Chapter 7

Chen Annan lay sprawled on the floor, too dazed from the fall to react.

The teacher leading the group ahead heard the noise and turned back. Assuming Chen Annan had simply tripped on his own, she hurried over to help him up.

Out of sight from the adults, the child who had shoved him stuck his tongue out at Chen Annan, gleeful at his misfortune.

Chen Annan looked up, bewildered. The stares gathering around him made him timid. He glanced at the boy who had pushed him, his expression one of innocent grievance.

Lu Qingyuan stepped forward. He didn’t say a word. He merely cast a cold glance at the little boy who had done the shoving, and then, without warning, he raised a hand and gave the child a hard push in return.

The boy couldn’t withstand the force. He landed on his rear with a thud, sitting on the floor and staring blankly at Lu Qingyuan, too stunned to process what had happened.

Chen Annan was terrified. Even the supervising teacher froze for a moment.

After pushing the boy, Lu Qingyuan walked past him with a completely straight face. The child, intimidated by Lu Qingyuan’s expression, was slow to react. Two seconds passed before his mouth opened wide and a wail erupted—a shrill, high-pitched child’s cry that echoed through the corridor, grating on everyone’s nerves.

Lu Qingyuan walked up to Chen Annan. Before the teacher could even open her mouth, he tattled first, cutting off her words. “He pushed my little brother.”

The teacher frowned, her tone stern. “Even if he pushed your brother, you can’t push him back! You’re a big kid now. How can you not understand something so simple?”

“Oh,” Lu Qingyuan said flatly. “I understand now. I didn’t mean it.” He said it with his mouth, but his heart wasn’t in it. What was done was done. Let the teacher lecture all she wanted. Even Chairman Mao said, ‘If people don’t mess with me, I won’t mess with them.’

The little boy’s howls were earth-shattering, his face flushed crimson. After trying and failing to soothe him for ages, the teacher, worried he’d actually hurt himself, quickly called for a teaching assistant to take the boy to the infirmary.

The corridor was in utter chaos. Chen Annan found himself surrounded by a cluster of children, all asking with earnest concern if it hurt.

Chen Annan was like a frightened little hamster, blinking up at his older brother. Lu Qingyuan grabbed his arm. Instead of letting him rejoin the train of kids, he pulled him out from the gaggle of little radishes. He crouched down and, using both hands, gently rolled up the legs of Chen Annan’s pants, pushing them higher.

It was still early spring. The air was cold. A chill draft shot straight up Chen Annan’s pant legs, making him shiver.

A patch of red marks was visible on his knee. It was already starting to swell. It was clear that soon, bruises would surface and the swelling would get much worse. Lu Qingyuan rubbed his hands together to warm them up and gently pressed around the area. “Does it hurt a lot?”

Chen Annan was in so much pain he could only gasp, speechless. The corners of his mouth drooped in pure misery, but he didn’t cry.

The teacher saw this scene. She came over to offer a few words of comfort but refrained from any further harsh remarks. She then sent Chen Annan to the infirmary as well.

Chen Annan hadn’t expected his brother to push someone. Lu Wenyuan was even more caught off guard—on the very first day of school, he was called in to see the principal. As it happened, he was already right there in the teacher’s office and didn’t have to move a single step.

The child taken to the infirmary was examined and found to have no injuries whatsoever. It was all an act. He just kept crying, insisting his head hurt and that the fall had given him a concussion.

Lu Qingyuan stated that he’d fallen on his rear, so if anything hurt, it was his backside.

Finally, the teacher told the little boy to return to the office with her so they could call his parents to mediate. At that, the boy immediately panicked and said it didn’t hurt anymore.

The teacher knew the score. The little brat who’d started the pushing had been bullying classmates since preschool. He was a real terror, often making other students cry. Both his parents were milk delivery workers, up before dawn and working until dark. They had no time to manage the kid, leaving him in the care of his grandparents, who were far less attentive when it came to raising a child.

When the boy’s father heard his son was stirring up trouble at school again, he stormed into the kindergarten, his presence imposing and full of bluster, radiating an aura that seemed two meters tall.

