A man who fantasizes about "marriage immigration"

1. Background

Ma Junbo was once a famous nail household in Xiwan Village, one of the "three giants" who resisted demolition. He was deeply involved in a magnificent and epic rights protection movement. In March 2014, Ma Junbo suffered a serious car accident and was hit by a car. He stayed in the hospital for several months. He survived the accident, but his hearing was seriously damaged. His house was finally "administratively demolished", his wife divorced him and took away their young daughter, and his family clinic was forced to close indefinitely.

At the age of 35, his life was completely turned upside down. Apart from the few houses he received as compensation, he had nothing left. The bloody experience of resisting demolition made him realize a lot, and he decided to leave Xiwan, or to be more precise, leave China and immigrate. He wanted to find a foreign woman to marry so that he could escape with a legitimate reason, and he didn't mind if the other party was older than him.

When chatting with me privately, he revealed that he had been on at least 100 blind dates and had many relationships over the years. He was not a hooligan, and every time he fell in love, he aimed to get married. His most desired immigration destination was Taiwan, and he was lucky enough to date some ladies from Taiwan, two of whom had visited his home. They were heavy smokers, smoking one cigarette after another, which he could not accept.

2. Dating in previous years

My relationship with him dates back to the spring of 2016, when I had just resigned from a pharmaceutical company in another province and was "unemployed" at home. At a simple restaurant behind the Xiwan redevelopment community, I had dinner with Ma Junbo and a male friend of his, spending more than 80 yuan, and I took the initiative to pay the bill. Ma Junbo made no secret of his yearning for Taiwan's democratic system. He was very foolish and naive to make friends with some local Taiwanese businessmen, thinking that they could help him.

His idea of ​​immigration was naive in itself, especially as a man—he was not handsome and had hearing loss—he actually planned to "marry" to immigrate, relying on women to change his fate. It can no longer be explained by naivety. What kind of foreign lady would be attracted to him? I really suspect that the car accident also damaged his brain—it is worse than hearing loss. Normal people would not go on blind dates like that.

My career was not over yet. A few months later, I found a new job in Wuhan, the provincial capital, and I almost stopped contacting Ma Junbo. He occasionally sent me WeChat messages, but the blind date did not progress. He said that the woman thought he was poor because he had no job. In 2017, he went to the re-employment training center and learned to drive a forklift. He asked me to introduce him to a job in Wuhan, but I soon became unemployed myself.

In 2018, I moved to Shenzhen, Xi'an and Hangzhou, changing jobs three times within half a year, and was completely eliminated from the workplace. I almost lost contact with Ma Junbo. He seemed to have stayed in Wuhan for a while and drove a forklift in a factory.

In the winter of 2019, I met Ma Junbo. The sun was warm that afternoon. We walked on the river bank, talked about politics, women, and how to find a job to make money. He pointed to the wasteland between the river bank and the riverbed and said that this was the former farmland of Xiwan Village, where he often came to play when he was a child. I was surprised to find a cemetery. In the depression on the side of the river bank near the road, outside the wall of a kindergarten, there were about a dozen graves, and it was only across the road from the newly built large shopping mall. We met an old man in ragged clothes. He kept talking to himself and looked crazy. Ma Junbo said he was from their village. I shouted at the old man, and he responded very quickly. A few times later, I saw this old man on the third floor of the shopping mall. He ate at the same self-service shabu-shabu restaurant. He might be a relative of the owner.

In 2019, Ma Junbo went to Shenzhen for a few months and worked in a hearing aid store as a salesperson. The salary was not high and the pressure was great. He had a new love affair with a woman who was several years older than him and was said to have written poetry. They rented a house in a village in Longgang District and lived together. Ma Junbo spent a lot of money on her.

3. Targets of condolences/stability maintenance

One day near the 2020 Spring Festival, I saw Ma Junbo on the pedestrian street behind the shopping mall, but I didn't dare to walk over to say hello because there was a man in uniform next to him. I witnessed a somewhat magical scene: the uniformed man stuffed a red envelope into Ma Junbo's hand, and I took the opportunity to sneak away, and he didn't see me.

