After dinner that day, Chen Yuncheng took Ning Junyan to play in the abandoned factory building nearby. The open space in the middle of the factory was already overgrown with weeds, waiting for the land to be sold for redevelopment. Usually, there were hardly any people.
When Chen Yuncheng went there, he didnât expect anyone and asked Ning Junyan to watch over first. When he tried to get into the empty factory building through the broken window, a stone was thrown at him and hit him right on the buttocks.
At that time, Chen Yuncheng was a little stunned, and pop his head out of the window, and asked Ning Junyan who was standing by the window, âYanyan, did you hit me?â
Ning Junyan didnât answer but looked in the direction where the stone was thrown. Chen Yuncheng followed his line of sight, only to find a young man sitting on a dilapidated wall over there.
He was one of those gangsters who used to bully him.
Ning Junyan didnât say anything and walked directly toward the boy.
The young man was acting haughty and smiled when he saw Ning Junyan coming over. He held a small stone in his hand, and said, âWhat do you want?â
Ning Junyan bent down and picked up a large stone from the ground, and threw it directly at the young man on the wall. The stone hit the young man on the shoulder, causing him to lose his balance on the wall and suddenly fell backwards.
Chen Yuncheng was startled, and hurriedly ran over to grab Ning Junyanâs arm and ran out.
Ning Junyan didnât know why Chen Yuncheng wanted to run, but he wouldnât resist if Chen Yuncheng pulled him along. The two of them stepped on the weeds and scraps of the old factory, turned their heads, ran out, and all the way back to their foster parentsâ yard.
It wasnât dark yet, but the foster father and mother had already returned to the room.
The two of them ran in. Chen Yuncheng didnât catch his breath, so he hurriedly locked the courtyard door. Before locking the door, he went out and looked around, and then leaned behind the door and gasped for breath.
Ning Junyan was also panting, and as he did so, his eyes fell on Chen Yuncheng and noticed that Chen Yuncheng had a long piece of grass dust on his head at some point. He reached out to pick it off, and used the grass to rub it against Chen Yunchengâs face.
Chen Yuncheng didnât have the energy to slap him away, and only said, âStop it.â
Ning Junyan threw the grass aside.
After a while, Chen Yuncheng went to pick up the grass and threw it into the trash can in the corner, he said to Ning Junyan, âDonât mess with them, there are just too many of them. If you mess with them, they will keep looking for you, itâs very annoying.â
He didnât know if Ning Junyan heard and understood it or not.
Chen Yuncheng walked over to the plastic basin, turned on the faucet, splashed cold water, and washed his face. He then raised his head with water all over his face and asked Ning Junyan, âAre you taking a shower?â
Ning Junyan nodded and walked over.
Chen Yuncheng took off all his clothes and didnât bother to enter the basin, so he stepped into the basin and stood directly under the faucet to rinse.
He didnât dare to rinse for too long, as he was afraid that the foster mother would hear the voice and scold them for wasting water, so he quickly climbed out and let Ning Junyan, who had already taken off his clothes, go in to take a cold shower, and ran away to get a dry towel to wipe his body.
The next day, Chen Yuncheng caught a cold.
He didnât know why he caught a cold. He was usually in good health, and it wasnât the first time he took a cold shower, but this time he caught a cold.
Early in the morning, Chen Yuncheng sneezed several times, yet his foster parents still urged him to take Ning Junyan out to work quickly.
The foster mother also said to him, âThe cold will clear up on its own in a few days, donât be fussy.â
Chen Yuncheng felt that he was not being fussy, but that he was dizzy and had little energy.
The two of them came out of the yard.
Chen Yuncheng said to Ning Junyan as he walked forward, âLetâs not go far today.â
Ning Junyan nodded and followed him silently.
As a result, by noon, they met the group of gangsters. Including the boy he met yesterday, there were five or six people in the other party, all of whom were older than Ning Junyan.
Chen Yuncheng wanted to slip away, but he was drowsy and didnât run in the right direction, and was finally surrounded by the group of people in the old factory.
This was the first time Chen Yuncheng had really seen Ning Junyan fight someone.
Ning Junyan must have learned about it. However, Chen Yuncheng didnât understand it either. He knew that some children would learn Taekwondo, Judo, or something. He didnât know what Ning Junyan had learned, but he fights in a systematic way.
If it was just an organized martial art style or a series of martial arts routines, Ning Junyan shouldnât be the opponent of those children who had grown up in society, but he had an unstoppable ruthlessness in him.
The five or six teenagers had originally scattered in order to surround them, and when at first two people come to him, one of them was beaten by Ning Junyan before the other one shouted for someone to come.
