At half-past six in the morning, people on Jinghe Road were waking up to start their work. Neighborhood shopkeepers rolled up their storefront shutters. Customers buying wholesale hardware, wedding candies, and daily household appliances poured into this quaint street, and the air instantly became lively and bustling.
A middle-aged woman in her forties rode her bicycle past the street. Riding along, she stopped and asked a shopkeeper by the roadside, “Older brother, is the Jinghe Road wet market just ahead?” She was dressed simply, with a slightly deep skin tone, and was most likely someone who had heard that the prices at the Jinghe Road wet market were cheap and had rushed over to “stock up.”
“Ah, yep! Another two hundred meters ahead and you’ll be there!”
“Thanks a lot, older brother!” Just as she was about to resume riding, she raised her head and noticed that quite a few people were crowded in front of a small shop ahead. She couldn’t help asking again, “Older brother, what kind of shop is that ahead?”
“That thing? Oh, it’s a steamed bun shop. The buns at that place are exceptionally delicious and super cheap! I strongly recommend you buy a few, otherwise they’ll be sold out right away!”
“Really?!” Hearing that they were cheap and delicious, the woman instantly perged up, rushed over and squeezed into the crowd, shouting loudly, “What kind of buns do you have, and how much are they?”
Before the white-haired granny behind the counter could utter a sound, people on the side answered for her: “Big meat buns are two yuan, meat and vermicelli buns and chive and egg buns are both one yuan and fifty cents, and mushroom and green vegetable buns are one yuan. Only the beef-stuffed flatbreads are a bit more expensive, five yuan each!”
“So cheap?!” The woman was pleasantly surprised: “Then I want four meat buns, and two of every other kind of bun! And… and two beef-stuffed flatbreads!”
“Hey hey hey, you need to get in line!” Everyone yelled with dissatisfaction.
“Oh, right, right!” The woman chuckled awkwardly and retreated.
When it was her turn five minutes later, the buns in the steamer baskets were already down to the last few. She only managed to buy three meat buns and two meat and vermicelli buns.
Muttering under her breath, “Are they really that good? Getting snatched away so fiercely…”, the woman picked up a meat bun and took a vigorous bite. The full meat filling instantly burst open in her mouth, overflowing with meaty juice, tender and fragrant. She stared in surprise, then her face turned dismayed: “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have cooked that pot of rice, and I should’ve set out earlier! Then I wouldn’t have ended up buying only five buns!”
Pushing her bicycle toward the wet market, the woman finished eating a bun, still feeling unsatisfied. She pulled out her phone and made a phone call to her son: “Yandong, isn’t that basketball hall where you play ball in the evening extremely close to Yanjingfang? When you walk home, go via Jinghe Road. In the middle section of the road, there’s a bun shop, and it’s super delicious! Buy a few more and bring them back.”
“Mom…” On the other end, Ren Yandong’s voice sounded somewhat collapsed, “It’s not even seven o’clock yet. Can’t you let me sleep in?!”
“Sleep, sleep, get up and review! When school starts after the holiday, you’ll be a high school senior, do you know that, and you still sleep every day! Your head teacher has complained to me many times, saying you always sleep in class…”
Prattling endlessly, the woman pushed her bicycle and slowly walked away.
Waking up at eleven o’clock in the morning, Yan Jun rubbed his eyes. Seeing that the fake child wasn’t there, and only that yellow smiley face was on the bed, he was startled: Where is Qin Yize?!
Putting on his slippers and rushing downstairs, the stainless steel steamer baskets had actually already been brought into the kitchen? Yan Jun asked Granny, “Granny, did Little Tree take in the steamer baskets?”
“Yeah.” Granny squinted her eyes with a smile and fanned herself.
“Then where did he go?”
“Him? He went to find the grandmother who collects recyclables, saying he didn’t find any cigarette cartons yesterday, so he’s going to check again today.”
The tension in Yan Jun’s heart instantly dissipated, and his face showed disgust: Just for a few cigarette cartons!… Brat, is it really necessary?!
The two of them had gone too late last night, and the old grandmother had already sent the recyclables to the recycling station, so the two returned empty-handed.
