Xu Jianchuan was a straightforward man. Once he made up his mind, he pulled out his brick phone and called Wang Xiaohu. Just then, he ran into Fang Li, who had just come up from the restroom downstairs. When Fang Li saw Qin Weidong, he waved.
Xu Jianchuan stepped a little away to continue his call, then turned to ask Qin Weidong, “Is that your younger brother? The one who used to work at your hometown mine too? Why don’t both of you come work for me? I’ll put you on payroll!”
“Boss Xu, his health isn’t good.”
“Oh, right, right.” Xu Jianchuan remembered, nodding. He said a few more words into the phone, then hung up and turned to Qin Weidong. “I’ve asked my nephew to head to the mine and handle the accounting for you—he’ll be there in the next couple days. I’ve already given instructions to Wang Xiaohu and Old Fu. Once you’re done with things here, head back. Starting tomorrow, you’re in charge of that mine!”
“Thank you, Boss Xu.”
“Just do a good job—that’s all I ask!” Xu Jianchuan waved it off and left with his wife.
Fang Li stepped over and asked, “Wasn’t that Boss Xu? What’s he doing here? What’d he say to you?”
Qin Weidong had his head lowered, not seeming to hear. Fang Li leaned over and peeked at the report in his hands. “What’s my test say? I heard someone in the restroom just now saying big hospitals charge way more! Look at all the tests they gave me, and I’m not even that sick…” As he spoke, Fang Li even hopped twice, showing off. “My arms and legs are just fine! Qin Weidong, I was a little scared earlier, but now I think—were we just scammed?”
He rambled on for a while, but Qin Weidong didn’t seem to be paying attention. Lost in thought, his silence began to annoy Fang Li.
“What are you spacing out for? I’ve been talking to you this whole time…”
Snapped out of it by Fang Li raising his voice, Qin Weidong finally looked up.
“What does my report say?”
“Nothing serious. But there’s a small issue.”
“Where?”
Qin Weidong didn’t point at Fang Li—he pointed at his own chest. “I might need a minor surgery down the line.”
“What?” Fang Li exclaimed. “Surgery? Are you saying I need surgery?!”
“It’s nothing,” Qin Weidong said.
“What do you mean nothing?!” Fang Li panicked at the word “surgery” and started shouting. “How can you say it’s nothing if there’s surgery involved? What kind? Did the doctor tell you how they’ll do it? Are they gonna slice open my whole stomach and chest?!”
Just imagining the bloody scene was terrifying. Fang Li clutched his hair with both hands and crouched down on the ground. “Why is my luck so awful?! Not only did I spend a ton of money just by coming to the hospital, now I find out I need surgery!” If he’d known, he wouldn’t have come at all.
Qin Weidong crouched down beside him. “Aunt Ling… didn’t she tell you before? That she met a foreigner and wanted to take you to the U.S.?”
“My mom?” Fang Li looked up. “I think she mentioned something like that around New Year… How do you know?”
“She told me. She said if you didn’t want to go when the time came, I should take you there myself.”
“Of course I don’t want to go…” Fang Li crossed his arms. “You can’t believe anything Li Wenling says. When I was little, she always said she’d come visit—but did she ever? Every year she promised to take me to the temple fair. I’m grown now and she still hasn’t. You’re the one who always took me… Besides, when something happened to Fang Hongqing, didn’t we try calling her? Her phone was off. Probably changed her number.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Qin Weidong looked at him, his tone demanding. Fang Li suddenly felt an inexplicable irritation.
“Oh come on, do I have to report every little thing to you? Am I not allowed to forget something she said? I’ve got surgery to think about! Surgery! Between me and that whole situation, which one matters more to you right now?”
“You.” Qin Weidong didn’t hesitate for even a second.
“Well, there you go then! If she really ends up going to the U.S.…” Fang Li thought back to those bruises he’d seen on Li Wenling’s arm during the New Year. Even now, he still didn’t know whether she’d been hit or just fallen. He sighed. “If she goes, she goes… You know how she is. Not even nine oxen could drag her back.”
The truth was, Fang Li felt pretty awful about it too. He and Li Wenling were never close, but she was still his mother. Since he was little, their relationship had always been this awkward mix of mutual attempts to grow close, only to end up pushing each other away. Some of that was his grandma’s fault. But after more than ten years of living like that, it was hard to assign blame—or expect things to suddenly change.
