The next morning at breakfast, Wei Zhi Yuan told Old Mrs. Song and Little Bao, "The teacher is keeping me for after-school tutoring these next two nights. I'll be home late, so don't wait on me for dinner."
Neither Old Mrs. Song nor Little Bao suspected a thing. Unlike Wei Chain, whose adolescent track record was stained with street violence and scrapes with the law, Wei Zhi Yuan was an honor student straight out of a textbook. He was polite, neat, disciplined, and possessed an iron will of self-control. In Little Bao’s school, his brilliance was practically legendary.
Hearing this, Old Mrs. Song immediately pivoted her barrage toward Song Lee Lee: "Hear that? Learn from your brothers! Your big brother is an Ace University man, your second brother represents the school in Olympiads -- what about you?!"
Little Bao shrugged without an ounce of shame. "Let them conquer the world. I'll stay home and guard the fort."
Old Mrs. Song raised her greasy spatula to swat her. Moving like a nimble little monkey, Little Bao vaulted to the front door in two bounds, obsequiously yanking it open for Wei Zhi Yuan with a theatrical bow: "Second Brother, after you!"
Wei Zhi Yuan nodded with princely gravitas, jingled the bicycle keys, and strode through the doorway. Song Lee Lee scurried behind him like a court eunuch tending an emperor, turning back to blow a wet raspberry at the old woman.
Because Song Lee Lee’s growth rate was slower than Old Bear’s speech patterns, while Wei Zhi Yuan sprouted like a weed after rain, their original illusion of being the same age had shattered into an obvious generational gulf.
Old Mrs. Song slammed the spatula onto the counter, spitting into the sink. "Rotten mud that can't stick to a brick wall... Utterly hopeless!"
That night, Wei Zhi Yuan didn't return until nearly eight o'clock.
Old Mrs. Song had already left for her evening shift at the hot pot diner. Song Lee Lee poked her head out of her room, chewing on a pencil: "Second Brother, back already? Dinner's in the kitchen. Grandma left you two boiled eggs in the broth!"
Wei Zhi Yuan grunted in response, lifting the pot lid only to find a solitary egg rolling in the bottom.
Song Lee Lee chimed in hurriedly, "I stole one!"
Wei Zhi Yuan: "..."
Song Lee Lee giggled, wiping her nose. "Oh, right! Look what I found!"
She scurried into the front room, retrieving a creased postcard from beneath the glass top of the coffee table. It was postmarked from Qing Hai, bearing Wei Chain’s hurried, faded chicken scratch from over a month ago. He had likely passed a post office in high spirits, remembered some offhand advice, and mailed it home to coax the kids.
Yet he hadn't even bothered coaxing them with real prose. Beyond the delivery address, there was not a single line of text -- only two crude ink turtles drawn side by side. One was bald to represent a male; the other wore a flower on its shell to denote a female. The two turtles played quietly together, conveying Wei Chain’s entire fraternal message: You two little cubs stay home, behave yourselves, and don't cause trouble.
The eccentric owner of that secondhand math textbook had left an indelible scar on Wei Chain’s artistic sensibilities.
...The older brother was doomed to a lifetime of scribbling crude tortoises.
Wei Zhi Yuan’s pulse spiked. It had been over two weeks since they had heard a single word from him. Remembering his brother's wrist soaked in floral water and sharp alcohol, he asked, "Has he called?"
"No," Song Lee Lee replied, leaning against the doorframe. "Second Brother, do they have dried yak jerky in Qing Hai? Is it tasty?"
Wei Zhi Yuan let out a weary sigh, abandoning all hope of adult communication. "Is food the only thing inside your skull?"
"Hey, don't try to lecture me like Big Brother! You're terrible at it," Song Lee Lee waved her hands, pulling a grotesque, cross-eyed scowl as she dropped her voice an octave: "Stupid brat, is eating all you know?!"
Her mimicry of Wei Chain’s tyrannical scolding was uncanny. Wei Zhi Yuan couldn't help a dry smirk; the vivid image of their older brother chewing out the little girl felt close enough to touch.
