When Bai Shi said he had no money, he wasn’t joking. His food and clothing were provided for him, but beyond that, no one looked after his needs, so naturally, no one gave him an allowance.
Thus, after taking the money from the pawnshop, he didn't even know where to put it for a moment, so he simply clutched it in his hand all the way home. On his way upstairs, he ran into Bai Hai.
Bai Hai had originally intended to merely spare him a glance, but when he saw the stack of cash gripped in Bai Shi’s hand, he found it strange. Frowning, he called out to Bai Shi and walked over. Bai Hai leaned down to look at the money, then noticed the loose threads at Bai Shi’s torn cuff. His expression darkened, and he cast a contemptuous look at his brother, his voice laced with a smirk. "For real? Are you... that desperate for money?"
Bai Shi didn't answer, nor did he look up. Bai Hai huffed and straightened his posture, looking down at Bai Shi. Bai Shi’s awkward predicament somewhat reflected his own shadow, which made him inexplicably irritable. He gave Bai Shi a kick and turned to leave.
Suddenly, Bai Shi lifted his eyes. Watching Bai Hai’s retreating back, he said calmly, "No matter how hard you try, Yan Baihua will never look at you. No matter how much you try to be like Bai Yilong, he will never acknowledge you. Just give up."
Bai Hai’s back stiffened. He spun around abruptly, stomped back, and delivered a sharp kick to Bai Shi’s head, sending him tumbling down the stairs.
Bai Shi rolled to the floor and climbed back up, coughing. As he coughed, he began to laugh. Look at that—Bai Hai was mimicking Bai Yilong’s violence to treat his own sickness.
Unsatisfied, Bai Hai came down and unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks. Bai Shi grinned; the more he laughed, the angrier Bai Hai became. The passing servants didn't even turn their heads. They never gossiped, never spoke, and never stole a glance, acting as if the two were invisible and the fight wasn't happening at all.
Bai Shi took a few hits, but when Bai Hai swung another punch, Bai Shi kicked him hard in the groin. He quickly scrambled up, tackled the man to the ground, knelt on him, and slammed his own forehead hard against Bai Hai’s—a move he had learned from Pei Cangyu. It knocked Bai Hai unconscious instantly.
Bai Shi stood up unsteadily and slumped back onto the floor, watching his brother clutch his head and try to roll over.
Years of chronic headaches had gifted Bai Shi with another talent: he was more perceptive than his brothers when it came to discovering the truth about their family. Even now, his brothers didn't know why they had been loathed since birth, why they were trapped in this spiderweb of a family watching hatred ferment as they tortured one another. Bai Hai was just like him; he had never been held or kissed by their mother since childhood, never even receiving a gaze that lasted more than three seconds. It was the same way Bai Yinhua had never heard a single kind word from the father everyone else admired. Sometimes Bai Shi thought his brothers were truly pitiful—clueless, never finding the truth, only able to self-digest the resentment inherited from the previous generation before venting it elsewhere. It manifested as Bai Jiang’s promiscuity, Bai Hai’s mania, and Bai Yinhua’s flamboyance—using an extremism they hadn't even noticed to escape certain feelings.
Bai Shi pitied them. He knew that if he told them the truth—"Your mother/father doesn't love you because you aren't their biological child"—they would recover quickly. After all, who would seek love from a stranger? They would feel better, no longer forced to circle within an incomprehensible ancestral grudge. That would be the first step to resolving the hatred; in this stifling, deep house, it would be the first way to save them—to dig up the grievances of their predecessors, let ash return to ash and dust to dust, and liberate their generation...
But Bai Shi would never tell them! The thought made him laugh. He wouldn't say a word; he would tell no one. He knew his parents would certainly never let such a thing be exposed, so his brothers could just stay trapped in the family with him! Bai Shi felt a surge of excitement at the thought. They could at least comfort themselves with the idea that "one needn't seek love from strangers," but what about Bai Shi? What way out did Bai Shi have? It was better this way—everyone suffering together. In this lifetime, no one should even think about reconciling with their childhood selves, reconciling with their parents, or extracting peace from their hearts.
Bai Shi watched excitedly as his brother crawled up and sat on the floor, dazed for a moment. Hearing a movement upstairs—even though Bai Hai was twenty years old—he still trembled at the sound of his father’s footsteps and scrambled to his feet.
