Volume 1: Chapter 10

 Chapter X

Le Ge asked Wei Qian to work the day shift first, and then he would work the night shift after the plaster was removed from his arm. The night shift in the nightclub was very well paid, with two groups of people working in shifts, and each shift was only four hours, but the salary was three times that of the day shift, which meant that he could make his family live a very comfortable life by working only four hours a day – of course, the high salary was for the thugs, not for the poor cleaning boys like Ma Zi.

With Wei Qian’s qualifications, he was not originally eligible for this glorious night shift, but Le Ge personally told the manager to promote him as an exception in order to show his closeness. Ma Zi was extremely envious, but Wei Qian was not happy at all, and smoked even more.

The future was dangerous and confusing, and even though Wei Qian was a money-grubber, it was difficult for him to express his happiness about the extra income.

On this day, Song Xiao Bao and Wei Zhiyuan returned home from school, and Wei Qian cut a small watermelon weighing more than two kilograms in half, and asked them to eat half with a spoon each, and then do their homework after eating.

Song Xiao Bao sat cross-legged on the sofa, her mouth full of watermelon soup, and said excitedly while eating: “Ge, Sister Niuniu is dead.”

Wei Qian was stunned: “Who?”

“Sister Niuniu, this tall, with two dimples on her face, eyes like this, combed... hair like this, lived in the small bungalow in front...”

When Song Xiao Bao described her eyes, she stretched out her hands to open her eyes, and when she described her hair, she pulled her hair. She danced with her hands and spoke with body language. It can be seen that there is a reason why she failed the Chinese language in the first grade.

Wei Qian leaned back and moved away from her: “Sit down and talk properly, you’re spraying me in the face – dead? How did she die?”

“She died like this.” Song Xiao Bao said, rolling her eyes, holding her half watermelon and pouring it to the side, a line of watermelon juice flowed out from the corner of her mouth.

Wei Qian: “...”

Although his little sister is still young, she has an extraordinary imitation ability that can penetrate the essence through the phenomenon. For the first time, Wei Qian felt that it was a pity that this girl was not good-looking, otherwise when she grows up, she might be able to become an actress.

Wei Zhiyuan added calmly, “She died from eating rat poison.”

Song Xiao Bao recovered from the state of death and asked hurriedly, “How did you know?”

Wei Zhiyuan said calmly like a man who had seen the world, “She was foaming at the mouth and her face was pale. She must have died from eating rat poison. I’ve seen it before.”

Song Xiaobao said admiringly, “How come you’ve seen everything? Does rat poison taste good?”

Wei Zhiyuan’s eyebrows jumped at her question, which was stupider than expected.

After three seconds, he decided to cooperate with this idiot with insufficient blood supply to the brain, so he said in a serious tone, “It’s okay. It’s colourful. The red one tastes like watermelon and the green one tastes like apple. Rats love it.”

Song Xiao Bao asked eagerly, “Is it crisp?”

Wei Zhiyuan: “Crisp.”

Wei Qian: “...”

Wei Zhiyuan was a child after all. Wei Qian could actually see that he sometimes pretended to be stupid, but Wei Qian always thought that Xiao Yuan was trying to please Xiao Bao and never thought about himself.

....After all, he had received very little care in his life, and even he neglected himself.

Wei Qian had originally just heard about this matter, because he could not remember who “Niuniu” was through Xiao Bao’s narration. But this matter that he ignored did not pass.

In the evening, San Pang and Ma Zi bought vegetables together and came to his house to cook.

When serving the dishes, San Pang deliberately kicked Wei Qian in dissatisfaction: “I am here to serve you as a master, right? Don’t sit there waiting for food, don’t you still have one hand? Go get the bowl and chopsticks!”

Wei Qian raised his voice: “Ma Zi!”

Ma Zi agreed neatly and was about to work for him, but was frightened by Sanpang’s glare and shrank back.

“Ma Zi,” Wei Qian stood up slowly and commented pertinently, “You are really a coward!”

Ma Zi was not ashamed but proud, and said happily: “Yes!”

Wei Qian: “...”

Wei Qian wandered to the kitchen, tiptoed to open the cupboard, and lazily glanced at the small room. The two little guys finally calmed down, each occupying a corner of the table, doing homework. Wei Qian’s mood suddenly became uncontrollably better. He felt that with these two little breathing creatures in the house, it felt like a home.

“Qian’er,” San Pang suddenly said, “Watch our little sister Xiao Bao these two days. Don’t let her run around after school.”

