Bi and his wife Ci had five sons in total, which wasn’t impossible these days, but they were born before 1949. Bi grew sugarcane and sold them together with sunflower seeds to raise his five sons up. During spring festival, villagers liked gambling, Bi was no doubt there to sell his sugarcane for gamblers liked the cool favor of sugarcane after intense gambling.

      The oldest son Gold was a farmer. He worked tediously in the field with his wife to raise their two sons up. Big son was a businessman. He went to Shenzhen early and grasped the opportunity to become rich, soon changed wife for the sake of having a son. Small son was a chef.

      The second son Wood was a farmer too. He was probably the miserable among five brothers. Because he was born a hunchback, he had to find a sick wife. The sick wife gave him a sick son. Soon both mother and son died of illness, leaving Wood alone. Rarely someone lost both his wife and son, but he did. After that, he lived in a small house together with his parents. When Bi died, Wood lived with her mother, at least he didn’t need to cook for himself. Soon his mother died, Wood had to stay alone. He was incredibly lonely during long quiet winter night. So he decided to live together with his brother Water’s family, even though it meant he had to work hard to support Water’s family. Fellow villagers said he was foolish to be exploited, but nobody tasted the bitterness of being alone after losing both wife and son.

      All children in the village was scared of him. One day, he saw a group of children playing with fire near his strawstack, he beat one of them without even asking the reason. Later, he was scolded by the child’s parents ferociously. From then on, he avoided children.

      The third son Water was an incredibly thin man. He had two sons and one daughter. Both he and his wife were ill most of the time, they finally built a two-story building recently. Their big son was fooling around all the time. During study, he could summon his muscle so that mosquito couldn’t leave for its mouth was stuck in his flesh to entertain himself, so you could imagine his learning ability.

      The fourth son Fire was a strong man. He had two daughters and one son. Recently he built a two-story building for his son. He was originally a chef, but nobody was willing to hire him, so he worked as a migrant worker outside. His big daughter was diligent and became a white collar worker. His son cared too much about his own appearance and achieved nothing.

      The fifth son Earth was the only non-farmer. He was an excellent student and was able to enroll on a polytechnic school. When the acceptance notification arrived, he was working in paddy land. He didn’t even wash his feet and hands and rushed home without a break to read the acceptance notification. Those days, polytechnic school was more popular than high school for it could offer a job earlier.

      Later, he got married with a city girl. The city girl was an only daughter. She invited her parents to live with her, what’s more, she never did any housework, Earth had to be a househubby. Sometimes, Earth invited her mother to live with him for a couple of days, his wife just ignored Earth’s mother completely and never talked with her, she only cared about her own parents. Earth lived miserably with his wife’s family. For the sake of his son, he swallowed his anger and lived with them day by day.

      When Bi was dying, he kept complaining his sons weren’t able to invite real doctors to treat him. Since ancient times, no doctor could treat dying people, so Bi died. (2014-11-21)