Chapter 4

After finishing the beer they'd brought, the three brothers went to sleep on the big room's kang.

Fang Xinghe laid out Chu Yi's textbooks, sorting and arranging them neatly on the small room's desk.

His home had a layout of one living room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen at the back; the big room had a kang, a sofa, a coffee table, a TV cabinet, and a TV—if pushed back five years, their living conditions were quite decent.

But after Fang Xinghe's father returned from a trip south, he became obsessed with going to the United States to make big money.

He couldn't go directly, so that man secretly crossed the border one pitch-black night to North Korea.

His initial excuse was that it was easier to earn money abroad, and that once he made a fortune, he'd use it to treat Xiao Fang's mother—but the man vanished without a trace, leading people to believe he was dead, yet clearly, fellow villagers had seen him living a wild, indulgent life over there.

Fang Xinghe couldn't understand it, but he felt the same rage Xiao Fang felt.

In the deep, quiet night, he spread out his manuscript paper and, fueled by emotion, wrote down three titles.

"Fucking Youth, Fucked by Dogs"

"Sex, Violence, and Lies"

"13 Years and 9,785 Days"

After drafting outlines for them, he crossed out the third title and changed it to "Another Day I Really Wanted to Grow Up."

Just by their titles alone, the first two articles radiated sharpness, coarseness, fury, brutality, rebellion…

In short, an extraordinary aura surged forth.

But Fang Xinghe wasn't just venting emotion; in "Youth," he offered his own reflective insight into adolescence, while "Lies" satirized the kind of lewd, sex-driven marriages born of emotional manipulation.

To gain fame by publishing one or two essays in the New Concept contest, he had to maximize the impact.

Think of it this way: everyone else was writing polite, dreamy tales of youth, while Fang Xinghe was driving a mud truck straight through, smashing into anyone and everyone in his path.

In the end, if he crushed the judges completely, the thing would be done.

But to prevent the organizers from rejecting the submissions outright, he needed a safety net.

"Another Day I Really Wanted to Grow Up" was the safety net.

The first two? Go all out.

The last one? Use a hyperdimensional perspective to observe the current era, sprinkle in some light literary flair—it's not bad either.

After setting the overall direction and drafting an outline, Fang Xinghe thought he could finish it in one go—but after writing only the opening, he was so exhausted his eyelids started violently fighting each other.

"Shit, this stamina's a disgrace to this face…"

Fang Xinghe covered his manuscript, went to the kitchen and added a honeycomb coal to the earthen stove, returned to the big room, crawled into bed, and fell asleep in three seconds, sleeping soundly through the night.

When he woke up, those three lazy bastards were still snoring with snot bubbles—so he felt happy again—

"My stamina may suck, but my recovery is strong!"

Then he suddenly realized something was off—if stamina meant duration, then recovery meant frequency; wasn't the former clearly more important?

No way.

While still in his growth phase, he needed to eat more and train harder.

He washed his face, brushed his teeth, stepped outside, and stood in a Wudang Taiji stance.

Starting posture, qi circulation practice, ending stance.

Xiao Fang's physical foundation was excellent; after holding the stance for fifteen minutes, his whole body warmed slightly, and he felt it deeply.

Don't overthink it—this isn't some secret martial art that kills without showing off; it's just fundamental skills.

In the future era, various Daoist standing postures, Baduanjin, Yijinjing, Golden Longevity Gong, and other methods had long lost their mystique and become popular among white-collar workers and the elderly.

Even if mastered, they won't make you fight better—but they're genuinely great for your body.

The special feature of the Wudang Sanfeng Sect's Taiji stance is that it's the foundation of Wudang Taiji.

Fang Xinghe didn't know how many Taiji branches existed; as long as the benefits—stretching tendons and bones, activating blood and qi, invigorating the spirit—were delivered, any branch would do.

After breaking a full sweat, wiping off, and returning inside, the feeling of healthy vitality flooded his chest—it felt great.

Then he got hungry.

A healthy 13-year-old boy's body is a real hassle—but also vibrant, full of life.

"Get up! Get up!"

