Special District 9 Chapter 149: Deep at Night, Two Homeless Children

Before Bucktooth left, he washed all of the dirty clothes at home, wiped the bedframe, windows, floor, and even the corners too. He carried great yearning for this place, and he was very thankful to Qin Yu for what he had done. However, he knew that there was nothing the current him could do to repay this debt. All he was capable of was doing this kind of menial chores…

Qin Yu felt horrible inside after reading the note. He realized that he had gone overboard with his words the day before, especially since he knew full well that the worst feeling anyone could have in the world was to live under the roof of a stranger, having to deal with the jitters of possibly being abandoned at any moment. Bucktooth might look like an unruly, easygoing lad on the surface, but such a child tended to have lower self-esteem. Bucktooth simply couldn’t stand the notion of Qin Yu kicking him out, so he chose to leave by himself.

Arriving at the ‘meat store’, Qin Yu called for Xiangxiang, and after grilling her thoroughly, he quickly left the area.

…

When night descended, the streetlights scattered sparsely along the streets near the borders of Songjiang City would light up. It was about time for the soldiers on duty to change shifts.

There were many cargo trucks lined up before the border check, inching forward bit by bit as they prepared to leave the city.

A skinny Bucktooth was squatting by the road kerb, staring blankly at the glaring headlights around and the crowd walking to and fro the streets.

He had left Qin Yu’s house, but he had no idea where his next stop should be. Where was the place that he should be heading to?

Over the past three months, the time that Bucktooth and Qin Yu had together was rather limited—Qin Yu had ended up spending quite some time recuperating in Jiangzhou. However, the days that Bucktooth spent in Residence 88 made him feel that he had a home for the first time.

Squatting in the middle of this chilling weather, reminiscing everything that had happened all this while, he couldn’t help but feel as if he had been jolted awake from a sweet dream…

In the end, he was still alone. He was doomed to exist on the face of this world all alone.

Bucktooth was not a sentimental child, but he couldn’t stop the tears from dripping down his face. He pressed his lips tightly and swallowed his sorrow back in before slowly rising to his feet. He began heading toward the border check mindlessly.

He was planning to turn himself in. He would inform the sentry guards that he didn’t have a residency permit, and the soldiers would cast him out to a town in the Development District, where he would struggle to survive.

Trudging against the cold gale, Bucktooth soon found himself standing before the sentry tower where the soldiers were stationed on. He took a sharp inhalation of breath as he reached forward to push the door open

It was at this moment that a forty-year-old middle-aged man passed through the border check with two children to enter Songjiang City.

Standing on the left of the middle-aged man was a boy who appeared to be of the same age as Bucktooth. He pointed to a food stand by the roadside and said, “Dad, I’m hungry. I want to have some noodles.”

“Eat your head!” the middle-aged man berated him. “Just hold on a bit more. The place where I’ll be working at provides for our meals.”

“But dad, I’m hungry. I want to eat noodles…”

“Damn it!” The middle-aged man took a look at his surroundings before berating the boy with a stern look, “Didn’t I tell you not to ask for food when other people are around? I don’t have money!”

The boy lowered his head and obediently shut his mouth.

The middle-aged man was just about to continue walking on when the girl on his right spoke up weakly too, “Dad… I’m hungry too.”

The middle-aged man stopped and took a look at his two children helplessly.

There was a long moment of silence before he walked toward the food stand and said, “Give me one bowl of noodle, no… Get me two bowls instead.”

“Sure thing!” the hawker replied with a smile.

“Come, sit down and eat.” The middle-aged man patted his son’s head as he gestured his two children over.

Hearing those words, the two children quickly went over and sat around a dirty-looking table.

“Dad, you eat some too.”

“I’ll get some food over at where I work, you two dig in.” The middle-aged man intentionally put some distance between him and the table, not coming close at all.

Seeing this sight, Bucktooth couldn’t stop tears from flowing down his cheeks once more.

The cruelty of life showed not in one’s low starting point or the inability of one to live like a decent human being, but in the contrast against others. Humans tended to be drawn to what they lacked the most, and even the most trivial of details that appeared in daily life was enough to painfully remind them time and time again of what others had that they possessed not.

