Jiang Wang suddenly found it difficult to reason with his seven-year-old self.
"I won't sell you." He said slowly, "Actually... I am a relative that your mother entrusted to take care of you. According to seniority, I am your cousin."
"You are safe now."
Peng Xingwang hadn't seen his mother for several years, and now his eyes were watery from the pain, and he looked up at him.
"Really?"
Jiang Wang heaved a sigh of relief, thinking that he finally found a decent argument, and his tone was finally gentler.
"Well, actually I look very similar to her, take a closer look."
Peng Xingwang thought for a few seconds.
"Can you call her?"
Jiang Wang was expressionless: "I don't have a mobile phone."
"There is a landline at the front desk of the guest house."
"go to sleep."
Peng Xingwang looked disappointed, and almost wrote "you are lying to me" on his face, sniffed his nose, crawled back to the bed and wrapped it into a ball, and fell asleep breathing evenly after a while.
Liu Jiang Wang sat by the bed alone, holding half a roll of gauze in a daze.
He never thought that things would develop to this point.
Inexplicably, he took out the child version of himself, and it is absolutely impossible to return the child in the future, so he can only bite the bullet and continue to raise it.
A certain person has zero love experience so far, and is annoyed when hearing a child cry. Originally, he gave up on himself and planned to be single until he was old. Before he left, he found a place to dig a hole and lie down to save money for the coffin.
He looked at Peng Xingwang a little annoyed.
The next morning, when it was just dawn, Peng Xingwang carefully slid out of bed with bare feet, glanced at the bulging quilt on the next bed, and then ran out quickly.
Hit the iron-like eight-pack abs in three steps.
"hiss-"
Jiang Wang looked down at him with a bag of soybean milk and fried dough sticks, and the shadow fell on the old man.
Peng Xingwang turned around and ran, jumped back into the quilt and forced to sleep on, pretending nothing happened.
"Get up." The man said coldly: "Eat, take a shower and go to school."
The child thought he heard it wrong: "... go to school?"
Jiang Wang had already bought a cheap T-shirt and put it on, facing away from him, he put away the shirt jacket on the balcony: "What time do you usually leave school? I'll pick you up later."
The child was quiet for a while, and his voice became much softer.
"No one ever picked me up from school."
Peng Xingwang is seven years old this year. According to the habit of starting school early in City A, he should be in the second grade.
But he has never been to kindergarten. His father has been soaked in alcohol and vomit all day long since he was born. His mother fled the city in a hurry two years after giving birth. He can survive today because of the food from the neighbors.
The child has nowhere to go after being alive and kicking, and spends all day picking up garbage on the street to tease cats and dogs. Thanks to the strict implementation of urban civilization construction this year, the aunts of the neighborhood committee took him to the primary school to enforce the nine-year compulsory education.
But after all, it is not the biological child of the family, and the neighbors in the neighborhood can only be regarded as intermittent care. If you are too close, let alone waste money, the family will have opinions.
How else can the children choose, just make do with it.
Jiang Wang was silent for a few seconds, folded the old coat neatly, held it in his arms with one hand, and led Peng Xingwang out.
Hongshan Primary School opens at 7:00 in the morning. The school uniform is brown and yellow with black double stripes. From a distance, it looks like a group of puppies and bees queuing up to enter the door.
The tall man and the little boy stood beside the bus sign diagonally opposite the school gate for a long time.
Jiang Wang suddenly remembered that Peng Xingwang didn't have a school uniform.
To be precise, I didn't get clean clothes until I was about to graduate. Before that, I was as tattered as a little beggar.
Peng Xingwang didn't understand what he was thinking, so he tilted his head and said, "Have I passed?"
Jiang Wang frowned, turned around and said, "Let's go."
He had to get some money to buy him a school uniform first.
One big and one small walked aimlessly along the street, and turned into a sports betting shop after a while.
The old TV still had a black and white screen, and the signal of the football program was not good. Snowflakes flickered after a while, and the old man slapped him several times from time to time.
