Chapter 108: Extra – The Scorching Star River
Star Year 421.
Fang Jianguo tossed an empty energy drink can into the trash, put out his cigarette, and clicked his tongue.
“Lao Fang, your kid is crying again!” someone inside yelled miserably. A group of burly men stood helplessly around a little boy, completely at a loss. “Where are you? Where the hell did you go?”
That year, the Alliance had just overthrown the Empire, and the capital star was flourishing like never before. The old war veterans who had fought alongside the Grand Marshal were all being honored with medals.
Meanwhile, millions of light-years away, this tiny, remote star was still waiting for someone to take charge.
Fortunately, people managed to entertain themselves and make do.
Fang Jianguo had temporarily joined a ragtag band. He was the drummer, and the rest of the group had only met twelve hours ago. Somehow, they had cobbled together a band, and in half an hour, they were set to play live—or, more accurately, to scam some money.
The plan was simple: put on heavy metal makeup so thick even their own mothers wouldn’t recognize them, make a quick buck, and then disappear.
Fang Jianguo reflected on his decisions and realized his biggest mistake—bringing that little brat along.
“That unlucky kid isn’t my son,” Fang Jianguo ruffled the tiny boy’s hair. “He’s my ancestor.”
Fang Huai, dressed in a button-up shirt and suspenders, had fair skin, round, shiny eyes, and tiny short legs. The moment he arrived, he instantly melted the hearts of the older women in the band.
The group of single men had some rather bizarre ways of expressing their affection. One of them, for reasons unknown, placed a caterpillar into Fang Huai’s tiny plastic shovel.
The little boy pressed his lips tightly together, trying to hold back his emotions.
Twenty minutes later, he couldn’t take it anymore and burst into tears.
Fang Jianguo was forced to juggle drumming while comforting the child, completely overwhelmed. Not that things were much better at home.
Their home was a cramped rental apartment—small but manageable. That is, until Fang Huai started bringing home more children.
By the time he took in the third one, there was barely any space left to walk.
*
11 PM.
Fang Jianguo grabbed Fang Huai by the collar, his own face still smeared with remnants of heavy metal makeup, and made his way through a street full of all kinds of eccentric characters before finally opening the door to their home.
A fifty-square-meter rental apartment—with barely two square meters of free space left.
Duan Yang’s Transformers toys were piled up at the entrance. Feng Lang was asleep, hugging a rose-shaped lollipop. Both of them were around the same age as Fang Huai, their faces still round with baby fat. Every time Duan Yang tried to act cool with that chubby little face of his, it was absolutely hilarious.
But the last person in the room was different.
He was someone Fang Huai had brought home, but unlike the others, he was much older—a teenager already. Ye Yuyuan sat silently on a chair, waiting for them to return. He wore a simple white shirt, his black hair and dark eyes giving him a refined and noble air.
To this day, Fang Jianguo couldn’t understand how Fang Huai had mistaken someone like him for a “stray orphan.” If someone told him this kid was an imperial prince, he wouldn’t have doubted it for a second.
“Ye Ye, hug.” Fang Huai mumbled sleepily in Fang Jianguo’s arms.
Fang Jianguo: “…?”
The teenage boy lowered his gaze and reached out, taking the little one from Fang Jianguo’s arms. Fang Huai instinctively snuggled into Ye Yuyuan’s embrace and fell back into deep sleep.
“Uncle Fang,” Ye Yuyuan paused at the door before heading inside and remarked casually, “There’s someone in the alley by the entrance.”
Fang Jianguo barely reacted. “Oh.”
This planet was a chaotic mess—people lost their lives daily due to fights or drug overdoses. Fang Jianguo had no interest in getting involved.
*
The Next Morning.
Duan Yang was the first to wake up, strumming his tiny ukulele—a textbook introverted child.
Feng Lang, on the other hand, was much more obedient. He greeted Fang Jianguo sweetly, calling him “Uncle Fang” over and over while helping him prepare breakfast (and sneakily snacking in between).
Eventually, Fang Huai woke up as well, groggily shuffling into the dining area, trailing behind Ye Yuyuan like a little tail.
With Ye Yuyuan around, Fang Jianguo wasn’t too worried about this group of little troublemakers. He left them some money, gave them a few instructions, grabbed his things, and headed out.
