“These are not enough to meet the standard,” the blue ballpoint pen drew out four or five values, and the tone used was particularly impolite. “Good thing you came early, later on, the child should start growing quickly, enough for it to hurt a little.”

Jiang Wang nodded and agreed. He turned his head and took the child to get the medicine, while glancing at the list attentively.

‘Deficient in calcium, iron and zinc. When I was a child, I was always so hungry that it wasn’t possible for me to grow tall. I have to thank the junior high school canteen for the unlimited amount of rice and vegetable soup.’

After walking a few steps, he found that the little tail behind him hadn’t been keeping up, so he paused and said, “Xingwang?”

The child followed him with his mouth open, looking a little sad.

Jiang Wang squatted down to look at him. “Uncomfortable?”

The child shook his head.

“Hate hospitals?”

Peng Xingwang nodded vigorously.

He understood a certain deputy director of pediatrics just now as an existence similar to a pork supplier.

Jiang Wang thought that this was wrong. When he was a child, he never cried when he got an injection and was even kissed by the nurse. How could he be afraid of this?

The man’s face was stern, and his voice deliberately suppressed, “Tell the truth, don’t lie.”

Peng Xingwang was stunned, “How do you know that I’m lying?”

The man stood up and walked forward, “I know what you like and what you hate.”

The child suddenly felt a little happy, “Did my mother tell you specifically?”

“…Nevermind.”

As they reached the counter to receive the medicine, Jiang Wang patted his head calmly. “Don’t think too much, I will take you to drink sour radish and duck soup at noon. Are you okay with that?”

The little friend had just regained some emotions, but when he heard the meat dishes, he looked bitter and sad, “I don’t eat meat!”

But in the end he made quick work and finished four bowls.

Jiang Wang was idle and had nothing to do, so he absentmindedly fed the stewed duck soup to the restaurant’s little dog. From time to time, he turned his head to persuade the child, “Slow down, no one will take it from you.”

At this time in 2006, most people were not so well-off. In many families, eating meat was a happy occasion done only two or three times a week. While eating fish and prawns was a treatment only available to the rich and wealthy.

Thanks to his insight, he could use the lottery station as an ATM. If he couldn’t remember the right bet, he would quickly skip it. The deposit had already doubled several times in a short period of time. Otherwise, where could he find the money to afford raising this little gluttonous ghost.

The child began to cry as he ate, “The meat… the meat is so delicious.”

Tears flowed into his mouth, but he didn’t waste a single trace of meat from the duck leg in his hand.

Jiang Wang held his chin next to him and wondered, “I haven’t starved you for the past two days, why are you crying?”

The child refused to talk to him after swallowing the meat in his mouth. He opened his mouth again after three hiccups. He didn’t know if he was crying or trying to hold in the hiccups, “Big Brother, you, you are a good person.”

Jiang Wang was suddenly issued a good person card for the first time in his life, and it was even given by himself. He wasn’t very honored about this, “And?”

Peng Xingwang looked at him with tears in his eyes, “You, don’t do bad things in the future, okay?”

Jiang Wang thought about how to force the child to drink half of the old duck soup but persuaded himself to be kind. Instead, he nodded slightly with a foolish expression.

The child stopped crying for a while, “You, promise me this.”

“I promise you that I will abide by discipline and the law.” Jiang Wang wiped the oil stains and tears with a tissue, and said in a soft voice. “I don’t have any requirements for you. It doesn’t matter if your grades are good or bad, you just have to promise me you will eat well and strive to gain weight, okay?”

Peng Xingwang cried loudly, “I won’t agree! You can ask me to get 100 on my tests, but I will never gain weight!”

Jiang Wang wondered again if he had really abducted someone else’s child.

‘What the hell happened to me when I was a kid… something was wrong.’

In the new week, Sufeng Express had already made several consecutive calls to relevant departments.

It was estimated that people had never heard of such a precise and strange application for joining. After the branch investigated the location, they called the headquarters and asked some more questions. They looked eager to try but on the other hand had a lot of concerns.

