The Obligations of the Elderly - Chapter 10

“Children’s urine isn’t dirty.”

“Ah Ji didn’t do it on purpose.”

…

Sitting on the chair nearby, Gong Si apologized to Xi Liu without much sincerity.

The two brothers both glanced sideways at the top of Xi Liu’s head-one pair of eyes full of innocence, the other barely holding back laughter.

“Alright~ I’ll buy you another set of clothes, okay?” Gong Si offered his greatest sincerity: for someone who might not buy a new outfit in a whole year, this was definitely a big deal!

They were currently at the town’s hair salon, getting their hair washed.

Xi Liu had gotten their head soaked in Ah Ji’s urine, and was completely frozen at the time. By the time they came to their senses again, they were already sitting in a (cheap) hair salon receiving a wash and blow-dry.

Letting the hairdresser blow-dry their hair, Xi Liu looked at Gong Si through the mirror cautiously. “I want to pick the clothes myself. I don’t want the kind you’re wearing.”

All basic styles, with no sense of matching.

“…Do I really dress that badly?” Gong Si muttered through his teeth, then shrugged. “Fine, but we have to wait until we find Qiu Xia and get your card before buying.”

There’s a 40% discount~

Xi Liu: “…”

After that, Xi Liu absolutely refused to let Gong Si hold Ah Ji again.

After confirming Qiu Xia’s location by phone, Gong Si carried Ah Ji and went with Xi Liu to meet up. The place wasn’t far; just a short walk down the street.

According to Dong Chun, he and Qiu Xia were at the supermarket, and Qiu Xia was already at the checkout. Dong Chun had agreed not to leave after paying, so Gong Si figured he could help carry things when he got there.

Uh, you might say, wasn’t Gong Si carrying Ah Ji and didn’t have a free hand? No problem-wasn’t Xi Liu standing right next to him?

Having always been the boss, Gong Si was used to assigning tasks to people.

But he didn’t assign tasks to just anyone; if you could get a job from him, it meant you were close enough. Otherwise, Gong Si was the type who would rather exhaust himself than ask for help.

The supermarket’s automatic doors opened, and as soon as Gong Si reached the entrance, he saw Dong Chun waving his skinny arm at him. At Dong Chun’s feet were four large bags, clearly what they had bought.

Gong Si walked over, looked around, and asked, “Where’s your second brother? Why are you here alone?”

“Second brother said he forgot something and went back to line up again.” Dong Chun pointed toward the checkout, then lowered his voice to gossip to his big brother: “He must have gone to buy underwear. I saw you wrote underwear on the shopping list; I reminded him to buy it but he just wouldn’t. See, turns out he went to buy it secretly.”

Gong Si: No need to ask. With Dong Chun’s loud voice, he must have reminded Qiu Xia to buy underwear right in the middle of the crowd. With Qiu Xia’s thin skin, how could he possibly buy it at a time like that?

Gong Si looked sympathetically toward the checkout area.

He was just glancing casually, but unexpectedly, he really did spot Qiu Xia.

Qiu Xia stood out in the crowd.

Even though he was just wearing a random T-shirt and jeans bought from the supermarket, and wasn’t particularly tall since he was still growing, Qiu Xia had great proportions and looked even better. Looking around, plenty of people were secretly checking him out.

A surge of pride welled up in Gong Si’s heart~

Look! This is the little brother he raised himself~ Not only is he good-looking, he’s even smarter!

But, it’s one thing for girls to sneak glances at Qiu Xia, and for a few old ladies to admire a handsome young man, but why were there some sleazy middle-aged men staring at Qiu Xia too?

Gong Si watched as a middle-aged man who had been standing in line nearby kept staring at Qiu Xia. When he saw Qiu Xia finish paying, he actually abandoned his own place in line and walked toward Qiu Xia.

Gong Si’s Kitchen Knife Eyes immediately appeared.

“Hey, you look really fierce right now.” Not looking much like a good person… Xi Liu quietly reminded their friend.

But it was already too late. Handing Ah Ji over to Dong Chun, Gong Si strode over with a menacing look.

Xi Liu was about to say something to Dong Chun, but seeing the little guy’s face full of excitement for trouble, they could only sigh and tell Dong Chun to watch Ah Ji and the bags, then walked over themselves.

They were a step slower, just a few seconds behind Gong Si, but Gong Si was already walking straight over with raised eyebrows.

“Hey! Why have you been staring at my little brother this whole time?” Gong Si wasn’t making baseless accusations; the guy wasn’t just “staring,” he was even reaching out toward Qiu Xia!

Gong Si grabbed the man’s outstretched hand and squeezed hard. Seeing the man wince in pain, Gong Si didn’t let up-instead, he squeezed even harder.

The things the man was holding fell to the ground.

Quickly picking them up, Gong Si frowned tightly. “A phone number? Why are you giving my little brother your phone number?”

“Uh, are you his guardian?” Hearing how Gong Si referred to Qiu Xia, the man actually spoke to him.

