Bro | Chapter 51

Grandma Song widened her dim, failing eyes and looked at Ma Zi’s mother for a while. Even her ability to speak had been impaired. She clearly had things she wanted to say, but no matter what she did, she could not put them in order, and could only let them clog beneath her stiff tongue.

Ma Zi’s mother explained evenly, “Look, my parents died long ago, my husband is dead, and now even my son is gone. I don’t have any family left. And I’m like this myself now, I never had much strength to begin with, and staying alive only makes me a burden to other people. But before, I always thought that if I died, then wouldn’t all the suffering San’er and Qian’er went through have been for nothing? So I never dared die. Then two days ago, my husband’s elder sister came by and told me this house is worth quite a bit of money. That reminded me, this old life of mine is still worth the price of a house. I want to leave the house to those two kids.”

Grandma Song said with difficulty, “What nonsense are you thinking?”

“I’m not thinking nonsense. I just want to pick a good place so that after I’m gone, other people won’t be able to find me,” Ma Zi’s mother said lightly.

It was as if life had already become a painful burden for her, and because of that, her rush toward death seemed especially light.

At that point, Ma Zi’s mother turned and asked Grandma Song, “Big sister, do you want to go with me?”

Grandma Song hurriedly shook her head and said indistinctly, “How could I dare? Back in our hometown, if an old person in a family did something like that, how would people poke at the backs of your descendants over it?”

She spoke too fast. Ma Zi’s mother had to listen several times before she understood, and then she laughed. “You’re thinking too much, my old big sister. In a place like this where we live, people come and go, who even knows who you are? Do you know whether the people upstairs are men or women, old or young? Who’s going to poke at whose spine?”

Grandma Song could not refute her. Her quick tongue and sharp wit had been shattered by a serious illness. Now even if someone cursed her to her face, she would not be able to react in time with a reply. She turned red with anxiety.

Ma Zi’s mother laughed. “Take your time. No rush. We sisters are both idle people now.”

Although Ma Zi’s mother had not said it directly, if she left like this, wouldn’t that just mean death?

How could a person seek death? That was so, so shameful!

Grandma Song desperately thought about how to stop her, trying hard to make her violently heaving breath gradually slow down.

Her short-term memory was terrible now, but things from decades ago instead seemed like stones beneath a riverbed, gradually exposed as the water on the surface dried away.

Grandma Song forced the words out one by one, trying to make her pronunciation a little clearer.

“When I was seven or eight, it was right when the Japanese soldiers were making trouble. They had a big camp over on the west side of the city, and there were lots of Japanese women coming and going too. My third grand-uncle’s family lived over there. The adults didn’t dare go, but nobody bothered with the children, so my grandpa had me take food over to them. Actually, even if they had bothered with us, it wouldn’t have mattered. My mother gave birth to five daughters. Back then we were all just called girl brats. Girl brats weren’t worth anything. Whether one lived or died, who cared except her own mother?” Grandma Song looked at Ma Zi’s mother and said earnestly, “At the time I was young, I didn’t know how to be afraid, and I didn’t know Japanese soldiers killed people. I went back and forth I don’t know how many times, but really, nothing ever happened to me. My grandpa always said I had a big life.”

Ma Zi’s mother only gave an unreadable little smile.

Seeing that she could not move her, Grandma Song had no choice but to go on. “Later there were the three years of natural disasters, and we starved. The production team could hand out a little grain, but at home there were old people above and children below, so it was never our turn to eat it. In the dead of winter, my saozi and I mixed the last lump of pickled vegetable with cold water and ate it. I said once spring came and wild greens started growing in the fields, then nobody would starve to death. My saozi said, ‘Heh, you still think you can live till spring? I wouldn’t dare think that far.’ And what happened? We both lived to spring, and then lived all the way into two old turtles in our seventies and eighties.”

This time, even the smile on Ma Zi’s mother’s face turned indifferent. It was as if there were a film over her cloudy eyes, lightly sealing all of Grandma Song’s words outside her ears.

Grandma Song leaned forward with difficulty, grabbed Ma Zi’s mother’s only remaining, misshapen hand, and shook it hard twice. “Keep living, little sister. It’s so hard. Keep living!”

Ma Zi’s mother was silent for a long time, but in the end she still shook her head. “Don’t say any more. I’ve already thought it through. Once I decide where I’m going, and figure out how to get there, I’ll find a chance to leave.”

