Diary (Part One)
The new year passed even faster than running water. So many festive holidays crowded together into the same stretch of time that they dazzled the eyes and left one unable to tell east from west, north from south. In the blink of an eye, Christmas was over, the New Year had passed, the Spring Festival had ended, and even the heavy snow had finished falling, yet Liu Sizhao was still living in the hospital.
His illness had been discovered during his sophomore-year physical examination. As soon as his father received the news, he immediately arranged for him to take a leave of absence from school. At first, everyone kept the nature of his illness from him, saying only that it was a minor illness and that he would recover in the second half of the year. After all, he had already taken the SAT, missing a perfect score by only a little. There was no need to worry about not receiving an acceptance letter from a good university. He might just have to delay it for a while.
But who could stay in a hospital day and night without knowing what illness they had? He wasn't illiterate.
His father was extremely busy with work on ordinary days. Whenever he managed to find time amid his packed schedule to visit him, he would repeatedly assure Sizhao that this illness could absolutely be cured. He had plenty of money. He could find the best doctors and get him the best treatment plan.
Wasn't Qin Shi Huang richer than him? He had gone to such lengths to search for the elixir of immortality, and in the end, he still couldn't live forever.
Liu Sizhao had just turned seventeen at the time, but he understood everything perfectly well. It was impossible to say he wasn't afraid of death at all. But it wasn't enough to leave him so frightened that he couldn't eat or sleep.
He simply put a lock on himself: think less, get angry less, grieve less, worry less. He made up his mind that until the final moment came, he would remain calm. He would not let death scare him into complete disarray. He would not lose his composure.
The few occasions when he did lose his composure existed only when he learned that a way to save his life had been found.
It was a method he did not want.
One afternoon, when the light snow had temporarily let up, a boy walked into the hospital room, dragging his schoolbag with one hand. He looked at the boy on the hospital bed without saying a word, his expression dark. Dark skin, black, curly hair, an air of defiance all over his face. At first glance, Liu Sizhao thought he looked like some uncivilized savage.
Neanderthal, he thought.
Even though there was nothing Neanderthal-like about the boy's features.
The two of them faced each other, studying one another in silence, as though it were some kind of wordless contest. Neither of them spoke.
How absurd. His father probably had never imagined it either. The illegitimate son born by mistake could actually prove so useful to the eldest son. This boy, who shared half his blood, could provide Liu Sizhao with bone marrow.
Liu Jin stood behind the boy. “Sizhao, this is your younger brother, Xunli.”
The moment he finished speaking, the boy let go of his hand, and the schoolbag dropped completely to the floor.
“Xunli what?” he raised his voice. “I told you, my name is Zheng Danhu!”
Liu Jin raised his hand and smacked him on the back of the head. “If you're going to call yourself Zheng Danhu, then get out. Don't be my son.”
“It's not like I wanted to come be your son. Who cares?”
“Say that again.”
“I'm not your son. My mom told me my father died a long time ago.”
“You unfilial wretch! How dare you talk nonsense!”
A farce exploded in Sizhao's hospital room.
“Dad, I'm tired.”
He looked toward the lingering snow on the roof tiles outside the window.
During his brief meeting with this new younger brother, the two of them hadn't said a single word to each other.
Sizhao could hear his father scolding the boy outside in the corridor, the voice growing more distant, growing quieter, until it disappeared amid the rustling sounds of dragging. They had left this floor.
A replacement had already been found. That was the only thought in his mind at the time. Whether or not that wild boy's bone marrow proved to be a successful match, he would be kept here. If it really wasn't a match, then he would prove even more useful.
It was as though everything that belonged to him was going to change hands overnight, to be handed over to someone else.
He had thought he would be giving everything he had to death. He had never expected to be giving it to another unfamiliar boy.
At four or five in the morning, in the darkness, he took out his phone.
It had probably been five or six years since he had last seen his mother. He didn't know whether his father had told her about his illness. Perhaps he hadn't. They had not been in contact for many years. He couldn't make up his mind. If he told his mother, would it only become another burden for her?
Before sending a message, he opened his mother's Moments, which he had blocked long ago, and carefully scrolled through them one by one. He read very slowly, occasionally opening a picture and enlarging it to examine it closely. By the time he reached the very last post, an hour had already passed, and dawn was about to break.
Then he turned off his phone.
His mother's Moments revolved almost entirely around a little boy wearing metal braces. Sizhao's younger maternal half-brother was the center of his mother's life now.
It seemed that humanity wouldn't go extinct even after another hundred thousand years. Just counting younger brothers, he already had two.
The good news was that his death would not bring his biological parents tremendous and indelible psychological trauma. The bad news was that he could not find a single person in this world for whom there was no substitute for him, someone who cared about him and him alone, completely.
Seventeen years spent coming into this world, and in the end, it all amounted to nothing. Seventeen-year-old Sizhao was so frustrated and troubled that he almost wished his hair had fallen out for some reason other than chemotherapy. He might as well go to a temple and become a monk.
But in reality, the suffering he had to endure was less than he had expected. Xunli's bone marrow was a successful match, and after the surgery was completed, his body gradually began to recover.
Once Sizhao recovered, Xunli's position became awkward. He had become the extra son.
In families like theirs, whenever there were siblings, any child with ambition knew they had to perform well, otherwise they would eventually be “eliminated.” After watching from the sidelines for some time, Sizhao came to understand this younger brother to some extent. He simply did not have what it took to compete with him.
He wasn't even qualified to be a spoiled but useless younger son.
The first time they met, his father had called Xunli an unfilial wretch. Looking back, his father really had possessed some foresight. From the inside out, this boy fit the definition of the word perfectly.
