Chapter 12

CW: mild violence

The next day, I still had to wake up and go to school. It hadn’t been long since I read out my self-reflection, so I had to be a bit more obedient for the time being. At 4.50 a.m. in the morning, I opened my swollen eyes with great difficulty. My lower body was not at its best; with my heart in my throat, I touched the darling in my pants. Thank god, it was still standing.

My Ge was sleeping beside me, his defined arms draped over my body. His face was very close to mine too, appearing like a reliant and harmless big dog in deep slumber, or a sleeping sea anemone -- beautiful, but could sting people too.

I took back the compliment I previously gave my Ge about him being like a fresh flower[1], because yesterday he was inserted in me.

Every step I took to the bathroom was extremely difficult because if my steps were too big, I’d stretch my entrance. I finally shuffled my way to the sink. My lips were a bit red and my eyes were so swollen they looked like two peaches, but the worst fucking part was that my nipples had been sucked until they were big and red. He had sucked so hard; was he trying to suck out Assam milk tea?

Before I limped my way to school, I used a highlighter to write ‘pervert’ on his forehead.

In class, my butt hurt from sitting and my mid-sleeved uniform scraped against the tender buds on my chest. No matter how I adjusted my position, it felt uncomfortable, so I just took my books and stood by the blackboard at the back of the classroom. The people standing with me were the most diligent class monitor, the second-most diligent study rep, the third-most diligent who wore small glasses…I was standing with the top ten most diligent students in class. They were standing because they had studied too late into the night and were sleepy now, while I was standing because I had been ravaged the whole night. My teacher was so touched by me that they brought me to their office and called my Ge to praise me for being diligent. From the phone, I heard a laugh escape that fucker Duan Rui.

Today when I went home I had to fuck him until he cried and called me Daddy.

I had thought about too many things today, more than what my brain could handle. For example, I thought about why men had to have two nipples, why it felt pleasurable to be fucked where I shat, did the fact that I had fucked Shi Chen count as cheating on my Ge, did my Ge suck my nipples because he had lacked a mother's love when he was young and if when my Ge and I kissed it didn't count as kissing deeply then when we did it in the ass did it count as making love?

When class ended, the person who sat in front of me was still a bit afraid to talk to me. She took off the sandalwood bracelet I had given her and returned it to me. She lowered her pretty eyelids and said in a small voice, "This is very expensive, I'm returning it to you…"

I narrowed my eyes and sized her up. She became even more embarrassed, her face as red as a ripe tomato. I guessed that her parents had discovered it and made her return it to me.

Great, I actually did quite regret giving this to her. I hurriedly took it back and wore it on my wrist, then snapped my fingers to tell her the matter was settled and we could still be friends.

After nightly self-study, she asked me to walk on the school field with her. I wasn't free; I kind of wanted to go back and eat a late-night snack with my Ge.

I walked out of the school gates with my brothers, swinging our school bags around. A Volkswagen Jetta was parked on the tactile paving at a slant. Its body and tires were filthy and the windscreen even had a few drops of bird shit.

I was spinning a basketball in my hand and didn't notice the car. My brothers laughed and joked 'Holy fuck whose seventh-hand Jetta is that'. A chill immediately ran down my spine. I looked up and my eyes met with those of the middle-aged man who had just gotten out of the car.

I shoved the basketball to my brothers and had them help me to hold that man back while I carried my school bag and sprinted like mad towards the small road.

Fuck, Duan Jinjiang had come to find me again.

I purposely didn't run in the direction of my house. If my bastard hooligan dad knew where I was living now, my Ge and I wouldn't be able to live our days in peace.

But two legs couldn't outrun four tires. My dad eventually stopped me in a small estate with no street lamps. A fake smile was plastered on his face as he yanked my uniform collar and asked me how I had been. He said it looked like I had grown taller and was more muscular now; it seemed like Duan Rui had raised me pretty well.

My back was up against the wall with nowhere to go. Thankfully, it wasn't warm tonight and my uniform was zipped up, otherwise he'd be able to see the short-sleeved Armani shirt inside.

Duan Jinjiang went through my pants pockets and shirt pockets, fishing out a few ten yuan of loose change. He spat on it and laughed at me coldly, "Has the boss lost money in his business, why did he only give you this much?"

My money was all in my card[2]. Fortunately, my school didn't allow students to use smartphones and would do a check every day, so the phone I usually kept in my pocket was a cheap old one[3] that didn't have electronic payment functions.

I nodded my head continuously; yes, my Ge's a useless piece of trash, he doesn't manage to earn much every year and I eat radish and steamed Chinese cabbage with him every day.

A man couldn't show his fear, but my legs were indeed trembling.

I couldn't feel my blood relation to this man. When he hit me, sometimes he used a leather belt, sometimes he used a mouldy wooden mop handle and sometimes he used a knife to cut me. I had always put up a fight, but every time after I resisted he would hit me even more fiercely. When I was young, I had reported it to the police before. He was brought to the station and stayed there for a few days. When he got out, he hit me until two of my ribs broke.

