Fu Zhen had no idea that the person who had approached him about the Shazhou Chronicles screen rights had been sent by Fu Ting. He didn't know, either, that after the assistant's approach failed, Fu Ting had decided to come himself.
By early afternoon the sky had gone dark and sullen. A wild wind rose, sweeping up the dust from the ground and howling past his ears toward the southern horizon. Fu Zhen's leg ached worse in this kind of weather—a sharp, insistent pain that was harder to endure than usual.
He was pushing his cart through the site, working alongside the other labourers, and turning over in his mind whether to ask the foreman for the afternoon off so he could go home and work on his illustrations.
While he was still deliberating, the foreman appeared from the gatehouse and called out to him: 'Fu Zhen—someone here for you.'
Fu Zhen blinked, confused. He genuinely couldn't think who would be coming to find him. He had no family left. No friends.
So who was waiting outside for him now?
He parked the cart, and with his left leg dragging with every step, made his slow way toward the gate.
The foreman watched Fu Zhen's snail-pace progress and added: 'Ten minutes.
Make it quick.'
Fu Zhen acknowledged this and pushed himself to walk faster despite the pain.
Fu Ting had not expected to see what he was seeing. The brother he remembered—always immaculately turned out, proud and refined—was now standing in a dust-coated blue work uniform, face grey with grime, back curved with fatigue, lurching side to side as he walked.
He'd already seen photographs of Fu Zhen on the construction site. But somehow the photographs had never quite felt real—it seemed impossible that the little young
master could have been brought to this. Seeing it now with his own eyes was something else entirely.
Fu Zhen also hadn't expected that the person waiting for him would be Fu Ting. He stopped dead and immediately turned to leave. Fu Ting called after him: 'I have something to say to you.'
Fu Zhen genuinely felt there was nothing left between them worth saying. His back stiffened by degrees, becoming rigid. He couldn't bring himself to turn and look at Fu Ting again.
He couldn't imagine what had brought Fu Ting here. Had he been thinking back on two years ago and decided he'd been too lenient? Was he here to settle another score on Tang Wanwan's behalf?
Fu Ting said, with cool detachment: 'If you want to keep this job tomorrow, you'd better stay and hear me out.'
Fu Zhen was silent.
He turned. He looked steadily at Fu Ting. Inside him, something had caved open—a hollow through which the north wind passed without mercy.
The last time he'd seen Fu Ting was outside the bar. He'd thought by then that he had let go of everything. But standing here now, looking at him again, Fu Zhen knew he hadn't. Deleting the photograph from his phone was not the same as deleting this person from his life. Every time he thought of them or saw them, it was like being cut with a dull blade—never quite enough to slice through cleanly, only enough to drag and tear, skin pulling away from flesh, everything raw and wet.
He said: 'I still have work to do. If you have something to say, come find me after I finish my shift.'
Fu Ting was unmoved. 'My time is limited.'
Fu Zhen gave a short, hollow laugh. His expression was bleak. 'In that case, Mr. Fu, I'll ask you to pay me for half a day's work. Fifty yuan.'
Fu Ting looked at him. Fu Zhen's face was completely steady, and his eyes held no trace of a joke. Fu Ting frowned slightly. This was not the kind of thing he'd expected to come out of Fu Zhen's mouth.
He should reach into his wallet and pull out a hundred-yuan note—throw it at Fu Zhen. Or laugh coldly and say something cutting. Either of those things.
But he found himself unable to do either. Looking at Fu Zhen's eyes, he saw his own reflection staring back. He looked like a snarling, clawing monster. The image hit Fu Ting like a bucket of ice water—cold to the bone, his blood coming to a standstill.
After a long silence, he said: 'I'll come find you tonight.'
He looked at Fu Zhen one more time, then turned and drove away.
Fu Ting's departure had a ragged quality to it. Fu Zhen didn't try to parse it. He had no interest in what was going on in Fu Ting's head, and no desire to know why he'd come. He only wanted to never see him again.
But that wish, as it turned out, was not granted. When Fu Zhen came home from his shift that evening, Fu Ting was already waiting in the alley below his building, exactly as he'd promised.
Fu Zhen leaned against the earthen wall behind him, sheltered from the wind. The ache in his left leg eased a fraction. Fu Ting stood across from him and said nothing—standing there like a post. Fu Zhen was in a hurry to get back to his illustrations and decided to be the one to break the silence. 'Mr. Fu—what is it you actually want?'
'I want to buy the screen adaptation rights to Shazhou Chronicles.'