The fake child took it to heart and muttered about it all night long. Yan Jun listened until his ears felt like they were getting繭 (calloused/muffled), and couldn’t help kicking him: “Alright, alright, tomorrow I’ll go to school and help you ask someone else for them, okay! Sit tight and wait honestly, stop muttering!”
Qin Yize quieted down for a moment, happily rubbed against him and hugged him, his two eyes wide open in the dimness: “Really?”
Yan Jun’s response was a slap to his face.
While eating lunch, Qin Yize came back drooping and dispirited, looking like he hadn’t found any cigarette cartons. Yan Jun disdainfully gave him a sideways glance, tapped the rim of his bowl with his chopsticks, and spat: “Eat! I’ll help you find them this afternoon, stop bustling about blindly!”
The fake child desolately picked up his rice bowl: “Can you really find them?”
“Could I still lie to you?” After reprimanding him, Yan Jun fished out his phone and sent a message to Lin He, who loved smoking the most: “We’re going to school to play basketball this afternoon, are you going?”
Lin He felt quite flattered: “Going! I’m definitely going.”
Then he asked again, “Ren Yandong isn’t going, right?”
Ren Yandong? Yan Jun frowned slightly; these past few days he seemed to have gone to play ball at the gymnasium with other people and hadn’t shown his face much: “He’s not going.”
“Alright.” Lin He seemed to feel relieved, “Then I’ll bring an iced cola over.”
“Iced cola isn’t important.” Yan Jun’s goal was clear: “What’s important is that you bring a few cigarette cartons for me. I want expensive ones, as many different styles as possible.”
“Cigarette cartons?” Lin He was stunned, “You don’t want cigarettes?”
“No, I just want the cartons.”
“Oh…” The person on the other end responded blankly.
Whenever Lin He came out to play, he always liked to buy a huge pile of things, with both food and toys included, causing everyone else to fawn over him obsequiously: “Brother Lin is generous! Are we going to KTV tonight, or barbecue is fine too!”
One by one, they coaxed him out to spend money with eager flattery, naturally hoping he would foot the bill.
Lin He looked into the distance at Yan Jun approaching swiftly on a bicycle, and raised his chin: “Let’s ask Yan Jun later.”
Stopping his bicycle at the edge of the court, Yan Jun walked up to him with a clear objective and asked with slight pants: “Did you bring the cigarette cartons?”
“You wanted the boxes, so I emptied some out for you.” Pulling out his school bag and giving it a light shake, more than a dozen colorful cigarette cartons instantly spilled all over the ground.
Yuan Siqi hurried over to help Yan Jun tidy them up: He Heyin, Lotus, Zhenlong, Zhonghua—everything was there. He couldn’t help asking: “Boss, what are you doing with cigarette cartons?”
“The kid at my relatives’ place plays with cigarette cards and is naggingly pestering me for them.” Packing the cigarette cartons into his bag, Yan Jun looked at those trademarks with exasperated incomprehension, expressing disgust: “How is this any different from the Water Margin hero cards we collected when we were kids? The gameplay is exactly the same! But they just have to use cigarette cartons to make them… Nowadays, those kids are as clear as day about cigarette prices, counting them more fluently than I do!”
Yuan Siqi’s eyes lit up: “Boss, do you want my Hongtashan?”
Yan Jun glanced at him: “Too cheap, don’t want it.”
Yuan Siqi then flatteringly went to ask Lin He: “Lin He, those cigarettes you emptied out… where did you put them? Do you want me to help you consume some of them?”
Lin He looked toward Yan Jun: “Do you want them?”
“No.” Zip up his school bag and place it on the stone bench at the edge of the court. Yan Jun turned around, grabbed a basketball, ran neatly into the court, and scored a clean three-pointer: “Those good cigarettes of yours are dozens or hundreds of yuan a pack; don’t spoil my mouth.”
Lin He smiled and said indifferently, “What’s wrong with that? It’s just a few packs of cigarettes.”
Yuan Siqi continued to smile ingratiatingly: “Exactly! It’s just a few packs of cigarettes. Lin He, give me a bit so I can also taste what good cigarettes are like~”
“Alright, after the game you can come home with me to get them.” Lin He put down his backpack, jogged into the court, and joined the fray.
