Chapter 4.1: Finding Dad (I)

"You go in."

After sending Su Bai home, Su Xiaobao didn't follow her inside.

Recently, he always been like this. Su Xiaobao would send Su Bei home and then went out. He wouldn't come back until dinner, sometimes even later, only telling Su Bei that he went to play basketball with some friends.

It wasn't that Su Bei looked down on her brother's popularity. But in this whole village, the number of people willing to play with them can be counted with one hand's fingers.

"Su Xiaobao, are you in love?" Su Bei tried to size him up.

"How could it possible?" Facing Su Bei's concern, Su Xiaobao looked away in guilt. "I have to go, they have been waiting for me."

Looking at Su Xiaobao's distancing figure, Su Bei's curiosity turned into worry. At the end of the novel, Su Xiaobao became a small gangster. She was afraid that at this stage Su Xiaobao would already meeting with some bad people or do something that would entrail heavy consequences.

So, Su Bei made up her mind to secretly follow Su Xiaobao tomorrow and find out the truth by herself.

That night, she had a dream.

——

In the dream, they have no money.

In order to use the remaining savings so Su Bei could continue her education, Su Xiaobao chose to drop out of school in his third year and went into the society to earn money.

In the eyes of other people, Su Xiaobao became a small gangster. But during those few years, he used the money he earned for Su Bei to study at high school. Later, by virtue of his own intelligence, Su Xiaobao gradually gained a foothold in that small circle.

February 27 was their birthday. Su Xiaobao wanted to give Su Bei a piano.

At that time, the crew of "Black and White Dream" happened to be filming in their village. The movie told the story of a girl from mountain village who stepped out of her birthplace and became a famous pianist. The female lead was Song Xinyi, who at the time was a very famous national star.

Su Xiaobao, who was hired by the crew as a temporary worker, found Song Xinyi after the shooting. He just wanted to find Song Xinyi to ask if he could buy the piano cheaper, but instead treated as a gangster who try to harras her.

Su Xiaobao was arrested on rape attempt. He was sued by Song Xinyi's father, Song Yancheng, the chairman of Song Group. A few months later, Su Bei went to find Song Yancheng at a banquet. She wanted to ask him to withdraw the lawsuit, but failed.

The nightmare came to an abrupt end with the image of Su Bei who was forcibly dragged away by a fierce looking director.

——

When Su Bei awakened from the dream, her whole eyes reddened. This surprised Su Xiaobao who slept next to her.

"Su Bei, what- " Before his words fall, he met Su Bei's serious eyes.

"What did you do yesterday?" Su Bei asked.

Faced with Su Bei's sudden question, Su Xiaobao felt weird: "Didn't I tell you I got to play basketball."

"You lied! You said you went to play basketball? Alright then, answer me, you play with whom?"

Su Xiaobao: "..."

"Can't answer, right? You didn't play basketball, you went to the logistics park, am I wrong?"

Upon her words, Su Xiaobao's heart almost stopped for a moment- how does she know?

Before he has a chance to argue, Su Bei has rushed off to pulled down the clothes on Su Xiaobao's body. Looking at the bruises on his back and shoulder, Su Bei extremely distressed.

"Don't- eh, Su Bei, don't cry," Seeing Su Bei staring at him with teary eyes, Su Xiaobao became anxious. "I just go there to help unloading cargo, it's a very simple job."

There was a logistics park near their village. Every afternoon, a large number of goods were delivered there. Because there were too many cargo to handle, the people in charge of logistics park no longer could take care about employing child laborer. So anyone can go there and get paid according to the number of jobs they've done, one yuan per item. Su Xiaobao can earn twenty or thirty yuan there in one afternoon.

"Su Xiaobao, you honestly say, how much money does our family still have now?"

After Grandma Wang gone, all the money left was under Su Xiaobao's control. In the past, Su Bei only knew that there was not much money at home. But she never thought about exactly how much still left. If they didn't run out of money, Su Xiaobao wouldn't have to go out to work.

After being questioned by Su Bei, Su Xiaobao took out the iron box they kept at home.

"There are more than 600 yuan left in this box. You know, the 3,000 yuan in the passbook still unused. And I have almost 400 yuan here." He explained. Under Su Bei's eyes, Su Xiaobao took out a stack of small change from his trouser pocket.

It has been some while since he started to make money at the logistics park. Originally, Su Xiaobao saved the money to buy a mobile phone for Su Bei. Now all students in their class has a mobile phone, except for Su Bei. She should have been curious when other girls are talking about certain gossip on the school forum or a famous idol on the internet.

Although Su Xiaobao thought that the topics those girls gossiping about were meaningless and that he didn't want Su Bei to be like them, he still didn't want Su Bei to feel inferior.