Dropping out of school, juvenile detention centers, detention centers, prisons, shooting targets -- the life trajectories of most of the underworld characters who are full of evil. Since the age of sixteen, Ye Haodong has followed the top style all the way and embarked on this road without regrets. Fate seems to have left him only fill-in-the-blank questions, if it weren't for that earth-shattering kneeling, Ye Haodong might never have been able to take that multiple-choice question.

In the early nineties, in front of a hotel in Gangcheng, Liao Province, Wang Lin and her three and a half eldest sons were sending off the last group of guests attending her husband's funeral. On the face of the half-old, after the mechanical politeness faded, what could not be concealed was sadness and confusion.

Husband Ye Wenchang couldn't afford to be ill, and his illness dragged on for two years, and the family has gone through all the routes that can raise money. In the end, he still couldn't save the lives of the pillars of his family. Ye Wenchang finally left, leaving only three sons and a lot of debts to Wang Lin.

In the face of the weight of life, this middle-aged woman who has been cared for by her husband for 20 years in married life chose to be strong. The most real difficulty at hand is that she cannot afford to continue the education of all three sons.

If it weren't for the fact that the grades of these three children were so good, Wang Lin would never have been so difficult to choose at this time.

The eyes full of maternal love swept over the faces of the three sons, thinking of her husband's evaluation of the three sons before his death, Wang Lin's heart made a decision.

Ye Wenchang often commented on his three sons when he was alive, the eldest son Ye Haoyun was only middle-class, but he was willing to work hard, and he was likely to do something in the future, but the height he could achieve was bound by his talent. The second Ye Haoran is talented, but he is a little frivolous, and he may not be as good as his eldest brother in the future.

Ye Wenchang's grandfather was a man in the late Qing Dynasty, and Ye Wenchang, who grew up beside his grandfather since he was a child, read a lot of books and developed old feudal habits. In addition to the encyclopedia essays of the subset of scripture and history, he also likes to predict some people and things, but he is really accurate in seeing people, and he is really insightful, and his evaluation of these two sons is really not bad after many years. But only for Ye Haodong, the old son, even with Ye Wenchang's experience, he can't understand it. But after all, he is the biological son he has raised for many years, and as Lao Tzu, Ye Wenchang is still the person who knows Ye Haodong best.

When Ye Wenchang was alive, when he talked about this little son, he summed up three wonders in Ye Haodong.

The first strange, Ye Haodong was born with a smile, in the words of the old grandfather Ye Boda, who was still alive at that time, this little thing was born heroic, and it seemed that he was used to seeing all kinds of suffering in the world; The second strange thing, Ye Haodong is born with a strong temperament, he has been a troublemaker since he was a child, he didn't go to the house for three days, and it was common for dogs to chase chickens and fight, and in terms of his age, what he did deserved a lot of evil deeds. Of course, Ye Wenchang, who has a very strict family education, taught him a hard lesson for this, but no matter how hard Ye Wenchang played, Ye Haodong was stunned and never cried, never shed a tear; The third strange, Ye Haodong's extraordinary brain talent is far better than that of his two elder brothers, he can really be called unforgettable, his academic performance is extremely good, and he is also well-read, Ye Wenchang's collection of books accumulated over the years has been read by Ye Haodong before the age of thirteen, but at a young age, he is not only to see the excitement, when Ye Wenchang teaches the content of his book, this kid can still speak the truth, and his knowledge is even above most adults! Summing up these three points, Ye Wenchang made a vague comment to Ye Haodong when chatting with Wang Lin: "I can't teach our old son, I can't teach it in school, and even if his grandfather is alive, he can't teach it, only this world is his teacher, no matter what this kid does in the future, he will be able to toss!" ”

Regarding her husband's words, Wang Lin has an almost stubborn superstition.

