Wei Qian didn't trudge back home until five in the morning, carrying breakfast for the family.
His hair was soaked through with a heavy layer of morning dew, and his face bore the grim, lethal expression of a murderous demon intent on slaughtering an entire city. Mrs. Song, having woken up early in this strange, foreign city, caught one glimpse of that textbook devil's glare and nearly had a heart attack. She cowered in the corner, not even daring to breathe too loudly.
Wei Qian had bought soybean milk and fried dough sticks from a neighboring street vendor. His mind was a chaotic mess, tossing and turning with a hundred different clues, yet arriving at absolutely nothing.
He thought with a bitter, venomous irritation: If it turns out that stuttering bastard never went anywhere and has just been hiding out at the hospital with his mom this whole time, I am going to beat him into a bloody pulp.
But deep down, he knew he would never get that chance.
Fatty San hadn't found Pocky at the hospital. The two of them had exhausted every connection they had on the streets, finding nothing but dead ends. It wasn't until a few days later that a fragmented, ambiguous whisper rippled through the grapevine -- Pocky was dead.
Yet as to how he had actually died, or what had caused it, no one could say for sure. A dozen different mouths spat out a hundred conflicting rumors, crawling through the slums like maggots. The crowd gossiped blindly, but none possessed a single hard fact.
It was obvious that someone powerful was keeping a tight lid on the truth, and anyone who actually knew anything had been thoroughly silenced.
A thousand rumors were useless. The torment of knowing a brother was gone without ever seeing his corpse was like being racked over a slow, agonizing fire. But in the hearts of Wei Qian and Fatty San, they refused to believe Pocky could die so silently. They kept searching, yet by some unspoken, mutual understanding, neither of them ever mentioned Brother Le. Especially Wei Qian -- he possessed a bone-deep, instinctive wariness and suspicion toward the man.
Pocky’s mother asked about her son more than once. Wei Qian and Fatty San had to improvise all sorts of wild lies on the spot. Without matching their stories beforehand, one of them would occasionally slip up, forcing them to go to extreme, agonizing lengths to patch up the holes later.
Wei Qian was only human, and his energy was stretched to its absolute limit. Inevitably, he began to neglect his own home.
For Mrs. Song, this was a godsend. She immediately set to work on her grand endeavor of setting fire to Wei Qian’s backyard, varying her tactics every single day to worm her way closer to Little Bao. It was easy enough; a young girl growing up naturally craved an irreplaceable emotional connection with an adult female elder -- the distinct bond only a mother or a grandmother could provide. No matter how close a father or a big brother was, they could never truly replace it.
Moreover, though Wei Qian loved Little Bao, he didn't possess the gentle, pampering touch of an ordinary family. He kept his affection buried deep in his chest, rarely letting it cross his lips. When his patience wore thin or his temper flared, he would snap at the little girl with fierce, sharp words. In Little Bao’s short, neglected life, she had never experienced the meticulous, tender affection of a maternal figure. Her total capitulation was merely a matter of time.
After all, who wouldn't prefer a sweet-talking grandmother who spent every day cooking delicious, varied meals, over a big brother who wore the grim face of a debt collector and couldn't tell the difference between a proper dinner and a slapdash sandwich?
Ever since Mrs. Song’s arrival, the two children's quality of life had noticeably improved.
Yet despite her culinary bribes, Mrs. Song still couldn't buy off Wei Zhi Yuan.
The boy was like an untamable little wolf cub. No matter how hard he tried to behave with polite, understanding manners, he couldn't help but flash sudden gusts of raw hostility toward this "outsider" who had invaded their home.
Originally, Mrs. Song had hoped to recruit him as an ally, but she hadn't expected the kid to possess such a stubborn, unyielding spite at such a tender age. No matter how much she tried to curry favor with him, his loyalties remained firmly planted on the exact same bench as his rogue big brother.
After a long time, Mrs. Song finally gave up on that front. She saw him for what he was: a tight-lipped, deeply calculating little brat who belonged to the breed of dogs that would eat your food and still bite your hand.
So, she shifted her entire focus to specializing in Little Bao.
From time to time, she would tease the girl in a casual, joking tone, asking, "Who's your absolute favorite, Bao? Is Grandma better, or your big brother?" It was a quiet test to measure the progress of her grand plan for a peaceful domestic coup.
Unlike the oblivious Little Bao, the very first time the question was uttered, Wei Zhi Yuan saw straight through the old woman's sinister intentions. He immediately launched a campaign of non-violent, non-cooperative resistance -- he flatly refused to sit at the same dinner table as the old hag and her granddaughter. He would rather starve himself until midnight, waiting in the dark until his big brother stumbled home, just so they could quietly share a few mouthfuls of cold leftovers together.
At first, Little Bao tried to imitate him, vowing to wait up as well, but within two days, the little turncoat with the weak spine surrendered completely to the tantalizing aroma of hot food.
Wei Zhi Yuan had expected such a day. Her laziness was nothing new; the enemy's psychological warfare was simply too powerful, and she was no match for it.