Once Little Bao retreated to her worksheets, Wei Zhi Yuan sat alone at his desk. Opening his locked notebook, he penned several neat lines beneath the entry for the meat-processing plant: Warehouse loader, graveyard rotation, three shifts. Below it, he drafted the plant's security schedule entirely from memory.
While other thirteen-year-olds dedicated their private journals to adolescent crushes and clumsy poetry, Wei Zhi Yuan’s journal read like the surveillance log of an executioner.
Over the past month, his notes on that degenerate predator -- name, family status, shift routines, walking routes -- had grown terrifyingly comprehensive.
Initially, Wei Zhi Yuan had only monitored the district cultural center. But the young female dance instructor was fiercely protective, keeping the man hovering uselessly at a distance. Once the Children's Day festivities passed, the rehearsals ceased, and the man was forced to abandon the perimeter. A coward by nature, he wouldn't dare lay a finger on a child in the presence of an adult, even an adult as frail as a bird.
Wei Zhi Yuan had trailed him in silence. At this stage, he was merely compiling intelligence without a concrete endgame; unlike Wei Chain’s volatile, knife-edge temper, Wei Zhi Yuan never acted until he had constructed an unshakeable justification in his own mind.
Shutting the notebook, he locked it away before staring quietly at the plastic water tumbler on the nightstand. The cup belonged to Wei Chain. Though Wei Zhi Yuan had his own mug, he preferred stealing sips from his brother's; the plain tap water seemed to possess a richer, cleaner taste when drawn from Wei Chain’s cup.
Wei Chain never minded such domestic trivialities, so long as the boy refilled the boiled water when it emptied.
Memories of Wei Chain flooded his chest, dragging a surge of cold resentment in their wake.
Wei Zhi Yuan resolved to wage a war of frozen silence against the man who treated him like an infant. If Wei Chain ever bothered calling again, he wouldn't utter a single syllable.
Yet another two weeks evaporated, and no call ever came. Following that single faded postcard, the line went dead.
The summer heat mounted like a suffocating blanket.
Even Old Mrs. Song could no longer keep her composure, ordering Song Lee Lee to dial Wei Chain’s mobile number. In the old woman’s worldview, the invisible drain of telephone rates was terrifying; unless the house was burning to the ground, she never touched the receiver, nor would she allow anyone else to.
The mechanical operator chimed: The subscriber you have dialed is currently powered off.
Panic gripped the old woman. She moved toward the stairwell to fetch Fatty San. In her eyes, though Wei Chain had a tongue like a rusted cleaver, he was the sole pillar supporting the roof. With the pillar missing, she had no one to turn to.
Wei Zhi Yuan stepped forward, his arm barring her path with absolute stillness. "Looking for him is pointless. Third Brother will just redial the same number. If Little Bao can't connect, how could he?"
Old Mrs. Song craned her neck, staring up at the youth who had already surpassed her in height. "Then what do we do?!"
Wei Zhi Yuan paused. "Who was the man my brother left with? The pharmacy owner?"
She nodded frantically.
"Give me the address."
It was a Saturday. Clutching the postcard and the scribbled shop location, Wei Zhi Yuan pedaled toward Old Bear’s apothecary. His thoughts advanced with mathematical rigor, each logical deduction pushing into the next with unnatural, chilling detachment.
Watching his receding silhouette from the balcony, Old Mrs. Song felt an icy shiver race down her spine.
When a loved one vanishes into the wild, shouldn't a person show panic? Grief? Dread?
Even if only for an hour... Wei Zhi Yuan’s composure far exceeded his years, carrying a coldness that felt almost inhuman.
She had always believed the boy was articulate and sensible; now, she wondered if he possessed any human blood at all.
Reaching the shop, Wei Zhi Yuan was met by a temporary clerk who fit Old Bear’s careless hiring standards perfectly -- a bewildered teenager who answered every question with blank confusion.
