Bro | Chapter 32

At breakfast the next morning, Wei Zhiyuan said to Grandma Song and Xiao Bao, “For the next couple of nights, my teacher is keeping me after school for extra tutoring. I’ll be back later, so don’t wait for me for dinner.”

Neither Grandma Song nor Xiao Bao suspected a thing. After all, compared with Wei Qian’s frightening history of breaking the law and causing trouble, Wei Zhiyuan was the good student in the traditional sense, sensible, clean and tidy, rule-abiding, highly self-disciplined, and never one to do anything out of line. At Xiao Bao’s school, too, Wei Zhiyuan’s outstanding performance was something everyone knew about.

So the moment Grandma Song heard that, she immediately shifted her main line of attack onto Xiao Bao. “Did you hear that? Learn from your brothers. Your da-ge is going to be a college student in the future, and your Er-ge even represents the school in competitions. What about you?”

Xiao Bao said without the slightest pressure, “Let them go. I’ll stay home and watch the house.”

Grandma Song raised the spatula as if to hit her. Song Xiaobao, like a little monkey, sprang to the doorway in two or three steps and obsequiously pulled the door open for Wei Zhiyuan, bowing and nodding as she said, “Er-ge, after you.”

Wei Zhiyuan nodded with great dignity, picked up the bicycle key, and walked out ahead of her. Song Xiaobao trotted after him like a little eunuch in attendance, then turned back and stuck out her tongue at Grandma Song.

Because her physical growth was even less in a hurry than Lao Xiong’s rate of speech, while Wei Zhiyuan had grown up far too urgently, although the two of them had looked about the same age at first, now it really did seem as though an age gap had opened up between them.

Grandma Song angrily threw down the spatula and scolded Xiao Bao, “Mud that won’t stick to the wall. Ugh, such a useless thing!”

That evening, Wei Zhiyuan really did not come back until nearly eight o’clock. Grandma Song had already gone off to work at a hotpot restaurant. Xiao Bao stuck her head out from inside the room. “Er-ge, you’re back? There’s food in the kitchen. Grandma left you two boiled eggs in the pot!”

Wei Zhiyuan answered with an “Mm,” then lifted the lid and looked inside. There was only one.

Xiao Bao hurriedly added, “I stole one and ate it!”

Wei Zhiyuan: “…”

Xiao Bao burst into a grin. “Oh right, look at this!”

After saying that, she ran into the living room and pulled a crumpled postcard out from under the glass cover on the coffee table. It had been mailed from Qinghai, and on it was Wei Qian’s somewhat faded handwriting. The date was still from a month earlier. He had probably happened to be passing through, been in a good mood for once after hearing something someone said, and bought it to send back to amuse them.

Unfortunately, he had not even bothered to amuse them properly. After writing the mailing address, he had not written a single sentence. He had only drawn two little turtles, one bald-headed one to represent a male turtle, and one with a flower on its head to represent a female turtle. The two turtles stayed obediently together and played there, containing the entirety of the message big brother had sent back, Wei Zhiyuan and Song Xiaobao, you two little brats stay put at home and behave yourselves for me.

That “Divine Turtle Immortal” had tirelessly ruined people, and without anyone noticing, had exerted a profound influence on Wei Qian’s sense of aesthetics and artistic talent.

…He ended up with a lifelong habit of drawing little bastard turtles whenever he had nothing better to do.

Wei Zhiyuan’s heart gave an involuntary jump. Wei Qian had already been out of touch for more than half a month. For no clear reason, Xiao Yuan thought of that hand faintly stained with the smell of Florida water, and he could not help asking, “He didn’t call?”

“No,” Song Xiaobao said. “Er-ge, does Qinghai have yak jerky? Is it good?”

Wei Zhiyuan sighed and gave up trying to have a normal conversation with her. “Why is eating all you ever know?”

“Oh, don’t copy the way da-ge talks. You don’t sound like him at all. It should go like this.” Song Xiaobao waved her hand, then pulled a stern face, forcing out a glare with raised brows. Lowering her voice and speaking in short, vicious bursts, she said, “You little bastard, all you ever know is eating!”

Her ability to imitate people improved by the day. It was a perfect likeness. Wei Zhiyuan could not help laughing along with her. The image of big brother putting on a stern face to scold the little girl seemed almost right in front of him.

Only after Xiao Bao had gone back into her room did Wei Zhiyuan sit down and take out his secret notebook. After the words “meat processing plant,” he added a few more, “warehouse manager, three rotating shifts,” and then, relying on memory, copied out an entire duty roster.

