Lin Fan walked into his room. When he saw the cabinet that had been broken into, an ominous feeling came over him.
He lunged toward the cabinet and frantically yanked open the drawer. It was completely empty.
The seventeen taels of silver he had painstakingly saved by working day and night as a dock porter for five years were gone.
His eyes instantly reddened. That money had been his hope of practicing martial arts, his only chance to change his life. Now it was simply gone.
There was no need to think about it. His younger brother, Lin Ming, must have taken his money to pay off his loan sharks.
He grabbed a piece of firewood lying on the floor, then charged out into the living room like a madman.
Lin Ming was sitting in a chair with one leg crossed over the other, smoking a tobacco pipe as though nothing had happened.
"Lin Ming, I'll kill you!" Lin Fan roared and charged at Lin Ming with the firewood in hand. That crazed killing intent gave Lin Ming such a fright that he dropped his pipe on the floor.
"Dad! Mom! Save me!"
Lin Ming screamed in terror, scrambling and tumbling over to his father before pushing his father in front of him.
Lin Fan rushed up to his father and was about to shove him aside to give Lin Ming a vicious beating.
His father's face flushed crimson with anger. "Lin Fan!" he roared. "Have you made enough of a scene?"
While Father Lin was berating him, Mother Lin had already thrown herself at Lin Fan and locked her arms tightly around him.
"Lin Fan, have you gone mad? He's your younger brother! Are you going to kill him?" Mother Lin sobbed in anguish.
Lin Fan's fury surged higher and higher. "I'm making a scene?" he demanded with a roar. "That bastard took my hard-earned money to pay off his gambling debts! That was my only hope in life, and now it's gone!" By the end, he was gritting his teeth.
"I took it!" Father Lin said with extreme impatience.
At those words, all the strength seemed to drain out of Lin Fan's body, and the firewood in his hand fell to the floor.
"Why? Didn't you know that was the money for my martial arts training? That it was my hope in life? That it was money I earned with my blood and sweat, hauling one heavy load after another at the docks?" he demanded in grief and indignation.
Father Lin looked even more impatient. "What do you mean, why? If we didn't pay today, your younger brother would have lost his hand! I gave you life and raised you. I never left you short of food or clothes. Now I take a little money from you, and you actually ask me why? Even a dog wags its tail when you raise it. Raising an ungrateful wolf like you has been utterly useless."
Father Lin's words hammered into Lin Fan's chest like one heavy blow after another. An intense feeling of suffocation swept through his entire body.
For the past five years, he had been the one supporting this family. He had bought this earthen house and paid all the family's expenses. Yet now, in his father's telling, he was a useless, ungrateful wolf.
And what about Lin Ming? He had never done a scrap of work in his life and had squandered everything the family owned, yet he was still the apple of his father's eye.
They had never held the bowl of water level between them. Lin Fan closed his eyes in pain. He had utterly lost hope in this family.
He forcibly broke free of his mother's embrace, then turned and walked away without looking back.
"I've supported you for five years. I've repaid the debt of being raised. From this day forward, I'm severing all ties with you. The road is wide beneath the open sky; we'll each go our own way." His cold words echoed through the living room.
"You bastard!" Father Lin pointed at Lin Fan's retreating back and cursed furiously. "I gave you your very life! You could never repay me in a lifetime! Who said you could leave?"
"Brother, isn't it just a dozen or so taels of silver? Once my luck turns, I'll pay you back double!" Lin Ming said with a face full of disdain.
Mother Lin hurried after him and clutched Lin Fan's hand tightly, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face. "Fan'er, don't go. I still have over ten taels of silver. I'll get it for you right now." Her voice choked with sobs.
"Mom, isn't that the money for my marriage? If you give it to him, how am I supposed to get a wife?" Lin Ming said anxiously.
Hearing this, Lin Fan felt another stab of pain in his heart. His mother clearly had money, yet she had still stood by and watched his father take his money to pay Lin Ming's gambling debts, keeping her own money to get Lin Ming a wife.
Yet he was clearly the older one. He was already twenty-two, well past the age for marrying and having children in this world, but his father had never concerned himself with his marriage.
He had never even figured in his parents' considerations. Their refusal to let him leave now was probably because they could not bear to part with their "meal ticket."
His heart died completely. He shoved his mother's hand away, then strode quickly out, without a trace of attachment left for this family.