Fang Xinghe went into the big room and woke up the three little brothers, urging them: "Hurry up, figure out something to eat."

None of them could cook, so they had to eat out.

As they wandered around looking for food, the three little brothers whispered behind him.

"What's up with the boss?"

"No clue…"

"Why the sudden change? Why's he so hyped up all of a sudden?"

"You don't need to think—it's puberty!"

"Shit! Keep it down! Don't drag us into your death wish!"

"Who? Who are you talking about?"

"Lu Tingting and Fang Fang Yuting—no one else."

"Bullshit! It can't be Lu Tingting—she only has eyes for me!"

"You're really something… has Lu Tingting ever even responded to you?"

"You don't understand girls—good girls are shy! If she didn't like me, why does she always blush when I talk to her?"

Fang Xinghe, who had quietly drifted over, glanced at Dang Tao and couldn't help smiling: "When you keep bothering her, you always reach into your pants—don't even say Lu Tingting, even her mom would blush if she saw you."

"Pfft…"

"Hahahahahaha!"

Liu Fu and Yu Xiaoduo burst into laughter so hard their throats nearly split.

"I didn't! I didn't! I—I…"

Taochang, his face flushed red, explained frantically, but finding he couldn't make it clear, finally admitted dejectedly: "I don't want to, but I'm always itching..."

Liu Fu leaped three meters away: "Holy crap! Did you grow some weird little thing down there?!"

"No!" Taochang was furious. "I just sweat a lot! Damn you, you wild dog!"

Fang Xinghe roughly understood and offered a solution: "From now on, switch to cotton boxers."

"Will that work?"

"It will."

So Taochang became happy again: "I knew it! Only I touch myself, no one else has ever touched me, so how could I grow something?"

Liu Fu suddenly had a strange thought: "Could it be because you always tear up the toilet paper and then pick at your crotch without washing your hands?"

"Impossible!"

Taochang was only firm for a second, then looked at Fang Xinghe with a guilty, short of breath expression: "It can't be, right, bro?"

Fang Xinghe had a massive headache and slapped his forehead hard: "From now on, pay attention to your hygiene!"

Kids of this era...

Even with a father and mother, they're like wild children.

After bickering and playing around, then eating fried dough sticks, soy milk, and big meat buns at the alley entrance, Fang Xinghe began assigning them tasks.

"Baofu, go find your sister and borrow the complete set of ninth-grade textbooks. I need them."

Taochang gave him a look as if he were crazy: "Bro, what are you doing? Studying?!"

"Yeah, I don't want to drift anymore. Studying."

Fang Xinghe replied very calmly. The three of them stared at each other, their eyes and hands numb, stammering unable to speak.

Fang Xinghe was too lazy to explain, simply tapping the table: "Baofu?"

"Ah, ah..." Liu Fu snapped out of it, his fat face beaming with a smile: "Got it! Uh, do you need workbooks too?"

"Yes."

Fang Xinghe turned his head to look at the other two: "Which one of you will go to Fang Yuting's place and borrow the complete documents for the New Concept competition for me?"

"I'll go!"

Before Yu Xiaoduo's voice had even settled, he had already darted out, his shout echoing back from afar: "Bro, wait for me at home!"

He was always so eager to do things for Fang Xinghe, afraid of being superfluous.

But as soon as Taochang heard about reading books, he was utterly disheartened and quickly got up to slip away: "Uh, every weekend Lu Tingting really needs me, I have to go check on her..."

Fang Xinghe didn't stop him, waving his hand to let him go.

After Taochang hurriedly ran off, Liu Fu leaned over and whispered: "He's bragging. Lu Tingting likes the boss, you."

Crazy.

Thirteen or fourteen years old, what the hell do you know about liking someone?

Fang Xinghe waved his hand again and chased him away too: "Go do your job, hurry up."

"Oh! See you this afternoon."

In the afternoon, Liu Fu indeed rode over on his bike with a huge pile of books, and Yu Xiaoduo had even brought Fang Yuting's notebook over early.

Fang Xinghe told them to stop being noisy recently and began secluding himself.