Sheng Renxing sat in the chair and thought for a long time before deciding to shower first.
Apart from the old showerhead, which sprayed water wildly in every direction like it was baring its teeth, the bathroom was reasonably clean.
Entirely worthy of the room’s price.
After he came out, he lay against the headboard and made a call to have his clothes sent to the laundry.
“What? Sorry, we don’t offer that service.”
Sheng Renxing propped his legs on the bed. The answer was exactly what he had expected. His heart remained perfectly calm as he easily won a hundred yuan from the betting pool in his head.
The person continued, “But there’s a laundry room on the first floor. You can bring your clothes down and wash them there.”
Sheng Renxing turned to look at the pile of clothes on the floor, then at the bathrobe he was wearing.
“…”
After negotiating a hundred-yuan tip, the other side agreed to take them down for him and enthusiastically promised to dry them before bringing them back, without losing so much as a single thread.
The light of money shone across the land.
After hanging up, Sheng Renxing rolled over, picked up his phone, and checked WeChat.
Big-Head Qiu had already sent him a whole chain of messages.
Sheng Renxing’s last message had been a photo of the noodle stall and the words, “Eating dinner with someone.”
Below that came a bombardment.
Qiu Huaixin could not believe it:
[Is that… a roadside stall???]
[That environment…]
[Did what Uncle Sheng did hit you that hard?! Where did your 360-degree, no-blind-spots, melodramatic germophobia go?!]
Only after marveling did he finally process the important part:
[Wait, who are you eating with? Who has that much face?!]
[Last time I personally made you a cake, you said it was good to my face and then secretly gave it to Sheng Anquan because you thought it was dirty. What the hell was that?]
[I thought I was respecting your germophobia. Turns out I’m just not worthy?]
[I spent three hours on it! Three hours!!!]
[…]
At the sight of a certain few words, Sheng Renxing’s eyes darkened. His finger swiftly swiped past.
[The place was fine. Noodles were good too.]
His finger paused, then he sneered:
[You fucking spread the frosting with bare hands and then licked your fingers afterward. Did you think I didn’t see?]
[Waiting until your back was turned before giving it away was the greatest dignity I could offer you.]
The instant he sent it, Qiu Huaixin called him.
Sheng Renxing coldly rejected the call.
That did not stop the other man’s fury.
Big-Head Qiu: [Stop changing the subject! Tell me, who treated you? Did you find some wild man outside? We’ve only been apart for one day and you already found a new love?!]
X: [.]
Big-Head Qiu: [Don’t brush me off with a period! Who’s the wild man? Confess and you’ll be treated leniently! If you don’t tell me, I’m selling your little wife!]
X: [Message delivered, but rejected by the recipient.]
Big-Head Qiu: [???]
Sheng Renxing exited the chat and stared at the screen, tapping his index finger against the edge of the phone.
He pressed his lips together, then opened Add Friend.
Entered the number.
Search.
[This user does not exist.]
“?” Sheng Renxing froze.
He tried again.
[This user does not exist.]
Fake number?
The next second, he rejected that possibility.
No WeChat?
After thinking, he typed a text message: [Thanks for the umbrella. The noodles were really good today.]
He stared at the screen for a moment, then added: [When should I return the umbrella?]
After adding it, Sheng Renxing did not send it. He frowned and scrutinized it for a long while.
No. Too sticky, too mushy, too girly.
Delete all of it.
[When do you want the umbrella back?]
That was better. Fit Brother Sheng’s aura.
Send.
Successfully sent.
Sheng Renxing rolled onto his stomach on the bed and placed the phone on his pillow. Without leaving the screen, he tapped the two characters of “Xing Ye” and inexplicably remembered Qiu Huaixin’s “wild man.”
Not entirely wrong.
Xing Ye had just finished showering and washing his clothes, which he hung outside the window.
After hanging them, he did not close the window. He braced his hands on the iron bars outside and leaned against the sill.