Jiang Wang sat on the window sill and played with the snake game that came on his mobile phone. He was waiting for them to call back after their consultation. As he received the fourth call he felt a crack appear in his patience.

“Okay let’s do it like this,” he looked out the window and said lazily. “I will write a report for you, site selection analysis, review of the industrial chain, summary of main traffic routes, everything included, one form, one report, one file. Then give me a call after reading it, okay?”

On the opposite side, he had never seen the necessary crafts for a shechu[1] across eras in just one person, and said in surprise: “You can use excel…”

The audio typists felt dissatisfied, what was the origin of this person?

“Excel, Word, Teambition, Xmind, I have everything you want.” Jiang Wang no longer continued, and instead turned the conversation back, “E-mail me what you have, and I will hand over a finished data set to you at night.”

After a few whispers on the phone, the other side replied back with a whole change in attitude. “Well in that case, are you interested in coming to work in our company? Our company’s headquarters is located in––”

“No, I will stay in my hometown.”

Not long after he sent in the analysis report, the phone vibrated twice in the middle of the night, saying that Sufeng and their company would send a specialist to investigate. They were expected to arrive the day after tomorrow.

Jiang Wang sincerely missed the plane for a while. Twenty years later, the plane could travel unhindered. 

He then slapped a mosquito to death, and fell asleep with a stuffy head.

‘I should go buy an air conditioner tomorrow.’

The business representative sent by Sufeng was surnamed Liu, he had a small flat shaved head and was very energetic.

The two rented a car and took a look inside and outside the city. They even took a closer look at the factory area and the outer edge of the development zone. Representative Liu snorted, “I thought the ones written in your report were just bragging.”

“I did exaggerate a few words, but I hid it well so that you wouldn’t be able to see it.” Jiang Wang stood on the air vent with his coat fluttering, he turned his head and said, “I can cooperate well in other aspects, but you should know one thing. I don’t have any money saved, and my family is poor. It is not convenient for me to take out a loan and start a business.”

“If you really plan to expand your business here in the future, it is estimated that you can make some money.”

Representative Liu laughed, “That would be opportune.”

In the past two years, Sufeng’s top boss had only moved to reorganize the power. They merged a lot of franchisees, and postured to put all the ownership of the site back into their own hands.

“If you had just started out two or three years ago, you would definitely have to pay for it yourself if you choose to open your own shop.” The representative handed Jiang Wang a Furong Wang[2]. “But now the boss is determined to do big things, he wants to let those who mix oil and water rub against the transportation line and get the f*ck out of here.”

Jiang Wang sighed half-truthfully: “It’s a pity, I still want to contract a few more families to become the local mountain kings.”

The two of them laughed, and said goodbye after dinner that night.

When he returned home after eating and drinking, the child was laid down beside the lamp doing his homework.

Jiang Wang nudged him slightly with his elbow, “What did you have for dinner?”

“I bought a bowl of green vegetable porridge to eat,” Peng Xingwang said expectantly, “Big brother… that… Can I buy two ballpoint pens?”

Jiang Wang took a look at him, “Have you emptied the ink of your current ballpoint pen?”

“No,” the child laid back, his face muffled in his arms, embarrassed, “The teacher made the painting homework colored for the painting class.”

Jiang Wang remembered.

He did do this kind of thing when he was a kid.

Going back, art class was the most embarrassing time for him. The teacher wasn’t a very talkative person. He could only borrow watercolor pens from classmates.

Originally, his popularity was already not so good, and all the people he borrowed from should’ve become annoyed after two or three weeks of lending.

The child probably thought that this kind of expenditure was unnecessary, and so he didn’t have the courage to say it.

“Go,” he put the door key back in his pocket, “Go downstairs and buy it.”

The commissary was only five minutes  away. The boss had demolished half of the living room of the house to make it into a storefront. At this moment, he was watching TV with a fan in his hand, “If you want to buy something hurry up, I will be closing the door after this episode.”

