Chapter 7
YAN JUN HADN’T GIVEN HIMSELF a day off in a long time. He worked six days a week and spent the remaining day doing chores and keeping Xiao-Qi company in the morning, then taking her to the park to sit and gaze at the scenery in the afternoon. Not only did he have to find ways to earn money, but he also had to take care of a baby. Living this way, he was teetering on the verge of losing himself.
He requested a shift change this week and swapped with a colleague. Then he dropped Xiao-Qi off at the childcare center. With a promise to pick her up at nine that night, he bade her farewell and left for his appointment.
Meanwhile, Zheng Weize carefully applied his makeup. He’d been looking forward to this since the previous night, hoping chemistry would spark between him and Chang Jinxing. After all, he was the one who invited everyone. And no, Zheng Weize was no longer as interested in Zhang Yuwen. The reveal that Zhang Yuwen was only the sub-landlord had automatically downgraded Zhang Yuwen’s rich young man appeal to an ordinary proofreader at a publishing house. He wouldn’t consider Zhang Yuwen even if he was interested in him. After all, there were no benefits to being with him, beyond maybe saving on rent.
By contrast, Chang Jinxing appeared to be well-off, especially with that DSLR camera he carried around every day. He might as well have worn a T-shirt that said I’M RICH. Moreover, he was handsome and warmhearted, and he had a smile in his eyes whenever he looked at Zheng Weize. Zheng Weize thought he was a great catch.
What Zheng Weize didn’t know was that the camera was a gift from one of Chang Jinxing’s ex-boyfriends, and this warmhearted, handsome guy had only ¥120.30 left in his savings. His next month’s rent was still up in the air.
Chang Jinxing had to make money, fast. Maybe he could take on a part-time job as a wedding photographer, or perhaps do cosplay shoots for a few rich ladies. Just a few days ago, it occurred to him to set his sights on Zhang Yuwen, thinking he could woo him to save on rent—but Zhang Yuwen didn’t seem to be interested in him. That only spurred his competitive nature. The more Zhang Yuwen refused to take the bait, the more he piqued Chang Jinxing’s interest.
It was true that his friend ran a CS outdoor arena and that the prices were low. The business owner, with whom Chang Jinxing was acquainted, was struggling with poor business, and since the place would be empty anyway, the owner agreed to waive his fee and throw in a low-cost meal if Chang Jinxing could refer players. It was a way to make some chump change.
He decided to use the opportunity to hit on the sub-landlord.
Chen Hong, on the other hand, was bored and idle. He still had some savings left, so he was in much better financial shape than the other three.
After all, when he declared bankruptcy and liquidation, all that lost money belonged to the investors. But he’d been overwhelmed with stress lately, and he needed to relax a little—and hopefully this would be an opportunity to get to know his roommates. Who knows, maybe he could net himself some new clients through them?
He also had a personal motive. He had suspicions that one of his clients was gay, and based on his observations, this client was a somewhat wealthy small business owner. A single man who led a disciplined lifestyle, he had spent tens of thousands on memberships at Chen Hong’s fitness studio.
Chen Hong wanted to introduce this client to a handsome guy. If they hit it off and became a couple, he might earn himself a red packet for playing matchmaker. His initial candidate of choice at first was Chang Jinxing. In fact, he thought Chang Jinxing might even offer himself up as tribute. But now, having known him for a day, he suspected Chang Jinxing was rich and promiscuous. Chen Hong’s plan would backfire if Chang Jinxing were to cheat on his client, so instead, he temporarily shifted his sights to Zhang Yuwen.
It had been a long time since Zhang Yuwen took part in this kind of group activity. He used to occasionally shoot films in remote areas, but he’d never played airsoft in the suburbs, and the anticipation of fun overtook all thoughts of observation and material-gathering for his novel.