Bai Yilong passed by them, adjusting his overcoat. His attendants helped him light his pipe, held up an umbrella, and opened the door. Bai Yilong turned back to look at his sons—Bai Shi sitting by the stairs and Bai Hai standing stiffly. His eyes darkened as he left the house, not forgetting to complain to the person beside him about how each of them was more useless than the last.
His voice wasn't particularly loud or quiet, but Bai Shi saw Bai Hai tremble again.
*How pathetic,* Bai Shi thought.
He smiled with satisfaction, but Bai Hai fixed his eyes on him again, fists clenching as he employed the clever boxing technique he’d learned from their father—the kind that skillfully avoided the face.
***
Because of the beating, Bai Shi didn't sleep well due to the pain and nearly woke up late the next morning. They had agreed to meet at Sandu Square, where the school bus would pick them up for the autumn outing.
By the time Bai Shi arrived, the other five were already there, holding a popsicle-eating contest. The one with the best record so far was Apple, who could stuff three into his mouth at once.
Bai Shi arrived but didn't step forward. He planned to wait for them to finish their contest before appearing; otherwise, Pei Cangyu would surely force him to participate in such a mindless competition.
And so, he watched them from a distance.
The five of them stood together like a WiFi signal, arranged neatly from shortest to tallest: Monkey, Airplane, Apple, Pei Cangyu, and Pigou. Given that all their nicknames were coined by Pei Cangyu, one could get a sense of his meager vocabulary.
Pigou was currently following Pei Cangyu’s instructions to challenge eating four at once. Pigou always had a sort of blind obedience toward Pei Cangyu; their brain waves seemed to connect on every frequency, perhaps a simple case of biological mutual attraction. Furthermore, although Pei Cangyu never mentioned it during introductions, Pigou was visibly wealthy.
Apple was a person who wore both intelligence and laziness on his face. He wouldn't speak if he didn't have to, and wouldn't lift a finger if words sufficed. Except for those he was close to, he was wary of everyone.
But in truth, the one among them with the greatest hostility toward Bai Shi was Monkey. This cynical youth lived in his own world and had his own set of standards for judging people. At some point, he had already labeled Bai Shi as "not someone to be close with," and only hung around him perfunctorily for Pei Cangyu’s sake.
Airplane’s level of maturity was probably ten "Pigous" higher than Pei Cangyu’s. Airplane was a master at smoothing things over. As long as he was there, no matter how bad Bai Shi’s relationship with the others became, it would never reach the point of an argument. And as long as there was no arguing, Pei Cangyu would never realize that Bai Shi’s arrival would eventually cause them to fall apart.
And Pei Cangyu was Bai Shi’s target of observation.
When Bai Shi had gone to the teacher’s office to fill out his own information form, he had looked up Pei Cangyu’s. From it, he learned his birthday and address, but what particularly caught his attention was his family situation: no parents.
Bai Shi had found it interesting at the time. He and Pei Cangyu were two sides of the same coin. To use a metaphor, Pei Cangyu was a person walking barefoot, while Bai Shi was a person walking in shoes filled with sand. What kind of illness would an orphan develop? Would it be like Bai Jiang and the others, or some new kind of sickness? It was because he wanted to know this that Bai Shi began observing Pei Cangyu.
He, Bai Shi, considered himself a human observer.
"Hey! You’re here, so get over here already!" Pei Cangyu interrupted the human observer’s introspection, waving at him from across the street. The human observer sighed, reminding himself to be patient before walking over.
Pei Cangyu slung an arm around Bai Shi’s shoulder. "It’s his turn. Let him try four."
Pigou laughed and tore open the last bag of popsicles. There were seven left inside. Pei Cangyu thought for a moment, then turned to Bai Shi. "Do you want to challenge yourself?"
The human observer was struck with horror and shook his head violently.
Pei Cangyu nodded understandingly, gave three to Bai Shi, and decided to challenge four himself. "Fine, I get it. A person who is looked up to must lead the charge."
Monkey glanced at him. "Using 'lead the charge' here... how truly dauntless of you."
Pei Cangyu waved a hand. "Are you insulting me?"
Apple chimed in, "He’s being sarcastic!"
Pei Cangyu pulled out four popsicles, blew a breath on them, and spared Apple a glance. "Get him!"
Monkey held his head. "I just said it in passing..."
