Chapter 21
JIANG CHENG DIDN’T KNOW what Gu Fei’s favorite food was or where he was taking him, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t have an appetite at all in his current mood, so it would probably all taste the same no matter what.
He only came looking for Gu Fei because he didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to go back home and see Li Baoguo; he didn’t want to find out how badly he’d been beaten or why he was getting his ass kicked by those people in the first place. No, he wanted no part of it. This whole heap of do-not-wants had his emptied head and heart stuffed so full he couldn’t breathe.
Apart from school and Li Baoguo’s house, the only place he could go in this shitty city was Gu Fei’s store. It was kind of sad when he thought about it, but he didn’t have a choice.
Gu Fei tidied the store and locked it up. “Wait here for me. I’ll go get our ride.”
“Okay.” Jiang Cheng wanted to ask whether it was the bicycle or the motorcycle. He really didn’t want to ride a motorcycle in such cold weather— he’d rather walk. But Gu Fei headed off into an alley next to the store before he could speak.
Whatever. How cold could it get? The spring basketball tournament was about to begin, so technically, it was already spring. Crazy.
A motor purred from the little alleyway, but the sound was weak and brittle. It didn’t match Gu Fei’s 250cc bike. Just as questions were starting to bubble up in his mind, a tiny yellow car in the shape of a steamed bun—a small steamed bun, at that—crawled out of the alley.
Jiang Cheng stared, astounded as the little cornmeal bun wobbled over and stopped before him, then opened its itty-bitty door.
Gu Fei looked out at him from inside the contraption. “Get in.”
“What is this…thing?” Jiang Cheng scrutinized the vehicle. Unless he was mistaken, it was a small, enclosed mobility scooter.
“A car,” Gu Fei said. “Keeps you out of the wind and rain. Burns fuel.
Runs better than the electric kind.”
“…Oh!” Jiang Cheng walked over and stood by the door. He studied it for a long while. “And how the fuck am I supposed to get in it?”
Gu Fei looked behind himself, then got out. “You can…climb in the back first.” When Jiang Cheng hesitated, he added, “Even if this was a Beetle, you’d have to climb in to reach the back, right?”
“If this was a Beetle, I’d be in the front passenger seat!” Jiang Cheng replied.
“Hurry up.” Gu Fei glanced at the time on his phone. “They close at nine.”
Jiang Cheng had no choice but to squeeze in through the one-foot gap between the door and the driver’s seat. Battered and sore, he almost wept as he clambered into the back. He remembered seeing an old man bringing his old lady out to town in a vehicle like this one. Just how did that old lady get in the damn thing?
Once seated, Gu Fei reached out and pushed down the back of the driver’s seat. “Wouldn’t it have been easier if you put the seat down first?”
Eyeing the suddenly widened space, Jiang Cheng felt an urge to climb out and fight Gu Fei again. He pointed at him. “You shut your mouth.”
Gu Fei put the seat back up, closed the door, started the engine, and drove off down the street.
The car had very limited space. Sitting in the back didn’t feel that different from sitting on the back of Gu Fei’s bike, but it did shield them from the wind and rain. Looking out of the window, he felt strangely like a vagrant done with a day of begging, now riding in a little cornmeal steamed bun car searching for a bowl of noodles or something from a cheap stall on the side of the road.
“This is your family’s car?” Jiang Cheng asked, knocking on the plastic shell of the vehicle.
“Yep,” Gu Fei responded. “My mom bought it. We use it to haul goods sometimes. It’s pretty convenient.”
“…Oh.” Jiang Cheng studied his own seat. “What can you even fit in a tiny space like this?”
“There’s not much to haul for a store like ours,” Gu Fei said. “Most of our stock is delivered to us. We only transport some of it by ourselves.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything else as he watched Gu Fei drive across the bridge he’d passed the other day. He figured anything good to eat around here must be on the other side. What could it be?
When he had dumplings the other day, he saw a number of shops, from hot pot and barbecued skewers to sit-down Chinese food and Western cuisine.
