Brother Le asked Wei Qian to work the daytime shift first, and then switch to the night shift after the plaster on his arm was removed.

The night shift in the nightclub is paid very well, with two groups of people working in shifts, each shift being only four hours, but the pay is three times that of the daytime shift, which means that by only working four hours a day, he can allow his family to live a very comfortable life - of course, the ones who get the high salaries are the thugs, not the little brother like Ma Zi who has to work hard to clean the place.

With Wei Qian's qualifications, he was originally not eligible to work this glorious night shift. In order to show his closeness to him, Brother Le personally contacted the manager and asked for an exceptional promotion.

Ma Zi was extremely envious, but Wei Qian showed no joy at all. Instead, he smoked even more heavily.

The future was dangerous and confusing. Even though Wei Qian was a money-grubber, it was difficult for him to express his joy at the extra income.

On this day, Song Xiaobao and Wei Zhiyuan came home from school. Wei Qian cut a small watermelon weighing more than two kilograms into two halves and asked them to each eat half with a spoon. After eating, they went to do their homework.

Song Xiaobao sat cross-legged on the sofa, his mouth full of watermelon soup, and said excitedly while eating: "Brother, Sister Niuniu is dead."

Wei Qian was stunned: "Who?"

"Sister Niuniu, you are so tall, you have two dimples on your face, your eyes look like this, you comb your hair... like this, you live in the small bungalow in front..." When Song Xiaobao described her eyes, she stretched out her hands to open her eyes, and when she described her hair, she pulled her own hair. She was gesticulating while talking, all using body language. It is obvious that there was a reason why she failed the Chinese language test in the first grade.

Wei Qian leaned back and moved away from her: "Sit still and talk properly. You're spraying me in the face—dead? How did he die?"

"He died like this." After Song Xiaobao finished speaking, she rolled her eyes and leaned aside holding her half watermelon. A line of watermelon juice flowed out from the corner of her mouth.

Wei Qian: “…”

Although his little sister was still young, she had an extraordinary ability to imitate and see through the phenomenon to the essence. For the first time, Wei Qian felt that it was a pity that this girl was not good-looking, otherwise, when she grew up, she might be able to become an actress.

Wei Zhiyuan added calmly, "He died from eating rat poison."

Song Xiaobao revived from his death state and asked hurriedly, "How did you know?"

Wei Zhiyuan said calmly, like a man who has seen a lot of things: "She was foaming at the mouth and her face was that color. She must have died from eating rat poison. I've seen that before."

Song Xiaobao said admiringly: "How come you have seen everything? Is rat poison delicious?"

Wei Zhiyuan's eyebrows jumped at her question, which was much stupider than expected. Three seconds later, he decided to cooperate with this idiot whose brain was not getting enough blood supply, so he said in a serious tone: "It's okay. It's colorful. The red one tastes like watermelon, and the green one tastes like apple. Mice love it."

Song Xiaobao asked eagerly: "Is it crisp?"

Wei Zhiyuan: “Crisp.”

Wei Qian: “…”

Wei Zhiyuan is a child after all, and Wei Qian can actually see that he sometimes pretends to be stupid, but Wei Qian always thought that Xiaoyuan was trying to please Xiaobao and never thought about himself.

...After all, he received very little care in his life, and even he neglected himself.

Wei Qian had originally just heard about this matter, because he could not remember who "Niuniu" was through Xiaobao's description. But this matter that he ignored did not pass. In the evening, Sanpang and Mazi bought vegetables together and came to his house to cook. When serving the dishes, Sanpang deliberately kicked Wei Qian in dissatisfaction: "I am here to serve you, so you think you are the boss, right? Don't sit there and wait for food, don't you still have one hand? Go and get the bowl and chopsticks!"

Wei Qian raised his voice: "Pockmarked!"

Ma Zi agreed promptly and was about to do the work for him, but was frightened by San Pang's glare and shrank back.

"Pockmarked man," Wei Qian stood up slowly and said pertinently, "You are really a coward!"

Ma Zi was not ashamed but proud, and said happily: "Yes!"

Wei Qian: “…”

Wei Qian wandered to the kitchen, opened the cupboard on tiptoe, and glanced lazily into the small room. The two little brats had finally quieted down, each occupying a corner of the table, doing their homework.

Wei Qian's mood suddenly improved uncontrollably. He felt that with these two little breathing creatures in the room, it felt like home.

"Qian'er," Sanpang suddenly said, "Look after our little sister Xiaobao these two days. Don't let her run around after school."

