Chapter 24
AFTER ALMOST TWO HOURS at the police station, the matter was finally resolved.
The boy didn’t admit to provoking Gu Miao. He said that Gu Miao chased after him and assaulted him for no reason. Gu Miao didn’t speak the whole time —she lay on Gu Fei’s shoulder with her eyes closed, so there was no way to refute him.
Jiang Cheng didn’t believe the boy. The way Gu Miao was, she’d be bullied at any school. But why Gu Miao hit him wasn’t important; even if the little boy had bullied her, the police couldn’t do anything about that. The point was that Gu Miao had split his head open, and he’d needed two stitches.
Luckily, there weren’t any other major injuries. His parents’ predatory demands for compensation were forced back by Ding Zhuxin’s thinly veiled threats, leading the police to warn her several times to watch her mouth.
Gu Fei didn’t speak much. All his attention was on Gu Miao.
Li Yan and the guys were simply there to fold their arms and look like they could make good on Ding Zhuxin’s threats, giving off an “if you make trouble, so will we—we don’t look like decent people anyway” vibe. When they finally came to an agreement and the police sent them away, Jiang Cheng let out a long sigh of relief. Only now did his stomach wake up, whining with hunger, except he didn’t really feel like eating.
They walked out of the police station and into the cold, biting wind.
“You guys should get back. Thanks for this.” Gu Fei glanced at Jiang Cheng. “Let’s get a taxi with Wang Xu.”
Jiang Cheng nodded. “Okay.”
After they split from the group and got into the car, nobody spoke. Jiang Cheng felt rather morose, and he figured Gu Fei didn’t feel much better. Even Wang Xu the chatterbox didn’t say much—he cursed and sighed, but he went silent after Gu Fei shot him a look.
“Neither of you ate, right?” Gu Fei asked as they approached the neighborhood.
“Don’t mind us,” Wang Xu said. “Go home. I don’t need the taxi to take me all the way home, either; I can get off here, I’m just around the next block… Jiang Cheng, wanna come over for meat pies?”
“No, thanks. I don’t want to eat anything right now.”
When they arrived at the corner, Gu Fei carried Gu Miao out of the car as Jiang Cheng followed them, holding her skateboard. After a few steps, Gu Fei turned. “Thanks for today.”
“Don’t mention it.” Jiang Cheng looked at Gu Miao. “You should keep her out of school for a few days. I saw three boys today, the other two who weren’t beaten might…” “Even if she doesn’t take time off, she may not be able to go back to school.” Gu Fei sighed. “Can you tell Lao-Xu I need to be excused from class tomorrow morning? I have to go to Er-Miao’s school.”
“Sure.” Jiang Cheng nodded. “What excuse do you want me to use?”
“I have a fever.” Gu Fei touched his forehead. “A fever that rages from tonight until tomorrow at noon. It’s burning my hand.”
“…Okay,” Jiang Cheng chuckled.
Watching Gu Fei’s back as he walked off, carrying Gu Miao in one arm and her skateboard in the other, Jiang Cheng felt a mix of emotions. He used to think Gu Fei lived an unbothered life: unbothered as he let his sister run amok on that skateboard, unbothered as he skipped class and came in late, unbothered as he played basketball as he pleased—just following his heart’s desires, living without a care in the world.
It seemed that wasn’t the case at all. Gu Fei seemed to be the only one handling all of his family’s affairs. How could someone like that truly do whatever he wanted?
Nobody could do whatever they wanted. Not Gu Fei, and not himself. The same way he didn’t want to stay in Li Baoguo’s house, or this unfamiliar, run-down city; the way he didn’t want the life set out before him, but had no choice but to face it.
Every little change changed everything.
Even his previous habit of staying out all night was something he couldn’t do lightly anymore. After all, he had nowhere to go. Not many people could actually bury their heads in the sand and not care about anything but “being themselves.”
