It's not even July yet, but the weather is already extremely hot. After nine o'clock, the temperature goes straight up to thirty degrees.
Lin Sitao wore a safety helmet and only work clothes without a sweat shirt underneath, but he was still sweating all over. He had been working on the construction site for more than ten days and had gotten used to the pace here.
He was concentrating on staring at the concrete and didn't notice that two Cherokees had parked at the side of the construction site and more than a dozen people got out of the cars one after another.
"Hey! Someone is coming from upstairs." Old Chen shouted loudly. He was an old worker on the construction site. Lin Sitao came here to work just because he followed him.
"Master," Lin Sitao called him, "Is it time to add water?"
Old Chen said "hmm", still staring at the approaching crowd. He suddenly pushed Lin Sitao: "It seems to be calling you! Come over here!"
Lin Sitao looked up blankly and saw their foreman Wu Jianghai waving at him desperately not far away. Amid the roar of the machines, he could vaguely hear him shouting with his mouth wide open: "Lin! Tao! Lin Sitao! Come here!"
He hesitated for a moment, then trotted over to the group of people.
The group of people were all wearing high-quality shirts and watches, and perhaps because they had just gotten out of the car, no one was sweating profusely.
The person who was surrounded by people like the moon surrounded by stars was the most exaggerated - Lin Sitao couldn't tell what was exaggerated about him. He just glanced at him and quickly looked away - the person was more than ten centimeters taller than Lin Sitao, like the actor who specialized in playing emperors and generals in TV dramas.
"Lin Sitao, raise your head and tell me, how old are you this year?" the man spoke.
Lin Sitao did what he said before he came to his senses. He raised his head, looked into the man's eyes, and murmured, "I'm seventeen."
He Xian looked at the child in front of him suspiciously.
Really just a kid!
Before he got off the bus, he saw a thin figure, less than 1.7 meters tall, with a loose work suit hanging on his body. He was busy mixing concrete, sweating profusely, and a large area of his clothes was wet on the back. When the bus turned around, he saw the man's face and was shocked - it was a child who looked no more than 14 years old. His face was very childish, and his skin was baked red and black.
As soon as he got off the car, he called Ding Shengguang.
“How dare you use child labor on the construction site?”
Ding Shengguang asked Wu Jianghai right away: "What's the matter with child laborers on the construction site?"
Wu Jianghai was shocked and swore to the sky: "Boss Ding, you know me. I always follow the rules. What we fear most on the construction site is safety problems. I will risk my life if I use child labor."
He Xian pointed and said, "What is that?"
Wu Jianghai looked in the direction he pointed, and suddenly realized what was going on. He said, "That's right! He just has a small face, a baby face, he's definitely not a child laborer!"
He Xian didn't believe him. He had seen a lot of men and could tell the difference between a baby-faced man and a real man.
At this moment, Lin Sitao stood in front of He Xian and answered, "I am seventeen years old."
The voice is very thin and light, and the throat is slightly hoarse.
His hair looked like it hadn't been cut for a while. It stuck out from under the helmet and rested on his forehead, wet with sweat. It made his face look only the size of a palm. His eyes were not small, but they looked red because he didn't get enough sleep. His nose was small and pointed like a little girl's, and even the movement of his nose wings seemed cautious. His thin lips were pursed into a line.
The feeling it gives people is just one word: small.
He is very young, pitifully young, probably in the first or second grade of junior high school. Kids of this age should be having fun during the summer vacation.
He Xian looked at his hands again. His fingernails were round, his fingers were slender, and his joints were not thick. Obviously, they had not been deformed by long-term hard labor.
"Don't be afraid. You did nothing wrong in this matter. It won't be held against you. It won't have any impact on you. Please tell me the truth. Are you over sixteen years old?"
He Xian spoke clearly and gently.
"Director He..." Wu Haiyang interrupted, but Ding Shengguang stopped him: "Don't say anything."
