「Chapter 1: Cheng Ke took a step back and kicked the trash can.」

‘You useless piece of trash!’

Cheng Ke sat on the staircase at the side of the road while the northern winds were blowing. He took out a cigarette from his pocket and held it in his mouth.

Those were the last words he heard before he left home, probably his dad… no, probably the last comment made by his whole family towards him.

Piece of trash.

Cheng Ke nodded his head, thinking it was a very genuine comment.

He put his head on his lap, elbows hugging his face. He then used his jacket to cover his face, facing away from the wind, and tried all sorts of ways to ignite the cigarette. After failing multiple times, he tossed the lighter into the bushes at the side of the road.

‘Fucking hell!’ Cheng Ke cursed.

‘A piece of useless trash that cannot even light a cigarette.’

But the cigarette still needed to be lit. After all, he was a piece of trash that could not give up on smoking after two years; it was even more impossible to give up smoking at this kind of time naturally.

Cheng Ke watched the lighter disappear in the bush.

The branches were a little thick.

He imagined himself squatting there and aimlessly searching for random things…

Cheng Ke looked around; there were a lot of people about, the people coming and passing hastily walked across the yellow leaves blown by the wind. He was always bored; he could never understand the state of not even having the time to glance at the strangers on the street.

After maybe a whole five minutes, he finally exchanged eyes with a young lad that just threw away his cigarette bud.

‘Hey bro,’ Cheng Ke stopped him, ‘lend a fire.’

‘Kay.’ The young lad took out the lighter.

Clink.

Clack.

Click.

The young lad concentrated on pressing the lighter again and again as Cheng Ke quietly held his cigarette in his mouth. Holding his breath, he waited.

Just as he was about to pass out, the head of the lighter clacked and flung out of the young lad’s hands..

Cheng Ke looked up at the young lad.

‘Oh… s-sorry,’ the young lad felt very awkward, ‘It was still good when I lit mine.’

‘Appreciated.’ Cheng Ke nodded his head and sucked in two breaths, ‘Thank you.’

The young lad walked away hastily in embarrassment; Cheng Ke put the cigarette back in his pocket.

In passing, he fondled around in his pocket, certain that there was nothing else but that box of cigarettes.

Phone, wallet, everything was left in the house with that sound of ‘piece of trash’.

‘That place that I probably will never go back again.’

He walked back to the side of the bushes and stood there. He peeked in through the branches and wilted leaves, but could not find the lighter he threw inside before, only two bundles of tissue.

He turned around and walked towards a small nearby supermarket.

Cheng Ke did not have an intense smoking addiction, but humans were just so strange. The cigarette and lighter were all by his side everyday and he would not even touch it but once he did want to smoke, he was unable to endure at all as if he had some kind of disease.

‘Good evening.’ The young girl at the checkout counter greeted him.

‘Good evening.’ Cheng Ke walked towards her, picked out a lighter from the two rows of lighters and placed it on the counter.

Before the girl could react and ask him whether or not he was going to buy it, he had already completed the series of actions in lighting his cigarette and putting the lighter back on the counter. He pushed the door and walked out.

Natural and smooth.

The most shameless operation he had ever done in his life was done so smoothly.

Finishing one smoke while sitting on the steel bench at the side of the road, Cheng Ke stood up. The coldness that penetrated his bottom all the way to his lower back made him sigh.

He looked at his watch and saw that it was a little past nine o’clock.

He didn’t have the habit of wearing a watch. This Jaeger-LeCoultre was something Cheng Yi gave him last month. He was quite surprised, thinking this might be the start of their brother relationship’s improvement, so he continued to wear it.

It’s just that he never imagined that something more surprising would be waiting for him as one month later, he was kicked out of the house by his father personally.

And his thoughts before were that it was most likely an awkward misunderstanding.

How much of this had been Cheng Yi’s efforts, exactly how much pressure was put on him, Cheng Ke didn’t think of it deeply, and didn’t want to anymore. He didn’t even ask ‘What’s happening?’

It was just as his dad said: “Have you become so useless that you don’t even know when to ask why!”

Ah.

He was not interested in the business things, but his dad forced him to do it together with Cheng Yi. He felt like he was no different from trash in front of Cheng Yi. It was only so that he could please his dad a little after being a piece of trash for so many years.

He really did not know why he should have asked why. He only felt surprised.

Instead of thinking about what happened earlier that day, he prioritised thinking about where he was going to stay because he had no money on him.

Cheng Ke followed the road forward thinking, “At this time, Liu Tian should probably be in the shop, it’s not so far away from here, strolling over should probably take only…one hour.”