Li Baoguo didn’t go out to play mahjong that evening. He spent all night coughing at home, snoring, sleep-talking, and grinding his teeth—a discordant symphony evoking the rage of mortals and gods. Jiang Cheng lay awake the whole night, staring into space in his entirely unsoundproofed room where he could hear the difference between a sandal and a sneaker shuffling around upstairs.
When he got up in the morning, he felt so sleepy that his steps seemed to float.
“Maybe you should go to the hospital?” he said to Li Baoguo, who was putting on his shoes and rushing off for a morning round of mahjong. “That cough of yours sounds serious. Is it an infection?”
“See! Now that’s a real son!” Li Baoguo exclaimed joyfully. “It’s fine, I’ve been coughing for years. It’s an old problem, no need to go to the hospital.
There’s no problem at all!”
Jiang Cheng wanted to say there was a problem with that sentence, but he’d only just opened his mouth when Li Baoguo threw the door open and rushed away.
Well, shit. If he wanted to be sick, let him. Li Baoguo’s attitude made him feel like he was being a delicate maiden.
On the way to school, Jiang Cheng dropped by the pharmacy and bought a box of American ginseng tablets. They helped him stay alert; he used to take them often when studying before exams. If he took one now, it would at least stop him from falling into too deep a sleep in class. He didn’t want to snore in the middle of a lesson—it would be humiliating.
Just as expected, Gu Fei didn’t come to school in the morning. After the morning self-study period, Jiang Cheng went to Lao-Xu’s office and repeated the excuse Gu Fei gave him for taking time off from school.
“He has a fever, it’s killing him. He’s been burning up since yesterday afternoon, and he’ll be fine by lunchtime.”
As soon as he spoke, Jiang Cheng realized how severely his lack of sleep had affected his intelligence. But Lao-Xu didn’t seem to notice his peculiar turn of phrase. He was too busy being delighted that Gu Fei had notified him about the absence instead of just skipping.
“See, I knew he could be redeemed,” he said, overcome with emotion. “Isn’t he applying for time off now? I knew it. Getting through to you kids is a matter of using the right technique…” But Gu Fei didn’t wait until the afternoon to come to school. He walked in in the middle of Chinese class, the final morning period.
Lao-Xu eyed him with great concern. “Don’t you have a fever? You could come in the afternoon.”
“I’m better now,” Gu Fei said.
Lao-Xu nodded. He rapped the podium with one hand and said enthusiastically, “Well, let’s continue where we just left off…” Gu Fei sat down and took a look at Jiang Cheng. “Did you not sleep?”
“…Is it that obvious?” Jiang Cheng slumped over the desk, his eyelids a little too heavy to lift.
“Yeah,” Gu Fei said. “It hurts just to look at you. You’d think you were the one with the day-old fever.”
Jiang Cheng yawned. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Sorry,” Gu Fei muttered, “for keeping you for hours and making you go through all that trouble.”
“It wasn’t because of Gu Miao.” Jiang Cheng waved a hand. “It’s Li Baoguo… He didn’t go out to play mahjong yesterday. He stayed in and coughed all night and the noise kept me up.”
“Oh.” Gu Fei dug into his pocket and pulled out a small cardboard box, setting it in front of Jiang Cheng. “Want some?”
“Wha…” Jiang Cheng opened the box to find a handful of milk candies.
Speechless, he wondered what exactly Gu Fei was thinking. “Milk candy?”
“Yup. You like them, don’t you?” Gu Fei took a mint candy from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth.
“I never said I liked them. I was just hungry that day,” Jiang Cheng said.
“Really?” Gu Fei gave him a look of exaggerated surprise, then dropped it and took the candy away. “Give it back, then.”
“Wha—” Jiang Cheng glared at him. “You’re pretty interesting, you know that?”
“Do you want them or not?” Gu Fei asked.
Jiang Cheng opened his mouth just to close it again. After a pause, he said, “Give me a mint one. It’ll wake me up.”
Gu Fei glanced at him and searched his pockets for a long while before retrieving a handful. He rifled through it with his fingers. “I’m out of those. Why don’t you take this one? It’ll wake you up, I promise.”
