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Chapter 165: Ch.164 Father and Son

"Let me guess, Rogers and Barnes?"

"As expected of you, Boss. Yes, it\'s exactly as you said."

"Good. Note down their home addresses. We\'ll pay them a visit in a few days," Su Ming said, finishing the drink in his glass before glancing out the window. "Any news from Africa?"

"Not yet, Boss. The country you mentioned, Wakanda, seems nonexistent. No one has heard of it, let alone knows where it might be."

Gin felt guilty for not being able to deliver results, but his subordinates had truly done their best.

"It\'s alright, take your time. If it exists, we\'ll find it eventually," Su Ming replied calmly.

Young Steve Rogers woke up from hunger. In his dream, he was eating a cake with beautiful cream and fruit decorations, but for some reason, the more he ate, the hungrier he became.

His empty stomach ached, and the burning sensation of acid rolling in his gut finally woke him from the dream.

There was no cake, and there was no food at all—just a pillow in his mouth, soaked with bite marks and saliva.

Like his father, Steve had only eaten a slice of bread today. The food at home was down to a bit of flour and some potatoes, which had to be rationed.

It was midnight, and the windows were frosted over. The outside was freezing, and his small room wasn\'t warm at all.

His family was far from wealthy. His mother used to be a nurse, but now she was unemployed, occasionally earning a little money by doing laundry or mending clothes, which kept her very busy.

Even children like Steve knew how hard it was to earn money these days.

Neither he nor his friend Bucky was attending school anymore. During the day, they would go out and sell newspapers. If they were lucky, they might earn ten cents or so. More often than not, they wished they could eat the newspapers to stave off hunger.

They had seen people eat newspapers before. There was an old beggar a few streets away who, after eating a wad of paper, was covered with a white sheet and dragged away by the police the next day.

They didn\'t know whether he died of hunger or from eating the paper, but it had scared both Steve and Bucky enough to hope their newspapers would at least buy them some real food.

Bucky\'s family was slightly better off; his father was a bit more resourceful than Steve\'s and could occasionally find temporary work, so their situation wasn\'t as dire, but it was only marginally better.

To distract himself from his hunger, Steve wrapped his blanket tightly around his stomach and began to daydream, hoping his father or he could find a good job.

But his mind kept drifting back to the cake in his dream. Even just a single cherry on top would be enough for him right now.

Then he heard the front door creak open. His father had returned. They lived in a very basic apartment building where soundproofing was nonexistent.

In the middle of the night, everyone could hear the door opening.

He heard Uncle Tom talking to his father. The voices were low, but they spoke quickly, sounding happy.

"See you tomorrow, Tom."

"Yeah, see you tomorrow."

His father closed the door and turned around, holding something in his arms, but in the dim moonlight, he saw Steve wrapped in a blanket, emerging from his room.

"Why aren\'t you asleep yet?"

His father began pulling out what he was carrying—dozens of square parcels wrapped in brown paper, the food provided by the company: hamburgers and sandwiches.

Tom had been quick-witted. When they were told to take as much as they wanted, they had unbuttoned their shirts beneath their coats, turning them into large pockets to stuff as much food as they could inside.

Though the food was cold and carrying it against their bodies had chilled them to the bone, the warmth of hope filled their hearts.

The only strange thing was that even though they had both worked on the docks, neither of them had been shipwrights, so why were they assigned to work in the shipyard office?

But those questions were quickly forgotten in the face of hunger. Seeing mountains of food unloaded from several large trucks, they couldn\'t think of anything else but how to bring as much as possible home.

"I... I just woke up because I heard something," Steve said, eyeing the brown paper packages. He was puzzled as to why his father was returning home in the middle of the night with so much food.

"Oh, are you hungry? Perfect, I brought back some food," Joseph smiled as he handed a few of the packages to Steve. "Add some coal to the stove and warm these up before eating them; otherwise, you might get sick."

Steve took the packages, which were almost as big as his head. He had been seriously ill as a child, and although he had recovered, he was still much smaller and weaker than other boys his age.

Through the paper, he could smell the food—perhaps beef, along with the scent of cheese and tomatoes.

"Dad... where did this come from? Did you do something... wrong?"

This food seemed too good, especially in this harsh winter. Although he was just a child, he knew that the people who had jumped to their deaths last month didn\'t shy away from his gaze.

"Why would you think that?" Joseph took out the rest of the food from his coat and hung it on the hook behind the door. He knelt down and placed his cold hand on Steve\'s head. "I\'ve always told you to be a person of integrity. The harder things get, the more you must hold onto that."

"Then where did this food come from?"

"Heh, it\'s a gift from my new boss. Not just me—your Uncle Tom and many of the men you know brought food home too. So you don\'t need to save any of this for Bucky; eat it all, okay?"

"You found a job? That\'s great!"

Steve was finally at ease, quickly throwing his blanket onto the sofa. In just his pajamas, he began stoking the fire in the stove, adding coal. He needed to heat up the food and boil some water.

"Yes, I found a job," Joseph said as he moved closer to the stove, spreading his hands by the fire to warm them. Having walked nearly ten kilometers from the dock, carrying food the whole way, his hands were pale from the cold, but his smile remained. "A good job, at the shipyard."

"Does that mean we\'ll have food from now on?" Steve looked at his father with hopeful eyes.

Joseph unwrapped one of the packages, revealing a thick hamburger bun with a large patty inside. He placed the hamburgers on a tray and leaned them against the stove to warm up. The firelight illuminated their similar faces.

"We\'ll have food from now on. And in a few days, when I get my first paycheck, you and Bucky can go back to school."

"I can work too. Mom\'s health isn\'t good," Steve shook his head, not wanting to return to school. Many kids his age weren\'t attending school anymore.

He felt that he was old enough to earn money and help support the family.

"No, my new job pays well, enough to buy plenty of food," his father said as he turned Steve\'s head to face him, speaking earnestly. "I talked it over with Tom. He\'s still upset about Bucky picking up that watch from the dead man, so we\'ll send you two back to school in a few days. Until then, you both need to stay home and study."

"That man jumped from the building and almost hit us. We were scared. The watch just rolled in front of us. We didn\'t think about it; Bucky just picked it up instinctively. We didn\'t touch the body..."

Joseph rubbed his temples. Whether or not they had rummaged through a corpse, it wasn\'t something kids should be dealing with.

Even he and Tom, as grown men, felt sick when a body suddenly fell in front of them on the street, blood and guts everywhere. They had barely managed to hold back their own nausea.

But somehow, the two boys had been fine and had immediately run off. Was it because the harsh reality had already cast a shadow over them? This truly wasn\'t the best environment for children to grow up in.

"Listen to me, Steve. You need to become a capable person, someone who can contribute to this country and society. There are many people worse off than us. You need to go to school and learn things that will help everyone live better lives. That\'s what you should be doing at your age."

"Okay, Dad," Steve nodded. He didn\'t understand everything, but he knew he should keep going to school.

"Good. Watch the food; I\'m going to wake your mother."

Joseph pushed himself up from his knees and walked toward the bedroom, while Steve\'s gaze shifted from the shiny hamburgers to their wrapping paper.

In the flickering light of the stove, the brown paper had taken on an orange hue. In the center was a large black "W" logo.

He picked up the paper, smoothing it out in his hands. By the light of the flames, he read the words beneath the symbol.

"Wilson Enterprises."