The first secret other boys wrote in their notebooks was usually something to do with a first crush. But the first secret notebook Wei Zhiyuan kept contained, in a way that made one’s hair stand on end, the complete trail of a single person.

As time passed, the contents Wei Zhiyuan had gathered on that perverted man, his name, family situation, work roster, living habits, and so on, had already reached a shocking degree of detail.

At first, Wei Zhiyuan had only kept an eye on the community activity center. But although the female teacher leading the group was young, she watched the children very closely, so the pervert could only watch from afar and had never gone near them. After Children’s Day passed, the children who had been rehearsing finished their performance and stopped going there too.

The pervert seemed very unwilling to accept that, but there was nothing he could do. With an adult present, even if it was only a frail young woman skinny as a little bird, he still did not dare do anything. Over the next few days, that person kept loitering nearby.

Wei Zhiyuan had been secretly observing him all along. But whether it was tailing him or recording things down, at that stage he had only been gathering the information in passing. He still had not thought through what exactly he ought to do. He was not like Wei Qian, the kind of quick-tempered person who looked ready to kill with a glare. Whatever he did, he was used to persuading himself first in advance.

Wei Zhiyuan closed the notebook, locked it up, hid it away, and then sat there staring blankly at the cup he drank water from. The cup belonged to big brother. Wei Zhiyuan actually had a cup of his own, but he did not like to use it. He always liked to come mooch water from big brother’s cup instead. Though it was the same bland, cooled boiled water, he somehow seemed able to taste something extra when he drank from big brother’s cup.

Wei Qian never cared about such trivial little things and let him drink as much as he wanted… but after drinking, he had to fill it back up again, or he would get scolded.

He could not stop himself from thinking of many things connected to Wei Qian, and at the same time he grew more and more angry at big brother.

Wei Zhiyuan decided to resist that self-important big brother, who always thought of himself as the grown-up, all the way to the end with silent cold violence. Even if big brother called again, he absolutely would not answer.

And yet more than half a month really did pass, and Wei Qian did not make a single call. After that postcard, no further word came back at all.

The weather grew hotter and hotter.

Even Grandma Song could not sit still anymore. On her own initiative, she had Song Xiaobao call Wei Qian’s cell phone. In Grandma Song’s understanding, expenses like phone charges, things you could neither see nor touch yet somehow still had to pay for, filled her with fear. So long as the house was not on fire, she would not use the phone, and she would not let anyone else use it either.

But the call would not go through. Wei Qian’s phone was switched off.

Grandma Song panicked at once and immediately wanted to go upstairs to find San Pang. In her eyes, although Wei Qian was a bastard who talked like a cudgel, he was still the pillar of the family. With the pillar gone, apart from San Pang, she had no idea who she could even discuss things with.

But Wei Zhiyuan calmly stopped her. “There’s no use looking for him. At most San-ge will make a few more calls. If Xiao Bao can’t get through, do you think he can?”

Grandma Song tilted her head up to look at the boy who was already taller than she was. “Then what do you say we should do?”

Wei Zhiyuan thought for a moment. “Who was it you said my Ge went with? The man who runs the pharmacy?”

Grandma Song nodded helplessly, utterly at a loss.

Wei Zhiyuan said, “Give me the address.”

It just so happened to be the weekend that day, so Wei Zhiyuan took the last postcard Wei Qian had sent back, along with the address Grandma Song gave him, and rode his bicycle to Lao Xiong’s pharmacy. He was so calm it was as though he were solving a math problem with complicated steps, pushing forward one step after another, orderly and methodical, calm in a way that was almost abnormal.

Only after Grandma Song had calmed down as well did she look at the obviously wilted Xiao Bao, then think about the steady, unflustered expression on that boy’s face, and begin to feel rather conflicted.

When someone close to you had gone missing and stayed away without returning for so long, shouldn’t a normal person be at a total loss?

Even if only for a little while… Wei Zhiyuan’s reaction far exceeded what one would expect from someone his age, but Grandma Song could not help feeling a chill in her heart.

She had once thought this child clever and loyal, but now she could not help starting to doubt whether he was lacking in human feeling.

Wei Zhiyuan found his way all the way to Lao Xiong’s pharmacy. Following Lao Xiong’s usual style, the shop assistant there had been hired only temporarily and was currently struggling to adapt to a pharmacy where one person had to play multiple roles. When asked anything, he knew nothing.

Wei Zhiyuan asked him for Lao Xiong’s contact information, then said a few polite words and used the shop phone to call Lao Xiong. The other side was switched off too.

It felt as though a stone had sunk into Wei Zhiyuan’s heart, cold and heavy, as if it were going to drag his three souls and seven spirits down along with it. He could only struggle with all his strength against that heavy stone, forcing himself to do the right thing.

