Volume 1: Chapter 5

 Chapter V

In this way, the little boy stayed shamelessly. Many years later, when the boy recalled this incident, he almost felt that he had accomplished an impossible feat. After his bastard brother grew up, he showed his bastard characteristics to an unparalleled level.

He was born with a heart of stone and always kept his word. The boy sometimes doubted whether there was anything in the world that could change Wei Qian’s mind. But that year, after observing for several months and coaxing for several weeks, he actually succeeded in impressing this heartless bastard.

After the little boy lived in Wei Qian’s house, he slowly recovered his ability to speak, but he was still silent most of the time, as if he was worried that his presence was too strong and would attract others’ dislike and abuse.

At first, he didn’t even dare to go to the bed or the sofa. At night, he huddled in the corner and slept on the ground like a little wild dog. It seemed that as long as he had a roof to shelter from the wind and rain and a few mouthfuls of clean food, he would be satisfied.

Wei Qian observed his behaviour and could not help but recall that when he was as old as this little thing, he had also tried to please his stepfather in this cautious way.

He understood the meaning of those behaviours and not only did he not think the boy was strange, but he secretly developed some kind of secret emotional connection with him.

Of course – he would not show this kind of emotion. Wei Qian thought that as the “head of the family”, it was his duty to be a little arrogant at home.

He patiently washed the little guy, and was afraid that he had lice, so he shaved the little boy’s hair and found an old piece of clothing of Xiao Bao for him to wear. The bald little boy wore the little girl’s cheap skirt with lace falling off, but it didn’t seem very out of place.

It can be seen that the little boy has a good foundation. Wei Qian looked at him thoughtfully for a long time, and made the following comment: “He looks like a dog.”

However, Wei Qian thought that people probably look pretty when they are young, maybe because they are young and have nothing to worry about, so their eyes are also clean and can reflect light.

This absurd view was rejected by San Pang – San Pang said that beauty is beauty, ugliness is ugliness, it is all innate, and it has nothing to do with age.

Sanpang, Wei Qian and Ma Zi grew up together and have been friends since childhood. Sanpang is three or four years older than Wei Qian. Ma Zi was born in the same year as Wei Qian.

They played in the mud together when they were young and became gangsters together when they grew up. Although they have never done anything good together, they are very close friends.

When they reached puberty, Wei Qian grew vertically, becoming thinner and taller, while Sanpang grew horizontally. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, he had already become a middle-aged man who was getting fat...

As for Ma Zi, it doesn’t matter if he is tall or short, fat or thin. His face is full of pits and closed acne, which makes his head look like an uneven asteroid. It can scare a few people to tears at night, so that his other characteristics are ignored.

Sanpang, this fat guy, looks like Zhu Bajie’s second uncle, but he shamelessly likes to judge the beauty and ugliness of others. Every time he sees Xiao Bao, he sighs because this little girl looks so ugly.

Relying on their friendship, Sanpang spoke frankly to Wei Qian – usually he always had to say something that Wei Qian didn’t want to hear.

Whenever he went to Wei Qian’s house, Sanpang would hold Xiao Bao in his arms and look at him, and yelled like an opera singer: “Sister, my poor sister, how can your little face be so black? You can’t even find it in the coal pile!”

Wei Qian snatched Xiao Bao back: “Get lost, ours is called black and pretty.”

Sanpang continued to cry and yell: “Your brother is lying with open eyes, is there a black and pretty with such small eyes?”

Wei Qian said confidently: “What’s wrong with small eyes? Our faces are also small. Are cow eyes big? You still have a narrow face with your pancake face.”

Sanpang: “Get lost, your family needs a pancake pan as majestic and handsome as your Ge’s, you, the head of house? Well, I’m not saying that big eyes and small eyes are not a problem. Look at our sister’s nose bridge – this little flat nose, it worries me to death, it looks like it was hit by a door panel, Qian’er, what do you think of our Why doesn’t my sister look like our mother? If she doesn’t look like our mother, you won’t worry!”

Wei Qian: “Bullshit, she’s not my child.”

After saying that, Wei Qian brought Xiao Bao to his eye level and carefully looked at the little girl’s face that looked like her father. Even though they were close relatives, he had to admit that Sanpang was right.

The pitiful little collapsed nose on Xiao Bao’s face really looked like she had no nose bone. Wei Qian worriedly calculated in his mind that he would make her protect her eyes in the future no matter what, and she must not be near-sighted, otherwise this little collapsed nose might really not be able to support glasses.

But he still refused to admit that his sister was ugly, so he said speciously: “What’s wrong with a collapsed nose? Is a woman with a high nose good-looking? A high nose... a high nose doesn’t look like a good person.”

