Tomorrow as Bright as Day – Chapter 1
Chapter 1
December 1999.
The long-awaited millennium had not yet arrived. Due to the ripple effect of financial crisis in Japan and Hong Kong, a small-time businessman surnamed Ming in a small town in southern China was the first to go bankrupt.
Like so many “boom-and-bust” bosses in the fast-growing nineties, Boss Ming enjoyed less than a decade of prosperity before crashing back to square one overnight.
What followed felt like a dream—or rather, a nightmare. Bankruptcy proceedings rolled forward, and the agony of tumbling from wealth to ruin came crashing down in waves. When the enforcement officers carried off every slightly valuable appliance, piece of furniture, even branded bags, each item marked with a sticker…
Boss Ming was not only heartbroken, but his back teeth also hurt!
Ming Xi was Boss Ming’s youngest daughter and a member of this family.
She… was fine.
Aside from the hassle of moving house.
Bankruptcy was like a house raid. All the furniture would be moved out, and the house would naturally be included in the auction list.
After recognizing reality, Ming Decheng, the head of the Ming family, hired a three-wheeled motorbike taxi to haul their last belongings. Packing what little they had left, he brought along his youngest daughter Ming Xi and his wife Yang Yumei, moving them from a riverside apartment to a shantytown near the vegetable market.
A man who has lost all hope will grasp at straws.
Once the move was done, Ming Decheng glanced around at the shabby surroundings, instinctively took two steps back, steadied his emotions, and shamelessly said to the daughter carrying boxes beside him: “Ming Xi, Dad will rely on you from now on.”
Luckily, Ming Xi had inherited his thick skin. With an earnest face, she replied, “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll work hard.”
At once, Ming Decheng felt comforted.
Ming Xi stepped inside the house, circled around, her gaze scanning the bare environment. She blinked gently; her bright, clear eyes seemed utterly innocent. Yet when her lips curled ever so slightly, she no longer looked so harmless.
Yang Yumei, who came into the room with Ming Xi, caught this expression and couldn’t help but sneer.
She had watched Ming Xi’s behavior throughout the bankruptcy—no sign of distress, even a hint of detached amusement.
Anyone with eyes could see it: the one with the coldest heart in this family was this girl. Wearing a carefree mask, but beneath it—wolf’s heart, dog’s lungs.
But Ming Decheng was the one who fell for this the most.
Indeed, during the period of the Ming family’s bankruptcy and liquidation, Ming Xi went to school as usual and went home as usual. Her life hardly seemed affected.
But for Yang Yumei, things were completely different. The gap between being rich and being poor was like heaven and earth. Before bankruptcy, her days were filled with mahjong, socializing, beauty treatments…
Now, she could barely step out the door with her head held high.
The more face-conscious a person was, the sharper the fall.
Knowing he had failed his wife, Ming Decheng put his arm around her shoulders, soothing her: “Alright, alright. It’s only temporary. Don’t you believe I can make a comeback? And besides, we still have our daughter Ming Yue.”
At the mention of their eldest daughter, Ming Yue, Yang Yumei’s tears streamed faster. She sobbed and complained, “You’ve got a lot of nerve! Yue’er doesn’t even know what happened yet…”
“I’ve already told her,” Ming Decheng patted his wife’s shoulder. “I told her to come back as soon as possible.”
“What? You told her?!” Yang Yumei snapped upright, neck stiff, face paling with fury.
A man can’t lose all authority. Ming Decheng squared his shoulders, pointed toward the inner room at Ming Xi: “She’s my daughter too. Ming Xi is here sharing my hardship—so should Ming Yue just stay abroad living in comfort?”
Ming Decheng questioned her like this, leaving Yang Yumei speechless. After holding back for a moment, she could no longer endure it and simply gritted her teeth and blurted out, “Yes, she is! You have a daughter named Ming Xi, maybe more than one Ming Xi, but I only have Ming Yue as my daughter!”
“Enough! Can’t we stop bringing that up?
“Was it my decision alone that she was born? Didn’t you also have a say?”
At that, Yang Yumei trembled uncontrollably, lips quivering.
Ming Decheng snorted, his face darkened, and with a proud demeanor, Boss Ming’s authority still persisted.
Yang Yumei calmed down half of her anger and dropped the previous topic, but the other half of her anger was still lingering because of Ming Yue’s return to China. She said, “Fine! You want Ming Yue to come back? Easy for you to say! Where will she live? Is there even space for her here?”
What Yang Yumei said was not unreasonable. In a two-bedroom apartment, Yang Yumei and Ming Decheng occupied one room, so there was only one room left.
Who would live there?
