My childhood memories start from the Snow City train station.

It was a crazy era, with the radio blasting spirited songs.

Someone left me on the freezing cold bench in the waiting room and never returned.

I don't know how long I sat there. When I got hungry and cried, two policemen came and took me to a police station near the train station.

One policewoman peeled a burning hot, roasted potato for me and asked for my name.

While I was gobbling down the potato, I told her my name was Xiao Wu.

She asked if my last name was Wu, or Xiao Wu was my full name.

I said I didn't know.

The next morning, I was sent to the Snow City Children's Welfare Institute.

It was heavily snowing that day. I tentatively thought that maybe, like me, they were unwanted by the sky.

The people in the Welfare Institute were chattering, saying that I was probably five years old. They wanted me to take the surname 'Dang', which I refused.

After insisting for a couple of days, they gave me a name: Wu Ai Guo.

I didn't like it and stubbornly had everybody call me Xiao Wu.

I forgot my own surname, afraid that if I changed my name, I'd never be able to find my way home.

Ironically, when I went back to retrieve my file and register for an identification card at the police station later, the name still remained as Wu Ai Guo.

I spent four years in the welfare institution and learned many characters.

Life there was far from happy; the hunger remained unsatiated and the winters left my hands frostbitten.

Every New Year's Eve, I would wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, the same one each time.

In the dream, I couldn't see anyone clearly. Only loud sounds filled my ears, resembling the fireworks during Chinese New Year or gunfights in movies. Everything then turned red as if both the heaven and earth were on fire.

Just as winter descended in 1981, I climbed over the wall and escaped.

I knew I was not an orphan, I had a home, and parents whose faces I could barely remember.

In the first few years since my escape, I begged on the streets.

Sometimes, I would visit restaurants to pick up leftovers from the dining tables.

I was as humble as a stray dog, constantly facing contempt, scorn, curses, and beatings. It was a daily ordeal.

All I wanted was to stay alive, dignity was out of the question.

I used to have companions, but they left, one by one.

"Two Buns" died in my arms with her usually rosy lips as pale as paper.

That night, I left her at the police station's entrance, watched her from a hidden spot until a kindly officer came out, and then ran away crying.

After that, I no longer wanted to make friends.

There were times when I wondered - why is it that despite never doing anything wrong, all the world's hardships have not spared me?

In the summer of 1984, under an overpass in the capital city, I met a scruffy old man with whom I hit it off.

I would beg for food every day and share it with him. In return, he would tell me a lot of stories about the life of a vagabond and its rules.

However, not long after, he disappeared.

Three months later, with the first snow of early winter falling over the city, I heard that he had died in a detention center. I was heartbroken.

It was only later that I found out the old man was nicknamed Old King, a notorious king of thieves on the streets!

He didn't really teach me anything, but he was my enlightening mentor.

Before I knew it, I had become a thief.

There's a coded phrase among drifters: "A single blossom from the Mystic North, Horizontal Ge and Blue Glory are one family; even though we are not blood brothers, none of us has ever split the family."

The "Glory" referred to in the rhyme is also called Rong, or Small Lock, which is the profession I'm in:

A thief!

Among the drifting circles, I'm also known as [Old Glory].

In the capital, they call us Buddha Lord, in Tianjin call us Little Lock, in Shanghai call us Thief Bone, in Sichuan province, we are known as Thief

zúi

Child, in southern Zhejiang we're Lock Kid, and in Dangyang they call us Stealthy Guy...

In the three northeastern provinces, we're commonly nicknamed as petty thieves, pliers, or skin-buttoners.

I don't belong to any group, nor do I have a master in the traditional sense.

The juvenile detention center, shelter, and detention facilities are my schools, and all the thieves in there are my teachers.

I wash their feet, beat their backs, massage their legs, stay up all night, humbling myself like a lowly grandchild.

Even lower than a grandchild.

Grandchildren are loved at home; I am not.

They hit or scold whenever they feel like it, never treating me as a human being!