As he stepped outside, the friendly neighbor auntie greeted him cheerfully:
“Xiao Fang, did you open a daycare or something? Maybe I’ll bring Mengmeng’s niece over one day?”
Mengmeng was a young woman in her twenties. The auntie had always thought Fang Jianguo was quite handsome and had been enthusiastically trying to set them up.
Fang Jianguo, deadpan: “Auntie, this isn’t a daycare. All four of them are my biological kids.”
He knew he was gay—he couldn’t mislead an innocent girl.
The auntie: “…”
As Fang Jianguo walked out of the building, a sudden wave of nostalgia washed over him.
Thirty-four years old.
In this era, the average life expectancy was over a hundred, but thirty-four still didn’t feel young anymore.
At this point in his life, Fang Jianguo still had no idea where his future was headed. No house, no hovercraft, no savings—and on top of that, he had four kids to take care of. Forget anything else, just saving up for Ye Yuyuan’s tuition at the public academy next year was already a struggle.
As he passed through a narrow alley, the sky darkened—it was about to storm.
At that moment, a strange sense of foreboding hit him. He instinctively sidestepped, but it wasn’t enough. Something latched onto his ankle.
“Shit.” Fang Jianguo swore instinctively and raised his foot to kick it away, but the grip loosened before he could.
Moss crept along the damp alley walls, while heavy clouds loomed overhead. Through the crisscrossing scars on that person’s face, Fang Jianguo met a pair of strikingly bright eyes.
They were really bright—like stars, like pale brown glass beads.
Fang Jianguo rubbed his nose. Since when were beggars this good-looking?
“Your shoelace is untied.” The person didn’t meet his gaze, quickly looking away as he scooped up a tiny, mewling kitten from the corner.
That’s when Fang Jianguo realized—if this guy hadn’t stopped him, he would’ve tripped over his own feet and gone sprawling.
“…Thanks.” Fang Jianguo felt oddly unsettled, an inexplicable feeling creeping in. He didn’t say much else and just walked past him.
He hadn’t expected to see him again so soon.
That very evening, as he was heading home, he saw Fang Huai leaning halfway out the window, handing a piece of bread to the beggar.
The man’s shirt was tattered, his face bruised and battered, but his eyes were still as bright as ever. He held the kitten in his arms, looking down at the little boy for two seconds before asking:
“Your name is Fang Huai?”
“Yes,” Fang Huai nodded eagerly, pushing the bread forward again, lowering his voice, “Uncle, just take it… If Fang Jianguo comes back, he’ll scold me.”
It was something Fang Huai had saved from his own lunch.
Fang Jianguo: “…”
The man suddenly smiled. His eyes had a beautiful shape, curving into crescent moons when he laughed.
“He won’t scold you,” he said softly. “He’s a good person.”
But he still didn’t take the bread. Instead, he ruffled Fang Huai’s hair and handed him a small stuffed toy. Then, tucking the kitten into the front of his shirt, he turned around—
—only to lock eyes with Fang Jianguo.
The man: “…”
Fang Jianguo: “…”
The kitten mewed from his collar.
For some reason, Fang Jianguo watched as the man quickly looked away, his ears flushing red. A moment later, he rubbed at them awkwardly, said nothing, and lowered his head as he walked off.
Weird guy.
Fang Jianguo glanced down and saw a box of no-tie shoelaces sitting on the windowsill.
For a split second, he thought—maybe this strange man wasn’t so bad.
“Fang Jianguo,” Fang Huai trailed behind him nervously, “I want to—”
“No.” Fang Jianguo shut him down immediately.
He already had four kids at home. If he picked up another one, how was he supposed to afford it?
He scowled at Fang Huai and threatened:
“If you bring that uncle home, Ye Ye won’t be able to go to school. Your choice.”
Fang Huai looked utterly shocked.
He lowered his head and started counting on his fingers, taking a long time to process everything. But he didn’t want to give up on either of them. Five minutes later, Fang Jianguo wasn’t surprised at all to see tears welling up in his eyes.
Ye Yuyuan walked over to the entryway and picked him up.