Lu Wenyuan stood firm. “If you want to take him to the hospital for a full-body checkup, we’ll agree to cover all the costs. But roughhousing between kids shouldn’t go this far. If you can’t manage your own child, there’s no reason my family should bear the consequences—”

Before he could finish, the man came up and, like he was slapping a griddle cake, smacked his son across the face with a resounding crack.

The teacher rushed in immediately to intervene, trying to calm the situation with kind words. But the man was simply too worked up. He jabbed his finger almost into his son’s nose. “You feel miserable if you go a single day without stirring up trouble for me, don’t you?! I’m out there busting my butt to make money, and you’re here making trouble for no reason?! Just wait till we get home.”

The little boy’s face was a mess of tears and snot, one side of it already red and swelling. He wailed like a stuck pig, crying out, “Dad, I won’t ever do it again!”

Watching this unfold, Lu Wenyuan found it impossible to say anything more. Sometimes communication between people was just too difficult. He knew this well enough himself after years of being a teacher.

After half an hour of mediation, the pandemonium was resolved with the conclusion that both sides were at fault, leading to mutual apologies. The other student’s parent apologized to Lu Wenyuan, and didn’t even ask them to apologize in return. Before leaving, the man gave his son another harsh kick in the rear, then stormed off, dragging the wailing child home. The cries echoing down the corridor gradually faded into the distance.

After dealing with the matter, Lu Wenyuan went with the head teacher to the infirmary to see Chen Annan.

The head teacher was also a middle-aged woman. She had heard about Chen Annan’s situation before the school year started, so she naturally felt an extra measure of sympathy. “I’m truly sorry about today’s incident. I’ll pay closer attention from now on to prevent anything like this from happening again.”

Chen Annan was sitting on the infirmary bed. He and Lu Qingyuan had their heads close together. He also revealed his wrist, complaining softly to his brother, “The fall really hurt.”

His wrist had pressed against the ground when he broke his fall, causing a dull ache. There were no visible marks on the skin. Lu Qingyuan examined it carefully for a long time but couldn’t see anything.

Still, he rubbed Chen Annan’s wrist for him. “Does it hurt here?”

Chen Annan’s lips were pursed. He nodded.

Lu Qingyuan rubbed it while blowing gently on it.

Lu Wenyuan glanced over. “Then I’ll have to ask the teacher to keep an extra eye on our little one,” he said.

The teacher replied, “That child comes from a difficult household. No parents to manage him. Calling his parents in doesn’t do much good; they’ve been called so many times they’re thick-skinned about it now.”

Lu Wenyuan responded, “Students are hard to manage. It’s taxing for the teachers too. I’ll have a talk with Chen Annan tonight and tell him to be more careful when he plays with the other kids. I hope something like this never happens again.”

The teacher took the hint. Her gaze fell on the two children. “I can see he’s very attached to his older brother. If they went to school together, things would be much better. A child with an older brother looking out for him won’t get bullied.”

Lu Wenyuan said, “His older brother is a bit older. He’s already in elementary school. He has to go back to his own school tomorrow.”

“You truly care for these children,” the teacher remarked, her tone one of conversation, casting an admiring look his way. “It’s rare for a parent to take time off work specifically to help a child adjust to school.”

Lu Wenyuan just smiled and shook his head, not saying much more. Every family had its own troubles, hidden from the world. They just came in different forms.

Lu Qingyuan looked up and saw both the teacher and his father watching the two of them. Embarrassed, he immediately let go of Chen Annan. His father lifted his chin toward him, signaling him to bring Chen Annan over.

Chen Annan was led by the hand by Lu Qingyuan and hopped off the bed. Lu Wenyuan scooped him up, exchanged a few more polite words with the teacher, and then took the two kids and left.

Something like this happened on the very first day of school. It should have been upsetting. But Chen Annan was, on the contrary, very happy. He had met so many new friends. Most importantly, the recent period of bickering with his brother had been turned over like a page in a book, and that had him overjoyed.

Held securely in a pair of arms, Chen Annan was carried into the car for the ride home.

The kindergarten was some distance away. After crying all morning and the incident in the afternoon, Chen Annan was now utterly exhausted. He nodded off, drowsy and swaying, his head bobbing along with the car’s bumps.

Lu Qingyuan stole several glances at him, watching the little child force his eyes open for a fleeting moment, sit back upright, and then lean over again within two minutes.

