Bro | Extra 1

That little girl Tan Ming really was a live monkey born into the wrong species.

Right from birth her bones had been stronger and sturdier than other babies’. At only a little over ten months old, she had already completed the evolution from monkey to human, upright walking. By the time she was one or two years old, she was already running all over the place, and had become one of the household plagues.

On a Saturday at noon, San Pang’s family of three came to Wei Qian’s house.

San Pang had his disaster of a daughter tucked under one arm. Tan Ming, like a tailless fat rat, clung to one of his arms with all four limbs. As he walked, she swayed back and forth, treating her father as a swing.

Lin Qing carried things and trotted after the father-and-daughter pair all the way, babbling like a big-mouthed maid. Startled at every little thing, she said, “Fatty, watch it, don’t drop her!”

San Pang lifted Tan Ming and lightly tossed her upward. Then, amid her mother’s shocked yelling, he caught her again with both hands and bounced the delighted little girl, who was laughing so hard she bent backward. “Would Dad drop you?”

Tan Ming was so delighted she started blowing bubbles.

San Pang freed one hand and stretched it toward Lin Qing. “Wife, if you can’t carry the stuff, give it to me.”

Lin Qing lifted a foot and kicked him in the backside. “Just hold onto your kid properly and stop showing off!”

“I’ve got a daughter and he doesn’t. If I don’t show off, who should?” San Pang whistled and rang the doorbell, filling his lungs. “Your San-ge’s grand pres…”

Before his shout was even finished, the door opened from inside.

While taking the things from Lin Qing’s hands, Wei Zhiyuan raised a finger to his lips and gave a quiet “shh.” In a low voice, he said, “He’s still not up.”

San Pang blinked stupidly. “It’s almost eleven-thirty and he’s still not up? Is he planning never again to attend morning court?”

Hearing her spendthrift husband’s mouth start belching tractor fumes again, Lin Qing immediately raised her fist and gave him a solid thump on the back, producing a muffled, fairly loud sound. Tan Ming climbed onto San Pang’s back, curiously lowered her head to look at the source of the sound, split open her not-yet-complete little mouth in a grin, and clapped her hands in delight. Meaning: That sound was nice. Give this grandpa another one.

San Pang bent down and put his unfilial daughter on the floor so she could rampage wildly through the house. Then he went over to Wei Zhiyuan, glanced at Wei Qian’s tightly closed bedroom door, lowered his voice, and asked, “Should I go wake him… hey, there’s nothing in there that’s inappropriate for children, right?”

Wei Zhiyuan’s face did not redden in the least. He only gave San Pang a half-smiling look, which instead made San Pang feel rather awkward.

Once he had enjoyed San Pang’s discomfort enough, Young Master Wei drawled unhurriedly, “How could there be? Last night he graded exam papers till three. Today just happened to be free, so let him sleep.”

After resigning, Wei Qian had returned to school, studying for his graduate degree while also serving as a teaching assistant.

Back in the old days, what kind of bearing had Chairman Wei possessed? His shirts had always been perfectly ironed flat, he had always been in full suits and leather shoes, and his shoes had never once gone two days without polishing. If he stood there, he was the very standard model of a beast in spectacles and fine clothes.

And now look at him. After all his twists and turns, he had somehow returned to simplicity instead. All day long he went out wearing a huge undershirt and baggy shorts, with a pair of flip-flops on his feet, which at least saved him from having to wash socks. He shuffled when he walked, not even lifting his feet.

Could one and the same person really change so much?

San Pang pondered this for many days without result. At last he arrived at a conclusion: school was a place tireless in destroying people.

After hearing Wei Zhiyuan’s explanation, San Pang said in surprise, “He can really get that busy? What for? For that tiny TA salary? He’s not at that point, is he?”

“Busy my ass.” Wei Zhiyuan brought out the candy box and set it down in front of Tan Ming as he spoke. “The old gentleman really is one of our loyal users. Starting from yesterday afternoon, he played and played, gamed until twelve-thirty at night. In the end I forcibly押着 him into bed. He hadn’t been lying there five minutes before he suddenly sprang back to life like a corpse coming back from the dead, saying today he had to record grades, that he absolutely had to finish marking the midterm papers, and still had to enter the grades and send the grade sheet to the course instructor. That’s how it dragged on until the middle of the night. I’ve seriously never seen anyone so capable of cramming at the last minute. Where was all this energy earlier, huh?”