Wei Zhiyuan asked him for Old Bear’s contact info, smooth-talked the clerk into letting him borrow the shop's landline, and dialed the number -- only to find that Old Bear's phone was also turned off.
A heavy stone plummeted straight into Wei Zhi Yuan’s gut, freezing his organs in place. He had to clench his fists to keep his knees from buckling under the sudden weight.
After prolonged rummaging through the desk drawers, the clerk finally unearthed an emergency contact sheet. At the bottom was a residential landline number for the owner's wife.
Wei Zhi Yuan punched the digits.
The receiver clicked, and an anxious, trembling woman's voice burst through the line before he could speak: "Old Bear?! Is that you, Old Bear?!"
That single sentence shattered the final ember of hope in his chest.
His brother had truly vanished into the void.
Stepping out of the pharmacy, Wei Zhi Yuan rode straight to the local district police station. The officer on duty, seeing a solitary boy at the counter, listened with unusual patience.
Yet Wei Zhiyuan had virtually no concrete information to offer. Wei Chain had called only a handful of times during the first week out of town; because Wei Zhi Yuan had been sulking, the calls had consisted of little more than brief exchanges with Little Bao and a quick safety check with Grandma.
Handing over the postcard, the officer inspected the postmark and shook her head. "Young man, we can file a missing persons report and trace the transit route from this postmark. But this only proves he was passing through Qing Hai a month ago. He didn't necessarily go missing within that jurisdiction, understand? You don't know the date, the location, or the vehicle. The likelihood of finding him out there is nearly non-existent. You need to prepare yourself."
Wei Zhi Yuan stared at her, his vision blurring as if an invisible fist had slammed into his temples. It took several seconds for him to pull his gaze away.
Reading the devastation behind his stillness, the officer asked gently, "Are there other adults at home?"
"Only our grandmother. She's very old." He lowered his head, pausing for a long second. "Thank you, Officer."
He turned and walked out into the glaring afternoon sun.
He had exhausted every resource within his power.
There was nothing left to be done.
Pedaling down the empty asphalt, Wei Zhi Yuan kept a steady, mechanical rhythm. Reaching a deserted stretch flanked by industrial weeds, he jammed his heels onto the gravel, slumping over the handlebars and burying his face into the crook of his forearm.
His spine bent like an overdrawn bow. The suffocating boulder in his chest finally broke loose, tearing through his ribs with a dull, excruciating agony.
What do I do now?
The chaotic noise of the world faded into an impenetrable silence, leaving behind only that solitary, unanswered question.
His brother had gone so far.
What if he... what if he never came back?
The vast, indifferent frontier on one side; a flickering, dying firefly on the other.
Ever since his earliest memories on the streets, the poison of powerlessness had saturated every waking breath of his existence.
It was nearly dark when Wei Zhi Yuan pushed the front door open.
Old Mrs. Song and Little Bao looked up simultaneously from the sofa, their faces pale.
"How was it?" the old woman rasped.
Wei Zhi Yuan strode into the center of the living room, sitting squarely on the wooden bench with a wooden expression.
Methodically, he laid out everything he had uncovered, step by step, before clearing his dry throat. His gaze swept over the two women.
In a quiet, steady voice, he delivered his verdict: "We have no other options. We can only wait for official word from the bureaus. If Brother... if he doesn't return, I will drop out of school to support the household."
Old Mrs. Song leaped up, stomping her feet in a fury: "Phooey! Phooey! Spit that poison out! A child's careless chatter! What kind of cursed nonsense are you spewing?!"
"Grandma." Wei Zhi Yuan straightened his spine, meeting her wild eyes with terrifying calm. "I was told that when Brother lost his parents, he was roughly my age. From this day forward, whatever he could carry, I can carry. Whatever he shouldered for this family, I will shoulder. Don't worry."
The old woman stared at him, her tongue frozen.
