Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It was true; he had no other choice.

In those years, we were like ants tossed into a torrential current, paddling with all our might yet never able to reach the shore.

Everyone said you could strike gold in the south, and legends of success were everywhere. But no one told us the price that success demanded-especially for people like us, who had nothing and were cut off from information.

No one told us what would happen if we took a wrong step. No one told us there were some things we simply couldn’t afford to lose.

We worked day and night, but the money we saved could never keep pace with the rising cost of living.

What kind of life could we build on manual labor alone? We didn’t even dare dream of a decent place to call home.

The light in Elder Brother’s eyes-I understood it better than anyone.

As he gnawed on hard, dry flatbread, he would watch the people stepping out of beautiful cars on the street. He looked at their glossy clothes and the dazzling gold rings on their fingers with eyes like a starving wolf.

I knew there was a fire in his heart, and that fire was tormenting him.

He said… you couldn’t make money by selling your sweat and blood.

He paced back and forth in our small rental room, scratching his head with both hands.

He said he had to find a way.

He repeated it constantly, his eyes bloodshot as he said he had to find a way, he absolutely had to find a way, even if it killed him.

But where was the money?

Where could he get his hands on some?

Poverty is a disease, and fast money is an addictive painkiller.

We were both terminally ill, yet we thought we were searching for the cure.

So, when a coworker egged Elder Brother on to go “have some fun” and gamble a little, he hesitated, but he didn’t refuse.

Ten yuan. Just ten yuan. Just to try.

The result? He won. Two thousand three hundred yuan!

I will never forget the look on his face the moment that thick stack of bills was stuffed into his hand. His eyes were terrifyingly bright, and his hands were shaking.

Poverty can crush a person, but sudden, easy wealth can intoxicate them even more.

How can you expect someone who has never held wealth to know how to handle it?

Those two thousand three hundred yuan were like glowing coals, seared into Elder Brother’s palms and branded into his eyes.

From that night on, even the way Elder Brother crouched by the roadside to smoke changed.

Before, he would hunch over in exhaustion. Now, his spine was pulled taut and rigid, his gaze scraping like a nail over every polished car and every well-dressed pedestrian on the street.

I knew what he was thinking.

He was thinking: Why are some people born sitting high in the clouds, while we have to rot in the mud?

He was thinking: What his father’s generation hadn’t given him, he would seize for the generations to come.

Once ambition is ignited, it burns away every path of retreat back to an ordinary life.