In the courtyard, everyone is afraid of the little boy who is so smart!

"Brother Yang, do you think I'm a well-known figure in this black market?"

He laughed bitterly, with a hint of self-mockery in his voice.

"The last time I came here was to get medicine for a friend. I couldn't even tell the difference between the East Market and the West Market. How can we be friends?"

"I just rely on two small yellow croakers - they said they would keep them for me to marry."

Dou'er suddenly covered her mouth, and the suppressed sobbing sounded particularly clear in the night.

Wang Jianguo looked up at Dou'er and saw traces of tears on his pale face, but there was a hint of disbelief in his eyes.

He turned his gaze back to Yang Huaixi and continued:

"Those people stared at the gold bars like hungry wolves seeing meat. I said all the good things I could, and promised to take you out of the city overnight and never set foot in the black market again, and only then did they relent."

Wang Jianguo recalled the greedy and guilty look on Scarface's face when he put the gold bars into his arms.

I remembered the thugs who gathered around me and shared the reward money with laughter, and the blades of my knives gleaming coldly in the moonlight.

He unconsciously clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms:

"It's just buying life with money."

Yang Huaixi's body, which was originally slumped in the wooden chair, suddenly trembled violently, and his cloudy eyes suddenly widened in his sunken eye sockets.

He struggled to prop up his upper body with his elbows, groaning in pain from the wound, but he held on to Wang Jianguo's sleeves tightly and refused to let go, his knuckles turning white from excessive force:

"What? Two small...small yellow croakers?"

His voice seemed to be squeezed out from the depths of his throat, with a hoarseness like a broken bellows.

"This is enough money to buy half a street of shops!"

The night wind blew the scattered medicine residue on the ground and hit the two of them. The flame of the lantern swayed in the wind, illuminating the criss-crossing tear marks on Yang Huaixi's face.

Yang Huaixi's face turned red and the blue veins in his neck throbbed as if they were about to burst in the next second.

"They...they smashed the pharmacy to pieces, even the copper coins hidden under the counter were turned out."

He choked and turbid tears slid down his cheeks into the blood-stained collar.

"They said they wanted to pay for their eldest brother's medical expenses, but I've never even met that person!"

Dou'er fell to the ground, covering his face with his hands and his shoulders twitching constantly.

Wang Jianguo looked at the young boy's thin back, then lowered his head to look at Yang Huaixi's wrist which was wrapped in cloth but still bleeding. He felt as if his heart was being tightly grasped by an invisible big hand.

Yang Huaixi trembled as he fumbled with his collar, trying to pull something out, but he only pulled out a few torn pieces of prescription paper, which fell onto his bloodstained knees.

"What can I give you in return? What can I give you in return..."

Memories suddenly came flooding back.

Wang Jianguo recalled the night he left Beijing a year ago, when he was also forced into a corner.

At this time, Yang Huaixi's mood was probably the same despair as Wang Jianguo's when he left Sijiu City.

"Brother Yang, why are you saying this?"

Wang Jianguo pressed down Yang Huaixi's trembling shoulders, his voice trembling with suppression.

Dou'er suddenly raised her head, her face full of tears but her eyes firm:

"Brother Wang, I...I'll go to work and pay back the money!"

His voice still had a tearful tone, but it also revealed the stubbornness that is unique to a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy.

"I can do laundry, I can deliver medicine, I can do anything!"

Yang Huaixi opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but was interrupted by a violent cough. Dark red blood foam splashed on the back of Wang Jianguo's hand, scalding him and making him tremble all over.

Wang Jianguo squatted down, the moonlight lengthened his shadow, gently enveloping Yang Huaixi's curled up body.

He slowly stretched out his hand and stroked the blood-scabbed wound on Yang Huaixi's shoulder with his fingertips, as if touching a fragile piece of porcelain, and finally gently landed on the jagged bone.

The cold touch from his palm made his heart tremble, and his throat tightened unconsciously:

"Brother Yang, money is just a thing outside of your body."

His voice mixed with the night wind, carrying a bit of hoarse consolation.

"As long as the mountains remain, there will be no shortage of firewood. But what are your plans for the future?"

Yang Huaixi raised his head. His right eye was swollen to a slit, but the eye socket was filled with turbid tears.

He looked towards the broken eaves, where a few strings of dry mugwort were hanging, swaying weakly in the wind, just like its shaky fate at the moment.

Yang Huaixi's cracked lips moved, and a bitter laugh came out of his throat. The laugh was as broken as the fragments of a medicine jar scattered on the ground:

"What else can you plan?"

His voice was filled with despair.

"Dou'er and I have been working in this black market for so many years. We collect herbs during the day and sell them at the night market at night. We live frugally and don't even want to buy new clothes..."

Dou'er had moved to Yang Huaixi's side at some point. His clothes were still stained with mud from his fall. The boy, who was about sixteen or seventeen years old, now looked like a puppet with his soul taken away.

Hearing this, he suddenly grabbed Yang Huaixi's sleeve, his fingertips turning white from the force:

"My brother said that when he saves enough money, he will take me to Jiangnan. There are small bridges and flowing water, white walls and black tiles..."

His voice gradually choked.

"We can open a small clinic, grow herbs, and no longer have to worry..."

"But now..."

Yang Huaixi closed his eyes, and hot tears slid down his wrinkled cheeks and dripped onto his blood-stained collar.

"The Black Tigers stole all our savings, smashed our medicine cabinets, and burned our medical books..."

His body began to shake uncontrollably.

"We are penniless and the Black Tiger Gang has issued a hunting order. Where else can we go?"

Wang Jianguo silently looked at the two brothers who depended on each other, and recalled Yang Huaixi's arrogant appearance in the past and his calm look when he held the scales to weigh medicinal materials.

Now, their dreams are like a medicine bowl that has been smashed to the ground and can never be put back together again.

“Let’s get out of here first.”

Yang Huaixi finally spoke in a hoarse voice, with a determination to fight to the bitter end.

"Go west, cross that mountain, and maybe you can find a place to stay. Let's take it one step at a time..."

He reached out to touch Dou'er's head, but put his hand down tremblingly because of the pain in the wound.

Dou'er suddenly threw herself into his arms, and her suppressed sobs mixed with the night wind echoed in the empty courtyard.

Yang Huaixi leaned on a mottled wooden chair, his scabby lips moving with difficulty, and he finally finished pouring out all the bitterness in his heart.

The night wind blew through the broken window frame, rolled up half of the yellowed medicine prescription in the corner, and gently brushed the back of his scarred hand.

He suddenly shuddered all over, and a hint of doubt flashed in his sunken eye sockets - he was so busy telling his grievances that he forgot to ask the most important question.

He slowly turned his head, his left eye was swollen and purple like a peach, but his right eye was trying to open wide, with a few streaks of blood in the cloudy eyeball:

"correct......"

The hoarse voice was stuck in his throat, and he cleared his throat with difficulty. The bandage on his Adam's apple moved slightly with the movement, and tiny beads of blood oozed out.