Chapter 13#

The Years of Being Idiots Together#

Neither the Chu nor the Huo family expected that sending their children to apologize to the Hou family that day would have little positive effect. Instead, it made the two bratty kids wade deeper and go further down a certain path. Ever since that time, Chu Xun had developed a sense of brotherhood with the Huo family’s second son, feeling that Huo Chuanwu was a little man, someone Commander Chu looked upon favorably, someone the Commander liked!

Since childhood, Chu Xun had a cheerful and sweet-talking temperament, but his true nature was cold and calculating. For people and things, he only went through the motions but didn’t take them to heart. Don’t look at him greeting uncles, aunties, grandpas, and grandmas in the compound all day long; in fact, this child was very proud, very steady, and secretly had his own ideas. He rarely spoke his heart to others and wouldn’t easily put anyone in his heart.

His father was transferred to another place, and he didn’t have any deeper thoughts about it, far less calculating than his mother and his eldest brother. Commander Chu was rarely at home anyway. If he was transferred, he was transferred. What did it matter? Chu Xun had been independent since childhood, finding his own fun. In class, he was Monitor Chu, directing other students. After school, back in the compound, he was Commander Chu, still directing other children. He could take care of himself and even take care of Little Jun and Bowen along the way. It was also because of this that he didn’t have much thought about his eldest brother fighting fiercely with the older children in the yard and being disciplined by Huo Chuanjun, and he didn’t hold a grudge against the Huo family children. Sometimes he felt that his brother indeed needed to be taught a lesson.

However, from the very beginning, the Huo family’s second son was different in Chu Xun’s thoughts, occupying a place in a small corner of his heart.

Chu Xun had his own bedroom at home. He started living in a room alone at the age of three, sleeping in one bed. His bed and pillowside were full of his comic books.

He used to know “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” by heart, loving “Fengyi Pavilion”, “Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage”, and “Tongue-lashing the Confucian Scholars” the most. Later, the scheming “Three Kingdoms” gradually fell out of favor with him. Recently, what he read over and over again was the set of comic books of the TV series “Water Margin” with a heroic and passionate style. He didn’t take Lu Zhishen, Lin Chong, and the like to heart, but he couldn’t put down the two books about Wu Song, “Drunkenly Beating Jiang the Door God” and “Great Battle at Feiyunpu”. Every night when he went to bed, he would turn on a small lamp and savor them repeatedly under the covers, still wanting more.

The front and back covers of those two books were worn out by his touching.

Wu Song had a bun on his head, his hair draped dashingly over his back shoulders, tall and handsome, with high martial arts skills, acting chivalrously and righteously, eliminating violence and pacifying the good. Chu Xun watched hazily under the covers, admiring in his heart. Occasionally, the image of Huo’s eldest brother dressed as Wu Song flashed through his mind; their appearance and figure seemed similar. Then, this shadow quickly changed into the ten-year-old Huo Chuanwu, with equally thick eyebrows and eyes, hard bone structure, full of heroic spirit, carrying an iron rod for beating tigers in his hand… extremely handsome.

Shao Jun once ran over to borrow this set of comic books from Chu Xun.

Chu Xun put a set of books in a paper box and gave them to Little Jun, keeping a few books for himself, not lending them all. He still had to savor them under the covers every day.

It was Shao Jun’s first time reading “Water Margin”, and he read it with great gusto, not knowing that a few books were missing. So much so that for a period of time later, Shao Jun always thought that the most powerful heroes in that story were Lu the Major, Lin the Instructor, Song the Clerk, and Chao the Heavenly King. Who was Wu Song? In some of Shao Jun’s enlightenment of consciousness, there was no such person.

That winter, Huo Chuanwu and the other boys joined the main force of the compound children soldiers and played with the Little Beijingers.

It was unclear which time was the formal “defection and submission”. Between half-grown boys, there wasn’t so much fuss and bother, no overnight grudges. Chu Xun led a group of children and hooked his finger at someone sitting alone on the parallel bars by the playground: “Hey, Huo Chuanwu.”

Chuanwu saw Chu Xun from a distance and jumped down from the parallel bars neatly.

Chuanwu asked: “Doing what?”

Chu Xun tilted his head: “We are not beating anyone. We are playing war. Are you coming?”

Chuanwu pursed his lips: “Coming.”