He said this because his mother had a straight and delicate high nose. The nose is the king of the five senses, which makes her look very energetic and impressive at first sight. Wei Qian always hated everything about his mother – whether beautiful or ugly.

In Wei Qian’s heart, as long as Song Xiao Bao didn’t look like their mother, he would still think she was cute even if she became an ugly monster with pockmarks all over her face.

Sanpang knew the whole story of his family, so he rarely argued with him. He took Xiao Bao from Wei Qian’s arms and pinched her nose from time to time – later when she grew up, her nose was not so flat, probably because her fat brother pinched it artificially.

Sanpang kept pinching and muttering: “Sister, my sister who can’t get married...”

At this time, Ma Zi pushed the door open and said with a smile: “San, San Ge, Qian’er, Xiao.. Xiao Bao Mei.”

Sanpang blocked Xiao Bao’s ears as if facing a great enemy: “Oh my God, you old man, don’t talk in front of the child, if she learns to stutter like you, this kid’s brother will chop you into dumpling stuffing!”

Ma zi was limited by his talent and could never be sharp-tongued in his life, so he had to go the simple and honest route.

He didn’t get angry after hearing it, he touched his head and smiled foolishly. He touched Xiao Bao and the boy’s head, took out two candies, and gave one to each of them.

Ma Zi dropped out of school a long time ago, not because he had no money to go back to school, but because the reason was hard to explain.

Until the fifth grade of elementary school, Ma Zi could only count to ninety-nine, and he couldn’t count to three digits. The teacher was so angry that he punished him to copy all the numbers between one hundred and two hundred in order a hundred times.

He copied them one by one, neatly and diligently, without any trickery. As a result, when the teacher saw that he had copied them, he was out of order!

San Pang looked at his stupid and ugly brother bitterly, and then muttered: “Brother, my brother who can’t get married...”

San Pang showed his worries about other people’s marriages too early, so much so that Wei Qian concluded that this fat guy was gifted and would become a pimp in the future.

Wei Qian was very sad about his friendships. Ma Zi was an idiot, San Pang was a big idiot, and he was caught in the middle, almost feeling a kind of sadness of “everyone in the world is an idiot, but I am the only one who understands.”

The stupid Ma Zi asked: “Le, Le brother asked me to ask, have you found a place to pay for your tuition?”

This question directly hit Wei Qian’s heart, and his heart, which was quite happy just now, seemed to be stuffed with a piece of ice, and it sank down in an instant.

Wei Qian thought, there was a ghost, but he didn’t want to show weakness and lose face in front of the two stupid childhood friends, so he pretended to be indifferent, waved his hand mysteriously and said: “Oh, no hurry.”

The big stupid Sanpang quickly said: “Oh baby, brother, please, it’s already time, don’t pretend to be a god, this matter can’t be urgent! School is about to start! What do you say, how much are missing, just say it, and we brothers will help you find a way... You said that our group of people are born to have no fate with school, and you are the only one who has a promising future. Everyone will help you and push you up!”

Wei Qian felt as if his heart was pinched by a hot hand. For a second or two, he was at a loss for words, and his lips trembled twice imperceptibly.

However, the next moment, he still restrained himself with the greatest perseverance, maintaining his stubborn inner and big-tailed wolf appearance. “Okay, it’s not a big deal,” Wei Qian said nonchalantly without even raising his eyelids, “I know what’s going on, you don’t need to worry about it, and tell Le Ge for me, it’s okay.”

Then he quickly changed the subject: “Oh, by the way, that kid, I asked him what his name was, and he told me his name was ‘Xiao Chi’, and it’s no wonder his parents gave him such a stupid name. I’ve been thinking about giving him a big name these days.”

Ma Zi was worried about him, and wanted to say something else, but the more anxious he was, the more he couldn’t say it clearly, and he was interrupted by San Pang in the end.

San Pang knew Wei Qian’s character, and knew that he was a grandson who didn’t want to lose face even though his inner qualities had been lost.

Obviously, he didn’t want to mention this matter in front of the two of them, so he followed Wei Qian’s meaning and said nonsense: “Okay, if your name is Wei Qian, then let him be called Wei Xu.”

Wei Qian laughed and scolded: “Fuck you, ‘weak stomach’, and ‘stomach ache’.”

The three of them played around for a while, and then they ate at Wei Qian’s house with their own dry food and food, and then they went their separate ways.

Wei Qian thought about it, since Le Ge asked him about it, he had to go and see him in person, otherwise it would be rather immature – Wei Qian had been hanging out with a group of social scum since he was a child for pocket money, and Le Ge was the eldest brother of their group, the most powerful man in the world, older than them, had been in the business for many years, had a strong family background, and was very righteous.