“Yeah, I’m his big brother, also the head of our household,” Gong Si said bluntly. “Are you a talent scout? Trying to recruit my brother to debut? Let me tell you, our Qiu Xia is going to study hard and become a doctor in the future. He has no plans to become an entertainer…”
There really had been too many people who used this excuse to slip Qiu Xia their phone numbers before, so Gong Si couldn’t help but think this way.

“No, I’m…” The middle-aged man was about to say something when Qiu Xia suddenly walked over, took the slip of paper with the phone number from his brother’s hand, and stuffed it back into the man’s hand. Qiu Xia said to Gong Si, “Brother, he’s not like those people before. He’s a teacher…”

“Huh?!” Gong Si’s expression froze instantly.

He tried hard to make his Kitchen Knife Eyes look normal, and then forced a smile, doing his best to appear friendly.

“So you’re a teacher at Qiu Xia’s school? Sorry! I’m really sorry! It’s just that you don’t really look like a good person…”

The bystanders, enjoying the spectacle, thought the same.

With the misunderstanding cleared up, Gong Si originally wanted to explain a bit more to the middle-aged man, but Qiu Xia pulled him away: “Sorry, but I won’t consider what you mentioned. I prefer my current life.”

This was said by Qiu Xia to the middle-aged man.

After bowing to him, Qiu Xia dragged his completely baffled big brother away.

“What on earth… is going on?” Gong Si was totally at a loss.

“It’s nothing. He’s a teacher from the neighboring class. He wanted me to focus more on liberal arts, but I refused,” Qiu Xia explained with a bright smile.

“Really? Well, you’re really good at liberal arts, Qiu Xia. If I were a teacher, I’d want to recruit you too…” Gong Si thought about it, then frowned again. “Oh no, was I super rude just now? Do you think that teacher will cause you trouble later?”

As he spoke, he looked back over his shoulder, wondering if there was anything he could do to fix things.

“He won’t. He doesn’t teach me, so unless I transfer classes, we won’t have any interaction at all,” Qiu Xia reassured him.

“But… but… he’s still a teacher…” Gong Si was still craning his neck, looking back.

Meanwhile, Qiu Xia had already greeted Xi Liu, handed his card back, and even thanked him.

“Wait, don’t give it back yet, Qiu Xia, we haven’t finished shopping,” Gong Si stopped him.

“I’ve already bought everything on the list,” Qiu Xia said, tilting his head.

Gong Si pointed at Ah Ji, then at Xi Liu, and said with some exasperation, “Because of this guy Ah Ji, we have to buy him a new set of clothes.”

In just a few words, he recounted what had happened, and the Gong Family brothers found out that Xi Liu had been peed on by Ah Ji.

“Ah! Xi Liu-ge, so the water stains on you were actually Ah Ji’s pee! No wonder I thought you smelled funny!” Dong Chun’s loud voice rang out, and the whole supermarket heard it.

Xi Liu: @%@%%￥@#…

All eyes immediately shifted from Gong Si and Qiu Xia to Xi Liu.

The little episode from earlier was quickly forgotten.

After buying enough daily necessities for the next three months, and enjoying a big meal in town, Gong Si led his brothers home, fully satisfied.

But he’d bought so much that, even with three men in the Gong Family to do the heavy lifting, it was still hard to carry it all. In the end, Xi Liu helped them carry two bags back.

By the time they got home, it was already late. Glancing at the time, Gong Si had planned to let Xi Liu stay the night, but Xi Liu refused.

“It’s fine, I called home on the way back. My family will send a car to pick me up,” Xi Liu said, glancing at his wristwatch. “They should be waiting at the intersection by now.”

Gong Si raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Worthy of being the Young Master~”

Xi Liu just smiled.

“Thanks,” Gong Si said quietly as he walked Xi Liu to the door.

“No big deal. Doing a good deed now and then really lifts your spirits~” Xi Liu replied with a smile. As he was about to walk away, he suddenly stopped, hesitated, and after a moment said to Gong Si, “I think you should watch your brother-he seemed off today.”

Gong Si was startled. “My brother?”

He thought for a moment. “You mean Dong Chun? Oh… he got hurt yesterday, and I think he sneezed this morning…”

But in their family, a sneeze was nothing-they were all robust! A little cold was no big deal, usually gone with just one sneeze. They didn’t even keep cold medicine at home!

He wanted to tell Xi Liu it should be nothing, but Xi Liu shook his head.

“Not Dong Chun. Qiu Xia.”

He named someone Gong Si hadn’t expected at all.

After thinking for a long while, Gong Si still couldn’t recall anything unusual about Qiu Xia today, and frowned.

“Trust me, I’m often unwell, so I can spot it in others more accurately than you can,” Xi Liu said softly.

That was enough to cut off any rebuttal Gong Si might have had.

Looking Xi Liu up and down, Gong Si said, “When you started school, the teachers said you weren’t in great health. And you do take sick leave a lot, but honestly, I’ve never noticed you being unwell…”

Xi Liu’s lips curled up slightly. “That just means I take good care of myself.”

Gong Si nodded. “Anyway, thanks. I’ll keep a closer eye on Qiu Xia. He’s always been healthy, but also always so considerate. I just worry he’s too considerate and wouldn’t mention it if he was feeling bad.”

Only then did the two of them wave goodbye for real.