Volume 1: Chapter 4

 Chapter VI

The next day, Wei Qian went out and saw that the little boy was still there. He had a big head and thin limbs, and he had shrunk into a round ball. Wei Qian almost tripped over the ragged ball. After a night, the anger in his heart had mostly subsided.

Wei Qian looked down helplessly at the little thing that had shrunk into a ball, wondering what the little boy was thinking. Wei Qian felt that he was emitting the light of revenge on society, without the light of Buddha or the infinite heavenly master. Looking back, he seemed to have never given the other party a good face.

Wei Qian didn't understand what this little thing that seemed to be ready to fight at any time saw in him, and he actually let down his guard so easily and even relied on him. Fortunately, it was summer. If it was winter, the little boy would be frozen to death if he slept outdoors in the north.

A tiny thing that looked like Xiao Bao when he stood up. He couldn't really go home and take out a kitchen knife to kill him.

Wei Qian stretched out his toes and poked the ball under his feet: "Hey, hey, get up, don't sleep here, do you hear me? Our house is not open yet, why are you sleeping?"

The dirty coal ball raised his head sleepily, and when he saw Wei Qian, he immediately became energetic and looked at him expectantly, like a stumbling little kitten with a harlequin face, the tip of its tail was trembling, and it still tried to get under people's feet, trying to show its cuteness and harmlessness, asking for adoption.

Anyone who saw this would feel bad. It was a pity that he happened to meet a heartless person like Wei Qian. Wei Qian had no sympathy and would do anything to bully people. He decisively ignored his pitiful look and locked the door without saying a word.

He bent down, picked up the boy’s thin arm, carried him downstairs, and threw him on the neglected grass. He said bluntly: “Don’t get angry, get out.”

The boy fell into the weeds and watched him walk away like a villain without looking back.

The little boy climbed up for a long time and looked up at the dilapidated tube building that was very tall for him. After a while, he lowered his head, and his bare feet and toes were tangled together.

He felt very disappointed. This little guy was indeed a child who had been abducted and sold – Wei Qian was cruel and vicious, and he was right. He was too young when he was stolen, and he could not remember the whole story.

The traffickers raised him for a few months, and then sold him to a very remote farmer’s family. It was nothing, he was still a son to anyone, and he enjoyed the life of an only child for two years. 

Unexpectedly, in the third year, his adoptive mother, who was diagnosed as infertile by the village doctor, became pregnant miraculously, and a year later, she gave birth to a healthy fat boy.

From then on, the boy seemed redundant in his adoptive parents’ home, and his life went from bad to worse. That day, when the boy was washing dishes in the cold well water, his fingers were numb from the cold, and he accidentally broke a bowl, which angered his adoptive father who came home drunk. The adoptive father stripped him naked and made him stand in the middle of the yard in the cold winter.

The boy felt like he was going to freeze to death. Finally, he made a decision that was surprisingly bold for his age – he ran away. The little boy stole a few adult clothes, put them on casually, and then climbed over the wall with the help of a ladder at night.

He quietly hid in a car that was pulling winter cabbage to the city, and was pulled to a city. From then on, he became a little street boy. Such an unattended little boy was easy to be targeted.

During this period, the boy was almost abducted again several times. Some people tried to sell him, some tried to make him a thief, and two people discussed selling his organs – the boy overheard it when he was peeing in the middle of the night and ran away at night.

He was able to live to this age and successfully escape every time. His luck was so good that it was simply a miracle. He became a half-escaping expert. He secretly rode on trains, changed cities, met all kinds of people, and occasionally someone tried to talk to him, but he pretended to be dumb and couldn’t speak, and quickly tried to escape.

There might be some kind people among them, but unfortunately the boy didn’t dare to let down his guard – it would be fine if he was sold wholesale, but he was more afraid of those who planned to cut open his stomach and take out his parts one by one for retail.

However, he still instinctively envied those who had a house to live in and a home despite living in the open air and eating one meal a day and being hungry one meal a day. The little guy didn’t know what home was for a long time, but he couldn’t have a home because he was afraid of contacting anyone.

