Bro | Chapter 21

Everyone reacted differently.

Xiao Bao knew rationally that this was a good thing, but emotionally, she clearly did not think going to school was any great deal. On the one hand, she was happy. On the other hand, she was secretly gloating that from now on, big brother would have to be just like her, honestly tied to a chair listening to lectures and doing homework.

Xiao Yuan, however, was much more sensitive than she was. Even though he had been so little back when Wei Qian dropped out, he had truly sensed the despair and grief Wei Qian had been forcing down inside himself. So he looked up at Miss Li with a bit of hope, with the wild joy of a child deprived of schooling finally seeing rescue arrive.

But the one who reacted the most was Grandma Song. Grandma Song had lived longer than the three of them put together and had seen far too much in life.

She realized that when Wei Qian sat in front of this Miss Li, even his bearing changed. He seemed refined and courteous, polite and measured in his responses, and looked far steadier than others his age. His face was handsome, the gangsterish air had faded away, revealing the dazzling youth that had originally been buried under dust.

A boy in the prime of life, his splendid years blazing like fire.

A thought flashed through Grandma Song’s mind, and she made up her mind on the spot. This brat ought to go study.

Yet Wei Qian alone, after hearing Miss Li’s words, merely froze for a moment. After quite a while, without even lifting his eyelids, he gave a faint little laugh and replied flatly, “Thank you, Teacher, but… ahem, I’m just the sort of person who’s never really liked school by nature. Maybe I’m not cut out for studying either…”

“Are you worried about not having money for tuition?” Grandma Song suddenly cut in.

Wei Qian’s face darkened as he shot a look at that pig-brained comrade-in-arms of his. If it had not been improper to make a scene in front of Miss Li, he would have slammed down his chopsticks on the spot. Crying poverty in front of somebody else’s teacher, what the hell was that supposed to mean?

Was it to win sympathy, or to shamelessly take advantage of someone else’s kindness and beg for charity? Even being shameless ought to have some limit, right?

But Grandma Song did not care. She would roll around on the ground if she had to. Face? What sort of thing was face? Could it be eaten?

So once again, she beat Miss Li to the punch and said, “It’s fine, you go study. I’m not that old yet, I can still work. I stay by the roadside and from early morning till late at night, I can sell several hundred tea eggs a day. Do the math, that’s a lot of money, right? Those two are still little, they haven’t reached the age where they spend much money yet. Primary school miscellaneous fees aren’t much in a year, at most it’s just a little book fee. You just go study in peace, don’t worry.”

Wei Qian flicked a glance at Miss Li’s expression, secretly grinding his teeth, while forcing out a smile at Miss Li that was innocent, harmless, and a little embarrassed. “No, actually it’s not because of financial rea…”

He did his best to keep up the poise of a student council president, and Grandma Song once again took advantage of exactly that, raising her voice and cutting him off. With the booming voice she had honed from cursing in the streets, she shouted at Miss Li, “Teacher, thank you so much. You are our family’s benefactor. As long as this brat can go back to school, I, this old woman, will pay the tuition. In the future, even if he gets into college, we can still afford it. As long as a child has promise, no matter what, you can’t hold him back, right? Ah… what you said, he really can…”

Miss Li smiled and pushed up her glasses. “Auntie, don’t worry. I’ve been a schoolteacher my whole life. I have no power and no influence, so I can only get something this small done. It’s a pity for such a good child. Back then, his grades were quite good. He even made the top ten, right, Wei Qian? In a couple of days, I’ll have your uncle go take care of it. Once it’s done, when school starts after summer vacation, you can enroll directly. If there are any financial difficulties, you can tell your teacher. At worst, when you grow up and make something of yourself, you can pay the teacher back then.”

Grandma Song was overjoyed, so delighted she nearly rolled up her sleeves and bowed to Miss Li. “Oh! Really? Then thank you so much! Thank you so much!”

All by herself, Grandma Song shouted and exclaimed and seized complete control of the conversation with overwhelming dominance.

Xiao Bao only knew how to eat. Wei Zhiyuan looked at this one, then that one, and in the end cautiously picked up a piece of meat and put it into big brother’s bowl, because he could see that the veins on big brother’s forehead were bulging out.

As soon as Miss Li finished eating, she took her leave. Wei Qian had originally planned to go out and walk her part of the way, and on the way properly thank her for her kindness and reject the absurd idea of “rolling back into high school again.” But unexpectedly, he had only just risen and had not even straightened up when that old undead, immoral thing that was Grandma Song caught him completely off guard with a vicious upward kick to the crotch.

In front of his younger brother and younger sister, big brother leaped up more dramatically than ever before, clamped his legs together in utter humiliation, and sprang away like a startled rabbit. Then, right in front of the three of them, the front door slammed shut with a bang. Grandma Song had already scampered out to see Miss Li off, moving so quickly it truly did not look like the actions of a woman already in her seventies or eighties.

After two seconds of silence, Wei Qian roared at Xiao Bao, “Is your grandma, that old demon woman, looking to die?!”

