Qiu Junwei suddenly felt like the kid was just bluffing.
Sure, Little Lu had gotten a bit rebellious after coming home—locking the door, sneaking out for meat—but calling the cops? That would be washing the family’s dirty laundry in public, burning bridges with his parents.
He mulled it over in his mind and figured it wasn’t likely. He glanced at the red button on the kid’s ankle, flashy and intimidating like the light-up shoes on a four-year-old.
“Come here and kneel,” Qiu Junwei barked, slapping the belt against his palm. The metal tip cracked sharply twice.
“Take this beating today, shape up, and your mom and I can let some things slide.”
Qiu Lu leaned against the wall, silently timing how long it would take for the police to show up.
At least ten minutes.
He stared at his blood relative without a trace of fear, saying nothing more.
There was nothing left to say.
From overhearing Qiu Junwei’s repeated scheming for a second child to witnessing the man’s visceral disgust at any touch—it was all crystal clear now.
Cui Mengmei let out a wail, assuming the boy was finally scared, finally backing down. Habit took over as she pleaded like always: “Be good now, Lulu, just listen to us, okay?”
“You’re turning eighteen soon. You’re almost an adult. We can’t keep treating you like a little kid—”
Qiu Lu turned a slow gaze on her, surprise flickering in his eyes.
He hadn’t been a coward before. He’d just been too considerate of his mother, too unwilling to dwell on certain words.
But hearing that same tired script again today, every single word rang hollow and mocking.
He even felt the urge to ask.
Mom, what did I do wrong?
So this was “not being sensible,” huh?
Kneel down, take the beating without a peep, let them keep pulling your strings—that’s what you wanted in exchange for those tears?
Qiu Junwei saw Qiu Lu still holding out and charged forward in a rage, rearing back the belt for a brutal swing.
Qiu Lu had braced himself for some pain before the cops arrived, but as the belt whipped high overhead, he simply shifted sideways—like dodging in slow motion from some action flick.
A heron’s dynamic vision let it snatch fish or shrimp in a blink, no matter the swirling currents or blinding sunlight.
To him, Qiu Junwei’s movements looked like some doddering old man lumbering forward at a comically sluggish pace to do him harm.
He only needed to step aside once.
The belt sliced through the air with vicious force, no holding back, slamming into the wall with a sharp crack!
Cui Mengmei jumped in fright. She had no intention of intervening, but she couldn’t tell if her son had taken the hit.
“Son! Just admit you were wrong!” she cried helplessly from the sidelines. “We’ve gotten by like this for over a decade. If you rebel now, you’ll ruin yourself!!”
Qiu Junwei hadn’t seen it clearly either. He’d thought he’d connected, only to glance sideways and find Qiu Lu standing calmly nearby, watching him with utter composure.
The boy’s serene gaze carried a subtle warmth, like the pity of someone looking down from on high.
It pierced the middle-aged man’s pride like a knife. His face flushed crimson as he snarled, “You dog-raised little shit!!”
He hefted the belt with even more fury, determined to flay the ungrateful beast alive—
Crack! Crack-crack! Crack-crack-crack!
The metal-tipped belt lashed down fiercely and relentlessly through empty air. Qiu Lu merely tilted aside a fraction, dipping his head slightly.
He looked utterly detached, like none of it concerned him.
The savage scene took on an oddly leisurely air.
For the first time, Qiu Lu understood why humans could never catch a bird in flight.
Even a sparrow perched right outside the window—you couldn’t touch a single feather with both hands.
Cui Mengmei gaped in stunned silence, finally realizing her son hadn’t so much as ruffled a hair.
She turned a dazed look on her husband, unable to keep up the act of the frantic, wailing peacemaker. Instead, she scrambled for excuses: “Don’t—husband, just talk to him properly!!”
“He’s got the Gaokao in just half a year. What are you doing?!”