“Okay.”
Jiang Cheng took the little round candy from his hand. It was tangerine-flavored, nothing especially invigorating. Jiang Cheng wrapped his tongue around the piece of candy. How the hell was tangerine supposed to wake you up? It had to at least be lemon… Before he could finish the thought, the tip of his tongue sensed a faint sourness. Maybe the tangerine layer outside had dissolved completely, and the inside was a little sour…?
He didn’t have time to react before the sourness burst forth and assaulted his taste buds. His eyes widened.
Agh! Soooooooooouuuuuuuur! Fuck, it’s so sour!
The acidic taste, verging on bitter, surged right into his heart and his tear ducts. It ached so much he longed for the sweet release of death.
Gu Fei watched him sit upright and said, “Um—” Jiang Cheng spat the candy out with a ptooey before Gu Fei could continue. Like a little bullet, the candy shot out and smacked into Zhou Jing’s neck in front of them.
“Agh!” Zhou Jing yelped. He started and sat straight up in alarm, then turned around and touched his neck with one hand. In a hushed voice, he asked, “Shit, what was that? It went into my shirt!”
Jiang Cheng couldn’t speak. Though the candy was no longer in his mouth, its traces still lingered, and the bitterly sour flavor that made him shudder uncontrollably remained.
“Face the front,” Gu Fei said.
“Zhou Jing,” Lao-Xu said from the podium, “please be respectful of the classroom rules.”
Although the number of people who observed the rules in this class wasn’t enough to form a basketball team, Zhou Jing faced the front anyway.
After two seconds, he turned again. “Shit, why is it sticky? What is this thing?”
“Candy,” Gu Fei said.
“…The hell is wrong with you two?” Zhou Jing was devastated. He pulled his shirt out and shook it for ages before the candy landed in his chair.
“Sorry,” Jiang Cheng said. He’d finally recovered, so he turned and stared at Gu Fei.
Gu Fei was looking down at his phone, but Jiang Cheng could see the mirth he was trying to suppress.
“Trying to get yourself killed?” Jiang Cheng said under his breath.
“You wanted something to wake you up.” Gu Fei’s finger slid across the phone screen. “Are you still sleepy?”
“Motherfucker!” Jiang Cheng cursed.
Gu Fei turned to look at him. “You’re not sleepy now, right?”
“Want me to write you a certificate of achievement?”
“No thanks.” Gu Fei turned back to his game. “Nobody can read your handwriting, anyway.”
Jiang Cheng grudgingly admitted that he was now thoroughly awake. His sleepiness had been banished completely. However, his urge to whack Gu Fei with a stick had overtaken his initial desire to ask how Gu Miao’s school was handling her issue.
When the bell rang for lunch, Gu Fei put his phone down. “Let me treat you to a meal, as thanks for your help yesterday.”
Jiang Cheng looked at him wordlessly.
“Lunch or dinner, up to you,” Gu Fei added. “Got time?”
“…You don’t have to, it’s fine,” Jiang Cheng said.
“It’s not just to be polite. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what would’ve happened to Er-Miao yesterday. I get scared just thinking about it.”
Jiang Cheng was quiet for a moment. “Dinner, then. I’m napping at lunch.”
Gu Fei nodded. “Okay.”
In the afternoon they had basketball practice during the self-study period, as usual. Lately, self-study was probably Wang Xu and the others’ favorite time of day.
Jiang Cheng went to the hospital at noon to get his dressing changed. He also asked the doctor to apply some apparently imported wound adhesive. They mainly practiced their teamwork in the afternoon, instead of playing a regular match. His wound was all right; he didn’t feel it much.
At the end of practice, Captain Wang Xu crouched by the court, jabbing the floor with his finger. “I think we have a chance this time. The way we are now, at least… But we have to keep it a secret so nobody considers us a threat, just like before.”
“As long as you don’t go bragging all over the place,” Jiang Cheng said.
