Chapter 5 - Memories (Part 1)

The major health care effect is remarkable, Jiang Kezhou had a good night's sleep. It was about day and night thinking and dreaming, and that night he dreamed of meeting Ye Zheng for the first time. It's just that this time the dreams are mostly fragmented scenes, intermittently looking at flowers in a fog, and even the previous scalp tingling fear is not real.

　　As time passed, the scars finally began to scab.

　　On the southeast corner of the city are piled up a few dilapidated tube buildings. Illegal buildings and garbage dumps can be seen everywhere. The distance between the buildings is narrow and pitiful. Old wires and clotheslines cut only small pieces of sky. The cement road in disrepair is rugged and uneven, with three steps, one small pit, ten steps and one big pit. Not to mention ordinary people, wild dogs are easy to run on.

　　It is dark, dirty and chaotic, and it is full of old men and women who have no one to support and poor vagrant people. It is like a gutter that can’t be exposed to sunlight. Poverty is accompanied by bacteria. The damp and moldy smell resides in every corner and seems to be burned on everyone’s soul. This makes them bow their eyebrows when walking in the crowd, as if born to be a dwarf.

　　Compared with other wild monkeys who were unattended, Jiang Kezhou when he was a child was simply a strange flower in the gutter. He has lived in the tube building for more than ten years, and besides being thinner than his peers, he has grown very strong. His clothes are old but tidy, and he always has a clean handkerchief in his pocket; he has a gentle personality and good academic performance. He never wades with those bluffing babes, and goes home punctually every day to help his mother make rice.

　　Mother Jiang is gentle and virtuous, and cleans the house every day—even if the broken building is covered with dust and the glass will never be wiped clean. She is a good wife and mother, but she only has one leg.

　　She was in a car accident when she was 23 years old, and her right leg was amputated from the knee down. At that time, her boyfriend who had already talked about marriage was unwilling to have a crippled wife. The family was afraid that she would not be able to get married, so they hurried to found her a worker ten years older than her. Jiang Kezhou was born in the first year of marriage.

　　Since he can remember, Jiang Kezhou has never seen his father's sober appearance.

　　His dad’s daily job is to smoke, drink, and play mahjong, making the family miserable. He has never looked good to them. The one thing he said the most to Jiang Kezhou is "Debt collector, go away!"

　　Jiang Kezhou is not without resentment, the child’s hate is even longer and stronger than ordinary people can think of. He hid in the kitchen several times, heard the snoring noise outside through a door, holding a kitchen knife tightly in his hand, desperately restraining his desire to rush out and kill the beast soaked in wine.

　　Once he was so angry that his hands were shaking and cramped. He didn't hold the kitchen knife, and suddenly fell down and hit the back of his feet. The sharp blade instantly opened a deep bone in the flesh. Jiang Kezhou didn't feel any pain at first. When the blood poured out, he lowered his head and saw that the blood stained the ground red. The anger that swelled in his chest, almost bursting out, suddenly calmed down.

　　There was only a moment of stunner, and the pain soon began to spread, occupying all of the senses. He couldn't stand it and simply slid against the wall and sat on the ground, holding his leg and staring at the wound. The more he looked, the more sleepy he got. He was already quite young at that time, and while his eyelids were fighting, he thought: "If I die, wouldn't these things be all right?"

　　Jiang Kezhou curiously reached out and dipped a little blood, twisted it on his fingertips, and even smelled it. It's a pity that the kitchen smells of blood at the moment, and he can't smell anything. He stared at the blood-stained fingerprints on his hand. Out of a good hygienic habit, he subconsciously wanted to find something to wipe it off, so he returned his hand and took out the handkerchief from his pocket. The moment the soft fabric touched his palm, a thunderous thought suddenly exploded in his mind-

　　what the hell would he do if he died?

　　Jiang Kezhou violently stirred his spirit, and a layer of cold sweat suddenly appeared on his back.

　　It was only then that he recovered the long-lost fear, opened the kitchen door vigorously, and cried heartily with the loudest voice a ten-year-old child could make.

　　Except for her son, Jiang's mother has nothing to count on. She was scared to death by Jiang Kezhou's injury, but Jiang Kezhou, who was still a little peasant, consoled her instead. From then on, the mother and son depended on each other for their lives, concentrating on living their lives, as if to treat his dad as a cloud of air that would only be ranting.

　　It's a pity that good people don't live long. When Jiang Kezhou was fifteen years old, Jiang’s mother had a high fever and turned into pneumonia. She was originally weak, and after years of hard work, her body was completely worn down by the pain, and her condition went from time to time, and she did not survive the winter of that year.

　　Jiang Kezhou took care of the funeral together with his father who was sober once in a while. His mother's life was ordinary and quiet, and not many people could remember her and come to see her. To others, her death was like a leaf falling on the surface of the vast water. It couldn't cause any ripples, but a storm was brewing in Jiang Kezhou's world.

　　After the funeral, the fifteen-year-old boy packed up his mother’s relics and meager funerals. They had nothing. A small cardboard box was enough to hold all the belongings. Jiang Kezhou held the cardboard box and left his first home in his life.

　　When he left, he had no nostalgia, and his naive back carried the courage to never look back. A narrow alley with pits and pits, he walked out of the tragic wind and cold water.

　　In the next six years, Jiang Kezhou never came back. His only connection with the "family" was his uncle Wang Yi. And this involvement was limited to Jiang Kezhou's chance encounter on the road when he was in high school. Uncle saw that he was having a hard time and secretly gave him one hundred yuan without telling his aunt.

　　He relied on his savings and working money to finish high school and go to college. The scars on his feet have faded. When he saw it, he would think of himself, who hated him so naively that year. The old things did not impress him, but he just felt funny: Who in this world can't live alone? No matter how you live, you have to rely on your own ability, and you can't blame others.

