Bro | Chapter 67

On the twenty-third, the sugar melons stick.

People often said, “Once Laba is past, the New Year is here,” and sure enough, something joyful really did happen.

The tumor in Wei Qian’s lung was ultimately confirmed to be benign. It was removed by surgery. Afterward, in order to show off how wise, mighty, and prophetic he was, this grand old master launched into quite a round of hindsight bragging. Even lying weakly in a hospital bed, he still seized every chance to show off, shamelessly proclaiming, “Didn’t I say there was nothing wrong? When have I ever just run my mouth? Look at all of you, one by one jumping around like monkeys…”

San Pang had the expression of someone with bleeding gums.

Fortunately, just then, Wei Zhiyuan came in, carrying a thermos bucket in his hand.

He greeted San Pang, set the thermos aside first, then crouched down and tugged up one of Wei Qian’s sleeves. The hand Wei Qian had injured with the knife had already had its stitches removed. Wei Zhiyuan fished out the string of wooden beads he had polished for him from his pocket and wound it around his wrist.

Wei Qian blinked and asked oddly, “What made you think to bring that?”

Without even raising his head, Wei Zhiyuan said, “You asked for it yourself right after the surgery, when the anesthetic had just worn off and you were still muddleheaded. Don’t remember? The first thing you said when you woke up was a vague, blurry, ‘Where are my beads?’”

Wei Qian’s face could not quite hold up under that, and he stopped talking.

San Pang laughed so hard his folds all came out. “Hahahahaha, ‘Where are my beads?’ You really know how to ask for things, don’t you? I say, Qian’er, want a red ribbon too? Two chi long. It’s almost New Year, later Dad will go buy you one. Dad’s got money. I’ll tear off a few extra inches for you. If nothing else, you can use it as a belt.”

Wei Qian was lying in bed and couldn’t get down, so he could only use his eyes to convey the rather complicated message of I’m going to kill you.

“Oh my, glaring at Dad, huh?” San Pang patted his belly and said cheerfully, “If you glare at me, I’m leaving. I don’t enjoy looking at that stepmother face of yours. You two, that… that whatever it is, heh heh, I won’t disturb you.”

What the hell did that even have to do with anything?

Wei Qian said, “Get lost.”

San Pang threw his head back and laughed on his way out, and rolled off.

Only then did Wei Qian secretly look at Wei Zhiyuan, only to discover that Wei Zhiyuan was already looking down at him. He immediately gave a dry cough and said awkwardly, “Uh, that… is anything going on with your company?”

Wei Zhiyuan said, “No.”

Wei Qian asked again, “What about Xiao Bao?”

Wei Zhiyuan said, “She just called and had a huge fight with me. She cried herself hoarse. Said she booked an afternoon flight and will get here tonight.”

This time, Wei Qian really ran out of things to say. Wei Zhiyuan sat at the edge of his bed. “Anything else you want to ask?”

Wei Qian was silent for a moment, then held out a hand to him. “Come here.”

Wei Zhiyuan took his hand and moved a little closer.

Wei Qian then lifted his hand and touched his head. Then he shifted it slightly downward. His palm, a little rough from the wound, brushed across Wei Zhiyuan’s face as he said, “This time it really is fine. I’m not lying to you. Don’t be angry anymore.”

Wei Zhiyuan closed his eyes briefly. “I’m not.”

“Oh, come on, you’ve had a big temper since you were little.” Wei Qian laughed. “That time you had a fight with Xiao Bao, you never even stepped into her room again all the way up until we moved house.”

“You actually still remember that.” Wei Zhiyuan’s eyes suddenly lit up. It was as though two tiny lamps had been lit in his pupils, flickering brightly. “What else do you remember?”

“I remember lots of things. When you were little, you didn’t want to go to school. You stood at the school gate stamping and yelling at me, then bit me, and in the end you chipped one of your own teeth. You thought you were about to die and wrote the first great masterpiece of your life.” Wei Qian spoke leisurely. “And Xiao Bao too. Back then the two of you were like a pair of fighting cocks, scrapping from morning till night. I have no idea what for.”

“I don’t know about her. As for me, I did it to make you happy.”

Wei Qian said, “Bullshit. What was there for me to be happy about, with you two fighting?”