After walking for a while, the wind started getting stronger and the sky darker. The people on the street decreased and scenes of debauchery started to play out on either side of the street.

A short sound of honking came from behind.

Cheng Ke did not turn around and continued walking. A red car passed him by, and stopped at a place two to three metres in front of him.

It was Cheng Yi’s Maybach.

He often drove this car recently, almost making the driver unemployed so he knew this car very well. He didn’t need to even listen to the engine sound or see the car logo. He knew just by smelling the smoke from the car, a smell of soot.

The window from the assistant seat rolled down, Cheng Yi’s head came out from it: ‘Where’re you going?’

‘Heaven.’ Cheng Ke answered, continuing to walk.

‘I can give you a lift?’ Cheng Yi said,

‘Don’t be so confident,’ Cheng Ke stopped, ‘Maybe you’re the one going down.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Cheng Yi smirked, passing out a wallet from the car window, ‘Here. You left it at home.’

Cheng Ke didn’t talk but reached out and took the wallet.

Only the wallet. No phone.

‘Your phone is in the room. I didn’t go in.’ Cheng Yi said.

‘Oh,’ Cheng Ke glanced at him, ‘then my wallet must have wandered out from my room by itself right?’

‘The wallet was taken from the jacket you put in the living room.’ Cheng Yi said,

‘If you still need anything just tell me, I can go with you to get it when dad’s not home.’

He said it quite caringly, Cheng Ke could help but want to snicker. After trying to lift the corner of his mouth, he realised he could not smile.

‘Just find a guest house to stay for now,’ Cheng Yi looked at him, the corner of his mouth still raised into a smile, but his eyes had become cold: ‘Your loser acquaintances, maybe someone would take you in.’

Cheng Ke did not speak. He just looked at him.

‘Start everything over by yourself,’ Cheng Yi said, ‘Don’t just try to depend on the family.’

Cheng Ke continued to stay silent because this time he really had nothing to say. In that home, apart from dad, who had ever been forced to ‘start everything over’? He could not understand Cheng Yi’s position to be saying this seriously.

‘Drive.’ Cheng Yi said to the driver and rolled up the window.

Cheng Ke could not say what feelings he was having right now. After staring for a while in the direction the car drove, he finally lowered his head to open his wallet.

ID card.

Cheng Ke scrunched his brows.

Apart from that, there was nothing else he could recognise. His various member cards, credit cards, deposit cards were all not there.

‘Great.’ Cheng Ke flipped through the layers again.

Before, when Cheng Yi told him to find a guest house to stay, he thought he was only playing with him but now looking at the money in that one layer, he finally realised.

Cheng Yi was telling the truth.

100 dollars.

The guest houses were probably all faraway bunk beds.

Also, he usually didn’t have cash in his wallet. Cheng Yi had purposely put the 100 dollars in.

Cheng Ke gripped the red note out, clearly seeing his own fingers shaking, probably in anger.

He still felt confused as he looked at the $100 note. This sort of anger had never appeared. Even when he had been backstabbed by his own younger brother, kicked out by his blood father, been told that his friends would not keep him, even when he wanted to smoke but could not find the lighter.

However, right now it had been immediately ignited by embarrassment.

‘Fuck!’ Cheng Ke said in a low voice whilst clenching his teeth, and threw the thing in his hand violently into the rubbish bin near him.

Every time he threw stuff into the rubbish bin, as soon as the distance exceeded one meter, it usually took a second time. Now being two to three meters away, the wallet surprisingly landed accurately into the rubbish bin.

Only that one hundred dollar note floated to the floor.

Cheng Ke walked over and picked up the money, scrunched it and threw it violently again, so much so that his elbow started hurting a little.

Then turned and strode along the road.

All the way to the end of the road. Only after seeing the green pedestrian crossing light did he stop.

He originally planned to go to Liu Tian Cheng’s place first, but it seemed like he couldn’t go there now.

He believed Cheng Yi’s words as it was him who single handedly kicked him out of the home and cut off all his backup solutions along with it. To Cheng Yi, it was not a big deal but to him, it was.

He didn’t have any particularly sincere friends. It was all people he knew from drinking and eating. This kind of relationship also was mostly founded on continuous drinking and playing. People like him who were unenthusiastic in playing barely had stable relationships, even with those ‘friends’. Therefore, he did just as Cheng Yi wished, having nowhere to go.

So…

Cheng Yi stared at the changing red traffic light for a while. At last, he sighed, turned around and walked back down the road.

He needed to have a place to stay tonight and would think about ideas tomorrow.

