home, Yuan is a single child, the little empress of her parents; was, anyway. Yuan found out on her 18^th birthday, after having entered nursing school, that her mother was giving birth to another child—a baby boy. This came to Yuan as a complete shock; wasn’t the one child policy applied to her family? It later became apparent that her father wanted a son to carry on the family name. Her family ended up paying a hefty sum in fines/taxes in order to have the child, but for a reasonably wealthy businessman such as Yuan’s father, this wasn’t really an issue.

Yuan wasn’t very close to her father, seeing as he would always go off on business trips that last weeks at a time. Her mother’s health wasn’t exactly the best, and her father’s smoking only made it worse. When Yuan asked her mother why she stuck with him, she told her that “your father is incredibly stressed at work, and he needs to relax when he comes home. When he goes away on business, he’s forced to drink and smoke during those meetings; these habits build up, and so I don’t blame him. At least he doesn’t hit me or you, so he’s already really good.” Yuan didn’t really accept this answer; she couldn’t understand why her mother would stick with a man that seemed to foreign, so uncaring for her.

At any rate, Yuan’s parents didn’t have too many expectations for her. In reality, they cherished the fact that she grew to be independent at a young age, managing her school work, her social life. Unlike most parents that seemed to get over-invested in every ticking second of their children’s lives, Yuan enjoyed being left alone to her own devices. The birth of her little brother actually further drove Yuan away. She can’t really explain why, but she didn’t even list Jiujiang as a potential place she wanted to work. Perhaps it was because she was no longer going to be the focus of her family anymore. All she knew was that she wanted to get away, away from all this, a fresh start on her own. She told herself, I’ll find someone when I’m like 26-27, someone who actually loves who me as a person, not just for my good looks.