After the boy and the shop assistant communicated with difficulty for quite a while, the assistant finally remembered that there was a sheet with the boss’s personal information in the drawer. Besides contact addresses and communication methods, it seemed there was also an emergency contact person on it.

And just like that, Wei Zhiyuan found Lao Xiong’s wife.

Yet at the very instant the call connected, what came from inside was an anxious woman’s voice asking without bothering about anything else, “Lao Xiong? Is that Lao Xiong?”

With that one sentence, all the hope in Wei Zhiyuan’s heart was completely ground away.

At that point, Wei Zhiyuan knew that big brother had truly lost contact.

After coming out of the pharmacy, Wei Zhiyuan went straight to the police station to file a report. A female police officer on duty saw that he was just a half-grown boy, so she patiently asked him many specific questions.

But it happened that Wei Zhiyuan knew nothing at all. Wei Qian had only called during the first few days after leaving, but because Wei Zhiyuan had stubbornly refused to speak to him out of spite, at most Wei Qian would tease Xiao Bao a little and tell Grandma he was safe, then hang up after only a few brief words. Every time, the information he left behind was pitifully scarce.

Wei Zhiyuan had no choice but to take out the postcard and show it to the policewoman. She took it, carefully examined the postmark and date, then shook her head. “Little brother, we can accept the case, and we can also help you look into where he was at the time based on the route and date recorded here. But he very likely was only passing through there, not that he disappeared there, do you understand? You don’t even know when or where he went missing. The hope of finding him is very slim. You have to be mentally prepared.”

For one instant, the look on Wei Zhiyuan’s face seemed blank and at a loss, as though the sudden turn of events had stunned him. But it lasted only a short moment before he forced himself back under control and withdrew his gaze.

The policewoman read something from his reaction, so she gently asked, “Are there still any adults in your family?”

“Only a grandma, and she’s very old.” Wei Zhiyuan came back to himself, lowered his eyes, then paused. “Thank you, sister.”

After saying that, Wei Zhiyuan stood up and left. He had already done everything he could think to do.

There was nothing more he could do.

Wei Zhiyuan rode home at an even pace. Halfway there, in a deserted place, he suddenly, without any warning, stuck his foot out to brake the bicycle, then slowly bent over and lay on the handlebars, burying his face between his arms.

The boy’s back, made thin by his rapid growth, bent into a taut bow. At last Wei Zhiyuan could no longer hold on to that stone in his heart, and let it drop straight down, smashing him with pain all the way from his liver and guts to the depths of his heart.

“What am I supposed to do?”

In his dazed confusion, it was as though his heart had at first been crying out in all directions in utter chaos, then gradually turned into the silence of all things, leaving behind only this single unanswered question.

Big brother had gone so far away.

If he really had just… just like this… never come back again…

The boundless far distance, and hope no brighter than a firefly.

From the time he was born until now, “powerlessness” seemed fated to run through every single day of his life.

That night, Wei Zhiyuan did not push open the door and return home until the time of the evening news broadcast. Xiao Bao and Grandma Song both lifted their heads at once and looked at him eagerly.

Grandma Song asked, “How was it?”

With a numb expression, Wei Zhiyuan walked to the middle of the living room and sat down properly on the sofa.

In a clear and orderly way, he recounted everything he had done and heard that afternoon. Then he cleared his throat, raised his eyes, and swept his gaze over Grandma and Xiao Bao’s faces.

Wei Zhiyuan spoke softly and slowly, stating the decision he had made for what came next. “Right now we have no other choice. We can only wait for news. If my Ge… then after that, I’ll be the one to quit school and support the family.”

Grandma Song suddenly jumped up, stamping her feet, red-faced and agitated. “Pah, pah, pah! Bad words don’t count, children’s words carry no taboo! What kind of nonsense are you spouting, you little brat?”

“Grandma.” Wei Zhiyuan sat with his back straight, looking at her quietly. “I heard that when my Ge’s parents died, he was about the same age I am now. From now on, anything he could do, I can do too. The family he could carry on his back, I can carry too. Don’t worry.”

Grandma Song stared at him blankly.

But Xiao Bao’s eyes suddenly reddened. With one blink, tears fell with a patter. Tugging lightly at Wei Zhiyuan, she said, “Er-ge, my grades are bad anyway. Let me be the one to quit school. I’d even think of it as a mouse falling into a rice jar.”

Wei Zhiyuan’s gaze fell on her. Then, as though imitating someone’s gesture from memory, he awkwardly and unskillfully reached out a hand and gently placed it on top of Xiao Bao’s head.

