“I’ve been a live-in son-in-law for twenty years, and none of my four sisters-in-law knows why I was willing to be the family’s fool. Because behind every ‘I’m doing great’ is an unspoken ‘I’m sorry.’”
Shang Wulang, the live-in son-in-law his mother-in-law chose for her daughter, spent most of his life quietly giving everything he had to his wife, Zhong Lei, and her family. He always said, “I’m doing great,” but those words concealed a heavy secret: twenty years ago, while taking Zhong Lei and his father-in-law to the hospital by bicycle, they were in an accident. Shang Wulang saved Zhong Lei, but his father-in-law was left with disabled legs. From then on, guilt turned him into the Hou family’s “debtor.”
Zhong Lei kept a green notebook recording the 137 times her husband had sacrificed for the family.
When his father-in-law said on his deathbed, “You don’t owe me anymore,” when his mother-in-law pointed out, “It’s your loss, not a debt,” and when his four sisters-in-law finally learned the truth and apologized together, Shang Wulang understood: after twenty years of giving, “repayment” had long since become “family.” There was no longer any guilt behind his words, “I’m doing great,” only love.
