The fall of a good entrepreneur for ten years

Years ago, I was at work, mother suddenly called over, voice with crying: “son, your uncle had a car accident, now in the hospital!”

Shocked, I dropped what I was doing and called back to inquire in a quiet place. My uncle answered it himself, in a tone of shock.

My uncle, who oversees a warehouse for an acquaintance in his hometown, said he had worked three night shifts and had trouble sleeping during the day before the accident. In the morning, when he was driving home, he became sleepy. He was confused on the steering wheel for a moment and the car plunged into the roadside green belt. Half the front of the car was smashed to pieces, but luckily my uncle was unhurt.

I was relieved and scolded, “We can’t do this next time. If you feel sleepy after the night shift, take a taxi and go home. Don’t worry your family any more.” He repeated yes.

In fact, I wanted to say, “Don’t feel bad about those two dollars,” but I changed my words on the tip of my tongue. I knew he couldn’t help feeling sorry for the money.

My uncle, who is over 50 years old, started his business three times in his life. The last time he started his business, he reached the peak of his life and also hit the bottom. Two years ago, he once became the “discredited executor”, which is also known as “laolai”.

1

Born in 1967, my uncle had been a restless man in his youth.

In his early days he worked as a salesman in the brickyard sales department of our town, earning three or four thousand a month plus commission, or even ten thousand in good times — not a small sum in the nineties. My aunt had a job in the canteen, and the family, though not rich, was far beyond subsistence.

In 1998, my uncle became addicted to gambling, and even embezzled the bricks from the factory to make gambling funds. One night, my uncle came back in the middle of the night. After closing the door, he opened his black briefcase to his aunt and laid three piles of banknotes heavy inside, which startled her. My uncle said it was all his “victory”, a total of thirty thousand dollars. His aunt than he calm, warned: “gambling money is not your, unless you never bet again, otherwise, sooner or later will have to pay back.”

My uncle said yes, but he didn’t really care. A week later he was back at the tables. This time he followed the gang of friends in a hotel in our county town, gambling for three days and three nights, during which the message to his pager did not return. Aunt together with my mother and my uncle, driving a car around the city looking for him, turned over all the hotels in the county, finally there is no way, rushed to the uncle’s most iron a buddy son home, falsely that my grandmother has been sick in hospital, this just forced each other to say uncle’s whereabouts.

When his uncle took him out of the hotel, his eyes were bloodshot, his eyelids drooped, his stubble covered his chin, and his head hung low. In those days, he not only lost the thirty thousand dollars he had won, but also lost sixty thousand dollars.

‘I beat him so hard at the door of the hotel with your aunt that he didn’t dare return his hand.’ My mom told me later.

This thing happened half a month later, the factory financial audit found wrong, reported to the police. The management brigade soon found my house and took my uncle away. Because at that time the factory embezzled public funds into the wind, the management team along the uncle this vine out of a large, the amount of embezzled public funds is not small. In order to wash away the suspicion of malfeasance, the director of finance did not want to make a big deal about it, he told uncle they, as long as they can get enough money in time to make up, let bygones be bygones.

My uncle scraped together all his money, added his own savings, and paid the arrears, so that he was spared prison, only to be detained for a few days, and never to touch mahjong cards again.

My home is in a small city in Jiangsu province, backed by yangcheng Lake. Around 2000, hairy crabs took off. With the help of the county government, many people in the town joined in, and some made a lot of money.

Uncle looked greedy, to 2002, the factory efficiency is not good, he did not think much, he hurriedly quit, bought a pickup truck, began to ten miles to collect crabs to other places to sell. For this reason, grandpa angrily threw the stick hit the table, told him that he was a black sheep: “good iron rice bowl is not full, make these devil things.”

My uncle never clashed with my grandfather, lit a cigarette, and let his father stare at him. Grandpa came and went no longer to care for him, as a tacit admission of his career.

My uncle’s crab business did a fall, during which I have no money to prove how much, only know once killed others a pig, once drove off the bridge destroyed a car crab, these two times are a lot of losses, think should not make money.

At the start of the following spring, my uncle sold his pickup truck and officially declared his first venture a failure. When asked inwardly how much he earned, he would reply laughingly, “Not much more, just enough to buy a mountain buffalo!”