“It’s fine,” Wang Xu said airily. “As long as they don’t find out about you and Gu Fei. Nobody believes me when I brag, anyway.”
“…Oh.” Jiang Cheng looked at him. It was the first time he’d sensed this much honesty from Wang Xu; he was rather taken aback that Wang Xu confronted that harsh reality so readily.
“Da-Fei.” Wang Xu turned to face Gu Fei. “Can you ask those guys to come practice with us again when they have the time? I think that was pretty useful.”
“M’kay,” Gu Fei answered.
“All right, dismissed.” Wang Xu waved a hand. “The other classes are coming soon. Do you all remember our chant?”
“Chant?” Lu Xiaobin stared blankly. “We have a chant?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention it?” Wang Xu said. “Our chant is, ‘We have a secret weapon!’” Even after he spoke, it somehow still didn’t register in Jiang Cheng’s mind as their chant. He froze for a moment, then turned his face away, suppressing the violent laughter that threatened to burst out of him.
Everyone silently stared at Wang Xu.
“We have a secret weapon!” Wang Xu repeated, before waving his hand again. “Dismissed!”
As he walked out the gate after school, Jiang Cheng glanced around out of habit. There was no sign of the skateboard-wielding little mob boss Gu Miao waiting at the entrance. He looked at Gu Fei, but Gu Fei made no attempt to explain, just walked off down the road with his hands in his pockets.
Jiang Cheng noticed he wasn’t going to get his bike. “You didn’t bike to school today?” he asked.
“Nope.” Gu Fei pulled his collar. “Crappy old bicycle tire got bent out of shape this morning on the way here.”
“What?” Jiang Cheng didn’t understand. “Why would a tire be bent out of shape? Is it in a bad mood or something…?”
“…That’s really cute.” Gu Fei gave him a look. “It’s not bent out of shape like it’s upset; it’s literally not round anymore.”
“Oh.” Jiang Cheng was impressed by his own brain, too.
“I crashed pretty hard.” Gu Fei sighed.
Jiang Cheng glanced at him, but didn’t say a word. If it had been Pan Zhi, Jiang Cheng would’ve been clapping and cheering right now.
“What do you feel like having?” Gu Fei asked as he walked.
“Dunno. Nothing in particular. You don’t have to make it anything special,” Jiang Cheng said. “Just whatever you usually eat with your friends. It’s not some grand appreciation ceremony.”
“With my friends, huh…” Gu Fei laughed. “We eat some weird things. I don’t think you could handle it.”
“What, do you eat shit?” Jiang Cheng blurted out. It was something he was used to saying to Pan Zhi; the two of them had numerous meaningless and childish back-and-forths they were used to saying out of habit. Sometimes he thought, If anyone hears this without seeing us, they’ll think we’re a couple of seven-year-olds.
“No,” Gu Fei said, “but if you want some, that can be arranged.”
Jiang Cheng sighed. “Maybe just something mundane instead.”
Sighing at the thought of Pan Zhi was certainly an interesting turn of events for him. Pan Zhi’s grandfather had been hospitalized recently, so the whole family was taking turns to keep him company in the ward. The two of them hadn’t been in touch lately. Sometimes, looking at his silent phone, Jiang Cheng felt very lonely.
“Let’s go to the supermarket first,” Gu Fei said.
“The supermarket?” Jiang Cheng was bewildered. “What for?”
“Food, of course,” Gu Fei said. “Raw ingredients and stuff.”
“We’re cooking for ourselves?” Jiang Cheng was astounded.
“Yup.” Gu Fei nodded. “My friends and I usually cook for ourselves. If you want ready-made food, we can—” “No, it’s fine.” It would be better to follow Gu Fei’s routine, Jiang Cheng thought. He hadn’t wanted to bum a meal from Gu Fei for what happened yesterday, anyway. “I should tell you that I only know how to cook instant noodles, though.”
“It’s okay, this is simple. We’ll have a barbecue,” Gu Fei said.
