Chapter 1
Chapter 1
My hand was still trembling slightly as I held the sleeping pills.
My best friends were squatting on the curb eating grilled skewers.
The two of them looked up at me.
Xia Mo let out a sneer. “Pathetic.”
Zhou An had a piece of tofu in his mouth. Between chews, he said, “Zhiyu, I think you should probably skip this. This whole thing…”
He acted all wise and composed, chewing that tofu for what felt like forever.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I snatched a fish ball skewer from him and took a bite.
Xia Mo asked, “What are you going to do after you drug him? Ravish him?”
I nearly choked to death on the fish ball.
I pounded my chest for a long time before I could catch my breath.
The owner of the barbecue stall handed me a bottle of water.
I twisted it open and gulped it down, finally feeling the coughing fit in my throat subside a little.
There are still good people in this world, I thought.
Moved, I said, “Thank you, boss.”
The owner held up a QR code. “Two yuan.”
My gratitude was misplaced.
I obediently pulled out my phone and paid him.
I shot Xia Mo a glare. “Stop reading so many smutty novels.”
“Then what do you want with him once he’s out?”
“Sleep,”
I said.
Just lying in the same bed.
Watching him.
“I want to sleep with my brother.”
I am in love with my adoptive brother.
The year our parents passed away, Xie Fengnan was sixteen and I was twelve.
In the funeral hall, the relatives argued incessantly.
No one wanted a big burden, let alone a small one to go with it.
The paper money in the basin burned brightly.
Yellow paper ash drifted and flickered along with the sparks.
They danced in the air.
Then they fell.
They landed right in front of me.
A man’s voice said, “I’ve racked up another hundred thousand in gambling debts this year. I really can’t afford to raise these two kids.”
A woman’s voice replied, “What do you mean? You want to dump them on me, Third Brother? It’s hard enough raising my own two kids…”
“My wife is making a scene about a divorce…”
“My husband won’t agree to it…”
Xie Fengnan, dressed in mourning clothes, knelt beside me with his eyes downcast. He placed another stack of paper money into the basin.
The fire burned even hotter.
He looked up at me.
At sixteen, Xie Fengnan was already quite tall.
The youth’s spine was straight, like a slender green bamboo.
The firelight reflected in his eyes, turning his pitch-black pupils a searing red.
“Zhiyu,”
he said.
The warm glow of the flames danced across his pale skin.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“I will take care of you.”
That year, Xie Fengnan didn’t go to high school.
He went to work at the largest factory in the county.
I visited him once.
He was wearing a standard-issue uniform.
In a workshop so hot it could cause heatstroke, surrounded by workers who were slacking off and fooling around, he worked with a focus that bordered on stubbornness.
He was like an orchid that had been planted in the wrong place.