Bro | Chapter 56

Probably because Wei Zhiyuan looked too bedraggled, even Zhang Laoban was moved.

He thought it over. The other guy’s little brother looked like he had just come back from grazing cattle, pitiful as hell, having traveled thousands of miles from the old society overseas back into the great family of the motherland. How could he possibly disturb him while he was enjoying the warmth of family? So for once, Zhang Laoban tactfully retreated.

In Zhang Laoban’s long life, the frequency with which he knew how to “be tactful” was probably not much higher than the frequency with which Halley’s Comet dragged its long tail across the night sky.

Wei Zhiyuan’s appearance was like Guanyin descending to save the suffering, instantly driving off all the demons and monsters. San Pang suggested that the three of them find somewhere to sit for a while.

Wei Qian turned and gave Xiao Fei a few instructions. In the end, his gaze shifted to the two young guys from engineering budgeting, and terrifying Chairman Wei suddenly revealed a frightening smile like a vampire, restrained but not quite concealed.

“Tomorrow, we should apply for a Nobel Prize for those two kids,” Chairman Wei said lightly.

Xiao Fei, staying perfectly calm in the face of changing circumstances, asked, “Oh? Which category?”

Chairman Wei said, “The Special Prize for Making Fools of Themselves.”

After tossing out that line, he walked off in a free and easy manner with both hands in his pockets, under the terrified gaze of the two young men, who were too frightened to say a word.

…As though bullying this bunch of unlucky kids could restore a little pathetic balance after that extreme awkwardness just now.

San Pang walked around Wei Zhiyuan’s pickup once, kicked the tire, then reached out and scraped at the rust on the car door. “Looks like junk, but it’s pretty sturdy.”

“I just got off the highway. I checked it before I got on,” Wei Zhiyuan said, taking off the ragged straw hat and holding it in his hand. He glanced at Wei Qian, then somewhat awkwardly let down the sleeves he had rolled up. “Hehe, Ge.”

Wei Qian took one look. Good, the only thing still white was his teeth.

Wei Qian had spent many years sitting in the position of a company’s central figure. He was already young to begin with, and if he acted too loud and jumpy on top of that, it would be even more absurd. So long ago he had trained himself into a person whose joy and anger never showed on his face. At this moment, no matter how stormy his emotions were inside, his expression recovered very quickly after that brief lapse of composure. He merely nodded flatly. “Mm. Have you eaten?”

Wei Zhiyuan said, “No. Didn’t get around to it today.”

Wei Qian reached out and patted him on the back. “Then let’s go.”

This was a third-tier city, far from the emperor’s eye. Around here, places for drunken pleasure and lavish spending were everywhere.

The three of them walked to a restaurant and went inside to find a quiet little private room.

Wei Qian took the menu and, without asking anyone else’s opinion, flipped through it from beginning to end. Within five minutes, he had finished ordering. Then he tossed the menu aside and said to the waiter, “Other than serving dishes, no one comes in unless called. Also bring me a bowl of millet porridge. No porridge? Then go buy me one from the porridge shop across the street.”

San Pang refused to accept this and immediately protested. “Why is it all stuff this brat likes to eat? What about mine?”

Wei Qian lifted his eyelids and swept him with a glance. “You’ve been eating all day and that still wasn’t enough for Your Elderly Self to perform to your heart’s content?”

San Pang said, “Do you have any conscience? My stomach’s full of alcohol, okay? Wasn’t it all to cover for you? Hey, that one, little sister, bring me a plate of braised pork.”

Wei Qian turned his head and gave a soft snort of laughter. “Combine like terms.”

Wei Zhiyuan quickly realized that after all these years, other than his brother’s aura becoming even more forbidding and his appearance becoming even more polished and presentable, he had not changed much. If there was any change, it was that he was even less capable of speaking like a human being. Thinking back over everything from their reunion until now, aside from toward Zhang Laoban, an outsider, Wei Qian had basically not been polite to anyone.

His big brother had probably been too stunned at first sight of him just now to react, but now he had recovered. Wei Zhiyuan had a premonition that the other man’s firepower was about to come at him. In front of Wei Qian, he always could not help having a slight masochistic streak, because he knew that Wei Qian’s vile attitude had always drawn a sharp line between insiders and outsiders. Mocking and needling him had practically become a certain unique way Wei Qian had of expressing closeness.