In the end, he silently guided Chen Annan’s head down onto his own lap. With a comfortable spot to rest, Chen Annan fell into a deep sleep.

The car drove smoothly along the asphalt road. Many buildings in this city retained the flavor of the Republic of China era—grey walls, black tiles. Clumps of weeds sprouted from between the roof tiles, against which a round, red, setting sun hung, so close it seemed you could reach out and touch it.

From the moment they left the kindergarten, Lu Wenyuan never brought up the incident of Lu Qingyuan pushing someone that day.

It wasn’t until evening, when he was running the bath for the two kids, that the topic came up. Chen Annan got into the bathtub first. Once his clothes were off, the bruises were fully visible. They looked much worse than during the day—large patches of dark purple that stood out starkly against his tender, pale skin.

Lu Wenyuan frowned slightly. He took out a bath pouf and told Chen Annan to rub the body wash on himself, then turned his attention to rolling his already-wet sleeves up further.

Chen Annan scrubbed and scrubbed, working the pouf into a dense, fine lather, which he spread over his body. The water soon became a sea of bubbles.

The bathroom door was pushed open. Lu Qingyuan walked in, holding the pajamas they would change into.

Lu Wenyuan beckoned him closer. “Come here. I wanted to have a word with you.”

“About what?” Lu Qingyuan said, surprised.

Lu Wenyuan looked at him seriously, his tone lowering. “The way you handled things today at the kindergarten wasn’t right. Dad hasn’t talked to you about it yet.”

Lu Qingyuan hadn’t expected his father to bring this up now. His hands, which were in the middle of undressing, paused. His eyes fixed on Lu Wenyuan, showing a rare look of shock, mixed with other emotions.

Chen Annan, a head full of bubbles at that moment, was squeezing a little rubber duck to make it squirt water. Hearing this, he immediately threw both arms around Lu Wenyuan’s bare forearm. “Don’t blame Brother,” he said. “He only pushed that kid because he saw me fall.”

“I know.” Lu Wenyuan’s face was stern. Chen Annan had never seen him with such an expression, and it made his little heart uneasy.

Lu Qingyuan said nothing. What he did today was indeed lacking. After all, they were just kindergarten kids. His push had been a bit heavy-handed. His father had taught him before that he couldn’t fight with other kids at school.

But in the next moment, a damp sensation landed on his head. Lu Wenyuan, using his bubble-covered hand, bent a finger and lightly tapped it against Lu Qingyuan’s forehead. The feigned severity in his eyes dissipated. “Seeing how badly our Nannan was hurt,” he said, “your push was actually too gentle. You didn’t even manage to hurt his bottom, and yet he was carrying on about his head hurting.”

With that, he gave the soft flesh at the back of Chen Annan’s neck a gentle squeeze. “Just look at our poor little one.”

Tucked under his uncle’s soothing touch, Chen Annan giggled, sending bubbles floating everywhere.

Lu Qingyuan stood stunned for a long moment before finally raising his hand to wipe the dollop of foam from his forehead. The bathroom was thick with warm steam. The exhaust fan whirred, thinning the mist somewhat.

After bathing the two children, Lu Wenyuan changed them into their pajamas. The pajamas were made of a soft, fleecy cotton, wonderfully plush and comfortable to the touch. A finger run across the fabric left a faint trail. Chen Annan loved tracing patterns on it with his finger; he found it very amusing.

Before bed, Lu Wenyuan applied safflower oil to Chen Annan’s injury. As Chen Annan sat on the edge of the bed, his bare feet dangling, he stole several glances at his uncle.

His brother had been scolded today because of him. He wondered if his brother was feeling down. He thought about how every time he himself was scolded, his heart felt terrible and he believed he was the least well-behaved child in the whole world.

This little worry weighed heavily in his little chest. Even long after the lights were turned off, Chen Annan couldn’t sleep. He lay with his face nestled against Lu Wenyuan’s chest, his fingers absently tracing along his uncle’s arm.

Lu Wenyuan sensed it. He patted his back. “What’s the matter?”

Chen Annan didn’t quite know how to say it. He could only ask in a shy, quiet voice, “Uncle, can I sleep with Brother tonight?”

Lu Wenyuan let out an “Oh,” his arm tightening around Chen Annan slightly. “You don’t want to be with Uncle anymore?” he asked, with a mock sense of wonder.