At that time, my mother was in the business of reselling cement and invited my uncle to join the business. My uncle immediately started his second business, supplying cement sand to the construction site. In those years, the economy was good, and very few people defaulted on their debts. My uncle had only worked for half a year, and then he had a small sum of money in his hand.

In late 2003, my uncle contacted a railway site under construction in Huai ‘an and supplied them with sand. My uncle got the goods from Anhui and sent them by boat from the Huaihe River.

We have relatives in Huai ‘an. To save trouble, my uncle asked his brother-in-law to pick up the goods at the dock there and collect the payment for goods on his behalf. This brother-in-law is my grandfather’s youngest brother. Several decades ago, there was a famine in Huai ‘an, so he took his family and his family to my grandfather’s house. With my grandfather’s help, he did not starve to death.

However, a week later, uncle called the past to ask for payment, brother-in-law told him that the other side has not given the money, said to delay for two days, uncle letter. After three more days, there was still no news, and my uncle felt wrong.

He did not inform his brother-in-law, he drove directly to Huaian, find the person in charge of the site. He was surprised to hear him say, “The money was settled then. We never have any credit.” Say that finish, still took out the receipt that has brother-in-law autograph to sign.

My uncle’s head “hum” a sound, hurried to run home uncle. Near to the time, far to see the original broken house brother-in-law has disappeared, replaced by a building under construction, the first floor has been built.

This payment for goods a total of 70 thousand yuan, by the uncle not a cent to the ground. Uncle angry to find him theory, only to see his cousin. They looked surprised, too, but they could not find their father.

The uncle left the house by the back door before his uncle came in, and scarcely appeared for the next year or two. My uncle and my mother came to talk for many times, but was blocked by a bunch of relatives down: “Well, so a relative, but also in the future, he really has no money now, you killed him useless!”

My mother wanted to Sue in the past, is not to let the brother-in-law in prison, also at least to the money to come back: “he built a house to accept his house, can’t be so ambiguous on the cheap he!”

But under the mediation of relatives, my uncle relented and finally did not do as my mother said, so he swallowed the injustice. Two years later, when my grandfather died, my brother-in-law showed up at last to pay his respects. He was still a good waiter and said nothing about the money.

2

In 2004, my uncle saw the prospect of building materials, so he gave up the gravel business and rented a piece of land not far from our old house to start a brick factory. The brick factory covers an area of 15 mu, with an initial investment of about 500,000 to 600,000 yuan — one of the supporting production lines is worth more than 400,000 yuan. In addition to himself, my mother and aunt also had a partial share in the factory.

Thus began my uncle’s third venture.

The factory mainly produces a variety of cement bricks, porous, solid, add up to about four or five types, each of the profit between 15 to 50 cents (according to size), mainly for the local and several surrounding counties.

At the beginning of the factory, the most important problem to solve is the customer. My uncle went to the surrounding cities from time to time and even went to Anhui to find a market. He doesn’t know how to use a computer, and he goes out with the old black briefcase he used to carry on his back to work, filled with thick files. Later, the customer said there was no real object, so my uncle simply put two samples of bricks in the bag to show them. My uncle had carried the two bricks on his back, and had travelled a great deal during the summer. The straps of the briefcase were soon worn out and he was soon retired. Fortunately, the station did not check as rigorous as today, or I do not know how many times he will be detained.

A month later, a company he had visited finally called him back, saying they needed empty bricks for a new development and asked my uncle to send them a batch first.

My uncle was overjoyed. He worked overtime for several days and drove out a batch of goods. After being sent to the past, the customer is very satisfied, so my uncle successfully got his brick factory’s first order. At that time, there was only one worker in the factory, and my uncle contracted with him to do all the work of manufacturing, piling up the bricks (which had to be laid out in the sun) and loading the cars. My uncle would get up at four in the morning, come back at eleven at noon, grab a mouthful of food, sleep for half an hour, and then go back to the factory. One summer my uncle lost all his weight and was as black as carbon.

Uncle brick factory brick quality quickly spread in the industry, the factory received more and more orders, quickly recruited a few workers. But just as the factory began to pick up, things went wrong in our family — my grandfather was seriously ill in hospital and soon died.

Grandpa was only 61 when he died. He had been in poor health and was speechless in his last days. He left no will and had only one request for his grave: that it be built where he could see his son’s factory. Later, my family chose a piece of land in the back hill, near the hill and near the water, where I could see my uncle’s factory clearly at a glance.