Wei Qian casually replied, “What’s wrong?”

San Pang said, “You know Niuniu, right?”

Wei Qian: “Yeah?”

“The one who lives in the front, with pigtails, is one year older than Xiao Bao.”

San Pang glanced into the room of the two little ones, lowered his voice and whispered in Wei Qian’s ear, “The girl died this afternoon. She ate rat poison and died by herself.”

Wei Qian was too lazy to listen to other people’s shit. He couldn’t even think about his own shit.

So, he looked at San Pang impatiently: “I think you are bored, Fatty. You are always talking about matchmaking and three rats with four eyes. You…”

San Pang slapped his injured arm with a serious expression: “Keep your voice down!”

“Hiss… Fuck you…”

San Pang said seriously: “Listen to me! That little girl was abused by someone. She is timid. She didn’t dare to tell the adults for several days. It’s been hot these two days. I heard that her vagina has festered. I don’t know how much pain she has suffered. She dared not say anything. Yesterday, she didn’t think it through and committed suicide by eating rat poison. Can you pay more attention to your sister?”

Wei Qian frowned and looked at him: “Nonsense…”

“Who is talking nonsense to you? Who is talking nonsense about this? The person is dead! Am I so wicked?” San Pang glared at him, “I am talking to you seriously. I have been watching our sister for the past two days. Tighten up, do you hear me?”

Wei Qian stretched out his hand on his waist incomprehensionably and gestured: “That kid has thin arms and legs. If you poke it there, it will just be a chopstick. What’s so good about that? Who is it? Is he sick?”

“I can’t explain it to you, stupid. He only knows money and fighting every day. What else do you know?” San Pang waved his hand impatiently, “Some people just can’t get hard with normal women. Some like those children who haven’t grown up, and some like men-Niuniu’s mother is almost crying like a lunatic, yelling to call the police, and now she is locked up at home by her grandmother.”

Hearing the word “man”, Wei Qian frowned uncomfortably and asked again: “Why don’t you let her call the police? Is her grandmother demented?”

“The old lady is not smart. She thinks that if the police are called and the news spreads, their family will not be able to hold their heads up. Well, anyway...”

San Pang said this and suddenly stopped talking, because he when he looked up, he saw Wei Zhiyuan lying on the side of the kitchen door. They didn’t know how much he heard.

San Pang was startled: “Oh, this unlucky child, why is he walking so quietly, like a weasel!”

The weasel Wei Zhiyuan looked calm, as if he didn’t hear them talking, and said with his chest and head held high: “I’ll help my Ge carry the dishes.”

“Hey, this little weasel is quite filial!” Sanpang slapped Wei Zhiyuan’s head with a big slap like a palm leaf fan, almost covering his little head, and hurriedly pushed him on the back, “Go quickly.”

After saying that, he and Wei Qian looked at each other, and they both stopped talking at the same time.

For several days afterwards, Wei Qian picked up and dropped off the two children. The small school that was a waste of money, had too late school hours in the morning and too early school hours in the evening, and it was very difficult for Wei Qian to coordinate with his schedules. The mornings were barely passable, but the afternoons after school were particularly bad.

It was past three o’clock, and Wei Qian was still early to get off work, so he had to run back and forth with his arm in plaster. Every day, he rushed to the elementary school as fast as he could, hurriedly took the two kids home, bought each of them a 50-cent “double popsicle”, and then locked them both in the house, and then ran back like a reincarnated person.

Literally, he really ran with his legs. Because Wei Qian was going to transfer to the night shift, many people secretly disliked him. He was afraid that he would delay too much time and give others the opportunity to gossip about him, but he was reluctant to spend the money on the bus. In this way, he trained his legs to be able to outrun the bus.

Song Xiao Bao, the heartless girl, didn’t feel sorry for her brother at all. She was quite satisfied with this kind of life, because she had one and a half “double sticks” to eat every day…

The extra half came from Wei Zhiyuan, who would usually split the double stick and eat half first, and the remaining half would usually go to Xiao Bao.

She was lazy and gluttonous—he had completely figured out the nature of this little sister and was very good at dealing with her.

After running back and forth like a donkey pulling a mill for more than ten days, when Wei Qian went to the hospital for a follow-up check-up, he was scolded by the doctor on the spot and given a serious warning: “If you do this again, you will grow an arm with eighteen bends on the mountain road!”

Wei Qian felt quite embarrassed because Ma Zi was waiting outside with two little ones. The big one, two small ones and one water had never seen the world. Wei Qian felt very embarrassed to be scolded in front of them, and his authority as the eldest brother was destroyed.

