(The logic was basically not confusing.)
(Some people said the author treated everyone else like NPCs, and only the protagonist was "alive.")
(If I could bring every character to life, what would I still be doing on Fanqie Novel? Wouldn't I just go to a publishing house myself?)
(The protagonist was essentially a child with an unhappy childhood. Don't force him to do anything, and don't force the author to do anything either.)
(If there's anything unreasonable, point it out and the author can revise it. What are you trying to do by directly disparaging a book at its roots?)
(This really was my mistake—I wrote the protagonist as arrogant and conceited. In the next book, I'll write him as sensitive and insecure...?)
(Men and women alike are welcome. There's reasoning in it, so don't just mindlessly complain.)
(The author isn't some heinous villain, nor is she Umbridge. Don't judge people through a filter. Both authors have money and don't need to make a living from this; signing a contract was only for recommendations.)
(Enough nonsense. The main text begins.)
Xiang Beifeng was bent over his desk, working on a math problem.
The squares of his workbook were filled with numbers, with eraser shavings scattered at the corner of the desk.
His mother's voice came from downstairs, neither loud nor soft. "Xiang Beifeng, come down for a moment."
He capped his pen and slowly went down the stairs.
The wooden banister felt cool.
"What is it, Mother?" He stopped in the middle of the living room.
A strange boy stood beside his mother, around twelve or thirteen years old, wearing jeans that looked far too new.
The boy lowered his head and played with his fingers, not daring to look at him.
"This is your brother in the biological sense."
"The hospital mixed you up back then. Now they've sent the child back, and we each need to return to our proper places."
She pulled a check from her handbag and gently set it on the coffee table.
"This five hundred thousand is compensation. Pack your things. The driver will be here in half an hour."
Xiang Beifeng stared at the zeros on the check. Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands...
He counted silently, one hand clenching into a fist inside his pocket.
That's it?
Even TV dramas wouldn't dare write something like this.
"Understood." He bent down, picked up the check, folded it twice, and slipped it into the inside pocket of his coat. "I'll go pack."
The walk-in closet held shirts from the latest seasonal collection.
He pulled open a drawer. His school uniforms were folded into neat squares.
None of that mattered anymore.
In the end, he only stuffed a few sets of sportswear he often wore into his backpack, along with an MP3 player and charging cable from the bottom of the drawer.
As he passed his desk, he paused for a moment.
The unfinished math problem still lay open on it.
He casually swept the workbook into the trash can.
When he went downstairs, his mother was helping the boy straighten his collar. Seeing that he had only one backpack, she looked slightly surprised. "That's all?"
"It's enough."
Xiang Beifeng pulled open the front door, and the evening wind rushed inside.
He looked back at the living room, where the crystal chandelier shone so brightly it hurt his eyes.
"I'm leaving."
The door shut behind him.
He stood by the roadside, checking his phone map. The five hundred thousand in his pocket made a faint rustling sound.
I'll find an internet cafe to spend the night first. He raised a hand and hailed a taxi.
Xiang Beifeng woke up in a chair at an internet cafe. It was his third day after leaving home, and the cash on him could still last a week.
The five-hundred-thousand check was beneath his pillow.
He stared at it for a long time before finally deciding to go to the bank.
The revolving glass doors of the first bank made him dizzy.
He stood on the marble floor, watching people line up before the counters.
"Do you need help, little boy?" a uniformed female employee asked, bending down toward him.
Xiang Beifeng tightened his fingers around the check. "I... want to deposit money."
Opening an account was more complicated than he had expected.
While filling out the form, he wrote the home address wrong three times before finally writing down the motel's address.
The employee asked for identification, but he only had his student ID.
"The check will need five business days to clear," the employee added as she pushed a temporary bank card toward him.
Xiang Beifeng tucked the card and the check into separate pockets of his jeans.
As he walked out of the bank, his steps felt a little lighter.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, he wanted to check the status of the check.
He searched every pocket and found only the thin bank card.
The check was gone.
He ran wildly along the route he had taken, sweat blurring his eyes.
The motel front desk, the convenience store, the bus stop...
At last, beside a trash can at the bank entrance, he saw several scraps of paper.
The wind blew one of them to his feet. Half of the character for "five" was still visible on it.
Xiang Beifeng squatted on the ground and painstakingly pieced the scraps together.
There wasn't enough tape, so he tried using saliva to stick them together. The paper quickly wrinkled into a lump.
"No..."
On the seventh day, the internet cafe owner threw his luggage out the door.
Xiang Beifeng dragged his suitcase through the streets, and one of its wheels soon fell off.
He remembered his parents' garden villa.
By the time night fell, he reached the wrought-iron gates. His fingers had barely touched the doorbell when the guard's flashlight shone on his face.
"I'm looking for my parents..."
The guard was a new face. "The homeowners said they don't know you."
"I live here. I was still living here last week, at least." His voice was a little hoarse.
A familiar woman's voice came through the intercom. "Make him leave. I already said he's an influencer trying to ride our popularity."
It began to rain.
Xiang Beifeng squatted beneath the awning of a convenience store and took out his phone.
His food delivery app balance was zero, and his ride-hailing app showed that his credit score was insufficient.
The U.S.'s autumn rain was cold and dense. He pulled his coat zipper all the way up.
If only I knew how to save money.
He remembered casually tipping a game streamer five thousand dollars last week. Now, that could have bought five hundred loaves of bread.
Blue and red police lights flashed around the street corner, and he instinctively shrank into the shadows.
The experience of a classmate being stopped and questioned on the street last month suddenly became vividly clear.
—A minor, Asian, wandering alone.
He gripped the strap of his backpack and moved a little farther into the darkness.
The curtain of rain was so heavy that he couldn't make out the traffic lights.
He crouched beside a puddle at an intersection, the faint ache in his stomach turning into sharp, stabbing pain.
For the past three days, he had only drunk water from the fountain in the park. Now, even straightening up took effort.
The yellow building of the embassy was three blocks away. The thought flashed through his mind before being swallowed by dizziness.
He tried to stand, but his knees gave out.
Water splashed over his pant legs, making him shiver from the cold.
His backpack slipped to the ground, revealing half a power bank.
—It was fully charged, but his phone had long since been cut off for unpaid bills.
It turned out that extreme hunger was an acidic void, as though someone were slowly scraping the walls of his stomach with a dull spoon.
He curled up beside a roadside tree, watching rainwater run along the grooves in its bark.
So people starving to death in TV dramas really did hurt.
That was his last complete thought.
The rain stopped, and neon lights reflected in the puddles.
A passerby hurried around him, their heel shattering a pool of colored light.