Ye Haoyun, the twenty-year-old eldest who is in the second year of a university in Lianshi, has placed too many expectations on her husband before his death, so no matter how difficult it is, he must let his eldest son finish college! Eighteen-year-old Ye Haoran is in his third year of high school, in order to get rid of his family's debts as soon as possible, Wang Lin plans to let him change to a technical school, because if he changes to a technical school, he will have to work in two more years, which can quickly reduce the burden on her shoulders. She and her husband work in one of the largest steel mills in China. In order to cultivate technical talents suitable for the factory, we have been running a technical school for many years, and for children like Ye Haoran, as long as the grades are excellent, the school is free. Ye Haoran's latest comprehensive test score was 685 points, and he was obviously very aggrieved when he went to a technical school. But in Wang Lin's heart, the most aggrieved son is undoubtedly the old Sanye Haodong, she has decided to let this youngest and best son drop out of school. It's an extremely difficult decision, but it's imperative for a strong man to break his wrist!

In this way, a week after Ye Wenchang's death, Ye Haodong, who was considered the most endurable and the youngest of the three sons, was only sixteen years old, ushered in the first major turning point in his life - dropping out of school.

For his mother to drop out of school, Ye Haodong really didn't see how heavy it was. People are poor and cheap, and my mother is also forced by money. What's more, he has always believed that if his father's illness is caused by qi, then he, Ye Haodong, alone will be responsible for more than half of it. A few years before my dad found out that he had cancer, he didn't cause much trouble for his family. Subconsciously, Ye Haodong is very self-blaming. Even to the point that he thought that he dropped out of school, he was worthy of the expectations of this family. Even if he conducts a democratic evaluation within a family, he is sure that he will be elected with four votes.

In the past few days when Daddy Touqi was at home and kept filial piety, Ye Haodong often comforted himself: the power of example is huge, countless illiterate and semi-literate giants in ancient and modern China and abroad are Ye Haodong's role models, Liu Bang was born as a gangster, Zhu Yuanzhang was born to ask for food, and the Taizu of the Qing Dynasty's ethnic minority who drank blood even relied on a mostly apocryphal Three Kingdoms to fight the world, and he still graduated from junior high school, which can be regarded as above the illiteracy line. (I don't want to think about the few people he compared, throughout the ancient and modern times of China, there are a few people like that). Compared with the illiterate and semi-literate men of the previous generations, the more modern old boy George* did not go to college, Carnegie did not go to college, and Napoleon the old madman did not go to college, but these people managed countless famous universities. Another industry colleague named Lei Feng is also a role model for Ye Haodong's self-comfort. Uncle Lei Feng, who also hasn't studied for a few days, has a sentence that makes Ye Haodong think it is true: The revolution does not distinguish between high and low, and if you do a line, you must love a line! Ye Haodong, who is sixteen years old, is not so highly conscious, he understands this sentence as: making money is not a division of work, and doing a line of work is to maximize the possible benefits of this line.

Ye Wenchang is gone, but life still has to go on. After the first seven days, Wang Lin continued to go back to work in the factory, Ye Haoyun left home and returned to Lianshi to continue his studies, and Ye Haoran was transferred to a technical school under Wang Lin's arrangement. There is a saying that the children of the poor are in charge of the family early, and Ye Haodong, who only studied until the first year of high school, finally entered the society ahead of schedule and started his first job - a bath worker.

The place where Ye Haodong's first job was called Teng Yu Bath. The bathhouse in the north is a special place, it is not only a place for people to remove dirt from their bodies, but also a good place to relax and relieve boredom. It is a gathering place for grassroots culture in the market. Every day, here, friends of all classes gather for a common purpose, acquaintances, uncooked or half-baked people meet each other frankly, friends soak in the hot pool like a boiled crab, and then the bathing master carefully serves off the dirt all over the body, and then covers the back with a towel board, let the bathing master make an empty fist with his hands, with the palm of his hand, carefully patting the whole body, the crisp sound is so beautiful in the ears of the relaxed customers who are served. After enjoying all this, rinse your body, put on the dry cleaning provided by the bath, and then bring the cotton-scented bathrobe, come to the lively rest room, order a pot of tea, or find a familiar opponent to fight on the chessboard, or with the crowd at the table to judge other people's chess games with everyone, or quietly lie on the couch for customers to rest and enjoy the lively and wonderful Hong Kong movies played by the VCR in the hall. There are also a few ticket friends who are good friends on the side, so as not to provoke people, and discuss a few bad tunes.