On the day of the funeral, my uncle, as the eldest son, walked silently at the head of the funeral procession, holding his grandfather’s picture in his hands, looking down in silence. But as soon as the coffin was opened, my uncle fell upon the grave like a mad man, with tears streaming down his face and a sound of tears, and the family managed to pull him away.

Later, I learned that my uncle’s greatest wish was to let my grandfather move out of the old house and live in a new one during his lifetime. This unfulfilled wish became the biggest regret and secret pain in his heart for several years.

The New Year comes soon after the funeral of my grandfather. According to the rules of the countryside, when a close relative dies in the family, fireworks cannot be set off within 3 years, because it will scare away the spirits of the dead who are looking for home. On this New Year’s Eve, my uncle smoked a cigarette in the courtyard and was in a daze. The next day, after lunch, my family suddenly found that he was nowhere to be seen. The phone was still turned off. It was not until the evening that he came back drunk — he had gone to grandpa’s grave alone to talk with him, having bought cigarettes, liquor, and chicken.

My uncle’s vision was as expected accurate, in the next two years, the domestic real estate industry began to develop in a blowout style, and the demand for building materials soared accordingly. Orders from the brick factory poured in like snowflakes. My uncle was as busy as a top every day, so he put a bed in the factory office. If he could not start work in rainy days, he could rest for a while.

The brick factory grew steadily and reached its peak in 2007. My uncle joined another production line, which, together with the original one, was worth more than one million yuan and more than 20 workers were employed. Except when it rains, the machines work all day, and bricks are sold everywhere. In a year, the profit is probably more than $300,000.

Uncle’s purse finally drum up, he bought himself a suVS of hundreds of thousands, out and in, scenery infinite. Another customer used the down payment of a commercial house as collateral at the checkout, which was in a prime location and worth a lot.

When the year when our hometown people’s congress representative election, the town as an excellent entrepreneur to the uncle to the newspaper up, and successfully elected. The TV station specially sent someone to interview, my uncle dressed in a suit and walked slowly before stacks of blue bricks. This one-minute film was aired on our local TV station for several days, earning my uncle a lot of face.

In the second half of 2007, my grandmother found quail egg-sized bumps behind her ear, went to the hospital for examination, the result was parotid gland tumor, benign, after surgery, soon recovered and discharged. But this incident reminded my uncle of his grandfather’s regret, so a year later, he called a team of forklifts, the family’s old house down.

My uncle did not discuss with my mother and aunt, and when they got the call from grandma to go back, the old house was already in ruins, leaving only a small front room for grandma to stay temporarily. My mother and aunt did not say too much, but blamed him for doing things arbitrarily, so they left it at that.

New house was built very quickly, did not have before the appearance of shabby small courtyard completely — the small building of 3 storeys red wall red tile, two white marble columns were erected before porch. The courtyard was surrounded by a black fence, and two stone lions were set up at the foot of more than 20 steps. The house, though not a picturesque one, stood out in the countryside at the time. Someone said sour words in the back: cow what, look, their home will not be too long.

When these words reached my uncle’s ears, he laughed them off, as if to deliberately annoy them. The next year, my grandmother’s 70th birthday, my uncle went all out to do it: first, he invited the most expensive master of ceremonies from Nanjing to preside over it; A small stage was set up in the courtyard, and jugglers and singers from the county art troupe were invited. In the evening the firecrackers circled twice outside the courtyard and were set off for 10 minutes together with the fireworks. In addition, my uncle also prepared 10,000 yuan for my grandmother, which was placed in 100 red envelopes and distributed to the kowtowing kids.

For three days, distant relatives and neighbors were invited to the banquet. At that time, even the townspeople knew there was an old lady Zhou, who was 70 years old.

None of us had expected that this would be the culmination of the fortunes we shared with our uncle.

3

In 2008, when the SUBPRIME mortgage crisis broke out in the United States, newspapers were playing up a depressed atmosphere of economic downturn and people were in a panic.

Uncle at first did not care, he always thought that such a large-scale economic crisis, the impact of those who really call the rich and the leaders of all walks of life, like him such small businesses are hard to be affected, how to see, the economic crisis and we are far away here.

It was business as usual at the brick factories until late 2009, when the aftermath of the economic crisis began to take hold.

