Wei Qian once fantasized that one day, a reporter would find him and his younger brothers and sisters, who were living like dogs, in such an old tube-shaped building. The reporter would then take a few photos, write a disgusting, tear-jerking title like "Aspiring young man works to support his younger brothers and sisters in school, and carries a family on his young shoulders." Then a government agency would come to give money, and all kinds of wealthy people with too much money to spend would donate to their family. All he would have to do was go on TV and take a photo with them holding up a big check.

However, reports like "poor college students", "poor middle school students" and "poor elementary school students" are still broadcast on TV every day, but none of them has come to Wei Qian and his team.

Maybe there were too many poor people back then, and to appear on TV you had to queue up and draw lots, just like buying a car later.

The end of the semester was approaching and the weather was getting colder. It was still dark when Wei Qian went out in the morning. He rode his second-hand bicycle out under the stars.

He didn't have gloves, and when he arrived at school, his hands were so cold that he could hardly feel them. He had no choice but to run upstairs with his head down, rubbing his hands rapidly.

That day, when he was going upstairs, he happened to meet his homeroom teacher, a middle-aged female teacher named Li, who was usually very nice to him. For a student like Wei Qian who studies very hard, has good grades, and is low-key and doesn't cause trouble, if he happens to look energetic and the teacher is a female, it is basically destined that he will be the kind of person who is particularly favored by the teacher at school.

Teacher Li called him and said, "Hey, I just met a young man. Come over and help me move some things!"

Wei Qian helped her get the 20 kilograms of rice and two barrels of oil that the school had just distributed, and carried them all the way to her office. Teacher Li asked him with a smile, "Have you had breakfast?"

Wei Qian paused and shook his head.

Teacher Li took out a piece of bread and a sausage from under the table and handed them to him: "You stayed in bed late this morning, right? Take them and eat them."

Wei Qian smiled a little embarrassedly, took it and thanked him.

Teacher Li didn't know about his family situation. At that time, all high school students wore school uniforms. Except for a few who liked to be clean, all the boys were equally sloppy and unkempt. Their brand-name bags and bags bought from street stalls were all stuffed full and their original shapes could not be seen. They would ask the girls for a small potato chip bucket, and after a while, they would poke it on the table and it would turn out to be a pen holder.

At that time, people were surprisingly equal. At a glance, it was impossible to tell who was the mayor's son and who was an orphan who had to rely on odd jobs to make a living.

There was only a family situation survey form at the beginning of the school year, with a column for parents’ workplaces. Wei Qian stared at that blank space for a long time, and at the end he made up the word “individual”...

Anyway, no one asked whether he was a living or dead individual.

Teacher Li stood on tiptoe and patted his shoulder, saying, "Go quickly. Today is Monday. Have you prepared your flag-raising speech? Go back and read it twice. Don't forget the words later."

It is an old tradition of the school that each class takes turns to send students to the stage to give the flag-raising speech. Before Wei Qian went up to the podium, he couldn't help but straighten his back - not because he was nervous, but because he was hit on the back with a stick during the melee last night. When he got up in the morning, he saw that the back was bruised and it was very painful.

Wei Qian stood on the stage without a script and delivered his speech full of dreams and main themes fluently and smoothly. As usual, all the yawning classmates gave him polite and perfunctory applause.

Wei Qian smiled very lightly, then took two steps back and gave the microphone to the host.

When he was about to step down, Wei Qian stood on the high podium and took a panoramic view of the campus.

There was a row of ginkgo trees whose yellow leaves were about to fall, a 400-meter standard sports field, a red-brick teaching building, and those young students in school uniforms... and a few large cherry trees in front of the teaching building. It was said that they were a hybrid of southern cherry trees and local species. Every spring, the petals that fell were so thick that they could cover a person's feet. Unfortunately, he enrolled in school in the fall and didn't have the chance to see them.

Wei Qian seemed to want to take it all in with his eyes, then he turned around and walked down the stone steps to the podium without looking back.

He returned to the classroom before everyone left, quickly packed up all his things, picked up the withdrawal application he had written in advance, and walked towards the Academic Affairs Office.

