Chapter 11: Blessings never came in pairs and misfortunes did not come singly.
Wei Qian got up late that morning, he had had a disjointed vague dream the night before. The content of which he could not remember as soon as he opened his eyes, but it was certainly not very pleasant, and he had a hard time getting up as his chest felt like it was being uncomfortably pressed.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a couple of seconds and suddenly remembered that the two pups had to go to school and breakfast was still to be served, so he hurriedly got up. Who knew that when he went to the kitchen, he would find Wei Zhiyuan stirring the frozen dumplings in a pot of boiling water with a big spoon and a serious expression.
Wei Qian leaned against the kitchen door and asked softly, "Why didn't you call me out?"
Wei Zhiyuan smiled at him with his teeth bared, revealing two lovable tiny white tiger teeth.
Wei Qian touched him on the head and turned to go into the bathroom. He rubbed his eyes hard - his eyelids were twitching non-stop, he did not know what was going on. (1)
Only when he had finished washing his face did Wei Qian remember that this morning he had originally wanted Ma Zi to fry some youtiao (2) for him.
Wei Zhiyuan meticulously finished cooking the pot of dumplings, as though he were performing a chemistry experiment. The three of them had just sat down at the table when suddenly, there was a loud bang downstairs, as if something had fallen over, followed by a blood-curdling screech, followed by chaos.
Wei Qian pushed open the window with his bowl in hand and looked down, then he jumped up as if his butt was on fire, not even bothering to eat, grabbed his wallet and ran downstairs.
He only had time to hastily instruct, "You two go to school by yourselves, take care on the way."
In a few minutes, the Sanpang followed him downstairs, and by now a circle of people had gathered downstairs.
The accident was at Mazi's family's breakfast stall.
He helped his mother set up the stall in the early hours of the morning, frying youtiao and soya milk, and didn’t close until around 9:30.
The stall was an open-air one, with a few simple tables and chairs, a soybean milk bucket and a frying pan.
The cause was that a taxi had driven by. The road was usually closed to vehicles because it was too narrow, a car could take up almost all the road. The driver didn't know if he had lost his way or how he had barged in by mistake, but as the taxi drove cautiously forward, a motorized tricycle (3) suddenly turned in at the intersection.
The owner of the motor tricycle was in a hurry and was driving fast. He turned over and realised that there was a car in front of him, but it was too late to brake.
The owner of the electric tricycle instinctively twisted the handlebars, and the car rushed onto the roadside, hitting the stall with the frying pan on it without any cushion. Mazi's mother happened to be frying doughnuts behind the frying pan. A pan of hot oil fell, all of its contents spilling on her. The tricycle could not stop so even then both the person and pan were dragged one meter away.
When Wei Qian violently pushed his way through the crowd, his scalp simply exploded, as it was a hot day Mazi's mother was only wearing very thin short sleeves and capris. A large area of her skin was exposed to the hot oil and was instantly unrecognisable.
For a moment, Wei Qian felt like she was entirely cooked.
The air even gave off some kind of weird meat smell.
Mazi's whole body was dumbstruck, his eyes were so open that they were about to come out of their sockets, and he was staring motionlessly as if he had become a statue.
Wei Qian slapped him across the face and yelled into Mazi's ear, "What the fuck are you looking at! What? Your mother is cooked, go call an ambulance!"
He turned to the man next to him and growled, "Tricycle! Get that tricycle out of the way!"
Several passers-by busily stepped forward and moved the tricycle away with their arms and legs. The tricycle owner saw the situation and instinctively tried to slip away, but Wei Qian yanked him back with one hand and kicked him in the knee socket, and he was viciously accustomed to the ground.
Sanpang shouted from behind: "Qian'er! Forget about that guy, I've reported it to the police, turn him over to the police/prospectors, this fucking pan is stuck to her flesh, what should we do?"
Wei Qian turned around and shouted at him, "How should I know?!"
In the end, it was Sanpang's parents who brought over a tub of cool water from a large bathtub and carefully poured it over the boiling hot frying pan, not knowing whether it was handled correctly or not, and then the ambulance and police car arrived and took Mazi's mother away for resuscitation.
Wei Qian was unaware of the reason why when an accident happened, the first thing he did was pick up his wallet and rush down the stairs. It was probably because he subconsciously felt that only money could give him a sense of security.
But it is also fortunate that Mazi the fool only had 12.5 yuan on him, he was dim-witted and knew nothing. Wei Qian followed after, like a one-armed warrior, and ran up and down under heavy pressure.
By noon, Sanpang and a police officer/inspector came over, bringing two other parties to the accident.
It was too unfortunate. Among the two men, one was a taxi driver and the other a grocery vendor. The driver's face was ashen as if he had lost his mother, and the peddler's legs were shivering as a result of Wei Qian's kick, as he was standing still, his legs were shaking like a leaf drifting in the wind.
It was a traffic accident, the solution would be money. If Mazi’s mother died it would be manageable, but in the case that she survived, those kinds of severe burns, it would definitely impact her future situation. Maybe they would be responsible for a lifetime.
The worst thing was that neither of them had any money.
But in the hallway of the hospital, in front of silent eyes that looked as if they were going to skin them, the words "I hope the person being resuscitated is dead" could not be said in any way.
The peddler on the tricycle suddenly fell to his knees with a loud "poof" and cried out from the bottom of his heart.
The police officer accompanying asked Sanpang: "Who are you?"
Sanpang: "A neighbour."
The police officer said, "Oh," and asked, "Is the child her son? Who else is in that woman's family? Where's her husband?"
Sanpang: "Dead, just an orphan and widow."