And so, everyone set off with their own agendas. They waited outside the subway station for Yan Jun, who arrived in a hurry and blended into the group once he’d greeted them. Aside from Zheng Weize, who wore casual clothes, everyone was in sportswear for ease of movement.
Sportswear suited this group of tall, handsome guys, who resembled a boy band strolling down the street. They were young, too, and each had his own distinctive presence and demeanor. Chang Jinxing was the most eye-catching of all of them.
“Don’t we look like a group of guys from a dorm going out together?” Zhang Yuwen smiled; fate really did work in mysterious ways.
He never imagined he might befriend a group of strangers this way.
“More like a bunch of bodyguards taking their young master out to experience life,” Chen Hong teased.
Chang Jinxing grinned. “Who’s the young master?”
Everyone looked at Zheng Weize, the only one in casual wear. “Oh, you guys—!” Zheng Weize quickly adopted a shy expression to conceal his inner delight.
They boarded the subway car. Yan Jun kept quiet, leaning against the door and observing his roommates, while the other three traded banter.
Zheng Weize, speaking to Chang Jinxing, was the most animated, while Chen Hong stood in the middle like an EOD container.
The topic of conversation turned to the best part of the countryside to live in. “Where’s your hometown?” Chang Jinxing asked Yan Jun.
“Guangze County.”
“Oh,” Zhang Yuwen chimed in, “the place where they grow sunflowers. It faces the sea and it’s backed by mountains. There are lots of indigenous people there too.”
“Yup,” said Yan Jun. “There are a lot of sunflowers planted behind my family’s house.”
“Guangze is a surfing paradise,” Chen Hong said. “Can you surf?”
“A little,” Yan Jun replied. He used to be a sports enthusiast, and enjoyed almost all outdoor activities from basketball to badminton to surfing.
“What about Yuwen?” asked Chen Hong.
The subway pulled into a station, and the guys turned sideways to make way for the people entering and exiting. “I’m a local from Jiangdong,” Zhang Yuwen replied.
“Then you should be familiar with the place,” said Chang Jinxing.
“I went to university out of town, though,” Zhang Yuwen explained.
None of them except Zhang Yuwen were local. They all came to Jiangdong City to work and make a living.
“Which university did you go to?” Zheng Weize asked Chang Jinxing.
“Jiangliu University, Department of Photography.”
“Ohhh.” Everyone nodded. In truth, Chang Jinxing had never even set foot on the campus.
With a smile, Zhang Yuwen shifted his gaze away and happened to meet Yan Jun’s eyes. Thinking Zhang Yuwen was smiling at him, Yan Jun raised his eyebrow in an inquiring expression.
“How about you?” Chang Jinxing asked Zheng Weize.
“Chonghan University of Finance and Economics. Major in International Economics and Trade.” In fact, Zheng Weize had never attended university either. He’d run away from home at eighteen after a fight with his family.
Everyone nodded, and Chen Hong volunteered his own answer. “I did my postgraduate at Changling. Changling Sports University.” He had actually only completed a vocational college education.
“I envy you guys,” Yan Jun said. “I didn’t go to university.”
His words left his boastful friends at a momentary loss for words.
Fortunately, Zhang Yuwen came to the rescue. “You can consider a vocational degree.”
“Too busy to study,” Yan Jun said. “Once I entered the workforce, I realized that educational qualifications are indeed important.”
“Sometimes, but sometimes not so much,” Zhang Yuwen said, hoping to comfort him. “Still, it’s never a bad thing to find time to upgrade your credentials.”
“You’re right.”
“We’re here,” Chang Jinxing announced. “Let’s get off at this station.”
They swarmed off the subway car and exited the station under the gaze of everyone around them, then transferred to a bus to the suburbs.
While they were waiting for the bus, Chen Hong noticed that Zheng Weize had latched onto Chang Jinxing. They were both so engrossed in their conversation he couldn’t get a word in. Yan Jun and Zhang Yuwen seemed more approachable, so he turned to them.
