Chapter 4: The Era Calls Me to Conquer

After finishing the beer they had brought, the three brothers went to sleep on the kang in the main room.

Fang Xinghe, however, organized the first-year textbooks, neatly sorting them out on the small desk in his room.

Their home was laid out with a living room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen at the back. The main room had a kang bed, a sofa, a tea table, a TV cabinet, and a television. Had this been five years earlier, their living conditions would have been considered quite good.

But after Fang Xinghe’s father took a trip to the south, he became obsessed with the idea of going to America to make big money.

He couldn’t just go outright, so one dark night, the man smuggled himself into South Korea.

His initial claim was that it was easier to make money abroad, and that he wanted to earn a lot to pay for Fang’s mother’s medical treatment. But after he left, he disappeared without a trace. People thought he had died, yet some fellow villagers saw him living quite a debauched and indulgent life over there.

Fang Xinghe couldn’t understand it, but he deeply empathized with the anger of little Fang.

Late at night, in the quiet, he spread out some manuscript paper and, filled with emotion, wrote down three titles:

“Damn Youth Screwed by Life”

“Sex, Violence, and Lies”

“13 Years and 9,785 Days”

He drafted outlines for each, then crossed out the third title and changed it to “Another Day Longing to Grow Up.”

Just by their titles, the first two essays radiated a sharp, coarse, irritable, overbearing, rebellious aura.

In short, an unusual and striking atmosphere surged forth.

But Fang Xinghe wasn’t merely venting emotions. In “Youth,” he offered a reflective insight into adolescence, while “Lies” was a biting satire on sham marriages born from lust and emotional manipulation.

If he wanted to become famous after publishing one or two essays in New Concept, he had to maximize the impact.

To make a metaphor: while others were delicately writing youthful fantasies, Fang Xinghe was driving a muddy dump truck recklessly through, smashing anyone in his way.

In the end, he planned to have the judges utterly blown away—and that would seal the deal.

But to prevent the organizers from rejecting the pieces outright, he needed a safety card.

“Another Day Longing to Grow Up” was that backup.

The first two were purely for show.

The final one took a meta perspective on the current era, lightly artistic and quite decent.

Having settled the overall approach, he began drafting, thinking he could finish it in one go. Yet after writing only the opening, fatigue overwhelmed him, and his eyelids started to battle fiercely.

“Tch, this stamina’s a bit unworthy of this face…”

Covering the manuscript, Fang Xinghe went to the kitchen, added a chunk of honeycomb coal to the old stove, then returned to the main room and slipped under the covers. Within three seconds, he was sound asleep, utterly knocked out.

When he woke up, the three lazybones were still sniffling and snotty, which made him smile again—

“Brothers’ endurance may be weak, but their recovery is strong!”

Then he thought something was off: if endurance was duration, recovery was frequency, and the former was clearly more important, right?

No, no!

While still in the growth phase, he had to eat more and exercise more.

He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and went outside to stand in a Wudang Tai Chi stance in the yard.

Starting posture, flowing movements, closing stance.

Fang Xinghe’s physical foundation was quite good. He maintained the stance for fifteen minutes, feeling a warm flush all over—a very pleasant sensation.

Don’t overthink it. This wasn’t some secret lethal martial art, just basic fundamentals.

In that era, various Daoist standing postures, Baduanjin, Yijinjing, Vajra Longevity Qigong, and other practices had long lost their mystery and were popular among white-collar workers and middle-aged to elderly people.

Mastering them wouldn’t help in fighting but was truly beneficial for health.

The special thing about the Wudang Sanfeng-style Tai Chi stance was that it formed the foundation of Wudang Tai Chi.

Fang Xinghe wasn’t clear on how many styles of Tai Chi there were, but as long as stretching the tendons and bones, invigorating qi and blood, and strengthening spirit were achieved, any style would do.

Sweat pouring after practice, wiping down and returning indoors, the feeling of healthy life instantly filled his chest—it was exhilarating.

Then hunger struck fiercely.

A healthy thirteen-year-old body was truly troublesome but also vibrant, full of life.

“Get up, get up!”

