Bro | Chapter 6

Le-ge handled things efficiently. Wei Zhiyuan’s household registration came through very quickly and was added to Wei Qian’s family register. With that done, there would be no problem sending him to elementary school.

And supporting Wei Zhiyuan was actually not difficult. As long as he had enough to eat, that was fine. Wei Zhiyuan ate whatever he was given and was not picky. He seized every chance to absorb all the nourishment he could, and in less than half a year, he had shot up by half a palm’s height, perfectly explaining what it meant to say, “Give him a little sunshine and he shines brilliantly.”

He could no longer wear Xiao Bao’s clothes, so Wei Qian had no choice but to let him wear his old clothes instead.

Wei Zhiyuan still did not like dealing with people. Other than Wei Qian and his sister, plus the few brothers who often came by the house, he would not talk to anyone else. He was still highly guarded against people.

Aside from that, Wei Zhiyuan as a child had almost no other faults. He had an extremely keen ability to read expressions and moods. As long as Wei Qian frowned even a little, he would immediately receive the signal and know that big brother was unhappy. Within three seconds, he could disguise himself as a mural on the wall and pretend he did not exist.

At home, he was unbelievably hardworking. Every day he cleaned the room until it was spotless. Ever since Wei Zhiyuan came, the thermos was always full of hot water, trash was never left in the room overnight, and whenever he saw clothes someone had changed out of and tossed aside casually, he would silently take them away and wash them clean.

He was guarded and fawning, positioning himself as an attached dependent, and also like a watchdog guarding the house and yard. Toward strangers, his gaze was enough to make people uneasy. His eyes were like black beans, and when he looked at people, he stared straight at them. He was a fierce little wild dog of a boy, not someone to be trifled with.

All of the above was what Comrade San Pang had observed. Wei Qian did not take it to heart after hearing it. He thought, a little dog is a little dog. Anyway, the kid was not troublesome, and since he himself was usually not at home, it was fine to let him keep Xiao Bao company.

…Until the incident that happened right after that.

That day, a bunch of blind idiots had come onto Le-ge’s turf to throw their weight around and had cracked open the head of one of Le-ge’s sworn younger brothers. So that same day, their whole group took weapons with them and went to fight the other side. Unfortunately, the place happened to be on a street near Wei Qian’s home.

Right when they were in the middle of beating the other side’s heads into dog heads, they suddenly heard the sound of a water pipe scraping along the ground from the street behind them.

Wei Qian had not even had time to turn around when he heard San Pang shouting dramatically at the side, “Holy shit!”

Wei Qian looked, and he was badly startled too. He saw that little brat Wei Zhiyuan was dragging a water pipe longer than he was tall, hauling it over the ground, and charging this way in an absurdly comical, flailing posture.

Wei Qian happened to catch sight of his eyes. He realized San Pang had not been wrong. That little thing’s eyes really were like a fierce little wild dog. Even though he was dragging such a long water pipe and could not even walk steadily, there was something eerie about how you could still see in him the determination to wipe out all the enemies.

To put it a little more dramatically, he practically carried the kind of “killing intent” described in wuxia novels.

San Pang said, “Good lord, what the hell did you pick up and bring back?”

Wei Qian said, “Don’t even mention it. I didn’t bring a magnifying glass when I picked him up. If I’d known, that would’ve been great.”

San Pang was thoroughly amazed. From a distance, he shouted to Wei Zhiyuan, “Alright, baby, your brothers are all clocking off for the day. No need for your grand entrance. Let’s head back to the palace.”

Wei Zhiyuan knew San Pang. Hearing that, he stopped where he was, blinked his round, glossy eyes at him, then looked at Wei Qian, dropped the water pipe, wiped his nose, cleaned off his snot, and said, “Oh.”

As a result, that very night when Wei Qian went home, he had a dream. He dreamed that Wei Zhiyuan had turned into a psychopathic killer. After killing people, he did not even know enough to run. Instead, he sat calmly in the middle of a pool of blood and, expressionless, opened his mouth and called him “Ge.”

Wei Qian woke up on the spot, drenched in cold sweat. Sitting up in bed, he looked at the little brat sleeping beside him with his bare butt in the air, dead to the world, and could not help reaching out to rub a hand over his soft little head of hair.

And Wei Zhiyuan was like a little piglet. Unconsciously, he nuzzled against his palm.

Wei Qian pinched his little arms and legs again and found that he was soft all over, as soft as Xiao Bao, nothing like a murderer at all. Even in his sleep he was smacking his lips, who knew what delicious thing he was dreaming about.

He sat there and watched him for a while, thinking, this brat is only this tiny and already this fierce, what will become of him in the future?

Nothing else really mattered, as long as he did not go outside and stir up trouble for him.

The future… sigh, what a distant thing the word “future” was.

Wei Qian could not fall asleep anymore. He got out of bed, went to the balcony, pushed the window open a crack, and in the gusts of wind in the deep of winter, in the stillness of the late night, thought about his own vague and insubstantial “future.”