“Two sisters can share a room. It’s small, but they’ll manage.” Ming Decheng dismissed it casually, stepping into the little room—barely ten square meters.
Just make do with it.
Ah… so once again, it was Ming Xi who got hurt in the crossfire.
Ming Xi walked to the small bedroom with a blank expression, put her nylon luggage bag on the ground, and started to arrange her clothes and books.
A few days ago, on the weekend, she had come over early to clean up the room. Although the room was simple, it was clean, with a wardrobe and a desk. The only problem was that the bed was a little small, only 1.5 meters wide.
“Ming Yue never shared a room in her life. How could she sleep with Ming Xi in one bed?” Yang Yumei also walked in and took a look, and told the truth irritably.
Ming Decheng mumbled vaguely, as if thinking it over.
Ming Xi gave a serious little hum of agreement, placed her pillow at the head of the bed, then paused. She slid the flowery pillow from the middle to the left side, leaving the right side free.
A spot for Ming Yue.
Yang Yumei was even more furious when she saw Ming Xi’s little action. She felt like she was a vicious woman who only knew how to lose her temper!
“If it doesn’t work out, someone can sleep on the floor,” Ming Decheng shrugged.
“…If one need to sleep on the floor, it’ll be Ming Xi! Ming Yue has never had a hard life. She is different. She can sleep anywhere.”
Ming Xi lowered her head and pretended not to hear.
Ming Decheng was too lazy to speak, but inside, he tacitly agreed with his wife’s arrangement.
In this family, between Ming Xi and Ming Yue, favoring Ming Yue was something that was never hidden. If Ming Decheng’s bias toward Ming Yue came from guilt, then Yang Yumei’s partiality was even more natural.
After all, one was her own biological daughter, while the other was a product that she forcibly bought from someone else’s womb.
Ming Xi finished unpacking and went to the kitchen to boil some water. Now that there was no housekeeper to cook in the house, in the future, sweeping the floor, cooking, and doing other chores would depend on who among the three had better qualities.
She boiled some water, poured a cup of it, and returned to the living room. She then opened a pack of compressed biscuits and started eating.
Later, she’d head to night school, and there were many snack stalls near the school where she could fill her stomach. The reason she ate compressed biscuits in the living room was just to remind Yang Yumei and Ming Decheng one thing—are you two not hungry?
They were already stuffed full of anger!
“Yu’er has finally finished her preparatory course. No matter what, I will not agree to her dropping out of school!”
“Let’s talk about this after Ming Yue comes back…” Ming Decheng was still trying to avoid the impact of bankruptcy on his eldest daughter’s studies.
“What good will that do?” Yang Yumei began to sob again.
Irritated, Ming Decheng lit a cigarette—the good brand, Huazi. Even in ruin, he wouldn’t skimp on himself.
A bankrupt father, a hysterical mother—this home had no future at all…!
Ming Xi slowly stood up from the broken chair, returned to the room, carefully packed a few things and put them in her bag. Before leaving, she planned to go to the bathroom, but Yang Yumei happened to get up and go to the bathroom to wash her face.
Ming Xi was quite polite. She took two steps back and motioned Yang Yumei to go first.
It was such a small apartment, damp and humid, with only one bathroom. Going to the bathroom would mean they’d have to bump into each other endlessly. Yang Yumei couldn’t imagine the days ahead. All she could do was cling to the thought of Ming Yue returning, as if that might change something.
…But she was probably just crying in there again.
Forget it. Ming Xi would use the public toilet nearby.
She slung her bag over her shoulder, opened the door, and cast one last look inside at the bleak scene. Like an outsider, she shook her head.
Before leaving, she stood outside the door and said something like, “…you guys stay home. I’m off to school.”
Ming Decheng was still smoking and raised his head in a daze. He felt inexplicably relieved because of Ming Xi’s words.
Bang!
Ming Xi quickly closed the rusty and peeling iron door, and a gust of wind blew into the room.
The comfort was blown away by the cold wind and shattered into pieces.
This shabby place was so dilapidated that even the door was infuriating!
In the bathroom, Yang Yumei looked at her sallow reflection in the mirror. Like a desperate housewife with nowhere else to go, she felt resentful and didn’t know how to vent.
If only she had known Ming Decheng would go bankrupt—she never should have agreed to take that girl in!
…
Life is a game of chance—some girls’ very birth is an accident, and yet also fated.
Why was Ming Xi even existed into this family? Because Ming Decheng and Yang Yumei both wanted a son. Unfortunately, Boss Ming was not destined to have a son. Not only did he lack the ability to sire one, he simply did not have the destiny for it.