Grandma Song sighed and wiped at her eyes, but her eyes were too dry now, and tears no longer came easily.

Ma Zi’s mother asked her, “Will you tell anyone about this?”

Grandma Song had not even had time to think it through before she instinctively shook her head.

An expression appeared on Ma Zi’s mother’s face that looked both like relief and like she had understood something. She made her conclusion and said, “I knew it. I knew that one day, you’d become the same as me.”

Later, Grandma Song leaned on her cane and dragged her heavy steps as she left Ma Zi’s place. Neither of them had been able to convince the other.

Ma Zi’s mother had made her feel very uncomfortable. Grandma Song felt her face burning hot, and she was a little angry too. She thought Ma Zi’s mother was no good, that she had let down San Pang and Wei Qian, all the hardship they had gone through in earlier years.

Those feelings of sticking together no matter how hard or bitter things were, were they really worth only a few shabby rooms?

And yet in the end, Grandma Song also admitted that from a certain point of view, Ma Zi’s mother was right. Either she would let down all the hardship Wei Qian and the others had gone through before, or she would keep dragging them down.

Either fulfill the children’s conscience, or fulfill her own.

Grandma Song was afraid of death. The closer life drew to its end, the more she feared death.

She had only just been saved, only with difficulty recovered to her current condition… but when she trembled for a long while and finally managed to open her own front door, in the midst of all that hardship, she still sighed to herself once again, “Useless. Being alive really is no fun.”

But that mood did not last long, because that evening Song Xiaobao’s training camp ended and she came home.

Song Xiaobao was not responsible for supporting the family, nor for arranging the big and small matters of the household. She was only responsible for being happily silly all day long, and the responsibility was not great, and she did it quite well. She really was noisy and cheerful every single day.

Xiao Bao did not dislike her grandma, and it did not matter that Grandma spoke slowly. Anyway, as long as she was in the house, there was practically no room for anyone else to perform. She alone could chatter through the whole scene.

Wei Qian pushed the door open and happened to hear her gesturing wildly as she bragged, “Grandma, let me tell you, when I make it big in the future, maybe I’ll even go act in movies! You’ve never seen a movie before, have you… no, wait, it’s not the same as television, it’s way bigger than a TV screen, as big as a whole wall!”

Wei Qian stood in the doorway and could not help laughing.

He remembered how, when he was young, he had always thought this little girl was too noisy. Only now did he realize that having someone noisy in the house was a blessing.

“Ge!” Song Xiaobao charged at him with the force of a mountain cry and tsunami, chattering away, “Has this young lady gotten thinner? Prettier? Do I look like a flower?”

Wei Qian’s expression was gentle, but his words were still vicious as ever. Coolly, he said, “You do. What a fine dogtail flower.”

Xiao Bao clung to him and wheedled and pestered him for quite a while. Wei Qian finally managed to peel her off. “Your er-ge won’t be back until the weekend, and I’m going on a business trip in a couple of days too. If you’re at home by yourself, can you take care of Grandma?”

Song Xiaobao immediately stood at attention. “Don’t worry, the people are your greatest backing!”

Wei Qian smacked “the people” on the back of the head. “Go see whether there’s enough loose cash at home.”

Song Xiaobao scampered over to the cabinet where they usually kept cash and took a look, then came back and reported, “Enough… ah, wait.”

After saying that, she went to Grandma Song’s room and took out the medicine she usually had to take to check it. She counted on her fingers for a bit, then turned around and shouted to Wei Qian, “Ge, Grandma’s medicine’s almost out. It’s time to buy more. Leave me a little extra money.”

Watching Song Xiaobao run out, Grandma Song could not help slowly shifting her steps and sticking her head out.

Then she saw Wei Qian take out his wallet and count out a stack of painfully bright red banknotes for Xiao Bao.

The smile that had not left Grandma Song’s face since Xiao Bao came back slowly disappeared.

She thought, “Oh my, what, does buying medicine cost that much? Is she eating gold?”

Sure enough, Wei Qian was leaving the very next day. Before he left, he handed both his home and headquarters over to San Pang to look after.

No one knew what wire in San Pang’s head had gotten crossed. As they talked, he brought the old story up again and insisted on playing matchmaker for Wei Qian.

Wei Qian immediately felt one head turn into two. “San-ge, have mercy on me, will you? I can hardly even find north anymore, and you’re still thinking about introducing me to some girl?”

