Bro | Chapter 10

Le-ge had Wei Qian keep working the day shift for the time being. Once the plaster came off his arm, he would be moved over to nights.

The night shift at the nightclub paid extremely well. Two crews rotated, and each shift was only four hours long, but the pay was three times what they got during the day. That meant he only had to work four hours a day to let his whole family live very comfortably. Of course, the ones drawing that high salary were the enforcers, not miserable little underlings like Ma Zi who had to scrub and clean.

With Wei Qian’s seniority, he originally was not qualified for the glorious night shift. But to show closeness, Le-ge personally instructed the manager and promoted him as a special exception.

Ma Zi was so jealous he could hardly stand it, but Wei Qian showed no sign of happiness. If anything, he smoked even more heavily.

The road ahead was dangerous and uncertain. Even though Wei Qian was a money-grubber, it was hard for him to feel any joy over that extra income.

That day, Song Xiaobao and Wei Zhiyuan came home from school, and Wei Qian cut a little watermelon weighing over two jin in half, giving them one half each to dig into with spoons. After they finished eating, they were to go do their homework.

Song Xiaobao sat cross-legged on the sofa, eating until her mouth was covered in watermelon juice. Full of excitement, she said as she ate, “Ge, Niuniu-jie1 is dead.”

Wei Qian froze for a moment. “Who?”

“Niuniu-jie, this tall, with two little dimples on her face, and her eyes are like this, and she wears her hair, like this, and she lives over by the little one-story houses in front…” As Song Xiaobao described her eyes, she stretched her own eyes open with her hands. When she got to the hair, she grabbed at her own hair. She danced around the whole description with flailing gestures, almost all body language. It was obvious there was a reason she had failed first-grade Chinese.

Wei Qian leaned back and kept a little farther away from her. “Sit properly. Speak properly. You’re spraying all over my face. Dead? How did she die?”

“Like this.” After saying that, Song Xiaobao rolled her eyes right there on the spot and tipped sideways, still hugging her half of the watermelon. A line of watermelon juice obligingly dribbled from the corner of her mouth.

Wei Qian: “…”

Though his little sister was still young, she possessed an extraordinary, almost transcendent gift for imitation, the kind that pierced straight through appearances to the essence. For the first time, Wei Qian felt it was kind of a pity the girl was not prettier. Otherwise, when she grew up, she might even have become an actress.

From the side, Wei Zhiyuan calmly added, “She died from eating rat poison.”

Song Xiaobao came back to life from her death state at once and hurriedly asked, “How do you know?”

With the composure of someone who had seen the world, Wei Zhiyuan said, “She had white foam coming out of her mouth, and her face was that color. She definitely died from eating rat poison. I’ve seen it before.”

Song Xiaobao said in admiration, “How have you seen everything? Does rat poison taste good?”

Wei Zhiyuan’s brow twitched at the unexpectedly idiotic question. Three seconds later, he decided to cooperate with this fool whose brain was clearly not getting enough blood, so he said in a solemn, serious tone, “It’s all right. It comes in all kinds of colors. The red ones are watermelon flavor, the green ones are apple flavor. Rats all love it.”

Song Xiaobao gazed at him eagerly. “Is it crunchy?”

Wei Zhiyuan said, “Crunchy.”

Wei Qian: “…”

Wei Zhiyuan was a child after all. Wei Qian could actually tell that sometimes he deliberately played dumb, but Wei Qian had always thought Xiao Yuan was doing it to humor Xiao Bao. He had never thought it had anything to do with himself.

…After all, in all his life, he had rarely received care from anyone, so much so that even he himself would overlook himself.

At first, Wei Qian had only heard the matter and let it go, because in the end he still could not figure out who this “Niuniu” was from Xiao Bao’s account. But the matter he had brushed aside did not pass just like that. Toward evening, San Pang and Ma Zi bought some vegetables and came over to his place to cook. While setting the dishes on the table, San Pang deliberately kicked Wei Qian and grumbled, “Am I here serving you like some old master? Don’t just sit there waiting to eat. Don’t you still have one hand? Go get the bowls and chopsticks!”

Wei Qian called out loudly, “Ma Zi!”

Ma Zi answered briskly and was just about to go do it for him, but one glare from San Pang made him shrink right back.

“Ma Zi,” Wei Qian said as he slowly got to his feet, giving a fair-minded assessment, “You really are pitifully spineless, aren’t you, old man?”

Not only was Ma Zi unashamed, he was proud of it. He said smugly, “I am!”

Wei Qian: “…”

Wei Qian strolled into the kitchen, hooked open the cupboard with the tip of his foot, and lazily glanced toward the little room. The two little brats had finally settled down, each occupying one corner of the table, bent over their homework.

Wei Qian’s mood suddenly, uncontrollably, improved. With those two little things in the house, breathing and alive, the place actually felt like a home.

“Qian’er,” San Pang said suddenly then, “Keep an eye on our little sister Xiao Bao these next couple of days. Once school’s out, don’t let her go running around outside.”