Xiao Bao looked at him, blank and innocent, wiped the sweat she had worked up from eating, and said to him, “Ge, I want to eat an ice pop!”

Wei Qian said, “Eat shit. Go wash the dishes!”

So Xiao Bao had no choice but to go wash the dishes in grievance. Wei Zhiyuan also spoke up from the side and asked with concern, “Ge, does it hurt?”

Wei Qian: “…”

So Wei Qian turned his firepower on him. “Shut up. Get lost. Go wipe the table!”

So Wei Zhiyuan rolled off to wipe the table. Before he did, he even smugly picked up the bruise ointment Wei Qian usually used from the bedside table, set it down in front of Wei Qian, lowered his head and snuck a smile, then ran off before storm clouds could fully gather on big brother’s face.

The furious look on Wei Qian’s face gradually calmed down. He let out a soft breath and flung himself crookedly against the chair Xiao Yuan usually used to do homework. The chair legs were short and his legs were long, so he could only huddle there in a cramped and aggrieved heap.

Wei Qian’s violently pounding heart gradually steadied. In fact, he himself knew perfectly well that if he really had not wanted to go back at all, if he truly hated school just as much as he claimed, then he would never have brought Miss Li home for a meal.

That old thing, Grandma Song, might be fierce, but she was not even as tall as his chest. If a young man really got serious, could Grandma Song stop him?

That was impossible.

Deep in his heart, he really did want to return to school. Even though his childhood dream of the laboratory had already shattered beyond repair, education was still something he longed for but could not reach.

No matter what kind of education it was, even if in the future he only got into some really terrible university, if he held a diploma in his hands after graduating, then he would at least have a starting line from which he could struggle onward just like the overwhelming majority of people in the world. He did not expect anything else. He only wanted to board the train that could take him to the starting line.

Trying to chase the wheels on the tracks with his own two legs was far too hard.

He really only wanted that tiny little bit of hope.

But if he left, who would support the family? Who would keep food on the table?

In less than half a year, Wei Qian would turn eighteen. In the eyes of society, he was already an adult capable of supporting himself. He had hands, feet, and strength. No one would pity him because he was poor, and no one would give relief to someone like him, there were always more people in the world who needed relief than there was relief money.

Rely on the money that old woman made from selling tea eggs and scavenging junk in order to go study? He could not do it even if someone beat him to death.

Taking ten thousand steps back, Miss Li was a truly good person and willing to help him. That counted as him getting lucky. But was Miss Li obligated to help him take care of the family too, and secretly help subsidize Ma Zi’s mother?

About twenty minutes later, Grandma Song came back. The moment the front door opened, Wei Qian already had all the curses he planned to hurl at her ready in his heart.

Originally, he had wanted to say, “You’re not even my grandma, you old undead thing, what onion are you supposed to be, what gives you the right to meddle in my business? This is my house, what I say goes. Stop putting on airs in front of me like you’re somebody important!”

Since that sentence was rather long and needed to come out in one breath, Wei Qian had already taken a deep preparatory breath. Yet the moment he saw the joy on Grandma Song’s face that had not yet faded, he could not get out a single word.

Grandma Song believed that going to school and studying was an enormously honorable, face-giving, glorious thing. Back in her hometown, the most educated person she knew was the village party secretary over on the east end of the village, who had a middle school education.

Right now, she was trying to be good to him in an extremely crude and uncouth way.

At last, Wei Qian slowly let out the breath he had drawn in. Along with it, the viciousness dragging at his guts also came out, sounding almost like a sigh.

Wei Qian beckoned to Xiao Bao and Xiao Yuan and sent them off, telling them to each take an ice pop and go do their summer vacation homework in the little room.

Xiao Bao had originally not wanted to do homework on the very first day of summer vacation. But then she heard big brother tell Xiao Yuan to go with her, and she immediately forgot all about being conflicted over homework and carefully looked up at Wei Zhiyuan.

Although Wei Zhiyuan’s face was expressionless, Wei Qian could tell that he did not want to go. So he added a bit more weight to his voice and said, “Go. Take whatever you want to eat. Be good.”

Wei Zhiyuan knew that big brother and the others had something to say and did not want him hearing it. But the house was small, there was no other place to go except sending them into the little room. So he paused, waved away the popsicle Xiao Bao was offering him, turned and walked into the kitchen, then pulled the kitchen door shut behind him and shouted toward the outside, “I’m cutting watermelon!”

Xiao Bao was terribly disappointed. Holding her ice pop, she lingered outside the kitchen door for a long time. In the end, she was still shut out by that crooked, flimsy little broken door. Left with no choice, she turned around and went back to her own room, feeling that even the creamy red bean popsicle no longer tasted good.

This time, Wei Qian really did sigh. Both his younger brother and younger sister had grown up so misshapen. His little brother was a bad-tempered, stubborn mule who would never turn his head back once he dug in. As for his little sister… sigh, don’t even mention it. She was simply an especially creative kind of fool.

How was this family supposed to go on without him?

