Chapter 7

Qiu Baozhu had already received countless calls from home, all urging him to return.

Having finally secured the lamb plushie, he dialed Qiu Fei. "I'm coming back soon. I'm hungry."

Qiu Fei replied, "...I'll have Aunt Wan prepare dinner. Send your location to the driver so he can pick you up."

"No need, I'll take a taxi." Although the driver was on call 24/7, he figured the man had likely already turned in for the night; a taxi would do just fine.

On the way back, Qiu Baozhu felt a gnawing hunger and stopped at a small street-side snack window. "One order of fries and an iced cola."

With fries in one hand and a cola in the other, Qiu Baozhu felt light on his feet. In the short time since his rebirth, he had already become too terrified to dwell on the final days of his previous life. No matter how thin the chain on his ankle was, it always made a sound. With Wei Shu as his shield, everyone addressed him as "Young Master Baozhu" with forced reverence, successfully pretending to be blind to the shackles he wore. Yet, he still felt that everyone in the Wei household whispered behind his back, mocking him. He never had to live through those days again.

The fries smelled of milk, and when the fizzy bubbles of the cola hit his tongue, the sweetness danced. Qiu Baozhu hummed a tune, scanning the road for an empty taxi.

Amidst the flow of traffic, a discordant, messy, and urgent sound of footsteps emerged.

The sound between Qiu Baozhu's teeth vanished. It sounded remarkably like the footsteps that had chased him before he died—not quite as swift or powerful, but possessing that same sense of inevitable capture. Qiu Baozhu held the cola in his mouth, forgetting to swallow, and froze, his heart pounding like a drum.

The footsteps drew closer and closer. Qiu Baozhu closed his eyes, and the rush of footsteps brushed past his shoulder.

"Stop! Don't run!"

"You little bastard!"

*Little bastard?*

It wasn't for him. Wei Shu’s men would never call him a little bastard. Qiu Baozhu opened his eyes, trembling. The men had run far ahead, pointing and shouting curses, drawing the attention of curious passersby.

And the person they were chasing… was that Wei Shu?

The light and shadows around him seemed to shift, yet remained the same. The faces of the passersby were strangers, but the road before him was one he had walked before—painfully familiar. It was so familiar that, with a single step, he felt he would instinctively head in that direction.

He remembered. It was also an evening after school, though the reason he stood here was different. May 14th. Today was the anniversary of the day he met Wei Shu.

Wei Shu’s mother, Li Caiping, owed a great deal of money. Every month, new IOUs appeared at their home, and every month, unfamiliar debt collectors showed up at their door. Li Caiping could never pay; the money she earned was spent only on herself, and the money she borrowed was spent only on herself. In Li Caiping’s eyes, Wei Shu was merely a tumor removed from her womb, no different from a growth on any other part of her body. Who would raise a tumor? She had never seen it happen. Yet, in the eyes of most, it was only natural for a son to pay his mother’s debts. As long as she had given birth to him, he was doomed to repay those debts for a lifetime, without ever having tasted a drop of her milk or a single meal from her hand.

***

Qiu Baozhu had been with Wei Shu for twelve years, yet he had never actually met Li Caiping. Everything he knew about her came from Wei Shu, the old butler Old Qian, and the creditors. Li Caiping eventually went abroad to her dream city: Las Vegas, USA.

At this point in time, Wei Shu was still living with Li Caiping. The people chasing him were her creditors.

The iced cola in Qiu Baozhu’s mouth slowly warmed up, turning into a cloying, ginger-flavored liquid. After forcing himself to swallow it, he finished the rest, stepped on the empty can to flatten it, and tossed it into a trash bin. Carrying his fries, he ran forward quickly.

He was going to watch Wei Shu get beaten up. Why not?

Fights were always staged in secluded spots. Even in the heart of the city, there were plenty of corners forgotten or ignored by people. Following his memory, Qiu Baozhu arrived at the famous bar and dance hall street, where the riff-raff were truly of every stripe. The air was thick with the scent of dry red wine, pungent whiskey, leather, sweat, tobacco, and perfume.

A woman with garish, sultry makeup waved her long fingers to stop the panting high schooler. "Want a drink? Oh, wait, never mind, minors aren't allowed to drink."

"I'm not drinking," Qiu Baozhu said. "I'm looking for someone in the back."

The landlady, who had been prepared to drag him into a few thousand dollars' worth of drinks and call his parents to settle the bill, realized she had been overthinking it. She swayed her hips and returned to sit lazily under the umbrella at the shop entrance. "You look like you're worth looking at, so I'll give you a heads-up: it’s chaotic back there. Someone just ran past holding a knife..."

"Hey!"

Her voice was left behind by Qiu Baozhu. As he approached, his steps slowed and grew lighter. He suppressed his ragged breathing, his heart thumping hard against his ribs.

Behind the bar street was a large open space used for storing the shops' miscellaneous items; people came periodically to collect them. Crates of wine bottles were stacked higher than a person, and in the dim light, the empty bottles shimmered like small, eye-covered hills.

Qiu Baozhu tiptoed behind some wooden crates and reached out to move a few beer bottles that were blocking his view.

*Clatter.* The glass bottles collided with a hard object and shattered.