San Pang diagnosed him with all seriousness. “Can’t find north anymore, right? Feeling totally at sea, right? Feel like life is full of pressure and has no fun in it at all, right? You, this is what comes of lacking love.”

Wei Qian said expressionlessly, “I don’t think I’m really lacking love. I think my problem is probably caused by lacking money. If you can get me a few hundred million in hard cash right now, I can marry on the spot.”

“Get lost,” San Pang snapped, his hackles practically rising. “Our family’s goddess will shine through the ages. Just you, a stinking rock in a latrine pit, even if you came with a dowry nobody would want you.”

Wei Qian shrugged. “Fine. If nobody wants me, then nobody wants me. I’m leaving.”

“Get back here.” As he spoke, San Pang pulled out the photo of the girl he had shown Wei Qian last time and forcibly stuffed it into his hand. “I told you about her last time. This girl’s called Feng Ning. She was in the same year as Lin Qing. After graduating from her master’s program, she stayed on at the university. Right now she’s doing administrative work while continuing her studies, and the moment she gets her doctorate she can be made a full lecturer…”

Wei Qian was practically wailing. “Spare me, I really…”

San Pang cut him off. “She’s highly educated, talented, and pretty. Introducing her to you is practically doing you a favor, all right? I know you can’t think about this right now, but once you settle the matter with the project over there, come back and meet her, get to know her, hear me? Lots of people are after her. If you’re too late, someone else will get there first.”

Wei Qian brushed him off. “We’ll talk after I settle it.”

The expression on San Pang’s eternally sunny face suddenly changed. His face darkened and he asked coldly, “What’s that supposed to mean? A girl this good still isn’t worthy of you? You go around all day acting all proper about your Xiao Yuan, but what about yourself?”

Wei Qian’s steps paused.

“San-ge won’t hurt you. I know this isn’t the type you like, but living a life together doesn’t just need heart-pounding excitement, it also has to be suitable if it’s going to last. Sure, maybe for a while you look at someone and feel it’s right, but then once you get home and spend every day together you just fight all day for fun, is that any way to live?” San Pang sighed, softened his tone, and spoke with near heartfelt earnestness. “With that rotten temper of yours, how many young girls could put up with you? What you need is someone with a calm personality, someone willing to be tolerant of others. What would happen if you just met her once? If it doesn’t work, you can find someone else. Is meeting her going to cost you a piece of flesh? You dare shoulder a mess this big, but meeting one woman scares you?”

Just that once, Wei Qian finally gave in.

Actually, deep down, even he himself knew he was not interested in Feng Ning at all. He had purely been provoked by San Pang’s few words.

It was as if he was only anxious to prove that he could be a positive example for Wei Zhiyuan too, that he too could make adult, rational choices, instead of yielding to the childish willfulness he should not have had in his heart.

As for the faint discomfort in his heart, Wei Qian ignored it without the slightest suspense. He was already used to enduring all kinds of pressure and unhappiness. He had never had much expectation or longing for married life.

People were simply supposed to be like this.

After that, Wei Qian flew off with Dr. Ma to the distant C City.

In the first few days after he left, Wei Zhiyuan sent him text messages every morning and evening as regularly as paying respects, asking about everything under the sun. He wanted to know about food, drink, bodily functions, everything, and wanted to manage everything. He even sent over the local weather forecast every day as a reminder. It was annoying as hell.

After this went on for a while, as long as Wei Qian heard his phone ring, he did not even need to look. There was a high chance it was that damned little brother of his again.

Then one day, for some reason, Wei Zhiyuan suddenly sent a baffling text asking, “She’s pretty good?”

Wei Qian could not make sense of it. He thought Wei Zhiyuan had sent it to the wrong person. He had originally planned to ask about it later, but something happened to come up, and by the time later came, he had forgotten.

After that, Wei Zhiyuan suddenly vanished without a trace.

At first Wei Qian felt a little unaccustomed to it. There was a sort of displeasure at suddenly being ignored. But when he called home to let them know he was safe, he did not hear anything unusual from Xiao Bao. Everything at home was fine. Wei Qian judged others by himself and guessed that Wei Zhiyuan must be too busy with something to bother, and after a few days that awkward feeling stopped weighing on his mind.

The south was unlike the north. Construction projects were not affected by the seasons there. After Wei Qian arrived, the very next day he invited over a group of design people, and after two weeks, they worked out a renovation plan.