First of all, several construction sites are unable to settle the payment for goods, the engineering side said the same thing: no money.

My uncle went everywhere almost every day to ask for debts. Some places were kind enough to ask my uncle to wait a little longer, saying that he would settle up as soon as he had given the money; Also some place attitude is tough, move out a pair of “I just don’t have money, you can take me how” rogue appearance. Although the uncle was angry, but also helpless – fortunately before the brick factory efficiency has been good, can barely support.

Before May Day 2010, my uncle went to a construction site to ask for debts. The developer of that building is the richest man in our county, the home daye is big, the value exceeds 100 million, the person in charge of the site is a contractor in Zhejiang, tall and tall, it is said to be a veteran.

The money they owed was not much, only thirty or forty thousand yuan, but the contractor had a backer behind him and his words were very rude. My uncle was in a hurry, and spoke a little hastily. One to two to go, two people have anger, the contractor directly kicked uncle two feet, uncle is not a rival, put malicious words after hurried away.

Back home, my uncle felt unable to swallow this tone, he found a county mixed society friends, twisted a group of 20 years old mix, with iron bar plate brick, rushed to the site. At first, the contractor saw his uncle coming in such a threatening manner that he hid himself in his office. No matter how he smashed the door, he never said a word. Two minutes later, the surrounding workers came, the contractor through the window ordered: “Give me a dozen!” A melee broke out between the two sides.

With more and more people on the other side, my uncle’s side gradually fell behind. Obviously, the contractor was also angry, with a strong desire not to die, and roared: “Close the door for me. Today, let these people die here!”

Seeing that the workmen were about to close the gate of the site, my uncle called out, “Go away,” and a crowd of people began to fight and flee, only to escape at the last moment.

After this, my uncle, together with the two young men, suffered some bruises; Three workers fell on the opposite side, and were diagnosed afterwards with fractures of varying degrees. Fortunately, someone at the construction site called the police, who arrived in time to keep things from getting worse.

Both groups were taken away by police, the injured were taken to hospital and detained without incident. My uncle went to the hospital to get two stitches on his forehead and was taken away to take notes. When my mother and aunt heard the news, they were frightened out of their wits, and hurried to the police station.

“Aren’t you afraid? The hospital where your uncle had his stitches was owned by the developer, and we were really worried that someone would take him away after a while.” My mother is still scared to mention it.

The matter was later dealt with for nearly a month, and finally the other side did not Sue, the choice and uncle private. Uncle in addition to not take back the payment for goods, but also compensate each other more than 140,000 yuan.

The fall of a good entrepreneur for ten years
In 2011, it became more and more difficult to get the money for the construction site, and my uncle’s spare money gradually became unsustainable. To make matters worse, in those two years, banks tightened their control on lending to small and medium-sized private enterprises, and my uncle’s brick factory suddenly became very difficult.

The electricity bill alone costs nearly 2,000 yuan a day when the machines are turned on, not to mention the wages of many workers. In order to ensure the normal operation of the factory, my uncle tried every means to borrow all the people who could borrow money. He would go to various local commercial banks to entertain guests, give gifts, and eat and play with them whenever the day came.

But rao is so, also have little effect, the loan that approves down is very few.

One weekend when I returned from vacation, I found my uncle at home, the yard empty and his most valuable SUV gone.

“Mortgaged, this time in the past can take out, don’t worry.” My uncle took a drag on his cigarette, his eyes tired.

My uncle’s car was quickly recovered, but within the next year or two, it was mortgaged seven or eight times, almost disappearing every two months.

Besides the car, my uncle had mortgaged all kinds of property: the house in the county was paid off; At an early age he contracted more than 10000 trees also failed to survive, rely on forestry property right card in the $150000 – that was his biggest bottom spirit, he used to tell my cousin say: “this woods such as line, a few more years, my pension and money have you been married, but now the situation difficult, he also had to very reluctantly give up what one favours. Plant and new building, not to mention, he has been mortgaged out for a loan; In the end, he even borrowed money from usury, from the interest of one cent to the interest of five cents, which added up to more than 500,000 yuan.

In 2012, my mother’s cement business also suffered a heavy loss, owing a large amount of foreign debt, so she had no choice but to hide out and go far away to make a living. But my uncle had been struggling to survive the winter. He always firmly believes that “phoenix shedding blood, neither broken nor upright”, if this difficulty can be passed, our family can really count as a prosperous.

