Ferocious Dog of Old

Chi Ku turned his head over to look at him when he heard the sound. He saw Tao Huainan retreating to the foot of the bed with his face tight and lips pouting, and when he finally reached the end of the bed, he immediately slipped off and left the room, unhappiness written all over his body.

Chi Ku sat up and crooked his head high to watch. Tao Huainan walked barefoot to the sofa, looking for Shi Yeye, and then knelt down to chatter something to the dog with his head lowered.

The nanny was cooking in the kitchen, the fragrance of scrambled eggs drifting out. Tao Huainan turned his head over that way before he sat down on the sofa and rubbed his foot.

–

When Tao Xiaodong came home, Tao Huainan had yet to finish eating. There were many grains of rice littered around the bowl, and the nanny was about to start feeding him.

Tao Huainan set down his spoon as soon as the door opened. He said, in pleasant surprise, “Is ge home?”

The spoon was left in the bowl—as soon as he released his hold on the spoon, half a scoop of rice was pushed up and out of the bowl, spreading everywhere. Tao Xiaodong hummed in answer and said to the nanny: “Don’t feed him, let him eat by himself.”

The nanny smiled as she wiped her hands on her apron. “Sometimes I get a bit impatient as I watch.”

Tao Xiaodong said, “It’s fine.”

Chi Ku sat on the side of his bed after he finished eating and didn’t come out. After Tao Xiaodong finished washing his hands, he stood at the door, looking at him, and then went over to sit next to Tao Huainan.

Hearing him stand in Chi Ku’s door, Tao Huainan pouted.

As soon as Tao Xiaodong sat down, Tao Huainan lifted and placed his leg on him, stretching out his foot for his brother to see.

Traces of knocking into the wall had already disappeared. Tao Xiaodong didn’t know what he was doing, so he gave him a pat. “Focus on eating.”

“It hurts.” Tao Huainan wiggled his ankle, making sure he showed his brother his ankle bone.

Tao Xiaodong silently lowered his head to carefully examine his ankle. The hand on his ankle rubbed it again. “Did you sprain it?”

Tao Huainan finally found someone to complain to, so he tattled to his brother, “Chi Ku pushed me.”

“Really.” Tao Xiaodong carelessly replied. He didn’t look like he was all that worried and pushed at Tao Huainan’s bowl, hinting at him to continue eating.

“Yes.” Tao Huainan repeated again, “He pushed me.”

Tao Xiaodong asked him, “He pushed you, and then you knocked into something? Did you guys fight? Then should I also push him into something?”

“Hey!” Tao Huainan dropped his spoon and went to grab his ge’s arm, hurriedly saying, “What are you doing…”

“So he didn’t push you?” Tao Xiaodong shifted his arms backwards as if he was getting ready to stand up.

Tao Huainan tightly held onto him and softly said: “I knocked into something myself, he didn’t push me into anything…”

And so then Tao Xiaodong laughed, lifting his hand to flick Tao Huainan’s head. “Then what are you tattling about.”

Tao Huainan wasn’t originally a child who liked to tattle and accuse others—this was simply because his little childish temper had been suppressed for too long, and the person closest to him, his older brother, had finally come home. He couldn’t help but want to be coaxed and soothed after he threw a little fit. He didn’t actually want his ge to do anything to Chi Ku.

So he panicked as soon as his older brother said he was going to find Chi Ku. No matter how badly he and Chi Ku got along, Tao Huainan couldn’t lie about him—that would be too wrong.

Tao Huainan felt both embarrassed and a bit guilty. He’d been in a bad mood since last night, and now that he sat there, head lowered, slowly scooping up his food, he felt slightly sorry for himself.

–

Chi Ku hadn’t come out of his room at all. Tao Xiaodong showered and lay down on Chi Ku’s bed for a while after he finished; Tao Huainan came over by himself after a few minutes passed, Shi Yeye following behind him.

Tao Huainan climbed up on the bed by groping his older brother’s calf, and after he got on, he nested in next to his brother’s side and stopped moving. Shi Yeye slowly settled down on the floor next to the bed, his tail brushing Chi Ku’s leg. Chi Ku shifted away.