The stains on his school jacket were hard to remove. He had scrubbed them by hand twice.
Cool night wind carried threads of rain inside, making the clothes whip around and creak.
With weather like this, after hanging them to dry he would probably have to wash them again.
But if he did not wash them, his mother would interrogate him endlessly about the marks.
Xing Ye felt his pocket, took out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one.
Their home was not far from the alley where the fight had happened.
Or rather, it was deeper inside that same area.
The alleys were packed with illegal extensions and makeshift buildings, some passages so narrow that only one person could squeeze through.
Between two buildings, opening the windows meant you could touch the opposite wall. Even sunlight had trouble getting into the cramped space.
There were no streetlights here at night either.
Even if one was installed, its lifespan would not be long. Streetlights were not welcome here.
Outside was dim now, without so much as a speck of light. The place looked pitch-black, almost like an abandoned city.
But if you listened, it was lively.
All kinds of sounds—people soliciting customers, fighting, laughing, swearing.
The vitality of the alleys bloomed in darkness.
Which only made his home seem abnormally quiet.
Quiet was the normal state of their household.
Xing Ye leaned against the second-floor window and slowly exhaled smoke.
His gaze drifted through the air with it. As the smoke dispersed, he stared vacantly at one point in space.
Until his phone sounded.
Xing Ye’s lashes trembled and he came back to himself.
His first reaction was to frown.
That was what receiving too many text messages over the years had trained into him.
He grabbed the phone and brought it in front of his face.
An unexpected string of digits.
[When do you want the umbrella back?]
Xing Ye stared at it for a while. He had intended to reply, [No need.]
Then his phone sounded again.
A familiar number sent: [They agreed. You choose the time and place.]
The room lights were off. The phone’s blue-white glow washed him so pale he barely looked alive.
His eyes chilled slightly as he slowly typed:
[The night after tomorrow, 9 p.m., West Bend.]
The reply came quickly: [ok.]
The sound of a key turning came from the door.
Xing Ye froze. He threw the cigarette butt out the window and shut it.
Click.
The light came on.
Xing Ye narrowed his eyes against the sudden brightness.
The next instant, a somewhat shrill voice cried out.
“Oh my god, you scared me to death.” A woman in a short skirt walked in, brushing rainwater from herself as she complained, “You’re home and you don’t turn on the lights? Nearly scared my heart out.”
Her voice was high and thin. Now that she softened it, she sounded less like she was complaining and more like she was acting spoiled.
Xing Ye frowned at the sound. “Why are you back?”
The woman rolled her eyes at him. “What kind of attitude is that!”
She tossed her bag onto the sofa, walked over, pushed him aside, and brought a gust of perfume with her. “I came back to bring in the laundry.”
“You’re like a wooden post. It’s raining this hard and you didn’t think to bring it in for me?”
She failed to move him the first time and pushed again. “Move, move. You smoked while I was gone too? It stinks!”
Xing Ye looked at her without speaking and shifted aside.
Only after the woman had taken down all the clothes hanging above did he say, “Those are the clothes I just washed.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier!” The woman angrily scolded him, then immediately grew suspicious. “Why are you washing clothes in the middle of the night?”
She turned and looked him up and down.
Xing Ye remained calm. “It was hot today. I sweated.”
The woman looked at him for another long moment before letting him off. She clicked her tongue. “So fussy for someone poor.”
She hung each item back up. When she finished, she scratched her hair. “No, wait. I remember washing clothes. I remember it clearly! There was a leather skirt of mine too.”
Xing Ye cut her off. “That was the day before yesterday.”
“…”
The woman rolled her eyes again. “Right, right. Your memory is the best.”
She shut the window, turned around, picked up her bag, and slung it over her shoulder.
Xing Ye looked at her back. “You’re going out again?”
The woman turned and looked at her son leaning against the wall.
She smiled, walked over, and reached up to touch his head.
Xing Ye tilted away, frowning as he dodged.
The woman refused to give up.
