Wei Chain didn't breathe a word of his plans to anyone.
Over the weekend, he pedaled his bell-less, rusted bicycle to a secondhand bookstall outside the local high school. For a bargain price, he hauled away two neat stacks of freshman and sophomore textbooks. Afterward, he packed a modest bundle of essentials and stopped by the freight yard to formally resign and collect his final wages.
At 4:30 on Monday morning, Wei Chain slipped out of bed while the house remained shrouded in sleep. Old Mrs. Song had boiled her tea eggs at three; she always kept them simmering over a low flame so the rich spice could soak through, catching an extra hour of rest before rising at five to cut the fire.
Not wanting to cause a commotion, Wei Chain counted out a modest sum of one hundred and fifty yuan for himself like a burglar in the dark. He stacked the remaining banknotes into a neat pile on the dining table, anchoring it securely beneath a heavy porcelain teacup. Beside it, he left a curt, uninformative note roughly estimating his date of return -- omitting both his destination and his business.
The instant he turned around, he caught Wei Zhi Yuan staring at him with wide, luminous eyes.
The boy had sat up without making a sound.
The second the child parted his lips, Wei Chain clamped a hand over his mouth. The boy looked up in silent confusion. Sitting on the edge of the cot, Wei Chain pushed him back down, pulling the thin sheet over his chest. "Keep your voice down," he whispered. "Grandma's tea eggs are still on the stove. Let her sleep. Why the hell are you up so early anyway?"
Wei Zhi Yuan’s gaze drifted to the travel bundle on the floor, his voice dropping to a murmur. "Where are you going?"
"Running an errand out of town," Wei Chain replied evasively.
"What kind of errand?"
Wei Chain glared down at him. "None of your business."
Without warning, Wei Zhi Yuan scrambled up and threw his arms around Wei Chain’s waist, clinging to him like a burr. "I'm coming with you!"
The boy had packed on noticeable weight in recent months; hanging off his brother's torso, he felt surprisingly heavy. Wei Chain frowned and hauled the kid off him. "Stop messing around. How old are you to be throwing a tantrum?"
Wei Chain was genuinely baffled. The kid was usually quiet, perceptive, and rarely a nuisance -- what was sparking this sudden defiance?
In truth, Wei Zhi Yuan couldn't articulate the reason himself. Usually, a single furrow of his brother's brow was enough to make him fall into obedient silence. But on this particular morning, a frantic, suffocating panic clawed at his chest.
He hadn't been awakened by Wei Chain’s movements; he had bolted upright from a terrible nightmare. The moment he opened his eyes, the details of the dream evaporated, yet his pulse hammered violently against his ribs -- a persistent, hollow sensation of stepping into an abyss.
A primal instinct warned him that he couldn't let his brother leave alone.
"Take you along for what? To fatten you up for slaughter?" Wei Chain peeled the boy's fingers away with growing irritation. "Stop causing a scene, Wei Zhi Yuan. Do you listen to me or not?"
Conditioned by long habits of obedience, the boy sat up straight and nodded automatically.
"Then lie down and go back to sleep," Wei Chain said, giving the kid a solid swat across the back.
He bent down, hoisted his travel pack over his shoulder, and walked toward the front door.
Two steps from the threshold, he paused.
Knowing the lethal risks awaiting him on this journey, a quiet ache of parting stirred in Wei Chain’s chest. Softening his tone, he offered a rare reassurance: "When the school term starts, Brother will be back. I'll bring you back some good treats, all right?"
Instead of being placated, Wei Zhi Yuan wriggled forward like a slippery loach. Diving off the cot, he threw both arms around Wei Chain’s thighs, crying out, "Don't treat me like that idiot Little Bao! I'm coming with you!"
Wei Chain was sorely tempted to shake him off with a kick.
Reading the rising storm in his brother's eyes, Wei Zhi Yuan recognized that his patience was wearing thin. Shrewdly exploiting the situation, he added, "If you don't take me, I'll scream and wake the whole house!"
He had quickly mastered the art of leverage. He knew Wei Chain had chosen this pre-dawn hour precisely to avoid the hysterical scolding of the two women.
Unfortunately for the boy, Wei Chain was the master of all stubbornness.
Prying the child's hands loose with ease, Wei Chain let out a cold sneer. "Scream all you want."
Wei Zhi Yuan: "..."
Raising an eyebrow, Wei Chain slung his bag higher and slipped out into the corridor.
Wei Zhi Yuan sat frozen on the cot for three seconds. Then, making a split-second calculation, he scrambled into his clothes, ducked into the washroom for a sixty-second scrub, and bolted out the door in his slippers without bothering to put on socks.
Buses weren't running at this hour, but the train station was within walking distance of the shantytown. Wei Chain kept a brisk pace along the alleys.
The moment he cleared the narrow lane, a patter of erratic footsteps echoed behind him. Wei Chain spun around, his temper flaring at the sight of the boy trailing with a tuft of bedhead sticking straight up. "What the hell are you doing following me out here? Get back home!"
Like a puppy caught red-handed, Wei Zhi Yuan froze in his tracks. He lowered his head, hands clasped behind his back, staring intently at the tips of his slippers as if trying to turn invisible.