The COVID-19 outbreak suddenly occurred, and Xiangyang began to lock down the city just after the Spring Festival. After the confirmed cases were found, my residential area became a prison, the security guards turned into prison guards, and my home became a cage. I was locked up for more than 40 days before I was freed. A few days after the lockdown was lifted, I met Ma Junbo near the "Core Values" theme park. After a simple greeting, I mentioned that he accepted a red envelope. He did not deny it, saying that there was a thousand yuan in the red envelope, which was a condolence/stability maintenance from the relevant departments.

My mood became complicated. How to describe it? I really can't say anything about Ma Junbo's "morality". He is just an ordinary person, not a perfect hero. He fiercely resisted the demolition purely because of his own vital interests. The resistance to demolition almost ruined his life. In the past few years, he has been the target of stability maintenance by relevant departments. He has been insulted and damaged beyond recognition. What can he blame for choosing to accept condolences?

However, I began to keep my distance from him intentionally, fearing that I would be monitored. I had no contact with him for the next six months.

4. Christmas Eve at Starbucks

On December 24, 2020, at around nine in the evening, I came out of Yonghui Supermarket on the basement floor of the shopping mall and took the elevator upstairs. The elevator entrance was the side door of Starbucks. I turned my head and saw Ma Junbo. He was sitting by the glass door. I knocked on the glass and waved at him, but he didn't respond. I knocked again, and he finally looked up and recognized me, motioning for me to come in.

I bought a pack of kitchen garbage bags, a few dishcloths, and a bag of whole-wheat toast at the supermarket for 32 yuan (just the price of a large latte). I carried these items with my bare hands and my Kindle, looking a bit embarrassed and unfit for a coffee shop. Ma Junbo insisted that I go in, and I hesitated for a while before mustering up the courage to open the glass door. I heard the barista greet me according to the SOP (standard operating procedure), but I didn't look at the bar counter and quickly sat down opposite Ma Junbo.

The mall closes at ten o'clock, and Ma Junbo and I chatted every minute. He said that he has been coming to Starbucks every day recently. The heating here is very sufficient. When I found him, he had been sitting inside for two hours.

We first talked about work. I have been unemployed for a long time, so there is nothing much to talk about. We mainly talked about him. He was recently fired from a factory in the northern suburbs industrial zone. He was driving a forklift there. He had only been working there for more than 20 days, but an operating error caused an accident, causing losses to the boss. Fortunately, he got his salary and earned more than 2,000 yuan.

Throughout 2020, Ma Junbo did not work much. He went to some factories to interview for forklift operators, but he was rarely successful. Sometimes he was tried out for a few days and then fired. He admitted that his forklift driving skills were average, but he did not admit that it was related to hearing loss. Last week, he went to an Indian-owned chemical fiber factory for an interview. The other party gave him an offer with a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan and no social security. Ma Junbo refused. Coincidentally, I am very familiar with that Indian company. I worked there for a week in 2009. I first interned in the workshop for a few days and then went to the sales department, but I soon fell out with the Indian sales director, who was extremely arrogant and rude to Chinese employees. What's more, according to a female colleague who works as an English translator, female employees on the production line are generally sexually harassed by Indian managers, which is of a bad nature. Such a company can exist for a long time without anyone being held accountable. It is terrifying to think about it.

Ma Junbo said he had another interview tomorrow. The factory was in a national chemical park in the south of the city, about 20 kilometers from the city. I was familiar with the place. I worked in a company in the park for two months in 2019. Those chemical plants liked to discharge illegally at midnight. I smelled the pungent smell on my balcony more than once—I knew what was going on.

Ma Junbo's immigration escape plan has an additional option: go abroad to work first, and then immigrate when the time is right. He prepaid 15,000 yuan in labor agency fees. A professional agency is helping him to go to New Zealand to work, but the progress is slow due to the epidemic. I told him directly: "Your forklift skills are so poor, are there any foreign factories that want you? You must have been cheated!" His answer was a bit hesitant, and he didn't look very confident. I hope he was not cheated. There is no necessary connection between working abroad and immigration. You still have to come back after going out. He seems to be more ignorant in this regard—not because of brain damage. He also asked me to help him pay attention to recruitment information on foreign websites. Because I know English, I was amused and helpless, but I couldn't explain it to him.