“Don’t fight after you guys go to school,” Tao Xiaodong said to the both of them. 

Tao Huainan hid his face on Tao Xiaodong’s body—he was still feeling both guilty and sorry for himself, so he didn’t want to speak. 

Chi Ku stayed as silent as he’d always been. If they hadn’t heard him speak before, they most likely would’ve thought he had a speech impediment. Tao Xiaodong nudged his back with his knee, and Chi Ku turned around to look at him.

Tao Xiaodong asked him, smiling: “Can you help ge take care of this little annoying brat? He is a bit annoying, but what can we do? He’s in our house.”

Tao Huainan opened his eyes wide, face turning to his older brother. He was extremely surprised.

Chi Ku looked at Tao Xiaodong, looked at Tao Huainan—and then, without any expression on his face, he nodded at Tao Xiaodong.

Tao Xiaodong was wearing a pair of shorts he normally wore at home, his knees resting on Chi Ku’s back and amusement laying in his eyes. Chi Ku had never seen this kind of expression on an adult’s face before meeting Tao Xiaodong; everyone else had looked at him with either disgust or pity. Their current positions were a bit carelessly intimate, and Chi Ku sat there with a stiff back, unable to move. 

–

The day they needed to go school, Tao Huainan still ended up crying.

Both little boys were carrying backpacks. Each person’s bag had a little cellphone, and Tao Xiaodong told them to call if they needed.

The school was actually quite strict—they weren’t allowed to bring snacks or toys. Such young children needed to live at school by themselves; even parents of healthy children weren’t willing to let go of their children, let alone these children who all had vision problems. Many families requested to have their children attend as day students who would be picked up every night, but the school rejected all of them.

Blind children needed to be even more independent compared to normal children. Their visual disability could not become an obstruction to their lives. They needed to get used to their visual disability as early as they could and get used to living like a normal person in long-lasting darkness.

The parents all stayed in the control room at the entrance, not leaving. The children didn’t know. After separating from his older brother, Tao Huainan soundlessly cried, using the back of his hand to rub his eyes.

It wasn’t only him who was crying. There were over twenty little students in their classroom, and over half of them were also crying.

They were all children who had never left their homes before. At not being able to see their parents for five days, some children were crying as if the sky had collapsed.

–

Tao Huainan sat on a small stool, not daring to move. This place was too foreign to him, and he would very much panic if he kept knocking into things.

He started to softly call out for Chi Ku.

The sounds of crying overwhelmed the classroom; it was so noisy nothing could be clearly heard. Tao Huainan quietly sat there, two hands resting in his lap, and called out for Chi Ku as his tears continued to fall.

Chi Ku was sitting behind him, unable to hear anything other than the sounds of children weeping. In this environment, he was the out-of-place “different species”—Tao Xiaodong had used his connections to apply for Chi Ku and had spent a large amount of money for the school to accept Chi Ku as a temporary boarding student.

Tao Huainan didn’t know if Chi Ku didn’t want to bother with him or if he wasn’t there at all, his heart beating in panic. He had always been a very timid child.

There were a few adults in the classroom, and they fruitlessly tried in vain to soothe the children who were crying the hardest. Near the back, a little girl started to shriek after loudly crying, and her voice sharply pierced through the ears of the other blind children. Tao Huainan trembled in fear, and he hunched his shoulders, loudly crying out, “Chi Ku.”

Chi Ku finally heard him and got up to stand next to him. Tao Huainan felt there was someone next to him, and he reached out a hand, wanting to touch: “Chi Ku?”

The expressionless child didn’t understand what he wanted and hesitantly stretched out a hand. Tao Huainan found his hand and immediately grabbed it.

“Are you Chi Ku?” Tao Huainan’s cries started to grow louder. He held his hand and asked, “Why aren’t you speaking?”

After having his hand held, Chi Ku stood by the side, clearly feeling a bit strange.

Tao Huainan sobbed as he kept asking why he wasn’t speaking—one hand went to wipe away his tears, while the hand holding onto Chi Ku refused to let go. Chi Ku watched him and said: “Don’t cry.”