Sure enough, Wei Qian took a sip of tea, looked Wei Zhiyuan up and down, then frowned and asked, “Why was all the money I sent you returned? Don’t tell me you disguised yourself as a black slave and went to work on some illegal plantation?”

Wei Zhiyuan gladly accepted the tongue-lashing. His gaze clung to Wei Qian as if glued there, refusing to peel away.

Wei Zhiyuan said, “That’s a long story. My first stop after coming back was Hong Kong. Isn’t that place full of tourists from every country and every region, with currency exchange booths all over the place? I figured I could just exchange money whenever I needed it. But I stayed in Hong Kong for almost a week and completely forgot about it. Then I followed along to Taiwan. By the time I landed at Taoyuan Airport, it was almost eleven at night. All the places in the airport that could exchange money were already closed. Only then did I remember that I had no Taiwan dollars on me. I couldn’t even buy a ticket for the airport bus. Luckily, I ran into a sunset tour group from Taichung. A few aunties took pity on me and brought me back to Taichung with them. I stayed at their house for a few days. They treated me so warmly that I felt a little embarrassed, and it just so happened they had an orchard, so I went over and helped out there for a few days. By the time I came out, I’d been tanned into this.”

What kind of nonsense was this? Wei Qian thought. The heaviest work I ever made you do was wipe the windows during holidays. I sent you abroad, and you came back just so you could work as a temporary farmhand in someone’s orchard?

He kept a straight face and said in a strange, half-sarcastic tone, “Oh, I see. So after coming back to the country, the reason you didn’t come home was that the house was too small to fit a returnee PhD like you, right?”

San Pang cut in, “Hey, Qian’er, Your Elderly Self ought to take a break first. Let him eat his fill before you start spraying at him again, all right? Xiao Yuan, same goes for you. You came back without even saying a word.”

At that point he paused, glanced at Wei Qian, then hesitantly, vaguely probed Wei Zhiyuan, “Or was it because there was someone you didn’t want to see? Hahaha, surely it wasn’t me, San-ge?”

Wei Zhiyuan lifted his head, met his gaze directly without the slightest dodge, with a trace of a smile and not the least bit of gloom, and said bluntly, “What are you saying? Back then I was immature. San-ge was doing it for my Ge… and for my own good too.”

San Pang had not expected him to dare say it so plainly right in front of Wei Qian, and he froze for a moment on the spot.

But the moment Wei Qian heard the way he put it, he immediately guessed most of it. He lowered his head and turned his teacup with one finger, not showing anything, so the three of them would not all end up embarrassed.

“I wasn’t not going home,” Wei Zhiyuan said, shifting the topic as if nothing had happened. “We’re making something over there, and this trip counts as business. That car is rented. Once I finish what I need to do, I’ll head home on the way. I was just thinking of telling Ge when I happened to run into you guys…”

As if he had remembered something, his expression suddenly turned a little strange. “You guys… were doing that.”

San Pang instantly stopped caring about the previous topic and waved both hands repeatedly. “Don’t talk nonsense! It was that old bastard Zhang being improper. He dragged us there by force. We were going to sneak off before we even got around to pretending to play along. I, I, I am a decent family man, so don’t smear my innocence.”

Wei Zhiyuan burst out laughing.

Wei Qian had never heard Wei Zhiyuan laugh so openly. He had also rarely seen him capable of chatting so naturally even with San Pang, and had never heard of Wei Zhiyuan being willing, without any misgivings, to be taken home by a group of complete strangers in an unfamiliar place.

In his memory, the little brat had always been like a scruffy little wild beast, forever tense and full of wariness toward the human world. Even if he really had forgotten to exchange money and ended up with nothing to use, based on Wei Qian’s understanding of him, Wei Zhiyuan would most likely have found some random place in the airport to make do for the night and waited until the next morning when people went back to work.

All at once, Wei Qian realized that the boy who used to jump up in anger and sulk with him, the one who had looked devastated as if marching to his death even when leaving, had quietly grown up like this in places Wei Qian could not see.

The dishes came one after another. Wei Zhiyuan apparently had not eaten a proper meal in who knew how long, and he tore through the food like a whirlwind, which inevitably reminded the other two at the table of his teenage years, when one meal for him meant several huge basins of rice.

