The next morning Fu Zhen woke at eight—the first time in a long while that he'd slept straight through till morning.
His leg was less painful than it had been the night before. He got up, boiled some plain noodles in the kitchen, then went back to his room to work on the illustrations he'd sketched the previous day.
The flat was quieter than usual—most of the other tenants had already left for work. He put on the Shazhou Chronicles audio in the background, eyes fixed on the screen as he refined the rough sketches.
Tang Wanwan had heard from Fu Ting's assistant about the rights negotiations, and decided to pay Fu Jianzhen a visit at his office. She took the lift straight to the top floor and walked up to the door of Fu Jianzhen's office.
She didn't knock. As usual, she pushed straight in. She flopped onto the sofa and said to him without preamble: 'Dad—I heard the Shazhou Chronicles rights are with Fu Zhen. You were going to buy them from him?'
Fu Jianzhen didn't look up from his documents. He turned a page and made a sound of affirmation, his expression giving nothing away.
Tang Wanwan's face immediately fell. 'Then forget it—I don't want to do it anymore. Tell them not to buy it.'
Fu Jianzhen glanced at her. 'If you want it, buy it.'
'I don't want it!' Tang Wanwan refused flatly. Buying the rights from Fu Zhen would be the same as giving Fu Zhen money. She hadn't expected him to still be alive in Pinghai City. Well—fine, let him be alive. Let him have his taste of real hardship. But she was absolutely not going to let Fu Jianzhen hand him more money on top of it.
Tang Wanwan got up from the sofa, clicked over to the desk in her heels, bent over and propped her face on her hands. 'Dad—shall we go see Fu Zhen?'
Fu Jianzhen looked up. His brow drew together slightly, as though the suggestion didn't sit well with him. 'What would be the purpose?'
Tang Wanwan went soft and pleading: 'He's still your son, after all. We should
check on him. And if Fu Zhen isn't doing very well…' She paused. 'We could help him.'
Fu Jianzhen pressed his lips together. The truth was, he did want to see how Fu Zhen was. He simply didn't want to go with Tang Wanwan. But then those eyes of hers were on him—and, as they always had, they made saying no impossible.
'Let me finish these documents.'
'Alright.' Tang Wanwan retreated to the sofa and scrolled through Weibo.
By the time Fu Jianzhen had cleared his desk, it was nearly noon. He took Tang Wanwan to a Western restaurant for lunch. A women's boutique happened to sit right next to it; he took her in with nothing better to do and bought her a few new things.
Fu Zhen finished the fan illustration for the supporting female character of Shazhou Chronicles in one sustained burst. He pushed back from his desk, stretched, and gave his lower back a few gentle thumps.
He turned to check the small bedside clock. It was almost evening. He'd been so absorbed in the drawing that he hadn't registered any hunger—but now his stomach announced itself loudly.
The instant noodles in the cupboard were almost gone. Fu Zhen fished two hundred yuan from his wallet, came downstairs, and headed out to the pharmacy for painkillers and to the market for vegetables.
A black Bentley was parked at the entrance to the alley. In this area, a car like that was almost never seen. Fu Zhen couldn't help glancing at it twice.
As he was looking, the car door opened. Out stepped a young woman in a cream-coloured coat. Her face was hidden behind large sunglasses and a mask—wrapped up with the care of someone determined not to be recognised.
The woman turned toward Fu Zhen. She reached up and removed her sunglasses.
Her skin was pale. Her features were exquisite. Amber-tinted eyes caught the last of the light as she looked at him, and she smiled the smile that her fans described as a ray of winter sunlight, striking you straight in the heart.
Fu Zhen did not feel the warmth of any winter sun. He stood where he was, his mind turning over one question: why had Tang Wanwan come here? Was she looking for him?
He had no desire for any extended contact with Tang Wanwan. Since the day she'd been brought into the Fu family three years ago, every encounter with her had ended in his misfortune. As the conflict between them escalated, he had managed to infuriate both Fu Jianzhen and Fu Ting completely—and the whole thing had ended with him thrown out of the house.
Fu Zhen came back to himself and turned to leave. Tang Wanwan laughed lightly and called after him: 'Dad came too. Don't you want to see him?'
Fu Zhen's body went rigid. He stopped. He couldn't move. The wind came up around him, carrying grit from the road, and the sky had gone the colour of something about to snow.
A very long time seemed to pass. Then Fu Zhen turned—slowly, like a marionette, so carefully you could almost hear his joints.
He saw a tall man stepping out of the black Bentley.
The man was wearing a dark suit, cut precisely, hair combed back with equal precision. His expression was composed and gave nothing away. No warmth of reunion crossed his face. He only smiled when he looked at Tang Wanwan.
This was Fu Jianzhen. This was—
Dad.