That evening, when Yan Jun rode his bicycle back to Jinghe Street, from afar he saw Qin Yize’s tall figure standing at the store entrance, tiptoeing with both feet and craning his neck in eager anticipation.
Seeing him, he smiled like a husky, joyfully greeting him: “Brother, did you help me get the cigarette cartons!”
Across the street, Xiao Hui led a group of kids playing enthusiastically. Hearing this, he couldn’t help walking to the roadside nervously and also asked: “Little Jun-ge, where, where did you get the cigarette cartons? You didn’t ask the uncles on this street for them, did you?”
Qin Yize had already impatiently taken over Yan Jun’s backpack and unzipped it: “Wow, so many cigarette cartons! Brother, you’re so awesome!”
He lunged forward with excitement, almost knocking parking Yan Jun over: “Damn, damn, damn! Take it easy!”
Agilely propping himself up against the wall and easily pulling Yan Jun back up, the fake child’s eyes were smiling until they narrowed into slits. Raising the school bag with an “Oh!”, he rushed into the house, bolted up the stairs, and disappeared.
Xiao Hui stood across the street with eager, unconvinced eyes, and shouted annoyedly: “Little Jun-ge! The cigarette cartons of this entire street belong to me, and you’re also from this street, why didn’t you give them to me!”
Yan Jun perfunctorily glared at him and patted the dust off himself: “He’s my younger brother, of course I’ll give them to him first.”
Xiao Hui pursed his lips, revealing an expression of envy, jealousy, and hatred.
At night, from the moment dinner ended, Qin Yize followed behind his older brother like a puppy. He chattered incessantly: “Brother, when are you going to help me make cigarette cards? I don’t know how to make them… Hurry up and help me make them! Quickly go mix the stuffing, wash up after mixing the stuffing, and then go upstairs to make cards…”
Hey! Yan Jun had just finished washing the dishes, turned back to glare at him angrily: “You’re even arranging things for me now!”
The fake child immediately drooped his brows and pouted, blinking his pair of peach blossom eyes innocently: “Brother, make it faster, I’m begging you~”
Yan Jun instantly felt like an unexploded firecracker, swallowing all his breath back down his throat.
The fake child respectfully handed the pencil, ruler, and scissors into his older brother’s hands, his eyes shining brightly: “Brother, it’s all up to you!”
Yan Jun irritably rolled his eyes.
Resignedly sitting down on the bed, his legs crossed and brows furrowed, he earnestly used an automatic pencil and ruler to draw out the shape of the cigarette cards, then meticulously cut them out. This posture was even more solemn than doing geometry problems.
Qin Yize squatted beside him like a big dog, his arms hugging his knees, staring intently at his older brother’s movements. Watching and watching, he couldn’t help leaning his head over, pressing against Yan Jun’s face in a dependent and admiring manner: “Brother, I like you so much! You are simply omnipotent.”
Hearing this, Yan Jun felt his temples throb, held his breath, and didn’t respond. On his own accord, he folded the cut-out cards into a rectangle according to the drawn lines, carefully buckled them together, and a cigarette card was thus born.
Qin Yize’s eyes lit up, and he impatiently reached out to take it: “So this is a cigarette card! Haha, I finally have cigarette cards too!”
“Hold onto them properly; if you lose them, I won’t replace them for you,” Yan Jun said coldly, starting to make the next card without stopping.
“Yeah! Brother, you don’t need to help me find cigarette cartons anymore. I can use these cigarette cards to utterly dominate everyone!” The fake child was full of confidence, eagerly throwing the cigarette cards onto the woven mat and starting to play with them earnestly.
After making them for nearly forty minutes, Yan Jun finally finished folding all sixteen cigarette cartons into cigarette cards. Counting them, there were a total of forty-eight cards, a thick stack in his hand that actually had some weight.
Seeing Qin Yize squatting intently and sitting on the bed, cupping his hands tightly and striking the cards hard with force, Yan Jun sneered contemptuously: “These little toys are all things we finished playing with when we were kids.”
