From dropping out of school to that one-on-many fight, for a whole year, Wei Qian had been living a mechanical life day after day. This kind of life was like a piece of rough sandpaper, grinding away the youthfulness in him like dead skin.

The door to the future slowly closed in front of him, and time pushed him to rush forward. Wei Qian originally thought that such days would be painful, but later he discovered that once a person is in "painful days", he is not so sensitive to the "pain". He can still find some fun and talk about it for a long time. A year passed quickly.

One of them was caused by Wei Zhiyuan.

Xiaoyuan is not like Xiaobao. He will listen to whatever Wei Qian says and usually there is no need to waste words with him. But unexpectedly, when it comes to going to school, this kid has learned to fight.

Wei Zhiyuan would rather die than go to school. His living environment is rather abnormal, and he knows a lot about survival-related matters, but he lacks the common sense that a normal child should have. He has no idea about school. Xiaobao told him that going to school means sitting in the classroom and learning to read and count. Wei Zhiyuan thought about it and felt that he had no interest in reading and counting.

The little boy stubbornly believed that going to school meant doing nothing, and he was lazy and ate all day and relied on his older brother to support him.

This made him afraid to go to school - even though Wei Zhiyuan had been picked up by Wei Qian for a whole year that autumn, and he and Xiaobao had become very close, and they even often quarreled and fought with each other, he still had a fear that he would be abandoned at any time.

Wei Zhiyuan regarded contributing to the family as a way to alleviate this fear, and doing housework and picking up bottles to sell for change were his ways of contributing. When he was "deprived" of the opportunity to contribute, Wei Zhiyuan subconsciously felt that this was a sign of being abandoned, and thus began his fierce resistance.

Wei Qian was busy like a dog every day and of course he would not understand the twisted thoughts of children. On the morning of the first day of school, he simply and roughly dragged Wei Zhiyuan and Song Xiaobao out of their home, locked the door behind them despite Wei Zhiyuan's struggling, and then dragged them all the way to school.

During this time, Wei Zhiyuan behaved like a furious cat. Wei Qian carried him and his schoolbag together, with his feet off the ground, hanging in the air. He used the doggy paddle posture to scratch and bite him, doing everything he could, which attracted the attention of passers-by from time to time.

When he ran into Sanpang outside, Sanpang was delighted as soon as he saw him: "Hey, Qian'er, what are you doing? He is fighting so hard, have you finally decided to kill them and eat their meat?"

Wei Qian slapped Wei Zhiyuan hard on the buttocks: "Did you hear me? You are such a disgrace! Even the pigs waiting to be slaughtered are more fearless than you!"

Wei Zhiyuan blushed and announced, "I won't go to school!"

Song Xiaobao joined in the fun, skipping along beside them and happily mimicking them: "Then I won't go to school either!"

Just as Wei Qian was about to speak, another cry of freedom suddenly rang out beside him. A little boy was also forcibly taken to school by his father. He cried all the way and said heartbrokenly, "I don't want to go to school!"

The boy's mother followed closely with small steps, chattering on and on to educate the naughty child. Wei Qian listened for a while and found that she talked about everything from scientists to making a lot of money, from the distant future to buying pork elbows in sauce in the evening, astronomy, geography, and five thousand years of history.

The boy, who was the eldest brother, could not agree with such a cumbersome way of education. He took a simple approach and sneered. He turned around and glanced at the two naughty kids with a noble and cold look, and said coldly: "Did I ask for your opinions? Do you have the right to say 'no'?"

As soon as the words came out, they were so powerful that Wei Zhiyuan fell silent. Song Xiaobao, who had just followed the trend, immediately stopped making trouble. Even the naughty kid next to him, who had always been difficult to coax, sobbed and inexplicably stopped crying.

Wei Qian put Wei Zhiyuan down at the school gate, raised his chin towards the elementary school, and said in a tone of amnesty: "Go in."

Song Xiaobao took two steps, looked back, and found that Wei Zhiyuan was still there, so he stopped hesitantly.

Wei Qian's patience was completely exhausted. He looked at Xiao Yuan with a sullen face and said, "You are rebelling. What do you want to do?"

Wei Zhiyuan stiffened his neck and said nothing. Wei Qian sneered, "You can go or not. Who would ask you to go? If you have the guts, get out of here."

Wei Zhiyuan instinctively took a step back. He was not afraid of his elder brother getting angry, but he was afraid of his elder brother's inhumane sarcasm.

Wei Qian was too lazy to indulge his bad habits, so he turned around and left.

