Bro | Chapter 17

Zhiyuan were standing there. Wei Zhiyuan’s expression was grave, and Song Xiaobao’s shrill child’s voice was like a sword stabbing straight into the tip of his heart. Something inside Wei Qian’s head was lightly plucked.

Only then did he finally react. He had actually almost killed someone, right there in his own home. Horror struck him at once, and he let go. Grandma Song could not stand steady, and the moment he released her, she slid down the wall and collapsed onto the floor, choking and gasping for breath.

With one hand, Wei Qian blocked Xiao Bao, who was rushing over. Then he crouched down and slammed at the old lady’s chest several times with force, and copied what he had seen on television by pressing hard on the philtrum above her lip.

Only after quite a while did the old lady finally get this breath back. First she coughed so hard it seemed the heavens and earth would split, and then her black pupils rolled back into place. Her voice was still hoarse, but her fighting spirit continued to shine with glorious brilliance.

She had just taken a walk at death’s gate, but the first sentence out of her mouth after waking up was to point at Wei Qian’s nose and say with dark ferocity, “You little beast that deserves ten thousand cuts, you son of a bitch!”

Wei Qian had not even had time to flare up at that line when Xiao Bao hurled herself into the old lady’s arms.

“Grandma!”

Thinking of how desolate her old age had become, the old lady, widowed and without livelihood, traveling all the way to the city from so far away to seek refuge with her son, only to be told that she had lost her son in her old age, and then to be bullied like this by a little beast, she was suddenly overcome with grief. The grandmother and granddaughter clung to each other and burst into tears.

Wei Qian’s expression was numb, and so was his heart. He stood there at a complete loss for quite a while. Finally, he let out a sigh and tentatively reached out a hand to touch Xiao Bao’s hair, only for Grandma Song to fiercely smack his hand away with one hard slap.

This old woman was amazing. Even while howling and wailing like this, it still did not interfere with her ability to curse people.

“Don’t touch my granddaughter, you stinking hooligan, you murderer! One day sooner or later they’ll shoot you! You’ll die without a good end!”

For one brief instant, Wei Qian actually thought she was right.

He came back to himself from that massive blow, grief, and fury, and suddenly felt utterly dispirited.

Wei Qian had even dared to call his own mother a “bitch” right to her face, so he simply did not put this little old woman in his eyes at all. He let out a cold laugh on the spot and, with all the sharpness and venom he could muster, said, “What the hell do you think you are? If you want to get lost, then get lost yourself. Stop thinking about my little sister. Don’t think that just because you’re an old undead thing with only a few years left to live, I wouldn’t dare send you on your way early.”

He was utterly ill-bred. Of course, considering the life he had lived, if he could still have manners in a situation like this, then he must have been some time traveler.

The old lady had lived sixty or seventy years and had never met such a bastardly thing with no sense of seniority or respect at all. It was only because she had worked hard for so many years and had a strong body that she did not keel over from anger on the spot.

When people are dealing with a bastard, they always cannot help becoming even more bastardly themselves. So the old lady pulled out the old rural-woman special of the older generation, throwing tantrums and making scenes, and said without yielding at all, “Fine, no problem. If you’ve got the guts, then kill me. Even if you kill me, I’ll turn into a ghost and still take my granddaughter away. I’d rather bring her to live in a chicken coop or a pigsty than let her fall into the hands of a hooligan like you!”

Wei Qian looked at her darkly. The malice in his eyes was almost tangible. The boy had nearly grown into the build of a grown man already, broad shoulders, narrow waist, and the scars left on his body from fights only added a few more points of unspeakable viciousness. The old lady instinctively shrank back a little.

Then she came back to herself and glared right back with an even tougher attitude, putting on the full pose of first crying, then making a scene, then threatening to hang herself, and unleashed her ultimate move. “If you’ve got the guts, then kill me! Even if you kill me, you’re still a shameless stinking hooligan! Isn’t this all you’ve got? What else can you even do? I don’t have many years left to live anyway. You think I’m afraid of you? Bah!”

Before the spit flying from her mouth even had time to make it out, Wei Qian shoved her onto the table with brute force. For once, Wei Qian stopped caring about face and flipped both Grandma Song and the wooden table over in one go. The vinegar from the Laba garlic spilled all over the floor, and the sour smell was choking.