Lin Sitao looked at the adults and finally realized what was happening. When he followed Lao Chen to work, he was once teased: "You are so small, will you be used as a child laborer?"
He hurriedly said, his voice getting louder: "I'm already in high school, and I'll be 18 in the fall! I have my ID!"
He Xian nodded: "Okay. Now follow Supervisor Ding to the office and get your ID card for him to verify."
Ding Shengguang smiled and waved to Lin Sitao: "Come on, kid, go take a rest."
Lin Sitao had never received such attention before, and he nodded stiffly.
Half an hour later, Ding Shengguang returned to He Xian with a relaxed expression: "I checked it with the system - Director He rarely makes mistakes. The child is already 17 years old and looks really young."
Wu Haiyang was pardoned.
He was really worried that Lin Sitao had used a fake ID card, so he finally put his mind at ease. While thinking that if it was really a child laborer, he would kill Lao Chen, he did not forget to flatter He Xian.
"Director He, this is all for our own good. This is something that not many people can do with such rigor and seriousness!"
He Xian was already used to this. He had been praised since he was a child, and he was numb to it. Besides, he was not in the mood to listen to it now. He changed the subject and continued to talk business with the people in the laboratory.
By lunchtime, the joke had spread everywhere. Everyone started calling Lin Sitao a "child laborer" and making fun of him.
"I heard he's from J City." Ding Shengguang was standing on the second-floor balcony of the director's office. When he saw the workers going downstairs in groups of three or four to get their meals, he suddenly said.
"Who?" He Xian was eating while flipping through the laboratory data report.
"Child labor."
He Xian corrected him: "It should be non-child labor."
"I remember my cousin's family is from J City?" Ding Shengguang said. He and He Xian were related, and they were distant cousins.
He Xian’s grandfather is indeed from J City.
J City is only a hundred kilometers away from Shanghai. Driven by Shanghai in recent years, it has become a very lively small city.
During the winter and summer vacations in elementary school, he often went back to J City with his mother Zhou Qin. Although his grandfather's old house was not as prosperous as their own home in Shanghai, there was an artificial lake outside the compound. It was said that people who swam there drowned every year. Zhou Qin always watched him closely and did not allow him to go into the lake.
He still remembered that he could often hear his mother, grandmother, and aunt talking and laughing in low voices during his naps. They knew everything, including which son had made trouble, which unfilial descendants had a quarrel over the division of the family property, which family had arranged to go abroad, and which family had the good fortune to go to Beijing.
Of course, what they talked about the most was the He family.
Business trip, inspection, so-and-so is visiting the old man of the He family again. Amid the faint sound of the electric fan, Zhou Qin's voice is elegant and firm: "It's not bad to apply for immigration, but after all the storms, it's still more promising to stay in the country..."
However, during the summer vacation of his fourth grade in elementary school, Zhou Qin fell ill as soon as he took him back to J City.
She said she was sick, but she didn't go to the hospital. She just lay in her bedroom every day. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her voice was hoarse and broken. The Zhou family's living room suddenly became very deserted.
One day in the middle of the night, He Xian was awakened by a loud noise.
He had never heard Zhou Qin cry so hysterically.
"Let me die! Let me die! He is not a human being... How did our family treat him back then... He treats me like this! Let me die!"
He ran out of the room upstairs and saw Zhou Qin lying on the sofa, her whole body wet. She was barefoot, her long hair was disheveled, and she looked like she had been fished out of the water.
Grandma wrapped Zhou Qinqin in a blanket and was crying while hugging her. Grandpa was sitting on the side, covering his face and crying too.
No one expected He Xian to show up. Zhou Qin's crying stopped abruptly. She stared at He Xian for a few seconds, then suddenly jumped up, stumbled and hugged him, like a water ghost coming back to life from the bottom of the lake.
"Tiantian! Tiantian!" She shouted his nickname at the top of her lungs.