Chang Jinxing picked up the camera hanging around his neck and started taking photos of his roommates. As one, Zhang Yuwen, Yan Jun, and Chen Hong looked at him and burst into laughter.
“What are you laughing at?” Chang Jinxing asked, a little shy.
Zhang Yuwen pointed behind him. “Someone’s secretly taking photos of you.”
It wasn’t the first time that the photographer found himself being photographed on the sly. Chang Jinxing looked back to see a few high school girls waiting for the bus and taking stealthy snapshots of them with their phones. A pack of handsome guys together was indeed a pleasing sight.
They showed no embarrassment at being discovered. Instead, they approached Chang Jinxing to shoot their shot. “Can I have your phone number, handsome?” Chang Jinxing just smiled and waved them off, and one of the girls turned to Zhang Yuwen. “How ’bout you? Our bestie wants to ask if you’d be friends with her.”
“I’m gay,” Zhang Yuwen said candidly.
“Whoa!”
At their astonished and disappointed voices, Zhang Yuwen quickly added, “But they aren’t. How about asking this guy?” He pointed at Chen Hong, who promptly gave Zhang Yuwen a light smack and told him not to talk nonsense.
The bus came, and the five of them got on. Chang Jinxing generously paid the ten-yuan fare. The bus wasn’t too full, and there were four empty seats. Everyone traded looks, and they were about to offer each other the seats when Zhang Yuwen sat down and patted his thighs.
“Whoever wants to can sit on my lap.”
Chen Hong got Zhang Yuwen to move over and gestured for Zheng Weize to sit on his lap instead. Rather enjoying this, Zheng Weize took him up on his offer with a smile, feeling like a bottom going out with four doting tops.
Meanwhile, Chang Jinxing and Yan Jun sat in the back row, away from the other three. In a rare moment of initiative, Yan Jun asked Chang Jinxing, “You get asked for your phone number a lot, don’t you?”
“Not that often,” Chang Jinxing said, smiling.
“You seem used to it.”
Chang Jinxing nudged Yan Jun with his elbow and gestured for him to look ahead. “That girl’s pretty.”
Yan Jun glanced over and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, looking back at Chang Jinxing.
“I suspect you’re straight.”
“I’m not, but in certain situations, you can treat me like I am.”
Chang Jinxing laughed and picked up his camera to take a close-up shot of Yan Jun. Yan Jun reached out to block the lens with his broad palm, but Chang Jinxing pulled it away. Inexplicably, Yan Jun felt his heart rate pick up a little when their fingers touched. It had been a long time since he last held hands with a guy.
He was trying hard to be himself today, to put aside his role as a father and forget about his job and responsibilities. He wanted to recapture those feelings from the good old days of his youth.
“We’re here,” Chang Jinxing announced. He led everyone off the bus.
The fresh, invigorating countryside air and the lush sight of nature, away from the city, pushed their worries—like empty wallets and never-ending rent obligations—to the backs of their minds.
“Wow.” Zheng Weize stretched. “It’s so nice out here.”
Chang Jinxing called the owner over, and everyone willingly made the payment with their phones.
“Shall we begin?” asked the owner. “Are there any first-timers who need an explanation? Come, sit here. I’ll keep your phones so they don’t get dropped or lost while you’re playing, and I’ll take photos for you during the match.”
Everyone turned off their phones and handed them over. Zheng Weize spotted a mahjong table nearby. “We can play mahjong too?”
“Yup,” said the owner. “Once the match is over, you can come back here and play mahjong.” He spread out a map. “Look at the map and remember as much as you can.”
The owner explained the rules: They would split up into a red team and a blue team, then walk to the two bases and advance toward the central hill. Everyone would have a virtual infrared gun, which they could aim at the opposing team. Each successful hit netted them points. If you were hit, your gun would become unusable for fifteen to thirty seconds, so you’d need to find a place to hide during this period. This was like a respawn cooldown.