Then she opened her bag and pulled out a hundred-yuan note. “Stop acting spoiled. I’m going to Aunt Fang’s to play mahjong.”
Xing Ye did not move, looking down at her from above with slightly cold eyes.
The woman pretended not to notice and stuffed the hundred yuan into his pocket. “I’m off.”
As she adjusted her clothes and headed out, she said, “What rotten weather. I remember you’ve got a bigger umbrella, right? The black one. Let me use it.”
Xing Ye: “…”
“Lent it to a classmate.”
“Oh?” The woman looked at him in surprise, narrowed her eyes, and asked, “A girl?”
“No,” Xing Ye said. “Sun Wen.”
The woman instantly lost interest. She snorted and walked to the door, instructing him, “Don’t smoke too much. Hear me?”
Xing Ye folded his arms and looked at her as if he had heard nothing.
The woman grabbed a small object nearby and threw it at him. “Stop pretending you’re deaf! Go to sleep. Don’t you have class tomorrow? If they call me to school again, I’ll beat you to death with a broom.”
Bang.
She slammed the door behind her.
Xing Ye caught the object and looked at it. It was lipstick his mother no longer used.
He stood in silence for a moment, sighed softly, then casually tossed it into the rubbish bin.
He picked up his phone and deleted the message he had originally meant to send Sheng Renxing.
Then typed a new one.
[Up to you.]
Sheng Renxing had not slept very well the night before. He kept feeling as though mosquitoes were buzzing by his ears, but whenever he turned on the light there was nothing there. It annoyed him so much he nearly jumped out of bed to commit murder.
He only drifted off near dawn.
It felt as though he had just closed his eyes when his phone began ringing.
He had set it to vibrate. Now it buzzed continuously, exactly like a mosquito.
Eyes still closed, Sheng Renxing felt around the bedside table. Once he found the phone, he rejected the call without even looking.
A little while later—
[Bzz— bzz—]
He brought the phone up with murderous fury, ready to see which blind idiot was responsible.
It was an unsaved number.
He opened his eyes for one glance, but the light outside was too bright, so he closed them again.
Sheng Renxing rolled onto his side, accepted the call, put the phone to his ear, and waited for the other person to speak.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice said, “Is this Sheng Renxing?”
“Who are you?”
“Oh, you’re sleeping?” The person on the other end sounded extremely familiar with him. “It’s noon and you’re still not up? Want to have a meal together?”
“Who are you?” Sheng Renxing frowned and asked again, forcing himself to be patient.
“Hm?” The other man sounded surprised, then muttered as if to himself, “You didn’t save my number?”
Another male voice suddenly appeared in the background.
He laughed. “Now this is awkward. You’ve been rambling for ages and he doesn’t even know who you are.”
“Shut up.” The man cursed at him under his breath, then turned back and coughed. “How about I introduce myself?”
“My name is Wei Huan. I’m your mother’s younger brother. So I suppose I’m your uncle.”
Half asleep, Sheng Renxing’s first thought was: Your mother is the younger brother—what kind of stupid relative is this?
Then the words replayed in his brain.
He abruptly woke up.
His eyes flew open and he sat upright. “…Little Uncle?”
The voice on the other end answered brightly, “Yeah. Remember now?”
Then more quietly to the person beside him, “See? I told you he hadn’t forgotten.”
Sheng Renxing had only just woken up and his brain was still offline. He answered “Mm” in a daze.
This was his mother’s biological younger brother, who had always lived in Xuancheng.
They had met when Sheng Renxing was a child. Later, Wei Huan seemed to have fallen out with his father’s side of the family and stopped visiting.
When Sheng Renxing came to Xuancheng, he had even wondered whether he should go find him. Instead, Wei Huan had called first.
He blinked and rubbed his forehead. “Sorry. I wasn’t awake just now.”
“It’s fine. I was teasing you.” The man laughed unconcernedly.
“Are you free? Come out and have a meal.”