This kind of place has always been a reserved place for retired old people to play cards and chat. There are very few early morning businesses, but there are many people sitting there.
The old man guarding the counter saw a social youth and a child by the hand, and his expression was not friendly: "What's the matter?"
Jiang Wang stared at the TV and asked for a long while, "The World Cup?"
"You have to buy a lottery ticket to watch the game," the old man said bluntly, "There are no seats left, just stand."
Peng Xingwang looked out of the street timidly, not knowing whether he should run or not.
Jiang Wang doesn't like watching football.
He has so few interests that he has lived in isolation these years.
In the first few years of working, there was a projection screen in the living room of the rental house, and the shared roommates watched the football on weekends when they had nothing to do.
Jiang Wang would occasionally pick up the wine handed by the other party, and the elated Kan, he drank half asleep and half awake beside him.
Occasionally, when a ball is scored, a loud drink in the living room can be heard downstairs. Jiang Wang will sleepily sip his wine and watch the screen for a while, and then fall asleep on the sofa.
The old man made up his mind to drive them away, but he didn't expect the young people from the society to take out a wad of bills.
It looked like there were hundreds of them, and somehow they were broken into loose change.
Jiang Wang counted one hundred and eight and handed it to him.
"Poland vs. Ecuador, buy zero to two."
The old man gave him a dubious look, swiped the fifty-twenty bills with the banknote detector, and slowly issued a ticket.
Next to him, a middle-aged man who avoided his wife to watch the game laughed.
"You buy Ecuador?"
"Poland was 3-0 in the friendly match last year. Young people, don't play like this if you want to bet on upsets."
"Zurawski's attacking thief is fucking awesome," the person next to him smiled and smoked: "Listen to me, a full warehouse of Poland is not a loss."
Peng Xingwang found a small bench and sat down, and fell asleep on the table after a while.
Two hours later, the man put the brand-new five hundred yuan into his pocket, bent down and gave the kid a brain break.
"Oh!" Peng Xingwang reached out to protect his head, "It hurts!"
"Would you drink soda?" Jiang Wang looked as if he was asking a question, and he had already opened the freezer with his hand: "What flavor is it?"
Peng Xingwang was alert: "I won't drink."
Jiang forgot to do his own thing and took two bottles of Arctic Ocean.
While opening the bottle caps for them, the boss was free to inquire about the news.
"Is this kid your son?"
"How is that possible." Jiang Wang twitched his lips, "I can't be born so dumb."
At noon, the two returned to school and went to the Academic Affairs Office to buy a set of school uniforms, white shoes, red scarves and yellow hats.
When paying, a classmate recognized Peng Xingwang, and looked up at Jiang Wang curiously.
"Wangzi, who are you?"
Peng Xingwang shouted crisply and brightly.
"My big brother!"
Jiang Wang's air pressure was inexplicably lower.
The teacher had been bothering about the child's family not paying any money before, and he was relieved to see that someone was finally willing to take care of it, and took out the clothes that fit him two or three times.
The kid hugged the clothes with bright eyes, rushed to the bathroom to change and then rushed out, holding Jiang Wangyi's corner and smiling silly.
"Does it look good!"
Jiang Wang thought about where the color of this mud dog would look better, squinted his eyes and nodded reluctantly.
Peng Xingwang's smile became even brighter, and he wanted to blend in with other muddy elementary school students: "I'm going to class?!"
As soon as Jiang Wang raised his head, his eyes suddenly stopped.
There was a familiar figure at the other end of the corridor.
The man was thin and thin, with a piece of white jade on his right wrist, and his eyes were clear like Xia Yeyue.
The flow of time seemed to slow down suddenly, and Jiang Wang took a step forward, like a student who finally returned to school to visit his teacher after more than 20 years.
The man saw that Peng Xingwang was wearing a new school uniform, smiled and patted the child's head, praised him for his good looks, and held his hand to take him back to class.
The man stood at the far end, watching his shadow fading down the steps like a tide, and was stunned for a long time before looking at the old coat that he was always holding in his arms.
He doesn't even know his name.