Chapter 14#

Handsome Guy Huo Chuanwu#

At Chu Xun and Chuanwu’s age, they were not interested in the old stories of love and lust between adults, nor could they understand them to a deep extent. What does it mean your dad snatched my dad’s lover? Your dad’s lover now is clearly your mom, and my dad’s wife is my mom. Who is hindering whom from living their life? What are you adults making a fuss about?

Besides, Chu Xun thought, Zhao Lihong is not my little girlfriend. There are so many girls in school who like the Second Master. Every one of them is my girlfriend. The Master still has to pick and choose!

Zhao Lihong shouldn’t be Huo Chuanwu’s girlfriend either.

Is she?

Could Chuanwu like that girl?

Absolutely impossible.

Therefore, some things only increased the embarrassment when the adults of both sides met, but did not affect the pure brotherhood between Chu Xun and Huo Xiaoer at that time. This kind of friendship and loyalty was clear and unadulterated. Sometimes it would even become stronger because of the secret interference and opposition of adults, having quite a bit of the fun of secret dealings and private giving…

After finishing his meal, Chu Xun grabbed two bottles of soda from the refrigerator and ran out with his head down without a word, “Mom, I’m going out to play.”

Chu Xun’s mom poked her head out and called him to stop: “Who are you going to play with?”

Chu Xun mumbled vaguely: “Just playing with them, Jun’er and Bowen.”

Chu Xun’s mom looked her son up and down: “Playing with Jun-jun and Bowen, you just take two bottles of soda. Who are you giving them to drink?”

Chu Xun silently: “…Took one less.”

He turned his face and went to the refrigerator to get another one, three bottles… Three bottles were not right either, then he had to take four bottles.

But he couldn’t carry four bottles; he didn’t have four hands.

In a fit of pique, Chu Xun simply took only one bottle: “I’ll just drink it myself.”

Chu Xun’s mom was shrewd. She didn’t talk nonsense, looking at her son’s back running out impatiently, shaking her head, helpless.

How old is the child, yet he has so many thoughts. He doesn’t like to report anything to adults, secretly having his own ideas. Saying not to let you play with Huo Xiaoer, you insist on sticking with him, tight as two weights on a scale. And the saying goes that girls are “outgoing” (turn to outsiders), how come this boy in our family is also “outgoing”? Any good things at home can’t be hidden or kept, he will definitely move them out, happily bringing them to others. Food, drink, toys, daily necessities, there is nothing our son doesn’t rake out. So generous!

Chu Xun’s mom wasn’t a stingy person, but had a generous and pungent temper. She didn’t have a dislike for the kid Huo Chuanwu, just that some things had been buried in her heart for so many years, melancholy and fed up. Plus, being provoked by a group of gossipy women in the compound made her feel very uncomfortable.

The “outgoing” boy was not only Chu Xun. Over in the Huo family’s house, Huo Chuanwu rolled up three big pancakes, put them in a food bag, and sneaked out.

Chuanwu’s mom called him to stop: “Come back, what are you doing?”

Huo Chuanwu lowered his head chewing the pancake, mumbling, “Going out to play.”

Chuanwu’s mom: “Can you finish three big pancakes?”

Huo Chuanwu had already rushed downstairs. He liked his mom’s cooking the most, especially pancakes rolled with green onions and meat sauce. It was so fragrant. Such delicious food must be shared with Chu Xun.

Chuanwu’s mom poked her head out and looked at her son’s back, watching coldly, thinking, you silly boy, are people willing to play with you? Are they really tight with you? You are rushing to pour your heart out to others…

The two sat on a pile of bricks behind the canteen.

Chu Xun only brought one bottle of soda and handed it to Chuanwu.

Chuanwu held half a pancake in his mouth and handed the bag of pancakes in his arms to Chu Xun.

Chu Xun smelled it and pfft: “Fuck, what smell, green onions?!”

Chuanwu chewed in his mouth: “It’s delicious.”

Chu Xun covered his nose, frowned, with a look of disgust: “I hate eating onions, ginger, and garlic the most, and it’s raw onions and raw garlic. It stinks to death. Don’t come near me.”

Chuanwu was baffled, glancing sideways at this person, as if looking at a little monster: “Raw green onions and garlic are the most fragrant, you bumpkin.”

Chu Xun glared: “I’m a bumpkin?!”

The two had incompatible appetites. Chu Xun had been a picky and exquisite eater since childhood, while Chuanwu ate roughly and boldly. Shandong people’s cooking emphasized big fish, big meat, big steamed buns, and big stuffed buns, and everything was made bigger than elsewhere, very honest.