“Uncle, I won’t go to school,” Ye Yuyuan said, looking at Fang Jianguo. “I’ll go out and work first to earn money, so Huaihuai and the others can study.”
Fang Jianguo didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t about that, he thought.
The tattered white shirt that beggar was wearing—he had seen it before. There was no mistaking it. That was an old Imperial officer’s uniform.
If he brought him home, that would be big trouble.
*
About half a week passed.
The next time Fang Jianguo saw that man, it was on a rainy night.
He had recently switched jobs again—wrapping burgers at a fast-food place during the day and still drumming for a backstreet band at night to make some extra cash.
Before the gig even ended, he heard thunder rumbling in the distance and cursed in his head.
Obviously, high-tech auto-rain shields weren’t a thing yet on the outer planets. Public hover taxis stopped running after ten, and he hadn’t brought an umbrella. By the time he got out, the rain was pouring so hard that it actually hurt when it hit his skin.
Not far away, in a narrow alley, a fight was breaking out.
Or maybe calling it a “fight” wasn’t quite right—it was more like a group of people ganging up on one person. The guy in the middle was wearing a torn-up white shirt, not even bothering to protect his weak spots. He was solely focused on beating the hell out of one of them.
That guy was barely clinging to consciousness.
“Well, well,” said the bassist from Fang Jianguo’s band, stuffing his hands in his pockets and whistling. “Looks like Wang the Cripple finally ran into a real ghost.”
Fang Jianguo: “…What do you mean?”
The bassist jerked his chin toward the brawl. “See that guy in the white shirt? The one he’s beating to a pulp is Wang the Cripple—filthy mouth on him.”
Wang the Cripple had no filter, didn’t care if it was men or women. He loved lurking at alley corners, waiting for drunk girls or boys to pass by—picking up wasted bodies, doing whatever he wanted. Fang Jianguo was one of the better-looking guys in this part of town. Wang had made comments about him before too.
Fang Jianguo: “…”
*
Twenty minutes later.
The young man in the white shirt was huddled under the eaves, panting heavily. His lip was split, his face covered in bruises—looking even worse than before.
He was tall, but terribly thin. From a distance, Fang Jianguo thought he looked like he was all bones. Like a stray cat hiding under the roof for shelter, with damp, bright eyes—like he would trust anyone who gave him a biscuit. But if you pissed him off, those claws could be sharp.
Fang Jianguo stepped out into the downpour.
The rain was coming down so hard he could barely see. He just caught sight of that person freezing up for a moment—then, bracing against the wall, slowly standing up.
He struggled to walk up to Fang Jianguo, slowly opening a small, tattered umbrella and handing the handle to him.
“For you.” His voice was hoarse.
Fang Jianguo froze for a moment before saying, “Thanks.”
Under that tiny umbrella, the two of them were cut off from the world. Beyond the sound of the rain, everything else became quiet.
The man smiled at Fang Jianguo, his eyes curving slightly. Fang Jianguo’s gaze lingered on the corner of his lips, and before he even realized what he was doing, his hand moved. With his thumb, he gently wiped away the blood at the edge of the young man’s mouth.
The young man blinked. Fang Jianguo thought he looked a little resistant to the touch, yet also strangely shy. He wasn’t standing too close, as if he was well aware of how dirty he was, how bloodstained his clothes had become. Taking a step back into the rain, he waved at Fang Jianguo, signaling him to go home.
Fang Jianguo watched his thin figure, his shoulder blades faintly visible beneath the soaked fabric. He really did look like a stray cat.
And after raising so many little brats at home, adding one more cat to the mix… didn’t seem impossible.
His grip on the umbrella tightened slightly before he finally raised his voice:
“Wait.”
The heavy rain kept pouring, droplets splashing onto the ground, shimmering under the glow of the streetlights.
That frail silhouette came to a halt.
Fang Jianguo heard his own voice, slightly unfamiliar as it traveled through the rain:
“What’s your name?”
The man stood there in the downpour, silent for a long time. At last, he turned to face Fang Jianguo.
His eyes were bright—like a fallen star that had accidentally slipped from the sky, still glowing faintly.
“My name is…” He closed his eyes briefly, then the corner of his lips lifted ever so slightly.
“Lin Shuheng,” he said softly.
[The End of Extras]