Wei Zhiyuan leaned down and touched the corner of his mouth. “Who knows? Anyway, you’re still smiling now.”

Wei Qian awkwardly restrained the corners of his mouth, which had involuntarily started to lift. Then he thought about it and complained, “But after a few years, once you grew up, you weren’t as close to me anymore.”

Wei Zhiyuan looked at him meaningfully.

Wei Qian asked inexplicably, “What are you looking at?”

“It wasn’t that I stopped being close to you. It was that I no longer dared be close to you.” As he said this, Wei Zhiyuan pulled out his wallet from his trouser pocket. His wallets wore out very quickly from being stuffed in his pocket long-term and rubbed against all kinds of rough denim materials. By now he had gone through seven or eight of them. But once it was opened, the photo tucked into the photo slot was always the same one.

That photo was so old it was nearly beyond saving. The corners were worn ragged, and someone had taped another ring around the edges. In it was a teenage boy with a flat crew cut, though his features were fine and delicate. He was wearing a school uniform, standing in front of the camera with his hands behind his back, ramrod straight like he was standing at attention, as rigid as a stick. There was not a trace of a smile on his face. It was stretched tight. His gaze was somewhat gloomy, as if he bore a deep hostility toward the entire world.

“Who’s this dumb kid? Why does he look like some juvenile offender?” Wei Qian failed to react at first. Then he narrowed his eyes and studied it for a long while before finally, with difficulty, recognizing his own self from nearly twenty years ago. He instantly turned Spartan. “Where on earth did you dig up such a stupid photo? Wei Xiao Yuan, your taste is really incredible. Couldn’t you have picked a better one? You carry this around with you all day, this… this thing with the words I’m a dumbass written in bright letters all over his face. Aren’t you afraid other people will see it and laugh?”

Wei Zhiyuan said, “Give it back to me. You’re not allowed to insult the lover of my dreams.”

“No.” Wei Qian swiftly stuffed the old photo under his pillow. “Confiscated. I’m destroying the evidence.”

Wei Zhiyuan looked at him helplessly.

“All right, all right. Worst comes to worst, I’ll compensate you with another one.” Wei Qian thought for a moment, then remembered that he hardly ever took photos at all. So he reached into Wei Zhiyuan’s trouser pocket, pulled out his phone, and opened the camera function he had only recently started playing with.

What kind of picture should he take?

Wei Qian thought about it, then struggled to sit up in bed.

“What are you doing? Don’t move around.” Wei Zhiyuan immediately pressed him down. “Be careful not to knock the IV needle crooked.”

Wei Qian turned his head slightly. Borrowing the motion of Wei Zhiyuan restraining him, the hand with the IV moved a little, making it look as though he was lifting the hand Wei Zhiyuan had used to stop him. Then his lips lightly touched the back of Wei Zhiyuan’s hand.

Click.

Wei Zhiyuan’s hand trembled as though shocked by electricity.

A moment later, Wei Zhiyuan stared blankly at the phone screen in his hand. The man’s profile carried the pale look peculiar to serious illness. It made his lowered brows and eyes seem all the darker, all the deeper. He looked as though, in the dim first light of dawn, he had lifted up a flower jeweled with dew, and because of its delicate fragility and glittering beauty, cherished it all the more, touching it with a kiss and letting go at once, then steadily and properly placing it back onto the branch… with the faintest trace of a helpless smile still lingering at the corner of his mouth.

He had stepped on the throat of the fate that pursued him relentlessly countless times. To the point that now, that cheap thing called “fate” seemed almost not to dare provoke him anymore. He had never met a defeat he could not crush, and yet he had lost to the swaying dark fragrance of this single “flower.”

Wei Zhiyuan felt that this lonely road he had walked without regret had, at long last, reached its end.

Perhaps because he had been staying with him in the hospital these past few days and was too exhausted, or perhaps for some other reason, not long afterward Wei Zhiyuan could not help but fall asleep with his head pillowed by the bedside.

While he was dozing, the eminent monk Xiong Yingjun arrived.