Peng Xingwang stepped up to the ballpoint pens displayed, but Jiang Wang grabbed him by the hat turning it 120 degrees, “Go over there and seriously choose your watercolor pens.”

Peng Xingwang let out a sigh of relief, and held out a board of seven-color watercolor pens after a while, “Is this okay?”

Then he touched his head, pretending to be old-fashioned, “This one is too expensive and not worth it. It’s enough for me to paint a few strokes with a red ballpoint pen.”

Jiang Wang put the watercolor pens back, “Boss, how many colors do you have available in this watercolor pen brand?”

The boss reluctantly stood up, his eyes still looking at the TV as he turned the box of twenty-four colors to him, “This?”

Jiang Wang waved his hand, “I said I want more.”

Peng Xingwang panicked a little bit, “Enough, Big brother, really!”

The boss vaguely felt the challenge and doubt, he patted his calf, and pulled something from deep within the stationery pile, out came a box containing 48 colors.

Before Jiang Wang could speak, he took another large box containing 128 colors from a pile behind his feet. He raised his eyebrows and exhaled[3] as if he had hit the jackpot. “Is this enough? Which one do you want to buy?”

Jiang Wang stuffed the 128 colors in the child’s arms, “How much, I’ll give you the money.”

The boss didn’t expect them to be so satisfied with this. He took the money and passed it through the money detector, and even gave a free box of plasticine when he was done.

“This is enough to spoil the child, be careful of spoiling him too much.”

Peng Xingwang was a little angry holding the watercolor box, “I won’t turn bad!”

After speaking, he looked up at Jiang Wang again, “Big brother, I won’t turn into a bad boy!”

Jiang Wang looked at the other who had a righteous posture as if he was going to directly join the army, and thanked himself for taking the correct child home.

He pondered while walking back.

‘It’s me, I still look like me.’

Today, the child didn’t sing loudly while holding onto the super luxurious watercolor pen set, instead he walked sullenly for a long time.

Walking into the dark corridor, he hugged the large box of watercolor pens in one hand and held Jiang Wang’s hand tightly in the other.

“Big Brother,” Peng Xingwang said softly, “I like you very much.”

Jiang Wang had been confessed to by his own self, and he didn’t know how to reply to this, so he could only let out a sigh.

“It’s not that I like you because you spend money on me,” the child said halfway, not knowing how to explain himself. After a while, he said, “I like you, because you take care of me, and care about me.”

Jiang Wang felt that the child was holding him extra hard today, and half-jokingly said, “Are you afraid that I will run away?”

Peng Xingwang nodded and shook his head. After waiting for the door to open, he made a decision on his own, “Forget it, I will exercise more after eating.”

Jiang Wang, “…?”

‘What was this all about?’

While taking a bath, the man reflected on whether he had inappropriately communicated with the child and caused any misunderstandings. As he rubbed to dry his hair, he saw Peng Xingwang staring at the blank paper in front of him in a daze.

“Why aren’t you drawing?”

“The topic is the work of our parents,” the child looked back at him, “The teacher said that it is also okay to paint elder brothers and sisters. Big brother, what do you do?”

Jiang Wang thought that he couldn’t let the child draw a real estate transaction, so he pondered for a few seconds and said, “I’ll teach you.”

“Huh?” The child was a little surprised, “What are you drawing?”

“Do you want to draw a bayonet or a Type 79 submachine gun?” The man was also thinking about this question, “Forget it, let’s start with a Type 88 light machine gun. It has low recoil, and is a belt fed machine gun with a quick-detachable barrel. Let’s start with drawing the optical sight.”

The next day, the child handed in a stack of machine gun drawings.

The art teacher clutched her heart and marked an A on the papers.

Peng Xingwang was worried that the teacher would call the police and let his brother be shot for ten years. He ran over to the podium and said, “Teacher, my homework—”

“It looks good,” the teacher nodded vigorously, “It looks very good!”

TL NOTE:

Teacher don’t be scared hehehe ԅ(≖◡≖ԅ)

References