Yet deep down in the dark recesses of Wei Zhi Yuan’s heart, he wasn't entirely displeased by Little Bao’s defection. Instead, a vague, shameful sense of stolen joy blossomed within him.
He knew he shouldn't think like this, but he couldn't stop it.
Without Song Lee Lee, from now on, Brother will belong to me alone. This wicked thought tempted him constantly, like a seed taking root and germinating in the fertile soil of his mind. Even the fiercest fire couldn't burn it out; the moment a spring breeze blew, it would sprout and flourish all over again.
In the beginning, Little Bao would only offer a silly smile to Mrs. Song’s childish probing, which the old woman knew meant "I like my brother best." But slowly, the girl's stance began to soften, shifting to a diplomatic, "I like them both the same." Mrs. Song was immensely complacent, believing she was only a single step away from her goal.
Finally, one day, Little Bao’s answer evolved into: "Whoever is nice to me is my favorite."
Mrs. Song knew then that the time was ripe.
A brief half-year slipped away, and winter arrived. Thin sheets of ice crusted over the local lotus ponds.
Wei Qian and the others finally received definitive confirmation: Pocky was dead. This time, it was the official verdict released by the local police. The report stated that they had recently smashed a major drug smuggling ring, capturing three suspects on the scene. During the arrest, the suspects had violently resisted, and one man had been shot dead on the spot.
The one killed was Pocky.
Before that fateful Mid-Autumn night, when the late summer heat was still fierce, someone had handed Pocky a massive sum of cash, a pistol, a mobile phone, and a kilogram of pure heroin.
At that moment, Pocky had vaguely sensed what was coming. His brain might not have been sharp, but he wasn't so utterly stupid that he couldn't tell north from south. He and his neighborhood brothers had never truly been hardened gangsters; they were merely the desperate fish and shrimp lingering in the cracks of the concrete jungle. Because survival was so brutal, they knew exactly how the black market tides rose and fell—the easier the money flowed at the bottom, the more lethal the danger.
But those people had thoroughly investigated his family. They knew that with his bedridden mother, he could never say no.
Pocky hadn't wanted to drag Third Brother and Qian'er down with him. None of them had it easy; every cent they had was scraped from the teeth of poverty. Whenever Wei Qian handed him cash for his mother's medical bills, Pocky would lay awake in the dead of night, consumed by guilt.
Perhaps if he had possessed just a shred more courage, he wouldn't have plunged off the deep end.
On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, after eating the most expensive mooncakes of his entire life in the hospital ward, he turned around and divided the blood money into three parts. Two shares were stuffed back through the doors of Wei Qian and Fatty San. The final share was wrapped tightly and buried beneath the locust tree in front of his dilapidated bungalow -- a final, calculated sum meant to sustain his mother through her twilight years until she was laid to rest.
Then, muddled and hopeless, he took his gun and the drugs, and followed the instructions on the phone.
Before his eyes closed forever, he didn't even know whose sins he was taking the fall for, or what cause he was dying for.
He was born humble, and he died bewildered.
Wei Qian got blindingly drunk that day in a foul, reeking tavern. Even as a street fighter, he had always approached his enforcer job with diligent discipline; this was the first time in his life he had ever skipped a shift.
Though Pocky had died a confused pawn, Wei Qian’s mind was as clear as a polished mirror.
The nightclub was Brother Le’s empire. The man’s desire for absolute control bordered on the neurotic. Without his explicit blessing, Wei Qian refused to believe anyone could run drugs on his turf. And this operation was massive, making front-page headlines across major newspapers while drawing severe heat from central authorities down to local precincts. Yet Brother Le... Le Xiao Feng still stood solitary and untouched, a towering figure of respectability.
In the end, it was him. It had to be him.
The man Wei Qian had revered like a holy shrine during his teenage years had come crashing down, crushing the life out of his foolish, stuttering brother beneath the rubble.
Wei Qian couldn't bring himself to go home. Facing the house full of children and the old woman, the colossal, suffocating grievance in his chest had to be forcibly swallowed down, pushing him to his absolute breaking point.
By the time Fatty San finally tracked him down, Wei Qian was already a soaking, sodden mess of alcohol and despair.
"Third Brother..." The youth's eyes could barely focus, staring vacantly at the yellowed, soot-blackened corner of the cheap tavern. His voice was so raspy and weak it seemed choked by a phantom weight in his throat.
Fatty San wrenched the bottle from his grip. "We already lost one! What, you trying to drink yourself to death to join him?!"
Wei Qian let himself be pulled, collapsing limply against the wooden table. Lying flat on his back with his head tilted to one side, he whispered softly, "Third Brother... do you think a stutterer like him will be okay down there? When he goes to the underworld, he won't even be able to articulate his own wrongs, will he?"
As he spoke, silent tears welled up and spilled from the corners of his eyes, trickling over the straight bridge of his nose and sliding into his mouth.
Wei Qian slumped like a broken corpse against the table, throwing his elbow over his eyes to block his face. Then, swallowing his own tears, he let out a harsh, hissing laugh.