Dressed in his alternative monk’s outfit, he paraded himself ostentatiously through the hospital, tragically drawing the collective stares of doctors, nurses, other patients, and their families. He held a string of Buddhist beads in one hand and fussed with them as he walked. He pressed his palms together in greeting to everyone he met, and anyone who moved aside for him got the same in return. As a result, his pace was quite slow, yet he paid no mind at all to the comments people were making about him.

At that moment, a resident doctor hurried after him. “Master! Hey, that master!”

Lao Xiong said, “Amitabha.”

The doctor looked him up and down and asked uncertainly, “You… you’re also here to visit a patient?”

Lao Xiong said in a deeply mystical tone, “Yes. A lay believer has just escaped the bitter sea. I’ve come to see him.”

The doctor’s expression changed, and he lowered his voice as well. “Oh? The one sent to the morgue this afternoon? That won’t do. Our hospital management is very strict. The morgue isn’t a place you can just enter casually.”

Lao Xiong: “…”

He felt that this truly lived up to being the degenerate age of the Dharma. Even sacred medical workers could be this shallow.

“Amitabha.” Lao Xiong sighed and patiently explained, “That lay believer unfortunately is still a living creature.”

“Ah, then you must restrain your grief… no, no, that’s not what I meant.” Seeing the constipated look on his face, the doctor finally noticed the fruit basket in his hand. He quickly pushed up the glasses on his face and said with righteous seriousness, “Actually, I chased after you just to let you know that those especially flowing ladies’ long skirts and wide trousers are best not worn in the hospital. Oh, I mean clothes like yours that drag on the floor. This place is full of patients, and there are lots of germs and viruses on the ground. If your clothes sweep them up, when you go back it’ll be harmful to the health of you and your family.”

Then this overly earnest doctor realized that saying “family” to a monk was a bit inappropriate, so he added, “It’ll be harmful to the health of you and your Da Shixiong, Er Shixiong, and Sha-ge.”

Lao Xiong was left speechless for a moment. In the end, he could only press his palms together in thanks. At the same time, he felt that Wei Qian truly must be protected by the Buddha to have survived in such a perilous medical environment.

An older doctor wearing a mask passed by and, unable to stand it any longer, reprimanded the young resident doctor. “Xiao Liu, you should carry yourself a bit more like a proper person. Why so much nonsense? No authority at all. How are patients supposed to trust you in the future?”

Doctor Xiao Liu sidled up to him with a cheeky grin and started kneading his shoulders and back. “Teacher, I practice medicine to save the world, and he delivers all living beings from suffering. The two of us have plenty of common language. What’s wrong with chatting a little more?”

The four words “deliver all living beings” made Lao Xiong’s footsteps pause. Then he shook his head with a smile and walked toward the ward.

When he pushed open the door to Wei Qian’s hospital room, Lao Xiong first stopped short in the doorway.

He saw Wei Zhiyuan sleeping soundly with his head pillowed on the edge of Wei Qian’s bed, most of one side of his face buried in the crook of his arm, only a little exposed, the corner of his mouth seeming to still carry a trace of a smile.

Wei Qian still had all sorts of tubes stuck into him, and was lazily flipping through a magazine. Every so often, he lowered his head to glance at the quietly sleeping young man, and his gaze was indescribably gentle.

Wei Qian’s eyes swept casually toward the doorway and caught sight of Lao Xiong. He immediately raised his index finger to his lips and made a gesture telling him to be quiet.

Lao Xiong tiptoed in, set the fruit basket to one side, and felt himself blinded by this pair of damn men. To express his dissatisfaction, he pulled a banana out of the gift basket, peeled it without ceremony, and started eating.

Wei Zhiyuan did not have the habit of sleeping in the daytime. He had only taken a nap because he was exhausted to the extreme, and had only slept there for twenty-odd minutes. Lao Xiong, however, used those short twenty minutes to chew through half the fruit basket. Wei Zhiyuan woke in a chorus of crunch crunch crunch, and for a moment thought mice had gotten into the hospital room.

The moment he opened his eyes, Wei Qian finally spoke.

“Xiong Yingjun,” Wei Qian said, “did you come here to have a picnic?”

Lao Xiong said, utterly without acting like a stranger, “You won’t be able to eat this stuff conveniently for a while anyway. In a couple of days it’ll go bad. I’m helping you deal with some of it. Can’t waste food.”

