By the time the two of them got back to the living room, Gu Miao had already filled another page with bunnies, and had moved on to perusing a picture book.
Jiang Cheng couldn’t understand what went on in this kid’s head. There were so many animals in the picture book: bunnies, puppies, chickens, birds, kittens, and little piglets. She was perfectly happy to read it from cover to cover, but she only drew the bunnies.
“Here, you can change into this.” Gu Fei handed Jiang Cheng one of his own T-shirts.
Jiang Cheng went into the bedroom and changed. “Are you going out to take pictures? Doesn’t Yi Jing have your camera?”
“Yeah, she’ll bring it back to the store,” said Gu Fei. “I’m not going out again today, though. There’s no light anymore.”
“You’re normally so eager to avoid her. How come it seems like you’re actually pretty friendly?”
“Well, she is the class president.” Gu Fei glanced at him. “Lao-Xu used to make her tutor me.”
At the mention of Lao-Xu, Jiang Cheng couldn’t help but click his tongue. “I really should’ve given Lao-Xu the evil eye and told him not to spread it around.”
“It’s not his fault, really,” Gu Fei said. “That’s just the way he is. Besides, how could anyone else possibly understand?”
“Then…what are you going to do?” Jiang Cheng looked at him. “Everyone knows now.”
“If they know, they know,” Gu Fei said. “When the gears of destiny start to turn, there’s no telling when they’re going to go click and set something off. Like you, for example.”
“What about me?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“Weren’t you brought here by those gears?” Gu Fei smiled. “Come on, I wanna take you somewhere.”
Jiang Cheng looked at him. “Where?”
Gu Fei was already back to his usual self. The way he talked, his expressions—there was no trace of what happened before. No trace of what had happened moments ago on the sofa, when he was bawling in abject despair. Jiang Cheng couldn’t tell if he really was okay, or if it was just years of experience that allowed him to recover so quickly and maintain this precarious balance.
“The factories,” Gu Fei answered as he opened his closet door.
“Why are we going to the factories?” Jiang Cheng was surprised. It had been a long time since the two of them went into the steelworks campus. “If you want to…you know, we can just go to my place.” Ever since he’d rented an apartment for himself, it had become their most private space.
“Cheng-ge.” Gu Fei laughed as he held on to the closet door. “Can we be serious for a second? What does our overachiever keep in his head all day long?”
Jiang Cheng had nothing to say in reply. He stared at Gu Fei, then, at length, he waved his hand and turned back to the living room, where he settled on the sofa to read picture books with Gu Miao.
Gu Fei walked out behind him. One glance at him left Jiang Cheng wide-eyed with shock: Gu Fei was carrying a guitar bag.
“What’s…that?” Jiang Cheng asked reflexively. He’d never expected Gu Fei to bring his guitar out.
“A cello.”
“My ass, that’s a cello!”
“Why would you ask, then? Like you’ve never seen a guitar before.” Gu Fei walked up to the sofa, reached his hand in front of Gu Miao, and snapped his fingers. When Gu Miao looked up at him, he said in a soft voice, “I have to go out. Remember to text me first if you want to play outside.” Gu Miao nodded, and Gu Fei stood up. “Let’s go, Cheng-ge.”
Jiang Cheng followed Gu Fei, but it wasn’t until they were downstairs that he suddenly realized… Gu Fei is going to play the guitar?
He’s going to the steelworks campus to play the guitar?
It wasn’t very far, so Gu Fei didn’t take his bike. He walked toward the factories with the guitar strapped to his back and Jiang Cheng beside him, his eyes glued to Gu Fei the whole way.
Jiang Cheng had seen so many sides of Gu Fei: wearing a helmet on a motorcycle, riding a bicycle with Gu Miao zipping on a skateboard beside him, playing basketball, holding a camera, in the glow of a bonfire dressed in all black, jumping between buildings…
And crying.
But Gu Fei had surprised him yet again. Jiang Cheng knew that he’d been in a band before, and that he played the guitar, but seeing Gu Fei walking in the sun with a guitar strapped to his back still gave him a thrill.
Why? He had no idea.
It was just…a thrill. Every step he took, he wanted to turn and look at Gu Fei.
The steelworks campus covered a large area. Jiang Cheng hadn’t been there very many times, and he never had gotten to see the whole place. Gu Fei led him down a path he had never been on before, like he was unlocking a new area of the map.
“We’re not going to the usual room?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“Nope,” said Gu Fei. “There could be some sort of lecherous boy-on-girl or boy-on-boy action going on in there.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t answer. The “boy-on-boy” part was probably about Li Yan, but when he remembered the kinds of things they themselves had gotten up to in there… Did Gu Fei really have a leg to stand on, calling other people lecherous?
“I haven’t been around here before,” Jiang Cheng said, to change the subject.
“I don’t come around here often either,” said Gu Fei. “The buildings on this side are mostly torn down, and the ones still standing are structurally unsound. There’s no point coming here.”
“Then where are we going?”
“To a structurally unsound building.”
“…Ah.” Jiang Cheng nodded.