Saying that, he reached out and gave a light smack, and three cards immediately flipped over, neatly aligned.
Qin Yize was dumbfounded, looking at the cards and then at his older brother: “Brother… you, you just won them over like that!”
“Yeah.” With a proud raise of his brow, Yan Jun reached out again, aiming steadily and ruthlessly to smack Qin Yize’s cards. In the blink of an eye, another three cards were added to his collection.
Holding those six cards, he gave them a light wave toward the fake child, a confident smile hooking the corner of his mouth: “Like this, I’ll use these six cards to battle against your forty-two cards, let’s see who can win.”
The smug adolescent bent one knee, his slender and resilient legs blocking the front, his posture leisurely. He tilted his shoulder, his loose tank top hanging down like a tattered hemp sack, almost exposing his entire chest.
Qin Yize looked on in a daze, and in that instant, he seemed to smell the faint shower gel scent on Yan Jun’s body: “Brother, you smell so good, like lemon.”
“Tsk!” Yan Jun glared fiercely: “Are you still going to play or not!”
“Play, play, play!” Coming back to his senses abruptly, the fake child hurriedly agreed.
Facts proved that when it came to playing cards, an honors student simply couldn’t compare to an old street-smart rogue who had been lingering on the streets since childhood. Yan Jun calmly and unhurriedly won all six of his Zhenlong cards, followed by nine Lotus cards, then twelve Zhonghua cards… In the end, Qin Yize had empty space before him, and all his belongings had been won away.
Yan Jun leisurely folded all the cards, patted them in the palm of his hand: “With your amateur skills like that, how are you going to win against Xiao Hui?”
The fake child pouted, aggrieved: “Brother, teach me!”
“Not teaching.” Yan Jun refused relentlessly, “I’ll give you six cards first, and tomorrow you take these six cards to play with Xiao Hui. Otherwise, if you lose them all at once, I’ll have to help you find cigarette cartons again…”
Casually separating well over half of the cards and putting them behind his pillow, Yan Jun unhurriedly counted out six cards, strictly executing a “planned economy.” Qin Yize resentfully eyed that stack of cards behind him, his eyeballs rolling around, his lips pursed and pursed.
Suddenly, he thrust his hand out aggressively, attempting a sneak attack. But Yan Jun seemed to anticipate his move, pressing his body down alertly and clamping this fake child’s arm under his ribs: “Heh heh~ can’t win so you want to resort to daylight robbery?”
Looking at his older brother’s disdainful expression, Qin Yize revealed eight white teeth, grinning as he barged in with counter-bargaining: “Brother, just give them to me~”
As soon as the words fell, he grabbed the back of Yan Jun’s shirt with a backhanded catch, coiled around him like a snake, and rolled over to pin him down. Yan Jun couldn’t help letting out a “Damn!”, only then remembering that this guy had signed up for classes in a combat gym! He hurriedly propped up his elbows and struggled strenuously: “Qin… Ersu! Let go of me! There’s no such way to treat your older brother!”
“Heh heh heh~” The fake child triumphantly grabbed that stack of cigarette cards, treasured them under the pillow, and then smilingly pressed against Yan Jun’s shoulder. His right hand drilled around to the front of Yan Jun’s body like a snake, searching for the other half stack of cards: “It’s older brother’s fault for always bullying me. I don’t like being bullied, so I can only resort to desperate measures~”
A nimble, large hand threaded between muscle and bamboo mat, soft on one side and firm on the other. Yan Jun struggled in vain, unable to help blushing, and roared with humiliation: “If you don’t let go, I won’t make fried dough sticks for you tomorrow!”
Their bodies were tightly pressed together like spoons, rubbing violently. The fake child gave an ignorant, soft moan from the friction, couldn’t help stopping, and stared blankly at Yan Jun’s reddened earlobes. His hand also stopped drilling, turning instead to clasp his older brother’s chest, scratching unconsciously… Just as Yan Jun was about to continue cursing, he felt something poking right behind him?
“Damn!” Realizing what that was, he yelled out as if electrocuted: “Qin Yize, let go of me right now!”