School Bullying and Family (Continued)

"By the way, brother, the showers in the hospital are the card-operated type. You put the card in, and the water starts flowing, but the number on the card gradually decreases. It's really unpleasant to watch your money go down, which is why I showered so quickly today."

"I spent the day reading. There are many books and magazines in the hospital, and it's much easier to turn pages with my left hand than to eat with my left hand."

"The books I'm reading are 'Fairy Tales' and 'The Little Prince.' Since I've read many of the stories in the first book before, I finished it very quickly. I started reading the second book this afternoon."

What does my brother do all day?

The first text message contained this content, and Liang quickly replied:

"Working in a client's home, Ying might have actually seen him before, like the old man with the big beard who used to visit us often when you were a child."

Upon receiving Ryo's reply, Hotaru quickly typed in a text message. However, because she could only use her left hand, her typing speed was considerably slower than when she had prepared the message beforehand. She even made a typo, which almost brought Hotaru to tears.

"I don't remember. When will my brother be back?"

"I'll be back after I finish work, probably in seven or eight days? I just want Hotaru to focus on her treatment. When I come back, I want to see a healthy Hotaru."

"For a long time."

This must be the longest they've been apart since birth; Ryo and Hotaru are both used to each other's company.

"It's really only a week."

Liang tried to keep his voice as soft as possible as he comforted his sister.

He certainly didn't want to tell Hotaru that he had gotten himself into a lot of trouble because of a series of bullying incidents at school. However, Ryo was also very clear that he wouldn't be locked up for too long. On the one hand, he was actually more inclined to side with the victim in this incident. On the other hand, he had also used the few remaining connections he had at home to contact a senior who was capable of helping him get out of trouble.

The matter is actually not complicated. If it weren't for the ever-increasing hospital bills for her younger sister, Liang would never have paid any attention to the bullying she had been suffering at school.

For most students, school bullying is a terrifying and undesirable experience. The horror of school bullying lies in the unlimited kicking someone when they're down. Once the first person strikes, the victim is branded with a mark of humiliation. It's as if bees are signaling to their companions with their scent, and others will swarm in to bully them again, because they know that person has already been bullied.

They might think, "We've already been bullied before, so what's one more time?"

In fact, ever since his First Year junior high school, he had been a rather unsociable individual.

The targets of school bullying can be high-achieving students or students who are at the bottom of the class; they can be boys or girls, but ultimately they are all students who are not sociable.

Because of not fitting in with others, one will be isolated, isolation makes one appear weak, and weakness makes one vulnerable to being bullied.

Thinking back, it all started when he rejected a conversation with the leader of the bullies in his class. He declined her suggestion to go to the arcade after school because he disliked her pungent perfume and menacing red lips. She seemed quite angry because of the laughter of her friends. It was because of this seemingly inexplicable reason that he began to be bullied from that day on.

However, the usual passive-aggressive behavior has no effect on Liang; he has no interest in socializing.

As for those more common tactics:

They might deliberately kick over your lunchbox, making you eat it while you're on the floor, or force you to eat in the toilet...

I'm a little sorry, but because I want to save money, Liang never eats lunch, let alone a bento box.

There was a dead rat in the table. Actually, the basement is mostly infested with rats and cockroaches. Not even a firefly would be scared by such things, let alone a cold one.

He only doodled on his textbooks twice. After Liang got first place in the class once, his textbooks and notebooks were borrowed by other students to copy. The delinquents didn't dare to go against the class's wishes, so they reluctantly shifted their focus to Liang's desk.

Words like "go to hell" and "orphan" are probably considered relatively mild, but Liang always wrote down some of the more offensive ones in a notebook with great relish, knowing that these curse words would likely come in handy when her father returned someday.

When all these tactics fail, the last and most direct form of bullying comes into play:

Violence.

Liang knew he wasn't Superman, and of course he couldn't possibly take on four or five people at once, but he adopted a rather clever approach:

If you catch someone, retaliate; even if it's just biting them, you'll take a piece of their flesh.

This strategy was quite successful. From then on, every morning, although Liang would be cornered in the toilet and beaten up first, one of the other men would also get a couple of hits in return. After this happened a few times, that man couldn't take it anymore.

After all, bullying someone who is already being bullied at school only makes them feel more at ease, because they don't think it's their fault. On the one hand, it's because of the comfort of placing individual behavior within group behavior, since everyone else is doing it; on the other hand, it's because they can comfort themselves that they didn't start it, the whole thing has nothing to do with them, and they're just joining in the fun and going with the flow.

But why are the people I bullied with all the same hands unharmed, while I get retaliated against like this?

With this in mind, the first person stepped down from the bullying.

The next morning, when Liang fixed her gaze on another person, the other person actually shuddered first. From that day on, Liang was never blocked in the toilet again.

Their tactics began to shift towards surprise.

Liang didn't want to escalate the situation because he was well aware of his family's circumstances; he and Ying couldn't afford any further trouble.

While accepting it, Liang also resisted it, thus devising this strategy for himself.

Although being doused with a bucket of cold water in winter is unpleasant, and being hit by a soccer ball while walking on the street is also terrible, you can grit your teeth and bear it.

Victims of school bullying often suffer more severe psychological trauma than physical harm, but this doesn't quite apply to Liang.

