Xiang Beifeng's Wandering

(The logic is basically coherent.)

(Some say the author treats everyone else as NPCs, and only the protagonist is "alive.")

(If I could write every character to be truly alive, why would I still be working at Fanqie Novel? Why wouldn't I just go to a publishing house myself?)

(The protagonist is essentially a child with an unfortunate childhood; don't force him to do anything, and don't force the author to do anything either.)

(If there are any unreasonable parts, point them out and the author can change them. What is your goal in trying to disparage a book from its very roots?)

(This time it was indeed my mistake to write the protagonist as arrogant and conceited. In the next book, I will write the protagonist as sensitive and insecure...?)

(Both men and women are welcome. Let's reason things out; don't just mindlessly complain.)

(The author is neither a heinous villain nor Umbridge. Don't look at people through a biased filter. Both authors have money and don't need to rely on this to make a living; signing a contract is just to get recommended.)

(Alright, enough nonsense, let the main text begin.)

Xiang Beifeng was hunched over his desk, solving a math problem.

The grid of his workbook was filled with numbers, and eraser shavings were scattered at the corner of the desk.

His mother's voice drifted up from downstairs, neither loud nor soft: "Xiang Beifeng, come down for a moment."

He capped his pen and walked slowly down the stairs.

The wooden banister felt cool to the touch.

"What is it, Mother?" He stood still in the center of the living room.

Beside his mother stood a strange boy, about twelve or thirteen years old, wearing jeans that looked too new.

The child kept his head down, fiddling with his fingers, not daring to look at him.

"This is your brother in the biological sense."

"We were switched at the hospital back then. Now that they've brought the child back, we must each return to where we belong."

She pulled a check out of her handbag and placed it gently on the coffee table.

"This five hundred thousand is compensation. Go 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 them silently, his hand clenching into a fist inside his pocket.

Just this? he thought.

Even television dramas wouldn't dare to write a plot like this.

"Understood." He bent down to pick up the check, folded it twice, and tucked it into his inner jacket pocket. "I'm going up to pack."

The walk-in closet was filled with the latest seasonal shirts.

He pulled open a drawer, where his school uniforms were folded perfectly square.

None of this mattered anymore.

In the end, he only stuffed a few pieces of his regular sportswear into his backpack, along with the MP3 player and charging cable from the bottom of the drawer.

Passing the desk, he paused for a moment.

The unfinished math problem was still spread out.

He casually swept the workbook into the trash can.

When he went downstairs, his mother was helping the boy straighten his collar. Seeing he only had one backpack, she looked slightly surprised: "Just this?"

"It's enough."

Xiang Beifeng pulled open the front door, and the evening breeze rushed in.

He looked back at the living room once; the crystal chandelier was blindingly bright.

"I'm leaving."

The door closed behind him.

He stood by the side of the road, checking the map on his phone, the five hundred thousand in his pocket making a soft rustling sound.

I'll find an internet cafe to spend the night, he thought, reaching out to hail a taxi.

Xiang Beifeng woke up in the chair of an internet cafe. This was his third day away from home, and the cash he had on him was enough to last another week.

The five-hundred-thousand-yuan check was tucked under his pillow.

He stared at it for a long time before finally deciding to go to the bank.

The revolving glass door of the first bank made him dizzy.

He stood on the marble floor, watching the crowd line up in front of the counters.

"Do you need help, little one?" a female clerk in uniform asked, leaning down toward him.

Xiang Beifeng's fingers tightened around the check. "I... I want to deposit money."

The account-opening process was more complicated than he had imagined.

He made three mistakes writing his home address on the form, eventually settling for the address of that motel.

The clerk requested a form of identification, but he only had his student ID.

"Checks take five business days to clear," the clerk added as he pushed a temporary bank card toward him.

Xiang Beifeng shoved 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 patted down all his pockets, finding only the thin bank card.

The check was gone.

He sprinted back along the path he had taken, sweat blurring his vision.

The motel front desk, the convenience store, the bus stop...

Finally, beside a trash can at the bank entrance, he saw a few scraps of paper.

The wind blew one piece to the edge of his shoe, and on it, half of the character for "five" was still legible.

Xiang Beifeng crouched on the ground, piecing the fragments together bit by bit.

He didn't have enough tape, so he tried using his saliva to stick them together, but the paper quickly crumpled into a ball.

"No..."

On the seventh day, the internet cafe owner threw his luggage out the door.

Xiang Beifeng dragged his suitcase as he wandered the streets, and one of the wheels soon fell off.

He thought of the garden villa where his parents lived.

When it grew dark, he walked up to the wrought-iron gate, but just as his finger touched the doorbell, a security guard's flashlight shone in his face.

"I'm looking for my parents..."

The guard was a new face: "The owner says they don't know you."

"I live here, or at least I did as of last week." His voice was a bit hoarse.

A familiar female voice came over the intercom: "Make him leave. I already told you, he's just an internet celebrity looking for clout."

The rain began to fall.

Xiang Beifeng crouched under the eaves of a convenience store and pulled out his phone.

The balance on his food delivery app was zero, and the ride-hailing app showed his credit score was insufficient.

The autumn rain in Country M was cold and dense, so he zipped his jacket all the way up.

If only he had known how to save money.

He remembered the five thousand yuan he had casually tipped a game streamer last week; that would be enough to buy five hundred loaves of bread now.

The blue and red lights of a police car flashed around the street corner, and he instinctively shrank into the shadows.

The experience of his classmate being stopped and questioned on the street last month suddenly became clear.

--Minor, Asian, wandering alone.

He gripped his backpack straps tightly and moved further into the darkness.

The rain curtain was so thick he couldn't see the traffic lights.

He crouched by a puddle at the intersection, his stomach cramps shifting from a dull ache to a sharp, stabbing pain.

He had only drunk water from park fountains for the last three days, and now even standing up was a struggle.

The yellow building of the embassy was three blocks away; this information flashed through his mind, only to be quickly drowned out by a wave of dizziness.

He tried to stand, but his knees gave way.

The stagnant water soaked his pant legs, making him shiver with cold.

His backpack slid to the ground, revealing half of a power bank.

--The battery was fully charged, but his phone had long since been disconnected for non-payment.

So, being hungry to the point of extremity was a sour, hollow feeling, like someone slowly scraping his stomach lining with a dull spoon.

He curled up beside a street tree, watching the rainwater flow along the grooves of the bark.

So, the starvation depicted in TV dramas really does hurt.

This was his last coherent thought.

The rain stopped, and the neon lights reflected in the puddles.

Passersby walked quickly around him, their heels shattering a pool of colorful light.