Wei Qian responded casually: "What's wrong?"

Sanpang said: "You know Niuniu, right?"

Wei Qian: “Hmm?”

"The one who lives in the front, with pigtails, is one year older than Xiaobao." Sanpang glanced into the room of the two children and whispered in Wei Qian's ear in a low voice, "The girl died this afternoon. She ate rat poison and died by herself."

Wei Qian was too lazy to listen to other people's troubles. He couldn't even think about his own troubles, so he looked at Sanpang impatiently and said, "I think you are bored, Fatty. All day long, you are either talking about matchmaking or trifling things. You..."

Sanpang slapped his injured arm with a serious expression and said, "Keep your voice down!"

"Hiss... I'm gonna fuck you..."

Sanpang said seriously, "Listen to me! That little girl was abused. She was timid and didn't dare to tell the adults for several days. It's been hot these past two days. I heard that her vagina has festered. I don't know how much pain she has suffered. She didn't dare to say anything. Yesterday, she didn't think it through and committed suicide by eating rat poison. Can you please pay more attention to your sister?"

Wei Qian frowned and looked at him: "Nonsense..."

"Who is talking nonsense to you? Who is talking nonsense about this? The person is dead! Am I so wicked?" Sanpang glared at him, "I'm talking to you seriously, keep a close eye on our sister these two days, do you hear me?"

Wei Qian stretched out his hand on his waist and gestured in confusion: "That kid has skinny arms and legs. If you poke it there, it will just be a chopstick. What's so good about it? Who is he? Is he sick?"

"It's hard to explain to your stupid grandson. All you know is money and fighting. What else do you know?" Sanpang waved his hands impatiently. "Some people just can't get hard with normal women. Some like children who haven't grown up, and some like men. Niuniu's mother is almost crying like a psycho. She yelled that she would call the police, and now she is locked up at home by her grandmother."

Hearing the word "man", Wei Qian frowned uncomfortably and asked again: "Why don't you call the police? Is her grandmother suffering from dementia?"

"The old lady is not very smart. She thinks if the matter is reported to the police and it gets out, her family won't be able to hold their heads up. Well, anyway..." Sanpang stopped talking suddenly here, because when he looked up, he saw Wei Zhiyuan lying on the side of the kitchen door at some point, and he didn't know how much he heard.

Sanpang was startled: "Oh, this unlucky child, why is he walking so quietly, like a weasel!"

The weasel Wei Zhiyuan had no expression on his face, as if he hadn't heard what they were saying. He straightened his chest and raised his head and said, "I'll help my brother carry the dishes."

"Hey, this little weasel is quite filial!" Sanpang slapped Wei Zhiyuan on the back of his head with a palm-leaf fan-like slap, almost covering his little head, and hurriedly pushed him on the back, "Go quickly."

After saying this, he and Wei Qian looked at each other, and they both stopped talking about the topic at the same time.

For several days afterwards, Wei Qian picked up and dropped off the two children from school.

It was a small, run-of-the-mill school where the students started too late in the morning and finished too early in the evening, and it was very difficult for Wei Qian to coordinate with their schedules.

The mornings were barely passable, but the afternoons after school were particularly bad. It was past three o'clock, and Wei Qian still had time to get off work, so he had to run back and forth with his arm in a plaster cast. Every day he rushed to the elementary school as fast as he could, hurriedly took the two kids home, bought each of them a fifty-cent "double-stick popsicle", then locked them both in the house, and ran back like lightning as if he were reincarnated.

Literally, he really ran with his legs. Because Wei Qian was going to transfer to the night shift, many people secretly disliked him. He was afraid of wasting too much time and giving others the opportunity to talk about him, but he was reluctant to spend that little bit of money on the bus.

In this way he developed a pair of sprinting legs that could outrun buses.

Song Xiaobao, that heartless girl, didn't feel sorry for her brother at all. She was quite satisfied with such a life, because she had one and a half "double sticks" to eat every day... The extra half came from Wei Zhiyuan. Wei Zhiyuan would usually break the double stick in half and eat half himself first, and the remaining half would usually go to Xiaobao.

Lazy and gluttonous - he has completely figured out the nature of this little sister and is very good at dealing with her.

After running back and forth like a donkey pulling a mill for more than ten days, when Wei Qian went to the hospital for a follow-up checkup, the doctor scolded him on the spot and gave him a serious warning: "If you do this again, you will grow an arm with eighteen bends on the mountain road!"