He certainly hated the bullies, but he was more concerned with how to protect himself.

The essence of bullying is the strong taking advantage of the weak, so just make yourself stronger.

If it weren't for Hotaru's situation, Ryo should be able to handle this mess on his own in another month or two.

However, after Hotaru fell ill and was hospitalized, Ryo gradually abandoned his previous plans.

Liang once heard a joke:

What should I do if I'm scammed out of 10,000 yen in a telecom fraud?

The answer is to transfer another five million yen to the other party, which will greatly speed up the police investigation.

Liang used to be afraid of making a big deal out of things, but now he realizes that sometimes making a big deal out of things might be better.

As a result, he is currently being held in temporary detention here because of the considerable force with which he retaliated.

However, the bullies were in a much worse situation than him. Being caught bullying a classmate in public during the school's 70th anniversary open day was quite a big news story these days.

Although he expects to be expelled from school after this incident, he will also receive a considerable amount of compensation and hush money.

I stretched and then realized that my sister had called me.

The other person should have been in the hospital room, so did they call him from under the covers?

"Hey, brother."

After the call connected, Ying's voice was not as weak as she had imagined.

"I'm here. Why are you calling? You'll disturb the other people."

"It's okay, I sneaked into the bathroom by myself."

Ying was probably quite impressed with her own flash of inspiration, her tone tinged with a hint of pride.

"Is the IV drip finished?"

"Yes, but my right hand is still not very convenient to use."

The environment was very quiet for both parties on the call. Liang could almost hear the faint chirping of insects and the soft breathing of Ying on the other end.

"It's so quiet over there, brother."

Hotaru seemed to have sensed the surroundings as well; she clutched a flip phone, the same model as Ryo's, in her small hand.

"It's so quiet."

"I can see the stars from here."

As Ryo listened to Hotaru talk, he imagined her peering out the bathroom window. Hotaru had always loved looking out the window since she was little.

Look at the stars in the sky, the people on the ground, and the wild cats jumping around on the eaves.

"Does brother still remember the origin of our names?"

"Um?"

Ying suddenly asked this question, and Liang was a little taken aback. He paused for a moment before answering:

"I remember it's a Tang Dynasty poem from ancient China, I think it's by Du Mu."

"Yes, it's Du Mu's 'Autumn Evening'."

"I heard that Mom chose our names based on this poem from the very beginning."

"The silver candlelight chills the painted screen in the autumn light, a light silk fan flutters, chasing fireflies. The night sky is cool as water, I lie watching the Altair and Vega."

"But I don't think I've ever seen fireflies before; there aren't any in the city."

Ying said indignantly, her tone full of childishness:

"The fans in the house are usually used to swat mosquitoes and flies."

"Pfft."

Ryo couldn't help but chuckle, amused by his sister's rare comment.

"I wonder if the stars I saw were the Altair and Vega from the poem."

"That'll be more noticeable around Qixi Festival, right?"

"Too."

Ying nodded, then asked in confusion:

"The purpose of stars shining is so that everyone can one day find their own star."

"This is the sentence I saw today."

"But in legend, the Altair and Vega are meant to be together, belonging only to each other."

"Don't you think the two statements contradict each other, brother?"

Liang had no idea where Ying had learned so many strange and unusual questions, and he couldn't answer them for the time being.

I think neither statement is wrong.

Not hearing Liang's reply, Ying answered herself, her face appearing even paler in the moonlight, yet her smile remained beautiful:

"Stars have their own stars, and people will meet their own soulmates; they are the stars in each other's hearts."

"Go back and rest well, you might catch a cold."

After a moment of silence, Liang replied.

He had a feeling that his sister knew something, and she was behaving strangely tonight.

"Okay, I'm going back now."

Hearing Ryo's urging, Hotaru returned to her usual lively self.

"Good night."

"Good night."

"Thank you for your help."

Liang bowed to the well-dressed old man in front of him to express his gratitude. He knew very well that without the other party's mediation, not only would he not receive compensation, but he might also have been implicated.

He was oversimplifying things; the world doesn't always go according to his expectations.

"It's alright. After all, you're Qiu's family, so it's only right and proper that I take care of you."

"I just never imagined that your family would turn out like this after Qiu left."

The old man sighed and said that although he knew that the Kitagawa Family had changed in the past few years due to the sudden death of their eldest daughter, he did not expect that only Ryo and Hotaru were left.

"How about you consider working for our Theater Troupe? Maybe you have a talent for it."

"Just like autumn."

With a sense of urgency, the old man turned his gaze to Liang. Thinking that the boy in front of him was the younger brother of that talented theatrical Actor, his breathing became somewhat heavy.

I heard the name I least wanted to hear.

"No need, I can manage on my own now."

He declined with a smile.

"Really? That's a real shame."

The old man briefly came to his senses, then chuckled self-deprecatingly. Indeed, Actor like Qiu are hard to find.

Considering that at that time Kitagawa Family relied almost entirely on their eldest daughter to earn money, and that the parents favored each other, the other two children received almost no attention.

"Thank you! We are very grateful for your attention to the Kitagawa Family. If you would like to cooperate, please call the number on the business card."

The last time I saw Liang was when she and her younger sister were handing out business cards and humbly greeting customers as they followed behind their older sister.

"Then I'll be going now."

"Okay, take care."