Fang Xinghe went into the main room and slapped the three younger brothers awake, urging them to get up: “Hurry up, figure out something to eat.”

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

While they wandered about looking for food, the three brothers whispered behind him.

“What’s up with the boss?”

“No idea…”

“Suddenly not sleeping in, acting all hyped—what’s with that?”

“Easy, he’s going through puberty!”

“Damn! Keep it down! If you want to die, don’t drag us down too.”

“Who? Who’s he mad at?”

“Lu Tingting and Fang Yuting, no escaping those two.”

“Nonsense! It can’t be Lu Tingting; she only has eyes for me!”

“You’re nuts… Have you ever had a proper conversation with her? Does she ever respond?”

“You don’t understand girls. Good girls are shy! If she didn’t like me, why would she always blush when I talk to her?”

Without knowing when he had come closer, Fang Xinghe glanced at Dang Tao and couldn’t help but laugh: “When you pester people to chat, you always stick your hand down your pants. Forget Lu Tingting—her mother would blush if she saw that.”

“Pfft…”

“Hahahahahaha!”

Liu Fu and Yu Xiaoduo burst into laughter, their throats nearly splitting.

“I’m not! I didn’t! I, I…”

The hand-down-the-pants guy blushed furiously and tried to explain, but it was hopeless, so he finally admitted in defeat: “I don’t want to do it, but I just feel itchy…”

Liu Fu jumped three meters away in shock: “Damn! Do you have some weird growth down there?!”

“No!” He was furious. “I just sweat a lot! Screw you, you wild man!”

Fang Xinghe roughly understood and offered a solution: “Switch to boxer shorts, make sure they’re pure cotton.”

“Will that help?”

“Yes.”

The hand-down-the-pants guy brightened again: “I knew it! I’m the only one who itches and scratches—no one else has touched me, so no way could there be anything growing.”

Liu Fu suddenly had a thought: “Could it be because you always tear the toilet paper and then don’t wash your hands before scratching?”

“Impossible!”

He was resolute for only a second before glancing guiltily at Fang Xinghe: “No way, right, bro?”

Fang Xinghe groaned and slammed his forehead: “You better watch your hygiene from now on!”

Kids these days…

Having parents or not, they were like wild children.

After some roughhousing, they went to the alley entrance to eat fried dough sticks, soy milk, and large meat buns. Fang Xinghe then started assigning tasks.

“Bao Fu, go borrow the complete set of third-year middle school textbooks from your sister. I need them.”

The hand-down-the-pants guy gave him a crazy look: “Bro, what are you up to? Studying?!”

“Yeah, I don’t want to mess around anymore. I’m going to study.”

Fang Xinghe answered calmly. The three brothers exchanged glances, hands and eyes twitching, hardly able to respond.

He didn’t bother explaining further and just tapped the table: “Bao Fu?”

“Ah, ah…” Liu Fu snapped to attention, his round face beaming, “Okay! Do you want the workbooks too?”

“Yes.”

Fang Xinghe then looked at the other two: “One of you go to Fang Yuting’s place and borrow the complete file of the New Concept essay contest for me.”

“I’ll go!”

Before Yu Xiaoduo even finished speaking, he darted out, shouting from afar: “Bro, wait for me at home!”

He was always so eager to help Fang Xinghe, afraid of being useless.

When the hand-down-the-pants guy heard they were going to study, his spirits sank. He quickly got up to escape: “Well, Lu Tingting always needs me on weekends, I’ve got to see her…”

Fang Xinghe didn’t stop him and waved him off.

After the hand-down-the-pants guy hurried away, Liu Fu came over and whispered: “He’s just bragging. Lu Tingting likes you, bro.”

Crazy.

Thirteen or fourteen years old—they didn’t know the first thing about liking someone.

Fang Xinghe waved him off again and sent him on his way: “Get to work, hurry up.”

“Okay! See you this afternoon.”

In the afternoon, Liu Fu indeed brought a big pile of books on his bike, and Yu Xiaoduo arrived early with the recorded notes from Fang Yuting.

Fang Xinghe told them to keep quiet for a while and began his period of focused study.