Fu Zhen's eyes went red instantly. He took an instinctive half-step back. The injuries on his left leg and ankle pulled—he nearly went over. He flung out a hand and caught the wall just in time to save himself.
He was having a terrible run of luck lately. That was nearly his third fall in quick succession. He'd go find a temple over the New Year and burn some incense. He pressed himself against the wall and steadied his breathing. In this state, he must look fairly wretched.
Though these people had already seen him at his very worst—so it hardly mattered.
Fu Jianzhen smiled briefly at Tang Wanwan before looking up at Fu Zhen. Fu Zhen was leaning against the wall with his head bent, his hair somewhat overgrown and uncut for a while. He bore almost no resemblance to the child who appeared in Fu Jianzhen's dreams.
Tang Wanwan studied Fu Zhen for a long moment. He was wearing a slightly worn dark blue puffer jacket from some street stall, with a black knitted hat pulled down over
his head and two woven shopping bags in his hands. A satisfaction settled warmly inside her. The insufferable little prince of the Fu family—in the end, he would live out his life as unremarkably as the majority of people in the world, grinding through the days in obscurity.
Though perhaps a little more miserably than most. She said: 'Good afternoon.'
'Yesterday, Mr. Fu Ting came to find me,' Fu Zhen said. His voice held its footing. 'We agreed: from now on, we don't disturb each other. Even if we happen to meet on the street, we treat each other as strangers.' He paused, gaze dropping to the ground. 'Mr.
Fu Ting may not have had the chance to inform the two of you.'
'I don't want the Shazhou Chronicles rights anymore,' Tang Wanwan said. Her tone carried a trace of apology.
'I see.' Fu Zhen didn't seem particularly distressed. He looked at her. 'Does that mean the agreement I made with Mr. Fu Ting last night is now void?'
Tang Wanwan raised an eyebrow. 'You'll have to ask my brother about that.'
Fu Zhen had no interest in arguing further with Tang Wanwan, and even less desire to see Fu Jianzhen under these circumstances—or under any circumstances.
No—it was all circumstances. In any situation at all. He turned to go back upstairs.
Tang Wanwan called after him, her voice smiling: 'Why are you already leaving, Ting-gē? We haven't spoken in so long. Won't you sit with us for a while?'
Tang Wanwan had always been like this. The cruelest things came out sounding perfectly earnest. Other people thought she meant well. Only the person being targeted could feel the blade inside the words.
No one knew what Tang Wanwan's actual birth date was—the date on her identity card had been written in by her foster mother at random, falling twenty-odd days after Fu Zhen's. So when she was brought into the Fu family, Fu Jianzhen hadn't made much of the issue and simply installed her as the third daughter of the house.
Fu Zhen had made it to the third step when he finally couldn't hold it in any longer. He stopped, turned his head, and looked down at Tang Wanwan with a cold, quiet smile. 'I don't have a sister like you,' he said.
'Fu Zhen!' Fu Jianzhen's voice cut in immediately.
Fu Zhen looked at his father. It had been a very long time since he'd allowed himself to look at him properly. In the dream, Fu Jianzhen had looked down at him with revulsion, and Fu Zhen had been so afraid of that expression that he'd kept his face against the floor and hadn't dared look up.
Two years had passed. And here Fu Jianzhen stood with Tang Wanwan, as though to confirm: no matter how much time goes by, what has happened cannot be undone.
Fu Zhen looked at him evenly. 'Mr. Fu—is there something you wished to say?'
Fu Jianzhen frowned. He hadn't seen Fu Zhen in over two years, and he hadn't expected to be addressed as 'Mr. Fu.'
The little boy from his dreams—the one who had called him Dad—had that child ever truly existed?
Fu Jianzhen pressed his fingers to his forehead. But the memory that came to him, as it always did, was barely anything at all.
The two of them looked at each other without speaking for a long time. The setting sun painted the horizon in brilliant rose. Fu Zhen's shadow stretched out behind him, long and thin, printed against the wall.
'If you don't need anything—' Fu Zhen turned back.
'Fu Zhen'—Tang Wanwan, at last, dropped the pretence of calling him Ting-gē. For reasons even she couldn't have explained, she heard herself ask: 'Do you want to come back to the Fu family?'
Fu Zhen's movement stopped. He answered, flatly and without warmth: 'No.'
In truth, Tang Wanwan had already gotten what she came for—she'd seen how Fu Zhen was living. But she still felt unsatisfied. In her imagination, he should have been begging for change under a bridge somewhere. Seeing him like this—ordinary, surviving, but surviving—wasn't enough.
Tang Wanwan glanced at Fu Jianzhen beside her. Then said: 'Dad—why don't we let Fu Zhen come home?'