However, it was not as simple as he thought.

4

At the beginning of 2013, a number of family loans came due, along with various private loans borrowed by my uncle. The end of the year is approaching, we are waiting for the New Year, the creditors came in droves, blocking at the door, holding ious to uncle debt.

“Week boss, last time that sum of money give knot, home New Year goods all have no money to buy.”

“Boss Zhou, before the money you said a few days to give, now it has been two months, you see I did not urge. Give me some…”

“Boss Zhou, the children have no money to pay next year’s tuition fees…”

…

My uncle gathered the creditors together in the sitting room on the first floor, enjoying good wine and food, and shyly said to them, “You can understand that this year is too difficult for everyone…”

Before he had finished speaking, someone suddenly dropped a glass of wine on the table and said angrily, “Are you difficult? You live in a big house and drive a small car. I heard a couple of days ago that you lost tens of thousands of dollars playing cards with others. Why don’t you want to pay our bills first?”

My uncle waved his hand hurriedly. ‘Rumours! Absolute rumor! I haven’t touched mahjong for years…”

The creditors, however, had been stirred up, and, without listening to their uncle’s explanation, were clamouring for his return. A few ill-tempered ones rushed upstairs, turned my uncle’s bedroom into a mess, and smashed the vase table and stool on the second floor. My cousin and aunt hid in my grandmother’s room, comforting my grandmother with tears.

The creditors spent several days at their uncle’s house, eating and drinking without mention, and in the evening they were allowed to sleep in the living room with the air conditioner and quilts on. Until the 29th year of the Chinese New Year, they had no intention of leaving. In our place, the New Year’s Eve creditors did not go and the first day was called to debt, is a very shameful thing, uncle had no way, decided to go out again to try their luck.

Zhejiang Jinhua has a yan contractor still owe uncle more than 50,000 yuan, uncle think, think he is the most promising here, at least part of the solution to the urgent need again. He traveled all the way to Zhejiang province and found the contractor’s home with a bit of information. That is a high-end residential villa district, a look is where the rich live. My uncle’s spirit was lifted – drama!

Inside, however, my uncle was dumbstruck: the scene in the villa was exactly like that in his own house — sofas, stools, stairs full of men and women, with gloomy faces, and creditors. Uncle rough calculation, fully more than 40.

She opened the door like the hostess, looking tired and without any expression on her face. Glancing at her uncle, she said quietly, “Lao Yan hasn’t been back for half a month. You can wait here if you want to.”

After sitting in vain for half an hour, my uncle took leave. Back to the county, my uncle went to a friend to say good or bad, frayed lips just calculate a little money, back home to the creditors. It was a small sum, a drop in the bucket compared with the sum owed, and those who got it sighed, patted their uncles on the shoulder, and went away; Others swear and have a clean mouth. But at any rate they were dismissed.

The whole family could finally sit down to have a New Year’s Eve dinner, but the table was deserted and everyone had no appetite. At that time, I was hiding debts with my mother in Guangzhou and didn’t go home for the Spring Festival. Small uncle and aunt are also in the field, several New Year’s Eve did not come back. The popularity of the family has dwindled.

In the evening, my cousin called, first to pay New Year’s call to us, and then choked up: “Aunt, we may really have to part.”

After the end of the year, the situation is still not better, but there are signs of getting worse.

Uncle the door to debt, but I find that many of the site has been rotten tail, such as a well-known hotel we county, renovate began two years ago, years ago a lot workers in HengChi HengChi to work, but wait until years later, suddenly disappeared, half of the new hotel so stiffly embedded on the side of the road, in the future several years from the start. Many of the creditors’ homes had been emptied, and even had been sealed by the court. My uncle stood at the door of these creditors, bewildered.

Orders from brick factories have also started to fall. In those two years, the market of cement bricks began to go downhill, and the red bricks began to rise again. However, what my uncle produced were all cement bricks, so it would be impractical to change the production line now, and there was no capital.

This was the last straw that crushed my uncle. He did a rough calculation and found that he owed more than $1 million and that he owed $3 million. If you think about it carefully, during those two years of building houses, celebrating birthdays, buying cars and buying new production lines, one by one, there was not much savings left. But my uncle always felt that, having done all this first, life would be easier and easier. But he did not expect that the building was about to fall, and that there was really no warning.