Wei Zhiyuan felt extremely aggrieved. He had always tried hard to get closer to this person and to do more for him, but it seemed that no matter what he did, the other party did not appreciate it at all. It seemed that his elder brother was someone he could never please. He always turned around and walked away, and even his smile was so rare.

Wei Zhiyuan suddenly pounced on him and bit Wei Qian's wrist.

Wei Qian instinctively retracted his hand and moved his wrist, and the boy's protruding and hard wrist bone hit the boy's front teeth. Wei Zhiyuan suddenly loosened his mouth. Wei Qian looked down and saw that the child had spit out the first baby tooth that had fallen out.

Wei Zhiyuan's expression at that time was simply stunned. No one had ever told him about tooth replacement. He could understand teeth being knocked out, but he could not understand why teeth fell out on their own.

In Wei Zhiyuan's understanding, arms and legs can be chopped off and the person will not die, but will they fall off by themselves for no reason?

Wei Zhiyuan stood there shivering, staring blankly at his fallen front teeth, an expression of shock and fear on his face, like those people in TV dramas who just heard that they have a terminal illness.

Wei Qian was successfully entertained by his weird expression. His gloomy face almost couldn't hold back. He quickly turned around, smiled and walked away, even forgetting to care about the fact that the puppy had bitten him.

Wei Zhiyuan was upset, and there was someone who wanted to make the world a better place. Song Xiaobao, a comrade who was always more trouble than help, saw this and shouted in surprise: "Oh, your teeth fell out. You must have been poisoned too badly. You don't have much time left!"

Wei Qian spent five dollars to buy an old TV that someone had thrown away and repaired it at home. Song Xiaobao was watching martial arts movies these days and learned a lot of nonsense lines.

The speaker may not mean it, but the listener may take it seriously. Wei Zhiyuan turned pale when he heard her words. He instinctively looked up to find Wei Qian, but found that he was gone. For a moment, a huge sadness surged into Wei Zhiyuan's heart. He was dragged into the school by Song Xiaobao in a daze, thinking blankly: "I am going to die."

Wei Zhiyuan no longer struggled with Wei Qian about going to school - he was about to die, and all struggles were meaningless.

During that period, Wei Zhiyuan would often wake up in the middle of the night and sit up in the dark, feeling his other teeth moving more and more. He felt that he would not live long. His heart was suffering from the torment and pain of separation from life and death. He looked at Wei Qian's peaceful sleeping face almost greedily, as if he wanted to imprint his elder brother in his mind and take him to the next world.

A month later, Wei Zhiyuan lost three teeth and had a lisp when speaking. He stopped talking and waited for death in silence.

During this period, when other children had not yet fully learned Chinese pinyin, Wei Zhiyuan had already taught himself the common Chinese characters at the back of the textbook with his extraordinary learning ability and extraordinary motivation - his motivation was to leave a suicide note before he died.

For this suicide note, Wei Zhiyuan specifically asked his teacher how to use a dictionary. Every day after class and during playtime, he would work hard to learn words in the old dictionary lent to him by his teacher.

Therefore, Wei Zhiyuan was focused and thought that a dying person had no need to make friends with classmates, so he was indifferent to everyone. Naturally, he did not notice that there were groups of little gap-toothed people in the class who spoke with a lisp like him.

Finally, when the midterm exam was approaching, Wei Zhiyuan, with the perseverance of "a dying man", learned hundreds of Chinese characters and got full marks in Chinese.

He was unmoved by praise or criticism and did not care about the teacher's praise at all. He finished his masterpiece - a suicide note - before all his teeth fell out.

It happened that Ma Zi and San Pang were both having dinner at Wei Qian's house that day, and Wei Zhiyuan solemnly handed the suicide note to Wei Qian.

Sanpang asked in a nonsensical way, "Hey, little brother, you've only been in school for two months and you've already written a love letter to your big brother?"

Wei Qian took it with chopsticks in his mouth, opened it in a few seconds, and began to read it with interest. Wei Zhiyuan glanced at him and lowered his head in grief: "It's a suicide note."

Sanpang didn't hear clearly: "What is it?"

Wei Zhiyuan said calmly, like a soldier about to die: "It's a suicide note. I'm dying soon."

Everyone looked at him with a weird look.

After a while, Ma Zi asked, "How...how did you know that you were going to die?"

Wei Zhiyuan felt like his throat was blocked, which made his voice sound weak: "I lost several teeth, and several of them are loose."