In the eyes of the little boy, there seemed to be only two kinds of people in the world, one kind of people thought he was dirty, walked around him from a distance, and threw stones at him and hit him, and the other kind of people were kind to him, but actually wanted to sell him in their hearts. Until he met such a unique person.

He had heard someone call him “Qian’er” with the local erhua sound. This person helped him drive away wild dogs and gave him food, but he just left and never said a word to him. Of course, more often than not, this person would turn a blind eye to him. Wei Qian’s indifference and lack of communication made the boy feel safe, and at the same time, his occasional charity made the boy feel a rare warmth.

The little boy actually kept moving to a new place, but in order to secretly watch this person every day, he had unknowingly lived in this alley for several months. During these months, the little boy, after careful observation and prudent argumentation, came to a conclusion with his brain that was malnourished because of not being full all the time – this big brother was a good person.

In his wandering career, this was the first time that he involuntarily felt the desire to contact others... But to his disappointment, when he stretched out his tentacles and tried to touch, the bastard who was suspected to be a “good person” did not seem to want to adopt him.

The boy was disappointed and sad. He wandered around for a while, thinking about whether to give up. Before he could figure out the result, it started to rain. The boy had no choice but to hide in the corridor again.

The heavy rain did not stop until the evening. San Pang’s mother came downstairs at noon to help Xiao Bao heat up his meal.

When she saw the little boy curled up in the corridor, she was surprised and bent down to look at him carefully: “Hey, whose child is this?”

The boy immediately raised his head fiercely like a little beast with its hair blown up. His whole body was tense, as if he was ready to rush up and bite her at any time.

His fierce eyes scared San Pang’s mother and she took a half step back: “Oh, this little beggar is crazy!”

San Pang’s mother was afraid of getting into trouble, so she looked at the little boy warily, quickly opened the door with the key left by Wei Qian, and walked into the house in two steps.

In the evening, Wei Qian came back from school and did odd jobs. He looked down and saw the little boy in the corner. His face suddenly looked unhappy. He strode over and wanted to throw the little boy out again.

When the little boy saw him coming, he thought he was going to be beaten, so he retreated to the corner in fear and took a defensive posture. Wei Qian felt strangely satisfied that this little boy was also afraid.

The middle school boy snorted coldly, looked up and glanced at the rain outside the window, turned around and went into the house, and actually let the little boy go.

It was hot in the summer, and Wei Qian usually only closed the anti-theft door with a layer of screen, and did not close the main door, so that the room could be ventilated.

When Xiao Bao saw a kid outside, she asked in a baby voice, “Ge, who is that guy outside? He’s so shameless, and he’s not wearing pants.”

Wei Qian said, “Just play your own game, don’t mind anyone else’s business.”

After a while, Xiao Bao said again, “Ge, he keeps looking into our house.”

Wei Qian walked over, stood at the door and yelled at the boy fiercely, “Get away from me!” The boy was startled by him and hesitated to take a few steps back.

But when he came out of the kitchen with the dishes, he saw Xiao Bao squatting at the door, looking outside and saying, “Ge, he’s still looking into our house, let him in.”

This time Wei Qian was too lazy to scare him, and simply ignored her, put the dishes on the dining table, and then walked over, raised his hand and slammed the door shut, completely isolating the two envious prying eyes outside the door.

Let him in? Wei Qian thought to himself, if he were a millionaire, he would be willing to raise ten or eight of these kids, and let them stand in a row every morning to play roll call. But is he?

He was just a poor little hooligans, he didn’t even know where to get the 400 yuan tuition fee he had to pay for the new semester! Unfortunately, girls are outgoing, and Song Xiao Bao, this little girl, is nothing. It’s only been two days since she took off her diaper, but she has already learned to bend her elbows outward.

Two days later, when Wei Qian came in, he found that Xiao Bao had already put the kid in the house. Wei Qian was afraid that the wild kid outside had infectious diseases and parasites, which would infect Xiao Bao, so he immediately got angry at his sister, scaring the little girl to cry.