Afraid his uncle might misunderstand him, Chen Annan shook his head like a rattle-drum. “No, no, no, no.”

Lu Wenyuan’s chest vibrated with a chuckle. He teased, “Then were Uncle’s stories tonight not good?”

Chen Annan quickly denied this too. “No, no, no.”

Lu Wenyuan mimicked him, letting the corners of his mouth droop in a feigned pout. “Oh, I get it—now that you’ve made up with your brother, you don’t want Uncle anymore. Just a few days ago, you were still saying you liked Uncle best.”

He said it with such a wounded air that Chen Annan shot upright. The blanket draped over his head, he huddled there in a little ball, his mind a knot of indecision. He felt it really wasn’t good to abandon his uncle to sleep alone. But what about his brother?

If only he could clone himself. One to stay with Uncle, one to be with Brother. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a monkey, and he had no cloning ability. Chen Annan propped his chin on both hands, thinking for a long time, but couldn’t come up with a solution.

Lu Wenyuan was thoroughly amused by the child’s anguished expression. Seeing that any more teasing would genuinely upset him, he lifted a hand and gave Chen Annan’s little bottom a pat, a chuckle escaping him. “Go on, then.”

Chen Annan rubbed his fingers back and forth on the bedsheet. “Uncle will be sad.”

“Before you came along, wasn’t Uncle sleeping by himself?” Lu Wenyuan said with a smile. “Uncle being alone is fine. But Brother being alone won’t do. He’s feeling wronged after being scolded. He might even be hiding under his blanket secretly crying. Aren’t you going to go comfort him?”

Receiving this confirmation, Chen Annan’s eyes lit up. Relieved, he slid off the bed at once. Slipping on his slippers and happily hugging his little blanket and Snoopy, he scampered off to Lu Qingyuan’s room.

Lu Qingyuan hadn’t expected him to come. He was just about to sleep. Seeing the little figure, he paused for a second, then switched the desk lamp back on.

Without waiting for an invitation, Chen Annan kicked off his slippers on his own and climbed onto the bed. Lu Qingyuan shifted inward to make some space for him, not saying much else.

Once Chen Annan had his own little blanket properly arranged, Lu Qingyuan reached out and switched the lamp off again.

The light vanished abruptly. Moonlight spilled in, gentle as water. Young children don’t like drawing the curtains when they sleep; the fragmented light from outside makes them feel safe.

The city blazed with lights at night, but by the time it reached them, it was faint, just enough for their eyes to adjust.

Lu Qingyuan closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before he heard a rustling sound. A pair of small hands found their way around his waist in a shallow embrace, their icy touch making his eyelids twitch at the cold.

Lu Qingyuan’s eyes snapped open. Chen Annan had already wormed his way from his own blanket into Lu Qingyuan’s, bringing a body full of chill with him.

“Don’t be sad.” Chen Annan used a hushed breath, close to his brother’s ear.

“?” Lu Qingyuan didn’t understand.

“Uncle scolded you today. Don’t be sad.” The way his uncle did for him, Chen Annan patted his back, soothing him rhythmically. “I know you did it for me. Tomorrow, I won’t make you go to the kindergarten with me. So please don’t be sad anymore, okay?”

Lu Qingyuan was baffled by this attempt at consolation. Nor did he understand where Chen Annan had gotten the idea that he was sad.

Chen Annan’s hands and feet were very cold. Pressed against Lu Qingyuan, they leached away his warmth. Unflaggingly, he patted Lu Qingyuan’s back with gentle strokes, lecturing his older brother like a tiny adult. Before he could coax anyone else to sleep, his own eyes closed first.

Feeling the pressure on his waist slow to a stop, Lu Qingyuan reached out. He gently took the small hand that was resting on his waist and placed it in the space between their chests. Then he hooked Chen Annan’s leg over, pulling him close.

Southern winter nights are damp and cold, the chill as though trying to seep into the very marrow of your bones. Oblivious, Chen Annan burrowed towards the source of warmth, pressing close. His little belly rose and fell peacefully in sleep.

When Lu Qingyuan closed his eyes again, the air he breathed in was laced with the scent of shampoo from Chen Annan’s hair.