Wei Zhiyuan didn’t say a word, but felt as if his heart was hit and ached. He had a manly desire to protect his body, but his own body was still young and immature. The contradiction between the growing desire for a strong heart and the limited physiological conditions of children constituted Wei Zhiyuan’s main psychological contradiction before puberty.

In the middle of the night, Wei Qian heard the noise of ping-pong in the kitchen. He reached out and found that the boy next to him had gotten up. Wei Qian rubbed his eyes and cursed, then walked into the kitchen, raised his hand to turn on the kitchen light, and while raising his hand to block the glaring light, he said impatiently: “Why are you messing around in the middle of the night?”

Wei Zhiyuan was dragging a long steel pipe and looked up at him innocently. The half of the kitchen connected to the balcony was usually used for cooking, and the other half was used to store various sundries, among which there were many weapons that Wei Qian had thrown in.

Wei Zhiyuan dragged out a scrap steel pipe from the pile of sundries. This time, he deliberately picked a shorter one so that his hand would not be dragged on the ground in disgrace like last time. When he held a weapon in his hand, he felt very powerful.

Wei Qian was stunned: “What are you going to do with it?”

Wei Zhiyuan glanced at his arm with a new bandage, straightened his chest and said: “I will take her to school, you don’t have to come tomorrow, I will bring Xiao Bao back, and I will make sure she doesn’t run around when we get home, and I will lock the door.”

He said this with a certain attitude of taking it for granted, just like a little adult who can handle things. Wei Qian felt strangely uneasy in his heart. This kid he picked up was not an ungrateful person. He was sensible and knew how to care for others.

However, on the surface, Wei Qian still frowned unceremoniously, picked up Wei Zhiyuan with one hand, turned on the faucet and washed his dirty little hands: “How can you be so patient – wash your hands and go to bed honestly. If you make trouble again, I will beat you!”

Wei Zhiyuan obediently did not argue.

Although, the eldest brother’s expression was stinky and his words were not pleasant, Wei Zhiyuan did not care. Instead, he liked to listen. He was a child who had been really abused and could distinguish which one was real malice and which one was just a different form of concern.

However, although Wei Zhiyuan did not say anything at the time, he still stuffed the water pipe into his schoolbag the next day when Wei Qian was not paying attention.

In the afternoon, when Wei Qian ran to pick up people at the usual time, he saw Xiao Yuan walking towards home with Xiao Bao halfway. The two kids didn’t wait for him, and went home boldly. Because they were on the other side of the road, they didn’t see Wei Qian, and Wei Qian didn’t go over, but just followed from a distance.

Although, he was well-nourished and a little grown up, the little boy was only two fingers taller than the little girl, but he was like a powerful protector, with a serious expression, holding his sister with one hand and holding a dirty steel pipe with the other hand, and walked this short distance home as if he was going through the Tianmen formation without hesitation.

Wei Qian was a little amused and embarrassed. He watched the two children all the way home. Wei Zhiyuan very seriously let Xiao Bao go into the house first, and then he held the ridiculous steel pipe like an underground worker, and stuck his head out to carefully investigate the vicinity of the house. He failed to detect the enemy, but found that his brother was standing at the foot of the wall not far away with his arm hanging, looking at him. Wei Zhiyuan was stunned for a moment, and then he saw that Wei Qian not only did not get angry at him for taking the initiative, but smiled at him instead.

Wei Qian raised his thin chin, which was unique to young people, and nodded at Wei Zhiyuan, indicating that he should lock the door. Wei Zhiyuan turned around and went into the house obediently, locked the door, climbed onto the bed, pulled open the curtains, and lay on the window. He watched Wei Qian light a cigarette, smoked it silently, and took a break. He turned around and left quickly.

“Ge didn’t even drink a sip of water.” Wei Zhiyuan thought so.

That night, when Wei Qian returned home, he was surprised to find that someone had cooled a glass of boiled water in the enamel pot on the table. He reached out and touched it. It was neither cold nor hot, just the right temperature.

The next week was spent like this. Wei Zhiyuan took Xiao Bao home from school alone, and then Wei Qian followed them from a distance, watching them get home, lock the door, and leave.

Finally, it had been nearly a month since Niuniu’s incident, and no other unrest had happened nearby. Wei Zhiyuan seemed very reliable, so Wei Qian decided not to pick them up anymore, and the three of them returned to their normal lives.

As a result, something really happened.