Tao Huainan’s heart finally steadied after hearing his voice. He was originally only slightly sobbing, and yet now he finally started to cry in earnest. He sobbed, “I’m so scared, I miss ge… I want to go home.”

Chi Ku knelt down. He didn’t know what else to say, so he repeated: “Don’t cry.” 

His voice didn’t hold much emotion. He spoke like a country-bumpkin, his accent changing the word ‘don’t’ to something closer to ‘dan’t’—he sounded very fierce.

Two rows of tears pitter-pattered down as Tao Huainan continued to hold his hand. He loudly replied, “But I’m scared…”

Originally, neither of them spoke to each other. Tao Huainan hated him, but here, he was the only person Tao Huainan was familiar with—he didn’t like how Chi Ku never spoke, hated him, and yet he didn’t dare let go of him.

This mixture of feelings was really hard to take, and Tao Huainan cried until his pair of large eyes was red and swollen.

Even though Tao Huainan wasn’t the one crying the hardest, he was one of those who were hardest to soothe. A teacher came by, whispering to him, but Tao Huainan was too scared of strangers; as long as someone came over, he’d pull at Chi Ku’s arm, wanting him to block him from others as he continuously shrunk backwards.

With one hiding and one shielding, there was no way for Tao Huainan to hear what the teacher was saying. He was so scared he shrunk into a ball, with entirely no way to communicate with others at all.

–

Little blind children filled the entire room, and they cried the entire day.

By the time it hit afternoon, two children were crying so hard the school needed to contact their parents and get them to pick them up, in case they cried themselves sick.

Tao Xiaodong watched from the control room the whole day, not leaving at all. He watched as this group of little blind children cried in the classroom in the morning, cried in their dormitory during lunch and continued crying after they returned back to their classroom in the afternoon.

Tao Huainan was actually doing well—he cried for a long time in the morning and cried only for a short while in the afternoon. He only refused to let go of Chi Ku, and it was useless no matter what the teacher said. The teacher could only place their desks and chairs together.

In the crowd of children who’d just arrived and had yet to learn anything, there were many who had still yet to learn how to walk by themselves. A large majority of them walked holding onto the railing on the wall one after another, and the remaining children who couldn’t walk at all could only be led by the teachers.

Those who couldn’t feed themselves needed to be fed; from brushing their teeth to washing their faces, everything needed someone to help.

Tao Huainan was considered very independent in this place. He could do everything by himself; he was only dependent on others simply because he was timid. The teachers were too scared to come over to talk to him, because he would get nervous as soon as he heard a stranger talk nearby. He was like a little duckling, closely following behind Chi Ku.

–

Tao Xiaodong stood in the control room until the sky turned dark. He didn’t leave until the little children were brought to the dormitory to prepare for sleep.

Tao Xiaodong actually had no idea of this little brother of his before he was born. His parents had once said they were sorry to him, that this little brother would drag him down and be a very large burden.

And yet Tao Xiaodong had never thought this way before. He was meant to have a little brother in his life, and Tao Xiaodong loved him, doted on him and wanted to give everything that was good to him.

But it was true—his heart was always full of worry and concern. 

After all, he wasn’t an ordinary child. He needed to be cared for at every moment.

–

Tao Huainan didn’t know his brother watched over him the entire day, and he sat on his little bed in the dormitory, missing home and missing his ge.

The dormitories for the lower grades all came with a granny, who helped them change clothes, clean up and fix their beds. The granny was in charge of them once they got to the dorm. Tao Huainan changed his clothes and sat cross-legged on his own bed; the head of his bed faced the head of Chi Ku’s bed, separated by two railings on the headboard. 

The granny refused to allow two children to sleep together in case one accidentally fell down overnight.

The two other children across from them needed to be coaxed, and the granny kept soothing them to sleep. Tao Huainan softly called out, “Chi Ku.”

Chi Ku had been held onto the entire day and had only been released for sleep. After a moment, Chi Ku reached out a hand across the railing.

Tao Huainan heard the sound and immediately clutched Chi Ku’s hand.