Bro | Chapter 31

Unfortunately, Lao Xiong rejected his suggestion outright without even thinking about it.

Wei Qian said, “Why?”

In that habitual tone of his, one so unhurried that even if the house were on fire he could still sound like flowers bloom along the road, return slowly, Lao Xiong said, “The two of us have incompatible worldviews.”

Wei Qian: “…”

At the same time, he thought: Fuck your mother.

Wei Qian asked, “Then why didn’t you say our worldviews were incompatible when you hired me to watch the shop?”

Lao Xiong answered with perfect logic, “That was an employment relationship. Now you want to come with me, and you want to put in money too, so that makes us partners. I can’t have a partner whose worldview doesn’t match mine.”

Wei Qian asked patiently, “No, what kind of worldview are you even talking about?”

Lao Xiong said, “The fact that you can ask that question proves that you fundamentally can’t use effective language to describe your own worldview. You don’t even have a concept of the thing at all. Ah, pitiable worldly man, with not a single lighthouse in your life to guide your way. How muddled and confused your existence must be.”

Wei Qian wanted to know exactly which asylum director had neglected his duties badly enough to release this kind of creature back into society to bring disaster on the public.

Lao Xiong looked at him calmly. “You definitely think I’m sick. That’s because our worldviews are incompatible.”

Wei Qian took a deep breath and endured three hundred rounds of bargaining with him.

Lao Xiong was like a turtle that had swallowed a scale weight, stubborn to the bitter end and utterly unwilling to take him along. In his heart, Wei Qian was already itching to beat him flat, but he did not want to offend a source of money who was both stupid and rich, so he bared his heart and lungs and said, “I’ll cover my own food and lodging. I can do hard labor, and I can fight in group brawls. Just treat it as hiring one more person. You don’t even have to pay me, so what’s wrong with taking one more guy with you?”

At first Lao Xiong ignored him like a man in meditation. But when he heard that, his expression suddenly shifted, and he looked at Wei Qian suspiciously. “Fight in group brawls? You know how to fight too?”

Wei Qian said, “Yeah. My second major.”

Lao Xiong sized him up, thought seriously for a full minute, then unexpectedly nodded. “Fine. As long as you can endure hardship, I’ll take you.”

Satisfied, Wei Qian put his foot on the bicycle pedal. “Got it. Thanks, Xiong Laoban.”

Lao Xiong called after him again. “Hey, we might leave in a couple of days. Is your school side okay?”

Wei Qian said boldly, “No problem. I’m not studying anymore.”

On Lao Xiong’s ganoderma-like fleshy face appeared a trace of appreciative amusement. “Even though our worldviews don’t align, I still have to say, I especially admire this spirit of yours, daring to skip school in pursuit of your future. A true warrior.”

Riding his bicycle, Wei Qian turned his head and answered from afar, “I got guaranteed admission. I’m just waiting for school to start in the fall.”

Lao Xiong: “…”

A moment later, Lao Xiong, whose feelings had been deceived, dragged out an old-opera-style wail and began cursing behind him, “Shameless guaranteed-admission bastard! And you still want to sneak into the ranks of the laboring masses, you, you…”

Wei Qian hummed a little tune and rode away.

And so, just like that, Wei Qian began yet another suicidal journey in his life, one where he wanted money and not his life.

This time, when he left, Wei Qian did not slip away in silence.

For one thing, following Lao Xiong out to do a bit of small business was not something that could not be talked about. For another, he really had grown another two years older.

Putting himself in their place, Wei Qian thought that if he were San Pang, suddenly receiving a baffling text message asking for help, then hearing such a horrifying truth, he would have gone crazy too.

The passage of time had not left no trace. It was beginning to make him realize that back then, Ma Zi and San-ge had always indulged him and accommodated him, and now it was Grandma Song who tolerated him and looked after him. He was also beginning to admit that although his heart was full of bitterness and grievance, in reality he had all along been acting willfully and recklessly.

There was no chance for Ma Zi anymore in this lifetime, but as for the two left behind, he wanted to treat them a little better.

Before leaving, Wei Qian informed Grandma Song, told San Pang, and finally ran to Ma Zi’s house to say a word to Ma Zi’s mother, leaving her one thousand-yuan and coaxing her into believing that Ma Zi had sent it back.

He did not tell those two kids.

There was no need, and after the last trip south, Wei Qian was almost afraid of Wei Zhiyuan.

That kid was big enough, but he still clung to people as if he would never grow up.

