Chapter 4: As soon as Wei Qian closed his eyes, he said subconsciously, "What the hell is this?!"
The next day, Wei Qian went out and saw that the little boy was still there. His head was big, and his limbs were thin. He had shrunk into a round ball.
Wei Qian nearly tripped on the round ball.
One night had passed, the fire in his heart had already disappeared. Wei Qian had no choice but to look down at the little thing that had become a ball, wondering what the boy was thinking.
Wei Qian felt that his whole body had given off the feeling of wanting to get revenge on the whole world. In retrospect, he hadn’t seemed to have left a good impression on the boy.
Wei Qian didn't understand. The little boy that seemed like he was always ready to fight took a fancy to him. He easily let down his guard and even relied on him.
Thankfully, it was summer, if it were winter, especially the winter up north, the little boy would’ve frozen to death.
The small little thing looked like Xiaobao. He really couldn’t bring himself to go home and take out a kitchen knife to kill him. Wei Qian stretched out his toes and poked the ball under his feet: "Hey, hey, get up. Don't sleep here. Do you hear me? What are you doing sleeping around?"
The brown eyes looked up hazily. As soon as they spotted Wei Qian they immediately lit up, looking at him expectantly. He acted like a clumsy kitten with a trembling tail, that burrowed under people’s feet showing off how clever and harmless it was and asking to be adopted.
Anyone who saw this scene would not have the heart to reject him. Unfortunately, he happened to meet Wei Qian who had a stone heart.
Wei Qian had no sympathy. He bullied cats and dogs. He resolutely ignored his pitiful little eyes, too lazy to say a word. He locked the door behind him and as soon as he bent down, he picked up the boy's thin arm and dragged him downstairs. Then he threw the boy on to the uncut grass and simply said, "Don’t cross the line. Get out."
The boy fell on to the wild grass and watched him as he walked away like a villain.
It took a long time for the little boy to get up and look up at the shabby apartment building, which looked very tall in his eyes. After a while, he hung his head down, his bare toes tangled together. He was extremely disappointed.
The little boy had indeed been abducted and sold by others. Wei Qian had piercing eyes that were never wrong.
He was very young when he was kidnapped, and the ins and outs were long forgotten. The traffickers raised him for several months and later sold him to a very remote farmer's house.
It didn’t really matter much. He enjoyed the life of an only child for two years.
However, after three years, his adoptive mother, who was diagnosed by the village’s doctor as infertile, miraculously became pregnant. Another year later, his adoptive mother gave birth to a healthy, fat boy.
After that, the boy became useless in his adoptive parents' home, and his life went from bad to worse.
One day, when the boy was washing dishes in cold well water, his fingers had become numb due to the cold, so he accidentally broke a bowl, which angered his adoptive father who had come back drunk. The adoptive father stripped off his clothes and made him stand in the middle of the cold yard in winter.
The boy felt like he was going to freeze to death, and finally, he made a bold decision for a boy his age - he ran away.
The little boy stole some clothes from the adults and casually put them on. Then he climbed over a wall with the help of a ladder overnight. He quietly hid in a car that was transporting winter cabbage into the city and was smuggled into a city like this.
From then on, he became a little beggar.
Such an unsupervised little boy was very easy to be targeted. During this period, the boy was nearly abducted and sold several times. Some tried to sell him, some tried to make him a thief, and on one occasion two people had discussed the idea of selling his organs - the boy heard it when he went out to pee in the middle of the night and ran away overnight.
He was able to live for so long because he had successfully managed to escape every time, his luck was so miraculously good, and he managed to become an escape expert.
He stealthily sneaked aboard trains, successfully wandered through several cities, and met all kinds of different people. Occasionally, someone would try to talk to him, he would pretend to be dumb and act like he couldn't speak then quickly escape. Perhaps there were genuinely kind people among those that tried to approach him. Unfortunately, the boy didn't dare let down his guard – as though everybody wanted to sell him. He was even more afraid of those who planned to cut open his belly and take-out parts to sell.
However, he was still instinctively envious of those who had homes and families.
The little guy didn't know what home felt like for a long time, but he couldn't have a home because he was afraid of getting close to anyone.