He was sincere and sincere to these little brothers, and he didn’t put on airs. After Wei Qian’s mother died, Le Ge took care of them a lot, helping them when they were busy, and taking on things when they had something to do.

Wei Qian once felt that he was simply his own brother. Brother Le was still friendly to him.

He exchanged a few words with Wei Qian first, and then said: “I have heard about your family. This little thing has come a long way to come here. It is not easy for such a small thing to survive until now. I think he may be a big shot in the future and can go further than all of us. Otherwise, we should call him Xiao Yuan. Wei Yuan? Hmm... It doesn’t sound good. Add a character and call him ‘Wei Zhiyuan’, okay?”

Le Ge gave him a name, and Wei Qian was naturally happy. At that time, Wei Qian was still young and didn’t have so many thoughts. Although he had half a foot in the world, he was limited by his age and experience and could not understand the rules of adult society very well, nor did he really know what kind of person Le Ge was.

At this time, even if Le Ge farted, the fourteen-year-old Wei Qian would think that he farted very philosophically.

Le Ge asked again: “How old is that little thing?”

“He said he is eight years old.” Wei Qian said, “I don’t think so, he is about the same age as Xiao Bao.”

Le Ge hummed and frowned: “Have you thought about what to do in the future? He doesn’t have a household registration, so it’s useless to have a big name.”

Yes, Wei Qian’s heart moved. Wei Zhiyuan had a big name, but he was still a veritable “black man”. In fact, if it wasn’t for Wei Qian’s fucking client who got drunk and pretended to be kind, Wei Qian would definitely be a “black man” now.

Wei Qian frowned. It was not so easy to get a local household registration. He really had no way to deal with this.

Le Ge deliberately paused for a while, making him feel distressed for a while, and then he said leisurely: “If you trust me, why don’t you leave this matter to me first, what do you think?”

Wei Qian was stunned on the spot: “I... I... this matter is so...” He could hardly say a complete sentence for a while.

Wei Qian smiled with some embarrassment and said self-deprecatingly: “It’s over, I’m almost infected with stuttering by pockmarks.”

Le Ge touched his head affectionately and waited for his answer leisurely. Although Le Ge was young, he was an ambitious person, and his ambition was crooked.

He was quite calculating, suspicious, and knew that he had to have his own loyal followers in order to succeed in the future. In the process of paving the way for himself, he came to adore Wei Qian.

First of all, Wei Qian was of the right age, fourteen or fifteen years old, just the age of knowing a little, sensible, but not too much. If you treat him well, he will be loyal to him. Among so many little brothers, Le Ge only adored Wei Qian, because Wei Qian could mix, fight, and take risks.

It was rare to have these three characteristics, not to mention that he could study. Le Ge was shocked when he heard for the first time that this kid could take the high school entrance examination and did so well.

Even though Le Ge was already a local figure, he was still a big gangster who had risen from a small gangster and had never had anything to do with “studying”. Even if Wei Qian was born in a poor and ordinary family, he would surely become a great man in the future.

However, fate treated him so badly that it was totally against Le Ge’s wishes. Le Ge felt like he was just like someone who went out to the flower and bird market to buy stones and ended up picking up a priceless antique.

Le Ge thought about it, the only problem was that Wei Qian was a bit hard to deal with. Although he was a little respectful to him, he was definitely not willing to ask for help.

It was not much money to support a young boy to go to high school. With Le Ge’s current financial resources, even sending a child abroad to study was not worth much. He was not afraid that Wei Qian would not be loyal to him in the future.

Le Ge could see that this child was thick-skinned and thin-skinned. Such a person would not do ungrateful things. The household registration at that time was much more relaxed than later. As long as there were connections and some money, it was still somewhat feasible.

However, no matter how feasible it was, it was not within Wei Qian’s ability. So Wei Qian thought about it and did not refuse without knowing what was good for him. He secretly made a note of Le Ge in his heart – these were all favours that had to be repaid.

Le Ge chatted with him casually for a few more words, but didn’t mention the tuition. Wei Qian couldn’t get a household registration anyway. This kid could accept it, but he couldn’t talk about the tuition. If he did, it would hurt the young man’s self-esteem.

But Le Ge was not in a hurry. He could see that Wei Qian really wanted to study, otherwise his grades wouldn’t be so good, so he waited. Wei Qian would come to him one day.

Before leaving, Le Ge said to Wei Qian meaningfully: “Why are you being polite to me? Qian’er, remember, you can come to me if you encounter any difficulties in the future. Did you hear me? As long as it’s within my ability, I can help you even if the sky falls. Don’t hold it in. We are good brothers.”

After he finished speaking, he patted Wei Qian’s shoulder vigorously. Looking at the helpless young man, he felt that he had done a really good job. It was a long way to go. It would be unacceptable for such a great talent to fail in the future.