Two years ago it had been summer vacation. This time, Wei Qian was afraid he would not even go to school and would just throw everything down and leave with him directly. Wei Zhiyuan was absolutely capable of doing something like that.

And yet Wei Zhiyuan still noticed the faint clues.

It started the night before Wei Qian was due to leave. To prepare for going far away, he bought a packet of common medicines to keep on hand. He had just gotten home and set them down when Ma Zi’s mother pushed herself out in her wheelchair and called for him from downstairs, saying the television was broken.

Wei Qian hurried off to help her fix it, and forgot all about it.

When he came back, he found Wei Zhiyuan sitting in a chair, carefully studying the kinds of medicine in the bag.

The moment he opened his mouth, Wei Zhiyuan asked, “Ge, where are you going?”

Wei Qian did not know why, but the moment he heard that question, all the hair on his body stood up. He was seized by a kind of panic almost like being caught in bed with someone. His tongue tied itself in a knot, and after stammering once, he began hoodwinking the little ancestor of their family. “G-going where? What going where? No such thing. Oh, that stuff, summer’s almost here, and people get heatstroke and summer colds easily, so I prepared it in advance.”

Wei Zhiyuan silently looked up at him, said nothing, and put the plastic bag containing the medicine back where it had been. He had clearly seen that inside there was a packet of medicine to prevent motion sickness and several tubes of oral glucose.

Wei Qian had already instructed Grandma Song not to tell the two younger ones, for fear they would grow restless, especially because he was afraid Wei Zhiyuan would stop applying himself at school. She came out of the kitchen carrying food, saw the scene, and immediately tried so hard to cover it up that it only made things more obvious. “That’s what I asked your brother to buy. He’s not going anywhere. This child, what nonsense you imagine. Hurry and get the chopsticks. We’re eating.”

The lie came out of her mouth with a tone that rose and fell so theatrically it almost made up a whole scene from Shajiabang. How could Wei Zhiyuan fail to hear through it?

Then he turned and looked again, only to see several plates of dumplings on the table. Fine then, dumplings for a departure and noodles for a return. She really did respect tradition.

Wei Qian had nothing to say to that old relic who tirelessly stabbed knives into his words. He had finally seen through her. If you let her spread gossip, she would absolutely live up to the organization’s expectations. But if you asked her to keep a secret, that was only asking for trouble.

Grandma Song had only ever had one method of keeping secrets, being afraid other people would not know.

Wei Zhiyuan was not someone with a slow, gentle temperament, but he had never learned how to fly into a rage either. It was simply inborn in him. No matter how stormy and bloody things were in his heart, he would never vent them through loud shouting or outbursts. He would only use silent expressions and silent looks to show his extreme disappointment and hurt.

He had already understood. Big brother was going somewhere, and Grandma knew it.

And together they had treated him as an ignorant child, even though he no longer played mad and silly while chasing and roughhousing with Xiao Bao, even though he no longer pretended to be innocent and childish while acting spoiled, even though he was charging headlong toward the standards of adulthood through wind and rain, not daring to pause for even a moment.

For a boy of thirteen or fourteen, the restlessness of puberty and the drastic changes in body and mind were making it harder and harder for Wei Zhiyuan to endure the way his big brother treated him. The pent-up frustration in his heart had nowhere to go, and so it could only lie suppressed inside him like subterranean fire beneath a volcano that seethed and stirred.

Before bed that night, Wei Zhiyuan took out a notice and handed it to Wei Qian. “Can you sign this for me?”

When he said it, he looked exactly like he was handing over a written self-criticism, head lowered, eyes on his own toes, not even lifting his eyelids, his expression cold.

Wei Qian glanced at it. “Summer camp? What summer camp?”

Wei Zhiyuan said coolly, “A while ago our school held a selection contest for Olympiad math. I was chosen. I’ve been selected to attend training during the summer vacation… oh, and those who attend the training can go straight into the key class of this school’s junior high division when they move up from primary school.”

If it had been any other child, he would have been overjoyed and showing off to the adults, but Wei Zhiyuan seemed only to want Wei Qian’s signature as his guardian. His face was drawn tight, not the slightest bit of happiness on it.

He could not feel happy. No matter what, in front of big brother he was still powerless.