In the eyes of the little boy, there seemed to be only two kinds of people in the world. The people who thought he was dirty and kept a distance whilst walking around him to avoid him. They would throw stones at him and hit him. The other kind of people were kind to him but had hidden intentions to exploit him.
That was until he met a unique person.
He had heard others call him "Qian'er" (1) in thick local accents. This man helped him beat a wild dog away and gave him food, but he just threw it at him, never saying a word.
Of course, often, this person would turn a blind eye to him.
Wei Qian's blindness and lack of communication made the boy feel safe. At the same time, his occasional charitable behaviour made the boy feel a trace of rare warmth.
In fact, the little boy had always been changing the place he stayed, but to secretly see this man every day, he unconsciously stayed in an alley for several months.
The past few months, after careful observation and debating, the little boy concluded that the big brother was a good man using his brain that was malnourished due to him not eating the amount required for his age.
This was the first time in his wandering career that he couldn’t help but desire interaction with others.
To his disappointment, when he reached out and tried to touch him, the jerk who seemed to be a "good guy" didn’t want to adopt him.
Disappointed and sad, the boy lingered for a while, thinking whether to give up.
Before he could come to a decision, it began to rain, and the boy had no choice but to hide in the corridor again.
The heavy rain didn't stop till night. Third Fatty’s mother was coming downstairs at noon to help Xiaobao heat food when she saw the little boy curled up in the corridor, she was surprised and bent down to look at him carefully: "Oh, whose child is this?"
The boy immediately turned into a small wild animal with raised fur, and he fiercely raised his head, the whole person’s body was tense. It seemed like he was ready to rush up and bite her at any moment. His fierce eyes made Third Fatty’s mother step back: "Oh, this little beggar is crazy!"
Afraid of getting into trouble, the Third Fatty’s mother gave the little boy a wary look, quickly opened the door with the key left by Wei Qian and went into the house with three quick steps.
In the evening, Wei Qian came back from school to do odd jobs. When he looked down, he saw a small ball in the corner of the wall. His face became unsightly.
He strode over and tried to throw the misbehaving boy out again. When the boy saw him coming, he thought he was going to be beaten, so he quickly stepped away from the corner of the wall and took a defensive stance.
Wei Qian was also aware of how scared the boy was, which made Wei Qian feel strangely satisfied. With a cold snort, the junior high school student looked up at the rain outside through the window, turned to enter the house and let the little boy go.
In summer, Wei Qian only closed the security door that had screened windows, but not the main door to create indoor ventilation.
When Xiaobao saw a child outside, she asked, "Brother, who is that boy outside? Is he not shy because he doesn't wear trousers?"
Wei Qian said, "Just keep on playing, ignore him."
After a while, Xiaobao said, "Brother, he keeps looking at our house."
Wei Qian went over and stood at the door and yelled at the boy: "Go away!"
Startled by him, the boy hesitated and stepped back.
But when he came out of the kitchen with the dishes, he saw Xiao Bao squatting at the door, looking outside as she said, "Brother, he’s still looking at our house. Let him come in."
This time, Wei Qian didn't even bother to frighten him. He simply ignored him, put the dishes on the table, and then walked over and lifted his hand to shut the door closed, completely isolating the two envious eyes that were prying into the house.
Let him in? Wei Qian felt that if he were a millionaire, he would be willing to raise ten or eight people like that boy, and let them stand in a row every morning and count themselves.
But was he?
He was just a very poor bastard. He didn’t even know where he was going to get the 400 yuan tuition fee he had to pay at the beginning of school!
It was a pity that girls were extroverted. Xiaobao was no exception. She had suddenly learnt to be selfless just two days after she stopped using diapers.
Not even two days later, Wei Qian entered the house and found that Xiaobao had let the little boy come inside.
Wei Qian was afraid that the little wild child outside would have infectious diseases and parasites which would be transmitted to Xiaobao, so he immediately yelled at his sister, and scared the little girl into tears. He then reached out and picked up the vest of the little boy, like picking up a rag, and went to throw him out again.
