The sky was overcast. Every city has dark and damp corners, and those corners where the sun cannot shine are the breeding ground for the darkness of human nature and a paradise for evil.
An abandoned construction site is the gathering place of a tiny gang.
How small is this gang?
A van can be filled with everyone, and it can also take everyone away.
Even so, this gang still controlled nearly ten children.
Their daily work is simple: they send these children out to beg, keep watch, steal, take the blame, and do anything that is inconvenient for them to do, in order to obtain benefits for them that go beyond their authority.
In their eyes, these children are not people, but property.
Anything can be sold if necessary.
Adults have their own world, and children have theirs.
These controlled children huddle in corners of reinforced concrete, avoiding the sun and rain, licking their wounds, and seeking warmth in each other's company.
They didn't even have names; they could only address each other by the order in which they joined the gang.
Huo Da was the leader of the group and also the strongest. In Scarface's words, Huo Da was going to fight in underground boxing matches and make a lot of money.
Therefore, Huo Da not only had special privileges within the gang, exempting him from begging and stealing, but he was also the leader among the children.
Huo Da shoveled down a couple of bites of his boxed lunch, casually shoved it into the hands of his companion, and asked,
"You little bastard, is there another new person here today?"
The guy ranked eighth didn't originally have the surname Wang; he himself couldn't even say what his surname was.
But since he's ranked eighth, he has no say in what his surname is.
Wang Ba nodded, "It seems so."
Someone asked, "Is he the ninth or the tenth?"
The fourth brother, who was reading a book, looked up and said, "Tenth brother, how do you remember how to count? Didn't I tell you to count on your fingers?"
Upon hearing this, the man opened his palm and began to count them one by one.
"One, two, three, four... I only have nine fingers!"
"Idiot! You still have a head on your neck!"
"......"
"Quiet down!"
Huo was the biggest and had the loudest voice; as soon as he spoke, everyone else fell silent.
"Isn't the Ninth Brother dead? So it must be the Ninth Brother!"
"What Huo Da said makes sense!"
Everyone nodded as they distributed their boxed lunches.
As for the ninth brother they were talking about, he was standing in a corner, wearing a pair of ill-fitting boots, lost in thought.
Huo Da jumped down the steps, pushed aside the surrounding children, and walked straight towards the other person.
"Hey, newbie, how did you get here?"
The new ninth brother answered earnestly, "I came from there."
Huo Da: ......
Huo Da asked patiently,
"I'm asking you, how did you get here!"
The other party retorted, "Who am I?"
Huo Da was completely baffled. "I am who I am!"
The other person said seriously, "Then why can't you talk about me, but you have to talk about Lao Tzu?"
Huo Da's temper flared up instantly. "Kid, are you looking for trouble?"
As Huo Da hung out with this group of people, and being the leader of the kids, he naturally picked up some of their gangster-like mannerisms and learned a lot of swear words. No kid ever dared to talk to him like that.
"I wasn't looking for trouble."
The child said earnestly,
"Civilized people don't often refer to themselves as Laozi."
Huo Dali retorted confidently, "I'm not civilized!"
The child, however, was exceptionally stubborn, pointing at the group of adults who were smoking, drinking, and playing cards.
"So, you want to be like them when you grow up?"
Huo Da was taken aback for a moment, then realized the other person made sense, and immediately became angry again.
"Who the hell are you? Why are you interfering with my business? Believe me or not, I'll beat you up!"
The child nodded. "I believe you."
He had bruises on his face, so this was clearly not the first time he had been beaten.
Huo Da was taken aback for a moment, then frowned and asked, "Aren't you afraid of getting beaten up?"
"Afraid."
Getting hit hurts, and of course children are afraid of pain.
"Being afraid of getting beaten up and telling the truth are not mutually exclusive."
If you're afraid of getting beaten up and don't tell the truth, you might as well get beaten up.
Huo Da's raised fist hung in the air. He gritted his teeth, holding his breath, and glared fiercely at the child in front of him.
Huo Da didn't want to beat him up; in Huo Da's eyes, the kid couldn't take a beating at all.
But Huo Da had no choice but to beat him up because Huo Da was the king of the kids, and there could only be one king among the kids. When his position was challenged, Huo Da could only respond with the means he was best at.
"Your name is Huo Da, right?"
The child suddenly asked,
How old are you this year?
"I'm 11 years old!"
"I am 9 years old this year."
Huo Da frowned. "So?"
"It's not fair for an 11-year-old to beat a 9-year-old."
Huo Da paused for a moment, without a doubt, he was a person who valued fairness.
"Then...then what do you suggest we do?"
The child said earnestly,
"Let's have another fight when we're both the same age,"
"good!"
Huo readily agreed, without feeling any problem.
The tense atmosphere vanished instantly. Huo Da went to the group of children and got half a boxed lunch, which he handed to the new ninth child.
"Ninth Brother, what's your surname?"
The child was eating his meal while looking down at his boots.
This is all he has left.
"Xue, my surname is Xue."
The child swallowed the food in his mouth and said earnestly,
"Just call me Xue Jiu."
...
For some rather unlucky reason, the van fell into the river.
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