Xiaobao stayed in the hospital for a whole week.

The city was covered in snow on the day she was hospitalized, but when she was discharged, the temperature had risen by more than ten degrees, and spring was about to arrive.

Old Mrs. Song cooked a big pot of dumplings at home.

Xiaobao discovered that her elder brother and grandmother, who had been at loggerheads with each other, seemed to have miraculously eased their relationship, and since she was so sick, Xiaoyuan couldn't bear to be mean to her anymore, so he took out his notes from the past few days and gave them to her.

On the third floor of an old tube-shaped building in the shantytown, in a shabby one-bedroom house, there suddenly seemed to be a sense of home.

With Le Xiaodong's death, the lingering hatred in Wei Qian's chest seemed to have disappeared as well. His spirit seemed to have changed a lot... Sanpang couldn't tell where he had changed, but he just felt that he was not as violent as before.

Either way, it's a good thing.

When going to pick up Mazi's mother from the hospital, Sanpang came to Mazi's house with Xiao Chutou and Wei Qian.

Sanpang spat into his palms and dug under the tree. "That pockmarked kid is a groundhog. He buries everything underground. He must have left something behind. Hey, Master Qian, could you stop standing there with your hands tied around your neck? Could you please come over here and use your noble paws to help me, Old Pig?"

Wei Qian knocked the mud off his shoes and said without raising his head, "Second Junior Brother, Master has given you a chance to lose weight, so stop talking nonsense and get rid of the fat and dig."

After he finished speaking, he took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth and lit it, then stuck it upside down under the big locust tree and patted the trunk: "It's been a long time since you tasted it, right? It's not a good cigarette, you have to make do with it."

The big locust tree stood quietly on the side, rustling in the breeze with the slightly slanted smoke.

He is really a bit like Ma Zi, always standing there quietly. He will smile foolishly at anyone who looks at him, and he will remain silent unless asked.

Sanpang quickly dug out the money that Mazi had buried underground. There was a note in the envelope sealed in a plastic bag, saying that he was going to leave for another place, so he had to shamelessly entrust his mother to the two brothers... The word "托" in "托付" was written wrong.

This illiterate man who fries dough sticks is quite old, but his suicide note is not as good as Xiaoyuan's, who had just started school for two months.

Wei Qian and Sanpang discussed it and decided to keep the fact that Mazi was dead a secret. They only gave the money and the note to Mazi's mother, and told her the same story, saying that Mazi had gone with a group of businessmen to Cambodia to resell coffee beans in order to save money for her medical treatment... The excuse of "going to Cambodia" was Sanpang's idea, as it could be considered as traveling far away to a foreign land, which matched the words on the note.

Ma Zi's mother had one arm and one leg amputated, so she is considered a disabled person. According to regulations, she can apply for the five-guarantee household, but unfortunately it is not so easy to get all the procedures done. It requires a long process of obtaining various certificates and going through formalities - otherwise Wei Qian could have applied in the name of a minor, but it was too time-consuming at the time, and he didn't have the energy or the time to do so.

Now both he and Sanpang have the will and the ability to do so, but the matter still cannot be accomplished because Ma Zi's mother cannot get over the hurdle.

When Wei Qian tried to bring up this matter, Ma Zi's mother firmly believed that she already had a son who was almost an adult and able to work. Although her son was no longer in front of her, he went abroad to do business and had an income. She should not deliberately defraud the government of that little subsidy.

Her awareness was so high that it gave Wei Qian a headache, so after returning, he beat up Sanpang severely.

It was all this fat guy's bad ideas and nonsense that he made up. Well, he ended up shooting himself in the foot.

Wei Qian never returned to the nightclub. He didn't even care about who would manage Le Xiaodong's property after his death.

"Brother Wei" has disappeared along with the dead Brother Le and retired from the underworld. He did his job as a thug very well and everyone knew that he was just a biting dog raised by Brother Le. No matter how sharp his teeth were, no one paid attention to him. They had plenty of other things to fight over.

Wei Qian asked Sanpang's father to find him a job as a factory checker - oh, to put it bluntly, it means moving things.