Compound children playing war was very formal and awesome. Everyone dug out treasures from the bottom of their chests at home: camouflage hats, military trousers, military canteens, leather holsters, field boots, and a pistol stuffed in the holster, calling themselves the “Ace Vanguard Brigade of the North China Field Army”. The wild children in the alleys outside couldn’t compare with them.

Eight people in a group, divided into two gangs, each occupying a hill, confronting each other at both ends of the position; aiming and shooting with fake guns, or throwing various weapons at each other. Being hit by a thrown object or a rubber bullet meant “death”, withdrawing from the battlefield until one group was completely wiped out.

Chu Xun was the commander of their group, always directing others to charge and break through enemy lines. He hid in the headquarters behind the vegetable station, guarding the radio station.

Others fought happily, while he squatted alone in the dark watching, secretly happy, enjoying himself.

He thought he was the smartest, but he didn’t expect that this war was different from previous ones. In the enemy’s motley army, there was someone as smart as him, and who knew Chu Xiaoer’s opportunistic routine in war best. He circled directly from behind the canteen and raided his headquarters!

Huo Chuanwu carried his gun, a leather belt around his waist, dressed in camouflage, wearing a military cap. Chuanwu sneaked into the canteen while no one was prepared, drilled out of the window, jumped down neatly, cat-walking all the way, his eyes firmly fixed on the familiar back figure giggling behind the stack of Chinese cabbages…

Chu Xun rolled two cabbage leaves into a cabbage grenade and was about to throw it at the enemy position when his wrist was grabbed by someone behind him!

Chu Xun turned his head in surprise. Chuanwu pressed down with a heaving chest, pouncing on him solidly, with an excited expression…

The two rolled into a ball. Chu Xun fell headfirst into a pile of cabbages. Because of the squeezing, the cabbage leaves under him made a sizzling water sound, almost crushed into mush by the two.

His cabbage grenade was also captured by the opponent. Chuanwu pinned him down, holding the grenade high. At this time, he should have thrown Chu Xun out of the game, but his hand paused, reluctant to smash the dirty, muddy, rotten cabbage leaves onto Chu Xun’s face.

Chu Xun lay in the cabbage pile, raising his hands in surrender. As a captured general, he questioned righteously: “How did you get here? Who approved you to take the shortcut?”

Chuanwu shrugged proudly: “I came down from the canteen window.”

Chu Xun didn’t even blink: “You can’t go through the canteen.”

Chuanwu: “Why can’t I go?”

Chu Xun: “The canteen is our territory, the rear revolutionary base of our brigade. The canteen is full of our people in ambush! You can’t take this road. You would have been shot by the people in the base long ago! You are already dead, so you can’t catch me anymore!”

Chu Xun’s combat value in one-on-one fights wasn’t good, but his mouth was sharp, his brain flexible, reasonable even without reason.

Chuanwu didn’t care about that set. Humph, anyway, Master Huo captured you alive. I’m riding on you, tie you up, capture you!

He rode on Chu Xun, pinned him down, took out a pistol, and gestured on Chu Xun’s forehead: Bang!

Chuanwu’s expression was cool, his tone proud: “You were killed in action.”

After fighting in the afternoon, the compound kids had their wins and losses, rolling in dirt, still wanting more. In the evening, they formed groups of three or five and went to the vegetable station to steal vegetables.

The activity of stealing vegetables has a long history, especially prevalent during the difficult times of the 60s and 70s. Back then, supplies were scarce, life was monotonous, and society was turbulent. Children were idle anyway, so they went out to steal all day long. They stole vegetables, fruits, and definitely military canned food. They dared to steal iron parts and steel pipes from construction sites, and sold them for money after stealing.

Of course, life in the military camp compound was countless times better than outside. Even in the three years of natural disasters, children from military compounds never knew what hunger tasted like, never knew that people could starve to death in Beijing. Therefore, the compound children’s enthusiasm for stealing vegetables and fruits was due to the symbolic significance of this matter in childhood memories.

Chu Xun and several companions crawled to the vicinity of the vegetable station and lay in ambush properly.

This place was their compound’s self-sufficient vegetable supply station. Living conditions in the 80s were much better; were military children short of a bite of vegetables? What everyone stole was the process, the fun of being mischievous. The tomato bombs they took for fights were also stolen from the vegetable station.