Wei Qian smiled without smiling. “Well then, many thanks indeed. What exactly did you come here for? You can’t possibly have specially come just to visit me, can you?”

“You, lay believer, are truly so sharp-tongued and mean-spirited. It’s one thing to look down on yourself, but you always like to assume the worst of everyone else too,” Lao Xiong instructed him earnestly. Then he spread his hands. “This poor monk really did come to visit the sick, and while I was at it, to wish you an early happy New Year.”

Wei Qian looked at him suspiciously. “A weasel paying New Year’s respects to a chicken?”

“Amitabha.” Lao Xiong was silent for a moment. “Sometimes this poor monk truly finds it hard to understand your… style of speech that launches indiscriminate attacks and always includes yourself in the blast radius. Too fair and impartial.”

Probably because he had been lying down for too long, Wei Qian felt a bit of pain around the incision. He frowned and shifted slightly. Wei Zhiyuan immediately came over and stuffed a pillow behind his back. “Careful.”

Wei Qian nodded, then turned to Lao Xiong. “Right now, I’ve got no money, and only half a life left. Which one are you planning to discuss with me? Stop circling around. Say it.”

“Amitabha, how can you discuss vulgar worldly things like that with a monk? Is money something you and I ought to talk about? It hurts our feelings too much!” Lao Xiong lowered his head and put on a grave, compassionate pose. Then he suddenly lifted his persimmon-cake face and flashed a sneaky grin like Garfield’s, stretching out five fingers toward Wei Qian. “Just sponsor me this amount.”

Wei Qian nearly choked with anger. “I knew you couldn’t possibly have made a special trip just to see me!”

Lao Xiong said with a grin, “Don’t get angry, lay believer. Your serious illness still hasn’t healed. You need to nourish your qi and steady your foundation. Calm down a little.”

Wei Qian said, “Impossible. I’ve got several projects all smashing through their early-stage investment right now. My funding chain is stretched so tight it’s about to snap. I’m already getting ready to sell myself. Where am I supposed to find spare cash?”

Lao Xiong said, “It’s only five hundred thousand. That’s probably not even as much as the interest you make in the blink of an eye. Don’t be so stingy you won’t part with a single hair, all right?”

“Five hundred thousand? Easy.” Wei Qian tipped his head back. “Xiao Yuan, got any loose change? Give him ten kuai. There’s a lottery seller outside the entrance. Tell him to pass a message to the Buddha, and if he wins a prize of a million or so, that’ll solve it.”

Lao Xiong said, “You lay believer who wears nothing but white shirts your whole life, is your name Poverty and Sourness? You really are stingy to an impressive degree.”

Wei Qian said, “To this day I drive a beat-up car worth a hundred thousand, and you open your mouth asking me for five hundred thousand as a donation threshold? Tell me, where exactly is the door?”

Lao Xiong showed no sign of anger at all. He continued speaking to Wei Qian in that same unhurried pace. “I’m not asking you to donate some threshold, and I’m not asking you for money to build Buddha statues either. This time it’s something being organized by several social nonprofit organizations. They have their own website and Weibo now, and they’ve got a fair amount of recognition already. Every bit of the sponsorship fee you put in can be counted as advertising expenses for promoting your company’s brand. That’s dirt cheap, okay?”

Wei Qian looked Lao Xiong up and down and asked sincerely, “Senior, could I trouble you to enlighten me? Has my company’s image really become so bad that it has reached the point where it needs a monk to be its spokesperson?”

Lao Xiong said, “So are you paying up or not?”

Wei Qian said, “Anyway, I’ve got no money.”

Wei Zhiyuan could only step in with a cup of warm boiled water between the two of them. “Enough, both of you, take a break. Come on, ceasefire first. Xiong-ge, have some water.”

Lao Xiong picked it up and drank it down in one breath. Then he smacked his lips and said, “I’m telling you, once I finish explaining this, you’ll definitely fork over the money. Here’s the thing. Recently there have been lots of people online talking about child trafficking. The nonprofit organization I’m talking about specializes in social welfare activities. Right now they’re planning to take the lead in doing something about these phenomena…”

“Aren’t you people just making a racket and propping up a stage?” Wei Qian said. “Cracking down on trafficking is the police’s business. What are you following along for? Public welfare? Looks more like making trouble to me.”

