During this period, Qin Sheng had been hitting it off quite well with Lao Guo, who was surely a dependable, honest man, though with not too many unique skills. On the eve of the Laba Festival, which was on the eighth day of the last lunar month, Lao Guo had even prepared a pot of Laba rice porridge, the ingredients of which had been shopped from the villages nearby all by himself. The taste caused Qin Sheng to recall those precious memories that he had spent in the Lin Family for the first time.
Qin Sheng was about to leave within a short week, and that depressed Lao Guo a little bit. No one else had been so nice to him before, except for his wife, who had passed away long ago. Feeling grateful to Qin Sheng, Lao Guo had almost treated him as his own son, only that he wasn’t.
For the recent days, Lao Guo had kept all the daily chores to himself, except for the preparation of the meals, and left the young man sufficient time to be with his mom or his curriculum. It would cost Lao Guo quite a bit of talking to keep the young man away from those chores, except for things that Qin Sheng insisted on doing, which somehow upset him a little bit.
Qin Sheng had known for a while that Lao Guo was a man that would pay all his debt of gratitude for even the slightest goodness from other people. Therefore, Qin Sheng found it hard to understand why the old man’s grown-up children should be so mean to their benign old father as if their conscientiousness had been eaten by dirty swine.
How time flew. Half a month had gone soon before one knew it. Qin Sheng had been in his leisure time, during which he had shut down his cellphone so as to shuffle off the mortal coil such as Han Xu, who had always called in to check on him and almost got himself onto the blacklist. In the meantime, his sister Qin Ran had come by three times, delivering food and clothes, in case Qin Sheng had gotten starved or caught a cold. Qin Changan had dropped by once, too, accompanied by Gongsun, and paid his visit to Qin Sheng’s mom after a little chat with him. Lao Guo had spent every effort to put in a good word for Qin Sheng in front of his relatives, which made Qin Sheng a little bit ashamed.
It was a lovely afternoon with beautiful sunshine all over the place. Qin Sheng was reading over a cup of tea while Lao Guo was taking a nap, all of which seemed quite a father-son moment, only that they were not.
Right at that moment, a sloppy middle-aged man burst into the yard on his motorcycle, yelling out loud from far away, “Hey! Old man, you are in such great comfort lately. I heard that you’ve made quite a fortune to treat yourself to those delicacies in the restaurant every now and then, didn’t you?”
Qin Sheng glanced at the direction over those harsh words. He didn’t know who the man was, but still, he put down his book and rose to his feet.
Lao Guo soon woke up from the short nap as the familiar voice fell into his ears, and he asked with a tremble in his voice, “What are you doing here?”
The man stopped the motorcycle by the roadside, wending upon with a cigar in his hand, and said, “Why am I here? How about you telling me? That money you’ve gotten lately, go share with me, or else your poor son will not make it to the Spring Festival.”
“Go get lost! I don’t have a penny for you,” Lao Guo stood up in outrage and scolded the man, his finger pointing at the man’s nose.
Finally, Qin Sheng got things straight and identified the rascal man as Lao Guo’s jerk son, who showed himself up before Qin Sheng could go out and search for him. Squinting at the jack*ss in front, Qin Sheng was not in a haste to speak.
The man burst into laughter and said, “Not a penny. Do you really think I’ll buy you for that? No way! You gave the bigger share to my brother and sister earlier, leaving me such a small sum, and you’ve got to make it up to me now.”
“I told you I don’t have a dime. Leave, or else I’ll call the police,” Lao Guo was out of measures when dealing with his scumbag of a son.
The man didn’t take it seriously, and threatened, “Suit yourself. I’ll wait and see what the police are going to do about me. Even an upright official finds it hard to settle down a family issue. Listen, if you don’t give me the money, I will tear this place down, and let’s see how much can I get when selling this furniture out.”
Lao Guo threw the cup in his hand over and roared, “You get lost! I don’t have a son like you. What have I done to deserve such punishment!”
“F*ck! You dare mess up with me? You really need to be wrecked, don’t you?” The man changed his attitude all of a sudden and cursed his father bitterly. What an ungrateful son to scold his old man in public.
Looking rather seriously, Qin Sheng flared up into a rage at the man for his rude intrusion of the peace for his dear mother, but also the bullying and torturing on Lao Guo. This stupid jerk really needed to be wrecked before he truly grasped how the world was towering above him.
Thus, Qin Sheng stood in the way of the man and snarled at him. “Where do you think you are standing right now?”
The man didn’t know Qin Sheng’s identity, thinking that he was just another poor thing like his old father guarding tombs for rich people, nothing but a lackey. Therefore, he threw his anger onto Qin Sheng directly and threatened, “It’s none of your business. Go get lost! Stay out of this if you don’t want to get hurt!”
“Well. Then I will teach you something else if you don’t seem to understand the circumstance right now. As a grown-up child, even if you are not expected to support your father and see him rest in peace at his last moment, can you at least have the slightest conscientiousness to understand the painstaking effort and hard work your father had suffered to raise the three of you? But look at what you have done. Even the lowest animals sound nobler than you, for at least they have the instinct to feed their parents back,” Qin Sheng scolded him with every single word full of anger, sparing no effort shedding his contempt on the jack*ss.
With such an overwhelmingly fierce scolding, the man was definitely set on fire. “Go f*ck yourself! Do you have a death wish?”
As soon as the words ended, he threw a fierce punch at Qin Sheng. Unfortunately, Qin Sheng was never a plain-John to be messed with that easily. As he had been in almost full recovery, he could put the man down without any effort.