He said, “What could you do? You look so tiny, and you don’t even have any strength. If you leave school, people will bully you.”

For some reason, hearing that only made Xiao Bao cry harder.

“My Ge fought with his life on the line to make it to where he is today. As long as he still has one breath left in him, he’ll definitely come back before school registration starts. Stop crying. It’s all right.” Wei Zhiyuan said that without haste, then squeezed out a not very successful smile and turned to Grandma. “From now on, if it’s dark out, or windy and rainy, I’ll ride over to pick you up and take you home.”

Wei Zhiyuan tried with all his strength to steady the atmosphere at home, tried with all his strength to become a new pillar.

Yet when deep night and silence finally came, he sat alone at his little desk and could not figure out how big brother, back then, had managed to raise Xiao Bao and hold up a home so full of leaks on every side.

When he was little, he had often spoken recklessly, tossing around big words about “supporting the family” at every turn. But now that he truly stood with no one near or far to rely on, a terror rising from deep inside him nearly crushed him.

More terrified than when, as a child, he had wandered about in ignorant confusion, relying only on a little bit of native cleverness and luck. More terrified than when he had faced that pervert holding a steel pipe. Even more terrified than when he had fled cautiously for his life alongside big brother.

Because he could no longer afford to be ignorant. He could not grab hold of the little warmth in his chest and rush into things on impulse. Nor did he still have that one person waiting ahead for him, someone he could lift his head and long for.

Above him was Grandma, below him was Xiao Bao. He had to take care of them. There was also Ma Zi-ge’s mother, living in that low little house across from them. Big brother would never allow him to throw her aside and ignore her.

He felt a pressure so great it was almost utterly lightless.

Wei Zhiyuan took a deep breath and silently asked himself in his heart, “What would my Ge do?”

Leaning back in his chair, he worked hard to calm the emotions surging endlessly inside him, and began a long recollection of everything connected to Wei Qian.

Just as though he were seriously and carefully examining a math problem, Wei Zhiyuan meticulously reasoned through every little necessity of life, considering one by one how each thing should be handled.

And though he was making preparations for the worst, in his heart Wei Zhiyuan still refused to admit that Wei Qian had disappeared for no reason. He remained firmly convinced that even if big brother would not come back this summer, before the next autumn arrived, he would definitely return.

It seemed to become the last straw still floating on the surface of the water in his heart.

In the blink of an eye, final exams were approaching. Wei Zhiyuan still went to the police station every day, but while he occasionally came away with a lunchbox full of dumplings or meat pies, he never got the slightest bit of news about big brother.

Each time he returned disappointed, Wei Zhiyuan felt as though he had been pushed right to the edge of collapse.

On the way back, he happened to have to pass a deserted stretch of road near the elementary school. It was already quite late that day when, without warning, Wei Zhiyuan saw that pervert again. Because of everything at home, he had not had the energy to keep following him for quite a long while.

The pervert held a few lollipops he had bought from a roadside stall and was bending over to talk to a little boy of six or seven.

The little boy looked dazed, perhaps a little slow intellectually. The man was speaking too quickly for him. He only half understood, but instinctively sensed that the other party meant no good, and could not help taking a step backward.

The pervert reached out his filthy hand to grab the child by the shoulder. Just then, he was suddenly slammed hard from behind.

Pretending he could not brake in time, Wei Zhiyuan rammed into him and knocked him aside, saying coldly, “A good dog doesn’t block the road.”

He had grown up far too much by now, and with the darkness all around, the other side did not recognize him at all. Having suddenly been interrupted, the man shrank back in panic. Wei Zhiyuan bent down, grabbed the little boy, plopped him onto the bicycle’s crossbar, and said impatiently, “Sit still. Don’t move around.”

Then he carried him straight out of there.

The little boy really was slow to react. They had already ridden a long way before he finally stared blankly at Wei Zhiyuan and said, “Big Brother, I don’t know you.”

Wei Zhiyuan said, “I don’t know you either.”

That exchange went beyond the little fellow’s range of understanding. He widened his eyes and had no idea what to say. Wei Zhiyuan did not put him down until they had ridden out of the narrow alley and reached an intersection in the busy district. “Go on.”

The anxious despair of not being able to find big brother, working together with the pressure brought by the family he would have to face, finally ignited the negative emotions that Wei Zhiyuan had suppressed for a very long time.

And what happened that night made Wei Zhiyuan think he had found a reason.

He decided he was going to kill that man.

As though only by doing that could he recover even a little sense of control over a life gripped by his powerless hands.