For some reason, watching Wei Zhiyuan keep a stern face while complaining and listing out all of Wei Qian’s faults suddenly made San Pang feel inexplicably sunny.

Wei Zhiyuan flipped through contact information for nearby restaurants and asked San Pang, “Should I book a table?”

“Book what? We’re family. No need for all that.” San Pang dodged Tan Ming’s little paw trying to stuff candy into his mouth. “With a brat like this, taking her out to eat would only mean one person’s enough for the whole place, bouncing around and annoying everyone. Let’s cook ourselves. Your saozi likes messing with the kitchen anyway.”

Wei Zhiyuan readily agreed. “Okay. I’ll help her.”

San Pang’s eyes swiveled. While the two of them headed to the kitchen to get busy, he picked Tan Ming up and whispered, “Come on, grandpa and granddaughter are going to flip your old uncle’s blanket off.”

Little friend Tan Ming never rejected any opportunity to climb roofs and tear tiles, or anything similar. She had no objections at all, obediently clutching one chocolate in each hand as her father carried her away.

San Pang tiptoed open the door to Wei Qian’s bedroom. The curtains were still not drawn open, but bits of sunlight had already slipped in through the gaps. The person on the bed paid no attention whatsoever to that faint light. He occupied only a narrow strip along the wall, utterly still. His upper body had nothing on at all. The blanket was wound around him, and wound rather tightly too, all the way from his ankles to his neck, leaving only a small piece of shoulder exposed. At a glance, the whole getup made him look like some ancient Greek charlatan draped in a bedsheet, vague and ethereal.

San Pang calculated with his fingers. From three o’clock to now, it had already been eight hours. Ever since Wei Qian had first put on split-crotch pants as a child, had this kid ever in his life slept such a solid eight hours?

This bastard’s little life was getting awfully comfortable.

San Pang felt rather unbalanced, so he tossed his secret weapon Tan Ming onto Wei Qian’s bed.

Little friend Tan Ming loved physical activity and was gifted by heaven in both height and weight. When she landed, it went thump, leaving a dent in the soft mattress.

Wei Qian was startled awake by her “light” landing. First he lazily cast a look over, then after locking eyes with the little creature crouched there for a few seconds, he abruptly sat up. “Holy shit, it’s alive!”

The living little creature used hands and feet together and merrily pounced toward Wei Qian, bringing with her a fierce gust of wind. Wei Qian was still not fully awake, and instinctively leaned back a little to buffer the impact, reaching out to catch this human gravity missile, only to be smacked squarely by two chocolates.

Once he lifted the little thing up for a proper look, Wei Qian laughed. “Missy, how’d you get rounder all over again? We really can’t let you follow in your dad’s footsteps.”

San Pang: “Get lost!”

Although Wei Qian had been gone from the company for over a year, as a shareholder, he still went over once in a while to stroll around, and his accumulated authority there remained formidable. Even if he showed up in flip-flops and giant shorts looking like he had just come from the bathhouse, there were still many old employees who reflexively stood at attention when they saw him. Even Lin Qing, the baby’s mother, would become somewhat more virtuous and gentle the moment she saw him.

Yet the child herself had somehow undergone some bizarre genetic mutation. In front of Wei Qian she was extraordinarily bold, especially bold. Not only was she not afraid of him, she even seemed rather fond of “bullying” him.

Tan Ming perched on him and swayed as she stood up, using his two long legs as a tightrope.

San Pang said, “Tan Ming, get down. Is that any way to play?”

Tan Ming had even less fear of this unreliable father of hers. She flourished her plump little fist at him and kept on stomping cheerfully.

Wei Qian had no choice but to stretch out the hand nearest the wall, in case she lost her balance and toppled over and cracked her head against it. “All right. Not even two years old yet, and already you dare punch your dad and step on your uncle. When you grow up, you’ll definitely make a qualified bandit. Great future ahead of you… hey, what are you doing, you little beast?”

The little beast had reached the end of the line and calmly squatted down to scratch the arch-prophet’s foot.

At a glance, San Pang spotted the midterm exam papers spread across the desk like so much toilet paper. The red pen for marking them did not even have its cap back on.

San Pang could not understand a single word of the theoretical foundations of the experimental design, but he could understand the blood-red deduction marks Wei Qian had made. After deducting points, some certain person had apparently still not felt satisfied, and like how he once used to write Read at the company, had flamboyantly scrawled two words: Bullshit.