“Lay believer, you’ve already been flattened and yet you still ought to accumulate a little verbal virtue,” Lao Xiong continued explaining. “We’re not cracking down on traffickers. We want to build something similar to an internet social platform, using that network to connect parents who have lost children with children who don’t know their own origins. When the police find abducted children, they’ll also release information on it to search for the children’s guardians. Simply put, it’s to help locate children who were once trafficked. You understand now, right?”

Wei Qian fell silent, and his gaze immediately dropped onto Wei Zhiyuan.

Lao Xiong looked at him with absolute confidence. Sure enough, a moment later, Wei Qian said, “Xiao Yuan, go home and bring my checkbook… mm, make it in the company’s name, but I’m paying for it personally.”

Then he added, “A budget of five hundred thousand is too tight. Write him five million. Bring it back and I’ll sign it.”

Lao Xiong said, “Excellent, excellent, then if more sponsorship needs to be added later…”

“All right.” Wei Qian agreed in one breath. “Tell them to get me a contract as soon as possible. I’ll assign a finance director. Aside from the annual external audit, they’ll also need to accept our company’s internal audit, to make sure the funds aren’t misused. As for follow-up sponsorship, you don’t need to go looking for anybody else.”

Wei Zhiyuan was stunned for a while. “Ge, actually…”

He wanted to say that in truth, he no longer cared about what had happened in childhood, and had no particular interest in his biological parents either. If he happened to meet them, fine. If not, forget it. But with Lao Xiong watching him with that half-smiling expression, he felt it would not be good to tear down the stage at a time like this.

So after getting stuck for a while, he finally said softly, “Actually, having you is enough for me.”

Lao Xiong kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his mouth, recited a Buddha’s name, and looked rather dignified.

“Mm.” Wei Qian’s voice softened. “Go on, then.”

Lao Xiong and Wei Zhiyuan walked out of the hospital room together.

Wei Zhiyuan said, “ Xiong-ge, using me like this is a little unfair, isn’t it?”

Lao Xiong gave a heh-heh laugh. “Your wings are hard now, and you can fly over from anywhere in the world. It’s rare for him to get a chance to do something for you. I’m helping fulfill that for him. Oh, right, I’m lecturing on scripture next week. Coming or not?”

“Lecture on scripture? You?” A strange expression appeared on Wei Zhiyuan’s face.

“What’s wrong with me?” Lao Xiong shot him a glare.

“Why have you been so active lately?” Wei Zhiyuan asked in puzzlement. He vaguely remembered that when he had first gone to Lao Xiong’s meditation room years ago, Lao Xiong had carried that kind of quiet desolation, the air of someone planning to spend his whole life with a lone lamp and an ancient Buddha. “Didn’t you say you were only cultivating yourself, only ferrying yourself across?”

Lao Xiong pinched the wooden Buddhist beads between his fingers, and they gave off a clear crisp sound as they knocked together.

“That isn’t up to you.” After a while, he said this. “If you drift on the river long enough, there are always one or two like you, fools playing at throwing yourselves into the river to drown. Once you pull one aboard, there’ll be a second. Once you’ve pulled enough people aboard, then you stop splitting hairs over Hinayana and Mahayana.”

Wei Zhiyuan looked thoughtful.

Lao Xiong raised a hand and patted his shoulder. “Don’t think too much. The mortal world is fine just as it is. If you never enter that ethereal, illusory gate of the nondual Dharma, that’s fine too… I’m off.”

Wei Zhiyuan watched his broad back head toward the bus stop, and for a moment he was flooded with mixed emotions.

Just then, Lao Xiong suddenly turned around and shouted at him, “Kid, hurry up and go get the check! Stop standing there in a daze. It’s hard enough for this poor monk to latch onto a rich patron who’s a total iron rooster. You think this is easy? If the moneybags changes his mind later, we’re screwed. When it comes to asking for money, you’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot!”

At once, everyone nearby turned to look, while Lao Xiong stood there smug and pleased with himself, seeming not to feel a thing.

Wei Zhiyuan did not have skin as thick as his, so he could only flee in defeat.