Big Brother / Da Ge / The Unknown

Chapter 5

So it happened: the young boy stubbornly stayed on.

Years later, when he looked back on this event, he almost felt he had achieved something impossible.

His damn older brother, after growing strong, displayed his asshole traits more uniquely than anyone else, possessing a heart as hard as iron, always stubborn. The boy sometimes wondered if anything in the world could change Wei Qian's mind.

Yet that year, after observing for months and persistently nagging for weeks, he actually managed to move this iron-hearted bastard.

After the young boy moved into Wei Qian's home, he gradually regained his ability to speak, though he remained mostly silent, as if fearing that being too noticeable might invite others' dislike or abuse.

At first, he didn't even dare to use the bed or sofa, curling up in a corner at night, sleeping on the floor like a stray dog.

It seemed that as long as he had a roof to shelter from the wind and rain and a few bites of clean food, he was satisfied.

Wei Qian, observing his behavior, couldn't help but recall his own childhood attempts to cautiously please his stepfather. He understood the meaning behind those actions and, rather than finding the boy odd, he felt a secret emotional connection forming.

Of course—Wei Qian wouldn't show these feelings, believing it was proper for someone "in charge" to carry themselves with a bit of arrogance at home.

Wei Qian patiently cleaned the little guy up, and, fearing he might have lice, shaved the young boy's head clean. He even found an old dress of Xiao Bao's for him to wear.

The bald youngster, donning a cheap, lace-missing dress of a little girl, didn't look too out of place, showing that the young boy had a good foundation.

Wei Qian looked at him thoughtfully for a while and couldn't help but make a blunt assessment: "Looks decent enough for a human."

However, Wei Qian thought that perhaps all children look good because they're small and worry-free, thus their eyes are clear and reflective.

This absurd notion was promptly rejected by San Pang—San Pang argued that beauty is inherent and ugliness is too, having nothing to do with age.

San Pang, Wei Qian, and Mazi grew up together, as close as brothers. San Pang was three or four years older than Wei Qian, while Mazi was born the same year as Wei Qian. They played in the mud as kids and roamed the streets as thugs when they got older. Despite never doing a good deed together, their friendship was deep.

As they hit puberty, Wei Qian grew taller and leaner, while San Pang expanded sideways, quickly adopting the portly demeanor of a middle-aged man... As for Mazi, his height and weight didn't matter much; his face, pocked with pits of acne, made his head look like a bumpy little asteroid, startling enough to make people cry at night, overshadowing his other features.

San Pang, the fatso who resembled Piggy's second uncle, shamelessly enjoyed judging others' looks. Every time he saw Xiao Bao, he sighed because the girl looked quite unfortunate.

Leveraging their close friendship, San Pang was brutally honest with Wei Qian—usually saying exactly what Wei Qian didn't want to hear.

Whenever San Pang visited Wei Qian's house, he would dramatically lament over Xiao Bao, exclaiming in a theatrical manner, "Oh, my poor sister, how can your little face be so dark, invisible even in a pile of coal!"

Wei Qian would snatch Xiao Bao back, retorting, "Fuck off, that's called naturally radiant in our family."

San Pang, undeterred, continued his exaggerated complaints, "My brother is blind, how can someone with eyes so small be considered radiant?"