That one hundred dollar could at least solve a small emergency.

He needed to pick it up.

The rubbish bin was a green rectangular bin.

Two were placed next to each other.

The lid that was always open before had been closed by some responsible citizen from nowhere.

The bin surface perfectly reflected the neon lights of the bar on the opposite street. The bar seemed very unique, the little person’s position printed on top even looked like a DJ.

Cheng Yi stood there for quite a while.

Firstly, people were passing by. Secondly, he never thought one day he would be searching through rubbish so he was very flustered on the inside.

Thirdly, he forgot which bin he threw the money and wallet into, whether he threw it both into one bin, or separately into two bins.

‘Fuck me.’

At last, he randomly picked the left one, walked over and carefully lifted the lid with his fingertip before peeking inside.

The rubbish bin was not full and he could not see what was in there, but it was quite a clean rubbish bin on the outside, up close it still smelt a lot.

Cheng Ke lifted his left hand, put it down, and lifted the right hand, and put it down. After repeating this motion twice, he stopped because it was little hard to breathe. His eyes were also uncomfortably puffy. He was even able to clearly count the times the vein at his temple pulsed.

The anger that was scattered because he had to search through the rubbish bin, at that moment elevated directly to the top of his head like an explosion. Cheng Ke stepped back one, and gave the rubbish bin a hard kick. The ‘tonk’ sound was very stress relieving, the rubbish in the bin cooperated making a rustling sound as it scattered across the floor.

Teared packaging, old newspaper, takeaway containers with remaining liquid, kebab sticks with still some meat…Just as Cheng Ke was about to observe from afar to see if his wallet and one hundred dollars was inside the bunch of mess, something moved a little. His body hair all stood on its ends.

Rats, spiders, and snakes, the things he was most afraid of.

Was it a rat?

Before he could retreat in disgust, a shadow bounced out from the darkness. Cheng Ke could not even see what it was as he was already hit hard in the face.

Oh.

It was a person.

The punch that came leaping from the rubbish bin side hit pretty hard, Cheng Ke who was totally defenseless could not come to consciousness for at least three seconds.

Ever since he was small, apart from going to the gymnasium to practice, this was the first time he had been hit by someone in the face without protective gears, and it was on the street.

‘Are you crazy?!’ Cheng Ke turned around, seeing the person clearly.. This was the first reaction in his brain when he encountered a psycho.

‘Do you have some problems?’ This person shouted almost at the same time.

CHeng Ke’s face hurt even more and he almost thought he was hallucinating because of the pain: ‘Huh?’

‘Who the **** told you to kick it?’ The person glared at him.

‘I kicked…’ Cheng Ke finally became conscious and his anger that was on hold immediately came back, ‘Sorry I kicked you? Are you my damn relative?! Why should l care?’

That person did not speak, just lifted his leg and kicked at him.

A very powerful push kick, but quite obviously a self-taught amateur. Under this circumstance, Cheng Ke went on the defensive. He dodged this kick easily, and gave a left jab to the person’s chin.

That person wobbled a bit before standing stably in his original position.

Cheng Ke used the second the neon light flashed to quickly examine the person in front of him.

Quite tall in height, wore a knit hat, the hat was pulled low. He could not tell the facial features because the face kept flashing in green, red, and yellow and could only see a scar stemming from the left temple to the corner of his ear.

Just from this scar, he knew that this person was nothing good.

Cheng Ke took this person out from being a psycho to the category of a brute.

But thinking again put him back in the psycho category.

Because in this weather, a lot of people had put on a down jacket, but this person was only wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt.

Feeling cold just by watching him, Cheng Ke almost couldn’t bear to hit him.

But this scar guy continued to hit him. He didn’t even wait for Cheng Ke to finish examining him from top to bottom as a side kick already came over. Cheng Ke did not dodge as this kick was pretty high. Instead, he used his elbow to hold this person and pushed his leg to the side, and hit a hand chop on the inside at the root of his thigh.

‘Fuck!’ He roared.

‘Fuck.’ Cheng Ke frowned a bit, this person was not that bad since he didn’t fall over.

The scar wanted to kick again but Cheng Ke pointed at him: ‘Not finished huh? Is this fucking rubbish bin yours?’

‘You’re just a dumpster diver! Why do you care whose rubbish bin this is?’ Scar also pointed at him, ‘Why don’t you tell me whose rubbish bin don’t you search?’

‘You fucker!’ Cheng Ke felt like this sentence carried blades that opened his wounds once again..

The anger inside his stomach that had nowhere to go, exploded at this sentence as he went forward to tackle Scar.

Scar also punched over without hesitation.