Chu Xun saw this person eating with great relish, and later couldn’t help pinching his nose to taste a piece. Took a bite, stunned, and took another bite…

This thing was like stinky tofu. It smelled very pungent, but tasted more fragrant the more you ate. The paper-thin multigrain pancake, sandwiched with white and green onions, and fragrant pork sauce.

The two chatted sporadically.

Chu Xun started the topic: “They all say your dad snatched my dad’s girlfriend before. Is it true or false?”

Chuanwu wiped his mouth, silent for a long while, and said: “Bullshit. My dad is not that kind of person, won’t snatch your family’s people.”

Chu Xun thought for a while: “I also feel your dad doesn’t look like that kind of person, looks quite decent.”

Chuanwu nodded: “We don’t do that. In our place, we arrange baby betrothals since childhood, wives arranged since childhood.”

Hearing this, Chu Xun narrowed his eyes and probed: “What about you? Did you have a baby betrothal?”

Chuanwu’s mouth slowly raised into a smile, smiling without answering.

“Fuck…”

“Still fucking hiding it.”

“Did you have one or not?”

Chu Xun pounced on him, grabbed Huo Chuanwu’s collar, pinched his face, and interrogated: “Do you already have a little wife!”

Huo Chuanwu couldn’t stand being pinched by this person, laughed, his voice deep: “Heard my mom say, the family has matched one.”

Chu Xun was stunned for a moment at that time.

Don’t know why, his heart suddenly felt empty, a strong sense of loss, an uncontrollable falling sensation, all enthusiasm dissipated. Maybe because Chuanwu had something he didn’t have? Or because of something else…

Of course, he didn’t know yet that the Huo family was not an ordinary family either. The two young masters of the Huo family had long been eyed by many families with daughters.

Chu Xun let go, looked away, pretending to be nonchalant: “Is the little wife pretty?”

Huo Chuanwu told the truth: “I haven’t even seen what she looks like.”

Chu Xun felt very unhappy in his heart, simply annoyed to death: “You dare to get engaged without seeing her? Even if she’s blind, crippled, or ugly, you want her too?”

“You get engaged to a little wife, you also have to look at her appearance first. If she’s good-looking and you like her, then you get engaged, bumpkin…”

Chu Xun was unhappy, with a cold face, spitting out a sentence: “Can she be as good-looking as me?”

Huo Chuanwu originally had no feeling about marrying a wife, thinking, definitely not as good-looking as you, Little Xun. You look like a big doll in a New Year picture. Who else can be as good-looking as you?

When Chu Xun went home that night, carrying a smell of green onions all over his mouth and body, the whole family could smell who he went to “date” secretly with their noses.

Chu Xun pouted, a little unhappy, pondering in his heart that Huo Chuanwu, that guy who acts cool, already has a little wife hidden in his hometown… The Commander doesn’t have a partner yet, how dare you, Little Vanguard Huo, have one first?

Winter went and spring came, turning from spring to summer. The parasol trees outside the compound wall shook their broad branches and leaves. The positions of the two armies between the sand pile and the cabbage stack at the vegetable station changed hands countless times. Bags of luncheon meat cans from the canteen were stolen one after another. The parallel bars by the playground were covered with the spirited marks of teenagers, the bars polished to a shining rust by palms and shoe soles.

At the entrance of the canteen in the evening, a group of children finished dinner and ran out waving enamel rice bowls.

Wang Xinxin and a few others wore rice bowls on their heads, running in circles in the open space, singing loudly, “We are pests, we are pests!”

Shen Bowen charged out from behind a big tree, holding up tableware high, “The righteous Lai Fu Ling (pesticide), the righteous Lai Fu Ling, must kill the pests! Kill! Kill…”

This song had to be sung once in the open space of the compound every night. If it wasn’t sung one day, the adults would definitely feel something was missing. Did the children turn artistic?

Wang Xinxin ran with his head down and bumped into an adult’s arms.

He looked up and saw it was Huo Yunshan.

Commander Huo, who was “very decent” in Chu Xun’s eyes, had a majestic face. It was rumored that he also had a bad temper and was difficult to deal with. The little soldiers in the yard had all been scolded and were afraid of him.

Wang Xinxin hurriedly turned his head to run away, but after two steps felt it was wrong and impolite. He stopped, bowed and scraped, and called in a low voice: “Dada.”

The local way of calling: those younger than one’s own father are called Uncle; those visually older than one’s own father are called Dada.

Commander Huo kept a straight face, but there was a smile in his eyes. He asked in a deep voice: “The pest got beaten?”

Commander Huo extended his thick big palm and rubbed the little rascal’s head.