The more I interact with them, the sweeter my tongue becomes, and the better I get at playing along.

Picking, sliding, tweezing, pinching, digging, grabbing, slipping... Stealing methods are endless. With the growth of my age, my skills get better and better.

The term [pickpocketing] encapsulates two kinds of thieving methods.

The first is rather base. It is where the thief purposely hangs his clothes next to a passenger's on a train. Using the act of retrieving his own clothes as a guise, he stealthily steals the items in the passenger's outfit.

The second is the pinnacle of pickpocketing skills!

It is the act of stealthily taking away others' necklaces, earrings, bracelets, gold and silver jewelry, and name-brand watches in broad daylight, undetected by anyone.

This technique can only be managed by old, skilled pickpockets with a wealth of experience under their belts.

And after I turned nineteen, my sight, hearing, touch, smell, cognition, and intuition were all exceptional. My [pickpocketing] technique was divine!

Old Master Wang once said: Stealing can become addictive, and once addicted, it becomes a source of joy.

I don't deny his words. This industry is indeed like this, especially the first time you make a move. The nervousness, fear, excitement… it's like having a sleepless night.

But I am not the same as them; I am not addicted. I only want to survive.

I adhere strictly to the rules of the Rong family; I am not greedy, nor am I looking to get rich. Each time, I just take enough to cover my expenses for some time.

Being rich and honored through unjust means holds no attraction for me, like mere passing clouds.

What I want is to go home!

To find my father and mother!

Day after day, year after year, I measure the streets and alleys of various cities on foot.

For sixteen years, I've traveled quite a bit, eastwards to Fuyuan, south to Hainan, west to Kashgar, and north to Mohe.

I'm like a lone wolf, having experienced countless hardships but never felt defeated.

I tell myself, "Xiao Wu, you can be humble as dust, but you can never be twisted like a maggot!"

To protect myself, at the age of 15, I learned Baji Boxing in Cangzhou for two years.

Later, in a detention house in Guangzhou, I learned freestyle fighting from an old convict. After I got out, during the day I learned to repair watches, and at night I spent money on classes in Mixed Martial Arts and Boxing.

I don't want to bully anyone, but I don't want to be bullied ever again!

The day I returned to Xue City from Guangzhou was on Chinese New Year's Eve. I lay on the cold table, listening to the monotonous sound of the train tracks, and had a peaceful sleep, dreamless throughout the night.

I later developed a habit of spending each New Year's Eve on a train.

When the fuzz on my upper lip begins to become prickly, I no longer miss my aim, and I do not easily hit out!

The winter of 1997 was extremely cold.

I returned to Snow City from Ningxia.

Wrapped in a military coat, I stood between the connected segments of the train carriages, smoking.

Someone opened the door, and the noise instantly grew louder:

"Beer, drinks, mineral water--, cigarettes, sunflower seeds, grilled fish slices--."

"Move your legs--"

The frost on the train window magnified and distorted the fleeting darkness outside.

I extinguished the cigarette butt in the ashtray on the wall.

The train attendant came by, rubbing his sleepy eyes and yawning, clamoring to move aside, struggling to squeeze past.

The train stopped; it was Shanhaiguan station.

As soon as the train door opened, disembarking passengers couldn't wait to squeeze their way out.

I moved back to the position of the train attendant's compartment.

In fact, it was the safest time to make a move out, firstly because of the people squeezing inside, it was not easy to spot; secondly, by the time they discovered their money was missing, the train would be on the move.

I wouldn't make a move because there was a 'fat sheep' in the carriage I'd been watching all the way.

Vendors on the platform rushed over. They were fully armed, each bundled up like bears from the mountains. Fried sunflower seeds, dry tofu wrapped with green onions, candied hawthorns, continuing their shouting.

Passengers started boarding, and I subconsciously observed each person.

I went back to the number 5 compartment and couldn't help but be astonished.

My 'fat sheep' had become someone else's game!