Bro | Chapter 11

That morning, Wei Qian woke up late. The night before, he had dreamed on and off all night, hazy, indistinct dreams. The moment he opened his eyes, he could no longer remember what they had been about, but they definitely had not been pleasant. Even after getting up, his chest still felt oppressively heavy.

He sat at the edge of the bed for two seconds, then suddenly remembered that the two little brats still had to go to school and breakfast had not been dealt with yet, so he hurriedly got up. But when he went into the kitchen, he found Wei Zhiyuan standing there with a solemn expression, using a big ladle to stir the frozen dumplings in the pot of boiling water.

Leaning against the kitchen doorway, Wei Qian asked softly, “Why didn’t you call me?”

Wei Zhiyuan turned back and bared his teeth in a grin at him, revealing two shockingly white little tiger teeth, adorable as could be.

Wei Qian rubbed his head, then turned and went into the bathroom. He scrubbed hard at his eyes. For some reason, one eyelid kept twitching nonstop.

Only after washing his face did Wei Qian remember that he had originally wanted Ma Zi to fry a few youtiao for breakfast.

Wei Zhiyuan cooked the whole pot of dumplings with the meticulous care of someone doing a chemistry experiment. The three of them had just sat down by the table when suddenly there was a huge bang from downstairs, as if something had toppled over. Right on its heels came a sharp scream so shrill it scraped at the ears, and then everything dissolved into chaos.

Holding his bowl, Wei Qian shoved open the window and looked down. Then he jumped up as if his backside had caught fire. Forget eating, he grabbed his wallet and ran downstairs.

He only had time to hurriedly say, “You two get to school by yourselves, and be careful on the way.”

Within a few minutes, San Pang came down from upstairs too. By then, a ring of people had already gathered downstairs.

What had happened was at Ma Zi’s family breakfast stall.

Every day after getting off work in the early hours of the morning, Ma Zi would help his mother set up the breakfast stand, frying youtiao and selling soy milk, and they would not pack up until around nine-thirty.

It was the open-air kind of breakfast stand, just a few simple tables and chairs, a soy milk barrel, and a wok of oil.

The accident started when a taxi drove in. Cars normally did not come down this road because it was too narrow. One car entering could almost take up the whole lane. The driver had either gotten lost or made a wrong turn and accidentally come in. Just as the taxi was inching cautiously forward, an electric three-wheeler suddenly turned in from the intersection.

The three-wheeler driver was in a hurry and driving very fast. He only realized there was a car ahead after he had turned in, and by then it was already too late to brake.

Instinctively, the driver yanked the handlebars. Carried by inertia, the three-wheeler lunged onto the roadside and slammed straight into the stall supporting the oil wok without any buffer at all. Ma Zi’s mother happened to be standing behind the wok frying youtiao. A whole wok of boiling hot oil tipped over and splashed entirely onto her body. Together with the wok, and with her, the out-of-control three-wheeler shoved them more than a meter away.

By the time Wei Qian violently shoved through the crowd and squeezed inside, his scalp practically exploded, because the weather was hot and Ma Zi’s mother was only wearing a very thin short-sleeved shirt and cropped pants. The large patches of skin exposed outside were scalded by the hot oil, and in an instant they were too awful to look at.

For one moment, Wei Qian felt as though she had already been cooked.

There was even a strange smell of meat in the air.

Ma Zi had gone completely stupid. His eyes were opened so wide they looked ready to pop out of their sockets. He stood there stiff and blank, utterly motionless, like a statue.

Wei Qian slapped him across the face and shouted into his ear, “What the hell are you still staring at? Huh? Your mom’s been cooked, and you still aren’t calling an ambulance?”

Then he turned and roared at the people around them, “Vehicle! Get that three-wheeler moved!”

Several passersby hurriedly stepped forward and, all at once, lifted the three-wheeler away. Seeing that things had gone bad, the three-wheeler driver instinctively tried to slip away, but Wei Qian yanked him back with one hand and kicked him hard in the back of the knee, slamming him viciously to the ground.

Behind him, San Pang shouted, “Qian’er! Forget that bastard, I already called the police. Leave him to them. The wok’s stuck to her flesh, what do we do?”