Our topic switched to women, which was my favorite topic. My love history was relatively dull, so I would rather talk about him. Ma Junbo's WeChat was just blocked by a lady who was ten years older than him, divorced, and a shopping guide at a middle-aged and elderly men's clothing brand store. Ma Junbo met her online not long ago and brought her home once. She was still beautiful, and he wanted to marry her, but she thought he was poor.

"You're not poor. Your three houses are worth millions. You're much richer than me."

"I don't have a job, I don't have any money, and I don't plan to sell the house. Besides, the house is pre-marital property and has nothing to do with her."

Ma Junbo has a house for rent, with an annual rent of about 20,000 yuan. After the divorce, he needs to pay more than 1,000 yuan a month for his daughter's child support until she reaches adulthood. He said he didn't have much savings, and not having a job meant he couldn't make ends meet, so he wasn't suitable for dating. But he was in desperate need of women. What kind of women could a poor middle-aged man find? So he took advantage of his age and targeted those older and equally poor women. Unfortunately, they actually cared the least about a man's age. Once they realized he was so poor, his advantage would instantly vanish, and he was doomed to be abandoned.

Ten minutes before closing time, the young barista started to kick customers out. He shouted at us at a very fast speed: "Hello, sir! We are closing!" His voice was obviously too loud. I was a little offended, but I couldn't get angry. Who told us not to buy coffee and use the heating for nothing? Ma Junbo and I jumped up from our seats like startled birds and pushed the door to leave.

5. Christmas Eve in the Park

We didn't have a very good chat on Christmas Eve, so I made another appointment with Ma Junbo on Christmas Day. We agreed to meet at Starbucks at 7pm. On the way to the appointment, I met him in the bathroom on the first floor of the shopping mall. I called him, and he smiled and said that he had seen me a long time ago. Maybe his hearing loss made his vision more sensitive, but why didn't he call me?

We slipped in through the side door of Starbucks, not looking at the barista, and chose seats against the wall behind the bar. There were more customers than usual, and we were right under the speakers, so the noisy music seriously interfered with our conversation. Ma Junbo adjusted the hearing aid, but the effect was still not good. He said to me, what? Speak louder! Speak louder! Some customers looked at him curiously, and I felt embarrassed.

I may have a rosy fantasy about Starbucks. Sometimes I force myself to have a cup of coffee and try to read or write in it, but I still encounter all kinds of distractions. After all, Starbucks is not "a room of one's own". There is no Woolf in this city, and I am not Hemingway.

After a few minutes, Ma Junbo and I decided to give up Starbucks. We walked out of the noisy shopping mall, crossed the pedestrian street behind, and headed to the "Core Values" theme park. It was not as cold as expected outside, and the park was very quiet. We walked for a while, then stood on the lawn in the middle of the park and chatted until nine o'clock.

We didn't talk much about women. The elder sister who disliked his poverty didn't give him another chance, so he gave up. He told me a lot of details about the anti-demolition movement, and presented a panoramic view of the rights protection he had experienced. It was absolutely magnificent and moving. His family had lived in Xiwan Village for generations, and their history of settlement dates back to the early Qing Dynasty. Before the demolition, their house was more than 1,000 square meters. He was the youngest and the best writer among the "three giants" of the anti-demolition movement. He wrote the petition materials. I have read the marriage announcement he posted online, and his writing is really good.

The two-hour chat contained a lot of information, but unfortunately I was already scared by the "elephant in the room" and knew what I couldn't say publicly. I was very careful about my reputation - a WeChat public account with only a few dozen subscribers, my writing platform within the Great Firewall, I didn't want to take the slightest risk, such as getting it blocked because of what I said.

