The Fifth Brother, Liang Yong

His family's house was rather small, with only two rooms.

Well, one bedroom and one kitchen.

A little space just over a meter wide had been partitioned off from a small part of the kitchen and connected to the big room. It was for the family's two daughters, the second and fourth children, who were gradually growing up.

The original owner and his two brothers lived with their parents in the big room, sleeping on the large kang.

To be honest, with so many people living there, both rooms were pretty cramped!

Under these circumstances, the family couldn't have guests stay over.

There was nowhere for them to sleep!

They couldn't very well sleep on the ground, could they?

This wasn't like the tiled floors of later times, where you could clean the floor and make do for a night.

This was a plain dirt floor.

Damp seeped up through it!

"Big brother? Big brother!"

Liang Xin was still reflecting on this.

Then he saw several little willies-oh, no, several bare-bottomed children-racing toward him, their little willies swinging.

There were three children, all looking about three or four years old. None of them wore any clothes, not even a pair of underpants.

Just like that, they came running toward him against the wind.

The one in front was just about to throw himself at Liang Xin and hug his leg.

Liang Xin quickly clutched the suitcase in one hand to keep it from falling, and pressed his other hand against the little boy's forehead.

He wouldn't let this stark-naked little man hug his leg.

Mainly, the boy was covered in dirt and sand. Who knew where he'd been rolling around and playing?

Though Liang Xin's clothes weren't good and had plenty of patches—the most of anyone in the residential compound or at his workplace-

they were already the best clothes his family could come up with.

He had only two sets of clothes, both passed through several hands. One set belonged to him, old clothes he had bought several years ago.

Yes, when he bought them, they had already been ragged old clothes with quite a few patches!

In later years, lots of Chinese clothes were sold to Africa. Didn't the Black brothers in Africa buy old clothes to wear?

What Chinese people wore at this time wasn't even as good as what the Black brothers would wear in later years.

At least, though the Black brothers bought old clothes, they didn't buy old clothes with patches on them.

The other set belonged to the original owner's father and was just a tiny bit better than his own.

Well, only a tiny bit better. It still had patches on top of patches.

It had been given to him after he was selected by the capital's supply and marketing cooperative.

They hoped he could dress a little more presentably and not be too much of an embarrassment.

That was how he had scraped together two sets of clothes to change between.

Though the clothes weren't good, Liang Xin had washed them quite clean.

He couldn't just let them get dirty.

The supply and marketing cooperative did have clothes made for its employees, much like factory uniforms.

But they were made at set times, not arranged as soon as someone started work.

Normally, one set was made in spring and another in autumn.

He had started work in between, missing both times, which was a little awkward.

So under normal circumstances, he would have to wait another two months before he had the first new clothes of his life to wear!

"Fifth brother?"

Seeing the boy brought more memories of him to Liang Xin's mind.

This was his family's youngest brother, the fifth child, named Liang Yong, a little over three years old!

He was familiar with the other two as well. They were both children from neighboring families.

Both were under five.

Five seemed to be the dividing line.

By then, they should be allotted a pair of underpants, then taken out to the fields to do whatever work they could manage.

They wouldn't be as free as they were now.

"Big brother! It's me!" Fifth Brother Liang Yong nodded excitedly, then kept trying to throw himself at Liang Xin.

Liang Xin held his little head back again.

What was this little brat doing? Did he have to get his clothes dirty?

To stop the boy's persistent efforts, Liang Xin quickly brought out his ultimate move.

"Fifth brother, have some candy."

"You two come over too, have some candy!"

Liang Xin pulled three pieces of candy from his pocket.

Fifth Brother finally stopped thinking about hugging his leg and turned his attention to the candy.

If someone else had given him candy, he might have hesitated over whether to accept it.

Well, mainly because he needed to consider whether his dad would beat him if he found out.

But since his big brother had given it to him, he had no such worries.

The two little playmates watched Liang Yong accept the candy and attack the wrapper, tearing at it with his little teeth.

So they accepted theirs too.

They each called out a thank-you to Brother Liang, then ran off happily.

Liang Yong's big brother was back, so Liang Yong probably wouldn't keep playing with them. They could only go back to rolling around in the sandpit by themselves.

Liang Yong ate the candy and gave him eight experience points.

That showed just how pleasantly surprised he was.

Soon afterward, Liang Xin received seven and eight experience points respectively, certainly from Liang Yong's two little playmates.

That was twenty-three experience points.

Liang Xin was happy too.

He thought to himself, I just love how little you've seen of the world!

You can give me more experience.

"Xiao Yong, are Mom and Dad at work? Go call them back."

"Okay, big brother, I'll go get them right now. Big brother, this candy is so sweet!"

After all, he was his own little brother, so naturally he treated him differently from the others.

With all three children there, it wouldn't have been right to give him more.

So he had given him only one piece.

But once his two little playmates had run off, Liang Xin pulled out a few more pieces and stuffed them into his hand.

"Go on, call Mom and Dad back. Tell them I'm home."

"These pieces are for the second, third and fourth siblings! Once you've finished yours, I'll give you more!"