Wei Qian turned back and yelled, “How the hell would I know!”

In the end, it was San Pang’s parents who brought over a large washbasin full of cool water and carefully splashed it over the scorching oil wok. No one knew whether that was the right thing to do or not. Then the ambulance and police both arrived, and Ma Zi’s mother was taken away for emergency treatment.

Wei Qian did not know why, the moment he realized something had happened, his instinctive reaction had been to grab his wallet and dash downstairs. Probably by this point he had already developed the instincts of a miser, subconsciously feeling that only money could give him any sense of security.

Still, luckily it had happened that way. That idiot Ma Zi only had twelve-yuan1 and five-jiao on him, standing there dull and witless, not knowing a thing. So Wei Qian followed along and, as a one-armed hero, ran himself into total exhaustion going up and down everywhere.

Close to noon, San Pang came over with a policeman, bringing along the other two people involved in the accident.

Really, it was rotten luck. Of those two, one was the taxi driver and the other was the peddler who drove the three-wheeler and sold sundries. The driver looked ashen, like his parents had just died, and the peddler, whether because of the kick Wei Qian had given him or not, had a leg that would not stop shaking. Even standing still, his legs trembled under him and he looked ready to collapse at any moment, like a leaf drifting helplessly in the wind.

Traffic accidents were settled with money. If Ma Zi’s mother died, it would actually be easier to handle. But if she survived, then with burns this severe, no one knew what sort of state she might be in afterward. They might even have to take responsibility for her for the rest of her life.

And the fatal problem was that these two men just happened to both have no money.

But there in the hospital corridor, facing several pairs of silent eyes that looked as though they wanted to skin them alive and tear them apart, there was no way they could actually say the words, “I hope the person inside dies.”

With all that terror and helplessness having nowhere to go, the peddler who had ridden the three-wheeler suddenly dropped to his knees with a thud and began to bawl heartbreakingly.

The policeman who had come with them asked San Pang, “What are you to them?”

San Pang said, “A neighbor.”

The policeman gave an “oh,” then asked, “The kid is her son, right? Who else is in that woman’s family? Where’s her husband?”

San Pang said, “Dead. Just a widow and her son.”

The policeman was visibly moved, but in the face of a scene like this, he neither knew what kind of sentiment to express nor what advice he could give. Only after quite a while did he sigh and say, “This is hard. Neither side has any money. The people responsible definitely won’t be able to afford compensation. You… sigh, the family should prepare themselves mentally.”

San Pang raised his eyes and asked blankly, “Then… what happens if they don’t pay compensation?”

The policeman thought for a moment. “The family can sue. But I’ll tell you the truth, save yourself the trouble. Even if they sue, it’s no use. In a case like this, the court will most likely rule that the people at fault have to compensate them, but whether there’s a judgment or not makes no difference. If they can’t pay, they still can’t pay.”

As if to prove his words, the peddler kneeling on the floor suddenly began smashing his head against the ground with force, banging so hard that even the floor seemed to shake. He looked as though he was trying to kill himself on the spot, crying out thickly and indistinctly, “Let me pay for her life with mine… I’ve got a sick wife at home, and my child is only five… what am I supposed to do? I can’t do anything, I’m begging you, I’m begging you… let me pay for her life with mine!”

Ma Zi, who had been silent until now, suddenly charged over and started punching and kicking the man like he’d gone mad. Everyone hurried over to hold him back, and with difficulty Wei Qian wrapped one arm around his waist. “Enough, enough. What good will it do if you beat him to death?”

A hoarse roar burst from Ma Zi’s throat, like a wounded wild animal, as though he had screamed out every ounce of strength in his body.

Then all at once, he staggered a few steps as if his whole body had gone limp. With his back against the wall, he slid down, covered his face, and his shoulders began to shake violently.

The victim was still being rescued, her life or death unknown, while outside, the people who had caused the accident and the victim’s family faced each other and wept.

The policeman who had come with them was probably a young man who had only started working not long ago. The youthful look had not yet faded from his face, and he had not yet grown used to the helplessness of life, aging, sickness, and death in the human world. Before he left, he searched all over himself, but could not find anything valuable. In the end, he could only say to San Pang with a rather self-mocking smile, “I’m poor too.”