Shen Bowen was impetuous and impatient, taking the lead to sneak into the warehouse storing vegetables through a small door.

Shao Jun was about to follow when Chu Xun pulled him back: “Don’t go.”

Chuanwu whispered: “You hide in the back during fights, and hide when stealing vegetables and chickens. Can you steal a chicken feather by hiding?”

Chu Xun glared at Chuanwu: “What do you know? There are people over there.”

Chuanwu asked: “Where are people?”

Chu Xun gestured with his chin: “Just over there, there are people inside.”

Shao Jun said: “Then you don’t pull Bowen back?”

Chu Xun said indifferently: “Just won’t pull him, let him help us lure the people away.”

Chuanwu frowned at Chu Xiaoer, suddenly realizing that this kid was simply too scheming, too bad. He couldn’t help reaching out and flicking a heavy finger on Chu Xun’s head, “Look at you being so smug, you bad thing.”

Chu Xun covered his head, turned his face to glare at Chuanwu, and pouted.

Chuanwu subconsciously reached out and rubbed Chu Xun’s head again. Chu Xun’s hair was fine and soft, dark brown and slightly curly, looking quite different from other children. Even his skull was soft; a flick could make a small dent.

In the pitch-black night, a huge vegetable station warehouse shed. The warehouse had stored vegetables for winter, and the greenhouse was planted with warmth-loving vegetable seedlings, allowing compound families to eat tomatoes, flat beans, eggplants, and cucumbers in winter that ordinary people couldn’t eat. The whole house was lit by only two ever-burning lamps, the light dim and looking quite scary.

Chu Xun looked at the two flickering lights in the wind from a distance, like a fortune teller, squinting and pointing with his hand: “There are people in this room, no one in that room. Let’s go that way.”

Other children really listened to him, feeling that what Chu Xun said was accurate every time. Following the path he said, they could successfully steal vegetables every time.

In the dark with flickering tree shadows, separated by a thick brick wall and blurred glass windows, how did Chu Xun see which room had people and which didn’t?

He didn’t understand at that time how he saw it. He didn’t even know that he could see things that other children of the same age couldn’t see at all. Looking over, the cross-sectional view of the whole house and the simple internal furnishings slowly emerged before his eyes with a sense of layers. He couldn’t see too clearly, but it was easy to perceive which room had living people.

A shout came from the room over there: “Hey! Which little bastard?! …What are you taking!”

Shen Bowen was indeed caught, running away as fast as he could.

Chu Xun directed two accomplices to steal vegetables on the other side. He had been a technical worker since childhood, using his brain to come up with ideas, disdainful of touching rough and tiring work.

Huo Chuanwu ran back excitedly with a thin layer of sweat on his face and neck, showing the good stuff in his canvas bag to Chu Xun, “Here, for you.”

Chu Xun took a look and reached out to pinch Chuanwu’s face: “Really, what are you doing taking eggplants and potatoes? Those things can’t be eaten raw. Taking them back for your mom to cook?”

Chuanwu: “…”

Chu Xun glanced with his eyes: “Look how smart Little Jun is, taking cucumbers and tomatoes!”

Chuanwu said “Oh”, turned around and went back to change.

Chu Xun lowered his voice and directed from behind: “Cucumbers are delicious, get me a few more cucumbers!!!!!”

…

There is a saying that no matter how many awesome times each person has, they can’t compare to the years when a group of bratty kids were idiots together. This was the happiest and most innocent boyhood in Chu Xun’s memory.

Later, Shen Bowen complained to his buddies in private about this matter.

Shen Bowen said: “Little Xun is too unfair. He wanted to make a feint to the east and attack in the west, luring the tiger out of the mountain. Why didn’t he send Huo Chuanwu out? I was hit by someone with a folding stool!”

Shao Jun said: “Huo Xiaoer runs fast. He got a lot of things for Little Xun, and a bag of canned food.”

“We hid in a place later and ate canned food.”

Luncheon meat, Shanghai Maling brand, a time-honored brand. If it was canned food properly stored at home, this group of children wouldn’t care to eat it. They only ate what was stolen; stolen food tasted the best.

Chu Xun gnawed on the big cucumber Chuanwu stole for him, cucumber with luncheon meat, eating a supper happily, becoming another layer closer with Chuanwu.