“I only gnawed on a dry piece of bread this morning. Didn’t get a chance to eat lunch either. I’ve been hungry till now,” Wei Zhiyuan explained. “Ge, why are you only having two mouthfuls of porridge? Has your appetite gotten fussier?”

San Pang said, “Don’t mind him. He’s practically turned into an old monk with no worldly desires now. He won’t eat this, won’t eat that, spends all day at home boiling vegetable leaves in plain water and drinking thin porridge, glorifying it as ‘health maintenance.’ Tell me, doesn’t he have something wrong with him? Even Lao Xiong occasionally sneaks out, puts on a hat, and has a meat meal.”

Wei Qian shot him a look. “Yeah, that’s why I don’t have the three highs.”

He looked at San Pang, who was stuffing a huge chunk of braised pork into his mouth, and said with a pained expression, “Honestly, San-ge, would you use your brain a little already? You’ve got so much fat piled up under your skin it’s thick enough for more than one person. In summer even mosquitoes won’t bite you, they’re afraid their mouths will break off and get stuck inside.”

Faced with such a vicious evaluation, San Pang’s response was to grab a huge piece of meat, half fat and half lean, and smack his lips exaggeratedly while eating it right in front of him.

“This is a bit too far in the other direction,” Wei Zhiyuan said. He wiped his hands clean, peeled a big shrimp, and placed it onto the little dish in front of Wei Qian. “Still, I’m pretty relieved my Ge knows how to take care of his health now. That time when you answered the phone without making any sound scared me to death. I had already booked a ticket back at the time. It was only because San-ge said it was fine that I refunded it.”

Wei Qian said nothing. He picked it up and ate it.

Seeing that, San Pang hurriedly imitated him, got a greasy, trembling chunk of meat ready, and made as if to drop it onto Wei Qian’s plate. “Eat this, this is good!”

Wei Qian said, “Get lost.”

Having suffered such blatantly different treatment, San Pang felt hurt. He withdrew his chopsticks in grievance and ate it himself. “A dog biting Lü Dongbin, you can’t tell a good person’s heart.”

At that moment, however, Wei Zhiyuan seemed to remember something and suddenly frowned as he asked Wei Qian, “Wait, that’s not right. From what San-ge said… all these years, you really haven’t found anyone to take care of you?”

Wei Qian said, “…”

The flesh on San Pang’s face trembled. He gave a dry laugh. “Young man, you really know how to hit the exact bull’s-eye with one shot, striking right at the center the moment you open your mouth… Sigh. You should just eat more food.”

The look on Wei Zhiyuan’s face instantly became a little complicated. His eyes suddenly lit up. His expression changed several times before finally settling into something a little lonely, with an indescribable ache of heartache in it.

San Pang hurriedly said, “Right, should we have them open a bottle of wine? Take it as a welcome dinner for Xiao Yuan. Xiao Yuan, do you drink?”

The moment Wei Qian heard the word “wine,” his entire head felt three sizes bigger. “Get lost. Haven’t you had enough?”

Wei Zhiyuan also waved a hand. “No, San-ge. I’m starving to death, let me eat more first. I still have to drive in a bit.”

Then he tilted his head and glanced at Wei Qian. There was something difficult to describe in his eyes, and his gaze skimmed vaguely across Wei Qian like an electric current. “Besides, my self-control still isn’t good enough. If I drink too much, I’m afraid I’ll go crazy, and get sexually reckless after drinking.”

For a moment San Pang did not even process what sort of rhythm this was. He could only stare, dumbstruck.

Wei Qian’s face darkened. Right there on the spot, he slammed his chopsticks down. The two chopsticks bounced high into the air, then clattered to the floor. “Wei Zhiyuan!”

Wei Zhiyuan quickly took a fresh pair and handed them to him. “I was joking, joking, Ge, don’t be angry. Don’t ignore me for another year… Ah, right, that reminds me. I’m making something with a few friends right now. Interested in hearing about it? Investment welcome.”

Things like “ignore me for another year,” making this kind of joke right in front of everyone, and their Chairman Wei turning hostile on the spot because of a single sentence… San Pang was now almost certain that something must have happened before Wei Zhiyuan went abroad, something he did not know about. The fat man had a thousand words in his heart, and in the end they converged into two words: holy shit.