Wei Qian answered casually, “What’s up?”

San Pang said, “You know Niuniu, right?”

Wei Qian said, “Hm?”

“The one who lives up front, the one with the little braids, one year older than Xiao Bao.” San Pang glanced toward the room where the two children were, lowered his voice, and leaned close to Wei Qian’s ear. “That girl died this afternoon. She ate rat poison herself.”

Wei Qian could not be bothered listening to this kind of crap from other people’s families. He could not even sort out his own pile of troubles. So he shot San Pang an impatient look. “I think you’ve got too much free time, fatty. All day long, if you’re not matchmaking, you’re talking about nonsense, three rats and four eyes, you…”

With a grave expression, San Pang slapped his injured arm, not lightly but not too hard either. “Keep your fucking voice down!”

“Hiss… fuck, I’ll…”

San Pang said sternly, “Listen to me. That little girl was violated. The kid was timid, and even after several days she still did not dare tell the adults. These past couple of days it’s been hot. I heard she was already festering down there by the end, and who knows how much she suffered. Still she did not dare say anything. Yesterday, in a moment of despair, she ate rat poison and killed herself. Can you pay a little more attention to your sister or not?”

Wei Qian frowned at him. “Bullshit…”

“Who’s bullshitting you? Who the hell jokes about something like this? The girl is dead. Am I that lacking in basic decency?” San Pang glared at him. “I’m fucking telling you something serious here. Keep a close eye on our little sister these next few days, hear me?”

Unable to understand it, Wei Qian gestured at his own waist. “That little runt has skinny arms and skinny legs. Stick her there and she’s just a chopstick. What’s there to do that for? Who was it? Are they sick in the head?”

“It’s impossible to explain to a dimwit like you. Every day all you know is money and fighting. What else do you know?” San Pang waved his hand impatiently. “Some people just can’t get it up for normal women. Some like children who haven’t grown up yet. Some even like men. Niuniu’s mother has nearly cried herself crazy, yelling that she wants to call the police. Right now her own mother-in-law has her locked up at home.”

At the words “like men,” Wei Qian frowned uncomfortably, then asked, “Why won’t they let her call the police? Has the old lady gone senile?”

“The old woman’s mind just doesn’t work that way. She thinks if they report it and word gets out, their whole family will never be able to hold their heads up again. Sigh, anyway…” San Pang broke off there, because when he looked up, he saw that Wei Zhiyuan had somehow come over and was lying against the kitchen doorway. There was no telling how much he had heard.

San Pang jumped in fright. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, kid. How do you walk without making any sound? Like a weasel.”

The weasel, Wei Zhiyuan, looked no different than usual, as if he had not heard their conversation at all. With chest out and head high, he said, “I’m helping my Ge carry dishes.”

“Hey, this little weasel even knows how to be filial.” San Pang’s big palm, broad as a cattail fan, smacked onto the back of Wei Zhiyuan’s head, almost swallowing the boy’s whole little skull, then hurriedly shoved him toward the room. “Go on.”

Then he exchanged a glance with Wei Qian, and both of them tacitly dropped the subject they had just been discussing.

For the next several days, Wei Qian escorted the two kids to and from school.

That wasteful excuse for a primary school started too late in the morning and let out far too early in the evening. It was very hard for Wei Qian to work around their schedule.

The mornings were barely manageable, but that afternoon dismissal time was especially vicious. Just after three o’clock, Wei Qian still had a long while before getting off work. He had to drag his plastered arm and run back and forth, sprinting to the primary school as fast as he could every day, hurrying the two little brats home, buying each of them a fifty-fen2 twin popsicle, then locking them inside from the outside before tearing back again at breakneck speed like he was racing to be reincarnated.

Literally. He really was running there on his own legs. Because he was going to be transferred to the night shift, quite a few people already disliked him behind his back. He was afraid that if he delayed too long, he would give people an excuse to talk, and he could not bear to spend the money on transport either.

That was how he ended up training a pair of flying legs that could outrun a bus.

That heartless little spendthrift, Song Xiaobao, had not the faintest idea she ought to feel sorry for her brother, and was actually quite satisfied with this life, because she got to eat one and a half twin popsicles every day… The extra half came from Wei Zhiyuan. Wei Zhiyuan would usually snap the twin popsicle in two, eat one half first, and most of the time the remaining half would end up going cheap to Xiao Bao.

Good-for-nothing and lazy. He had already completely figured out this little sister’s habits and was extremely good at dealing with her.

After running back and forth like a donkey turning a millstone for more than ten days, when Wei Qian went to the hospital for his follow-up checkup, the doctor immediately gave him a savage scolding and a serious warning. “If you keep this up, then just wait until your arm heals into eighteen twists on a mountain road.”

Wei Qian felt rather humiliated, because Ma Zi was waiting outside with the two little ones. This one big and two small group had all never seen much of the world, and Wei Qian felt it was extremely embarrassing to be chewed out in front of them. It damaged the authority of his position as big brother.