Just like when something happened to Fang Hongqing, all he could think about was Qin Weidong. It was instinct now. Qin Weidong had been there for him longer than Li Wenling, longer than anyone else. Whenever something went wrong—
Whether it was his fault or not, Qin Weidong would always protect him from head to toe. Most importantly, Qin Weidong would never leave him.
While they waited at the station, Qin Weidong said, “Once we’re back, I’ll be in charge of that mine.”
“What? You’re in charge?” Fang Li blinked in surprise. “Is that what Boss Xu was talking to you about earlier? Wait—why would he suddenly hand it over to you?”
“I fought for it. I told him I could earn him more than Wang Xiaohu, and ask for less in return.”
“Oh… I see.” Fang Li nodded, then grinned. “So that makes you the foreman now! Just like before? Does it pay more than the odd jobs we’ve been doing here?”
“It does.” And this time, unlike when he worked at Fang Hongqing’s mine on a fixed salary, he’d be getting a percentage. Even though he’d only asked for half a percent, the return from managing an entire mine would be far more than what Fang Hongqing ever paid him.
“What about Wang Xiaohu?” Fang Li asked, suddenly remembering him. Everyone at the mine knew Wang Xiaohu had been deliberately making trouble the past few days—clearly trying to get back at Qin Weidong.
The afternoon wind had picked up and turned chilly. Qin Weidong pulled Fang Li’s collar up to shield him. “Don’t know. Either way, it’s our turn now.”
Our turn… Fang Li thought about that. It almost felt like they had just taken over someone else’s place. Yes—like kicking the magpie out and taking over its nest. It felt a little underhanded. He glanced at Qin Weidong, about to say something, when suddenly a thought struck him: maybe this had been Qin Weidong’s plan from the very beginning.
“Did you plan this from the start?”
Qin Weidong was momentarily taken aback—he hadn’t expected Fang Li to ask. Fang Li usually didn’t pay much attention to these things, let alone question them. But after a brief pause, he answered honestly. “Yeah.”
It had been on his mind since his second day working at Wang Xiaohu’s mine. Not just the issue with the explosives—he had been like a starving stray dog on the side of the road, eyeing the meat in someone else’s mouth. Watching, calculating how to inch closer, how to make his move. He’d studied the scale of the mine in the days he was there—it wasn’t big, which made it the perfect opportunity. For someone like him, with no connections or backing, he figured there was a seventy percent chance he could take it.
He needed to get Fang Li medical treatment as soon as possible. He didn’t have that much time. From the very beginning, he had planned to take over this mine. After leaving the Fang family, he had to shoulder a lot more. He needed to seize Wang Xiaohu’s source of income, swallow it whole, and turn it into his own capital. If there was no way forward, then the fastest path in this world was to step on someone else to climb up.
Qin Weidong looked at Fang Li, his eyes deep and intense, laced with a quiet unease he rarely showed. If Fang Li were to accuse him of being underhanded, he wouldn’t be able to offer any solid justification. Nor did he want to sugarcoat what he’d done.
Fang Li licked his lips, then reached out and tapped Qin Weidong’s head, half-scolding, “You’ve really gotten more cunning as you’ve grown… Where’d you even learn all this? Why didn’t I think of it?” He stroked his chin, seriously contemplating it. “Qin Weidong, don’t worry. The money you make is for both of us. Even if our methods aren’t exactly noble, then we’re both in it together. Relax—if doing this kind of thing brings bad karma, I’ll take half of it. If there’s punishment, we’ll share it equally. No big deal.”
After days of hiding and barely getting enough to eat, all the lofty ideals seemed like nonsense to Fang Li. He cheerfully took on half the burden. Besides, Fang Hongqing had played the role of his father for nineteen years. Whatever karma Fang Hongqing had built up might already be counted against him anyway.
On the way back, Qin Weidong carefully folded each of Fang Li’s medical reports and tucked them into the innermost pocket of his jacket.
They caught a van heading back. The driver had a popular Cantonese pop song playing on the radio, sung by a glamorous female singer. Fang Li hummed along, while beside him, Qin Weidong leaned against the window, already dozing off—he had been heading into the mine before dawn and returning past midnight for days.
Fang Li felt a pang of tenderness. He knew the two of them couldn’t rely on Qin Weidong alone forever. That afternoon’s test results—Qin Weidong hadn’t let him see them, but Fang Li could guess the truth. Maybe his illness wasn’t as minor as Qin Weidong claimed. Recently, Qin Weidong had been so exhausted from blasting and drilling that he could barely hear anything. At the hospital, Fang Li had even spoken into his right ear on purpose, but Qin Weidong hadn’t heard him well.