As a temporary worker, he was paid by piecework, doing purely physical work. Lunch was provided, with two steamed buns per person. Wei Qian's hands were covered with blisters after not having worked there for long. He was dirty all day long and had to please people's faces all day long.

The days of being the thug "Brother Xiao Wei" became a mirage in the blink of an eye.

On the third day of Wei Qian's work, he was squatting on the roadside picking at the blood blisters on his hands with a needle, and he was surprised at how calm he felt. He used to think that such a life would bend his young spine, and he would feel heartbroken when he thought about the distance between his moral character and the four words "standing out in the world" which was a hundred thousand light years away.

But it didn’t.

Today, his desire to "make a name for himself" has not changed at all. He is still a money-maker who dreams of making a lot of money. He still needs money to support his family, but perhaps because he has witnessed enough vanity and experienced enough life and death, his heart has unknowingly sunk a lot.

The one who was even more pleased with this was Old Lady Song.

Even though Wei Qian was ordered around and worked like a grandson every day, she was relieved that he had finally "got on the right track." She was born into a farming family and didn't think there was anything wrong with doing manual labor. It was natural to earn a living by working hard. Being a laborer, even if you only had to eat coarse food, was better than going to nightclubs and wearing gold and silver.

When Old Lady Song subjectively believed that Wei Qian had a bright future, she finally discovered that this big boy, who was not even eighteen years old, was already supporting a family, so she treated him better.

She got some ointment for bruises and sprains from somewhere and secretly put it on Wei Qian's bedside table. In order to help Wei Qian supplement the family income, she got up at three o'clock every morning, cooked a pot of tea eggs and corn, and went out to sell them when people were at work. In the afternoon, she collected cardboard boxes, wrapping paper and bottles to sell.

Even Wei Qian had to admit that this neurotic old woman was an amazing person - she got up at five in the morning and went to bed at midnight, yet could still take care of the three meals a day for the children at home, and could still be energetic enough to fight three hundred rounds with the evil old lady next door every day, and they would exchange insults and curses about each other's genitals.

The evil old lady had been frightened by Wei Qian with a kitchen knife when he was a child, so she didn't dare to go out and fight head-on. The two families locked the door with chains, leaving a gap for sound to pass through, and started the fight.

The two old guys showed their style and level, and the dirty words that came out of their mouths were so bad that even Wei Qian, a professional gangster, couldn't stand it.

When Sanpang was not going out to purchase supplies, he would sit in the corridor, grab a handful of melon seeds, and listen to a segment with great interest while eating them. When the battle was over, he would pat the melon seed shells and applaud at the top of his lungs. His voice was so loud that he could create a "standing applause" effect by himself.

At this time, Old Lady Song and Old Lady Evil will unite against the outside world.

Old Lady Song scolded: "Little bitch!"

The evil old lady cursed: "Big ass fat bastard!"

The fat man got together a complete “idiot” and walked away contentedly.

Later, Wei Qian went over and broke the door bolt of the evil old lady's house with his foot. He also had a big quarrel with Old Lady Song at home, telling these two damn old ladies to watch their mouths and not corrupt the good children.

...It turned out that the two shrews could not defeat him alone, so they consciously moved their sparring time to the afternoon, when the children were in school, and had a break on weekends and statutory holidays.

Wei Qian quit smoking because it was too expensive.

Wei Zhiyuan felt that there were two smells that left a deep impression on him in his childhood. One was the smell of cheap tobacco, and the other was the smell of medicine from the ointment used for bruises and injuries.

During that period, every day when he finished his homework and looked up, his elder brother would have been so tired that he fell asleep on the bed. As the weather gradually got warmer, Wei Qian would put on a "two-bar" vest and big shorts, drape a thin blanket around his waist, leaving only his back to Wei Zhiyuan.

Wei Qian's career as a thug and heavy physical labor have honed his waist to the point where there is not a trace of fat. His slender and firm muscles are tightly attached to each other, his lower back is always narrow and concave, and his protruding pair of shoulder blades are like a pair of spread wings, as if as long as he hides underneath, he will never be hurt.

Wei Zhiyuan glanced at him, then lowered his head and wrote two lines. He was copying a word from the after-class text, which was "An elder brother is like a father."

