Chapter 2: The Past of My Parents

  Feng Siche didn't understand his aunt's idea. That's right, in the past Feng Siche wasn't very talkative with his grandfather, which was also influenced by his mother. It's a pretty miserable story to say.

  Feng Zhe's father, Feng Kangsheng, was a young man with great ambitions and aspirations, who was also very handsome. At a young age, he became a university lecturer, which is how he met his equally studious and progressive mother, Zhao Lirong, and the two naturally came together.

  Feng Kangsheng was an orphan with no background, and can be said to have grown up eating at many different households. This also helped him develop a good habit of being eager to learn and make progress. In the 1960s, although free love was not very common, it was not unheard of either. However, as an orphan, marrying the general's daughter was still unthinkable, even without considering social status. Therefore, Zhao Mingyuan, Feng Sicheng's maternal grandfather, made some basic attempts to obstruct the marriage of his eldest daughter.

  It never occurred to anyone that Zhao Lirong was a woman with her own ideas, she liked Feng Kangsheng, and in her opinion, happiness also depended on her own efforts. For this reason, she secretly took away the household registration book and went to the Civil Affairs Bureau with Feng Kangsheng to complete the formalities privately. When Zhao Mingyuan learned about this matter, his daughter had already been living with Feng Kangsheng, and the old man was furious, shouting that he had given birth to an unfilial daughter.

  Zhao Lirong thought her father was just saving face, thinking that once the rice was cooked, no one at home would say anything. But unexpectedly, when she brought her lover Feng Kangsheng back home, she was scolded by her father. In a fit of anger, Zhao Lirong left the Zhao family with her husband and voluntarily applied to work in the countryside.

  Zhao Mingyuan's temper was also to the point of being unbearable, going all out, nothing big, if it weren't for his sons and daughters holding him back at that time, he might have even said something about breaking off their father-daughter relationship.

  Feng Kangsheng and Zhao Lirong, who had gone to work in the countryside, were living a relatively comfortable life. After all, they were educated people and still commanded respect from others. However, the unpredictable winds of fortune brought the Cultural Revolution, which would leave an indelible mark on the Republic, to the rural areas as well. Feng Kangsheng, being straightforward by nature, couldn't help but speak out against some of the excesses of the time, publishing articles that were deemed unfavorable to the current situation. As a result, he was taken away by the young Red Guards for reeducation and struggle sessions.

  Watching her beloved man being taken away, watching her belly getting bigger day by day, for the sake of her loved one and their unborn child, Zhao Lirong had no choice but to return to Beijing to beg her father to intervene and save her husband.

  At that time, the Cultural Revolution was rampant in Kyoto, and Zhao Mingyuan, as the bodyguard (later the head of the Southern Tour, the chief designer of socialism with Chinese characteristics) had also been affected by the waves, and it was hard to protect himself, let alone others.

  Zhao Lirong, who didn't quite understand politics, how would she know her father's difficulties? She thought it was because the family wasn't helping out, so in a huff, she returned to the countryside, delivering meals to her husband every day and waiting for the child in her belly to be born.

  As the situation became increasingly tense, Feng Kangsheng not only did not have any regret, but on the contrary, he continued to spread his ideas to everyone during the process of labor reform, telling all that they should be practical and realistic, rather than blindly boasting and exaggerating. As a result, he inevitably offended many people in power, and finally, under the manipulation of those with ulterior motives, Feng Kangsheng left the world at the young age of just over 20 years old with deep regret.

  Twenty years have passed, and the fetus in Zhao Lirong's belly, Feng Sicheng, has grown into a 22-year-old young man. After the Cultural Revolution, at the beginning of the reform and opening-up, Zhao Lirong took 11-year-old Feng Zhe to leave his hometown and went to the economically developed UK. With Zhao Lirong's intelligence and knowledge, he surprisingly entered Cambridge University, one of the world's top ten universities, as a teacher. Feng Zhe also started learning in that environment and began a new life.

  Until just now, Zhao Lirong had received a call from her family, and her brothers and sisters all hoped she could return to her hometown. As the eldest daughter of Zhao Mingyuan, she was naturally very clear about the reason. It's also interesting to say that Zhao Mingyuan had five children in total, two sons and three daughters, and Zhao Lirong was the eldest sister, with only one older brother, Zhao Wanyong. However, it seems that the prosperous Zhao family didn't have a single male heir in the third generation. The eldest son, Zhao Wanyong (Feng Siche's big brother-in-law), had three daughters; the third son, Zhao Wangang (Feng Siche's younger brother-in-law), also had two daughters; the fourth daughter, Zhao Lishu (Feng Siche's second aunt), had two daughters as well; and the youngest daughter, Zhao Lizhu (Feng Siche's younger aunt), whose husband died unexpectedly soon after their wedding, didn't even have a family. As a woman in her thirties in Kyoto at that time, she could be considered an absolute old maid, and even if she were divorced, it would still be possible for her to remarry. However, no matter how much pressure Zhao Mingyuan put on her, she always used the excuse of not being in the mood for divorce to decline.

  As a big family like Zhao Mingyuan, how could the military general tolerate the fact that there was no third generation to inherit the family business? It wasn't until then that he thought of his eldest daughter, Zhao Lirong. Although Feng Sicheng didn't have the surname Zhao but had the surname Feng, in any case, he also had the bloodline of the Zhao family and was a true member of the Zhao family.

  Zhao Lirong deeply understood that her father's call for her to return was only because he valued the fact that she had given birth to a son. As a result, she didn't even bother to respond to phone calls from her siblings. She had made up her mind to give Feng Sicheng a different educational environment, letting him develop in the UK and continue writing his own unique life story. To be honest, she was also afraid of the domestic situation, fearing that another movement would drag her son into it, and then she really wouldn't have the courage to go on living.

  Feng Siche, this precious son, did not disappoint her. At just 22 years old, he has already obtained a dual master's degree in Finance and Enterprise Management from Cambridge University. This is due to Feng Siche's natural talent and the special care of his mother, Zhao Lirong, who has been promoted to associate professor at Cambridge University's Department of Finance, and also thanks to her cooking for him every night.

  There is such a son, Zhao Lirong is very comforted, she feels that she has lived up to the late Feng Kangsheng and her loved one.

  But things didn't change quickly until one day, Zhao Lirong received a call from her mother He Jia Yu, and heard that her mother said because of her own stubbornness not allowing Feng Sicheng to return home to see her father, and Zhao Mingyuan's body was getting worse and worse, finally Zhao Lirong was moved.

  No matter what, a father is still one's own father. Without a father, there would be no life for oneself. Moreover, later on she also came to understand that at the time it wasn't that her father didn't go to save his beloved wife, but rather the circumstances did not permit it. It can be said that after understanding the political situation at the time, Zhao Lirong's mentality improved a lot.

  Zhao Lirong, who had already forgiven her father in her heart, received a call from her mother and decided to bring her son back to China to visit. After all, the child was half Zhao's bloodline, and it was only right that he should meet his grandparents. And so, Feng Sicheng followed his mother back to their ancestral home in China, leaving behind the life they had grown accustomed to in England.

  After returning home, Feng Sicheng naturally lived with his mother in Zhao Mingyuan's old quadrangle courtyard. Just as Zhao Lirong had just returned to the quadrangle courtyard, Zhao Mingyuan, as her father, personally talked to her, and the content was only one: Feng Sicheng must stay behind and make a great contribution to the future of the Zhao family.