The summer vacation ended just like that. After entering the fifth grade, Zhou Qin divorced his father He Bu Tong. He Bu Tong went to Beijing. Zhou Qin was still working in Shanghai at the time. She was determined not to let He Xian live with her and asked He Bu Tong to take He Xian to Beijing.
A few years later, his grandparents passed away one after another, and he went back to J City to attend the funerals in a hurry. He Xian's memories of J City gradually became faint, and when he heard Ding Shengguang suddenly mention it, He Xian didn't feel anything for a moment.
"Oh," he said matter-of-factly, "There should be quite a few people from J City who come here to work."
Ding Shengguang glanced at him and said, "We have booked a hotel for dinner tonight. You must go."
He Xian has never been keen on socializing. He would rather eat junk fast food alone than go out drinking and singing with a bunch of people.
"Just go." He replied casually to Ding Shengguang.
Ding Shengguang smiled: "Comrade Xiao He, do they really want to invite me? I am just accompanying the prince to study! If you don't go, what's the point of us flattering each other?"
"It's good to maintain a sense of mystery, but it's wrong to keep people at a distance..." He was very dedicated and tried his best to persuade He Xian.
He Xian stared at him. Ding Shengguang stopped.
But unexpectedly, He Xian said, "I will go."
When they got to the hotel, Ding Shengguang was happy at first. He Xian drank very generously and didn't turn his face away from anyone. He smiled the whole time and seemed to be in a good mood. He was so handsome and tipsy that even the waiters who were serving food couldn't help but take a second look at him. Everyone felt that they were given enough face.
Gradually, Ding Shengguang felt something was wrong—He Xian accepted every toast, drinking from every toast, and later drank a half-liang cup of white wine in one gulp.
No matter how good your alcohol tolerance is, you can't drink like this. Ding Shengguang helped him block some people from getting drunk. In the end, everyone at the table was drunk.
Ding Shengguang opened a room for him and carried him there to rest.
"You are drinking to drown your sorrows. I know you are unhappy, but there is no need to be like this, right? Ah? What if something happens after drinking? Won't your mother kill me? I can't afford to offend Old Zhou and Old He, so please spare me..." Ding Shengguang drank quite a bit as well, and kept mumbling to He Xian.
He Xian was also drunk, but he was not like Ding Shengguang who would talk too much when he was drunk. He was a good drinker, and he would not cry or make a fuss or talk too much when he was drunk, but would just be sullen and listless.
Ding Shengguang settled He Xian down, then went out to make a phone call and asked his local girlfriend to pick him up to spend the night.
He Xian lay in bed for half an hour, then suddenly got up, rushed into the bathroom and vomited violently.
After vomiting, he felt much more sober and left the hotel directly.
He took a taxi, wandered around the city for a while, and then went to the vicinity of the construction site.
The construction site was still under construction at night, and he could see the lights on the site from the bridge. It was late at night, and the lights and sounds of the construction site were like the only stage left in the universe.
He Xian stared at the river water under the bridge, dark and quiet. He leaned over the railing and watched for who knows how many minutes, mesmerized. He raised his leg—and surprisingly, he stepped over it without much effort.
He was staggering and trying to get his other leg over when someone grabbed his arm and dragged him back.
"Director He!" The voice was hoarse with panic, and then he was grabbed by the waist and suddenly pulled down from the bridge railing. The momentum was too great, and the two of them fell onto the bridge together.
The man knelt beside him, still in shock, and asked in a stammering voice: "Director He, are you okay..."
He Xian lay on the ground and laughed. He finally realized that he was drunk.
"It's okay... I'm drunk..."
He hadn't laughed to the point of tears in a long time. He slowly sat up and saw clearly the person who had pulled him down.
The man was not wearing a helmet. He had a teenage face and wet eyes. I don’t know if he was scared.
"It's you, the child laborer..." He Xian couldn't remember his name for a moment.
Lin Sitao did not correct him and whispered, "Let me take you back, Director He.