Wei Zhiyuan did not say a word. It felt as though something had struck his heart, leaving it sore and aching.

Some kind of manly urge to protect rose up inside him, while his body was still young and clumsy.

The contradiction between a heart that increasingly longed to grow strong and the limited physical conditions of childhood formed the main psychological conflict of Wei Zhiyuan’s pre-adolescence.

That very night, deep in the middle of the night, Wei Qian heard the kitchen clanging and banging. He reached out and found that the brat beside him had gotten up at some point. Rubbing his eyes, Wei Qian muttered a curse and went into the kitchen. He raised a hand to switch on the kitchen light, and while shielding his eyes from the harsh brightness, said impatiently, “What the hell are you messing around with in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?”

Wei Zhiyuan was dragging a long steel pipe and looked up at him innocently.

The half of the kitchen connected to the balcony was normally used for cooking. The other half was used to pile up all kinds of junk, and among that junk were no small number of weapons Wei Qian had casually thrown in there.

The thing Wei Zhiyuan had dragged out from that pile was an old discarded steel pipe. This time he had deliberately chosen a shorter one, one that suited his hands better, so it would not disgrace him the way it had last time by dragging all over the floor. Whenever he had a weapon in his hand, he felt tremendously powerful.

Wei Qian paused, then said, “What are you taking that for?”

Wei Zhiyuan glanced at his arm, newly wrapped in bandages, straightened his chest, and said, “I’ll take it to school. Tomorrow you don’t have to come anymore. I’ll bring Xiao Bao home. Once we get home, I’ll watch her so she doesn’t run around. I’ll lock the door.”

When he said it, there was a certain matter-of-factness in his tone, as if he really were a little grown-up who could shoulder things.

Wei Qian felt strangely choked up inside. This boy he had picked up was not ungrateful. He was sensible. He knew how to care about people. But on the surface, Wei Qian still frowned without any ceremony, lifted Wei Zhiyuan up with one hand, turned on the tap, and rinsed the boy’s little dirty hands. “You’ve gotten quite capable, haven’t you. Wash your hands clean and go to sleep. If you keep messing around, I’ll beat you.”

Wei Zhiyuan obediently did not argue. His big brother’s expression was foul and his words did not sound nice, but Wei Zhiyuan did not mind. He actually liked hearing them. He was a child who had suffered real abuse, and he could tell the difference between what was genuine malice and what was simply another form of concern.

But though Wei Zhiyuan said nothing at the time, the next day, while Wei Qian was not paying attention, he still stuffed that pipe into his schoolbag.

That afternoon, when Wei Qian ran over at the usual time to pick them up, he saw Xiao Yuan and Xiao Bao already walking home on the road before he even got there.

The two little brats had actually not waited for him, and had brazenly gone home by themselves.

Because they were across the street, the two of them did not see Wei Qian, and Wei Qian did not go over either. He only followed them from far behind.

Though his nutrition had improved and he had filled out a little, that little boy was still only two fingers taller than the little girl. Yet just like some strong protector, with a grave expression, one hand holding his little sister and the other raising a filthy steel pipe, he walked that short stretch home with the same dauntless resolve as if he were charging through a heavenly battle formation.

Wei Qian could not help finding it both funny and absurd. He followed the two children all the way home. Wei Zhiyuan solemnly told Xiao Bao to go inside first. Then, like some underground operative, he held up that ridiculous steel pipe and stuck his head out to conduct a careful reconnaissance of the area around the house. He did not discover any enemy activity, but he did discover his brother instead, standing not far away under the wall with one arm hanging in its sling, watching him.

Wei Zhiyuan was stunned for a moment. Then he saw that not only was Wei Qian not angry at his taking matters into his own hands, he even smiled at him.

Wei Qian lifted that especially thin young chin of his and nodded toward Wei Zhiyuan, signaling for him to lock the door properly.

Wei Zhiyuan obediently turned and went inside, locked the door from within, climbed onto the bed, pulled back the curtain, and lay against the window, watching Wei Qian light a cigarette. He silently finished smoking it, using the time as a bit of a rest for his legs, then turned and strode away.

“Ge did not even get a drink of water,” Wei Zhiyuan thought.

That night, when Wei Qian came home, he was surprised to find that in the enamel mug on the table, someone had set out a cup of plain boiled water to cool for him. When he reached out and touched it, it was neither hot nor cold, just the right temperature.

For the next week, that was how things went. Wei Zhiyuan took Xiao Bao home from school by himself, while Wei Qian trailed them from far behind, watched them get home and lock the door, and only then left.

Finally, nearly a full month had passed since Niuniu’s death. Nothing else troubling had happened nearby, and Wei Zhiyuan looked very dependable, so Wei Qian decided not to escort the two of them anymore. The three of them each returned to the proper track of their lives.

And then something really did happen.

1) 姐 Sister or Older sister.

2) 分 The smallest unit of Chinese currency, where 1 yuan = 10 jiao and 1 jiao = 10 fen.