The police officer was moved, but in this situation, he did not know what emotions to express or any advice to give. After a while, he sighed: "This is not easy to do, there is no money, the party responsible for the accident certainly cannot afford to pay compensation, you ah ...... alas, it is better to let the family be psychologically prepared. "
Sanpang raised his eyes and asked at a loss: "Then ...... What’s to be done if they don’t pay for the damages?"
The police officer thought: "The family can sue - but to tell you the truth, save it, suing is also useless. This kind of thing, the court will most likely sentence the offender to provide compensation to the party involved in the accident, but a sentence or not it makes no difference if they cannot afford to pay.”
As if to prove his words, the kneeling peddler suddenly kowtowed hard on the floor, causing the floor to tremble. As if he was colliding to his death, his mouth slurred as he shouted, "Let me pay for her life ...... I have a sick mother-in-law at home and my child is only five years old ...... What am I going to do? I can't help it, please, please ...... let me pay for her life!"
The silent Mazi suddenly rushed up and punched and kicked the man like a madman, the crowd rushed up to stop him, Wei Qian strained as he held him by the waist with one arm: "All right, all right, what's the use of beating him to death?"
A hoarse roar erupted from Mazi’s throat, like a wounded beast that had roared out all its strength.
And then he suddenly staggered a few steps as if his whole body had been stripped of its strength, sliding down with his back against the wall, covering his face, his shoulders shaking violently.
The victim was still being resuscitated, life and death unknown, and the perpetrator and the victim's family were outside, face to face, crying bitterly.
The police officer accompanying was probably a young man who had not been on the job for long, his face was still childish and he had not yet gotten used to the unavoidable births and deaths in the world. As he was leaving, he rummaged through his whole body and could not find anything of value, so he had to say to Sanpang in a rather self-deprecating manner, "I'm a poor man too."
Then he took out his papers and cards and left his wallet, which contained a total of two hundred and thirty yuan, and a handful of dimes.
Wei Qian and Sanpang stayed with Mazi at the hospital all day, and in the evening, Wei Qian's eyelids inexplicably began to twitch wildly again.
He greeted Sanpang and went out to get some air. After smoking a cigarette, he calculated that it was about time and that the two children had arrived home, so he used the landline phone at the hospital entrance to dial his home number.
At that time there were already mobile phones on the market, which were not affordable for people like them, but the home landline phone price had gone down with the launch of mobile phones and had become cheaper.
Despite this, only Le Ge and a few good brothers knew Wei Qian's home phone number, and it was a family rule of the Wei family that the phone was strictly forbidden to be abused - there was a charge for the phone.
The phone went through, but no one answered.
Wei Qian frowned, hung up the phone, waited for a while, dialled again, but still, no one answered.
When the third call went unanswered, Wei Qian's heart was already beating wildly, and someone behind him who was waiting in line to make a call spoke up impatiently to urge him, "Hey, young man, have you finished making the call yet? There are so many people waiting!"
Wei Qian looked up at him with a murderous look, and the other man dared not squeal, cursing and muttering a few words before turning his head to look for another public phone.
Undeterred, Wei Qian called several more times, and over and over again, no one answered, his fingertips were so cold that they went numb.
"Qian'er, what's wrong?" Sanpang saw that he hadn't come back for a long time and came out to look for him.
Wei Qian barely composed himself, licked his dry, cracked lips, forced himself to lower his voice and slowed down his speech, "I ...... I don't know, no one answered the phone at home, those two little brats ......"
He couldn't go on, realizing he might have to start yelling if he said any more.
Sanpang pushed his shoulder: "You go back first, I'm here to keep an eye on things. I'll find you some more people to help - the two brats are unattended today so maybe they went out to play, don’t worry.”
Wei Qian took to his heels and ran.
Sanpang froze: "Slow the fuck down, watch the cars!"
He felt that he had come from a poor background, but among all the people he had met in his life, there were no other children who were as unlucky as Wei Qian and Mazi. Especially Wei Qian, who had lived to this age and never seemed to have a comfortable life and was always full of worry.
Sanpang felt as though sooner or later Wei Qian would worry himself to death.
Blessings never came in pairs and misfortunes did not come singly.
Wei Qian ran all the way home until he saw one of Sanpang's brothers, Lei Zi, crouching at the door, probably called by Sanpang to help him.
Seeing Lei Zi squatting and talking to Song Xiaobao, Wei Qian stopped. By now, his back was already soaked with sweat, he bent down, propped one hand on his knee and panted heavily for a while.
Wei Qian wiped a handful of sweat from his forehead, before walking over with a composed face and big strides.
He first greeted Lei Zi and thanked him, then urgently grabbed Song Xiaobao's shoulder with one hand and roughly pulled her to him, looking at her up and down to see that apart from her eyes being a little red, she hadn't even scratched her skin. Only then did he let his guard down a little, “Why didn't you answer the phone? Why didn't you come into the house? Where is Xiaoyuan?"
Xiao Bao's mouth fell open and she blinked her eyes and was about to cry when she finally saw her family.
Before she could cry, she was stopped by Wei Qian's voice: "Don't cry! Where is Xiaoyuan?"
Xiao Bao held back her tears.
Click to skip: SKIP
(1) Do with this information what you will.
(2) Picture shows youtiao, sort of like Chinese doughnuts! I feel like every culture sort of has its version of a doughnut, in mine, we have something called puff-puff! Has anyone ever had youtiao? let me know how it tastes!
(3) Looks like this!
So... what the hell was that??? Another cliffhanger o(TヘTo) I should never mention having a favorite character because look what happened to my poor baby Mazi :( I'm so sad man Priest really knows how to absolutely torture the soul. Let me know if you see any mistakes and have a nice day!Support the author here