Originally there had been two supporting facilities in the villa district, one was the hospital located at the northern end, and the other was the clubhouse at the southern end.

Using the mountain hot springs in the north, they transformed that side into a convalescent wellness center combined with beauty services for women, while the clubhouse in the south was turned into a private school.

For the sake of this school, Lao Xiong was sent back again. He flew all over the country and practically mobilized every connection he had before he finally managed to poach a famous study-abroad training institution. They invited them over here, offering rent-free space, plus room and board for teachers and regular wellness retreats as conditions. Using that study-abroad training institution’s brand, they packaged the whole thing as a “private international school.”

From foreign language training to study-abroad agency services, it was one-stop service. They signed guarantee contracts with students, guaranteeing them placements at schools above the minimum guaranteed tier.

Homeowners in the villa district were exempt from tuition and service fees.

This time, the advertisements they launched were under the name of the “private international school,” put out by the study-abroad training institution. They quickly reached the target customer group and forcefully turned an entire vacation villa district into “school district housing.” Within two months, they had more or less already recouped the cost.

More than half a year later, the whole project was sold out outright, even far surpassing President Zhang’s original expected return on investment of 200 percent.

Of course, all of that follow-up work belonged to the project company’s marketing team. When the sales office welcomed the first wave of out-of-town buyers who had come rushing over to look at the houses, Wei Qian knew that their hardest hurdle had been passed.

On the way back, Ma Chunming was so excited that it was like there were nails in his butt as he asked Wei Qian, “Then, then does my consulting service this time count as a success? Does this count as getting through the door? Chairman Wei, when you said before that you wanted me to come work for you, did you mean it? Could I…”

He turned his head and glanced at Wei Qian, then suddenly shut up.

The plane had not even left the runway yet, but Wei Qian, leaning back against the seat, had already fallen asleep.

Being the boss really was not easy, Ma Chunming thought.

After the turbulence, Dr. Ma lowered the tray table, took out his pen and notebook, and carefully and earnestly recorded all the work experience he had gained from this trip. Then he flipped to the last page of the notebook and, on the blank page, very seriously drew a little turtle climbing up a mountain.

By the time Wei Qian was woken midway by the flight attendant delivering meal service, Dr. Ma’s notebook already had a whole reinforced company of little turtles in it.

That familiar drawing style, those vividly lifelike little movements, made Wei Qian recognize it at a single glance even after so many years. At once, the three characters “Ma Chunming” became familiar, overlapping with the name once written on the title page of the old textbooks he had used.

Wei Qian could not help asking, “Did you also graduate from No. 3 Municipal High School?”

Dr. Ma hurriedly snapped the notebook shut, regretting that in a moment of smug forgetfulness he had exposed his least reliable side in front of his future boss.

Wei Qian could not help smiling. “It’s fine, go ahead and draw. You draw really well.”

He had never thought he would run into the real-life “Divine Turtle” just like this. Truly, where in life do people not meet again? He thought back to the days when he carried secondhand textbooks while fighting black-market matches in Liangguang. Amid the rumbling of the plane’s engines, he lifted the lowered sunshade a crack. Vast banks of clouds spread below the aircraft, and the strong ultraviolet light stung his eyes.

A sudden vast openness filled Wei Qian’s chest.

…Of course, if he had known what San Pang had been up to behind his back during the time he was away, and what he would be facing when he got back, perhaps he would not have been happy quite so early.

On the first day after Wei Qian left, San Pang snuck into his house and told Xiao Bao that he needed to go into Wei Qian’s room to get a copy of some company materials.

Naturally, Xiao Bao did not suspect a thing. She walked past with an apple in her mouth and did not even spare him a glance.

San Pang was committing a familiar-face crime, and it could be said he got twice the result with half the effort. Once he entered Wei Qian’s room, with just a few quick moves he removed the old graduation photo that had originally been on the desk, replaced it with Feng Ning’s photo, and beside it placed a small gift box full of suggestive implications. Inside the obviously girlish package was a delicate lighter.

Wei Zhiyuan had not originally expected Wei Qian to suddenly decide to go south. Otherwise he would not have left. A week later, he came home on schedule. Although he had not achieved the results he wanted from his observations and felt somewhat regretful, he still insisted on harassing Wei Qian once a day, enjoying himself immensely.

