The noodle place was not a shop as Sheng Renxing had imagined, but a street stall set up in front of a storefront. Several plastic tables and chairs had been arranged around it, while most of the light came from a bare bulb hanging over the stall.
It swung in the cold wind, radiating the sorrow of something barely holding on.
For one instant, Sheng Renxing suspected Xing Ye was retaliating against him and had brought him here to be turned into steamed buns.
“Old Que! Where’re my noodles? Hurry the hell up!” A middle-aged man sat on a plastic chair, drained the beer in front of him in one gulp, and shouted loudly at the owner.
They were the only table. Three men sat there chatting and drinking, their voices loud enough to shake the sky. Five bottles of beer and a bowl of peanuts sat on the table, with one empty bottle on the ground.
“They’re coming! Stop rushing me!” the owner shouted back even louder.
His fingers flew above the pot, appearing and disappearing in a cloud of white steam. The tattoo on the back of his hand seemed almost ready to float away with it.
“I’m starving to death!”
“Give it a rest. Go grab another plate of peanuts.”
They traded laughing curses. The man got up and fetched another plate.
Sheng Renxing half understood what he was hearing. Their local accent flew past his ears like a string of birdsong with occasional human language mixed in.
Looking around, he saw two girls waiting for takeaway.
In weather this cold, they wore smoky eye makeup and tiny skirts, smoking as they waited.
He could clearly see their hands trembling from the cold. They did not even need to flick the ash from their cigarettes—it shook off by itself and scattered all over the ground.
They did not look especially respectable.
The noodle stall did not look especially respectable either.
There was a certain carefree attitude toward hygiene beneath its simplicity.
Sheng Renxing bit the inside of his cheek and withdrew his gaze with faint disgust.
Suddenly he was not very hungry.
He was just about to tell Xing Ye they should go somewhere else when—
The owner had already noticed them. He raised his brows at Xing Ye, surprised and enthusiastic. “Hey? Here for noodles?”
And casually tossed two lumps of noodles into the pot.
Sheng Renxing: “…”
Xing Ye gave an “Mm.” The two obviously knew each other.
He led Sheng Renxing to one of the tables and told the owner, “Two bowls of shredded pork noodles with chili.”
Only after saying it did he remember to ask Sheng Renxing, “Do you eat spicy food?”
“…”
Sheng Renxing sat down, his gaze uncontrollably falling on the table.
A layer of grease coated the surface, gleaming temptingly. Several flies had been attracted to it and immediately began buzzing over the tabletop.
He kept his face stiff and lips pressed together. “…Yes. No scallions.”
This was his final stubborn line of defense.
“Sure,” the owner answered readily. “Want beer?”
“One bottle.” Xing Ye naturally pulled out a tissue from the side and handed it to Sheng Renxing. “Their noodles are famous.”
Sheng Renxing paused, took it, and wiped the table.
The noodles were ready quickly. They came in ceramic bowls, and the portions were generous.
A layer of red chili-fried pork covered the top. It actually looked pretty good.
Xing Ye opened a bottle of beer. He rolled the sleeves of his uniform jacket up his forearms, instantly breaking free of the obedient-student mold.
He brought over two disposable plastic cups and asked Sheng Renxing, “Want some?”
Sheng Renxing nodded, took the cup, and drank half of it in one go.
The cold, sharp beer slid down his throat and eased his thirst.
After bringing over the noodles, the owner did not leave. He braced himself against the table and struck up conversation with Xing Ye. “How come you had time to come by today?”
Then he looked Xing Ye’s clothes up and down. “Just got out of school? Teacher kept you late? How’d you get covered in mud like that—fighting?”
His words came fast and urgent, laced with a local accent. Sheng Renxing leaned over to get chopsticks and quietly switched on the translator in his head.
Across from him, Xing Ye gave an “Mm,” lowered his head to mix the noodles, and said flatly, “Got surrounded after school.”