We only get this one lifetime to be brothers -- so I'll hold onto your memory while I can. There is no afterlife for me to remember you in.
That day marked the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month -- Na Ba. It had snowed heavily, leaving the entire street covered in a treacherous, freezing mush of melting slush and ice.
When Wei Qian pushed open the front door, reeking of stale liquor, Wei Zhi Yuan was tucked away at the small corner table diligently writing his homework. Mrs. Song was busy teaching Little Bao how to peel Na Ba garlic. The old woman and the young girl had been laughing and joking just a second prior, but the exact moment his boots crossed the threshold, a miraculous, dead silence fell over the room.
Wei Qian was rarely a sensitive person, yet the shift in the atmosphere was too violent to ignore. For a fleeting second, he felt like a lawless outlaw who had broken into a stranger's home. An indescribable bitterness surged up alongside a wave of nausea.
Fortunately, Wei Zhi Yuan raised his head, calling out as he always did, "Brother."
Wei Qian’s face must have looked utterly ghastly. Wei Zhi Yuan took one look at him, immediately abandoned his chair, and ran to his side. "Brother, what’s wrong?"
Wei Qian merely waved a dismissive hand, unable to utter a word. He bolted into the restroom and began violently vomiting until his liver textually ached.
He felt his sudden, turbulent emotions coming on inexplicably. He tried to force himself to believe that the sharp pang of alienation he felt upon entering his own home was just petty paranoia. He was already burnt out enough; he didn't want to make trouble out of nothing. He desperately tried to comfort himself by insisting he was merely overthinking, yet it was futile. His chest throbbed with a heavy, suffocating ache.
Wei Zhi Yuan immediately poured a cup of warm water and brought it to him. Wrapping his arms around the older youth's waist like a miniature adult, he gently patted his back. Only after Wei Qian spat out the last of the bitter stomach acid could he barely straighten his spine, taking the cup to rinse his mouth.
His head felt like it was splitting open and his heart was shattered, yet facing Wei Zhi Yuan, he only managed a casual, raspy question: "Finished your homework?"
Wei Zhi Yuan nodded, reaching out to steady him, but Wei Qian staggered slightly and shrugged him off.
Beneath Wei Qian’s miserably calm facade, the tempest in his soul had stirred his insides into a volatile volcano ready to erupt at any second. And the moment he overheard what Mrs. Song was murmuring to his sister, that precarious, dangerous equilibrium finally shattered.
He heard the wretched old bitch pointing a finger and lecturing Little Bao: "Our Lee Lee has to study hard from now on. In the future, you’ll go to a grand university and become a scientist. You absolutely cannot learn bad habits from unsavory, lawless people, do you hear me?"
As if the words weren't enough, she deliberately shot a pointed glance back at the grim, silent Wei Qian standing by the door, entirely unafraid of being overheard. After half a year of calculating and probing, the old woman had long since realized that this boy surnamed Wei prided himself on being a "man of the streets." He was far too proud, bound by his own rigid street code; he would never lower himself to squabble with an old crone. At worst, he would only glare at her with a weak, empty show of ferocity to scare her off.
Even Wei Zhi Yuan caught the sinister subtext. He looked up at his little sister, then at his big brother, and finally glared at Old Mrs. Song with a venomous, unadulterated hatred.
Old Mrs. Song continued ruthlessly, "If you don't go to school properly, you'll end up as the dregs of society, understand? Those people who loiter around the streets all day are nothing but trash. Grandma told you before, what are they called?"
Little Bao, operating on her usual half-witted frequency, blurted out, "Rascals!"
The old woman wore a solemn, righteous expression as she reached out to pinch the girl's cheek. "Exactly! Stinky hooligans! We are proper girls, we can't associate with stinky hooligans all the time. Otherwise, who would ever dare marry you in the future? Your reputation would be entirely ruined."
Wei Zhi Yuan’s face fell instantly. He said, word by word, "My big brother is not a rogue!"
Little Bao froze, completely bewildered. She looked at him, then at her big brother, and finally at her grandmother. Only then did her slow brain realize that a catastrophic storm was brewing within the family.
Anxious and furious, Wei Zhi Yuan slammed his water cup aside and marched forward, pointing a finger directly at the old woman's nose. "My big brother is not a hooligan!"
"Alright, shut up and go do your homework inside." Wei Qian subdued him with a single heavy pat on the shoulder. Hoisting them both up, he tossed Wei Zhi Yuan and Little Bao into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind them.
Wei Qian knew his own life was rough and unpolished, and the domestic friction occasionally made him uncomfortable, but he usually brushed it off. However, Mrs. Song’s words had been laid out so explicitly that it was impossible to ignore. How could he not understand what she was plotting?
Wei Qian sat down heavily across from Old Mrs. Song, sprawling his legs wide in a dominant, hostile posture. Sizing her up with a lethal, unfriendly stare, he said nonchalantly, "Old hag, what the hell do you want?"
Old Mrs. Song finally straightened her spine, her entire frame resembling a mortar loaded and ready to fire.
Then, she formally declared war on Wei Qian: "I am taking Lee Lee away! "