“You freak, neither man nor ghost,” Qiu Junwei bellowed. “Got some moves, huh? If you’re so tough, stop dodging! You slippery little bastard!”
“You’ve grown a spine! Got some balls now! Locking doors, scarfing meat, and when your old man swings, you slither away like greased lightning! Fuck!!!”
Qiu Lu lifted his eyes to meet his father’s, his voice clear and gentle, but the words that followed cut like venom.
“Having trouble aiming, Dad?”
The boy smiled at him, malice and tenderness laid bare in equal measure.
“Can’t get it up, can’t hit the mark—gonna make that second kid a real hassle, huh?”
Qiu Junwei lost it completely. “Fuck—you motherf—”
Cui Mengmei finally snapped into real panic and lunged forward to hold him back, terrified of what might happen next. “Junwei!! Junwei!!!”
The policemen hurrying down the hallway could already hear the ferocious whipping sounds, the woman’s hysterical sobs, and the man’s stream of filthy curses. They broke into a run.
The old apartment building had terrible soundproofing. A neighbor trudging upstairs with her groceries caught the commotion and, spotting the police, urged them on. “Hurry up there, officers! I’m scared that kid’s gonna end up dead!”
The two officers charged up and pounded on the door. The one bringing up the rear paused to ask, “Do they beat the kid often?”
“No idea what goes on inside,” the neighbor said, shaking her head. “But in front of outsiders? Right in front of us? They’ve laid into him plenty of times. Poor kid… Heartless parents.”
“Open up! Police on official business!!”
“Cooperate and open the door!! If not, we’re coming in!!”
Cui Mengmei was still wrestling to hold back her husband. When she made out the summons through the door, her face drained of color. She scrambled to fling it open, desperate to keep the neighbors from hearing.
“Nothing to it, officers—total misunderstanding. We didn’t lay a hand on the kid. Not a touch.”
The lead officer, Officer Gao, towered at nearly six feet, her muscles honed tight as steel cables. Face like stone, she marched right in and clocked Qiu Junwei gripping a leather belt tipped with copper—and Qiu Lu standing off to the side.
Qiu Junwei had been in a foaming rage just seconds before. Now his face burned beet-red as he scrambled to explain. “Misunderstanding! I was whipping the wall—just scaring him straight, you know, to teach the lesson!”
“Look here—the belt’s caked in plaster dust. He’s our own boy. We’d never hurt a hair on his head!”
Cui Mengmei spotted the two more cops behind and, half-pleading, half-shoving, hustled them inside. She slammed both doors shut tight.
“Big mix-up, officers. Kid’s a handful—hit the panic button. Sorry for dragging you out…”
The junior officer darted over to check Qiu Lu and reported back. “Captain Gao, looks like he’s okay.”
Officer Gao paid it no mind. She directed her subordinate to snap photos of the wall marks and Qiu Junwei’s snarling mug, then said evenly, “Come down to the station with us. Time to make a statement.”
Qiu Junwei had been choking down his fury. Now it erupted. “The hell for?!”
“My house, my business—what’s it to you? Brat hits a button and you cops come charging to his rescue? Who do you think you are?!”
“Ungrateful little shit, no respect for his folks, pure defiance. So what if I whip his ass!!”
Officer Gao murmured to her colleague, “Photos?”
“Done.”
“Violent intimidation. Agitated state. Threats, verbal abuse. Signs of resisting arrest.” Her orders were crisp. “Cuff him. Take him in.”
Qiu Junwei thrashed like a cornered animal, but they had him pinned and dragged out in seconds flat.
Cui Mengmei lost it completely. Sobbing, she lunged to block their path, only for Officer Gao to plant a hand on her shoulder.
“Ma’am. Calm down and cooperate?” The question hung there. “Can’t manage that? Station it is for you too.”
Cui Mengmei figured the cuffs were coming for her next. She flailed her hands and shot Qiu Lu a venomous glare. “His dad didn’t do a thing—you can’t treat him like this—”
Officer Gao’s face stayed blank. “Cooperate with the investigation?”