He hoped Gu Fei wasn’t buying him anything too expensive. Then he’d have to buy him a meal in return, which would be a pain.
The little dumpling car drove past restaurants big and small on both sides without stopping. It kept straight on, then turned down a small lane.
Sensing that they’d left the street with the restaurants, Jiang Cheng couldn’t help but ask, “We’re not there yet?”
“Almost there. It’s just up ahead.” As soon as he spoke, Gu Fei turned down yet another street.
Jiang Cheng looked out. This neighborhood was a run-down part of the old city, just like where Li Baoguo lived. It was wholly and completely filled with life and deprivation.
The car slowed and stopped in front of a few small restaurants. Jiang Cheng peered at them. One sold buns, one sold noodles, and another… “Get out.” Gu Fei opened the car door and hopped out.
“Wait.” As he squeezed his way out, Jiang Cheng grew increasingly confused. “Why do these look like breakfast places?”
“They sell breakfast too.” Gu Fei shut the door and pressed the remote control.
“Shit.” Jiang Cheng was shocked. “This little dumpling car has remote locking?”
“It burns fuel! Even electric scooters have remote keys, why not this guy?” Gu Fei walked toward one of the shops. “We’re here.”
Jiang Cheng looked at the shop. Though the lights were on and it was clearly in business, everything from the storefront to the lighting to the decor screamed “money laundering front.” When he saw the four brush-stroked characters written in a hand almost as hideous as his own, he blinked.
“Wang Er’s Meat Pies?” He pointed at the sign. “You’re taking me out for meat pies for dinner?”
“They’re delicious.” Gu Fei lifted the curtain. “Just smell it.”
Jiang Cheng wasn’t in the mood to smell anything. It was his first time going out to eat meat pies with someone for dinner, and he hadn’t yet recovered from the shock. But the tables were mostly full—business was booming. And when he followed Gu Fei and caught sight of the waiter carrying a large vat of soup to a customer, his eyes almost popped out of his head.
“Oh, Da-Fei, you’re here!” Wang Xu plunked the soup down on the table.
When he turned and noticed Jiang Cheng, he froze. “Whoa, Jiang Cheng? Your fussy ass came too?”
“Uh-huh,” Jiang Cheng responded, watching Wang Xu spill the equivalent of a small bowl of soup onto the table.
“Oi! What the hell, you spilled half of it!” said the highly displeased customer.
“I’ll get you another small pot of it later.” Wang Xu wiped the table haphazardly with a rag and called it a day. He walked over to Gu Fei and Jiang Cheng. “Go inside to the private room, it’s empty.”
“Private room?” Jiang Cheng felt one shock after another. A meat pie shop with a private room?
It was indeed a private dining room, with wooden boards sectioning it off on all four sides. It even had its own air conditioner.
“What happened to your face, Jiang Cheng?” Wang Xu stared at Jiang Cheng’s face after he turned on the air conditioner. “You got into a fight? Was it Mon—” “No,” Jiang Cheng cut him off. The slightest gust of wind made Wang Xu think of Monkey—Jiang Cheng felt he owed it to Wang Xu to actually go fight Monkey one more time.
“Beef, pork belly, lamb, donkey meat. A few of each.” Gu Fei glanced at Wang Xu. “And mutton soup. Have you had dinner? Come join us if you haven’t.”
“Give me a minute, I’ll get them for you,” Wang Xu said. “I found two good bottles of booze my dad’s been hiding. We can have a little drink.”
After he left, Jiang Cheng looked at Gu Fei. “This is Wang Xu’s family’s shop?”
“Yep.” Gu Fei nodded. “Wang Er is his dad. He’s pretty famous in town.
People drive all the way from the new development area just to eat here.”
“Oh!” For a moment, Jiang Cheng couldn’t really find anything else to say.
“I’ll get the soup. We’ll have a bit of that first.” Gu Fei rose and walked out, too.
After two minutes, he returned holding a tray laden with three medium-sized pots of mutton soup. Jiang Cheng’s wits must have finally returned: When he smelled the aroma, he felt like he could eat the bowls it was served in, too.