The following fight had no discipline. Even if Cheng Ke knew that every technical move he made were all off, he didn’t care. Because he wanted to release anger, his moves were all over the place.

He also realized at this time that he had looked down on this scarred man. He was an amateur, but he hit hard, full of power, lock, twist, chop. Not a single move was correct to his standards, but also no move had missed.

Cheng Ke didn’t know which move triggered his fighting spirit, but he used moves that were comparable to Scar’s. In an instant, they had gone from stylish martial arts to wrestling.

Cheng Ke only jumped to consciousness till consecutive horning sounds came from behind. He didn’t care by this point if there were passersby watching, didn’t care if the police would come over, the only thing he cared…was if he was seen by Cheng Yi.

He pushed Scar away forcefully to take a look behind him.

His heart first clenched in fear but after seeing who it was, he finally relaxed. It was a white Land Rover. Accompanying it came a strong wave of distaste. ‘How did I fall so low within two hours?’

A person jumped down from the car, holding a wooden or metal bat. He came over and pointed it at him: ‘Bet you wanna fucking die right!’

‘You wanna go?.’ Cheng Ke stared at him.

‘Don’t spit crap,’ scar said coldly to the side, ‘Where’s my clothes.’

‘Oh.’ The person holding the bat glared at Cheng Ke again, took out a jacket from the car window and threw it at scar, ‘what’s happening here? I’ll call some people…’

‘Take the cat out,’ scar interrupted him, turned around and looked at the direction of the rubbish bin, ‘fuck!’

Cheng Ke also looked at it, suddenly a rush of disgust, quickly teared his jacket off, shaking like crazy. That rubbish bin that was kicked over, at some point had dissembled, squashed out of shape.

Cheng Ke didn’t want to think anymore about how you could roll onto the rubbish bin during the fight. Only waves of disgust showed on his face as he was covered in the smell.

‘Kitty, kitty?’ Scar supported his hand on the ground, lied down and stuck his head into the rubbish bin searching, ‘meow meow? Kitty~ kitty~ meow?’

Cheng Ke rubbed the corner of his mouth, looked at him in shock.

‘Kitty…’ The guy with the bat also wanted to lie down and call out, only said half a sentence and was cut off by Scar.

‘Go scavenge.’ Scar said.

He nodded, reached inside the disformed rubbish bin that is rolled over on the floor without hesitation.

And a period of searching began.

Just as Cheng Ke felt his stomach rumbling, he took back his arm. In his palm was an extra dirty grey kitten that was only the size of a fist. Cheng Ke went blank for two seconds, turned around, preparing to leave.

After this whole mess of struggling, he didn’t know if his anger was beaten away, if he was distracted, or just dumbfounded. Without walking two steps, Scar’s laughter came from behind: ‘You son of a bitch, this is what you were looking for right?’

Cheng Ke turned his head round, following the direction scar’s finger was pointing. It seems that they had found the one hundred dollar bill among the rubbish. His heart clenched a bit as all the humiliation flooded in.

But he did not reply. Instead, he turned back around and walked forwards but after walking a few steps, he suddenly felt tired.

The kind of tiredness that made him feel he could not walk another step.

That Land Rover passed him by, went in the direction of the end of the road, he stared at the back of the car for a while, turned around and walked again in the opposite direction.

‘At this sort of time, l shouldn’t be stubborn. Although tonight l has nothing on me, l will not die on the street. I should pick the money up naturally. I need it…’

‘Go back.’ Jiang Yu Duo said while using wet tissue to clean the dirty fur on the kitten.

‘What?!’ Chen Qing went blank for a bit, but still tread on the brake, and turned the car around, ‘What are we doing going back?’

‘Look at that guy.’ Jiang Yu Duo said.

‘Wait what,’ Chen Qing looked at him, ‘Why are you going back to see a homeless trash that you just beat up?’

‘A homeless trash looks like that?’ Jiang Yu Duo reached for Chen Qing’s jacket on the backseat and wrapped the kitten up, ‘Didn’t you see? He was wearing a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch.’

‘Jaeger-LeCoultre?’ Chen Qing was confused, ‘A watch?’

‘Yeah.’ Jiang Yu Duo didn’t want to talk anymore.

‘Fine,’ Chen Qing nodded, ‘Anything third brother wants. You bet I’m going back to steal it.’

Jiang Yu Duo looked at him.

‘Don’t worry,’ Chen Qing also looked at him, ‘I’ve brought the stuff, one hit one punch and it’s over. I promise…’

‘Shut up.’ Jiang Yu Duo said.

...To be continue... ...

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