The rusty door hinges made a grating creaking sound.
Everyone in the courtyard turned their heads at the same time, and the laughter stopped abruptly.
"father..."
Su Mingde's voice was so hoarse that his knees buckled and he knelt directly on the bluestone slab.
The bundle landed with a thud, raising a small cloud of dust.
The smile on Su Jianguo's face vanished instantly.
He put the child down and patted his grandson's bottom.
"Go find Grandma."
The two boys immediately darted behind Wang Xiulan, curiously peering inside.
"Who let you come back?"
Su Jianguo's voice was as cold as ice shards in the dead of winter.
Su Mingde shuffled forward a few steps on his knees, then suddenly lunged forward and hugged his father's leg.
"Father! I was wrong! I really know I was wrong!"
Su Mingde pressed his face against his father's mud-splattered trouser leg, tears and snot mingling together.
"The guesthouse outside requires a letter of introduction... and there are mosquitoes everywhere under the bridge... Dad, please let me stay at home for one more night... just one night..."
The bathtub in Wang Xiulan's hands crashed to the ground, splashing hot water onto her cloth shoes.
She was about to speak when her husband's gaze froze her in place.
Su Jianguo looked down at his son at his feet.
Su Mingde's white shirt collar was already yellowed, one leg of his gold-rimmed glasses was wrapped with tape, and his exposed wrists were covered with red welts from mosquito bites.
Anyone who sees him in such a disheveled state would feel sorry for him.
Of course, this excludes Su Jianguo, who was reborn and returned to life.
“I’m asking you.”
Su Jianguo suddenly squatted down and grabbed his son's chin with his rough hands.
"If I gave you two thousand yuan right now, what would be the first thing you would do?"
The courtyard became so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Su Yufen covered her mouth, and Wang Xiulan hugged her two grandsons tightly.
Su Mingde's pupils behind his glasses contracted sharply.
His lips trembled, his Adam's apple bobbed, but he couldn't make a sound.
His father's gaze pierced him like an X-ray, containing no anger, only an all-knowing coldness.
“Speak.”
Su Jianguo shouted sternly.
A drop of sweat slid down Su Mingde's temple.
His gaze drifted to his eldest sister, then quickly fell back down.
"I...I'll definitely do it first..."
“Look at me and say it!”
Su Jianguo shouted, startling the sparrows under the eaves.
"Get a wife first!"
Su Mingde broke down and shouted.
"Father, Meijuan can't wait any longer! She only gave me three days. By then..."
Before he could finish speaking, a loud slap interrupted him.
Su Jianguo shook his numb hand, looked at the blood seeping from his son's mouth, and suddenly smiled.
"Get out of here. You can come back through this door when you've figured this out."
Wang Xiulan's cries mingled with the screams of her two grandsons.
Su Yufen rushed forward to help her younger brother, but was pushed away by her father.
Su Jianguo finally understood: his second son was hopelessly infatuated with love and beyond saving.
Get out of there quickly, out of sight, out of mind.
A disheveled Su Mingde was once again kicked out.
It was completely dark, and he no longer knew where he could go.
In a daze, he walked further and further away, and stopped when he passed by a bridge arch.
He'd heard from a storyteller that you could spend the night under a bridge, and Su Mingde decided to give it a try. It was early summer, so the nights weren't too cold.
Su Mingde walked to the entrance of the bridge arch.
The stench of the river and the putrid smell of the garbage heap instantly filled his mouth and nose.
His gold-rimmed glasses were askew on his nose, and the right lens had a thin crack, which he had bumped when his father slapped him.
"Damn it, old man, you'll get what's coming to you!"
Su Mingde cursed through gritted teeth, his voice hoarse and unlike his own.
The underpass was dark and gaping, like a gaping maw.
Su Mingde hesitated for a moment, but still went inside.
At least this place will keep out the wind, he thought.
The light from the distant streetlights barely shone in, outlining the uneven contours of the underpass.
Torn straw mats and rotten newspapers were scattered on the ground, and there was a pile of burnt-out campfire remnants in the corner.
"Hey, who's this? Coming to our turf so late at night?"
A hoarse voice suddenly came from the darkness.
Su Mingde froze instantly.
Three dark figures emerged from the depths of the bridge arch; in the dim light, they could be seen to be three ragged beggars.
The leader of the beggars was a tall, thin man missing a front tooth. The other two were short and stocky, one like a mound, and the other hunched over like a shrimp.
"I...I'll leave now."
Su Mingde turned to run away, but the short, stocky man grabbed him by the back of his collar.
What's the rush?
The short, stocky man approached, reeking of alcohol, with bits of vegetable stuck between his yellow teeth.
"To find you here so late at night, it must be fate."
He said it in a strange tone.
The tall, thin man strolled over slowly and reached out to take off Su Mingde's glasses.
"Tsk tsk, gold-rimmed glasses, cultured gentlemen are certainly different. Here, let me try them on."
He perched his glasses on his flat nose, a comical sight that drew a burst of shrill laughter from the other two beggars.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
