Chapter 338
Zheng Dazhi suddenly got up from the kang bed and with one kick, knocked Zheng Ergou down. The latter started clamoring to fight back, but was held back by Mrs. Zheng and Zheng Xiaomao. After some effort to calm things down, Zheng Ergou didn’t speak, just cursed as he went out the door, and Mrs. Zheng chased after him for a long while without catching up.
"Let him go! Let the unworthy bastard go!" Zheng Dazhi stood at the door cursing, as if the one who left was not his brother, but his son.
Neighbors poked their heads out to see the commotion, but were yelled back inside by Zheng Dazhi’s cursing, "Watch your fucking mom! Fuck off!"
Having been cursed out early in the morning, the surrounding people sullenly withdrew their heads.
...
Just returning home and being scolded out again, Zheng Ergou was really filled with anger, walking head down on the road, not knowing where to go, and the faces of the people he knew were all sulking, not interacting with anyone.
Walking along, it seemed he remembered something, then turned around and started walking back.
He did think of something, not something but someone, a woman for whom he was willing to fall out with his own brother. For this woman, he was determined to take back his share of the money.
After leaving the area, he reached a road, but it was a secondary road, not for buses, somewhere between a highway and an alley, which people just called a road. Zheng Ergou came here for the hair salons along the road but, to be more precise, it was for the woman inside one of them.
This road was hardly cleaner than the alleys in Erwanzi Street. In the morning, the sides of the road were very disheartening, fallen women from the hair washing shops squatting at the entrance brushing their teeth and washing faces, various underwear airing on balcony above, yellowish sewage flowing from a public toilet marked with white paint, children with red cheeks continuously sniffling, stray dogs fighting over a bone at the side, light poles plastered with colorful ads. Zheng Ergou was already sick of seeing these, wrapped his coat tighter, and continued forward until he stopped at a place called "Xinxin Hair Salon," where a woman with fluffy yellow hair was brushing her teeth at the entrance.