Sanpang's fleshy face twitched for a moment, and he asked cautiously, "Then... don't you feel that new teeth are growing where your teeth fell out?"

Wei Zhiyuan finally couldn't help choking up and said, "Isn't that a last gasp of glory?"

Everyone was silent for two seconds, then Sanpang and Wei Qian looked at each other and burst into laughter at the same time. Only Ma Zi was honest and tried to suppress his laughter: "Bi-ye, don't laugh, you... don't make fun of him, he, he is still young..."

Wei Qian was choked by his own saliva and rolled onto the sofa, coughing continuously, laughing and coughing, with tears coming out.

The eldest brother always behaved in a reserved and serious manner at home, and he had never laughed so unscrupulously in front of them. Wei Zhiyuan was almost stunned, and for a moment he even forgot about the "separation of life and death".

He didn't expect that his elder brother, who had turned a blind eye to his attempts to please him, would be so amused by a ridiculous suicide note.

So later, for some unknown reason, Wei Zhiyuan secretly kept the "suicide note" away.

Later, when Wei Qian became famous in Le Ge's nightclub, Xiaobao and Xiaoyuan had already safely advanced to the second grade.

It is said that many people were stunned by Wei Qian on that day, and a big boss from the south, Mr. Hu Siye, who happened to be in the local area at that time, was quite impressed with him and secretly asked someone to pass him a business card in an attempt to poach him. Unfortunately, Wei Qian had a family to support and could not leave, so he had to reject Mr. Hu Siye's kindness.

From then on, "Xiao Wei" became "Brother Xiao Wei".

Wei Qian's arm was indeed broken, and he went to the hospital to get it fixed. Brother Le's attitude towards him took another 360-degree turn. He was very attentive and drove him home himself. He also called Ma Zi and asked him to help take good care of him. He told Ma Zi that he didn't need to come to work in the near future, but his salary would still be paid.

In order to support his family, Ma Zi also worked under Brother Le - Ma Zi was responsible for cleaning the nightclub every morning.

He cleaned diligently, but unfortunately he didn't have much of a future. If it weren't for Wei Qian, Brother Le might not even remember him. On the contrary, Sanpang, as he grew older, began to distance himself from Brother Le and his gang. Even though they still had some ties, he only helped out and lent a hand occasionally out of brotherhood.

Sanpang seems to be more passionate about the family craft of slaughtering pigs and selling meat.

When Wei Qian returned home to rest with a broken arm, the two children came back from school.

Wei Zhiyuan rushed over without even putting down his bag: “Brother!”

Ma Zi hurriedly stopped him: "But, but...you can't pounce on him, his...his arm..."

Wei Zhiyuan frowned: "What's wrong with your arm?"

Wei Qian, holding a cigarette in his mouth, said vaguely: "A dog bit me."

Song Xiaobao said heartlessly: "Why is it wrapped up like a zongzi after a dog took a bite?"

Wei Zhiyuan's face was tense, and he wanted to ask more questions, but Wei Qian obviously didn't want to talk anymore. He put on a serious expression and said, "Go do your homework. What are you talking about? Don't meddle in adults' business."

Just like that, the two children were sent away without any explanation.

Ma Zi looked at the reluctant Wei Zhiyuan, rubbed his hands again, turned to Wei Qian and said, "Third brother will cook for you tonight, I still have to go..."

Although Brother Le generously gave him the day off, Ma Zi didn't dare take it seriously.

Ma Zi looked at Wei Qian a little embarrassed, and tried to explain to him stutteringly. Ma Zi was such a simple-minded person, he would not cheat or be cunning. Wei Qian had known him for a long time, so he waved his hand and said, "Okay, I know, go ahead, you!"

Ma Zi said with difficulty: "Don't let the pen touch the water, be careful..."

Wei Qian: "Okay, please be kind and stop talking. It will save you energy and I can live two more years."

Ma Zi left, Sanpang was cooking in the kitchen, and Wei Qian was bored, so he picked up a book of extracurricular reading materials for Xiaobao and the others and started reading.

The reading materials are distributed by the school for second graders. They are usually inspirational stories about heroes. After reading, they are asked to write a reading report. Sometimes parents are asked to supervise and sign the homework.

Wei Qian read a few of them and suddenly felt that he was quite an idiot. In the stories, the people either sacrificed their lives for the motherland at a young age, or were disabled but determined enough to overcome all difficulties and study hard to make progress every day. It seemed that everyone's difficulties were greater than his, but they could still become role models.