The boy wrote the instructions five times in a neat and tidy manner, then closed the book, turned off the light, followed the smell of medicine in the air, climbed onto the bed, crawled over Wei Qian, and expertly got into his arms. Wei Qian, half asleep and half awake, subconsciously raised his hand and patted the child's back, whispering in a nasal voice, "Go to sleep."

Wei Zhiyuan discerned the perfect amount of doting from these two words. He closed his eyes contentedly, enjoying the most comfortable moment of the day.

From then on, whenever Wei Zhiyuan mentioned the word "happiness", he would think of the time when he was young, nestling in his eldest brother's arms, rubbing his chest, closing his eyes and waiting for the moment to fall asleep... even though he had grown up to the point where his eldest brother's arms could no longer hold him.

Another half year passed in a hurry.

On this day, Xiaobao and Xiaoyuan had their final exams, and finishing the exams meant summer vacation.

The summer was scorching. Wei Qian rode a second-hand bicycle that he bought for 20 yuan to the cold drink wholesale market. Small vendors all bought their goods from here. Wei Qian also planned to wholesale a box of ice cream to take home to satisfy his two kids' cravings.

Many families with children or those who consume a lot of cold drinks will buy a box of ice cream directly from here. The average retail price of ice cream is one or two yuan, but the wholesale price is only 40 or 50 cents, which saves a lot.

When Wei Qian was looking at the product catalog, suddenly, someone called him hesitantly.

"Wei Qian? Are you... Wei Qian?"

Wei Qian looked back and saw that the other person was a middle-aged woman who looked familiar. He was stunned for a moment, then he looked at her carefully and suddenly realized: "You...you are Teacher Li?"

Teacher Li walked over quickly in her high heels and asked repeatedly, "It's really you! What's wrong with you? You dropped out of school without even saying hello. I've been looking for you for a long time, but there's been no news. Where have you been? What's the big deal? Why didn't you finish your studies?"

Three years had passed. When he suddenly saw her, Wei Qian felt as if he had been in another world. School? That seemed to be... a thing of the past life.

However, facing his old class teacher, Wei Qian couldn't help but lower his head. At this moment, he looked neither like a brutal and violent nightclub thug nor a taciturn young worker.

He suddenly became like a normal middle school student who was a little reserved in front of the teacher.

Wei Qian smiled bitterly: "Teacher, this is a long story."

All family members were very surprised when Wei Qian came home with a box of ice cream and a strange middle-aged woman - because as far as they could remember, their eldest brother had never been so polite to anyone.

The guest was neatly dressed, wore glasses, spoke politely and was very courteous. From his every move, one could tell that he was an intellectual, and he didn't fit in with the surroundings.

After grandma found out Teacher Li's identity, she was so shocked that she couldn't even speak clearly - the administrative divisions of her hometown were like this: first there was the province, then under the province were the cities, each city governed more than a dozen counties, forming an administrative region, and under a county were seven or eight townships, and under the townships were countless small villages.

Old Lady Song's hometown is relatively remote and backward. Children in the village have to go to the township to attend elementary school, to the county town to attend junior high school, and to the city by car for seven or eight hours to attend high school. For many years, no one in her village has been able to get into high school.

Not to mention high school teachers, it was the first time in her life that she saw a live high school teacher.

Old Mrs. Song treated Teacher Li almost like a national leader. She did her best to prepare a table of dishes of the highest standard and insisted on keeping her for dinner.

Teacher Li couldn't refuse the invitation, so she had to sit down at the table. Looking at the family, Teacher Li understood the reason why Wei Qian dropped out of school. While dealing with the enthusiastic Old Lady Song who kept picking food for her, she said tentatively: "Wei Qian, I remember that you had good grades back then. To be honest, it's a pity that you don't go to school like this."

Wei Qian didn't respond, but picked up a small bowl and said, "Teacher, let me serve you a bowl of soup."

Teacher Li took it and continued, "You know, I have worked in our school for more than 20 years. As an old teacher, I have some face in front of the school leaders. And your uncle...oh, that's my husband, he works in the Municipal Education Bureau. If you are willing, I can ask him to find a way to get your student status back and put you in the class I am teaching now."

As soon as these words fell, everyone at the table stopped what they were doing at the same time.