“Geez, you’re making me hungry.” Pan Zhi gulped on the other end of the phone. “I’m serious. I’ll go visit you in a couple days and you can take me out to eat. There’s no way we can get that much food here for that price!”
“Did your family donate all their money to charity during the New Year or something?” said Jiang Cheng, holding the phone between his head and his shoulder. He had a plate in one hand, a pair of tongs in the other, and was methodically filling his plate: pork belly, sliced beef, pork belly, sliced beef… Honestly, no matter how varied the food selection was, he’d always get the same things. These were his favorites.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” Pan Zhi said wistfully. “Last semester we agreed to eat barbecue together at New Year’s. But now there’s no meat to eat and no you to eat with.”
“You can stay at a hotel when you get here.” Jiang Cheng put the tongs down, stacked another empty plate on top of the one he’d already loaded with meat, and piled more meat onto the new plate. “And book it yourself; I don’t feel like doing anything these days.”
“But I can just stay with you,” said Pan Zhi.
“No.” Jiang Cheng frowned. Where he was living now… He didn’t want to stay there any more than he had to himself. “Just book a standard room. I’ll go to you.”
Pan Zhi thought about it for a second. “…You don’t have a great relationship with your biological dad, huh?”
“There’s no relationship to speak of just yet.” Carrying the two plates of meat, Jiang Cheng went to grab a bottle of beer. “So there’s no telling if it’ll be good or bad…”
As he made his way back to his own table, he stopped in his tracks.
The table was a four-top, and one of the seats was currently occupied by a skateboard. A little bald kid dressed in blue sat in another. And on the table was…a green knit cap adorned with pink flowers.
Jiang Cheng looked at her in shock. “Gu Miao?”
Gu Miao nodded, though she didn’t seem at all surprised. She stowed her skateboard under the table.
“You…” As he set his plates down on the table, he noticed that Gu Miao was already eyeing the grill in eager anticipation. He waved a hand in front of Gu Miao’s eyes. “Who are you here with?”
Gu Miao stood up and pointed toward the door, then waved her hands. Turning in the direction she pointed, Jiang Cheng spotted an equally surprised Gu Fei.
“We’ll find another table,” Gu Fei said as he walked over. “Gege is already sitting here.”
Gu Miao took one look around, swallowed, and didn’t budge from her seat.
“The server just told me there’s still a few tables over on that side.” Gu Fei pointed to the back of the restaurant. “We’ll go sit over there.”
Still, Gu Miao stayed put. She tilted her face up and held Gu Fei’s gaze, expressionless. It was anyone’s guess what she was trying to say. Gu Fei remained in a stalemate with her for a few seconds, then turned to Jiang Cheng.
“Hm?” Jiang Cheng looked back at him inquisitively.
“You here by yourself?” Gu Fei asked.
“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng answered, sitting down.
The server came by and turned on the gas, then laid down some parchment paper. Jiang Cheng picked up a few slices of meat and placed them on the grill, preparing to brush on the marinade.
“Then how about we…” Gu Fei hesitated for a long time before he finished his thought. “Sit together?”
Jiang Cheng lifted his eyes to peer at him. To be honest, he was inclined to say, “In your dreams! Why don’t you go and wash that blanket first?” But Gu Miao was still sitting across the table with her shiny head and her huge eyes staring right at him; he couldn’t let those words come out. He brushed some more marinade onto the meat slices, then nodded.
“Thanks,” Gu Fei said, then pointed at Gu Miao. “Sit here and wait for me. I’m going to get food.”
Gu Miao nodded. After Gu Fei walked away, Jiang Cheng placed another two slices of sliced beef onto the grill. “Which one do you like?” he asked Gu Miao. “There’s pork belly and sliced beef.”
Gu Miao pointed at the beef.
“Pork belly is good, too—wait ’til it’s sizzling hot and the grease seeps out… I can eat five or six plates.” Jiang Cheng flipped the meat over and brushed it with oil. “Can you handle spice?”
Gu Miao shook her head.
Jiang Cheng put a slice of cooked beef on the plate in front of her. “Eat up.” But Gu Miao was a little hesitant. She turned and looked in the direction Gu Fei had gone.
“It’s fine…” Jiang Cheng trailed off as he noticed a prominent scar stretching across the back of Gu Miao’s head. It had to be two inches long at least. He was shocked.
It seemed like Gu Miao couldn’t spot Gu Fei, so she turned back around and stuffed the meat into her mouth, smiling at Jiang Cheng.