He reached out and picked up the vest on the kid’s body, and threw him out again like a rag. The little boy struggled in his hands, but he couldn’t struggle, so he stared at him with his pair of bright black eyes, which were like black stones in the mountains that had just been washed by rain.

On the dirty little face where the facial features could not be seen clearly, it was particularly eye-catching, so wild, and full of resentment, loss and vague pleading. “You son of a bitch.” Wei Qian scolded him.

Xiao Bao was really a person who only remembered food but not beatings – mainly because Wei Qian had never really beaten her. Although he didn’t express it much, he actually loved her so much that he never even touched a strand of her hair, so Song Xiao Bao forgot about the scolding.

Less than three days later, she brought the kid back again. This was going to haunt her. This time, her cold and bad-tempered elder brother was finally irritated.

Wei Qian reached out to grab the boy, but the boy sensed the danger and quickly jumped up to avoid it, so that Wei Qian’s high-raised slap was in vain.

Wei Qian was furious and raised his leg to give him a kick in the heart. The boy was kicked hard and hurt, but he didn’t even cry out. He just groaned, knelt on the ground, stretched out his arms, and hugged Wei Qian’s legs.

Xiao Bao, the naughty child, finally gained some experience. She had never thought that the big brother she lived with day and night could be so violent.

She was so scared that she burst into tears and howled, “Ge!”

The boy didn’t know why, but when he heard this, his mind seemed to be moved. He pretended to be dumb for more than a year, but now he spoke to Wei Qian without thinking. Although his voice was hoarse and didn’t sound like a child, and his pronunciation was very strange, Wei Qian still heard his words clearly.

He imitated Xiaobao and said, “Brother!”

Wei Qian raised his foot to step hard, but suddenly he couldn’t move.

What was he doing? Wei Qian thought blankly, beating such a little kid? What’s the difference between this and his bitch mother?

Finally, Wei Qian sighed, slowly retracted his foot, walked into the kitchen without saying a word, hastily cooked a pot of clear and watery noodle soup, and brought it to the little boy: “Eat it.”

The boy didn’t want to appear too useless, but unfortunately, this bowl of noodles was like a long drought to him. As soon as he smelled the fragrance, the word “promising” happily abandoned him and eloped. He almost buried his face in the bowl, eating it up like autumn wind sweeping fallen leaves, and finished three bowls in a row, his stomach was full.

Wei Qian sat calmly beside him, waiting for him to finish eating, then he started to clean up the dishes and chopsticks, and then said to the boy: “Do you understand what I say? Okay, I know you understand.”

Wei Qian shook the dishwashing water off his hands, squatted down, and made his eyes level with the little thing.

“I can’t afford to support you,” he said with almost the greatest patience in his life, “You, you’ve found the wrong place.”

There was still some soup on the boy’s mouth, and his eyes as bright as stars stared at the boy in front of him.

Wei Qian gently pushed him on the shoulder: “Okay, eat your fill and leave.”

A minute later, the boy walked out of his home upright for the first time, instead of being thrown out violently by him.

For two or three days, Wei Qian didn’t see the boy who kept pestering him.

It wasn’t until the evening of the fourth day, when he dragged his tired body home and calculated how much money he still owed for tuition, that he saw the boy again at the door.

This time, Xiao Bao didn’t dare to open the door. The two children, one standing inside the door and the other standing outside, heard the footsteps and raised their heads together, looking at him eagerly.

The boy standing at the door was dragging a huge snakeskin bag in his hand, which was “clanging” inside. Wei Qian lowered his eyes and took a look, and found that it was a bag of bottle caps and cans.

“This can be sold for money.” Seeing that he didn’t say anything for a long time, the boy explained in a low voice.

As if he was afraid that Wei Qian didn’t believe him, he stretched out his dirty little hand, and held two yuan and fifty cents in his sweaty palm.

“Really, I sold it.”

Wei Qian was still silent.

Xiao Bao called softly at the right time: “Ge.”

Wei Qian closed his eyes and thought to himself: “What the hell is going on!”