The other two of the "Big Three" who resisted demolition were Wang, who used to sell vegetables at Xiwan Market, and Tang, who was the oldest. I know the old Tang's house. It is a very eye-catching building on the roadside, only a few dozen meters away from the east gate of the shopping mall. Its walls and roof are tightly entangled by vines. Long after the mall opened, it still stood stubbornly, almost becoming one of the city's landmarks. The planned road was delayed because of it.

Ma Junbo revealed that Lao Tang is currently in prison on charges of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble."

6. New Girlfriend Lily

On the Lunar New Year's Eve of 2020, I sent a WeChat message to Ma Junbo, who was spending the New Year alone. His father had passed away many years ago, and his mother was with his younger brother in Wuhan.

After the Chinese New Year, Ma Junbo suddenly had a new girlfriend. Her name was Lily, a woman with overseas identity, who could speak English and was three years older than Ma Junbo. Perhaps he wanted me to help him with his reference and also to show off in front of me, so he invited me to meet them.

On the afternoon of March 1, 2021, the three of us met at the "Core Values" theme park and took a walk together. (I wrote a separate article about this - "A Walk | My Social Life in Xiangyang".)

Lily was born in Xiangyang. She left her hometown in her teens to go to school in Hong Kong. She attended a church school and later married a Hong Konger and became a permanent resident of Hong Kong. Later, Lily divorced and went to Australia to open a beauty salon. Unfortunately, she was involved in a drug case. A Chinese student (a part-time employee of the beauty salon) hid drugs in the store. The Australian judicial department issued a sky-high fine of several million Australian dollars to Lily. She was forced to sell her property in Hong Kong to pay the fine and avoid jail time. Miraculously, Lily's beauty salon business is still going on and she is currently applying for Australian permanent residency.

Ma Junbo and Lili met at a blind date event in Shenzhen in 2019 and added each other on WeChat. During the Spring Festival of 2021, Lili returned to her hometown to visit her relatives and got in touch with Ma Junbo again. The two fell in love at lightning speed. Lili's parents are still worried about their daughter's happiness and hope that she will find a man in her hometown.

The next day after the walk, I took the bus past the residential area and saw Ma Junbo and Lili walking hand in hand on the road. They looked very affectionate and envied others. But I didn’t think highly of them at all, and I didn’t believe they were in true love. They both seemed to have their own agenda. Ma Junbo was obsessed with “saving the country in a roundabout way”. He didn’t really care what kind of woman he found, as long as she could help him immigrate. Lili’s origins were unknown and her motives were suspicious. She might have taken a fancy to Ma Junbo’s house. Lili’s experience was full of doubts. How could she have run from the inland to Hong Kong? She runs a beauty salon in Australia, so why did she show up at a blind date in Shenzhen? Can a fine of several million Australian dollars be trusted?

I believe Ma Junbo had the same doubts. As soon as the walk ended, he sent me a WeChat message: "What do you think of Lili? Is she suitable?"

I replied rudely: "It's a good thing to sleep with him, as long as you are happy!" He ignored me. We had almost no contact for the next six months.

7. Who is crazier, me or him?

I have been dating him on and off for five years, but it is obvious that we have no common language on any topic - perhaps except women - and cannot communicate on an equal level. It is difficult to say that we are friends.

Defending his rights and circumventing the Great Firewall have allowed Ma Junbo to see some truths about his own country, but his understanding of foreign countries (including Taiwan) is very superficial, just like what he said in his marriage announcement - "I am still a frog in the well." He has limited education and has never been abroad. Even if his brain was not damaged by the car accident, he lacks judgment in foreign-related professional fields such as immigration and overseas work. The decisions he makes rashly - such as immigration through marriage - are bound to go astray. I have said to him more than once: "Wake up, this is not reliable at all! Are you crazy?" But he hit back at me sharply: "Tsk! The biggest problem with you is that you are self-righteous."

Perhaps in the eyes of many people, my relationship with Ma Junbo is a typical "ineffective social interaction" that has no nutritional value and will not bring positive changes to each other's lives. But I don't care. I have few friends. As a middle-aged man who has been unemployed for a long time, I am extremely lacking in social life - it is difficult for me to get involved with old and ugly foot massage practitioners. Any form of social interaction is precious to me, more precious than a life-saving straw, and I have long been hungry and indiscriminate.