High school tuition was so much more expensive than compulsory education, so expensive that even if Wei Qian sold everything he had, he had only barely managed to scrape together enough for one semester. In the half year he had been in high school, the savings he had gotten from his dead mother were almost used up. Right now, as the weather grew colder by the day, Wei Qian had practically reached the end of the road. But there was nowhere he could talk about this crushing pressure, because he was the big brother.

Wei Qian dreamed of finishing high school. He dreamed of being like most people in this city, wearing a suit and leather shoes, working nine to five, and living a respectable life.

“Respectability,” that was a dream he clung to as if broken bones were still tied together by sinews, even though it looked so foolish, distant, and unreal.

Reality would not allow him to go on fantasizing about such an unreal future. The heavy workload of high school took up all his time. The teachers would not allow him to leave school by himself to go work while everyone else was at evening study hall.

And when you counted it up, Xiao Bao was already seven, old enough to start school too. Because he, as her big brother, had been selfish, caring only about his own tuition and his own dreams, he had consciously and unconsciously missed the elementary school registration period. So this year had already been delayed for her like that. How could Wei Qian dare delay her for another year?

Wei Qian quietly walked into the kitchen. There were less than two jin1 of old rice left in the rice jar. In the kitchen there was also one scallion and a few rotten vegetable leaves. In his pocket he had ten-yuan and five-jiao left.

He had to buy food. He had to buy daily necessities. He had to pay the water and electricity bills…

He needed so much money just to maintain the most basic livelihood.

This kind of life was like a burlap sack full of holes. There were holes everywhere, and the money Wei Qian exhausted himself trying to get would just pour out in a rush.

Wei Qian’s way of making money was still the same, doing odd jobs every weekend. As the household gained one more mouth to feed, the money had started to become insufficient.

Every morning when Wei Qian left, he would stir-fry one dish and leave two steamed buns for the two children, while claiming that he himself ate at school.

If he did not save that lunch money, then there would not be enough. But he was at an age when his appetite was large, and he could not go hungry. So during the noon break, Wei Qian would climb over the wall and slip out of school to go to Le-ge’s billiards hall and work as a warm-up player for other people, while also mooching a lunch there. By the end of one semester, he felt he was almost half professional at billiards.

Every day… every day, all the firewood, rice, oil, and salt of daily life were like a whip. From the moment he opened his eyes, it lashed him on, forcing him to keep running, to keep thinking of ways.

That left Wei Qian unable to settle his mind. Under such crushing pressure, no one could settle their mind.

He felt around in his pocket and found half a pack of cigarettes. Somebody had stuffed them into his pocket sometime during the fight that afternoon. He suddenly remembered how other people looked when they blew clouds of smoke, so Wei Qian sat down in the kitchen and lit one.

Just like that, coughing the whole time, he taught himself how to smoke his first cigarette without a teacher. The lack of oxygen in his lungs made him feel dizzy and faint, and even a little nauseated.

Wei Qian sat on the floor and leaned against the doorboard, resting for a while.

Maybe… he just should not go to school anymore.

He thought this blankly.

“I really have no way out,” Wei Qian said to himself. “I really am at the end of the road. I do not have a single way out anymore.”

He was so miserable he was almost about to cry, as if he were watching that door leading to another world, another kind of life, slowly closing right in front of him. He ran desperately toward it, but he could never reach it.

At that moment, Wei Qian remembered what Le-ge had said, that if he had any difficulty, he could go to him.

Wei Qian widened his eyes and considered it for a moment. Suddenly, like someone grabbing hold of a life-saving straw, he sprang to his feet. The cigarette was still clumsily caught between two fingers, and his whole body trembled with the shock of that broad, bright road suddenly appearing before him.

Wei Qian’s mouth felt dry. He almost wanted to rush to Le-ge right now.

Right. Le-ge would definitely lend him money. Once he finished school, maybe even once he finished college, he could come back and repay Le-ge in a different identity.

As long as Le-ge was willing to support him, then he would never again have to worry every day about not knowing where the next meal was coming from. He would never again have to calculate and recalculate that little bit of family money until the tip of his heart hurt. He could steadily and solidly study through these next few years, and he promised he would be top of the class…

The hot ash dropped onto Wei Qian’s hand and burned him so sharply that he jerked.

He silently lowered his head and stared blankly for a while at the crumbled butt of the low-quality cigarette. Then he stubbed it out and threw it into the trash.

Wei Qian’s overheated mind cooled down. He discovered that he could not do it.

He always remembered that story about crossing the river and remembered it with particular clarity. For him, the memory of leaning against his mother’s arms and listening to a story was a uniquely extravagant memory.

He remembered what the woman had said, “People can’t live too comfortably. Once you’re fat-headed and big-bellied, stuffing yourself full every day and muddling your way to nightfall, you won’t be far from croaking.”

Le-ge could help him once, but could he help him forever?

You rescue someone from an urgent crisis, not from poverty.

