The Big Brother: Sun Shixian

In 1995, I was sixteen when I fell in with a man: Sun Shixian.

He wasn’t a gangster, but he took on everything for his brothers. He paid off Er Gouzi’s gambling debts, dealt with Zhao San’s enemies, and walked into Old Han’s bathhouse alone. By the time he came out, the whole city was calling him Brother Xian.

But the farther he went down that road, the narrower it became. No one could talk sense into him, and his brothers couldn’t stop him. His enemies just kept multiplying. In the winter of 1997, Brother Xian fell in his own barbecue restaurant. I stood at the entrance, too afraid to go in.

This is his story, and the story of the youth our generation can never return to.