His face twisted through all sorts of bizarre expressions, as though his facial muscles had died. At last he looked at Wei Qian, then at Wei Zhiyuan, and could only step up into this deadly atmosphere to block the bullets, forcing out a dry laugh. “All right, tell us.”

Wei Zhiyuan immediately seized the chance and started talking about what they were working on now. Several classmates had taken the lead, gathered a big crowd, and were currently making a road-trip online game. It had all sorts of roads modeled on scenery and local features from around the world, with side-instance maps opening at random. Players had to replenish supplies and repair their vehicles at any time, and in order to get supplies and level up, they would trigger all kinds of different plots and missions.

“I’m currently planning the China map,” Wei Zhiyuan said, “so I’ve personally been going through every major ‘supply point’ we set across the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. In the various instances at these ‘supply points,’ the NPCs’ attitudes are set as a set of random numbers conforming to a certain distribution. In other words, players may run into ‘good people’ or they may run into ‘bad people,’ it all depends on luck. Right now we’ve also gotten in touch with a few friends studying sociology to discuss the possibilities of how the plot might develop under some extreme settings.”

Wei Qian’s expression eased somewhat. After a pause, he asked, “What’s your positioning? Where’s the value point? Let me hear it.”

Wei Zhiyuan said, “Our target is office workers who are tired of nine-to-five jobs and good students who don’t skip class. People living long-term in an unchanging routine can easily grow weary of daily life. What we’re offering them is a world as vast and open as sea and sky. The detailed proposal is in my car. I’ll bring it to you in a bit. Tomorrow I need to drive to A City, then go home from A City. Once this trip is done, this leg of the task will be finished.”

San Pang, hearing that he sounded like he really knew what he was talking about, immediately felt gratified. “Not bad, little brother. That’s kind of interesting.”

But Wei Qian asked, “Back then, when I said I’d invest in you, why would you rather go knocking on other people’s doors one by one than come to me?”

Wei Zhiyuan picked up his bowl, drank down the last mouthful of soup, then smiled at him, revealing two snow-white little tiger teeth. “Back then I wasn’t confident. Now we’re looking for partners around the world. Ge, join us. We’ll work together very happily.”

Wei Zhiyuan meant what he said and, sure enough, was leaving again very soon. It seemed that running into Wei Qian, other than letting him mooch a meal, had no effect whatsoever on his planned itinerary. Wei Qian fished out the house key from his pocket and gave it to him. Before he left, he reminded Wei Zhiyuan, “Xiao Bao is in A City right now filming some commercials. If you’ve got time, go see her. Something happened in one of the project departments, so I need to go take a look. Once you’re done, head home on your own.”

Wei Zhiyuan said, “Sure. I’ll wait for you to come home.”

After saying that, he pulled out a string of beads from the bag he was carrying and put it onto Wei Qian’s wrist. “I got a scrap piece of rosewood from someone. It’s not worth much, but there are one hundred and eight beads in total, and I ground every one of them by hand myself. Wear it and have fun.”

After saying that, Wei Zhiyuan very lightly tightened his grip on Wei Qian’s hand, almost imperceptibly, then turned and left.

Wei Qian and San Pang watched him drive his shabby little pickup away in a trail of faint exhaust. At last San Pang could not hold back and asked Wei Qian, “Brother, what exactly is this supposed to mean? You know that he… about you… that?”

Wei Qian lowered his eyes, his mind in turmoil. “Mm.”

San Pang let out a long sigh. To him, what lay in front of him felt like a tangled ball of thread. The Wei Zhiyuan who had come back this time only seemed even more unfathomable. In the end he could only smash the pot and be done with it, laying this matter bare to Wei Qian, something that seemed absurd, bizarre, and even hard to speak aloud.

San Pang said, “Then what are you thinking?”

“Absurd.” That was Wei Qian’s answer, yet he did not remove the beads from his wrist.

After saying that, he bit down on a cigarette and, as he walked, pulled out his phone.