“Hm?” The owner’s pitch shot upward. After a moment, he hissed through his teeth. “People from the arena?”
His eyes widened, full of hunger for gossip.
“?” Sheng Renxing could not stop himself from looking up at them.
Just in time to see Xing Ye nod.
His eyes were lowered, his attitude completely casual, as though it were nothing worth mentioning.
Steam rising from the stirred noodles blurred his face.
For no clear reason, Sheng Renxing thought of the way Xing Ye had spoken to those men in the alley. He had not been able to see clearly then, but Xing Ye had probably looked much the same as he did now.
Sheng Renxing lowered his head and mixed his own noodles. Fragrance surged upward, the steaming scent of noodles wrapped in chili-fried pork.
He was hungry again.
“Damn, that’s seriously unlucky. What route were they from?” the owner exclaimed, shaking his head.
Xing Ye shook his head.
The owner asked again, “Then what are you planning to do?”
As he spoke, he automatically grabbed a cup and poured himself beer from their bottle.
Seeing Sheng Renxing looking at him, he familiarly grinned and raised the cup in greeting, then lifted it toward Xing Ye.
Xing Ye clinked cups with him. “Handle it according to the rules.”
He tilted his head back. His Adam’s apple slid as he drank the small amount in the cup.
Both of them were thirsty.
The owner drained his whole cup too, then dragged over a chair from the table beside them.
There were no new customers. He apparently had no intention of leaving for the time being.
Seeing that Xing Ye did not want to discuss the subject, he changed topics. “And who’s this young boss?”
“Sheng Renxing.” Since the question was directed at him, Sheng Renxing politely nodded.
“Oh.” The owner smiled too. Hearing that he was not local, he stopped speaking in the Xuancheng dialect. “Classmate? New friend? Never seen you before.”
The first question was for Xing Ye, the second for Sheng Renxing.
“Come on, have a drink.”
Sheng Renxing was not shy. He raised his cup and clinked it with the owner’s. “I only arrived in Xuancheng today.”
“Oh? Then this is fate!”
“First time here? Traveling?” The owner was enthusiastic, his booming voice matched by exaggerated expressions. “Welcome to Xuancheng.”
“Come on, another toast.”
Sheng Renxing smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m here for school. Thanks.”
He raised his cup and clinked again.
After the armed fight earlier and now a bowl of steaming noodles, he was no longer holding himself so tightly. His expression relaxed into lazy ease.
“Oh~” The owner did not ask why Sheng Renxing had only transferred halfway through the semester. Instead he asked, “So if today’s your first day here, how did you two meet?”
Sheng Renxing thought about it, then answered with complete righteousness, “I acted heroically for a just cause.”
Xing Ye, who was eating noodles, abruptly raised his head and looked at him.
Sheng Renxing raised his brows back: What? You dare say I didn’t?
Xing Ye said nothing, lowered his head again, and continued eating.
Sheng Renxing was not sure whether he imagined it, but he thought Xing Ye smiled when he lowered his head.
“Whoa! He got surrounded tonight, and you stepped in heroically… so you helped Little Xing? No wonder you’re both filthy!…”
The owner was already praising him. As he praised, he started wildly embellishing. “…Later we absolutely have to make Little Xing send you a ceremonial banner, right to your school! I’ll find some people to beat drums too—clang clang boom boom clang—gotta build up the atmosphere…”
Sheng Renxing: “?”
He imagined the scene and put himself into it. His scalp tingled with secondhand embarrassment.
Then he looked at Xing Ye across from him. Xing Ye’s brows were furrowed, his expression caught somewhere between speechless and disgusted.
Sheng Renxing imagined Xing Ye in the scene too and suddenly burst out laughing.
It was as if someone had stepped directly on some unknown funny bone. The more he thought about it, the funnier it became. He braced a hand on the table, half covered his face, and laughed as if he had been electrocuted.
Xing Ye had not originally planned to laugh, but after watching Sheng Renxing laugh and laugh, he smiled too.