The boy’s hand shook. He looked down and saw the bottle was still in his hand, perfectly intact. He let out a sigh of relief. The sound of the breaking glass had given him the direction, and he looked over.

Wei Shu was holding the neck of a bottle; the jagged edge looked incredibly sharp, like a shard of ice gleaming with a cold, piercing light. The man he had struck on the head was clutching his bleeding scalp, his face twisted in pain. Before the man could react, he was dragged back. Wei Shu drove the jagged bottle neck into the man’s abdomen.

Watching this, Qiu Baozhu bit his lip. It looked so painful.

To the side, a fruit knife slashed at Wei Shu’s shoulder. Wei Shu swayed, dodging it, then grabbed the man’s wrist and slammed him into the wooden crates behind him. The man’s wrist went limp, and the knife fell to the ground.

Wei Shu easily neutralized two men, then reached out and grabbed a man hiding in the shadows by the collar, pummeling his face with punch after punch like he was striking a sandbag. Blood and spit splattered into the air, and the man’s already unattractive face was completely unrecognizable.

Qiu Baozhu knew that Wei Shu had always been good at fighting; his side job was never anything legitimate—he took turns acting as a hired thug for various bars and clubs. Back then, Qiu Baozhu had prided himself on being a wealthy, privileged young man, believing that raising a Wei Shu was no problem at all. But Wei Shu had never given up his side jobs.

He inevitably got hurt, and Wei Shu always came to school with injuries. They were never fatal or serious, but there would be glaring bruises here and there on his body that made the Qiu Baozhu of that time ache with heartbreak. Qiu Baozhu never understood why Wei Shu refused to live off him. If it were him, he would have done it in a heartbeat.

Amidst the sounds of punches and kicks not far away, Qiu Baozhu’s thoughts drifted. The group was clearly using a wheel-tactic against Wei Shu, like a pack of hyenas waiting in line to take a bite, eyes bloodshot, drool dripping from their mouths.

***

Wei Shu was fighting one against many, and his stamina was failing; he was gradually being overpowered. The boy took a heavy blow to the back of his head from a sneak attack.

Qiu Baozhu scratched the wooden crate with his short fingernails. A man with a bloody head seized the chance to strike Wei Shu’s knee with a club. Wei Shu stumbled, grabbed a bottle, and smashed it down on the man’s head with all his might.

In his previous life, the moment Qiu Baozhu saw so many people bullying one person—a classmate, no less—he had immediately spent money to call for help, preventing the situation where Wei Shu was overwhelmed.

What about now? What choice should he make? If he ignored it, would Wei Shu be beaten to death? But if he helped Wei Shu like in the previous life, Wei Shu would certainly fall uncontrollably in love with him again.

Qiu Baozhu lowered his eyelids. He bit his wild-cherry-red lips, his chest feeling as if it held a glowing red coal. The piles of empty bottles still contained traces of alcohol; the fumes gathered around Qiu Baozhu, heating up and boiling in his nostrils, making him feel dizzy.

Qiu Baozhu knew the value of life better than anyone.

A moment later, he made his decision. The boy pulled out his phone, opened the camera, zoomed in on the scene, and pressed record.

*I'll film this. Whenever I'm in a bad mood in the future, I can take it out and watch it.*

Under the dim light of the nearby bar, the scene looked like it was shot on the very edge of the city—chaotic and disorderly. After saving the video, Qiu Baozhu crouched down behind the crates and quietly called the police.

Just calling the police didn't count as helping; the police might even arrest Wei Shu. After the call, Qiu Baozhu left the bar street without a sound.

This area was a hotspot for public disturbances, and students loved to congregate here, so there was never a lack of police patrols. Within fifteen minutes of his call, police cars pulled up outside, their spotlights shining directly into the junkyard, turning the surroundings as bright as day.

"What are you doing?!"

"Hands up!"

As the scar-faced man in the lead slowly raised his hands, he kicked the fruit knife on the ground toward Wei Shu’s feet. He spat on the ground and muttered, "Which bastard called the cops? Don't they know the rules?"

The bruised and swollen henchmen looked confused. They instinctively looked at Wei Shu, who was leaning against a wrecked car. Wei Shu’s jacket was stained with blood, his face was a mess of bruises, and his expression was one of cold, indifferent exhaustion.

*Today is actually bizarre!* the scar-faced man thought to himself. This kid hadn't fought like a mad dog at all. If it were any other time, they wouldn't have landed half the blows they had today.

The police herded the group toward the cars. When they grabbed Wei Shu, the collar of his Jicai school uniform was revealed beneath his jacket, the school motto embroidered in conspicuous English.

The sharp-eyed officer’s tone sharpened. "A student?"

The boy’s ink-black eyes flickered, and his lips curled in a cold, non-committal sneer. As he walked, he wiped a bead of blood rolling down his forehead with his thumb.

When he passed the piles of crates in the dim alley, Wei Shu suddenly stopped. His gaze swept over the messy footprints on the ground, and he sensed an overwhelming sense of agitation.

Under the urging of the police, Wei Shu walked over, crouched down, and wiped his fingers on his knees a few times. In the dust, he picked up a Jicai Middle School student ID badge that had no business being there.