The dean of studies did not know the student's situation and just asked the reason as a routine matter. Wei Qian did not want to make himself like those poor and out-of-school children - it was useless to say anything. The school might find him a scholarship after much difficulty out of sympathy. However, his main problem was not the scholarship. He needed more money, or more time to make money to support his family.

If it can't solve the problem, why bring his fragile self-esteem out for everyone to see?

So Wei Qian, who was suffering from a middle school syndrome, simply explained lightly that his family was moving to another place and he could not continue studying here.

After leaving the Academic Affairs Office, he passed by the basketball court where students with specialties in basketball were training. A ball flew toward him, and he quickly caught it, blew a whistle, and threw it back. The boys on the court waved to him from a distance: "Thanks, buddy!"

Wei Qian smiled at him, but then his smile became dry. He did not stay and walked away quickly with his head down.

Wei Qian took his heavy schoolbag to a nearby rag collector, poured out all the books and papers in the bag, and sold them for one dollar and twenty cents. Wei Qian then collected another eighty cents and used the two dollars to buy a carnation. While Teacher Li was teaching, he slipped into her office and placed the flower on her desk. Then he left the school with his empty bag on his back.

He rode his bicycle home. Ma Zi and his wife, who were selling breakfast, had not yet closed their stall. Ma Zi saw Wei Qian and asked in surprise: "Qi-yi-Qian'er, why did you come back? What did you forgot…"

Wei Qian got off the car, threw his empty schoolbag behind him, and calmly interrupted him: "No, Mazi, I don't want to study anymore."

Ma Zi seemed to not realize what he meant for a moment, and repeated stupidly: "No, no ...

Wei Qian: "Well, I dropped out of school."

Ma Zi's reactions were always slow, perhaps there was something wrong with his brain. Wei Qian sometimes wondered if it would take him a minute to feel the pain after a slap in the face.

The pockmarked man with a mental problem stood there in a daze for more than half a minute. His face, with its big and small pimples piled on top of each other, turned red as a piece of burning carbon. His chest heaved violently. After a moment, his eyes were suddenly filled with tears.

Then Ma Zi rushed towards him and pushed Wei Qian hard in the chest. Wei Qian staggered and the bicycle fell to the ground, with the wheels still spinning in circles.

Ma Zi opened his mouth and yelled "Ahhh, wuwu." The more anxious he became, the less he could say anything. He was holding it in until his face turned red and his neck became thick. Finally, he could no longer bear it and cried at the top of his lungs. His voice was shrill and piercing.

Although he couldn't speak clearly, he had a good howling voice.

Wei Qian's chest felt like it was about to explode.

Perhaps in his long life, dropping out of school is not a big deal, but for a young man who has been studying hard and hoping that this will change his destiny, dropping out of school is like the crumbling sky that he has been struggling to support.

But the sky had fallen, and Wei Qian didn't want to cry with Ma Zi in the street, it would be too ugly.

So Wei Qian just bent down, using the action of holding the cart to hide the sad expression that flashed across his face, then he raised his head and forced out a nonchalant, even contemptuous smile to Ma Zi: "Why are you crying? Idiot, I'm not dead yet. I dropped out of school, didn't you guys not go to school? It's not a big deal, what's the big deal?"

Ma Zi cried even harder, until he was hoarse and lost himself in tears.

Wei Qian was finally unable to speak any more. He carried an old canvas bag on his back, stood two steps away from Ma Zi with his hands hanging down, and looked at his silly brother wiping away his tears with his hands.

The biting, dry cold wind and salty tears washed open the frozen cracks on Ma Zi's hands, revealing the young and bloody flesh underneath.

This long winter began with the howling of a little fried dough stick brother like a bear.

Wei Qian embarked on his professional gangster career and became a little-known thug under Brother Le.

A half-grown boy of about fourteen or fifteen years old, he had just grown taller, the flesh had not yet caught up with the bones, and his face was still childish. He looked after Brother Le's place and was taciturn every day because he had nothing to say to those grown men who talked about women every other sentence. However, when they fought, he was always more fierce than others. He seemed to have an unspeakable anger in his heart.