Grandma Song cried out, “Aiyo!” and landed flat on the ground with all four limbs spread out, two garlic cloves absurdly stuck on top of her head. Then she sucked in a deep breath and, with the giant voice that could be heard for miles and miles, sat on the floor and started yelling, “Murder! Murder! The stinking hooligan is kill…”

Her cry stopped short, because Wei Qian seized Grandma Song by the collar, and his hand, veins standing out all over it, clamped down on her wrinkled neck.

Grandma Song’s neck was as thin as a chicken’s neck. He could grasp it with one hand alone. Her skin was loose and pitifully fragile. Wei Qian gripped her throat hard, and actually lifted her bodily off the ground.

This beautiful young boy’s eyes were full of shadow, his face cold and expressionless, but his palm was hot. The strength in his hand was enormous, as though he had truly made up his mind to strangle this old woman to death.

Grandma Song could not break free at all. Like a fish that had fallen onto the shore, she flailed all four limbs wildly, scraping uselessly at the flesh on Wei Qian’s arm with the bulging nails she had cut. Her face very quickly turned bluish purple.

Wei Qian felt as though he was nearly squeezing her organs and spine. Ever since dropping out of school, he had lived in a lawless way. With his blood surging upward in one violent rush, he crossed the mental barrier between rage and murder with ease. In that moment, Wei Qian truly wanted to strangle this damned old woman to death right there with his bare hands.

Grandma Song stuck out her tongue and had already started rolling up the whites of her eyes when, just then, a girl’s scream suddenly came from the bedroom doorway behind Wei Qian.

“Ge!”

At some point, the bedroom door had opened. Song Xiaobao and Wei

Grandma Song packed up a simple bundle of belongings and, right in front of him, took Xiao Bao away. Wei Qian leaned against the wall and watched helplessly with his own eyes, without stopping them, without even making a sound.

One of Xiao Bao’s hands was held by her grandmother, and she passively followed her out, constantly turning her head back to look at her big brother.

There was red in big brother’s eyes, and his whole person looked exhausted beyond words, watching her all the way as she left.

Xiao Bao had thought he would say something. But he said nothing. That gaze, however, stamped itself into her tiny, bewildered heart, and stayed there for her entire life, never to be erased.

The front door slammed shut in front of Wei Qian with a bang. Only after quite a while did he collapse down onto the floor as if all strength had left him. He lit a cigarette, leaned against the wall, and held it between his lips. His heart was a vast blank. He could neither cry nor laugh. He only wanted to fall over and sleep one great deep sleep, but he knew that he probably would not be able to sleep either.

Ma Zi was gone. Xiao Bao had left… what was the point of sleeping?

Wei Zhiyuan silently edged over, set the ashtray by Wei Qian’s hand, and cautiously inched a little closer to him.

Wei Qian lifted his head and glanced at him. Wei Zhiyuan immediately stopped moving and carefully observed whether big brother was annoyed. After realizing he was not, he tested the waters by moving even more carefully closer. In the end, Wei Zhiyuan wrapped both arms around one of Wei Qian’s arms.

When he found that big brother did not object, he cautiously squeezed himself into Wei Qian’s embrace and rested his head against him, breathing in the somewhat choking smell of tobacco on his body.

“…Ma Zi is gone,” Wei Qian suddenly said.

Wei Zhiyuan raised his head and saw that Wei Qian’s gaze had fallen on the floor without focus. By instinct, he knew those words were not meant for him, because no matter how Wei Qian addressed him otherwise, he never directly called him and Xiao Bao’s Ma Zi-ge “Ma Zi.” He always said “your Ma Zi-ge.”

So Wei Zhiyuan wisely did not say a word, and just listened in silence.

Wei Qian pulled him a little tighter into his arms. The boy’s warm body temperature gave him a kind of comfort that was impossible to describe.

After that one sentence, Wei Qian did not make another sound. He could not pour it out.

Suffering had dulled his nerves. Long ago, he had already lost the ability to truly express what he felt.

Only after Wei Qian had smoked through every cigarette on him did he finally remember Wei Zhiyuan. The child had already fallen asleep in his arms, hugging Wei Qian’s arm like a koala without a tail.

Wei Zhiyuan had started to stretch up a little. His feet had grown first, approaching adult size, but his bones were still childish. Standing up, he was not short, but curled up, he was still just a tiny little bundle.

He’s growing so slowly, Wei Qian sighed inwardly as he lowered his eyes to look at him.

Then he stubbed out the cigarette, bent down, carefully carried the child to the bed, and just like usual, turned off the light and lay down beside him.