Tears welled in Little Bao’s eyes, spilling down her cheeks in heavy drops. Tugging at his sleeve, she sobbed, "Second Brother, my grades are terrible anyway... Let me drop out instead. I'll find work washing dishes -- I'd be glad to skip class!"
Wei Zhi Yuan’s gaze softened as he looked down at her. Reaching out with awkward, unpracticed care, he rested his palm gently on the crown of her head -- the exact gesture his brother had given him a thousand times.
"What could you do?" he murmured. "You're smaller than a sparrow and have no strength. You'd be torn apart on the streets."
Song Lee Lee wept harder.
"Brother clawed through blood and bone to bring us this far. As long as he has a breath in his lungs, he'll return before the autumn semester begins. Don't cry. We're fine." He forced a small, reassuring smile toward the old woman. "From now on, whenever it rains or turns dark, I'll ride out to ferry you home from the market."
He held the room together with absolute authority, assuming the mantle of the new patriarch.
Yet when midnight fell, sitting alone behind his desk, he could not comprehend how Wei Chain had managed to raise a family and anchor this leaking, broken roof through all those desperate years.
As a child, he had prattled endlessly about "growing up to support the house." But now that the shield was gone, the terror rising from the pit of his stomach threatened to crush his spine.
It was more terrifying than wandering the freezing alleys as a stray; more terrifying than confronting armed predators with an iron pipe; more terrifying even than fleeing for his life through the southern underworld.
Because he was no longer allowed to be reckless. He could no longer rely on instinct and luck.
He had an elderly grandmother to support, and a little girl to raise, and Pocky’s crippled mother in the bungalow across the lane -- a woman Wei Chain would never allow him to abandon.
The darkness bore down on him like iron.
What would Big Brother do?
Leaning against the hard wood, he closed his eyes, systematically reconstructing every habit, every calculation, and every movement of Wei Chain’s life. Like solving an impossible mathematical proof, he derived each domestic necessity, one by one.
Yet, even as he prepared for the worst, Wei Zhiyuan refused to accept that Wei Qian had vanished without a trace. Deep down, he held onto a stubborn, unyielding conviction: even if this summer passed without him, Big Brother would surely return before the arrival of next autumn.
It was the very last straw floating on the water, the only thing keeping him from drowning.
As the semester finals approached, Wei Zhi Yuan stopped by the district precinct every evening. Occasionally, the police officers shared a hot meat bun with him, but the search yielded nothing.
Every empty return pushed his sanity closer to the precipice.
One evening, cycling back through the desolate lane beside the primary school branch, a familiar silhouette caught his eye. With the domestic crisis consuming his mind, he had abandoned his stakeout for weeks.
Under the dim yellow streetlight, the greasy-haired predator was hunched over a seven-year-old boy, dangling two cheap lollipops.
The child appeared intellectually delayed, struggling to comprehend the man's rapid, slurring speech, yet retreating an instinctive step from the rank stench rolling off the predator.
The man reached out a clammy, yellowed hand toward the boy's collar -- just as a speeding bicycle slammed hard into his kidney.
Wei Zhi Yuan skidded his tires across the gravel, sneering with icy contempt: "A good dog doesn't block the road."
In the gloom, and with Wei Zhi Yuan’s sudden surge in height, the man failed to recognize him entirely. Staggering from the collision, the predator recoiled in panic.
Scooping the stunned child up by his waistband, Wei Zhi Yuan tossed him onto the horizontal crossbar of the bike, barking coldly, "Sit still and don't squirm."
He kicked the pedals, racing out of the alley.
The little boy blinked up at him with hollow confusion. "Big Brother... I don't know you."
"I don't know you either," Wei Zhi Yuan snapped.
The logic short-circuited the child's mind. Wei Zhi Yuan pedaled until they cleared the industrial sector, dropping the boy off at the bustling market intersection. "Go home."
The terror, grief, and suffocating helplessness of the past month finally found an outlet.
The encounter had handed him a target.
He was going to kill that man.
Only by taking a life could he claw back a shred of control over his own unraveling existence.