Brother Le was very disappointed at first. After all, he had high hopes for Wei Qian. He originally wanted to send Wei Qian to university to study law or finance. Brother Le thought that his business could not always be hidden from the public. If he wanted to be successful, he needed someone who could exploit legal loopholes and cook the books to take care of the open business. This person had to be smart and completely trustworthy, and it had to be Wei Qian.

Brother Le had already mapped out a grand blueprint for his future in his mind, with each person assigned a specific use. However, he didn't expect that Wei Qian, whom he had high hopes for, would be such a failure and had to drop out of high school.

For a while, Brother Le stopped paying attention to Wei Qian because it was useless.

But he didn't expect that after a year of silence, this kid would become famous.

Wei Qian is a teenager after all, and his physical strength is not comparable to that of a real adult, so he doesn't have much advantage in doing "physical work" such as a thug. Brother Le doesn't think much of him and usually just lets him be on duty during the day - the entertainment venue under Brother Le's name is actually a nightclub. Although it is open during the day, it is just an ordinary place to eat, and the main event is at night.

If there are really troublemakers, they usually go at night. This is the consensus in the industry.

Who would have thought that there are hooligans in all 36 professions, and among the real hooligans there are actually some bad practitioners and those who disregard professional ethics - those people belonged to another entertainment city in this city, and the boss was rich and powerful, and wanted to pick on Brother Le, the local snake, but he was not in the local area, so he could not reach him, so he sent his men to make the arrangement.

His subordinates are a unique group of people, with several major characteristics such as cowardice, short-temperedness, smelly and shameless, and they are rare to be useless.

The man thought about it carefully for a while and felt that he might not be able to defeat the others if he went there at night. He was afraid that he would not be able to get out, but he did not dare to disobey the boss's orders. So he came up with an idea and went to the nightclub in broad daylight to cause trouble.

The other party brought a dozen burly men who looked strong on the outside but were actually weak on the inside, and came to the deserted nightclub with a proud and confident attitude to challenge it.

Those who guard the place during the day are either security guards hired through legitimate channels, or half-grown children like Wei Qian who are treated as vases by Brother Le. They can pretend, but their true colors will be revealed when they take action.

It was obvious that these people who came to challenge the club had bad intentions, and no one dared to stop them when they broke in.

The leader sat down in the hall, obviously intending to cause trouble. He shouted obscenities, molested the girl serving plates, and smashed wine bottles all over the floor. The few diners to begin with were so scared that they stood up and wanted to leave.

The lobby manager frowned and whispered to his brothers to call Brother Le.

As a result, before the little brother could leave, Wei Qian, who was wearing the casino uniform, walked over with a blank expression. A troublemaker thought he was the security guard who came to stop them, so he grabbed him by the collar and ignored him: "Call your boss, smart kid, don't come out to be a cannon..."

Before he could even utter the word "cannon fodder", his tone suddenly changed. The man screamed, hurriedly let go of Wei Qian, and took five or six steps back with fear on his face.

There was a big bloody wound on his chest, and blood spurted out like a fountain. People then realized that Wei Qian was holding a large machete used for chopping bones in the kitchen.

Wei Qian chopped people down without mercy. He didn't even wipe his face after each blow. He held the machete in one hand and picked up a half-broken wine bottle with the other. Without saying a word, he rushed forward to fight like the murderer of his father.

As the saying goes, "the stupid ones are afraid of the tough ones, and the tough ones are afraid of the desperate ones." These people avoid the peak hours at night and choose the quiet time of day to come and cause trouble, which shows that they are not tough at all.

As a result, more than a dozen people were all knocked down on the spot by a man who was not afraid of death. His shocking appearance and the bear bag made this legend come true.

When Brother Le heard about this and rushed over with his men, the battle was already over. He saw blood and alcohol all over the scene.

The young man, with half of his body covered in blood, was only wearing a white vest. He sat on the sofa, stretching out his arm and letting Sanpang, who had rushed over after hearing the news, clean the broken glass on his arm tremblingly. His hand hung awkwardly, and it was unclear whether it was dislocated or fractured.

However, he seemed to be unaware of the pain. He said nothing, didn't even look at it, just lowered his head, and concentrated on smoking a cigarette.