Wang Xinxin laughed embarrassedly.

Commander Huo glanced at the things in Wang Xinxin’s shirt pocket and asked: “Collecting this for fun?”

“I’ll help you collect a few.”

Commander Huo took out a few empty bullet casings from his military uniform pocket. The casings had a beautiful copper shine. These were the little gadgets children liked to collect most, showing off to each other who collected more.

The man had walked away before Wang Xinxin realized it, and gave a startled military salute from a distance: “Thank you, Dada!”

After the enthusiasm for rumors and gossip passed, everyone found out after getting along for a long time that the old man of the Huo family actually didn’t have such a bad temper. Commander Huo was a powder keg storing black powder, but don’t light that fuse. If you don’t provoke him, he is very kind to children.

Of course, if someone really poked Commander Huo’s explosion point, when this person lost his temper, Commander Huo’s majestic cursing voice mixed with hoarse cracking sounds from his vocal cords could be heard in the compound next door two miles away. The guards who deserted, the logistics soldiers who were lazy and didn’t complete tasks, and the young soldiers with poor training results had all been scolded by him.

Huo Yunshan scolded people regardless of distance or closeness. If close people provoked him, he would scold them too.

Once he scolded his eldest son Huo Chuanjun in the compound because Huo Chuanjun’s hair was too long, looking like he had a bad lifestyle.

“Motherfucker, keeping such long hair, you look like a long-haired thief. Think you look good?!”

Huo Yunshan pointed at a tuft of hair on his son’s forehead and cursed angrily.

Huo Chuanjun was scolded and didn’t dare to utter a word in front of his dad. Later, he went out the next day and shaved all his hair off, shaving into a bald head.

Several heads suddenly poked out from the upstairs window, watching from above.

Chu Xun lay on the window watching, talking to himself: “Er Wu’s dad is exactly the same as our dad. He also likes to say those words, just the words our dad says to our mom.”

His brother listened in the room, laughing with a bit of wretched secrecy: “Men, they all like that. Fuck the enemy on the battlefield, go home and fuck their own wives on the kang.”

Chu Xun felt that what his brother said was not good words.

Chu Yu imagined Commander Huo’s wife and said disdainfully: “Really, being a soldier for a year, an old sow looks like Diao Chan.”

Actually, Commander Huo’s wife wasn’t ugly, just an ordinary person, but Chu Yu had a poisonous mouth.

Chu Yu glanced at the window and saw a tall and thin figure passing through the compound carrying a schoolbag. He said puzzledly: “Oh my, that kid, just that one, has only been in our yard for a year, mixing more and more like a human, and fucking handsome.”

The kid who was “quite handsome” in Chu Yu’s mouth was Huo Chuanwu.

Chuanwu had been in the compound for a year, and visibly his height shot up, taller than children of the same age, with a tall and straight figure and a broad frame.

Every year on their birthdays, the children would go under the thickest utility pole in the corner of the compound wall to measure their height and carve a deep line on the wooden pole; carving one line every year, recording the marks of growth year after year. That piece of wood was scratched into strips and marked with everyone’s name. There was a strip of carved lines marked “Xun”, a string for “Jun”, and a string for “Wen”.

After Chuanwu came, he also left his mark on the utility pole. He grew faster than the other three children.

Of course, the most important thing was that Huo’s second son dressed much more fashionably than before, quickly moving closer to the style of the most iconic and fashionable young boys in the city back then. To be handsome, one absolutely cannot be rustic. This is a truth everywhere. Huo Chuanwu had a good foundation of features and figure. Once he shed the rustic temperament, he visibly became the most eye-catching and handsome boy in the compound.

Chuanwu didn’t get a fake suit and vest to wear like Chu Xun. Commander Huo’s family wasn’t that particular and didn’t order custom suits for children.

Chuanwu went to and from school every day wearing a white T-shirt on the upper body, dark blue jeans on the lower body, a leather belt tied around his narrow waist, and a pair of very dashing cloth shoes. The two thighs of the jeans were worn out to a whitish old look, and a hole with frayed edges was deliberately cut on the knee. This child was tall and long-legged, looking better in jeans than ordinary people. The waistband hung loosely on his hips, and the trouser legs bunched up on the vamp. The way he walked silently was very stylish.

In the late 1980s, the craze for cultural shirts began to become popular. Young people all wore white T-shirts with words, pouring out their life creeds with flamboyant and straightforward words, venting their spiritual restlessness.

They say clothes make the man. The cultural shirt Huo Chuanwu often wore had Chairman Mao’s head printed on it. Shao Jun wore the football king Maradona who overcame all obstacles on the green field. The one Chu Xun often wore had “I eat the apple, you eat the skin” written on the chest. Shen Bowen gloomily had “People are kind, but always suffer losses” written on his chest.