When the group of people gathered, Ning Junyan first protected Chen Yuncheng in a corner, and would not let anyone approach Chen Yuncheng. Later, he couldnât hold back too many people by himself. After being pulled away, someone took Chen Yuncheng out and kicked him to the ground.
It was not that Chen Yuncheng couldnât resist, but after all, he was several years younger, thinner, and smaller, and his strength was a lot worse than that of the man opposite him. He fell to the ground, the man reached out and grabbed his shirt to pick him up, he lowered his head and bit the manâs hand, heard the other man scream in pain, and then he was slapped in the face, and his ears were buzzing sound.
Ning Junyan rushed over at this moment, he no longer cared about others, he just pressed the boy who had attacked Chen Yuncheng to the ground and punched him all on the boy.
The fight turned out to be extremely violent afterwards.
Not only Chen Yuncheng and Ning Junyan were in a bad state, but the other group was also in a bad state. Ning Junyanâs head was covered in blood, but he still stood in front of Chen Yuncheng, looking at the person opposite him coldly, as if he would fight to the death if anyone dared to touch Chen Yuncheng.
He didnât know who in the group of teenagers said first, âForget it, letâs go.â The others followed him and left. They didnât want to fight with Ning Junyan, nor did they want to beat him to death here, so they retreated first.
Only then did Ning Junyan turn to look at Chen Yuncheng.
One of Chen Yunchengâs trouser legs was torn, and a wound on his leg was bleeding. His face and eyes were swollen. When he opened his mouth to speak, he frowned when the wound was pulled, but he still asked Ning Junyan, âAre you alright? â
This was not the first time that these gangsters had clashed with Chen Yuncheng. If it wasnât for Ning Junyanâs tough attitude, they would not have attacked so hard, so this was the first time that Chen Yuncheng had been beaten so badly.
But Chen Yuncheng didnât blame Ning Junyan, he still remembered how Ning Junyan tried his best to protect him.
When the two returned to the yard with their wounds, even the foster father was taken aback and took them to a nearby small clinic for the doctor to treat the wounds.
At that time, the doctor examined them briefly and found that neither of them had any broken bones, only soft tissue contusions or skin lacerations. As for whether the internal organs were injured, the small clinic couldnât detect them.
The foster father didnât plan to take them to the hospital. He simply took them back after the wounds were treated. On the way back, he scolded them while walking, blaming them for causing trouble outside and wasting his money.
Later, Chen Yuncheng would think that it was fortunate that both he and Ning Junyan were lucky to have survived so many beatings without hurting their bones or internal organs, otherwise they might not be alive now.
After they returned, Chen Yuncheng was in pain as if his whole body was about to fall apart, and all he wanted to do was to lie down in bed and rest.
But after he and Ning Junyan had gone into the room, the foster mother appeared at the door again and cursed angrily at them.
Chen Yuncheng sat on the edge of the bed with his head down and did not speak, while Ning Junyan stood at the end of the bed and kept looking at the foster mother who was scolding them at the door.
After a while, Chen Yuncheng heard that the foster mother suddenly stopped talking. He raised his head and saw the foster mother staring at Ning Junyan with wide eyes, so he also looked at Ning Junyan.
The lights in the room were not bright, and Ning Junyan had gauze wrapped around his head, but he could still see the expression on his foster motherâs face with a grim calmness.
The foster mother pointed at him and said, âWhy are you looking at me like that? Do you not agree with me?â
Chen Yuncheng noticed Ning Junyanâs right arm dropping to his side, and the right thumb resting on the trouser leg slowly over the other knuckles between his fingers. He quickly stood up, walked over, grabbed Ning Junyanâs hand, and said, âYouâve hurt your head again, what if itâs even worse now?â
Ning Junyan didnât speak, only looking down at his hand that was being held.
Chen Yuncheng looked at his foster mother and said, âFoster mother, he has a head injury.â
The foster mother realized that Ning Junyan was originally a fool and did not want to continue to be angry with the fool, so she walked away with a cold face.
Chen Yuncheng walked over and closed the door, then came back and took Ning Junyanâs hand, saying, âGo to sleep.â
They didnât even take a shower, just took off their dirty clothes and climbed into bed.
Chen Yuncheng was so tired that he didnât even have the energy to talk to Ning Junyan, so he fell asleep immediately. It was only in the middle of the night that he woke up from the pain of accidentally touching the wound on his leg and felt Ning Junyan sleeping close to him with a bloody smell. Vaguely, he reached out and touched Ning Junyanâs head, and soon fell asleep again.