The small bathhouse reflects all kinds of living beings, which alone makes Ye Haodong feel fresh and interesting everywhere.

Of course, not everything is so good.

Three hundred and sixty lines, the line is the champion. Originally, in Ye Haodong's opinion, there should not be much technical content in the bath industry, and with our intelligence, it won't take a few days to mix a bath champion. But it wasn't until he pondered it that he knew that there were a lot of ways to deal with feelings.

The first hurdle is the face pass, which is mainly for the former state-owned enterprise employees who are laid off and forced to operate this industry without a life. For Ye Haodong, this level is not a problem, this kid never thinks that there is anything to be ashamed of being self-reliant. Next is the rotten hands pass, the bather hands are almost in the state of soaking in water all day, plus too much contact with soap and other chemicals, and also have to exert additional force, the consequences can be imagined, without more than a month of work experience, do not want to end the test of this level; This level is really not easy for Ye Haodong. But even in the hardest moment, when his fingers were soaked and peeling, and it hurt to grin when he took something, he never went home to complain. But, this is not the most difficult, the most difficult is the third level, the technical level! In a word, money presses the hands of slaves, and art presses pedestrians. If you don't have skills, you won't have repeat customers! Every day I do every job with a license plate, after finishing work, take the sign to the boss to get money, no brand, no money to take, no income, who wants to suffer in vain.

Professional scrubbing people not only need strength, but also according to the situation of different people to pay attention to a light and heavy technique, the young man with fine skin and tender meat and the rough skin and thick meat of the worker uncle bear the bear is very different, the focus of the technique is really depends on the person under the plate. The first guest served by Ye Haodong was an uncle who had worked in the front line of the steel furnace for more than 20 years, and the old leather was comparable to a golden bell jar. This made Ye Haodong, who was good at summarizing, think that the work of rubbing the bath needed to be done with all his might. So when Ye Haodong used his strength to deal with the uncle in front of the furnace on the second guest, a young man with fine skin and tender meat, the pig-like howl that he let out almost shattered the glass in the hall. This buddy's voice is quite a bit of Vitas, as long as the strength is in place, the glass will be completely broken! Afterwards, Ye Haodong was severely punished, and he got off work for a month in a row, cleaning the pool and mopping the floor. Fortunately, he has a big heart, and he should play no matter how hard and tired he is, and he is still happy, at home and abroad, he didn't let his mother see the slightest sadness. After this incident, he learned the basic skills that this bath master must learn, and mastered the strength according to the situation of different people. So the same joke never happened again.

The technical difficulties are not only that, according to Ye Haodong's observation, if you want to do a good job in this industry and become a champion, the bathing masters must really understand some massage techniques. Ye Haodong did it for a week, through careful observation of other masters after a few times learned, but also bought a book to teach massage, is very theoretical combination of practice for a while, with his intelligence and tenacity for more than a month really groped for something different from others, and the application effect is extraordinary, with this hand others will not know the craft, Ye Haodong only used more than a month to quickly become the most popular bath master in Teng Yu bath.

Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, and the person who said this is really a master. Teng Yu's bath, even the boiler burner, the cleaning, all counted, there are only a dozen people. There are eight scrubbing workers who are fighting on the front line, and all of them come in with some connections. Or the introduction of the sweeper, or some relative of the boiler, or the rural relative of the boss. The eight people were divided into three groups, and they had fun fighting for nothing. Ye Haodong, who came with ideals, did not join any of them, in his opinion, those people were purely full of food, and they had the kung fu to tear down each other and compete for customers, so it was better to ponder their own skills and the way to make money in this industry. Therefore, although most of the scrubbers were jealous of Ye Haodong because he was making rapid progress and competing for the most customers, and even excluded him, Ye Haodong didn't care at all.

Time flies, and three months have passed in a flash, and the Chinese New Year is approaching. Ye Haodong has been working in Teng Yu for four months. Ye Haodong, who is like a weed, has long adapted to everything here. Recently, he has been a little tired, and he has been trying to figure out something to prove that even if we are a scrubbing place, there is a difference between us and others, and we can do the champion in this industry if we want to.