San Pang heard him call one of his subordinates in a slow, measured tone that still made a person’s spine go cold. “Efflorescence on the exterior façade? Oh, so now you know to panic? You gentlemen really are something. How was the waterproofing done? What was the project acceptance team doing? How are you handling it? Have the responsible parties stand in a row and lick that wall clean…”

It was as if that rare trace of human warmth on him vanished together with Wei Zhiyuan receding into the distance.

A preposterous thought suddenly rose in San Pang’s heart: which mattered more, one’s own life, or social morality and ethics?

He immediately shook his head hard, feeling that he had simply gone mad.

As for Wei Zhiyuan, he soon arrived in A City and contacted Xiao Bao using the number Wei Qian had given him.

Song Xiaobao and a male model who was filming the commercial with her were waiting for him at the highway exit. The moment she saw Wei Zhiyuan, Xiao Bao had the male companion who had come with her drive their car back, while she herself got into Wei Zhiyuan’s vehicle. First she let out a loud crying fit, then after she was done crying, she returned to her natural chattering self. Wei Zhiyuan took her out for a meal, and the whole way there, she chattered nonstop.

What she talked about the most was still Wei Qian. Every time he heard something about that person, Wei Zhiyuan stopped interrupting and only listened quietly, feeling as though the memories of the past four blank years were being filled back in bit by bit through Xiao Bao’s narration.

At the end, Xiao Bao reluctantly returned to the film crew, and Wei Zhiyuan found an inn to stay in, preparing to go home the next day.

After showering, he sat down at the desk, took a cowhide notebook from his luggage that was already worn to tatters, and wrote down the date.

“I did not expect to see him under those circumstances. Even with countless people around me and countless sounds around me, I still recognized him immediately. It has been more than four years. I tried my best to make myself seem calm, to finish my own proper business first and then go back to see him, but there are always so many accidents.

Only then did I realize that I miss him that much.

At first, in that situation, I was truly furious. It was not jealousy. It was how could he treat himself so perfunctorily? I bit my tongue until it bled before I calmed down. Then I discovered he had also been forced, and in the process of getting away, he even indirectly caused a ridiculous accident.

I am somewhat uneasy, and yet I also feel that my unease has no logic to it. I have already made my decision, and still I cannot face him calmly.

Probably, if one can remain calm, then it does not count as being deeply in love.

I think I have found what I should focus on for the next stretch of time: making my current work perfect, and getting my person.”

After writing that, he sat quietly under the lamp for a while and gave himself ten minutes for self-reflection.

Once he had completed all of the day’s assigned work, he changed into sportswear and went to the hotel’s gym for his routine workout. Thinking that he would be going home the next day, the corners of Wei Zhiyuan’s mouth remained lifted in a smile all the way until he lay down.

Xiao Bao packed up a box of low-sugar, low-fat desserts to bring back and share with her coworkers. Alex, the mixed-blood male model who had driven for her, had originally said he needed to maintain his figure and nagged endlessly that he would not eat any, but in the middle of the night he came knocking on her door again, pitifully clutching his stomach and begging for some.

Xiao Bao said, “You’re really only good for this much. I knew it. I saved you a piece. Come in and eat.”

The tall, handsome Alex was so moved that tears nearly filled his eyes. “Ying ying ying,” he said, “Lili, you’re my goddess.”

Alex was a full-on gay man, and a very principled one at that, a ten-thousand-year pure bottom, absolutely never a top. He had deep, striking features, and as a person he was cheap, shameless, and utterly without face.

“Was that your brother this afternoon?” Alex asked while eating. “Damn, that build, that face… tsk tsk.”

Xiao Bao grabbed a clothes hanger and whipped him hard across the back. “I’m warning you, you little gay, don’t set your sights on my little brother, or I’ll make sure you die ugly.”

She did not hit hard, and Alex did not take it seriously. He arched his back and let her hit him, but still said, “Little girl, you still think your brother’s straight as an arrow? One look and he’s clearly one of my kind, you naive little friend.”

Song Xiaobao said, “Bullshit!”

Alex said, “Hahahaha. Yeah, it smells terrible.”

That reaction made Xiao Bao’s heart jolt hard. Alex only put on a serious face when he was joking around. When he was telling the truth, he was usually this flippant.

Could Er-ge really be…

No way. That can’t be true, right?

Author’s Note:

[Note] Exterior façade efflorescence: a phenomenon in which white crystals appear on the outer wall of a building due to improper waterproofing.