　　He was going to school in another place, and one day he suddenly received a call from his uncle Wang Yi, in an anxious tone, saying that his dad was not well, and urged him to go back and have a look. Jiang Kezhou hasn't been home for several years, and he doesn't know what his father is doing. It stands to reason that the two sides have not communicated with each other for so many years, not to mention family affection, and they may not be able to recognize each other after meeting. But after all, there is still a legal father-son relationship. If his father really has anything to do, Jiang Kezhou will deliberately hide it.

　　The day he got home was April 1st, and the weather was gloomy. He hurried back from the field after sitting in a hard seat for half the night, so his bones were about to fall apart. The city is changing with each passing day, and the street scenes along the way become strange. Jiang Kezhou fumbled to the Tube Tower along the route in his memory, but it didn't change much here-it was really broken to the extreme and couldn't be broken any more.

　　The child who never looked back at the time has grown up. He is probably the highest educated person to get out of this shanty town. His overall temperament is incompatible with the surrounding environment, and he looks like a stranger who accidentally broke into the forbidden area. After revisiting the old place, Jiang Kezhou was not in the mood for sadness. He was still far from being a leader, and there was nothing to miss in this place. So he just stood at the entrance of the alley, and made sure where he lived in the old building, and then went straight go over there.

　　The stairs that have been in disrepair for a long time are dirty and ugly. The sound of other people’s homes’ TV and washing machines are messed up into a chorus, and there are percussion accompaniments such as pots and pans chopped dumpling. Jiang Kezhou walked up to the fourth floor. On the door of a house on the east side were worn-out Spring Festival couplets from that year. The old wooden door was equipped with a layer of iron fence, and he felt the dust in his hand.

　　Wang Yi confessed that Jiang's father had not moved away and was always at home. Jiang Kezhou didn't suspect that he had him, so he went to knock on the door. After knocking for a long time, no one answered the door. Jiang Kezhou only think that his father went out. When he was about to go downstairs, the door suddenly opened from the inside. A tall strange man stood at the door and asked vigilantly: "Who are you looking for?"

　　Jiang Kezhou knew his father is good at playing cards and drinking alcohol. He thought he was a friend brought home by Jiang's father, so he asked, "Is Jiang Hongwei at home?"

　　The man squinted his eyes up and down, and asked suspiciously: "You are Jiang Hongwei's son?"

　　Jiang Kezhou nodded, reluctant to talk too much.

　　The man turned sideways and let out a gap: "Come in."

　　The interior design of the old building was strange. The entrance was perpendicular to a narrow aisle instead of facing the living room. The first thing people outside saw when they entered the door was the kitchen door and a wall, so they realized it was wrong when Jiang Kezhou walked into the room. He reacted swiftly and turned around to rush out, but unfortunately it was too late.

　　The man following him kicked on his knees, Jiang Kezhou staggered, and directly greeted him on the concrete floor of the living room without standing still.

　　The man in the back twisted his arms and pressed him firmly to the ground.

　　In the living room, there were a few men who were not kind, all of whom looked fierce. The room was smoky, except for a few plastic chairs, it was almost as empty as a rough room. Jiang Hongwei was tied to the heating pipe with a blue nose and a swollen face. His right hand was smashed to blood for some unknown reason. When Jiang Kezhou came in, he shouted dumbly, "Brother Song! Brother Song! I really don't have money on hand. You can give me a few more days. I can definitely get the money! I'll sell the house!"

　　The man he called Brother Song was about forty, with small eyes and thick lips, and shaved a green skin. He sneered when he heard the words: "Jiang, don't you remember how much you owe Laozi, huh?"

　　The man standing next to Jiang Hongwei immediately made a foot on his back. Jiang Hongwei howled earth-shaking and couldn't help begging for mercy.

　　"Boy," Brother Song walked up to Jiang Kezhou and kicked him. "If you are to blame, you will have a bad life. Who told you to have such a dead ghost father without a good life? Jiang Hongwei borrowed money from me. For gambling money, he owe me six hundred thousand." He stared down at Jiang Kezhou’s eyes and said, "I abolished one of his right hands according to the rules. This old bastard is useless, boy, the father pays the debt, you have to pay him money."

　　Even if Jiang Kezhou stepped into the society with one foot since high school, he had long heard of such things, and immediately understood what Brother Song meant. His heart was abrupt, but he still barely maintained his composure on his face: "Brother Song... I dare to call you Brother Song, and you have seen the situation at home. Don’t say that I have nothing to do with him, but there is a relationship. The money will not be easy to collect for a while. Can you please let us think of a way?"

　　Brother Song squatted in front of him, with a cigarette butt facing him a little bit, and asked softly, "Boy, you wan to fool me?"

　　He didn't want to. Jiang Kezhou suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, and his mind could hardly move: "Then what do you want?"

　　"I know what your family is like," Brother Song patted his face, "So this is not bringing you back. No money, anyone can do it." He pushed Jiang Kezhou’s aside with force, stood up and lit a cigarette, and said to the person holding Jiang Kezhou: "Tie him up, blindfold him, and give it to him. Get an injection."

　　Before Jiang Kezhou could understand the meaning of Brother Song's words, a sharp pain came from the back of his neck. The needle pierced the thin skin and injected half of an unknown liquid into his body. After a few minutes, uncontrollable sleepiness flooded up like a tide, Jiang Kezhou's waist and legs softened, and he realized that the other party had given him drugs such as anesthetics. He kept his eyes wide open, his eyes were cracking, but he couldn't stop the strong effect of the medicine, and he fell to the cold concrete floor.

　　Brother Song took a bit of a cigarette and wiped out the cigarette butts on the floor: "Go, take him, and go to Boss Sun."