So that was what this was about. Fu Zhen recalled that someone else had already tried to buy those rights a few days ago and been turned down. This must have been the person Fu Ting had sent. He had no entertainment company—but he had a darling daughter who worked in the entertainment industry. He must want to buy the rights as a gift for Tang Wanwan.
'No,' Fu Zhen said.
Fu Ting looked at him. His expression went dark, like a sky about to rain. He took a step forward. Fu Zhen's instincts fired—his bad leg shifted involuntarily. He twisted his ankle, inhaled sharply through his teeth, and managed not to cry out.
Fu Ting looked down at Fu Zhen's left leg. After a moment, quietly: '…Your leg?'
A desolation moved across Fu Zhen's face. After a moment he looked up at Fu Ting, his eyes carrying a thin edge of mockery. He said softly: 'Mr. Fu—are you here to threaten me? Going to break the other one?'
He lowered his gaze again once he'd said it. His long lashes cast a tiny shadow. No one could have known, in that moment, what was happening inside him.
Fu Ting was taken aback. That hadn't been what he meant at all. He had only wanted to ask about the leg—ask how it was now.
He didn't feel like explaining himself. He said, in the flat tone he used for business: 'Shazhou Chronicles studio was set up by me and our father. The voice cast and music for the production were arranged by people I found. Without us, Shazhou Chronicles would never have aired. So tell me—what percentage of that studio does our father and I have a right to claim?'
Fu Zhen lifted his head sharply and looked straight at Fu Ting. His dark eyes were bottomless—they seemed to pull Fu Ting's entire soul into them.
Fu Ting's heart took a blow like a hammer's strike. He opened his lips—but before he could speak, Fu Zhen said: 'Fine. I'll sell it to you.'
The lightness in his voice was total. Not a trace of reluctance. Fu Ting almost wondered if the refusal had been a negotiating tactic all along.
'You can have the rights to Shazhou Chronicles,' Fu Zhen repeated. 'I have two conditions.'
Fu Ting said flatly: 'Don't push it.'
'First: I'd like you—and Mr. Fu Jianzhen—to stop disturbing my life from this point forward.' Fu Zhen paused briefly, then continued: 'Even if we happen to cross paths in the street, treat each other as strangers.'
This was not an unreasonable demand—it was, if anything, exactly what Fu Ting would have chosen himself. If it hadn't been for Tang Wanwan wanting the rights, he would not have sought Fu Zhen out in the first place. He nodded without hesitation. 'Agreed.'
Fu Zhen nodded in return, and went on: 'Second: Shazhou Chronicles won't be updated by me anymore. Whatever continuation you want to produce, you can do it however you like. Just don't involve me again.'
The words came out gradually quieter, carrying with them a note of something that was almost relief.
'Agreed.' Fu Ting nodded. Shazhou Chronicles hadn't been Fu Zhen's work alone—he could find the other people from the original studio to finish the remaining episodes.
Fu Zhen raised his hand. In the dim evening light, he made the gesture of a high-
five.
Winter nights fell quickly. Darkness had gathered around them without either of
them noticing. In the amber streetlight, Fu Ting looked at Fu Zhen's outstretched palm and saw the calluses—countless of them, in places they had never been before.
He went still for a moment. A distant memory came to him—something about the way they used to seal every agreement with a high-five, a habit Fu Zhen had picked up from a cartoon when he was small. In those days he hadn't yet started school. He spent his days either buried in the sofa clutching a teddy bear watching cartoons, or out in the small garden behind the villa bouncing a rubber ball.
By the time Fu Ting came back to himself, Fu Zhen had already withdrawn his hand. A short laugh—edged with something dry. 'Never mind. What are we high-fiving now, anyway? Mr. Fu, when you've drawn up the contract, come find me to sign.'
'Fine,' Fu Ting said.
Fu Zhen turned and walked toward the stairwell entrance. Several of the motion-sensor lights in the corridor had gone out, and his figure gradually disappeared into the dark.
Fu Ting stood in place for a long time. Darkness and cold drifted around him like things with no fixed shape. His mind kept alternating—Fu Zhen's words just now, then Tang Wanwan's voice calling him Ting-gē in that soft pleading way. He turned, got into his car, and left.
Fu Zhen climbed the stairs. Across the inside of his mind, images flashed in quick succession: childhood with Fu Ting and Fu Jianzhen—his father calling him by his nickname, sweeping him up from the lawn and lifting him high; his brother coming over to the wet homework book with mock outrage, raising a hand as though about to smack
his backside, and Fu Zhen letting out a howl and locking both arms around his father's neck, refusing to let go.
He had thought he was past crying. But the tears came without asking—his eyes brimming and overflowing on their own. The stairwell was dark. He stumbled on one of the steps, hit the corner of the landing, and couldn't get up.