Deep in anxiety and self-doubt, my uncle felt more and more that he might not make it. The news that there was another boss running away had not stopped, and my uncle began to waver.

That year, shortly after the Qingming Festival, the production line in the factory had almost stopped work, the workers were also dismissed few left, my uncle all day except to go out to ask for debt, is hiding in the home, the building has not come down several times. The living expenses of the family are totally dependent on the income of the aunt who does some odd jobs outside, and the uncle’s voice at home is unconsciously much smaller.

At noon one day, my uncle, who had just come back from the factory, was lying on his bed watching TV when suddenly there was a knock on the iron door. My grandmother, who lived on the first floor, went to open the door.

“Zhou Shengqiang? Someone has gone to the police station to report that you are suspected of illegal fund-raising and fraud. Please come with us.”

My uncle froze for a few seconds, then silently underground bed to put on shoes and clothes, in the grandmother with a look of worry and neighbors pointing in the car – it turned out that at that time my uncle several debts have been due, several creditors angry, I do not know what way together, to the police station reported the case.

This matter alarmed my mother in another place, she hurriedly contact relations, find a variety of intermediaries to intercede, let the creditors to delay for a few days, and then the police also determined that this is a civil dispute, suggested the creditors to the court to Sue, shut uncle a few days later, he will let go.

How my uncle spent the last few days in detention, I don’t know, but he came back with eczema on his hind legs, “it was too wet in there”.

A great deal of debt was still to be faced, and my uncle was running around, but he had very little money back. The creditor continued to come to the house, and several times he almost made a move. It made the whole house in a state of terror and anxiety.

One of my mother’s friends was my uncle’s creditor, who owed the most money. At that time, my uncle borrowed a lot of money from my mother through her connection. It has reached nearly 1.5 million yuan. Seeing that my uncle was at his wits’ end, she suggested a solution: “The factory will be transferred to my son’s name at a price of one million yuan, which will not only offset some debts, but also make it impossible for the court to move it.”

At that time, many people went to court to Sue my uncle, it was only a matter of time before the factory was closed. The machinery in the factory had been used for so many years, and its depreciation was more than a little bit. It was exaggerated to say, “Now it can only be used as scrap to sell”. My mother’s friend was so kind, and grateful as he was to my uncle, the thought of falling into his hands, after so many years of hard work, troubled him for several days.

The situation was beyond control, uncle finally agreed. On the day of emptying his office, he had sat for a long time on the factory lot, where thousands of bricks and trucks had come and gone, but now there were only green weeds and floating ash.

With no support in his heart, his uncle’s tight string broke, and at last he felt tired and numb from the debt, and a deep sense of powerlessness came over him. He suddenly understood, in fact, he did not have to defend here, in the past because of the face and the bottom line brought about by the persistence, suddenly vanished.

“It’s not a big deal these days because people run out of debt.” “It became his self-comforting mantra for years to come.

So he thought it over and ran away.

5

In June 2013, I received a phone call from my grandmother, saying that my uncle and aunt had left their hometown.

Their first stop was Lanzhou. My uncle heard from somewhere that there was a new district in Lanzhou that needed to be developed urgently and there were many projects attracting investment. He thought it was an opportunity. He had done a lot of preparation before he left, and once again he went to his debtors one by one, taking all the money he could get — not much, six thousand, plus a very shabby Santana that had been given to him.

My uncle didn’t dare to take the train, because he was afraid that he would leave a message and be found by others. The trip turned out to be far more expensive than he had imagined, costing him 5,000 yuan just for gas and tolls. Two days after he arrived in Lanzhou, he hastily sold his car and exchanged it for 2,000 yuan for living expenses.

Bidding is not smooth, a government project, the threshold is still relatively high. He was now penniless, and had no proof of his ability to come out, so he was ignored and left to wait.

He and his aunt rented a small room, a garage to be exact, about six or seven square, just big enough to fit a table, a bed, and a pair of shoes in the spare space. The stove is a board nailed to the wall, not far from it is a toilet and shower, the real “kitchen bath” three rooms one. There was a window to breathe in, and two luxuriant trees blocked out all the sunlight.

The rent was only $300 a month, but my uncle still thought it was expensive, “not much better than a jail.”