Wei Qian felt quite embarrassed because Ma Zi was waiting outside with his two little ones. The one big, two small and one water had never seen the world. Wei Qian felt it was very embarrassing to be scolded in front of them. His authority as the eldest brother was undermined.

Wei Zhiyuan didn't say a word. He felt as if his heart was hit and it was sore and painful.

He developed a manly desire to protect something, but his body remained childish and immature.

The contradiction between the growing desire for strength and the limited physical conditions of children constituted Wei Zhiyuan's main psychological contradiction before adolescence.

In the middle of the night, Wei Qian heard some noise coming from the kitchen. He reached out and found that the boy next to him had gotten up. Wei Qian rubbed his eyes and cursed, then walked into the kitchen and turned on the kitchen light. While blocking the glaring light with his hand, he said impatiently, "Why are you still awake in the middle of the night?"

Wei Zhiyuan was dragging a long steel pipe and looked up at him innocently.

The half of the kitchen connected to the balcony is usually used for cooking, and the other half is used to store various sundries, including various weapons that Wei Qian casually threw in there.

Wei Zhiyuan dragged out a scrap steel pipe from the pile of debris. This time he deliberately picked a shorter one so that he wouldn't have to drag it on the ground shamefully like last time. When he held the weapon in his hand, he felt very powerful.

Wei Qian was stunned: "What are you going to do with it?"

Wei Zhiyuan glanced at his newly bandaged arm, puffed out his chest and said, "I'll take her to school, so you don't have to come tomorrow. I'll bring Xiaobao back, and when we get home I'll make sure she doesn't run around and lock the door."

When he said this, he did so with a self-righteous attitude, as if he were a little adult who could take on responsibilities.

Wei Qian felt a little uneasy. This boy he picked up was not an ungrateful person. He was sensible and caring. However, Wei Qian still frowned rudely. He picked up Wei Zhiyuan with one hand and turned on the tap to wash his dirty hands: "How can you be so patient? Wash your hands and go to bed. If you make trouble again, I will beat you up!"

Wei Zhiyuan obediently did not argue. Although his elder brother had a bad expression and his words were unpleasant to the ear, Wei Zhiyuan did not care. Instead, he liked to listen. He was a child who had been truly abused and could tell the difference between true malice and different forms of concern.

However, although Wei Zhiyuan did not say anything at the time, the next day when Wei Qian was not paying attention, he still stuffed the water pipe into his schoolbag.

In the afternoon, when Wei Qian came to pick people up at the usual time, he saw Xiaoyuan and Xiaobao walking towards home halfway.

These two brats didn't even wait for him and were so bold as to go home on their own.

Because they were on the other side of the street, the two of them didn't see Wei Qian, and Wei Qian didn't go over, but just followed from a distance behind.

Although he was well-nourished and had grown a little, the little boy was only two fingers taller than the little girl. However, he was like a powerful protector, with a serious expression, holding his sister with one hand and holding a dirty steel pipe with the other, and walking the short distance home as resolutely as if he was breaking through the Tianmen Formation.

Wei Qian felt both amused and annoyed. He watched the two children all the way home. Wei Zhiyuan very seriously asked Xiaobao to go into the house first. Then he held up the ridiculous steel pipe like an underground worker, and stuck his head out to carefully scout around the house. He failed to detect any enemy, but found that his brother was standing at the foot of the wall not far away with his arm hanging, looking at him.

Wei Zhiyuan was stunned for a moment, then he saw that Wei Qian not only did not get angry at him for acting on his own, but smiled at him instead.

Wei Qian raised his extremely thin chin, which was unique to young people, and nodded at Wei Zhiyuan, indicating him to lock the door.

Wei Zhiyuan obediently turned around and went into the house, locked the door, climbed onto the bed, pulled open the curtains, and lay on the window. He watched Wei Qian light a cigarette, smoke it silently, and then took a break and turned around and left quickly.

"Brother hasn't even had a sip of water." Wei Zhiyuan thought.

That night, when Wei Qian returned home, he was surprised to find someone had prepared a glass of boiled water for him in the enamel pot on the table. He reached out to touch it and found it was neither cold nor hot, just the right temperature.

The next week went on like this. Wei Zhiyuan took Xiaobao home from school alone, and Wei Qian followed them from a distance, watching them get home, lock the door, and leave.

Finally, nearly a month had passed since Niu Niu's incident, and no other unpleasant incidents had occurred nearby. Wei Zhiyuan seemed very reliable, so Wei Qian decided not to pick them up anymore, and the three of them returned to their normal lives.

As a result, something really happened.