What obligation did Le-ge have to give him money, let him study, let him eat his fill and stay warmly clothed, let him live without a care?

And for some reason, when Wei Qian thought of that kind of carefree life, he felt both yearning and a chill down his spine, as though he had suddenly seen that easy, weak version of himself, like a pig penned in.

For a boy like him, was there anything in the world more frightening than “weakness”?

For a boy like him, was there anything in the world more despairing than “having no hope”?

If Wei Qian refused to be weak, then he could only drop out of school and could only walk down a road with no hope, leaving school, becoming a hoodlum, becoming muscle, doing odd jobs, turning into bottom-of-the-barrel human scum in the city, and painfully dragging himself through the rest of his life. It was almost a road whose end could be seen at a glance.

Wei Qian did not know how long he had stood stiffly in the kitchen. By the time he felt his hands had gone a little numb from the cold, he finally sniffed, went back into the little bedroom partitioned off by a curtain in the living room, and lay back down on the bed.

Wei Qian’s home had only one bedroom and one living room. After Xiao Bao turned three, he felt that it was not very convenient for her to keep sleeping together with him, so he gave the bedroom to his little sister. He himself set up a curtain in the living room and put a bed in the corner, which counted as partitioning off a bedroom.

Wei Zhiyuan had always slept together with him.

When Wei Qian lay back down, the little one beside him moved. It was hard to say whether he had not fallen asleep yet or had been woken up.

Wei Zhiyuan carefully opened his eyes, studied big brother’s expression a little, and then caught the pungent smell of smoke on him. Wei Zhiyuan was not like Xiao Bao. He had never been spoiled by others like that since childhood, so he did not dare be as carefree and thoughtless as she was.

Xiao Yuan carefully read his expression and softly called, “Ge.”

Wei Qian’s thoughts were in turmoil, and he did not want to pay him any attention.

Xiao Yuan waited a long time and did not get a reply. He gently tugged at his clothes and asked, “Ge, is it because you don’t have money and can’t afford to keep me anymore?”

Wei Qian thought, at least you know that much. But he did not say that out loud. It was not because he wanted to avoid hurting the child’s feelings, but because he felt that “admitting he was useless and had no money” was extremely humiliating, so he shook Wei Zhiyuan’s hand off irritably. “What nonsense are you saying? Are you sleeping or not? Shut up.”

Wei Zhiyuan stayed quiet for quite a while, and Wei Qian thought he had fallen asleep.

Who knew that a while later, the little guy would actually rustle his way over and crawl into his quilt, touching Wei Qian’s icy hands and feet. In winter, the house really was cold. Back then heating had not spread to this kind of forgotten old shantytown. There were children in the house, and Wei Qian did not dare light a coal stove, so after saving for most of a year he had bought a secondhand electric heater. But that thing used a lot of electricity, and they usually left it off whenever they could.

The temperature of Wei Qian’s icy skin made Wei Zhiyuan shrink back instinctively. Yet in the very next moment, the boy shivered and moved in closer again. He wrapped both hands around Wei Qian’s hand and stuffed it into his own chest. Then he tried hard to stretch his legs straight. His head almost buried itself under the quilt before he could barely reach Wei Qian’s feet, gently laying his own feet over big brother’s icy feet.

In an instant, Xiao Yuan felt the heat in his whole body flowing away fast.

After doing all this, with a hint of trying to please him, he said softly, “Don’t stop wanting me, okay? I can work. I can go collect scrap too. I can make money too.”

Those few soft words made Wei Qian’s whole heart almost tremble.

Probably because Wei Qian had not answered for so long, Wei Zhiyuan began to panic.

Wei Qian had given him a safe and warm place to live, given him a home he used to envy and had never dared imagine, and had never hit him. He hardly even ordered him around to do work.

This winter, big brother had even bought him and Xiao Bao one thick padded jacket each.

Wei Zhiyuan felt that this was almost like a beautiful dream. He was terrified that when the dream ended, he would once again become that unwanted little drifter, wandering in the coldest corners of the city and making a living picking through trash.

“Please…” Wei Zhiyuan’s voice was pressed very low and trembled a little. “Don’t throw me away.”

Two seconds later, he added one more word: “Ge.”

Wei Qian’s heart was filled with mixed feelings. To say that he had never wanted to throw this little brat away and lighten his own burden was impossible. And yet in the end, all he did was ruffle Wei Zhiyuan’s head and simply order, “Go to sleep.”

And there was nothing more after that.

But after raising even a cat or dog for more than half a year, feelings would form, much less a human being.

Not to mention that this little guy circled around him every day, trying every possible way to work and do things, all just to make him a little happier and to be allowed to stay.

Wei Qian knew his heart had softened. He thought he should not soften, but he had no way around it. In the end, he was not stone.

Forget it, he thought, listening to the tiny breathing beside his ear. This little brat, he was pitiful.

1) 斤 A traditional Chinese unit of weight equal to 500 grams (0.5 kg)