The sudden darkness had a tremendously powerful force. In almost a single instant, it crushed the strength he had been forcing himself to maintain, along with the numbness he had believed in.

With dry, aching eyes open, Wei Qian thought that he was a son-of-a-bitch hooligan, and that not even the little sister he had raised with his own hands wanted to stay with him. A person like him, living on, and living with such difficulty, had no value at all.

What was the point of living?

He might as well just die.

Wei Qian had been born in winter, at the end of the twelfth lunar month. At this point, that day had not arrived yet, which meant that he was not yet even seventeen years old.

He had not yet lived to adulthood, but he had already begun thinking about death.

Of course, even though he thought that way, Wei Qian still did not die.

Death was not something so easy as a thought flashing through your mind and then off you go. Even if he did not want to live, he absolutely did not dare to die.

He still had to worry about what would happen to Ma Zi’s mother from now on.

He also still had to go bring Ma Zi’s body back. He could not wash away the crimes and suffering on Ma Zi’s body. The only thing he could do was cleanly take care of this final trace Ma Zi had left in the human world and bury him properly.

He was carrying too much. He could not afford to die.

Wei Qian went on living his life in gloomy numbness. Every day he went to Le-ge’s nightclub and served as hired muscle there, taking Le-ge’s money while keeping the steadily growing hatred in his heart buried and unspoken. Only in the dead of night, when he was alone and staring at the ceiling with his eyes open, would he remind himself over and over that sooner or later, he wanted Le Xiaodong’s life.

Then he would force his spirits up and go discuss with San Pang what to do about Ma Zi’s funeral arrangements, whether they should tell Ma Zi’s mother, and when they should bring her out of the hospital.

Only Wei Zhiyuan, home on winter break, quietly stayed by his side. At least he was a living thing that could breathe.

Only Wei Zhiyuan could make Wei Qian feel a little life in himself. He was still so young, still knew nothing, still had a future, and still relied on him with his whole heart.

Wei Qian raised Wei Zhiyuan, and also drew the tiniest scrap of hope from the child in return. He came to understand with unforgettable clarity what it meant to depend on each other for life.

When San Pang came to his place, at first he asked in surprise why Xiao Bao and Grandma Song were not there. After Wei Qian flew into a mad rage at him once, he immediately understood and never brought it up again.

During that stretch of time, no one dared mention Song Xiaobao in front of Wei Qian.

The atmosphere in the house stayed heavy and stifling for many days. Wei Qian even began to grow perfunctory about eating. San Pang was afraid he would literally starve himself to death, so every day he came to the house as if volunteering for abuse, like a hard-working hourly laborer, coaxing the kid to cook and making sure the television was playing entertainment and comedy programs twenty-four hours a day.

Unfortunately, the effect was poor. The more entertaining the TV was, the colder reality seemed.

On the television, Lao Master Ma Sanli was saying, “Teasing you,” and San Pang sat alone in a chair laughing so hard he bent back and forth, his fat jiggling all over. Wei Zhiyuan’s lips had just curved up a little when he suddenly remembered to turn his head and look at Wei Qian. Seeing big brother’s face blank and numb, he also pressed that tiny smile back down and put on the same indifferent expression.

The two brothers, one big and one small, were both listening to xiangsheng with expressions like they were attending a funeral, cast from the same mold of spoilsport misery.

The more San Pang laughed, the lonelier he became. In the end it turned into dry laughter. Helpless, he could only shut up. Even the funniest punchline became tasteless.

After sitting in silence for a while, Wei Qian would light a cigarette and turn to stand by the window. The smell of smoke on him was so thick it was choking. San Pang said he was practically turning into a tall, skinny smokestack.

And it was right then that Song Xiaobao came back.

Wei Qian had truly thought he would never see Xiao Bao again for the rest of his life, so when he opened the door and saw her, for a full half minute he failed to react.

His form of failing to react was to have no expression on his face at all, which only made Song Xiaobao more uneasy. The little girl looked as if she had committed some crime worthy of having nine generations executed. She timidly called out, “Ge,” standing alone in the doorway with her little schoolbag on her back and her chin tucked all the way down to her chest in a posture of repentance.

Only then did Wei Qian’s reason slowly return, quietly and unnoticed. His first instinct was to sweep his eyes outside. When he realized that that undead foolish old woman had not followed her after all, it became clear that Song Xiaobao had sneaked back by herself.

At last, his heart bloomed open without any restraint.

Wei Qian slowly crouched halfway down until his gaze was level with Xiao Bao’s. He reached out both hands, held her tiny, slender shoulders, and asked, “How did you… ahem, come back?”