Jiang Cheng was surprised all over again. A barbecue, in this weather? Where?
After walking around the supermarket, Gu Fei bought a whole chicken, already chopped, some beef and lamb slices, marinated and ready to be grilled, and two packs of dumplings.
Perplexed, Jiang Cheng asked, “How do you barbecue dumplings?”
“You boil dumplings,” Gu Fei explained, his expression serious.
“I know you boil dumplings, I just… Never mind, I’ll eat whatever you make,” Jiang Cheng said.
“What do you drink? Soft drinks or hard?” Gu Fei asked.
“Neither, thank you.” Jiang Cheng’s mind filled with the image of them standing in the rough northerly wind, half-frozen as they watched over a dying woodfire in some abandoned wilderness. The thought of drinking anything in those conditions made him shudder.
***
After making his purchases, Gu Fei led him homeward.
If Gu Fei asked him over to his place for the barbecue… Jiang Cheng was a bit uneasy about that. He’d been spending quite a lot of time with Gu Fei recently, but they still didn’t feel close. Going to his house would make him pretty uncomfortable; he didn’t even like going to Pan Zhi’s place.
Gu Fei didn’t stop when they reached his family’s store. He simply glanced inside, then kept walking. Jiang Cheng looked in, too. Through the glass, he could see a woman at the counter. Judging from her hair, it was probably Gu Fei’s mother.
Further on, the street merged with the one that led to Li Baoguo’s house.
Jiang Cheng had been here before. It was quite deserted. Up ahead, past the abandoned factory, there was a road that led to an almost dried-up lake… He shuddered. If Gu Fei was planning to barbecue at the lake, he’d much rather treat Gu Fei to a restaurant meal himself.
But Gu Fei entered through a small gate and headed for the abandoned factory grounds.
“Here?” Jiang Cheng followed. “This was a factory, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, the steelworks, back in the day,” Gu Fei said. “It shut down ages ago… Lots of people around here used to work in the factory. Including Li Baoguo.”
“Oh.” Jiang Cheng looked around.
Walking in, he realized that the factory had an enormous campus. The main factory buildings were still there; they looked sturdy, but they were surrounded by desolation. Clearly nobody cleaned this place anymore—the ground was paved with ice.
Gu Fei led him all the way in. After passing several basketball courts, they entered what looked like the old office block.
“Me and…Fresh Out of Jail,” Gu Fei said as he walked up the stairs, “we hang out here when we don’t want to be in the store.”
“You can’t even get power in here, can you?” Jiang Cheng glanced at the mess around his feet.
“We pulled in our own line,” Gu Fei said. “It gets pretty lively here in the summer, actually. There’s a lot of open space outside. The grandmas and grandpas like to do their street-dancing here.”
“Street-dancing?” Jiang Cheng repeated.
“Yeah. They even have dance-offs. It’s all very trendy—the absolute peak of the new wave.” Gu Fei reached the third floor. He took out a key and opened a door.
Jiang Cheng glanced inside. It was an empty room, very cleanly kept. A makeshift brick stove sat in the center; next to it were several low stools and padded cushions, along with a legless couch.
A flat barbecue rack and an induction stove was on the ground next to the wall. There was even a pot, along with bottles of oil, salt, and other miscellaneous seasonings.
“Damn.” Jiang Cheng was amazed. “You could live here.”
“What do you think? Nice, huh?” Gu Fei said, putting the ingredients down on a table. “We installed the lock ourselves. I could give you a key, if you want. Then when you don’t want to go home but you have nowhere to go, you can stay here. Li Yan and the guys normally come over on weekends—it’s empty the rest of the time.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t speak. He leaned against the wall and gazed at Gu Fei, a little upset that Gu Fei had pointed out his dilemma of frequently having “nowhere to go” so simply.
Though he was upset, Jiang Cheng was surprised to find that he wasn’t angry. The fact that even his deskmate could tell his life was a mess… It was kind of laughable.