Ma Junbo and I can talk about women without restraint - about the women he has experienced. We have the same strong interest in women, although the way we pursue them is very different. After the divorce, he seemed to be busy all the time, posting marriage information online, using social media to hook up with the opposite sex, going on blind dates crazily, spending money to seek matchmaking services, and expanding his target to overseas. All these plots made me think about it. Objectively speaking, he is not an exhibitionist and does not enjoy talking about women with me. It was because I was too keen to pry into his privacy. Sometimes my questions were more explicit and obviously out of proportion. He felt offended and waved his hand and said, "I don't want to talk to you anymore!" Our conversation ended abruptly.

Subconsciously, I may have always regarded him as my writing subject, and his story is my best material. I am not a professional writer, and no one supports me, but I often fantasize that I am a staff writer for The New Yorker, responsible for writing the "People" column. I will spare no effort to write Ma Junbo's story, paying tribute to my familiar predecessors, such as Joseph Mitchell and Janet Malcolm, who once contributed to The New Yorker.

Is my idea crazy too? It is similar to Ma Junbo's "marriage immigration" and each has its own merits.

8. Successful marriage

One day in mid-September 2021, I suddenly received a WeChat message from Ma Junbo, saying that he was married and his bride was Taiwanese. This news was quite explosive, and I chatted with him for a while with great interest, wanting to confirm whether he was really married, and also wanting to know what kind of Taiwanese woman would marry him.

He got married last month. His bride came to Xiwan and lived there for a while, but has now returned to Taiwan. He said his bride was a little old. I asked, "How old is she? Sixty?" He didn't answer. I asked again, "Is she pretty?" He said she was pretty, and was a beauty when she was young. I asked a more private question, but he ignored me. Our chat ended a little unpleasantly, and we didn't contact each other for the next month.

On the evening of October 13, I ran into Ma Junbo by chance at a fast food restaurant near the side entrance of the residential area under reconstruction. He invited me to his home to chat, and I agreed without much hesitation—I couldn’t find a reason to refuse. He has lived alone in a 140-square-meter house for a long time, occasionally bringing women home, and rarely having other visitors. The last time I visited was several years ago. His home didn’t seem to have changed much, with dim lights, simple furniture, and no smell of fireworks. He rarely cooked, and the kitchen was idle most of the time. There was a sofa in the living room, but it was probably just a decoration, and I didn’t know how much dust it had accumulated. He asked me to go to his bedroom to chat.

Our topic focused on his marriage. The bride is indeed from Taiwan. She has lived in Jiangsu for a long time and is familiar with the mainland. He was a little vague about her background and how they met and fell in love, but it didn't matter. She was already his legal wife. The bride-to-be flew from Taipei to Shanghai. During the epidemic, she had to be quarantined for fourteen days upon entry. Ma Junbo paid several thousand yuan for the expenses. They met in Wuhan, stayed for a short time, applied for a marriage certificate at the Foreign Marriage Registration Office of the Provincial Civil Affairs Department, met the man's family, and then returned to Xiangyang together. After arriving in Xiangyang, the bride was quarantined for another fourteen days. Fortunately, the government paid for accommodation this time. Their honeymoon was short. They lived together for about twenty days, and the bride returned to Taiwan for some reason. Ma Junbo bought the round-trip tickets. He promised to give her a house, and she promised to help him immigrate to Taiwan.

During their honeymoon, they went to a scenic spot in Xiangyang. Ma Junbo showed me a selfie of them. The groom was smiling, but the bride looked serious and unhappy. She was really a beauty, and her age was not obvious.

I looked at their marriage certificate. The bride was born in 1960, nineteen years older than Ma Junbo. I guessed right. She is really sixty years old. But she is naturally beautiful and has a way to keep her youthful appearance. If you only look at the appearance, there is no obvious age difference between her and him.