“…” San Pang fell silent for a while. “Won’t anybody complain about you when finals come around?”

Wei Qian said carelessly, “No one knows which teaching assistant did the grading anyway. At most they’ll just give the course instructor a bad review.”

Wei Qian seemed to want to get up. He had only just started to lift the blanket when he suddenly paused and gave a dry cough. “Well, San-ge, just take the kid out for a second first while I get up and tidy myself up.”

San Pang had been wearing one pair of pants with him since childhood, and for a moment failed to catch on. Still totally carefree, he said, “Can’t you just set her aside somewhere?”

Wei Qian: “…”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment with big eyes and bigger eyes, and San Pang finally reacted. His old face nearly turned red on the spot. He immediately scooped up Tan Ming, slung her over his shoulder, and headed out.

Tan Ming was not having it. She wriggled in his arms like a little meat grub and, over San Pang’s shoulder, desperately reached out with her paws toward Wei Qian.

San Pang pulled the door shut behind them again. Tan Ming promptly let out a bright-throated howl, crying with world-shaking vigor.

Lin Qing heard the baby cry and, despite being busy, poked her head out from the kitchen. “Dead Fatty, what did you do to her this time?”

San Pang did not answer. Before closing the door, he had not been able to resist sneaking one more glance. Wei Qian had already tugged the blanket down a little, and with that single look San Pang had spotted a whole chaotic stretch of red marks across his chest. At the time, his soul had nearly left his body.

After cutting the vegetables, Wei Zhiyuan washed his hands and came out. He took over the little miss who looked promising as a future star performer, gently picked her up, and soothed her. “What’s wrong, little princess? Why are you crying?”

As San Pang listened to that gentle tone with his ears, while recalling the scene from just before in his mind, goosebumps rose firmly all over his body.

After a while, Tan Ming had been coaxed better and ran off to play on the balcony by herself. Only then did San Pang seize Wei Zhiyuan by the collar and, gritting his teeth, hiss in a low voice, “Didn’t you tell me there was nothing inappropriate for children?”

Wei Zhiyuan blinked at him with a face of innocence. “What’s inappropriate for children?”

San Pang’s face and neck flushed red as he pointed at the bedroom door. “He, he, he, that, that…”

“What?” Wei Zhiyuan asked, calm and unhurried, looking straight into his eyes. “San-ge, if it’s indecent, don’t look. What exactly did you see?”

San Pang: “…”

Then, very politely, Wei Zhiyuan sought his opinion again. “There’s a really deep bite mark on my shoulder. He bit it. It’s been half a week and still hasn’t faded. If you feel things are unfair, I can pull down my collar and let you have a look?”

San Pang said, “No, what the fuck do you mean by that, Wei Zhiyuan?”

Quite matter-of-factly, Wei Zhiyuan said, “Showing off. Couldn’t you tell?”

That last sentence sounded nothing at all like something Wei Zhiyuan could have come up with. It was clearly Wei Qian’s old rogue style, a bright and shining example of becoming black through proximity to ink. San Pang was once again rendered speechless.

Just then, the bedroom door opened. Wei Zhiyuan’s expression changed instantly, and in a voice as soft as all the autumn waters of Jiangnan, he said, “Ge, you’re up?”

Wei Qian wiped the water off his face and lifted his eyelids. “Pretending.”

San Pang, for no apparent reason, suddenly found that old tacit understanding he had once had with the child Wei Qian. Almost at the exact same time, he blurted, “Pretending what? Pretending to be innocent?”

The two voices overlapped. That made the corner of Wei Zhiyuan’s eye twitch rapidly as he stared at San Pang’s broad back.

For the entire rest of noon, he looked at San Pang with that meaningful, sinister smile.

This directly resulted in San Pang taking his wife and child and vanishing not long after lunch. “Next week Ma Chunming and Mengmeng are getting married. I only came here to deliver an invitation.”

Wei Qian opened the cheerful red invitation and saw that, not content to stop there, someone had even drawn two plump little turtles at the end of the date, each shell with half a heart on it. Leaning together, the two halves formed one complete heart.

Sometimes it does not matter if you picked the wrong person before. So long as you yourself are good enough and keep yourself that way, sooner or later someone better will come along and like you.

“Fools have foolish luck.” Wei Qian flicked the fragrant card with one finger and delivered a fair and balanced verdict on President Ma’s life.