It wasn’t too long before Wang Xu brought in a plain basket containing seven or eight meat pies. “Fresh out of the pan. Eat them while they’re hot, I’ll get more later.”
Jiang Cheng took a bite out of one. It struck him in his chest so viscerally he could’ve cried; he barely chewed before swallowing.
“This one’s donkey meat.” Wang Xu glanced at him. “How is it?”
“So…” Jiang Cheng took another bite, “good.”
Wang Xu grinned smugly. “Of course it is. You have to order the donkey!
Everyone who comes here gets two, at least. Da-Fei can eat ten.”
Jiang Cheng thought he could eat more than that. The meat pies here weren’t big, only about half the size of his palm. They had thin crusts and an enormous amount of filling. Thick and soft, one bite filled his mouth with the aroma of meat; it was rich, but not greasy… Wang Xu snuck a bottle from his father’s private liquor stash. They couldn’t even tell what it was—the bottle looked dirty and had no labels.
“A little drink?” Wang Xu poured a glass and put it in front of Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng shook his head. He didn’t usually drink baijiu. His family never drank, and when he went out with Pan Zhi, they stuck with beer.
“Boring.” Wang Xu poured two glasses for himself and Gu Fei. “Good students and their rules.”
Jiang Cheng couldn’t be bothered to argue. After all, it was Wang Xu’s meat pies he was eating—and they were fantastic.
It was an amazingly satisfying meal, with all kinds of meat pies served along with flavorful mutton soup; it filled him to the core with warmth and contentment. Even his various physical pains with their unknown sources seemed to feel much better, subsiding from explosive points of pain into dull aches buried in his flesh.
Of the three of them, Wang Xu was the only one who talked. Jiang Cheng didn’t open his mouth often. Wang Xu talked about people in their class, and since Jiang Cheng could barely tell their classmates apart, he couldn’t get a word in even if he wanted to. Gu Fei didn’t say much either, only grunting in reply now and then between bites. None of this affected Wang Xu’s enthusiasm.
“I heard that Class Two is getting some external support this time,” Wang Xu said, moving on to the basketball tournament. “Should we do that too? How else will we win?”
“You want me, Jiang Cheng, and three outsiders to play together?” Gu Fei said. “What’s the point of winning, then?”
Wang Xu frowned in thought and agreed. “You’re right. If we did that, I wouldn’t even get to play, would I?”
“With your skills? If we got outside help, we’d have no need for you,” Gu Fei said.
This irked Wang Xu. “Fuck off!”
“I’ll ask some friends to come practice with us tomorrow,” said Gu Fei.
“We’re not banking on improving our skills at this point; we’ll focus on practicing our teamwork so we’re more familiar with each other.”
“Right!” Wang Xu said, shooting Jiang Cheng a look. “So we don’t end up passing the ball to the other team.”
“I didn’t pass it to ‘the other team’—I passed it to my deskmate.” Jiang Cheng sipped a mouthful of soup. “He’s on my team.”
Wang Xu made a disapproving sound. “You’re splitting hairs.”
“Feel free to split mine,” Jiang Cheng grumbled.
They spent an hour eating meat pies at Wang Xu’s shop. By the time Jiang Cheng walked out, he felt as though the injury on his abdomen was about to burst from the fullness of his stomach.
“Come by whenever you want,” Wang Xu’s mother said as she walked them out. “I’ll give you a discount! All of Wang Xu’s classmates get discounts!”
“Thanks, Auntie,” Jiang Cheng said. He turned away and burped.
He’d really eaten too much. So much so that when he got back into the car, he sat half-reclined in the back seat.
“Just so you know, I’m driving drunk,” Gu Fei announced as he started the engine.
“Oh, shut up,” Jiang Cheng said.
Although he was happy when he was eating, when he got out of the goofy little car and looked down the street to where Li Baoguo lived, a familiar sense of fatigue washed over Jiang Cheng again. Head bowed, he shuffled helpless and slow through the wind—one step, two steps—until he finally arrived at the entrance to the building.
