Fu Zhen turned off the light in his room, lay down on the bed, and covered himself with the blanket. In his dream, he and Jiang Hengshu met once again in the bar. The moment their gazes collided, Jiang Hengshu strode toward him, swept him into his arms, kicked open the door of
Room 306, and threw him onto the bed. Then Jiang Hengshu’s body came down over him, and the two of them tangled together like thunder striking fire, until the end of time.
Fu Zhen slept until broad daylight. He was woken by noise. The tenant in the room next door was moving out today, and the landlord had come to check whether the furniture and facilities in the room were damaged. After discovering several scratches on the furniture, the two of them began arguing over it.
A female tenant who had returned very late the night before came out wearing pink pajamas, frowning as she complained that their quarrel was too loud and had already disturbed her rest.
Fu Zhen seemed to be drifting outside the edge of this noisy, chaotic world. He washed up, put on his coat, opened the door, and left the rental apartment. The cold air outside immediately caught this little beast that had just stepped out of its nest and played with him in its hands. Fu Zhen shrank his neck and pulled the scarf around it higher.
Jiang Hengshu had arrived at the construction site very early. He was tall, with well-proportioned limbs, a natural clothes rack. The work uniform that looked sloppy and untidy on other people somehow had a special presence when worn by him.
Fu Zhen had something on his mind, so he was a little distracted the whole morning. Even so, the work in his hands never stopped. He pushed cart after cart of sand to the huge sand pile. The workers used shovels to scoop up the sand and toss it onto the sieve, then mixed the filtered fine sand with lime and other materials to make the concrete needed by another group of workers.
While pushing the cart, Fu Zhen failed to notice a stone underfoot and fell straight to the ground. The small cart in front of him overturned as well, making a huge crash. Hearing the noise, the other workers raised their heads one after another. When they saw Fu Zhen lying there in such a wretched state, someone let out an amused laugh, then lowered his head again and continued with his work.
Everyone was busy struggling for their own livelihood. No one came over to ask whether this little cripple had fallen painfully or how he was doing now.
Fu Zhen was already used to this kind of life. He struggled up from the ground, righted the small cart, and staggered off to find a shovel. He shoveled all the sand that had spilled onto the ground back into the cart. The cold wind howled past his ears, mixed with several sparrows squabbling.
Just now, Jiang Hengshu had been carrying a sandbag and walking through the construction site with his head lowered. His thoughts had drifted back to that night at the bar, when he and that little mermaid had been tightly entangled. Their skin had pressed close together. The little
mermaid’s skin had been cold and smooth, and he had let out soft sighs by Jiang Hengshu’s ear. What’s wrong? Did I hurt you? Should I be gentler? Or did someone make you unhappy?
Please…
Do not be sad anymore, all right?
A trace of melancholy flashed through Jiang Hengshu’s blue eyes, which were like glass beads.
But in the next blink, his little mermaid was gone.
He had not turned into foam. He had merely returned to the sea.
When Jiang Hengshu came back to himself, he put down the sandbag on his shoulder. As soon as he looked up, he saw Fu Zhen not far away, laboriously shoveling sand. Fu Zhen mechanically swung the shovel in his hands, and very quickly, all the sand scattered on the ground had been shoveled back into the small cart.
Fu Zhen gripped the handles of the cart with both hands. The metal sheet wrapped around the wooden handle had curled up from years of use, stabbing sharply into his palm. Fu Zhen turned his hand over and lowered his head to look at his palm. Only then did he discover that the skin
from his palm to his wrist had already seeped with blood. Mixed with mud and sand, it had dried into a dark purplish-red patch.
Fu Zhen sighed softly. After pushing this cart of sand to its destination, he jogged to the guard room.
The guard room counted as the cleanest place on this construction site. It was more than twenty square meters, and usually only Old Wang, the night watchman, lived there. Fu Zhen borrowed a basin from Old Wang and filled it with some clean water.
A thin stream of water gently washed away the grains of sand embedded in the flesh of Fu
Zhen’s palm. In the blink of an eye, the clear water turned muddy. After rinsing the sand from his hand, Fu Zhen stood, poured the water from the basin away, and returned it to Old Wang.
Unfortunately, Fu Zhen’s timing could not have been worse. The foreman came to the construction site and did not see Fu Zhen, so he immediately took out his phone and began timing him. Seeing Fu Zhen walk out of the guard room, his brows instantly furrowed. He shouted loudly at Fu Zhen, “Why aren’t you working? You ran over here to slack off? I’m deducting half a day’s wages!”
Fu Zhen raised his head and looked toward the direction of the voice. The anger on the foreman’s face was genuine. There was not the slightest hint that he was joking.
The foreman strode quickly toward Fu Zhen and asked, “What were you doing just now?” “My hand was injured. I washed it,” Fu Zhen explained with his head lowered.