Like the Taiwanese women he had met before, the bride was a heavy smoker, smoking two packs a day, which made Ma Junbo extremely distressed. He forced her to write a letter of guarantee to quit smoking and threatened to divorce her. I can understand him quite well. The direct reason I quit my first job after graduating from college was that I couldn't stand the "suffocating" secondhand smoke.

I have a bad association with women smoking. "Could she be a prostitute?" I frankly shared my concerns with Ma Junbo. He was very excited, "Tsk! How could that be? Tsai Ing-wen smokes... The biggest problem with you is that you are self-righteous." He was offended by me again, and our conversation could not continue.

We walked out of the bedroom together, ready to say goodbye. In the living room, I found a photo frame hanging on the wall opposite the door, which contained many old photos, so I stopped to admire them. Ma Junbo stood beside to explain. I saw a family photo. In the photo, Ma Junbo's father was still a middle-aged man, about the same age as he is now. His father died in his fifties. I also saw a photo of him and his ex-wife at the wedding. They have been divorced for seven years. There is also a photo of him and a girl in the frame. She is his first love girlfriend. He met her when he was working in Wuhan. They didn't date for long, but he said he would always remember her.

These old photos made me, an outsider, feel sad. What was the meaning of Ma Junbo hanging them on the wall? Was he going to cry every day? I guess it was related to his remarriage. In order to welcome his Taiwanese bride, he specially redecorated the house and made some minor adjustments in the details. But it still didn't make sense. What would the elderly Taiwanese woman think when she saw these photos? Would she empathize with him and lament the loss of his first half of life?

Their marriage is puzzling and cannot be completely explained by "transaction". Transactions must consider feasibility and pursue success rate, which requires professionalism and a rigorous attitude. But they seem to treat marriage as a joke. The bride once told Ma Junbo that after arriving in Taiwan, if he needs it, she can help him take a concubine. Yes, take a concubine - how long have we not heard this Chinese word? Is she serious about taking a concubine for her husband? Or is this a unique humor of Taiwanese women? I really have no ability to interpret it.

9. Ending

The calendar turned to March 2022, and Ma Junbo and his new wife were still separated. There was no progress in his immigration to Taiwan and his work in New Zealand. I was still struggling to continue writing Ma Junbo's story. I knew the story was a bit dragging and seemed difficult to finish. I seemed to have lost my patience. Next, I was going to be lazy and tell my contact with him in the past few months by keeping a diary. I wanted to avoid time-consuming and laborious psychological portrayal and detailed description.

On the morning of January 18, three months after I lost contact, I suddenly received a WeChat message from him: "Are you there? I'm back." I asked: "Where are you coming back from? Have you been to Taiwan?" He said he came back from Wuhan and drove a forklift in the factory for a while. We agreed to meet at the door of Starbucks at 11:30. When I arrived, he was sitting inside, near the glass curtain wall, not far from the bar. He waved for me to go in, and I insisted that he come out. After a stalemate, I won. He said to me: "Why not go in? Sit down and bask in the sun. No need to spend money, it's okay!" He can break into Starbucks at any time, bask in the sun calmly under the eyes of the barista, without spending a penny, which is something I can never do. Their demolished house is less than 100 meters away from Starbucks. In a sense, this is still his territory, which gives him the confidence to become the host in Starbucks.

As usual, we took a walk on the river bank across the street and talked about each other's lives. Our conversation was nothing new. Two unemployed middle-aged men actually didn't have much "life" to speak of. We were both struggling in the abyss in different ways. During those days, I was writing "A Walk | My Social Life in Xiangyang", so I deliberately asked a few questions about Lily. He didn't mind me mentioning his ex-girlfriend. We talked about work, and he said that he only made a few thousand yuan in the past year. I said, "You make more than me." He suggested that I learn to drive a forklift, which can be learned for free at the Tanxi Road Reemployment Service Center. I laughed dryly a few times and did not comment on his suggestion.