Bucktooth looked at the two children in deep envy before decisively turning around to knock on the wooden doors of the sentry tower.

Pah!

It was then that a hand suddenly slammed down on Bucktooth’s shoulder.

Shoosh!

Bucktooth instinctively turned around, and he found himself faced with a sweat-drenched Qin Yu.

The two of them stared at one another beneath the dim lighting. Bucktooth opened his mouth agape at this sight while Qin Yu berated him with a frown, “Is this all you can take? I can’t scold you even after you did wrong?”

Bucktooth blinked his reddened eyes in shock, and he asked in a daze, “Why are you here?”

“To stop you from dying a futile death outside, what else?” Qin Yu sighed deeply. He pulled Bucktooth by his collar with him as he said, “Come, I’ll treat you to a meal.”

…

Ten minutes later.

At a very small food stand, Qin Yu used a tissue paper to wipe a pair of suspiciously dirty chopsticks before handing them over to Bucktooth, asking, “Aren’t you being too much here? You ate my food for three months, but you’re intending to run away without even giving me a heads up?”

Bucktooth lowered his head and replied with a quavering voice, “I… I was scared… that you’re already sick and tired of me. Rather than to continue mooching off you shamelessly, I thought I should just leave on my own accord… I’ll become successful outside first before coming back to find you.”

“Heh! Take a look in the darned mirror, what do you have that’ll allow you to become successful?” Qin Yu asked with an annoyed click of his tongue. “And what in the world do you even consider successful? When you become the Chief Executive of Special District 9?”

“Brother Qin, do you look down on me?” Bucktooth raised his head and asked.

“I think of you as a little brother, there’s nothing such as looking down on you,” Qin Yu replied as he passed a plate over to him. He contemplated for a moment before saying, “Bucktooth, we’re both men, so I’ll just be frank with you. I’ve only just started out in Songjiang myself not too long ago, and sometimes, it’s difficult for me to even look after myself. It’s not a plan for you to continue remaining at my place in the long-term.”

Hearing those words, Bucktooth’s eyes began swimming around the place worriedly.

“Don’t think too much into it. I’m not saying this to chase you out or anything,” Qin Yu said as he poured Bucktooth a cup of low-quality white wine. “I just think that while you’re not an adult yet, you aren’t young anymore either. It won’t do for you to remain at home all day long.”

“I can head out to work,” Bucktooth said earnestly.

“Bucktooth, for people like us, the lower our starting point is, the higher we need to set our eyes on. Even if we don’t reach the place where we have targeted, we’ll still be able to walk further than the others,” Qin Yu said deeply. He paused for a moment here before continuing on, “You have quite a lot of bad habits, and your personality poses a problem too. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have you work for others. Rather, I’m intending to send you into the army.”

Bucktooth was stunned.

“If you want to go, drink this cup of wine. I’ll be your older brother from now on,” Qin Yu told Bucktooth earnestly. “I don’t have a family too. When we meet again in the future, it’ll be like a reunion of family members.”

…

Deep in the night.

Qin Yu had gotten into one of his rare drunken stupors. While staggering out of the store under Bucktooth’s support, he took out his phone and dialed Superintendent Li’s number. “Hey, what are you doing?”

Superintendent Li was utterly dumbstruck. “A-ah? What else other than sleeping?”

“I have an order for you.”

“What did you say?” Superintendent Li blinked his eyes blankly. “An order? Are you drunk?”

“Stop talking useless crap to me. My younger brother wants to become a soldier… Arrange something for him and get it done quick!” Qin Yu probably had too much to drink, such that he wasn’t even sure who he was calling at the moment.

Superintendent Li scratched his head in confusion. He took another look at the caller id and verified that it was indeed Qin Yu who was calling before asking once again, “Just how much did you drink? Think through your words carefully before talking to me!”

“I said don’t talk crap to me! Hurry up and do it… Call me tomorrow once you get it done!” After issuing his ‘order’, Qin Yu unhesitatingly hung up the call.

Sitting upright on his bed in pajamas, Superintendent Li stared at his phone with an incredulous look. “… What the fuck?!”