“Yes… yes…” Cui Mengmei’s voice shrank. “Officers, what I meant was—you’ve got it all wrong…”
“Sit.”
Officer Gao glanced at Qiu Lu. He took a seat, calm as could be.
The boy might as well have been a stranger watching from afar.
His father hauled off in cuffs? Not a flicker.
That belt had been primed to flay him raw? Zero reaction.
“So—family trouble? Or has Dad always been this way?” Officer Gao asked.
Cui Mengmei shot Qiu Lu another warning glare.
He met his mother’s eyes and felt only sweet release.
“Always,” he said. “As a kid, I hung out with playmates they didn’t approve of. They stripped me bare and left me on the balcony all afternoon.”
“They,” the officer echoed.
“Yeah.”
Cui Mengmei blew up. “Qiu Lu, you got a conscience? Dragging out crap from when you were seven, eight years old?!”
“After all your dad and I did for you these years—how dare you?!”
“I worked graveyard shifts to fund your tutors. Your dad taught you to ride a bike, helped with homework, stayed up till midnight brewing you tremella soup!!!”
Qiu Lu listened, his relief curdling into boredom.
“Cops are here. Cameras rolling, mics on,” he said wearily. “You explain it. Why’d things explode today?”
Cui Mengmei clamped her mouth shut. Officer Gao pressed, “Why?”
The other two officers were cataloging evidence, eyes flicking to the prickly, cornered woman.
“He—” Cui Mengmei groped for his sins, anything to paint her and her husband as the victims.
“He’s got a weak stomach—can’t handle meat. His dad and I slaved over his upbringing for more than a decade, stuck to veggies right alongside him. Now he’s rebelling, mouthing off, scarfing junk outside, then barricades himself in when he gets home!”
“We just want to take good care of him. He’s gone rebellious on us, and as his parents, of course we have to do our best to set him straight!!”
Officer Gao’s expression softened with a flicker of sympathy as she turned to Qiu Lu. “Are you aware that you’re allergic to meat?”
“You’ve got it wrong,” Qiu Lu replied evenly. “I was raised vegan from the womb. It’s not an allergy.”
The expressions of the others shifted uncomfortably, one after another.
Cui Mengmei’s words carried a deceptive pull, making her sound genuinely aggrieved and pitiable for a fleeting moment—if one overlooked the whip marks scarring the wall and the copper-headed belt.
Cui Mengmei shot to her feet, blurting it all out heedless of everything. “That’s right, you can’t eat that filthy stuff! Your parents have raised you right your whole life—have you ever listened? Have you ever shown a shred of sense?! Is this how you repay your dad—”
“Sit down,” Officer Gao cut in. “I’ll ask once more: Is he allergic to meat?”
Cui Mengmei opened her mouth to argue vehemently, but Officer Gao repeated without missing a beat, “Is he allergic to meat?”
The woman’s mouth hung open, her breaths rasping in and out of her throat, but no words came.
“Ma’am, answer the question.”
“No allergy,” Cui Mengmei spat, glaring at Officer Gao with pure venom. “You don’t understand a thing. This is family business.”
“Even if it’s your religious belief,” murmured the officer beside her, “this kid has every right to choose for himself…”
Cui Mengmei had clearly tuned out their lecturing. She wheeled on Qiu Lu with a fierce glare. “It’s not too late to turn back now!!”
“Your gut, your soul—they’ve been pure for over a decade. You used to be such an obedient child. When have you ever defied your parents like this?!”
Qiu Lu zoned out for a moment, watching her scream at him, then simply turned to the policewoman.
“Can I head to the station and give my statement?” he asked. “Do you guys have boxed lunches there?”
“Let’s go,” Officer Gao said. “Tonight’s dinner special is peanut-braised pork knuckle.”