One day in the middle of all that, he finally seemed to have annoyed Wei Qian enough that Wei Qian called him back. First he briefly asked about things at home, and then he started scolding Wei Zhiyuan. “Are you done yet or not? Did telecom service just get installed in your village, so now you’ve learned how to play with a phone? My communications bill this month is higher than that idiot consultant over there who’s busy dating!”

Those last few lines of scolding sounded wonderfully pleasant to Wei Zhiyuan. He was so happy being scolded that flowers were practically blooming in his heart. But before that flower bud had fully opened, another piece of news smashed him dumbfounded. San Pang knocked on the door and carried in several boxes of beautifully packaged little pastries. The moment he came in, he handed them to Xiao Bao and said, “Your brother isn’t making it back, so you two get the benefit. Eat up.”

Xiao Bao shamelessly started pawing at the packaging while saying with zero sincerity, “Oh my, San-ge, you came, and you even brought things? Next time can you bring a few more boxes?”

“Greedy enough to die,” San Pang replied to her with a grin, but then deliberately or not, he swept a glance at Wei Zhiyuan and, in an intentionally ambiguous tone, said, “Don’t get carried away. These weren’t bought for you. Someone brought these specially for your brother.”

Xiao Bao had to maintain her figure and did not dare eat much, so she carefully broke off half a piece just to satisfy her craving. “Who? Who bought these for my Ge?”

San Pang gave the Wei Zhiyuan standing behind her a mysterious smile. “Your future saozi.”

He was satisfied to see Wei Zhiyuan’s expression change abruptly.

Xiao Bao froze for a moment. At first she frowned a little in discomfort, but she accepted it very quickly. Soon she relaxed again and chased after San Pang to ask, “Since when? Why didn’t my Ge say anything? What does she do? Is her temper okay? What’s she like?”

San Pang let out a loud laugh. “Introduced by your San-ge, how could it go wrong? Go look in your brother’s room. There’s definitely a photo.”

Xiao Bao went immediately. Very quickly she found Feng Ning’s photo and the gift box on Wei Qian’s desk, and made a big fuss like she had discovered a new continent. She even tried to drag Wei Zhiyuan over to admire them with her.

“Xiao Bao,” Wei Zhiyuan suddenly said at that moment, “I think Grandma’s calling you.”

“Oh.” Song Xiaobao suspected nothing. She stuffed the rest of the pastry into her mouth in one bite, cheeks puffed out, and turned to run off. “Coming!”

San Pang watched Wei Zhiyuan’s dark expression. He had never seen Wei Zhiyuan like this before. That undisguised chilliness made San Pang involuntarily think of psychopathic killers taking revenge on society. Just the look in his eyes was enough to make a person shudder.

Is Wei Qian blind? Can’t he even see this? San Pang thought to himself with a sigh, expecting Wei Zhiyuan to tear the matter open to his face, and that the words hidden underneath would finally have to be laid bare.

Pretending as if he had only just become aware of something, San Pang looked at Wei Zhiyuan’s expression and teased, “What’s wrong? Not happy?”

At first Wei Zhiyuan said nothing.

“Sigh, San-ge knows. It’s kind of like the feeling of your own father finding a stepmother. Only that girl Xiao Bao can be that heartless about it.” San Pang patted Wei Zhiyuan’s stiff shoulder as if in understanding and said in a performative way, “But think about it, your brother is still your brother. Even parents can’t follow their children for a whole lifetime, let alone brothers. One day, all of you will each start your own families. That’s the natural order of things.”

After San Pang said this, he lifted his head to observe Wei Zhiyuan’s expression. But there was not a single clue to be found in that young man’s eyes. Inside them there was only a dark, heavy blackness. At last San Pang could not hold back from blurting out, “Your brother hasn’t had an easy life. You, you… sigh, make him worry a little less.”

Wei Zhiyuan lowered his voice and said, with his lips barely moving, “San-ge, you knew?”

San Pang did not know how to answer. Faced with the extreme pallor of the child he had watched grow up, for a moment he could not say a word.

The corner of Wei Zhiyuan’s mouth moved, as if he let out a swift sneer, and then he turned and left without a word. The last look in his eyes gave San Pang a fright, and he could not help thinking, This kid wouldn’t be so overstimulated that he goes and does something, would he?

Author’s Note:

Note:

Although the cause and effect have been heavily altered, this part is adapted from a real business case.