“You eat way more than your brother,” Jiang Cheng put in, unable to keep from doling out this judgment.
“How did you get here?” Gu Fei set down his chopsticks as well. “We can take you back, it’s on the way.”
“Motorcycle?” Jiang Cheng asked.
Gu Fei nodded. “Mm.”
“Drunk driving and over capacity?”
Instead of answering, Gu Fei gave Jiang Cheng a long stare, with what might’ve been scorn or something equally stupid in his eyes, then patted Gu Miao’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
After Gu Fei left with Gu Miao, Jiang Cheng got up and filled another half a plate with meat and grabbed a small basket of lettuce leaves. The pork belly lettuce wrap Gu Fei made him earlier was pretty good: crisp, refreshing, and not greasy. Once he finished this half plate of meat, he figured he might have to go back on foot in order to walk it all off.
However, it was way too cold outside. Shivering behind the thick curtain at the door of the shopping mall, he pulled out his phone to hail a rideshare, but five minutes went by and nobody accepted his request.
It was then that Pan Zhi called again. “There are two stations on this line, with different arrival times. Which station should I buy the ticket for?”
“East,” Jiang Cheng answered. “I only know the East Station.”
“All right. Come pick me up tomorrow afternoon at four. Send me your address later. I’ll look for hotels nearby.”
“There probably aren’t any.” Jiang Cheng recalled the general vibe of the neighborhood, and it didn’t seem like a place that would have hotels. “Just go ahead and book anywhere—it’s not that big of a city.”
After he hung up, a driver finally picked up his request. Jiang Cheng sat down inside the car, feeling thoroughly unwell. This must be what people meant when they said it took time to acclimatize to a new environment. He was the kind of guy who rarely ever caught colds, but a simple change of scenery had made him a delicate flower. He’d spent all morning fumbling around, and even eating his favorite foods didn’t seem to have helped. He was practically wilting.
Jiang Cheng closed his eyes and sighed.
All the people who’d stayed inside over the New Year had begun to emerge; the roads were jammed with cars. The driver was trigger-happy with the gas pedal, alternating frequently between accelerating and braking hard. Not even ten minutes into the ride, Jiang Cheng felt his stomach churn.
It wasn’t a long journey—perhaps half an hour in total—but as soon as he saw the turn for Gu Fei’s store, he simply couldn’t take it anymore. Unable to even open his mouth, it was all he could manage to slap the inside of the car door a few times in desperation.
“Here?” the driver asked.
He nodded, then banged the door a couple more times. The moment the driver stopped the car, he bounded out the door. As though propelled by the power of farts, he rushed to a garbage can by the side of the road and puked.
It was such a devastating scene that he couldn’t even bear to watch himself.
After this heaving bout of nausea, his insides finally calmed down, leaving behind an explosive headache. Bracing himself against the wall with one hand, he fished for a pack of tissues in his pocket, but after several minutes of rummaging, he came up empty.
Just as his temper was about to shoot all the way up from the soles of his feet, a small arm reached over from one side, holding out a few tissues. He grabbed them and wiped his mouth a few times before glancing to the side.
There really was no lack of coincidences in this universe. It was Gu Miao standing beside him in her green hat, with Gu Fei three steps behind her, looking thoroughly entertained.
“Thank you.” Jiang Cheng nodded at Gu Miao. It was kind of depressing to feel embarrassed and stuck in a spot where he couldn’t just turn and walk away, or say something like, “The fuck are you looking at?”
Gu Miao reached for his hand and tugged on it, as though wanting to walk with him.
“No thanks.” Jiang Cheng pulled his hand away.
Gu Miao grabbed his hand again, still trying to help.
“No, really,” Jiang Cheng insisted. “I’m fine.”
When he tried to take his hand away again, Gu Miao held on tight and didn’t let go.
“Er-Miao…” Gu Fei walked up to them. Still, Gu Miao didn’t let go.
Jiang Cheng had no idea how to communicate with her. All of his errant irritations converged to one point, and he shook off Gu Miao’s hand in annoyance. “I said I don’t need your help!”
Gu Miao didn’t move, her hand still raised in the air, frozen in place. Before Jiang Cheng’s guilt had time to spread and fester, he felt pressure on his throat as Gu Fei yanked on his collar from behind, forcing him to stumble.
“Fuck…”
He turned, jabbing his elbow behind himself at the same time. Gu Fei caught his elbow with one hand and tightened his grip on Jiang Cheng’s collar. Jiang Cheng had no choice but to back up and get cozy with Gu Fei. The chokehold he had on his throat was making him nauseous again.
“She likes you a lot.” Gu Fei spoke low in Jiang Cheng’s ear. “But she has trouble reading other people’s emotions sometimes. I politely ask that you try to be understanding.”