Then he took out his ID and cards, leaving behind his wallet. Inside it, there were two hundred and thirty-yuan in cash total, along with a handful of coins.

Wei Qian and San Pang stayed with Ma Zi at the hospital the whole day. By evening, for no apparent reason, Wei Qian’s eyelid started twitching wildly again.

He said something to San Pang, then went outside to get some air. After finishing a cigarette, he judged that the timing should be about right and that the two kids ought to be home already, so he used the IC pay phone at the hospital entrance to call home.

At that time, mobile phones were already being sold on the market, but they were not something people like them could afford. Home landline telephones, however, had come down from their pedestal along with the release of mobile phones and become cheaper.

Even so, only Le-ge and a few good brothers knew Wei Qian’s home phone number. The Wei family had long since set a house rule that the phone was absolutely not to be used casually, because phone bills cost money.

The call connected, but no one answered.

Wei Qian frowned, hung up, waited a while, then dialed again. Still no one answered.

By the time the third call went unanswered, Wei Qian’s heart was already pounding madly. Someone waiting in line behind him to use the phone urged impatiently, “Hey, kid, are you done with that call or not? There are all these people waiting.”

Wei Qian lifted his head and shot him a murderous look. The other person immediately did not dare make another sound, grumbled a couple of curses under his breath, and turned to look for another public phone.

Wei Qian refused to give up and called several more times. Again and again there was no answer. His fingertips had gone so cold they were numb.

“Qian’er, what’s wrong?” Seeing that he had not come back for a long time, San Pang came out to look for him.

Wei Qian forced himself to stay calm. He licked his cracked lips and, making himself lower his voice and slow down his speech, said, “I… I don’t know. No one’s answering the phone at home. Those two little brats…”

He could not go on. He realized that if he continued, he might start shouting.

San Pang gave his shoulder a shove. “Go home first. I’ll keep watch here. I’ll find a few more people to help you too. Those two little brats maybe just ran off somewhere to play today because no one was watching them. Don’t panic.”

Wei Qian took off running.

San Pang stared blankly for a moment, then shouted after him, “Slow the hell down, watch for cars!”

San Pang felt that he himself was already someone born into poverty, yet among all the people he had seen in his life, children as unlucky as Wei Qian and Ma Zi were truly one of a kind. Especially Wei Qian. This kid had lived to this age without seeming to have had more than a few easy days. If he was not worrying about one thing, he was worrying about another. San Pang often thought uneasily that sooner or later, he was going to worry himself to death.

Good fortune never comes in pairs, misfortune never comes alone.

Wei Qian ran wildly all the way home, until from far away he saw Lei Zi, one of San Pang’s brothers, squatting at the doorway. San Pang had probably called him over to help.

Only when he saw Lei Zi crouching there talking to Song Xiaobao did Wei Qian finally stop. By then, his back was already soaked through with sweat. He bent over, bracing one hand on his knee, and gasped for breath for a while. A drop of sweat fell from his forehead, slipping through the thick fringe of his eyelashes. It did not fall into his eye, but ran down along the edge of his lashes instead, making it look almost as if he were crying.

Wei Qian wiped the sweat from his forehead, then strode over with a dark expression.

He greeted Lei Zi first and thanked him. Then, in urgent haste, he seized Song Xiaobao by the shoulder with one hand and roughly yanked her in front of him, sweeping his gaze over her from top to bottom. Only when he saw that aside from her eyes being a little red, she did not even have a scrape on her skin did he feel slightly relieved. Yet his face still looked fierce as a demon, and he interrogated Xiao Bao like he was questioning a criminal. “What happened? Why didn’t you answer the phone? Why weren’t you inside the house? Where’s Xiao Yuan?”

Xiao Bao’s mouth quivered. At last she had seen one of her own, and the moment she blinked she was about to cry.

Before she could cry, Wei Qian barked at her, “No crying! Where’s Xiao Yuan?”

Xiao Bao forced the tears back in.

1) 元 The primary unit of Chinese currency, where 1 yuan = 10 jiao = 100 fen.