Apple breathed on his fingers for a long time before delivering a loud flick to Monkey’s forehead.
Pei Cangyu stuffed all four in with a muffled sound. The others crowded around him, counting the seconds as if witnessing a Guinness World Record. The commotion was so grand it made passersby stare. They shouted idiotic lines like "Ike, Pei Cangyu!" and "Where is the star of tomorrow? You are the star of tomorrow!" as if this weren't a public place in broad daylight. The embarrassment was so great that the only young human observer present wished he could sink into the ground.
Pei Cangyu finally finished, looking half-dead as he wheezed and fanned his mouth with his hand, his teeth aching from the cold. Apple shared his apple tea with him.
Holding the tea, Pei Cangyu noticed Bai Shi hadn't eaten his. "Why aren't you eating?"
Bai Shi: "..."
Pei Cangyu set down the tea. "Just close your eyes and it’s done! Come on, I’ll help you!"
Bai Shi: "No need!—"
However, the enthusiastic classmates swarmed him, prying his mouth open and stuffing the popsicles in before scattering. They watched the idiot biting three popsicles and laughed so hard they couldn't stand up, rolling on the ground.
Bai Shi didn't understand what was so funny.
He took a bite, and the popsicles started falling out. He instinctively reached out to catch them, fumbling clumsily, which only made the others laugh harder.
In the end, Bai Shi only ate one; the rest were thrown away.
After finishing the popsicles, the bus still hadn't arrived, but an old grandmother dragging a large bundle passed by. She was struggling to heave the bundle onto a vehicle. The bundle was spherical and looked to be about a meter and a half in diameter.
The grandmother tried twice, but the bag didn't budge, and she nearly toppled over herself.
Pei Cangyu stepped forward, and the others followed.
"Grandma, let me help you." Pei Cangyu pointed at the bundle. "What’s in here?"
"Eh?" The grandmother couldn't hear clearly and leaned her ear toward Pei Cangyu.
Pei Cangyu took a deep breath. "I’LL—DO—IT!"
The grandmother said, "Why are you shouting so loud?"
Pei Cangyu: "..."
Through their laborious conversation, they gathered that the bag was filled with old clothes. This was a donation truck; the driver was currently going house-to-house to collect items and wasn't there, so the grandmother wanted to put it in herself.
Apple whispered a complaint to Airplane: "These are old clothes? She must have been saving them for fifty years..."
Airplane laughed. "Well, fashion is a circle. Donate them, and whoever gets them wins. Let the retro wind blow through the remote regions!"
Pei Cangyu tossed his backpack to Pigou and grabbed the opening of the bag. "How’s this? Do I look cool?"
Everyone applauded.
Pei Cangyu tossed his blonde hair, gripped the opening, and swung it backward, intending to heave it over his shoulder.
Instead, he swung himself over; the bag didn't move.
"Holy crap—"
The group cried out and rushed forward, frantically helping Pei Cangyu up.
Pei Cangyu pushed them away. "I don't believe this..."
Apple tried to persuade him. "Forget it, bro. Many hands make light work."
Pei Cangyu ignored him and swung again. This time, the bag hit the ground with a thud, and Pei Cangyu flipped right over it, landing on the other side in a perfect 360-degree rotation.
Airplane was dumbstruck. "That was impressive, man..."
Pei Cangyu hadn't even realized what happened himself.
Apple pulled out ten yuan. "Come on, do it again for the master!"
Pei Cangyu smacked him on the forehead, but then he rubbed his nose, thinking it was fun. "Heh, alright, one more time..."
Bai Shi thought: *Why did I choose such a specimen for observation?*
Just like that, they took turns swinging the bag for a long while, each practicing their physical skills. They even dragged a completely unwilling Bai Shi into it for a backflip before they finally lifted the massive bag into the truck together.
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
三度广场 | Sandu Square | A location where the students meet.
暗火组 | Anhuo Group | A mysterious organization (likely a syndicate) mentioned in connection with the Bai family.
猴子 | Monkey | Nickname for one of Pei Cangyu's friends (Houzi).
飞机 | Airplane | Nickname for one of Pei Cangyu's friends (Feiji).
苹果 | Apple | Nickname for one of Pei Cangyu's friends (Pingguo).
皮狗 | Pigou | Nickname for one of Pei Cangyu's friends; literally "Leather Dog."
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