Jiang Cheng wanted to blurt out that in all seventeen fucking years he’d been alive, he’d never seen anyone “politely ask” for anything like this, but that was more words than he was capable of getting out right now.
Instead, he managed to squeeze out three words from between his teeth: “I’m gonna puke.”
Gu Fei let him go. Jiang Cheng braced himself against the wall and dry heaved a couple of times.
After accepting a bottle of water from Gu Fei and gulping down two large mouthfuls, he finally caught his breath. Then he turned to Gu Miao and said, “I’m fine. I can walk on my own.”
Gu Miao nodded and retreated to Gu Fei’s side.
“I’m going, then.” Jiang Cheng threw the half-finished bottle of water into the garbage, then turned and headed down the block.
Fuck!
When Jiang Cheng got back to Li Baoguo’s place, the smell of home cooking was the first thing to hit his nose. Li Baoguo was standing in the living room, calling someone on this phone.
Jiang Cheng was just about to say something when his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw Li Baoguo’s name on the caller ID. “You—”
Hearing the ringtone, Li Baoguo turned around. “Hey!” he yelled in his usual loud voice. “When did you get back? I was just calling you!”
“Just now.” Jiang Cheng closed the door. “You…didn’t hear me?”
“My hearing isn’t the best.” Li Baoguo pointed to his ears. “Gotta turn my head toward the sound to hear clearly.”
“Oh.”
“Where were you?” Li Baoguo brought out a crock of soup from the kitchen. “I’ve been here waiting for you to eat lunch for a while.”
“I…” Jiang Cheng hesitated. He didn’t mention that he’d already indulged in all-you-can-eat barbecue. “Went to the hospital.”
“The hospital?” Li Baoguo immediately started hollering again, reaching over and feeling around Jiang Cheng’s cheeks. “Are you sick? Where does it hurt? Got a fever? Is it because of the new environment?”
“I already took some medicine. It’s not a big deal.” Considering the meal in front of him, Jiang Cheng tried his best not to reflexively slap away the dirty yellow hand that stank of old cigarettes.
“Listen, if you’re not feeling well, there’s no need to go to the hospital,” Li Baoguo said.4 “There’s a community clinic on the next street over, and it’s pretty good. It’s just that the front of the building is kind of far back, so it’s hard to notice. It’s next to the little supermarket.”
“Oh.” Jiang Cheng pondered for a moment. “The little supermarket? You mean Gu Fei’s—”
“How do you know Gu Fei?” Li Baoguo whipped around in shock. “You just got here, and you’re already hanging out with him?”
“Nah.” Jiang Cheng couldn’t be bothered to go into detail. “I just bought some stuff there this morning.”
“Listen.” Li Baoguo’s voice got even louder. His voice was always loud, but now it was especially emphatic. “Don’t get mixed up with him—that guy is bad news!”
“…Oh.” Jiang Cheng took off his jacket and tossed it into his room.
Li Baoguo watched him, probably waiting for him to ask why. After a while, when Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything, Li Baoguo leaned in again, looking eager to gossip. “Do you know why he’s bad news?”
Jiang Cheng played along despite having zero interest in any of this. “Why?”
“Because he killed his own dad!” Li Baoguo boomed.
He was leaning a little too close, and his excited spit sprayed over half of Jiang Cheng’s face. Jiang Cheng jumped up from the chair to get out of the way, roughly rubbing at his face. Just as his temper was about to erupt, he suddenly realized what he’d heard.
“What? Killed who?”
“His dad!” Li Baoguo said, half yelling. “Drowned his own father.”
Jiang Cheng stared back at him in silence. From the gleeful expression on Li Baoguo’s face, he knew that they could spend a whole afternoon on gossip like this if he wanted to. Too bad Jiang Cheng didn’t believe it.
He sat back down by the table and pinched the throbbing area between his brows. “If he killed his father, wouldn’t he have to go to jail?”
“It was years and years ago—what jail?” Li Baoguo also sat down. “Plus, there were no witnesses.”
Jiang Cheng smirked. “Ah, so nobody saw it…”
“We all know what happened. When the police arrived, his dad was in the lake, and he was standing on the shore, making that face…” Li Baoguo clicked his tongue several times in a row for effect. “He obviously did it… Hurry and eat up, see if the food is to your liking.”
Without a word, Jiang Cheng picked up a piece of short rib.
“He did it for that Er-Miao of theirs,” Li Baoguo added, seeing that Jiang Cheng didn’t seem to believe him. “His dad threw her so hard there was blood all over her head, and after that, she didn’t even know how to talk anymore.”
Jiang Cheng chewed on the rib, remembering the shocking scar on the back of Gu Miao’s head. “Ah.”