There were three treasure caches hidden on the middle hill. If they found one and used their gun muzzle to press the button with the corresponding color, they could capture a flag for their team. However, a flag captured during the respawn cooldown was considered invalid and wouldn’t score the team any points even if they pressed the button.
Victory was determined by the team’s total respawns and captured flags, and the winner would receive a mysterious grand prize.
“This place is too big,” Zhang Yuwen said. “It’s hard to remember the routes.”
“Don’t worry, there are markers along the way,” said Chang Jinxing.
“How should we split the teams?”
The owner held out a box to them. “Come over here and draw lots.”
“But there are five of us,” Zheng Weize protested. “How are we going to make even teams?”
“No worries!” said the owner. “I’ll get someone from my end to join you. Just draw the lots!”
Everyone took turns picking a ping-pong ball from the box. Zhang Yuwen and Chang Jinxing got blue, and Yan Jun, Zheng Weize, and Chen Hong got red. Zheng Weize regretted that he wouldn’t be in the same group as Chang Jinxing, but having sat on Chen Hong’s lap on the bus, he was starting to feel like muscular guys had their own special charm. You could feel secure with a big, strong guy, too. It’d be a pleasant change of pace.
The owner called over a man with a fair complexion who wore a sports jacket, a pair of cargo pants, and a fisherman’s hat. He put away his fishing rod and walked over.
The man, who the owner called A-Chen, nodded. “Sure, I’ll join.”
Chen Hong looked surprised to see A-Chen. “Eh?”
A-Chen greeted him and came over. They shook hands and patted each other on the shoulder.
“You know each other?” Zhang Yuwen asked.
“We’re friends.” Chen Hong smiled and exchanged glances with A-Chen. Everyone said hello to him, wondering if he might be some experienced player.
“It’s my first time playing this,” A-Chen said.
He took off his fisherman’s hat. His hair was slightly messy, but overall, he was quite handsome. He looked a little younger without the hat, perhaps in his late twenties. He received his firearm and sensor vest and joined Zhang Yuwen and Chang Jinxing’s team.
“I’m Sichen,” he said by way of introduction. “Huo Sichen.”
Zhang Yuwen and Chang Jinxing briefly introduced themselves.
Then they put on their off-road jackets and took their submachine guns, which made them look even cooler.
“Take the two of them over!” the owner said to Huo Sichen. “I’ll take the other three!”
“Okay.”
Huo Sichen drove Zhang Yuwen and Chang Jinxing along a winding path to the blue team base. Smiling, Chang Jinxing asked, “Do you come here often?”
“I come here occasionally to fish,” said Huo Sichen. “You’re acquainted with Lao-You?”
Mr. You was the owner of the arena. “I helped him take some photos for a promotional brochure once,” Chang Jinxing explained.
Huo Sichen and Chang Jinxing chatted for a bit, and Zhang Yuwen tactfully declined to butt into their conversation. This new guy wasn’t exceptionally handsome, and his fashion sense wasn’t all that great either, but despite his casual dress, he was clean and carried himself well. He had the air of a knowledgeable, mature, and sedate person.
Even his name, Sichen, sounded pleasant. Perhaps the person who named him was educated and well-read. Add the surname Huo, and it sounded just like it had been transliterated from another language—very exotic. Zhang Yuwen took note, planning to steal this name (with a change of surname) for a character in his novel.
“Are you guys from the university dorm?” Huo Sichen asked Zhang Yuwen as he drove.
“Hm?” Chang Jinxing glanced at Zhang Yuwen, ready to spout nonsense out of habit, but Zhang Yuwen laughed and cut him off.
“No, but we’re roommates.”
“I see.” Huo Sichen nodded. “No wonder you didn’t invite any girls.”
“If we had, we wouldn’t come out here to the open country,” said Zhang Yuwen. “It’d be pretty tactless to bring a date somewhere so remote.”
