"Why were you expelled from school?" I asked.

He hesitated for a moment, instead of answering my question, he told a long story:

"My mother followed my father at sixteen and gave birth to me at eighteen. Dad gambled and drank every day, and when he got home, what he knew was to ask her for money. Although my mother never complained, I could hear her sobbing."

He continued, "Later, a policeman moved here, opposite my house. He was a good man, who often helped mom and sent food to us. He told us the food was from his friends, and he didn't know how to cook."

"Gradually, my mother began to change a little, often smiling at him and wearing a red skirt she had not worn in a long time. At that time, I didn't know what the dubious affair was about, but I knew my mother was happy, especially when she was climbing up the window to see him come back after his patrol," Jonathan told me.

"One day, when I came home after school, I saw my mother on the ground, her hands covering her bleeding arm, my father was holding a broken wine bottle in his hands. My mother looked at him and hissed desperately, "Even you're going to kill me, I'm determined to divorce you," he said.

"I thought that dad would beat her to death, so I rushed to block him, "No, dad!"

He squatted down in front of me, touching my head, and left. He never came back. Half a month later, mom was told to go to...identity the body," Jonathan said.

Then he told me, "A year later, my mother remarried. Her work was very taxing, so my stepfather prepared three meals a day, he cooked very delicious food, more delicious than my mother did. After a life with him, my mother tended to laugh more. Sometimes late at night, I could hear her sweet laughter in the next room."

When I was eighteen, I understood affection and asked her, "Mom, the reason you love him, is it because he is a policeman?"

She was washing her clothes with her head down, a bright expectation on the face, as she said, "Jonathan, he is to be promoted. He tells me that after the promotion, I won't have to go out to work, then I can take good care of you at home. Do you know? No one has ever been so nice to me."

"Seeing her tranquil smile, I could not bear to tell her that he had just been robbed of his police gun by a gangster, let alone never get a promotion, he was struggling to remain in his present position. Late at night, I said to my stepfather, who was smoking on the sofa in the living room, "Don't tell my mother, I know a powerful brother in the underworld, I can carry your gun back."

"He didn't agree at first, because the people of the underworld were not simple. Seeing that I insisted, he didn't contradict me any longer and agreed, saying, "Be careful what you say" words, just help me ask the track of the gun."

"I followed my elder brother for more than a month, then managed to retrieve my stepfather's gun from a place where the black guns were sold. I was not in a hurry to get away, for one thing, I was afraid that people would be suspicious; for another, my eldest brother's enemies were always looking for trouble at that time, and I didn't want to leave him," Jonathan said.

Another two months passed, the eldest brother eliminated his opponent. We had countless bottles of wine, he told me excitedly, "After he became the leader of the underworld, he wouldn't let people hurt each other and wouldn't let brothers lie dead on the streets."

I drank down the last glass of wine and said, "I don't want to get involved with the underworld, it does not suit me. I'd better go to school."

Troy said, "Jonathan, you're drunk!"

My elder brother said: "Jonathan, I really consider you as my brother, if I have done something improper, just tell me!"

"No," I replied.

"Well, then," he took a pack of heroin from his arms and put it on the table, "Come to me, whenever you need it."

'I can quit it," I told him

"Take it, and when you can't get it when you need it, you'll understand the feeling," he said to Jonathan.

When I went back to school, I could not endure the boring English words and mathematical formulas, every time I heard the teacher, I would get sleepy. When I faced a fight in the streets, I was full of excitement. The most terrible thing every night was that I couldn't control the desire for the drug, I took it secretly ... "said Jonathan.

He continued, "One day after class, I was blocked by several students in the bathroom. A boy, one year younger than me, slapped me on the face because of the ridiculous reason that a girl had said more words to me than she did to him. Since I was easily infuriated, I just cursed them. It was until they hit me that I lost my last patient, I fought it back."

"I was expelled from school before I recovered at home. Because the students that fought with me were very rich, they wouldn't give up, " he said.

"I wanted to find another high school, so I could become a policeman, but my stepfather told me that I could not be a policeman because I had a case at the police station. In the eyes of the police, I was a criminal, and it could never be changed, " said Jonathan.

"So, you just go on living as a gangster?" I said.

He shook his head, "I was tied to my bed, suffering the torture of trying to quit drugs for about half a year."

When the car arrived at the hotel, he hadn't finished the story, but I knew what happened.

A policeman who had been a patrol cop for ten years, could not be promoted to the senior police commander, and have such status in the police community, the reasons were self-evident.

What Jonathan had done probably pleased his mother, but he did ever see her again.

When he held me in his arms, I put my hands on his shoulders, burying my face in his chest, and said to him, "You are a good man!"

"It's not important, because no one cares about it," he said.

"I care!" I told him.