My settled aunt took a job washing dishes for 1,500 a month, eight hours a day, and six days off. My uncle has been waiting for the development zone news, has not found a proper job. He would be invited for an interview, but would always end up politely offering to work with him next time.

Northwest dry weather, uncle and aunt in the past not long before the skin began to go wrong, scratch itching; The lips were so dry that drinking no amount of water every day made no difference; The diet is also a big problem — our family members pay attention to light, fresh and sweet meals. Although my uncle is usually not so delicate, he is really not used to eating mutton and pasta in northwest China. Within two months, two people both lost more than ten jin, uncle joked: “but you can not go down for many years to solve the fat.”

My aunt had no idea of pleasure in this bitter, can only wry smile.

Uncle “run away” the news after a few days in the hometown spread, creditors have come to block the door, want my grandmother to tell them uncle’s whereabouts. Grandmother is a strong woman, she brought tea to turn on the air conditioner, stool is not enough to move upstairs, should be exactly polite, but about my uncle’s whereabouts, I do not know. (As a matter of fact, she had no idea where my uncle was.)

Creditors exasperated to take home things to pay off the debt, grandmother smell speech into the corner of the vertical air conditioning Nuu mouth: “the home only value some money on this, you want to take it.” They thought it was too hot a summer to make the old lady warm at all. Besides, there were so many people that one air conditioner was not enough, so they gave it up.

Others called the police, but there was nothing they could do about it — it was a civil dispute, after all, and there were so many people who had escaped from their debts in those years that the police had become so used to it that they warned “stop that now is coming” and went back. The creditors, unable to do so, swore at the door and walked away. As time passed, the creditors understood that my uncle had indeed gone away, and so he seldom came again.

Days, my grandmother would not only have to worry about their own a pair of children in the outside, even during the day to walk tall in front, hold on to the house only a little dignity: she also go out to play CARDS, a string of little down and out, just on the way back saw the cans on the road, will quietly stomp kicked to the curb, etc. The second day go to pick up in the morning. Aunt and uncle have mentioned the grandmother to live in the past, but the grandmother is very stubborn, think leave the old house is a shameful thing. Fortunately, she gets a monthly retirement salary, not much, but enough to eat and drink.

In October, the door was suddenly sealed. My uncle, who had been hiding outside for more than half a year, had to sneak back and sneak into the house by the back door at night. This time, because so many people went to the court to tell my uncle not to repay the debt, the court had to freeze my uncle’s account and forcibly closed the new building at home.

But only be worth congratulatory is, after the county town that house mortgage goes out, the new building in the home has become uncle “the only real estate”, the court has no right to auction, therefore, the grandmother good depend still can have a shelter place, she the next day to remove the seal stuck in front and back door, every day as usual in and out. When reminded that it was against the law, she calmly said, “I tore it. Seize me if you want.”

Uncle comfort good grandmother, did not dare to stay, the next day by night back to Lanzhou. He was even more strapped than the last time he left. He could only ride the train for more than 30 hours, and still had standing-room-only tickets.

When I got off the train, my uncle went limp and knelt down on the platform.

6

During the three years from the end of 2013 to the beginning of 2016, my uncle had been moving around in Gansu and Shaanxi. His dream of starting a project and making a comeback did not come true — after all, he could not find the way and capital if he wanted to do business again without a formal education. Disheartened, he finally went out to do a job. I worked as a mason, drove a forklift for others, and applied for a job as a cleaner, but after two days of sweeping the streets, I quit.

He went back to deal with the family debts several times, some triangle debts through debt transfer to repay a part, the rest of the usury, interest has already multiplied several times, he can not pay in any case. He found a middleman, grudgingly paid off the principal, and negotiated a repayment contract for the rest, paying it back in small amounts each month. There are some debts he can’t do anything about, just let them rot.

The richest man in our county jumped off the building, it is said that because of careless investment, the capital chain broke. When my uncle heard this, he used to say, “You see, if I had stayed at home, I might have ended up like him.”

At the beginning of 2016, a restaurant owned by an old friend of my uncle in Shaoxing recruited chefs. After contact, he was asked to go there with a salary of 5,000 yuan and no rest.

When he and his aunt came back from Gansu, they made a special trip to Changzhou to see my cousin. Before leaving, my cousin could not bear them to suffer the bumpy green train, so he wanted to buy them train tickets. However, after checking on the mobile phone, my uncle and aunt were included in the “list of people subject to execution for breaking faith” (my aunt also helped my uncle to borrow money before). They could not sit the high-speed train, high-speed railway, and other expensive things.