Yang Yumei’s first child was a daughter. A few years later, she became pregnant again. She was sure this time it would be a precious boy, and to be on the safe side, she secretly had an ultrasound done. The result showed that it was still a daughter.
After some discussion, the couple decided to have an abortion.
Under Yicheng’s family planning policy at the time, Yang Yumei and Ming Decheng were allowed to have two children. But since the second was also a girl, they aborted her. That sin not only cost them their child but also, by a twist of fate, Yang Yumei lost the ability to bear children altogether.
When Yang Yumei could no longer conceive, Ming Decheng began tricking women outside into giving him children. With some women he gave affection, with others he just gave money. Ming Xi was “created” out of this very practical need.
But unfortunately—it was all a misunderstanding.
The child born was still a girl. After another round of deliberation, the couple spent a little money and sent her off to be raised in the countryside.
That’s why Yang Yumei said that earlier: she only had one daughter, Ming Yue, but Ming Decheng might actually have other daughters besides Ming Yue and Ming Xi…
Lost.
Or…forgotten.
When it comes to admitting their own moral failings, people rarely have self-awareness. Those who commit sins—retribution may come, or may never come.
But someone was definitely coming back!
These days, if you don’t have money, you can’t survive abroad…
The same year Ming Yue went abroad, Ming Xi was also assigned to work at the factory by Ming Decheng and Yang Yumei. Knowing it wasn’t fair, they even found a way to justify their decision: “Ming Yue is brilliant. After studying abroad, she’ll definitely stay in a big city. As for you, your schoolwork has fallen behind, so it’s better to enter the factory early to learn some skills. In the future, when we grow old—whether it’s us or the family business—we’ll be relying on you.”
Believing that having parents meant having support to lean on, Ming Xi obeyed everything Ming Decheng and Yang Yumei arranged for her.
After a year in the factory, Ming Xi grew wiser. She proposed enrolling in a to make up for her lack of qualifications, so she wouldn’t one day embarrass the family with her poor education.
At that time, Ming Decheng hadn’t yet gone bankrupt, so he naturally agreed to something so trivial. Yang Yumei, busy with her daily card games and social circles, also didn’t want to be criticized for mistreating the younger one over such a small matter…
The No. 9 wound its way, and the last stop was the only TVU in Yicheng.
This TVU in Yicheng was affiliated with the Adult Education College under Yicheng Normal University. It was a two-year study program where students could obtain a non–full-time associate degree after passing the exam.
At four in the afternoon, street vendors had crowded around the college gates. As Ming Xi walked along, she spotted many familiar faces. The latest craze was fried skewers, and the stand with the big red sign “Red Fried Skewers” drew the most students.
“Ming Xi, do you want to grab some skewered sausages? My treat!” someone asked her enthusiastically.
“Thanks. But I’ve been having a sore throat lately and can’t eat fried skewers.” Ming Xi smiled and replied promptly.
There was a shoving and jostling in the crowd. Ming Xi tucked her shoulder bag under her armpit, put her hands in her cotton coat pockets, and quickened her pace.
She began to think about one thing:
Society was developing too fast. A non–full-time associate degree already wasn’t worth much. Her primary reason for enrolling at TVU was to solve a practical problem: she was afraid that once she reached legal age, Ming Decheng and Yang Yumei would marry her off casually. Continuing her studies was the best excuse to delay.
However, Yicheng’s TVU offered only a limited range of majors, mostly practical.
She had a good memory and was articulate, so two years ago, after much deliberation, she decided to enrolled in the English program. Her classmates had similar ideas: after graduation, if they could get a teaching certificate, they could become English teachers.
However, this year universities suddenly began to expand enrollment, with the number of students enrolled increasing by nearly 50 percent! This once elite higher education had completely shifted towards mass education.
Rising tides lift all boats, but the expansion of university enrollment would inevitably devalue academic qualifications. Even a bachelor’s degree would be commonplace in the future, let alone non–full-time associate degree…
Ming Xi’s footsteps grew heavier and quicker. She hadn’t figured out exactly what she wanted to do yet, but she knew the one thing she most urgently needed—
To leave that loveless, heartless family!
After she passed the exam, she would obtain a degree certificate recognized by the Ministry of Education.
Whatever the case, an associate’s graduate was bound to go farther than a vocational school graduate.
Ming Xi lacked love and virtue too, but at least her head was clear: she was a “bought” daughter in this family—sooner or later she would also be sold.
Before they sold her off, she had to carve out a path for herself first!
Translator’s note:
Okay, take two! Hopefully it hasn’t been translated by other’s site yet. I checked NU several times, but who knows. This time it’s a modern story, well sort of! The story takes place at the turn of millennium, so it’s not current time, but trust me it’s an exciting time.