Grabbing him by the arm, Qin Sheng continued saying, “Apart from the two points I mentioned, you dare to insult and punch me before even getting to know who I am. I have to say, it is really a miracle for you to live this long, you jack*ss!”
Before the man realized what happened, Qin Sheng had made a lightning strike by pressing his neck swiftly down onto his lifting knee, and smashed his face hard with his patella, completely knocking him out.
Yet this was just the beginning as Qin Sheng was not going to let go of the man. He kicked the man over to the ground, lifted a chair nearby and smashed it directly onto his body, totally disregarding his moaning, with hands around his head.
“My mother is buried in here and you dare to come in to disturb. Do you really want to line up like a dead man?” Qin Sheng let off his anger and bawled.
The man curled up on the ground, finally realized that he had met a tough guy. But he was wise enough to know when to retreat and kept all the bitter curses to himself. It was a territory under his control. As long as he got out, he could easily gather around dozens of friends to beat Qin Sheng, and he would love to see him kneeling for his forgiveness when it came to that moment.
Lao Guo was frightened to death. He had never thought Qin Sheng was such a fierce guy to beat his son so hard. He began to worry about that ungrateful son of his, instead of Qin Sheng. No matter what, it was his son that Qin Sheng was beating, and he was afraid that things would go wrong if Qin Sheng beat his son to death.
“Xiao Qin, he is an innocent poor thing. Please let him go for my sake, will you?” Lao Guo dragged his arm and begged him bitterly.
Qin Sheng sighed. “Lao Guo, you are too kind to end up in a situation where your son dares to mess up with you.”
The man jumped up, slipped away on his motorcycle while Qin Sheng was talking to his father, and made a threat only after he had fled far away from Qin Sheng. “You wait up here, and I will kill you with my bros, right away.”
“All right. I’m waiting till you come. And if you don’t, you are a sore loser then.” Qin Sheng sneered coldly, thinking that the man was nothing but a pathetic clown who was doomed to die in his hands.
After his son rode away, Lao Guo started to worry about Qin Sheng instead, and he said, “Xiao Qin, you’d better run for your life. That thing will certainly come back at you as he knows quite a lot of those bullies here. I’m afraid you might be in danger.”
Qin Sheng didn’t take it seriously and comforted him instead. “Lao Guo, take it easy. There’s no such danger, and I am going to make things right for you today. For people like him, you have to resort to violence rather than reasoning to teach them a lesson, and I am telling them my way of doing things.”
Lao Guo was about to say something more, but Qin Sheng had already left for his room to take his cellphone. Usually, he could handle this kind of trouble without effort, even if he were to face a gang of local bullies. But not today. For one thing, he didn’t want to disturb his mom. For another, he had to take care of the whole family issue for Lao Guo.
Hence, he had to call Uncle Gongsun for support.
One hour after that, Qin Sheng moved a chair out to the small road outside the cemetery, waiting silently for the son to come at him. Several cars were parking not far from him, in which seated the notorious local villains. Tiny trouble like this didn’t even need to bother Qin Changan at all, as Gongsun could easily resolve it over a phone call.
Finally, as expected, the jerk came, with three minibuses storming towards him. Anyhow, Qin Sheng appreciated it, at least, the jerk had gotten some balls to keep his promise to get back at him.
Qin Sheng rose to his feet and was ready to welcome those “little fellows”.
Tens of men dashed out before the minibuses were even pulled over, and they besieged him straightway with fierce looks on their faces as if their ancestral graves had been dug upside down. Being the victim of this matter, the second-born of the Guo Family, stepped down casually with a young man, who looked like the gangster leader.
While pointing at Qin Sheng, he complained like a punchbag. “Boss, that’s the guy who beat me. You really have to give him a good beating and avenge me.”
The boss-like young man was wearing a light down jacket, with his chest exposed, on which a valiant tattoo jumped out loud, to the coldness in this late winter. Let alone his colorful hair, the whole outfit made him look like a typical leader of a local gang.
“Hey, bro. Who do you hang with around here?” asked the man proudly.
Qin Sheng smiled and said, “I am an ordinary person and don’t hang out with anybody.”
“Well…” the boss felt even less afraid upon hearing Qin Sheng’s words. “Then you tell me. What are you going to do about beating my buddy today? A leg for that or an arm?” he asked straightaway.
“What about compensation?” Qin Sheng teased him deliberately.
With a voracious light flashing quickly across his eyes, the leader laughed and said, “Sounds good. Then how much is your respect for that?”
“You don’t really believe in that, do you?” Qin Sheng found his words both funny and annoying.
The leader was pissed off and threatened Qin Sheng. “You dare to play with me! Do you winna die here?”
The lackeys were approaching nearer to Qin Sheng and would slaughter him or eat him alive straight away as long as their leader gave the order.
Qin Sheng asked in a cold voice, “Are you sure you want to mess with me?”
The leader felt confused and yelled in anger. “Are you fooling with me?”
Qin Sheng raised his arms over his head and clapped, a secret signal as had been agreed.
As soon as the movement finished, the cars that had been pulled over at the roadside were all driving upward, blocking both the ways in and out in a minute and pushing them all back into a small circle.
The lackeys and their leader finally came around and figured out in a nerve-wrecking state that they had been ambushed.
The tension didn’t end until they saw those people swaggering down from their cars, and they were all frightened as hell. Were they shooting a gangster movie right now?
For they had recognized that these people were the real gangsters!