The foreman’s gaze fell on Fu Zhen’s palm. “Can you still work?” Fu Zhen immediately nodded. “Yes.”
“Is your leg all right?” the foreman asked again.
Fu Zhen understood what the foreman meant. Once he admitted that the injury on his leg was serious, he probably would not need to come to the construction site for the next few days. Fu Zhen could only shake his head and say, “It’s fine.”
The foreman gave a hum. “Then go work.”
“But the wages still have to be deducted. I’ll deduct a quarter from you.”
Fu Zhen’s wages for an entire day were only a little over a hundred yuan. A quarter was not a huge amount, but it was not small either. At the very least, the better meals he had planned for next week would now be impossible.
Fu Zhen walked to the side, righted his small cart, and continued working. The foreman stared at his two legs for a long time. Only after confirming that Fu Zhen would not delay the work did he turn and leave to inspect the other construction sites.
Fu Zhen pushed the little broken cart unsteadily past Jiang Hengshu. Jiang Hengshu could see Fu Zhen’s features crumpled together from pain and hear his quiet gasps.
Jiang Hengshu’s temples ached slightly. He quickened his steps and soon widened the distance between them. The sound of the gasps vanished from his ears, but a few traces of restlessness still rose in Jiang Hengshu’s heart.
Jiang Hengshu spoke very little. In an entire morning, it was rare for him to say more than a few sentences. His expression was always indifferent, as if he did not care about anything very much.
Fu Zhen did not know why Jiang Hengshu had come to work at the construction site with him. He clearly remembered that night at the bar, the manager and that Mr. Zheng had treated Jiang Hengshu very intimately, even with a certain degree of respect. At the time, he had thought Jiang Hengshu must be some important person.
But everyone had their own secrets.
At lunch, Fu Zhen found a spot that was not too far from Jiang Hengshu, but not too close either. Holding his lunchbox, he looked at Jiang Hengshu with a gaze he believed was well hidden.
The arm with which Jiang Hengshu was holding his chopsticks suddenly paused. He abruptly raised his head and looked in Fu Zhen’s direction. Fu Zhen had not expected to be caught red-handed. In some embarrassment, he lowered his head and lifted the boxed lunch in his hands, hiding more than half his face behind it.
Seeing Fu Zhen hurriedly hide away like a startled little beast, Jiang Hengshu calmly withdrew his gaze.
Not long afterward, the phone in his pocket rang. It was Wang Tong calling, asking where Jiang Hengshu was living now. Jiang Hengshu had just given up the apartment in the city center. These days, he was sleeping in a hotel and had not yet found a new place to stay. He planned to find somewhere close to the construction site and also suited to his current identity.
After Jiang Hengshu hung up, a worker beside him, who had heard what he said, patted him on the shoulder and asked, “You’re looking for a place to rent?”
Jiang Hengshu nodded.
That worker gave Jiang Hengshu a string of numbers and said he could call this person.
Fu Zhen was lowering his head and eating the greasy eggplant in his lunchbox in small bites. A tiny shadow lay across his long eyelashes.
Jiang Hengshu dealt with the worker in front of him, but his gaze was unconsciously drawn to Fu Zhen not far away. There was a layer of fine fuzz on Fu Zhen’s face, like a peach that had only just ripened. A thin sheen of oil stained his pale pink lips… Jiang Hengshu withdrew his gaze and said thank you to the worker in front of him.
After Fu Zhen finished eating and rested for a while against the earthen wall behind him, he opened his eyes, stood, and threw the lunchbox into the trash can. Then he went outside and bought two adhesive bandages, simply bandaging the abrasions on his leg.
Not long after Fu Zhen left, Jiang Hengshu discovered that a business card had been left behind where he had just been sitting. He looked at the slightly yellowed card, seeming to think about something. After a long silence, he finally picked up the card before someone else could sit there. He quickly scanned the words on it. It was for a rental room, and the conditions matched his requirements quite well. Jiang Hengshu put the business card into the pocket of his jacket.
When Fu Zhen returned, he found that the business card he had placed on the brick had disappeared without a trace. He secretly glanced at Jiang Hengshu a few times, but could not see anything unusual on his face.
When work ended that evening, Jiang Hengshu went alone to find the foreman. “The money deducted from Fu Zhen today—take it from my wages.”
The foreman narrowed his eyes and sized up the tall man in front of him. “What’s your relationship with that little cripple?”
“No relationship.”
The foreman patted Jiang Hengshu’s shoulder and advised him, “Young man, too much sympathy isn’t a good thing.”
Jiang Hengshu pressed his lips together and said nothing. The foreman nodded and made a few marks in the account book. In any case, the wages were not coming out of his own pocket. Even if Jiang Hengshu gave all his salary to Fu Zhen, it had nothing to do with him.
Jiang Hengshu was about to turn and leave when he suddenly thought of something. His steps paused, and he added to the foreman, “Don’t tell him about this.”