Finding this idea amusing, Huo Sichen nodded again. He stopped as they arrived at the woods. “We’re here,” he announced. “We’ll go up from here on foot.”
The camp was just slightly over a mile away, but the moment they stepped into the woods the place transformed into a deserted wilderness, so silent it was unsettling. The late autumn mountain wind howled through the forest, chilly enough to make them shiver.
“Just follow the markers on the trees,” Huo Sichen said, “and don’t pin your hopes on me. I can’t remember the map either.”
“You’ve played this before, right?” Zhang Yuwen asked Chang Jinxing. “So lead the way.”
“Just once, and I was on the red team. Why is this route so difficult?
We have to climb rocks and everything?”
“The red team’s route is usually more challenging,” Huo Sichen explained. “Most of the time, they assign people who’ve played before to the blue team. Also, heads up: You can’t go beyond the areas blocked off by barbed wire.”
Chang Jinxing was starting to worry. He was the one who’d recommended this place, but it was cold and desolate, and so far, it seemed boring. If the others found it dull, then even if they didn’t say anything to Chang Jinxing, they might silently grouse about wasting money.
There was almost no walkable path on the northern side of the hill, but Zhang Yuwen could handle it; he used to traverse terrain like this when he went to look at filming locations with the crew or inspected sites with the director.
They came to a slightly steep slope with no way forward. Suddenly, the three of them were startled when Zheng Weize’s shout rang out in the distance.
Zhang Yuwen laughed. “So the teams are pretty close.”
“I’ll go up and take a look,” Huo Sichen said. He attempted to climb the rock.
Zhang Yuwen was adjusting the electronic submachine gun in his hands when a playful impulse overtook him. He fired a shot at Huo Sichen’s back, triggering a beep beep beep that indicated he’d been hit.
“Hey!” Huo Sichen thought he was being ambushed, but he looked back to see Zhang Yuwen aiming at Chang Jinxing. Chang Jinxing exaggerated a yell and made to retaliate, and Zhang Yuwen darted behind a tree.
“Stop fooling around and get up here,” said Huo Sichen.
Zhang Yuwen leapt and clambered up the rocks, with Chang Jinxing in hot pursuit and looking for revenge. Huo Sichen aimed his gun at Chang Jinxing, who froze, but Huo Sichen was just joking. The two guys pulled him up.
“Watch out for snakes,” Chang Jinxing cautioned.
Zhang Yuwen, scouting ahead, responded offhandedly. “Aren’t they all hibernating this time of year?” From time to time, he pressed the reload button on his gun, making noises that sent nearby birds scattering.
Following Huo Sichen, Chang Jinxing asked, “You work in Jiangdong?”
“Yeah,” Huo Sichen replied. “I work at a foreign trade company.
What about you?”
“I do photography.” Chang Jinxing mimicked pressing a shutter, all the while keeping an eye on Zhang Yuwen, who was attempting to navigate a large thicket. Ahead, an open area was visible through the sparse trees.
“Mind your clothes,” said Huo Sichen.
Zhang Yuwen almost got stuck in the middle of the thicket, but he managed to make his way over. Suddenly, he stopped pressing the button.
“I see them!” Chen Hong called out. “Quick, fire!”
All three of them dashed for cover. It turned out the open area had been set up as the battlefront for the red and blue teams. There were plenty of makeshift shelters made up of tires and wooden crates. Zhang Yuwen quickly ducked behind one and provided cover fire for his teammates. Huo Sichen raced over, keeping his head down, and from the other side, they heard Zheng Weize yelling. Chen Hong opened fire as he dragged Zheng Weize toward one of the makeshift forts.
“Don’t bother with Weize!” Zhang Yuwen said. “His aim is off!
Watch out for the sniper, Yan Jun!”
With his gun mounted on a crate, Yan Jun took aim at Chang Jinxing as he darted out of the thicket. He fired, hitting him right on target.
Chang Jinxing let out another exaggerated shout and scrambled for cover.