That he had become “old lai”, uncle wry smile, said to his cousin: “it’s all right, just bus, it’s quite comfortable.

After a year in Zhejiang, the restaurant failed due to poor management. My uncle heard that he could earn money by running online car-hailing cars, and he bought a domestic SUV in his cousin’s name with a total value of 110,000 yuan and paid it off in two years. However, after several years without driving, he has a weak awareness of traffic safety. He sometimes breaks the line, overspeed and breaks the law. In a year, the points for violation will add up to 110 points. Cousin gas with him big quarrel: “now is not annual review, annual review to, you want to be fined at least ten thousand, who have the money to give you? And now that you’ve been caught driving without a license, stop!”

Before the Spring Festival in 2018, My uncle set up a shop in Nanjing for my uncle, where he sold cold dishes such as salted duck and kelp. My uncle gladly went there. Business was good at first, but it slowly dwindled and was barely enough for the uncle’s couple to live on. My uncle tried to take a car online, but was stopped by my uncle and cousin: “The capital city of Nanjing, the management of this aspect is very strong. If you are caught driving without a license, no one can help you.”

Later, my uncle found a part-time job as a security guard at night. The job was not too tiring, so he had a bed to rest on and could only get up and open the door. From then on he helped in the shop by day and worked on duty by night.

In September of that year, my uncle went back to deal with the demolition of the house, which took more than a month, and finally compensated 720,000 yuan. Because the people in charge of demolition and our family is still somewhat related, a little operation, left more than 200,000 yuan for my grandmother to build a new house, the rest of the money, without my uncle’s hand, was taken away by the court to return to the creditors.

After the demolition, my grandmother was received in Nanjing, my small uncle and aunt take turns to take care of both sides, often mention the old house, grandmother will quickly choked up: “I can not, did not give you to keep the nest ah!

With the demolition of money to pay off the arrears, uncle “laolai” identity did not. He calculated in his mind that he seemed to have “very little” left in his debt — almost all the loans he owed to the bank were taken over by the guarantors, who would only have to pay them back, and there would be no public prosecution; Some of them had run away with large debts of their own, and, like their uncles, had heard nothing of them; As for the few remaining creditors, the uncle could only hope that they would not notice that he had come back — yes, he wanted to.

A few days before New Year’s Day in 2019, my uncle changed his shop in Nanjing and went home with my aunt. They rented a small two-bedroom apartment in the county and lived with my grandmother. An old friend offered my uncle a job looking after a warehouse for 12 hours a day on two shifts, with a salary of more than 3,000 yuan. The old friend knew what my uncle had gone through these years, and knew that he still owed a lot of foreign debt. He was very honest and said nothing to others.

But the paper could not contain the fire, the news of uncle’s return or spread out. In May this year, my uncle went to work in the factory suddenly came three procuratorate people, after finding my uncle, not from the point of view, directly took him away.

“I wonder who betrayed my father and informed the creditors. The creditors went to court and jailed my father for over 30 days.” My cousin said, after a pause, and added, “Now is different from before, as long as there is a person to Sue, can be locked up for up to 15 days, and can be accumulated, that is, as long as there are enough creditors, can be locked up until your death!”

During my uncle’s stay in the detention house for more than one month, only rice balls could be eaten every day, and no meat or vegetables could be seen for three meals in the morning, at noon and at night. After coming out my uncle has been crying stomach pain, aunt gave him to boil for several days of millet gruel before better.

“I remember when there were cigarettes to buy, but now there are none.” He said.

The creditors finally withdrew their suit — my uncle took out tens of thousands of yuan from the 200,000 yuan that should have been used to build a new house for my grandmother to repay some of the debt first, and drew up a repayment agreement just like before, which finally persuaded the creditors to give up.

For this article, I had a long chat with my uncle. When it came to the end, I asked him: “How much money do we still owe now? Is there one million?”

He was silent for a moment: “Have no 100 also have 70 80, calculate not clear.”

I could sense that my uncle was getting on in years, and his head might have been a little confused by last year’s car accident. “What if someone sues?” he asked.

This time he answered quickly, “What else can I do? What I should pay back, what I should close. I don’t want to go outside any more.”