When he opened the door of the apartment, the lights were out. He felt at the wall for ages before he managed to find the switch and slap it on. For some reason, he still wasn’t used to how the switches in Li Baoguo’s home were slightly higher than the ones in his old place.
Li Baoguo wasn’t in. Jiang Cheng didn’t know if he was in the hospital or off gambling again. He took out his phone, but after pausing for a moment, he decided not to call.
He got washed up quickly and returned to his room. When he was done with his homework, Jiang Cheng looked at the time. It was almost eleven.
Someone upstairs was beating their kid. The child was crying and screaming; the piercing noise sent chills through Jiang Cheng’s chest. It sounded like the kid might die at any second.
Jiang Cheng lay down in bed, put on his headphones, and shut his eyes.
***
Jiang Cheng now realized just how determined Lao-Xu was to win at least one match in this tournament. This morning, Lao-Xu told them that all the students involved in the tournament could skip his Chinese class and practice basketball in the gym instead. Gu Fei was forced to call the Fresh Out of Jail guys early in the morning and ask them to come over before noon.
“None of you listen in class, anyway,” Lao-Xu said.
To that, Jiang Cheng wanted to say, If I was in class, I would be listening. I’m an overachiever, after all.
The gym was empty in the morning. Looking at the group of guys who’d made their way over as soon as the last period ended, Jiang Cheng felt a little touched. He was under no illusion that they could actually win this competition based on skill. Whether they could win depended entirely on how bad the other classes were.
“Our special training squad will be here to practice with us soon,” Wang Xu said as he squatted by the court. “First, let’s have the starting line-up we decided on come up to play as warm-up.”
“If anyone asks about this, say that Gu Fei brought friends to practice with us,” Wang Xu said. After some thought, he added, “Remember to say it like you’re really angry, so it sounds like we begged him for ages before he said yes.
Like he doesn’t have any team spirit at all.”
Everyone nodded fervently, their faces a mask of bitter contempt. Gu Fei sighed.
The Fresh Out of Jail quartet came right on time, just as the bell rang for the start of the next class—they managed to avoid the break between periods when the school was most crowded. The fact that these guys with “Here to Make Trouble” all but flashing above their heads managed to waltz in through the front gates challenged Jiang Cheng’s faith in Fourth High’s administration. Even latecomers had to climb the metal gate to get in… “Let’s start,” Gu Fei said. “Hurry up.”
Jiang Cheng glanced at the squad. Fresh Out of Jail and Li Yan… Was Li Yan playing, too?
“Liu Fan, Luo Yu, Zhao Yihui, Chen Jie, and Li Yan. Everyone, get to know each other.” Gu Fei pointed at the guys and introduced them in a single breath. “Don’t worry if you can’t—they’re gonna be your opponents anyway.”
Everyone took their jackets off and stepped onto the court. Two of the reserve players grabbed whistles and acted as referees; another one even pushed out a scoreboard. Seeing this setup, then looking at the opposing team, Jiang Cheng suddenly felt an excitement he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
“I’ll jump,” Gu Fei said under his breath. “Remember to guard Liu Fan.”
“Liu Fan?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“The one wearing the big iron chain,” Gu Fei said.
“Okay.” Jiang Cheng glanced over to their opponents; Liu Fan was “Out,” one of the two who were playing the last time he saw them.
“That chain’s made of iron?” Guo Xu asked.
“How should I know? If it’s not iron, it’s silver or stainless steel. Or brass, maybe.” Gu Fei glanced at him. “You wanna go ask?”
Jiang Cheng turned away, holding back laughter.
“No thanks. I think it’s stainless steel,” Guo Xu said.
Gu Fei sighed. “Guard the guy with the big stainless steel chain.”
Liu Fan was the one jumping for the ball with Gu Fei. He was slightly taller than Gu Fei, but a bit of height didn’t matter much—it all came down to reaction time and jumping ability.
Jiang Cheng kept his eyes on the ball as it was tossed. Just as it reached what seemed like its highest point, Gu Fei and Liu Fan both leaped at once. Gu Fei got to it first, which mystified Jiang Cheng. Even when they jumped at the same time, Gu Fei was always able to touch the ball first.
