Jiang Cheng sighed and allowed silence to fall over them. Gu Fei didn’t say a word. They stood there quietly, their faces just touching.
“Hey, Gu Fei?” Li Yan’s voice came from behind them. “Oops, sorry. As you were.”
By the time Jiang Cheng turned around, there was no one there. Li Yan must’ve dashed back inside at the speed of light.
“It’s fine.” Gu Fei started adding water to the tub of flour, then turned and yelled at the back door. “Li Yan!”
Li Yan appeared in the doorway again, sticking his head out to look at him. “Gu Miao hurt her hand. I wanted to disinfect it for her, but the little lady just ignores me.”
Gu Miao is hurt? Jiang Cheng was a little startled, though Li Yan didn’t seem very bothered.
“Why don’t you go help her, Cheng-ge?” Gu Fei sounded calm, too. “She’s probably ignoring me right now, too.”
“Why?” Jiang Cheng figured that Gu Miao must have gotten cuts and scrapes often enough that it was nothing new to them.
“I told her to text me if she was going to go out today,” Gu Fei said. “She probably texted me, but I didn’t hear it, and I still haven’t texted her back. She must be mad at me.”
“…I didn’t hear your phone go off either.” Jiang Cheng blinked. Gu Miao had probably sent the message while they were still engrossed in the romantic atmosphere of the performance on that rickety stage.
“Why don’t you go give it a try?” Gu Fei flashed him a smile. “She might respond to you.”
Gu Miao wasn’t very seriously hurt, although the skin was broken. Li Yan wanted to rinse it with some saline water, but Gu Miao stood in front of the cash register holding her skateboard, refusing to budge.
“Er-Miao?” Jiang Cheng crouched down in front of her and waved.
Gu Miao stared at him. There was no expression on her face; she gave no reaction. Jiang Cheng smiled at her. When Gu Miao opened her eyes wide like this, he could see her eyelashes very clearly. They were the exact same as Gu Fei’s eyelashes.
“Er-Miao.” Jiang Cheng considered how he could get Gu Miao to understand him. After a few seconds, he leaned down and gently blew a puff of air on his own hand. “Er-Miao, my hand hurts. Do you know what to do?”
Gu Miao’s gaze shifted to his face.
“Er-Miao?” Jiang Cheng’s heart lit up with glee. He continued to talk to her quietly. “You—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Gu Miao reached out and pushed the bottle of saline that Li Yan had set on a little table to the ground. Before Jiang Cheng could say anything else, she flipped the little table over as well.
“Gu Fei!” Li Yan yelled. “Your little sister is staging a revolt!”
“Just leave her alone!” Gu Fei shouted back from the kitchen.
Jiang Cheng stood up and went out to the kitchen. “Technically this was your fault,” he said with a frown. “If she’s angry, maybe you should apologize to her?”
“Yeah.” Gu Fei nodded as he worked the dough. “I will later.”
“Here, let me,” Jiang Cheng said. “She’s already pretty upset. Why don’t you go console her first?”
Gu Fei stopped what he was doing and sighed. Turning around, he hugged Jiang Cheng’s shoulders, then leaned unmoving against him. Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything else, just rubbed his back. He was suddenly a little nervous. The way Gu Fei was acting, was it because he’d…woken him up?
“I’ll go later,” Gu Fei said against his shoulder. “When she’s calmed down a little more. It’s more effective that way.”
“…Oh.” Jiang Cheng held him tight.
“That little girl is so stubborn,” Gu Fei sighed. “She gets angry at the tiniest things. Sometimes I’m so annoyed I want to hit her.”
Jiang Cheng smiled. “Have you?”
“Nope. Never even raised my voice.” Gu Fei let go of him, turned around, and went back to kneading the dough. “Sometimes I just feel like ignoring her for a while. She has a temper, but so do I, you know?”
Gu Fei’s “temper” was clearly nothing compared to Gu Miao’s. When the dough was ready, he went back inside to soothe her.
By the time Jiang Cheng and Li Yan had finished mincing and mixing the filling and went back in, Gu Miao was finally back to normal. She sat by the table to watch them wrap dumplings.
Jiang Cheng observed Gu Fei, who’d come to help. He couldn’t see any weariness on his face; in fact, he seemed pretty calm. But perhaps because of his new perspective, Jiang Cheng felt a sense of helplessness he’d never noticed before from the way Gu Fei patiently communicated with Gu Miao.
Before, he’d only thought about how tiring it must be for Gu Fei. Now, though, he found he could empathize with the helplessness Gu Fei had shown him by the river.
Gu Miao wasn’t like this all the time. Certain days were better than others. Back when he’d first met her, outside the train station, he didn’t even notice how different she was from other kids, only that she didn’t want to talk. He’d gone on to play with her on the skateboard, eat with her, and play games with her; she even smiled at him. Whenever he thought of those times, his heart soared. Those memories made him hopeful. They made him think that perhaps the situation wasn’t that bad.
And yet when he heard her screaming, saw how she refused to communicate with people, and the cold, indifferent expression she showed to the outside world… When he remembered the pages and pages of bunnies she drew, thought of how he’d wholeheartedly expected her cooperation just now only to be met with her flipping the table, his heart plummeted. It was like being forced back down to earth.
What followed this crest and fall was a profound sense of helplessness.
Gu Fei must have gone through this countless times before he’d finally decided to give up on that empty hope.
Li Yan left after they finished eating. Jiang Cheng sat in the store and watched Gu Miao zipping back and forth through the aisles on her skateboard. Gu Fei sat behind the counter and checked the accounts. Jiang Cheng wondered how much Gu Fei’s mom had taken from the store this month, and how much was left. Either way, Gu Fei wasn’t wearing the happiest expression as he counted the money.
Money. Aside from Gu Miao, it was probably the heaviest thing weighing on him. Gu Fei couldn’t even afford to keep Gu Miao in therapy—it was just a not-so-legitimate center in this shitty little city, but even that was too much for them to keep up in the long term.
Jiang Cheng frowned.
“They sent me your portion of the pay for two of the photo shoots,” Gu Fei said as he tapped away on the calculator. “I’ll transfer it to you tomorrow.”
Jiang Cheng blinked in surprise. “I thought it’d all been deposited into my account already. Has it not?”
“Even if I sold you off, you’d probably still happily get in bed with me.” Gu Fei threw him a glance. “Don’t you keep track of your money at all?”
“Fuck off,” Jiang Cheng said. “It’s not like I spend money irresponsibly. Not a compulsive shopper, never lost money anywhere; I don’t need to keep a record.”
“Damn, what sound logic you have there, overachiever.”
“That’s right, super-slacker.”
Something suddenly occurred to him. He hesitated for almost five minutes, staring at Gu Fei, before he spoke up. “Hey, Gu Fei.”
“Hm?” Gu Fei looked at him, pencil in his mouth.
“How about you don’t give me the money yet?” Jiang Cheng said. “Just…leave it in your account. You can keep it saved for me.”
Gu Fei didn’t reply. The pencil in his mouth flicked back and forth. After a while, Jiang Cheng saw the corner of his mouth curl up into a subtle smile.
Jiang Cheng glared at him. “Is that okay or not?!”
“Cheng-ge…” Gu Fei took the pencil and spun it in his hand. “I must’ve done some really great deeds in my last life to have met you in this one.”