The little boy was squirming in his hands, but he couldn’t escape so he stared at him with his black and bright eyes. His eyes were like black stones found on mountains that had just been washed by rain.
His face was so dirty that people couldn't see his facial features. The little face looked particularly dazzling, so wild, and full of resentment, he had a pleading look on his face.
"Brat” Wei Qian scolded him.
Xiaobao never leant her lesson, mainly because Wei Qian didn’t actually beat her. Although he had a cold demeanour, he would never touch a hair on her head. Because of this, Xiaobao forgot about being scolded.
Three days later, she brought the little boy back.
This time, her cold and bad-tempered elder brother had finally had enough. Wei Qian reached out to catch the boy. The boy sensed the danger and jumped up to avoid it. Wei Qian ended up grabbing air.
Wei Qian was so angry that he raised his leg and gave him a passionate kick. The boy was kicked continuously but didn't even cry. He just grunted, knelt on the ground, stretched out his out arms and hugged Wei Qian's leg.
Xiao Bao, the annoying child, had gained common sense. She never thought that her elder brother would be so violent, she cried out loud, "Brother!"
The little boy didn't know why but hearing this triggered something in him. He had acted dumb for more than a year, but right now he opened his mouth and spoke to Wei Qian. Although his voice was hoarse and his pronunciation was very strange, Wei Qian still heard him clearly. He copied Xiaobao and said, "Brother!"
Wei Qian's foot, which he was about to kick the boy again, suddenly came to a halt.
What are you doing? Wei Qian thought blankly, beating such a little boy? What was the difference between him and his bitch of a mother?
Finally, Wei Qian sighed, slowly retracted his foot and walked into the kitchen without saying a word. He shoved a pot of noodle soup in front of the little boy: "Eat it."
The boy didn't want to seem like a good for nothing and wanted to give off a "good impression". Unfortunately, he was confronted with the bowl that felt as though he was welcoming rain after a long drought. Once he smelled the fragrance, the words "good impression" were happily abandoned by him.
He almost buried his face in the bowl and ate it violently. The autumn wind swept the leaves (2). After three bowls, his stomach was full.
Wei Qian sat quietly beside him. When he finished eating, he began to clean up the dishes and chopsticks. Then he said to the boy, "Can you understand people? Well, I know you understand”
Wei Qian shook off the dishwater on his hand, squatted down and made his eye level the same as the little boy.
"I can't help you," he said, the most patient he had ever been. "You came to the wrong place."
The boy's mouth was still stained with vegetable soup, his bright eyes, full of stars were staring straight at Wei Qian.
Wei Qian nudged his shoulder: "OK, let's go when you’re full."
A minute later, for the first time, the boy walked out of his house on his own two legs, instead of being thrown out violently.
For two or three days, Wei Qian didn't see the pestering little boy. Until the evening of the fourth day, when he dragged his tired body home and calculated how much money he still had to pay for his tuition, he saw the little boy at the door of his house.
This time Xiaobao didn't dare to open the door. The two children, one standing indoors and the other standing outside, raised their heads together and looked at him eagerly.
The boy standing at the door dragged a huge snakeskin bag that had a "jingling" sound coming from it. Wei Qian lowered his eyes and saw that it was a bag of bottle caps and cans.
"This one can sell for money." Seeing that Wei Qian hadn’t spoken for a long time, the boy explained in a low voice. He seemed afraid of Wei Qian not believing him. He stretched out his dirty little hand and held two pieces of 0.5 mao banknotes in his sweaty palms. "Really, I sold them."
Wei Qian was still silent.
Xiaobao called out: "Brother."
As soon as Wei Qian closed his eyes, he said subconsciously, "What the hell is this?!"
TN NOTES: click here to skip
(1) Courtesy of Quora: 'Er' is the pinyin for the word '兒' (simplified, '儿'), meaning 'child'. As such, it is used as a diminutive marker; in a name, it is equivalent to the English '-y' or '-ie' ending and used as a term of endearment.
This was actually super hard to do :P maybe it's because I was multi-tasking but this chapter gave me a headache lol. We got to learn about the little pups backstory! Truly worthy of pity :(( The ending is super cute tho aww, WQ don't be to hard on him...
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