The two teenagers got along famously in private, playing with loyalty, but it didn’t thaw the relationship between the two families.

Commander Chu accidentally met Commander Huo in the family compound once. Seeing him from a distance, he darkened his face at the same time, lowered his eyes, and remained silent. When they got close, they nodded to each other, having nothing to say.

The Huo family had been in the compound for a long time, and some people saw the clues. Some old miscellaneous past events gradually spread. The family compound was relatively closed; everyone knew everyone. Gossipy women with loose tongues could dig out eight generations of ancestors. The affairs of the two families spread in the blink of an eye, almost known to everyone in the compound. Even the little soldiers standing guard at the gate knew it. The soldiers of the guard company talked about it when they gathered at a table in the canteen to eat big steamed buns.

Everyone spread the word: You don’t know yet, right? It turns out that those two commanders had such a thing back then…

Commander Huo took Commander Chu’s position this time, squeezing Commander Chu to another place. The higher-ups didn’t know how to schedule it, knowing clearly that the two had long been at odds.

When Commander Huo was still Regiment Commander Huo back then, in Xinjiang, it was said that he snatched Regiment Commander Chu’s woman. Two men fighting for one woman, fighting inextricably, don’t mention how lively it was.

Old love gossip, added with various seasonings from the rich association and fabrication of the masses, slowly lost its original flavor. What was circulated was long not the truth of that year.

Chu Xun and Chuanwu often walked home together after school. Once they were provoked by older children in the yard.

Someone squeezed them with ill intentions: “Oh, the brothers are really tight, huh?”

“Chu Xun, your former little girlfriend, the propaganda committee member of your class, Zhao Lihong, didn’t she always run after your butt?”

Chu Xun frowned: “Who is the little girlfriend?”

The other party teased endlessly: “Why did Zhao Lihong dump you recently, not following you anymore, snatched away by Little Huo?”

Zhao Lihong was also a child of the compound family, Chu Xun’s classmate. She did like Chu Xun before, a bit of admiration between children. Once at school, Zhao Lihong accidentally broke a long fluorescent tube on the ceiling while cleaning in the class. As a student cadre, she was very scared, afraid the teacher would scold her. She took money to buy a new tube from the compound service agency, wanting to install it back secretly, but didn’t know how.

Chu Xun didn’t know how to install it either. Who knew how to install a fluorescent tube? At that time, Huo Chuanwu stood up and said, I can install it.

Huo Chuanwu stood on the desk, not high enough, so he stacked a chair on the desk, stood on the chair, his head touching the ceiling, with a dark crowd of heads below helping him hold it.

Huo Chuanwu bit his lip, his two sword eyebrows slightly furrowed. When working, his gaze was focused and his hands and feet were agile, silent and neat. A focused and capable man was actually most attractive to girls. From that time on, Student Zhao looked at Huo Xiaoer with new eyes, her maiden heart shifting target instantly, beginning to admire Student Huo…

Chu Xun lowered his eyes, showing no expression, and snorted: “She is not my girlfriend. Whoever loves to be with her can go ahead.”

Huo Chuanwu rarely spoke a sentence, saying to that guy: “I didn’t snatch Chu Xun’s friend.”

That older child meant something else: “Tch, your dad snatched Chu Xun’s dad’s lover back then, didn’t get married, right? Your family just likes to snatch their family’s…”

Huo Chuanwu stood still, his face suddenly cold, not someone to be trifled with either: “What are you doing? Is there an end to this? …Get lost.”

The other party wanted to provoke more, but Chu Yu came out of the building door, happened to hear it, and immediately got angry, cursing: “Motherfucker, what are you saying? Dare you say another word?”

Chu Yu was very fierce, scolding the gossiper away in a few sentences, “Don’t fucking talk nonsense in the yard in the future. Dare to say another word about my dad, dare to say another word about my brother, I’ll beat you to death!”

After cursing, Chu Yu pulled his brother, “Xun’er, go home with me.”

“Don’t always be with that kid in the future, letting people talk about you. Are you stupid?”

Chu Yu turned his head and glared at Huo Chuanwu angrily, his eyes containing deterrence, pointing a finger: Don’t come to provoke my brother…

Chu Xun was pulled away by his brother. Before leaving, he turned his head and gave Huo Chuanwu a small wink: It’s okay. After dinner tonight, see you at the old place. Wait for me…