“Wanna try a piece of pork belly?” Jiang Cheng asked her. Gu Miao nodded, and so he picked up a slice of pork belly and put it on her plate. As he moved the green hat from the table onto the chair beside her, he couldn’t help but click his tongue. “Who bought this for you?”
Gu Miao kept her head down and chewed in silence. Well, it was bad manners to talk with your mouth full. This little girl was probably the only person he’d ever met who followed that policy to perfection.
Gu Fei quickly came back with their food, though he was clearly not as skilled as Jiang Cheng in the art of all-you-can-eat barbecue—he only managed to bring back three plates. If Jiang Cheng hadn’t been talking to Pan Zhi on the phone, he could easily have filled six plates to satisfy his belly and had enough room to throw in some fruit at the end.
Their table was next to the wall. Jiang Cheng had taken a seat by the wall, while Gu Miao was happily chowing down in the seat diagonally across from him. Gu Fei hesitated for a moment, then sat down next to Jiang Cheng.
A somewhat reluctant Jiang Cheng was about to grill some food for him when Gu Fei reached across and gently poked Gu Miao’s head. “Go get the drinks yourself.”
After Gu Miao left for the drink counter, Gu Fei quickly got up and moved across the table. Jiang Cheng glanced up at him, then continued to grill his pork belly and beef slices.
“Still running a fever and you’re eating such greasy food?” Gu Fei asked.
“Hmm?” Jiang Cheng’s hand paused in mid-air as he watched the rice cakes cooking on Gu Fei’s side. “And you know this how?”
“You were burning hot when I dragged you inside. How could I not notice?”
“Dragged?” An image popped into Jiang Cheng’s mind of Gu Fei dragging him by the hair like an old sack.
“What, was I supposed to carry you bridal style?”
Gu Fei picked up two pieces of bacon and placed them on the grill. They each took up one half of the grill—the picture of harmony. Not quite sure how to continue the conversation, Jiang Cheng ate a piece of pork belly instead.
Gu Miao came back from her quest for drinks with a few bottles in her arms. She set all four open bottles of beer one by one onto the table, plus a glass of orange juice.
“You’re quite impressive.” Jiang Cheng looked at her in surprise. “Didn’t spill it all over the floor?”
Gu Miao shook her head and sat down at the table, then pushed a bottle of beer and the glass of orange juice in front of him.
“I don’t—” Jiang Cheng was just about to tell Gu Miao to drink the orange juice herself, but as he opened his mouth, Gu Miao had already grabbed a bottle of beer and poured it into her own glass. “You…?”
Gu Miao picked up the glass and took a big gulp, let out a satisfied sigh, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Jiang Cheng glanced at Gu Fei, only to see him wrapping a lettuce leaf around a piece of pork belly without so much as a glance in Gu Miao’s direction.
He had to ask. “She drinks?”
“Mm-hmm. Only when we eat barbecue, though.” Gu Fei held the rolled-up lettuce in front of Jiang Cheng. “She doesn’t drink apart from that.”
Jiang Cheng stared at the lettuce wrap. Gu Fei didn’t say anything, just continued holding it out.
“…Thanks.” Jiang Cheng had no choice but to accept the offering and take a bite.
“Doesn’t it feel greasy to eat the pork belly all by itself?” Gu Fei asked.
“It’s all right. I really like it,” Jiang Cheng said.
Gu Fei assembled two more wraps for Gu Miao. “You’re not from around here, are you? Judging by your accent.”
“No,” Jiang Cheng answered. He suddenly felt kind of irritated. The annoyance that he’d managed to suppress with pork belly and sliced beef made a valiant effort to rear its head once more.
Gu Fei kept probing. “What’s your relation to Li Baoguo?”
Jiang Cheng paused—how did Gu Fei know about Li Baoguo? But the question was quickly eclipsed by exasperation. He flung two more pieces of meat onto the grill. “What’s it to you?”
Gu Fei lifted his eyes to peer at him, then smiled wordlessly. He raised up his bottle of beer and clanked it gently against the bottle in front of Jiang Cheng, took a sip, then kept grilling.
It was the first time Jiang Cheng had eaten at a table face-to-face with a stranger. He hadn’t felt like talking anyway, but now he really had nothing to say. Across the table, Gu Fei didn’t seem to be in a chatty mood either—and his little sister seemed to be legitimately mute. She was quite happy alternating between bites of meat and swigs of beer.
Jiang Cheng finished four plates of meat in silence. He felt like his head was about to burst. It seemed like Gu Miao ate about as much as he did; Gu Fei went to top up the plates several times. Jiang Cheng had finished eating by the time she put down her chopsticks. She leaned back in the chair and rubbed her belly.
“You full?” Gu Fei asked.
She nodded.