He didn’t want Qin Weidong to be too tired or too worried. Since it was Qin Weidong who had said it was just a minor issue, then he would believe it. Whatever Qin Weidong said, he’d believe it. If that made Qin Weidong feel better, then that was enough.
The shared vans from the station to Xiahe had fixed drop-off points. The last stretch had to be walked on foot through mountain paths. When someone got off, Qin Weidong woke up, saw Fang Li with his eyes closed, and quietly lifted him onto his back to carry him the rest of the way up to the mine.
Fang Li had actually woken up a while ago. He was just tired from spending the whole day on the road, so he lay quietly on Qin Weidong’s back, speaking to him in a soft voice.
“Everything was fine until the checkup. Now that they’ve found something wrong, I suddenly feel exhausted all over…”
“Then rest a little longer.”
When they reached the mine, Fang Li heard the loud voices of men drinking and playing drinking games. The loudest of them was unmistakably Wang Xiaohu.
At the same time, a strong smell of roasted meat reached them. Qin Weidong stopped walking, and Fang Li opened his eyes. In the clearing, there was a bonfire, and Wang Xiaohu was turning a skinned rabbit on a stick. Half of it had already been eaten, and the bloodied rabbit skin had been tossed carelessly into a nearby bush.
“You—!” Fang Li’s vision went dark. He couldn’t believe that the little rabbit he had been cuddling just that morning had been skinned and roasted!
Wang Xiaohu called out to them, “You’re back! Come join us. I’m heading out tomorrow, so I wanted to treat the guys to a meal. We needed something to go with the booze, and this rabbit was pretty plump, so I butchered it.”
Fang Li was shaking with rage. “Wang Xiaohu! I raised that rabbit for days! Are you blind?!”
“Hell yeah, I must be blind! If I weren’t blind, would I have taken in two ungrateful bastards like you?!” Wang Xiaohu exploded, jumping to his feet and shouting, “Brothers! This brat Qin Weidong is nothing but a damn ingrate! I brought him here, and now look—he’s taken my spot! Got Boss Xu to fire me! I’m telling you all right now: you’ve got a choice. Stick around here and work under him, or come with me. I guarantee I’ll find you a better-paying gig than this dump!”
The workers looked at one another in confusion. Wang Xiaohu had been a freelance crew leader before… In terms of connections and experience, he definitely outmatched this outsider, Qin Weidong.
Qin Weidong glanced at the gnawed rabbit bones on the ground, then raised his eyes and looked at each of the workers, one by one.
“You’ve all seen the quality of the ore we just extracted. You know whether it can make money and how much. You’re not new to this—you know the score.”
He continued, “I used to do blasting work myself. I’ve worked under others too. I can’t promise everything, but if you’re working on my site, I can promise one thing: your pay will be better than what Wang Xiaohu offered. And if you do a good job, there’ll be a year-end bonus.”
The workers hesitated. Qin Weidong’s tone shifted slightly, becoming calm and firm. “As for those who want to follow Wang Xiaohu—I won’t stop you. The nearby mines are all wrapping up. They need hands.” It was clear what he meant: if you want to work, stay; if not, leave.
Old Fu glanced at him, then spoke up among the workers. “Think about it, everyone. We saw this mine come to life with our own eyes. We hauled that ore out ourselves. I say we follow Xiao Qin—he’s the real deal! You’ve seen the lab reports too. Which nearby mine’s ore has gold content like ours?”
Everyone was just out here trying to make a living. No one was going to say no to money—especially not when one man was offering empty promises, and the other had just helped them strike high-grade ore that could be turned into real profit. The choice was obvious. One by one, the workers rose, leaving the food and drink behind. It was clear—they were siding with Qin Weidong and staying on the job.
“You’re something else.” Wang Xiaohu’s face was twisted with fury. He shoved Old Fu aside and marched up to Qin Weidong, spitting right in his face. “Pah! I can’t believe I, Wang Xiaohu, got done in by a brat who hasn’t even grown all his damn hair yet! I’ll remember this! Don’t get cocky. If I see you again, just watch what I do to you!”
Qin Weidong turned his head slightly—the dirty, yellow spit had landed on his cheek. He wiped it off with the back of his hand. When he looked back at Wang Xiaohu, his gaze was like a wolf that had just shed its sheep’s disguise: quiet, deadly, and ready to strike.
“I’ll be waiting. Anytime.”
Axolotl Translations 
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