Wei Chain clicked his tongue and resumed walking.
...Behind him, the rapid shuffle of slippers resumed.
Whenever Wei Chain stopped and looked back, Wei Zhi Yuan froze with a look of wide-eyed innocence. Whenever Wei Chain walked forward, the child trailed behind, maintaining a strict buffer of twenty meters.
Wei Chain feigned a sudden charge to snatch him, and the boy spun around and sprinted like a startled hare, glancing back over his shoulder to check the pursuit.
Darting around a sharp brick corner, Wei Zhi Yuan realized the heavy footsteps behind him had stopped. He cautiously took two steps back and poked his head around the wall -- his brother had vanished into thin air.
Wei Chain had slipped into an adjoining alley and lost him during the chase.
Having kept his itinerary secret, Wei Chain had left no obvious trail.
The boy frowned, piecing together his limited clues on the spot. Recalling Wei Chain’s promise -- "Brother will be back when the school term starts" -- meant his brother would be away for well over a month. That implied a distant journey, narrowing the departure point to either the central train station or the long-distance coach terminal.
It wasn't even five in the morning; dawn hadn't broken. Drawing on his early years on the streets, Wei Zhi Yuan knew long-distance coaches rarely departed before six. He calculated that his brother's most probable destination was the railway station.
Setting his jaw, he took off running.
In those days, railway hubs lacked modern security barriers and electronic identity checks. Every night, migrant workers and vagrants who couldn't afford a bed camped out in the waiting halls, packing the concourse with a dense sea of travelers.
Blending into the transient crowd, Wei Zhi Yuan tucked himself into an unlit corner, keeping his eyes locked onto the station entrance. His lungs burned from sprinting, but the effort paid off: five minutes later, Wei Chain strode through the gates.
Wei Zhi Yuan nearly leaped out to tackle him, but caught himself just in time.
He knew that if he were spotted now, his brother would either drag him home or shake him off again. Slipping against the shadowy wall, he shadowed Wei Chain from a distance.
With only one daily direct service heading south toward Guangdong, the waiting hall was packed even at 5:30 in the morning.
Crowds were an advantage for a runaway. The denser the sea of people, the easier it was to slip aboard without a ticket -- a skill Wei Zhi Yuan had honed during his earlier years.
He watched his brother take a seat in an empty corner, pull a weathered textbook from his bag, and read quietly amid the surrounding clamor.
Wei Zhi Yuan waited patiently for an opportunity to board.
His target soon appeared: a rural couple weighed down by massive cloth bundles, herding what looked like an entire soccer team of unruly children.
The kids darted in every direction while the father sat stiffly nearby, nervously checking a thick stack of paper tickets.
When the boarding gates opened, Wei Zhi Yuan fell in behind the family, blending seamlessly among the cluster of children.
Overwhelmed by the crush of passengers, the gate conductor punched the father's stack of tickets without bothering to count the heads, waving the whole pack through.
Reaching the platform without incident, Wei Zhi Yuan peeled away from the family and followed Wei Chain to his assigned carriage.
A massive bottleneck jammed the carriage doors as travelers shoved their way forward. The conductor at the threshold could only shout for order while mechanically inspecting tickets.
The moment the conductor looked down, Wei Zhi Yuan slipped through the gap like an eel. Standing on tiptoe to confirm his brother was in the same car, he retreated to the small washing cubicle near the doorway, settling in out of sight.
The green-skinned train was brutally packed, with standing passengers choking the aisles and vestibules. Aside from the food vendor wheeling the snack cart, scarcely a fly could squeeze through. Enduring over thirty hours in a hard-seat car required sheer physical endurance.
Because standing tickets had oversold drastically, the vestibules were crammed to capacity, forcing the two lavatories at the end of the car to be informally segregated by gender -- men crammed into the male-designated cubicle, while women packed the other.
Anyone needing the toilet had to maneuver through a crowd of strangers, and pushing back out required immense effort.
An older traveler, taking pity on the solitary boy perched in the corner, handed Wei Zhi Yuan a small folding stool. Wedged beside the metal sink, leaning his head against the grime-streaked wall, the boy drifted into a fitful sleep.
As the hours dragged on, hunger and chill set in.
Entering an adolescent growth spurt, Wei Zhi Yuan was constantly famished. Having gone from dawn to dusk without a morsel of food or a drop of water, his stomach felt hollowed out, leaving him with little choice but to sleep to stave off the pangs.
He felt as though he had barely dozed off when a rough hand shook his shoulder.
Opening his eyes, the boy jolted upright -- face to face with a thunderous Wei Chain.
Having fought his way out of the congested lavatory, Wei Chain had stepped over to the sink to splash cold water on his face. Glancing down, he froze in disbelief.
Washing his eyes with freezing tap water to ensure he wasn't hallucinating, Wei Chain leaned in for a closer look. It really was Wei Zhi Yuan, the stubborn little stray.
He thought he had neatly shaken the boy off in the alleys, expecting him to return home. Yet the child had managed to track down the station, dodge the ticket barriers, and board the exact same carriage.
Staring at the dark circles ringing Wei Zhi Yuan’s sunken eyes, Wei Chain wondered if this little cub was turning into some sort of uncanny demon spirit.