The Republic of China: I, Xiangzi, a Hero in a Chaotic Era

He shrugged, giving a helpless look.

"Everyone has their own jobs and families to support. How could they possibly drop everything to search the world for you for nothing? Running errands and making inquiries all cost money and bribes, don't they?"

"Expecting the government to pay for this? That's unlikely."

"My life... my son..."

Wang Xiue murmured the word repeatedly, her eyes completely unfocused.

Zhang Kui's last few words about "spending money to bribe officials" and "the government not caring" were like the last straw that broke the camel's back.

She let out a short, choked sob, her eyes rolled upwards, and her body fell straight backward.

"mother!"

Xiao Fuzi was terrified and rushed over to hold her mother's limp body tightly, preventing her from falling to the ground.

Wang Xiue's eyes were closed, her face was ashen, and she had already fainted, with only her chest rising and falling weakly.

The small reception room was deathly silent.

Zhang Kui looked at the unconscious Wang Xiue and Xiao Fuzi, who was clinging to her mother, her face filled with panic and despair, like a frightened bird, and remained silent for a moment. He walked to the table, picked up his enamel mug, poured half a cup of warm water, and handed it to Xiao Fuzi.

"Xiao Fuzi,"

His voice lowered, carrying a deliberately crafted, warm tone of a fellow villager.

"Give your mother some water first, so she can catch her breath."

Xiao Fuzi took the cup with trembling hands and carefully moistened her mother's chapped lips.

Wang Xiue showed no reaction.

Zhang Kui looked at Xiao Fuzi's pale and thin profile, sighed, and spoke with the comforting tone of someone who had been through it all:

"Given the current situation, the chances of finding your two younger brothers are indeed slim."

"Just accept your fate in this world. Right now, you need to take care of your mother first. If anything happens to her, you'll truly be all alone."

He paused, looking into Xiao Fuzi's tear-filled, bewildered and helpless eyes, then changed the subject, adding a touch of warmth.

"In the future... if you encounter any insurmountable difficulties, if your family is starving, or if someone bullies you and your child, come to the station to find me."

"Since we're all old neighbors of Maojiawan, I'll definitely lend a hand if I can."

Xiao Fuzi held her unconscious mother, her body trembling slightly.

She looked up through her tear-filled eyes at Zhang Kui's face, which appeared unusually "kind" at that moment.

The care in those words brought a touch of warmth to Xiao Fuzi, who was in dire straits.

Two days later, in the southern part of the capital, a low and messy slum spread like a huge sore along the base of the city wall.

The bleak afternoon sun of winter struggled to squeeze through the crooked gaps in the sheds, casting fragmented patches of light on the muddy, icy ground.

The air was filled with a heavy, pungent mixture of smells—the sulfurous odor of burning low-quality coal, the stench of frozen filth, and a faint smell of decay, all of which clung heavily to the narrow alleyway, barely wide enough for one person to pass sideways, pressing down on every life huddled there.

One of the shacks looked like a haphazardly cobbled-together pile of discarded items. Several rotten ship planks, salvaged from who-knows-where, leaned precariously on its side, while the roof was haphazardly covered with tarpaulin and layers of tattered straw mats, long since soaked black by wind, frost, rain, and snow, and now heavy and collapsed.

The cold wind howled in through countless cracks and holes, stirring up the scattered bits of dry grass on the ground.

In one corner of the shack, a rough earthenware bowl with a chipped edge lay upside down, next to several pieces of charcoal ash that had long since been extinguished and frozen solid.

The entire space was dark, damp, and cold, with the only light source being the grayish-white daylight filtering through a tattered burlap curtain at the entrance, its corner lifted by the wind.

In that deepest corner, a blurry shadow writhed slightly in the hay.

Only upon closer inspection can one discern that it is a human figure curled up in a ball.

Several crude wooden sticks of varying thickness, still covered in bark, were tightly bound to one leg with strips of stained, grayish-black cloth. The binding was rough and careless, clearly not the work of a doctor.

The leg, secured by the wooden stick, was twisted at an extremely unnatural angle from the knee down, so swollen that it almost burst through the equally filthy and tattered trouser leg. Where the fabric was taut, the outline of purplish-black bruises could even be vaguely seen under the skin.

That was his right leg; it was broken at the knee.

This man was Zhao San.

The rickshaw puller who once rode a brand-new rickshaw in front of the Xisi North Police Station, secretly overjoyed at having successfully ripped off Liu Jiaxiang, a newcomer, for a silver dollar, and whose steps were light as a feather.

At this moment, he was curled up in a musty haystack, like a wild dog whose spine had been completely broken.

His tattered cotton-padded coat was so worn that its original color was no longer visible. The cotton had burrowed out from countless holes, forming dirty, hard clumps, offering no protection against the bone-chilling cold of the shack.

His sallow face was deeply sunken, his cheekbones were high and prominent, and his lips were dry, cracked, and curled up, with traces of blood seeping out.

His cloudy eyes were set in bloodshot sockets, staring blankly at a drafty crack in the roof of the shack, beyond which lay a hazy sky.

Every slight movement aggravated the injury on his leg, causing a fine layer of cold sweat to instantly appear on his sallow face. He clenched his teeth, and a suppressed, hissing sound, like a broken bellows, escaped his throat. His body trembled violently uncontrollably.

The wound was not only throbbing with intense pain, but also a persistent, burning dull ache, accompanied by a faint, nauseating stench of decay—a sign that the wound was beginning to fester due to the rudimentary treatment.

Zhao San's current predicament is naturally the work of Liu Siye, the owner of the car factory.

Because Zhao San overcharged customers, Liu Siye was extorted by Liu Jiaxiang. He spent nearly a thousand silver dollars to buy a house, redeem his car, and pay a fine.

In those days, many people were willing to risk their lives for a few dozen silver dollars, and a thousand silver dollars was definitely a huge sum of money.

Because Zhao San was blind to Liu Jiaxiang's true worth, Liu Siye was ripped off by Liu Jiaxiang. Naturally, Liu Siye was powerless against Liu Jiaxiang, and Zhao San, as a low-level rickshaw puller, naturally became Liu Siye's punching bag.

In addition, Master Liu was also worried that if he didn't deal with Zhao San properly, Liu Jiaxiang would find a reason to extort him again.

So Master Liu hired some thugs and broke Zhao San's right leg. Master Liu also arranged for Zhao San's wife and children to be sold by human traffickers.

If it weren't for the fear of someone dying and causing too much trouble, Master Liu wouldn't have spared Zhao San's life.

However, at this time, Zhao San had lost his wife and children, his home, and as a rickshaw puller, even his leg was broken. He had lost all means of survival. If nothing unexpected happened, what awaited him was to die silently in this shack on a freezing cold night, just like the death of an insignificant ant.