With such a good audience, the owner performed even harder.
Only when another customer arrived did he finally end the show.
After the owner left, the two fell silent again.
Sheng Renxing had gone too long without eating and now could not actually eat much. He put down his chopsticks and leaned back in the chair. “What rules?”
The question came out abruptly, but Xing Ye understood.
His gaze shifted to a bead of condensation sliding down the beer bottle. His right index finger tapped against his chopsticks as he hesitated in silence.
“Are you guys a gang? People who break the rules get their fingers chopped off?” When Xing Ye did not answer, Sheng Renxing continued. He lifted his chin thoughtfully. “Like in Young and Dangerous?”
The kind who gathered to fight with machetes.
Had he accidentally gotten involved in a gang war on his first day in Xuancheng? Was this place really that terrifying?
Sheng Renxing whistled inwardly.
There were not many boys these days who had never seen Young and Dangerous.
A lot of them instinctively admired and imitated it.
Sheng Renxing had obviously never actually had contact with a gang, so he was unconsciously building the whole thing out of movies.
Xing Ye: “…?”
He looked up as though he wanted to laugh, but held it in, lowering his voice. “No.”
After thinking about it, he could not resist defending them. “It’s not that exaggerated.”
They did not run around the streets with machetes for no reason.
Sheng Renxing nodded, still looking faintly puzzled.
After his interpretation, the “rules” suddenly became difficult to say aloud. The hot-blooded adolescent drama Xing Ye had felt seemed to turn into a bucket of melodramatic dog blood and pour straight over his head.
“An arranged fight.”
Xing Ye ran through the very limited store of rhetoric in his brain and explained it simply and clearly.
Sheng Renxing understood instantly. Thinking of how he had barged into the earlier fight, he asked with a hint of anticipation, “Do I have to do it too?”
Xing Ye looked at the barely concealed excitement in his eyes, then silently shook his head. “No.”
“Oh.” Sheng Renxing sounded relieved, yet somehow also a little disappointed.
Xing Ye: “…”
Without showing it, he studied the person in front of him.
Sheng Renxing had lowered his eyes, holding his phone in one hand as he replied to messages. With the other, he swept the red hair hanging into his eyes back from his forehead, exposing smooth skin.
He seemed to see something funny. The corner of his mouth lifted. His lips moved, muttering a soft curse.
There was an effortless arrogance in the lively movement of his brows and eyes.
And he really was arrogant.
On his very first day here, he had seen a fight in the middle of the night and dared jump in, then wanted to continue the evening afterward.
It was as though he did not know what fear meant.
After replying to Big-Head Qiu, Sheng Renxing put his phone away.
“Then…” He glanced at his cup. There was only a shallow mouthful left. He poured the little remaining beer from the bottle into it, then raised the cup toward Xing Ye.
“Hope it goes smoothly.”
Xing Ye raised his cup. “Thanks.” He paused. “Welcome to Xuancheng.”
At that exact moment, rain began to fall.
One drop landed in Sheng Renxing’s cup and spun rings of ripples across the surface.
He lifted his eyes. Xuancheng’s sky was pitch black, pressing down over the moon as wind and rain gathered.
As though the city itself were welcoming him and washing away the dust of his journey.
Xing Ye raised his hand and lightly clinked rims with him.
Sheng Renxing’s lashes trembled. He tipped his head back slightly and drank this cup of welcoming wine.
When they left, Xing Ye gave him his own umbrella.
It was black.
Sheng Renxing walked back to the hotel beneath it.
The receptionist was still bent over her phone, and the elevator still displayed OUT OF SERVICE.
He stamped his feet by the entrance to shake off the rain before going inside.
By then the rain had grown much heavier. Its clattering beat traveled through the poorly soundproofed walls into his ears.
Back in the room,
Sheng Renxing looked around at the completely empty room, then down at the half handprint on his clothes. At last, he began to consider:
What am I wearing tomorrow?