On January 27, at 8 p.m., I passed by Starbucks on my way to the supermarket to shop. I found a person who looked like Ma Junbo inside, but I couldn't see his face clearly. He was wearing a black coat and a hat. He was sitting in a seat near the glass curtain wall, looking down at his phone, motionless and very focused. There was no coffee on the round table in front of him. I walked to the side of him, thinking I could see more clearly, but it was worse. He disappeared completely - because of the refraction of light on the surface of the glass curtain wall. I couldn't get close to the glass and peek, that would be inappropriate, and I didn't have to see clearly. Ma Junbo and I were not close friends, and I didn't expect to see him. What forced me to stop was obviously not friendship, but curiosity, or more precisely, the devil in my heart. I finally gave up peeping and walked towards the mall. The funny thing is that I turned back after only a few steps - the devil in my heart just wouldn't let me go. I went back and saw that there was no one at the seat. He must have just left. I quickly walked to the door of Starbucks and just happened to meet Ma Junbo coming out. We almost bumped into each other head-on.

(I am once again caught up in the unbridled psychological portrayal and detailed descriptions. Keeping a running account requires talent. In any case, I want to finish this story as soon as possible and start a new one.)

Since we bumped into each other, there was no reason not to chat for a while. It was cold outside, so we agreed to go into Starbucks to chat. I chose a seat far away from the bar and out of the sight of the barista. Our conversation lasted about half an hour and ended with him being offended by me. Here is the main content of the conversation:

1) He doesn’t have to celebrate the New Year alone this year. His mother and brother will come back in two days to celebrate the New Year with him.

2) Lily divorced her ex-husband because she had no status at home and was not respected enough. Lily worked in the teahouse opened by her ex-husband and received a salary like an ordinary employee. She had no chance to play the role of the teahouse's proprietress. Her ex-husband was a farmer in Hong Kong. His land was expropriated by the government (to build an airport), and he received a huge compensation and became rich overnight.

3) Not long ago, he met a female AIDS patient in Lumen Temple in the south of the city. More than 20 years ago, she gave birth to a child in the county hospital. During the blood transfusion, she and her child were infected with AIDS. She used "cocktail therapy" to control her disease and is expected to live another five years. She has been petitioning for many years, but her demands have not been met. The government bears her medical expenses and living expenses.

4) He didn’t know when he would be able to meet his wife from Taiwan. She was indeed naturally beautiful, and even though she was over 60, her looks had not obviously declined. The only flaw was that she was a heavy smoker.

"She must have been a prostitute!" I shared my concerns with Ma Junbo again, and his mood instantly plummeted. He left the table angrily, saying "I don't want to talk to you anymore." That night I sent him a WeChat message to apologize, saying that I shouldn't have said to his face that his wife was a prostitute.

On February 14, at 8pm, he and I walked on the riverbank opposite Starbucks, talking about his wife and the progress of his immigration to Taiwan - no progress. He said his sister advised him to divorce, while his brother remained neutral. We talked about Lily again, and Lily had a new boyfriend. Then our conversation suddenly died. Every time we talked about women, I would offend him.

On February 26, he suddenly sent me a WeChat message asking me if I would like to rent his house. The current tenants (a few young people who played "script-killing") had not renewed their leases because their contracts had expired. An English teacher who ran a training course had seen his house but didn't like it.

On March 1, he sent me another WeChat message, insisting that I come over to see his house, saying that he could rent it to open an English training class - "I'm worried that your English skills are going to waste." His logic made me laugh and cry, and I sent a sharp WeChat message in reply.

On March 6, I took the initiative to send him a WeChat message: "Brother, have you rented out your house?" He quickly called me and said that the house had been rented to a yoga studio owner and he was printing out the lease contract at the property center. He said that there was also significant progress in his work in New Zealand and that the labor agency was helping him apply for a visa.

Yesterday (March 8), I took the initiative to send him a WeChat message again.

"Is the trip to New Zealand confirmed?"

"Not confirmed yet, waiting for visa."

"Are you sure you can go to New Zealand?"

"uncertain."

"Have you arranged a job driving a forklift? Don't go and live on the streets and get deported."

"Tsk! Mind your own business."

I seemed to finally feel the feeling of being offended, the conversation came to an abrupt end, and the story I was writing also came to a temporary end.

(Finalized at Xiangzhou Starbucks on March 9, 2022)