But even though Gu Fei reached it first and hit it toward Lu Xiaobin, Li Yan ended up with possession; he charged over the instant it reached Lu Xiaobin’s hand and hooked the ball away.
Jiang Cheng was aghast. He remembered the last time he watched them play, Gu Fei considered Li Yan one of the “sick, weak, injured, and elderly” ones who stayed off the court. How did a “sick, weak, injured, and elderly” guy manage to snatch the ball so easily?!
Lu Xiaobin was clearly taken aback as well; he immediately gave chase.
He was so frantic and furious, he looked like the only thing stopping him from picking Li Yan up and flinging him was the rules.
Jiang Cheng, however, was in no hurry to chase the ball. Li Yan wasn’t going fast; it didn’t look like he intended to bring the ball up. When Li Yan tilted his head ever so slightly to the right, Jiang Cheng saw Liu Fan the Stainless Steel Chain Guy reaching out with his hand as he ran toward the right boundary.
Jiang Cheng raced forward. Just as the ball flew out of Li Yan’s hand toward Liu Fan, he accelerated and intercepted it. He didn’t manage to seize the ball, but it bounced toward an arm-waving Lu Xiaobin.
Lu Xiaobin reacted well this time, grabbing the ball instantly.
“To me,” Jiang Cheng said.
Before Li Yan could steal it again, Lu Xiaobin threw the ball straight at Jiang Cheng. As he caught it, Jiang Cheng thanked the gods for keeping the shotput-like throw from hitting him in the face.
Li Yan tried to cut him off, but Guo Xu held him back. Now, their team’s stupid tendency to rush after whoever had the ball proved an advantage. Li Yan was a pretty skinny guy. Caught between Guo Xu and Lu Xiaobin, he all but disappeared.
When Jiang Cheng brought the ball below the basket, he looked at Gu Fei, who had just broken free from their opponents and was running toward the basket as well. Gu Fei looked back at him.
Jiang Cheng didn’t hesitate. Estimating Gu Fei’s trajectory, he passed the ball over; it bounced once by Liu Fan’s foot before arriving securely in Gu Fei’s hands.
But Fresh Out of Jail was on a different level than their class’s reserve players yesterday. When Gu Fei took the ball, someone—either Luo Yu or Zhao Yihui—had already turned to cut off Gu Fei’s path.
As Gu Fei brought the ball back behind him, Jiang Cheng sped between the other players. He didn’t know if Gu Fei put too much trust in his teammates or just didn’t have the time to think about it, but Gu Fei simply passed the ball behind himself without even looking.
Jiang Cheng caught it.
The Fresh Out of Jail squad had probably honed their teamwork well over time; their offense and defense were perfectly coordinated, and it was impossible to get near the basket. After he got the ball, Jiang Cheng was forced back beyond the three-point line.
The fast break failed; Fresh Out of Jail were all under the basket now.
With just himself and Gu Fei, there was no way they could get in there.
As he held the ball, counting the seconds and looking for an opening, Gu Fei suddenly raised a hand. Jiang Cheng saw him extend three fingers.
Fuck.
Fine then. A three-pointer it was!
He bolted forward with the ball, and Liu Fan shot forward to meet him.
Nearing the three-point line, Jiang Cheng put all his forward momentum into his leap; Liu Fan followed like a fucking shadow, jumping to block. Jiang Cheng had to pull back at the last second for a double-pump feint before making the shot from Liu Fan’s left side with one hand.
As he twisted his torso in the air, the wound on his abdomen tore. Jiang Cheng couldn’t help but let out a snarl of pain, inadvertently contributing to the hot-blooded atmosphere of competition.
“Fuck!” Liu Fan turned as soon as he touched the ground. When the ball sunk into the basket, he glanced at Jiang Cheng. “Damn.”
“Nice shot.” Gu Fei clapped his hands above his head. When his eyes met Jiang Cheng’s, he gave him a thumbs-up.