Wei Qian lowered his legs, hunched his back, put one hand on the arm of the chair, and propped the elbow of the other on his knee, covering half his face. In a rare tone of calm and peace, he said to Grandma Song, “Do you know how much our school costs in a year?”

Grandma Song held up four fingers. “Your teacher said four hundred a year. We have that money.”

Of course they had that money. Back when Wei Qian worked as an enforcer for Le Xiaodong, Le Xiaodong gave him fifteen hundred a month, and he could take good cigarettes and good liquor as he pleased. At the time, that counted as relatively high income. He had some savings in hand, and four hundred-yuan in tuition really was something he could afford. But tuition was always the small expense. What about everything else?

Wei Qian rubbed his fingers together. Right then, he really wanted another cigarette.

“Our school… our old school, lunch break is very short, and at night there’s evening self-study. It’s fully closed management. You have to stay at school twelve or thirteen hours a day. There’s no such thing as working part-time while studying. We’re required to eat three meals a day at school. Even the absolute cheapest way costs a hundred and fifty-yuan a month, and book fees are separate. That’s also no small expense, but let’s leave that out for now. At home, the three of you still have to buy vegetables and meat. Yes, I know cooking at home saves money, but how old are those two brats? This is the age when they’re growing bones and flesh together. There is absolutely no saving on food costs. Add in water, electricity, and all the other miscellaneous junk, and two hundred a month means you’d be scraping by tight.”

Wei Qian raised his eyes. “You tell me, where are you going to get that three hundred and fifty-yuan? After costs, electricity, and water, can you even make five fen on one egg? Can you sell seven thousand tea eggs in a month? Do you seriously think your eggs were laid by roosters?”

Grandma Song fell silent. After a while, she weakly argued, “I really do sell a lot in a day, several hundred…”

“I’ll buy your several hundred eggs.” Wei Qian gave a bitter laugh. After talking at such length, his mouth had gone a little dry. Softly, he said to Grandma Song, “Stop playing your little clever tricks. What kind of market is out there, like I wouldn’t know? From morning till night, if you can sell sixty or seventy, that already counts as good business.”

Grandma Song said, “What the hell do you know? I can make money selling junk too, wrapping paper, cardboard boxes… right, and bottles, cans…”

“Even if you kill yourself working and somehow scrape together that three hundred and fifty a month, what if something else happens?” Wei Qian cut her off. “You’re not that young anymore. Let me say something unpleasant, what if you get bumped or hurt and end up in the hospital? Do you have medical insurance? Besides, even if I can make do, and you can make do, what if the kids’ school has some spring outing or sports meet, and everybody else’s parents buy them new clothes and snacks? Are you going to make those two make do too? Xiao Bao is a girl. Right now it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t understand anything, but in another year or two she’ll know she wants to look pretty. Are you also planning to let her go around in ragged clothes, unable to lift her head in front of her classmates?”

Hearing this, for some reason Grandma Song suddenly blinked, and without any warning tears fell from her eyes.

Wei Qian was right. She understood it in her heart. This was the city, not their poor, out-of-the-way hometown. Back there, out in the fields and ditches and amid all the domestic gossip, every family’s children had grown up rolling in the mud, and no one was much more respectable than anyone else. There was nothing much to say.

But here in the city, people had luxury cars and BMWs, elegant clothes and pretty faces. Poverty had no road out.

How hard this child had it.

And she herself was only an old woman all alone, widowed, childless, and without anyone to rely on. She had no real skills. Her greatest ability was growing vegetables, but in this city of steel and concrete, you could not even find a vegetable patch two feet wide.

Wei Qian’s heart had originally been filled with dread and confusion. Then all at once, when he noticed Grandma Song had started crying, he could not speak for a second or two.

After that, the boy calmed down at an unbelievable speed. Without a word, he stood up, pulled over a roll of toilet paper from the table, tore off a bit, and handed it to her. With the calm and bearing of the true head of the household, he said, “Don’t cry. Everything I told you is real.”

Grandma Song broke down even harder.

Wei Qian let her cry for a while, but eventually grew impatient. “Old woman, that’s enough already. Crying and sniveling like this, is it unlucky or not? If there’s something to say, then say it. What’s there to cry about?”

Hearing that he had once again dropped all that civilized, decent manners and was back to his old bad habit of speaking rudely, Grandma Song bent down, pulled off her shoe, and started smacking Wei Qian hard with the sole. “You little bastard! You ungrateful little bastard, I’ll beat you to death! You just want to be a hooligan that badly, is that it? You just want to be a laborer that badly, is that it? I should beat you to death!”

Of course, there was no way Wei Qian was going to be beaten to death by a shoe sole. He could not even be bothered to dodge, so he simply hunched his shoulders, raised his arms to shield his face, and let her hit him, let her vent.

At the same time, he had no intention of accompanying her in letting out meaningless emotions. Against that chaotic background noise, Wei Qian racked his brains thinking of a way out.

The ground was full of thorns, and hope was like a horse treading on a swallow, only the tip of its tail barely hooked on his fingertips.