Someone’s accent also changed a lot, speaking Mandarin at school. Moreover, Chuanwu intentionally or unintentionally imitated Chu Xun’s tone, completely subconsciously, feeling that Chu Xun and the others spoke very excitingly. Words like “Fuck”, “Get lost”, “Your uncle’s grandmother”, “Go play”, children learned these words the fastest.

What about Chu Xun?

Once, the eldest son of the Chu family ran into his brother’s room to look for something, rummaging on Chu Xun’s bed wearing smelly sneakers.

Chu Xun saw it at the door, unhappy, and blurted out: “What are you doing!” (in Shandong accent)

Chu Yu almost spat out a mouthful of saliva, finding it very funny: “You, you, you, what did you say just now?”

Chu Xun: “…”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Chu Xun mumbled.

Chu Yu stared at his brother incredulously: “Oh my god, fuck, how did you learn from that Little Shandong in the next building!”

Chu Xun’s face became unnatural: “…I didn’t learn from him.”

In school and in the compound, girls began to pay attention to Huo Chuanwu because Little Shandong was handsome, and the guy was really cool.

Classmate girls stuffed small notes into Chuanwu’s pencil case, schoolbag, and desk drawer, writing love letters to him, asking him out.

Groups of two or three girls stopped him on the way home from school, asking this and that.

When the “Gang of Four” rode their bikes out for a spin, girls began to join their team, swaying in front of the brothers like peacocks spreading their tails, showing off their figures.

There were also older girls from society, female hooligans, and alley roamers, standing under the tree pit at the gate of the compound, calling out to Huo Chuanwu: “Hey, student, what’s your name?”

Chuanwu glanced at them and ignored them.

The girl said: “You come here! Asking you, let’s get to know each other.”

Chuanwu hummed a sentence: “Don’t know you.”

The girl laughed: “Kid, looking quite handsome. Going to the video hall to watch a good movie on the weekend, are you going?”

Chuanwu rolled his eyelids lightly: “Going, but not with you.”

For a few short years, the social atmosphere in the capital was extremely open, even more open than later in the 90s. Boys stopped girls on the street, and girls dared to stop boys on the street too. Liking, confessing, dating, making love, nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing dared not do. After twenty years of repression in the Cultural Revolution, passion exploded, restlessness hard to suppress, fiery youth.

Huo’s young master was later pestered by girls a bit too much, and even changed the cultural shirt on his body.

Three big characters on the chest: Don’t bother me.

Three big characters on the back: Annoyed!

Once, Chu Xun sat on the sand pile basking in the sun with the handsome guy, and dug out a love letter from the other’s schoolbag.

Chu Xun read it with great interest, had an idea in his heart, but deliberately probed with his mouth: “I said so, Zhao Lihong in our class just likes you.”

Chuanwu didn’t care: “I don’t like her.”

Chu Xun: “She asked you to go to the small auditorium to watch a movie on the weekend. Are you going?”

Chuanwu: “Didn’t we agree to go swimming together on the weekend?”

Chu Xun smiled, his heart warm, tilting his head, his face filled with the brilliant setting sun: “Quite a buddy.”

Chuanwu’s mouth hooked into a handsome arc: “Of course.”

Chuanwu crumpled the love letter and threw it away casually, not taking it seriously.

Chu Xun quietly picked up the love letter, calculated a bit, and then imitated Chuanwu’s tone to write a reply for this person, and it was a clearly worded rejection letter. The next day, he secretly stuffed it into Zhao Lihong’s schoolbag…

Chu Xun just ghostwrote and rejected the girl for Huo Chuanwu, regardless of what Chuanwu thought. The Second Master didn’t like it, and the Master had such a domineering temper, so what?

His Little Shandong was not quite the same as when he first came to the compound.

At that time, Chuanwu needed him to cover, protect, and take him to play; but now, this kid was fucking getting slicker and handsomer, so handsome that he was about to alarm the Party Central Committee, overturn Zhongnanhai, and anger the Master to death.

From a certain moment, a faint uncontrollable possessiveness and strong desire for control grew in the bottom of his heart. Er Wu was his close buddy. He liked this person. He hated the girls swaying around Huo Chuanwu. He was even unhappy with the legendary baby betrothal little wife whom he had never met and Er Wu hadn’t seen either…

Huo Chuanwu was not allowed to go home in the future, not allowed to take a step out of Beijing, don’t go to see the little wife. That was what Chu Xun thought at that time.