Duan Jinjiang searched me from top to bottom. Finally, his gaze landed on the red sandalwood bracelet around my wrist.

This was bought for me by my Ge from his last business trip. At the time, from his tone, it seemed like this thing wasn't cheap. I guessed that it could have been worth a few thousand? Ten thousand?[4]

I was afraid that the old miser could see that this thing was valuable, so I raised my foot and struck him in the stomach. I shouted 'FUCK YOUR MOTHER GO EAT SHIT YOU OLD BASTARD' and with one hand on the hood of the Jetta that was blocking the entrance, I flipped over and ran like mad with my school bag in hand. There wasn't a police station nearby, but perhaps I could get a traffic policeman to hold him back for a bit.

Duan Jinjiang had lost his dignity and hence flew into a rage. He put his foot down hard on the gas pedal as he chased after me unrelentingly. My heart was about to jump out of my throat and my lungs were about to explode. I hadn't even run this crazily during the additional 1000-metre long run test for my promotion to high school[5].

I was going to die.

I admit that I was scared; my fear of Duan Jinjiang was bone-deep. When my Chinese teacher talked about the demon Asmodeus of the seven deadly sins[6], the face that appeared in my mind was the petrifying face of my dad.

Just when I had sprinted like crazy across a dim, quiet T-junction, a black BMW flashed in the fork in the road, like a blade driven between Duan Jinjiang's car and me.

Duan Jinjiang did an emergency brake and swerved, leaving a streak on the road in the shape of an arc and almost flipped the car onto its side in the process.

My Ge got out of the BMW. He stepped on his cigarette butt to extinguish it and came face to face with Duan Jinjiang who had pathetically stumbled out of his car.

They hadn't met in many years now because I had covered up all the incidents of Duan Jinjiang coming to extort money from me. I didn't want to disturb my Ge from his work with these shitty things. My Ge often had to attend parent-teacher meetings for me, teach me the questions I had gotten wrong, get called by my teachers and explain my exam scripts to me. Only I could disturb him anytime.

I looked at my Ge. He took off his suit jacket, loosened his tie and threw it into the car. His eyes were cold as ice and pitch-black. With one look, anyone could tell he was here for a fight.

I thought of a movie I had gone to see with my classmates a few days ago. An idiotic little Simba without a single redeeming quality had been surrounded by hyenas in a valley. Then, Mufasa appeared. The mane of a mature male lion was so bright and fierce.[7]

The moment I saw him, I felt secure. It would always be secure wherever my Ge was, because he could always respond calmly to any situation with ease.

My Dad was a coward who bullied the weak and feared the strong, all bark and no bite as he faced my Ge. His gaze landed on my Ge's car and he started calling my Ge an ingrate just like my mum. He said he was penniless and his stupid wife had run off with someone else while my Ge and I drove an expensive car, lived in a villa and ate and drank to our hearts' content; how unfilial.

My Ge simply went up and punched him. He flung Duan Jinjiang onto the ground then yanked him up again. I heard two sharp sounds of bones snapping -- the bones in Duan Jinjiang's two arms had been pulled out of their sockets.

My Ge grabbed Duan Jinjiang's hair, forcing that miserly bastard to lift his swollen face. My Ge laughed sinisterly, "Dad…relax, I can't leave out your medical expenses."

This was the first time I had ever seen my Ge fight so fiercely. He didn't even care about his status as the boss of a company, pinning the old bastard down as he threw punches at him again and again. Later, if it hadn't been for me desperately pulling him back, he would have completely beaten that person to death.

My Ge couldn't sit in prison, there was no way I would let my Ge do that.

His knuckles were all bleeding, stained with dark red blood mixed with debris from the ground. Because Duan Jinjiang had kept rolling around to avoid his fists, a few of my Ge's punches had landed directly on the road.

I hugged my Ge tightly to control him, my chest pressed against his heart that was beating crazily. Only then did his furious, red eyes gradually calm down, helplessly and uneasily meeting my eyes.

I didn't care at all about my biological father's expression of alarm and disgust as I kissed my Ge. My Ge leant against the curb and I sat across his body, lowering my head to kiss him. I told him softly, You beat him up well, then kissed him again.

His heart rate slowed down greatly and he silently rested his head in the crook of my neck, his hand caressing the scars on my back through my uniform. He thought he was comforting me, but in reality, it was me who was comforting him.

Footnotes:

[1] - Fresh flower: Chapter 2, when he said his Ge was a fresh flower that couldn't be stained by anyone

[2] - card: Technically a 'dining' card, usually used in schools to buy food. It can double up as an identification card too.

[3] - cheap old (phone): Like a Nokia

[4] - Thousands / Ten thousand yuan: A thousand yuan is roughly USD155 while ten thousand yuan is USD1550

[5] - additional 1000-metre long run test for promotion to high school: The high school entrance exam is taken in the third year of middle school (14-15ish) and a physical education test is included too

[6] - Asmodeus of the seven deadly sins: There are seven deadly sins in Christianity. In Peter Binsfeld's classification of demons, Asmodeus represents lust.

[7] - movie: It's The Lion King.