After graduating from elementary school, he never attended middle school. He had wasted more than a year hanging around the streets, getting by through stealing, cheating, and petty schemes. At an age when he should have been in middle school, he knew absolutely nothing about chemistry or physics, and couldn't understand a word of English.
For the time being, he couldn't go to school. He had to spend some time studying with a private tutor, making up all his schoolwork before he could enroll.
Lack of ability was not what made his father the angriest. From the very first day this younger brother came to Nanshi, he had never accepted the name “Xunli.” He did not even consider himself to have the surname Liu.
When other people called him Xunli, he neither made a sound nor answered, simply pretending not to hear and ignoring them.
Although he was constantly at odds with his father, getting into an argument every three or five days, he did possess some streetwise wisdom and understood that sometimes you had to lower your head. Only when it came to his name did he fight against everyone for a very, very long time.
About half a year later, Xunli defied his father once again. At the dinner table, his father called his name three times, and three times he did not answer. Enraged, Xunli said something strange:
“In the Bible, Jesus told Peter, before the rooster crows and dawn comes, you will deny me three times.
“Do you think I'm going to repent?
“That’s impossible. What does this have to do with me? I'm not Peter. I'm even less Liu Xunli. To you, I'm just a stranger. You insisted on keeping me here against my will. Isn't it perfectly normal that I don't acknowledge you?”
His father was so enraged that he picked up the cane and was about to hit him.
Unlike their previous little squabbles, that time Xunli was beaten many times. Even after he was locked in the study to reflect on his actions, he still refused to back down.
“If you've got the guts, kill me. I'm not Xunli. I'm not, and that's that!”
Sizhao had always remained an observer, thinking to himself that this kid was already so good at getting under people's skin after learning only a little. Once he got past the level of being illiterate, who knew how he would drive people to their graves?
Son pisses off his father, father beats the little bastard. Peace and prosperity for the whole family, happiness forever.
Anyway, it had nothing to do with him.
That was what he told himself, but that evening, after his father went out to a banquet, Sizhao walked into Xunli's study and told him he could come out now. His father wouldn't be coming home that night, and by the time he returned, he would have forgotten all about the punishment.
Xunli sat cross-legged on a chair. He had been struck across the face with the cane, and the right side of his face was swollen high. He actually looked somewhat like a Neanderthal now, Sizhao thought.
His bag lay on the floor, its zipper open. Inside were a few pieces of clothing, a small stack of cash, and some small antique jade pieces his father collected.
It was the same battered schoolbag he had been carrying the first time they met. It was still just as worn-out, but after Auntie Zhou had washed it, it wasn't quite as dirty.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to Sichuan.”
“And then continue being a petty delinquent on the streets?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“When you turn eighteen, you'll have somewhere to go. The prison is big enough. You'll have plenty of room to live.”
“This place is worse than prison. I'd rather sit in a cell than stay here.”
Sizhao had not interacted with this younger brother very many times. He only felt that the boy was young, stubborn-tempered, and rather foolish. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. With this kind of personality, he could probably continue living in the Liu family. There were plenty of rich kids outside who were even more stupid and incompetent than him.
How could he have known that the boy would suddenly say something that changed Sizhao's opinion of him?
“You know, right? I gave you your life. You survived because of me. Your dad brought me into this world without my permission, and then, without my permission, used me as a tool to save your life. You lived, and I became useless.
“I'm not the one who owes you anything. You owe me. So taking this little bit of money and these things isn't excessive. They're what I deserve. I'm leaving now. Don't stop me.
“It'll be a good thing for you if I leave. If I stay here, who knows? Maybe after your dad dies someday, I'll come back and fight you for the family inheritance.”
He was only around middle-school age, yet he had actually figured all of this out. No one in their family would ever put these things into words openly, so this must have been something he had observed for himself. Sizhao knew he had underestimated this kid somewhat.
“You won't be able to sell those antiques. Even if you insist on selling them, you'll only get a fraction of their value.”
“Who cares? If I can get a thousand, that's a thousand. They're not mine anyway. Why should I care?”
“You really have no ambition or sense. Add a ‘ten thousand’ after that ‘thousand.’ That's their original value.”
Xunli stood up. “I saved your life. I did you a favor. Don't you dare put on airs in front of me.”
“Is it really that hard for you to make something of yourself? You have a perfectly good path laid out in front of you, and instead of moving upward, you insist on being a thief and a con artist?”
Sizhao was genuinely angry now. If the kid were truly an idiot, then so be it. If he were stupid, he wouldn't think too much or dwell on things too much, and his life might actually be easier.
But this younger brother had a brain. His powers of observation and thought were far beyond those of his peers. Since he understood his situation, wouldn't finding a path that benefited him be the best thing to do?
“Two years ago, my mom died. On this day, no one remembers her except me. If she knew I was eating this family's food, living a good life in this house, and giving up the name she gave me, she'd definitely think I'd forgotten her. She'd call me a little ingrate.”
Xunli picked up the battered bag. “When she was pregnant with me, she dreamed of a red tiger. That's why I'm Danhu, not Xunli. I'm leaving.”
This was what Sizhao least wanted to see. He realized that his younger brother not only had thoughts of his own, but also carried a great deal of emotion.
Their family troubles hung suspended beneath a layer of dust. They could not withstand being wiped clean and brought back to mind. The more intelligent and perceptive a person was, the more keenly they could sense the deepest pain. This was the solution Sizhao had found for himself: don't think about it. His younger brother had yet to find the trick to controlling his pain. So he could only help him this once, with a lie.
“Xunli, perhaps someday in the future, under the right circumstances, I'll give your name back to you. But not today. I keep my word.”
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