But his young guardian was genuinely delighted, especially when he saw on the notice that only one student in the entire school had been selected for each subject. It made Wei Qian feel exceptionally proud, and he could not help smiling. But immediately after that, he felt he should not show too much joy, lest the child become arrogant and complacent. So he gave a dry cough, forcibly flattened the corners of his mouth, signed his name, and said in a formal, serious tone, “Since you’re going, then study properly. The teachers at school think highly of you if they’re sending you. Don’t mess it up and embarrass yourself when the time comes.”

Wei Zhiyuan lowered his brows and obediently nodded.

Wei Qian felt around in his trouser pocket, then remembered something. He opened the locked small drawer and fished out some money, putting it into an envelope. While he was doing that, because he was in too good a mood, joy turned into sorrow and he accidentally knocked over a bottle of floral water that Xiao Bao had left on the desk. Although he reacted quickly enough to set it back upright, some still got on his wrist.

Wei Qian casually tore off a scrap of paper and wiped his wrist clean, then handed the envelope to Wei Zhiyuan. “I’ve left this outside for you. If you have to stay out somewhere, don’t shortchange yourself on food and drink.”

After saying that, he lifted his hand and casually rubbed Wei Zhiyuan’s hair.

The lingering scent of floral water mixed with alcohol still remained on his wrist. His fingers were long and strong. Wei Zhiyuan suddenly felt as though a current of electricity had rushed straight into his brain through the top of his head, and before he knew it, he had blushed.

After the blush came a strange mixture of shame and indignation in his heart, a feeling impossible to describe.

Suddenly Wei Zhiyuan opened his mouth and called, “Ge…”

Wei Qian turned back to look at him.

Wei Zhiyuan wanted to tell his brother that from now on, he had his own road to walk, his own direction in which to grow into an adult. He would no longer cling to big brother like dodder, shamelessly twining himself around him. He would never again, the way he had two years ago, desperately chase after big brother’s footsteps and travel thousands of miles in a reckless all-or-nothing gamble just to become a burden.

He would become a Wei Zhiyuan who stood tall between heaven and earth, not a helpless little tagalong with nowhere to belong.

Yet faced with Wei Qian’s restrained but cheerful expression, the words that had reached his lips rolled around in his throat a few times, then rolled right back to wherever they had come from, scattering inside him into a bellyful of crow-quiet silence.

He silently shook his head. There was no more to come. He did not want to say anything anymore.

The next day, Wei Qian watched all the way until Wei Zhiyuan had ridden off to school on his bicycle with Xiao Bao on the back. Only then did he finally let out a sigh of relief, judging a gentleman by the standards of a petty man, then packed his luggage and went out to meet up with Lao Xiong and the others.

Lao Xiong wore big toad-lens sunglasses and a sun hat and chewed gum. Even right before departure, he was still reminding Wei Qian, “Taking you is fine, but let’s get the ugly truth out first. The railway over there still hasn’t been built, so we’ll have to drive in. There’s no telling where we’ll end up. The flat places have high altitude, and the places where the altitude is a bit lower have terrible roads, especially the mountain roads. Every year, a great batch of wronged ghosts goes flipping down the mountains in wrecked vehicles and ends up hanging on the wall from then on. We won’t be back until the very earliest, late July. That kind of hardship really isn’t something a human being ought to suffer. Are you sure you want to come with me?”

Wei Qian nodded without hesitation.

Lao Xiong shook his head and sighed, preparing to launch into another long speech in that sleep-inducing, storytelling pace of his, but Wei Qian finally snapped and cut him off.

Wei Qian said, “Xiong Laoban, whenever I hear you talk, I always think of a line of poetry.”

Lao Xiong looked at him.

Wei Qian said, “Before setting out, she stitches and stitches closely, fearing a late return.”

Wearing those toad-lens sunglasses, Lao Xiong pondered that for a long time. It was not until the car had already left the city that he suddenly woke as if from a dream and said, “No, wait. Wasn’t that line about somebody’s grandma? You bastard.”

Wei Qian knew he was uneducated, but he had never known he was uneducated to this extent. Even more astonishing to him was the fact that someone this uneducated still dared to put on airs and pretend to be refined. This person truly was… beyond ordinary description.

Once Wei Qian left with Lao Xiong, he was gone silently for several months. At first he still called home once in a while to report that he was safe, but later there was simply no news from him at all.

During that period, Song Xiaobao brought him up several times, but Wei Zhiyuan did not mention him even once. Grandma Song suspected that this child, whose temper was so fierce, had simply stuffed it all down inside.

Wei Zhiyuan slept alone in the empty, spacious bed. Every night, he stayed up past midnight without fail. Once his homework notebooks were used up, he bound them together as scratch paper, writing over every last corner of every page as though every inch were precious territory. He could use up a whole thick notebook in only three or four days.