Wei Qian tried as hard as possible not to react too strongly, but he still could not manage to finish the sentence in one go. Halfway through, his voice cracked. He had no choice but to clear his throat and drag out the rest of the line, which made the tone of his words sound almost gentle.

Song Xiaobao said, “I missed da-ge…”

Wei Qian lowered his head in a thoughtful pose, and where she could not see, he lightly closed his eyes. In that one instant, the little girl’s single sentence forcibly dragged him out of the swamp. He discovered that the thoughts of not wanting to live, which had always hovered around him, had miraculously vanished like smoke.

He did not know how to express such wildly surging emotions. Maybe he ought to pick Xiao Bao up and spin her around once? Or maybe the two of them should cling to each other and cry their hearts out? Wei Qian felt he could do neither, so he only stood up silently and said lightly, “Oh.”

Beyond that one word, he seemed unable to come up with anything else. He pulled the door open and let Xiao Bao come in. When he saw that she did not dare move, he remembered and added, “Then come in.”

Xiao Bao knew she was a traitor. She had never expected that big brother would still want her back, and she was so flattered she was almost overwhelmed.

She walked in trembling with fear. First she let out a great breath of relief as though granted amnesty. At the same time, seeing big brother’s attitude, which seemed as if it did not matter either way, she felt a kind of inexpressible relief rising in her heart as well. With her childish, underdeveloped logic, she felt lucky that she had come back in time. If she had been even two days later, maybe big brother really would have decided he did not want her anymore.

As Xiao Bao came closer to Wei Qian, she immediately smelled the heavy, pungent scent of smoke on him. She had always hated the smell of smoke, and could not help rubbing her nose, but she did not dare say anything. She was afraid big brother might change his mind and not let her through the door after all.

Wei Qian, however, noticed at once.

He bent down and took out a clean set of clothes from the cabinet, then said to San Pang, “Is there still fried rice in the pot? Scoop her a bowl.”

Watching their interaction coldly from the side, San Pang sighed. He crooked a hand at Song Xiaobao and beckoned her over in front of him, kindly rubbed her hair, glanced at Wei Qian, and asked casually, “What are you going off to do?”

Wei Qian said, “I’m taking a bath.”

San Pang said, “It’s not even bedtime yet. Why are you taking a bath so early? Besides, did you even boil any water?”

Wei Qian said, “No. I’ll use cold water.”

San Pang said, “Taking a cold bath in the dead of winter, are you sick in the head?”

Wei Qian grabbed his clothes and shoved him aside, instantly breaking out of the walking-dead state he had been in before and returning to his usual overbearing, bastardly self. “I want to. Why are you yapping like an old hen? Need to lay an egg?”

San Pang said, “…Yeah, so what?”

Wei Qian shot him a glance. “Hold it in. Lay it tomorrow.”

San Pang: “…”

San-ge discovered that with his simple inner world and his smooth, egg-like cerebral cortex, he truly could not keep up with Young Master Wei’s lofty realm of thought.

Actually, Wei Qian’s thinking was not that complicated. He was just afraid the smell of smoke on him would choke his little sister.

And also… he simply did not quite dare believe it for the moment, and his brain had gone a little stupid.

Xiao Bao was his own blood-related younger sister. In this world, in total, she was the only bit of bloodline still connected to his. He had raised her from when she was not even as long as one of his arms until she had grown this big.

How deep that feeling went, even he himself could not really explain. Sometimes she did not feel like his little sister at all, but more like his daughter.

Xiao Bao was almost the whole emotional anchor of his childhood and youth. Even if it cost him his life, Wei Qian could not bear to let go of her.

…Even if Song Xiaobao was a little brat who sided with outsiders against her own family.

The freezing water made Wei Qian shudder all over, and he thought to himself, How cheap am I, exactly?

Xiao Bao called out hesitantly to Wei Zhiyuan, “Er-ge.”

Wei Zhiyuan found her irritating just from looking at her and did not want to respond. On one hand, he felt sorry for big brother. On the other hand…

Watching coldly from the sidelines as big brother and Xiao Bao interacted, he saw that big brother’s feelings were hidden and restrained, to the point that Xiao Bao misunderstood them, and San Pang did not understand either. Only he himself somehow grasped it intuitively, and because of that he grew even more unhappy.

All of a sudden, without a teacher, Wei Zhiyuan discovered that fighting for favor was the correct path for his life.