Grandma Song looked at those calculation processes, which she could not understand at all, and simply could not bear to sell them off as scrap. She treasured them and kept them, using them as a daily tool in her routine education of Song Xiaobao.

As a result, Song Xiaobao suffered inhuman torment, because her kind and amiable grandmother was left with only one sentence for her. “Look at him, then look at yourself.”

Song Xiaobao muttered under her breath, with no great ambitions in life, “I’m just a middling student.”

“A middling student.” Grandma tapped her on the head with a pair of chopsticks and delivered a completely groundless conclusion. “A middling student is a disgrace.”

She could not even understand the subtitles shown under foreign interviewees on the evening news, so illiterate she could barely recognize a basketful of characters, and yet she still had the nerve to pass judgment on middling students…

Being a middling student was perfectly fine. It was not like she was dead last.

Song Xiaobao felt that Grandma did not know shit and was completely impossible to reason with.

Big brother threatened to cut her hair, second brother was that damned “him” in “look at him,” and Grandma had turned into a nag who repeated herself like a wheel rolling in circles. Song Xiaobao felt that in this family she was practically some pitiful little wildflower picked up off the roadside. Whatever she did, it was wrong.

Soon enough, summer arrived, and Wei Qian still had not sent any news.

That day Wei Zhiyuan had gone to take a mock exam organized by the school and had not attended regular classes, so he came home early. Grandma told him to buy twenty jin of rice, so he rode off on his bicycle. On the way, he passed a community activity center. Wei Zhiyuan had originally been riding past it without much thought, but for some reason, he suddenly hit the brakes.

Inside the activity center was a large raised platform. It was probably because Children’s Day was coming soon, a teacher-looking person was leading several eight- or nine-year-old children in rehearsing a performance. Of course, there was nothing worth seeing in children rehearsing a children’s program. Wei Zhiyuan’s gaze fell on a man.

The man looked only a little over forty, but his back was already hunched. His long, horse-faced features still had an unshaven beard on them, and he wore filthy clothes, making him look especially sleazy.

The man sat on a public bench, staring without blinking at the few children in the middle who were jumping and hopping along with the music.

His gaze had almost turned solid, sinister enough that it seemed barely to touch those children’s bodies.

Even if the bastard were burned to ashes, Wei Zhiyuan would still recognize him. This was that twisted pedophile he had once driven off with a steel pipe.

Back then, Wei Qian had kept looking for this person, but had never managed to find him. Who would have thought he would suddenly crash right into Wei Zhiyuan’s hands like this?

Wei Zhiyuan pushed his bicycle and hid behind a corner wall, like a little leopard on its first hunt, yet one with extraordinary patience, watching the man like a mantis stalked by an oriole behind it.

He waited for more than an hour before the children finally finished rehearsal. Wei Zhiyuan noticed that when the children came noisily out through the iron gate of the community center, that pervert could not help standing up too.

Unfortunately, the female teacher accompanied them the whole way, so he did not get a chance to make a move.

Like a goose with its neck stretched long, the man stared greedily for a long while. It was only after the children had long since disappeared that he finally turned around, panting heavily, and his crotch was already bulging.

There were not many people on the street at that time, so the man had no scruples at all. He pressed a hand over his crotch and rubbed as he walked.

He staggered off in another direction. Wei Zhiyuan hesitated only one second before locking his bicycle by the roadside and quietly following after him.

The elementary school around here was a branch campus that a certain public primary school had only just established in the area. The location was rather remote. Wei Zhiyuan guessed that this might be exactly why the pervert had begun operating around here.

Wei Zhiyuan tailed him for nearly forty minutes before he finally saw the man enter a meat processing factory.

After that, Wei Zhiyuan calmly turned back the way he had come, bought the rice, and went home. After getting home, he did not mention a single word of it. As usual, he and Song Xiaobao, one washing the dishes, one cleaning up the kitchen, then each went back to their own rooms to do homework.

After Grandma Song gave a few instructions, she went out again to work.

Wei Zhiyuan reviewed his schoolwork and read part of the Olympiad math book his teacher had given him. The room was so quiet that even the ticking of the clock could be heard. Only after finishing all that did Wei Zhiyuan lift his eyes and glance at Xiao Bao’s tightly shut door. His dark eyes were like dabs of thick ink.

Then he took out a new notebook and wrote down the date and the address of the meat processing factory.