There truly was a very stubborn part in Tong Xilin’s character.
This was something Kong Ji had only gradually discovered, starting when Tong Xilin abruptly proposed moving into the school dorms during his senior year of high school.
A thin, quiet kid, not making a peep or a ruckus normally. He’d never seen him properly throw a tantrum or lose his temper. Yet he’d ended up living at school for a solid half-year without coming home once.
When an unfamiliar teacher had publicly used his family situation as a “typical case” in front of the entire grade, he’d been targeted on his very first day in the dorm. The environment was awful, and he’d suffered in silence. If the situation hadn’t escalated to the Head Teacher, he probably never would have voluntarily told him.
Before everything was laid bare, when Tong Xilin was sick, he would still act a little spoiled, tentatively saying he missed the plain noodle soup his dad used to make. He would nibble at harmless, petty jealousies upon seeing strangers. He would say his legs hurt. He would express happiness and closeness without reservation upon receiving gifts. He would also give Kong Ji small, clever presents.
Just like any other young man who’d appeared around Kong Ji—those little thoughts were impossible to conceal, used to extract a bit of resources from him, or so-called affection.
The difference was that Tong Xilin would hint at and bring up Tong Yuzhi, using an ambiguous tone to say: You are the legacy my dad left me.
A legacy was, of course, meant to be spent.
Kong Ji had brought him back, naturally, out of selfish motives too. Within those selfish motives were both love and hate.
And so he’d raised him—like keeping a small pet that matched his aesthetic tastes, with a mix of selfish intent and detached observation.
However, after everything had been fully spoken aloud, these things never appeared in Tong Xilin again.
He rejected everything similar to Tong Yuzhi. He rejected the way Kong Ji dressed him. He rejected all sweets. He was provocative, stubborn, and repeatedly emphasized, as if declaring war, that he would repay the money, emphasized that he was Tong Xilin, not Tong Yuzhi.
He had begun to develop a strong sense of self, anxiously wanting to sever something.
Seen through the eyes of a man in his thirties, this urgency was naive and pitiable. Because this boy from a small town could clearly have used these things to obtain living conditions far better than before.
Yet it was also unavoidably moving.
On that night of unending summer rain, amidst Tong Xilin’s pressing questions, he’d spoken the full story of his acquaintance and separation from Tong Yuzhi. He’d explicitly stated the reason he’d brought Tong Xilin back and offered a choice.
—Continue to stay by his side as a stand-in for Tong Yuzhi. Or something else.
But the drunken kid hadn’t said anything. He’d merely left a ring of teeth marks—bearing the salt of tears—on his index finger.
Kong Ji’s hand, resting on the rattan chair, moved involuntarily, his thumb rubbing over the base of his index finger.
The mark had long since faded, but the image and sensation of that night were still vividly before his eyes.
Tong Xilin’s tears had been so hot.
Tong Xilin.
The moment Kong Ji first heard this name, he’d guessed the reason behind it. He hadn’t planned on saying anything. Even for someone as self-aware and unashamedly foul as him, he found the name too cruel.
In the end, Tong Xilin had figured it out himself.
How stubborn was he? Upon realizing it, he’d cried his eyes out, refused to enter Tong Yuzhi’s cemetery anymore, didn’t yell, didn’t throw a tantrum, didn’t change his name. He’d run a low fever for a solid week, his state so poor that Kong Ji had wanted to take him for psychological intervention.
He’d said he was better now.
A kid this stubborn—if you didn’t use the argument of “repaying money” to pressure him, he wouldn’t even accept a bank transfer anymore.
“I’ll pay you back.”
As expected, Tong Xilin said exactly this and didn’t insist on returning it further. His eyes were clear and bright, the pressed line of his mouth holding firmness.
Kong Ji didn’t respond to his words. He propped his chin on his hand and motioned with his eyes for him to eat properly.
Regarding the things they had originally planned to go buy, Tong Xilin didn’t let Kong Ji accompany him anymore.
Back at the school entrance, he stopped and looked at Kong Ji, saying, “You can go back now, Uncle.”
“You don’t need me to help carry stuff?” Kong Ji asked.
Tong Xilin shook his head. “I can manage by myself.”
Kong Ji smiled a little and said, “Then go on in. Call me if anything comes up.”
Tong Xilin didn’t ask when he was leaving. Didn’t even say goodbye. Without looking back, he walked into the school.
The things he needed to buy didn’t seem like much, but he still ended up with his hands full of odds and ends.
The supermarket was packed—all students and the parents accompanying them. In the toiletries aisle, Tong Xilin was choosing toothpaste. Nearby, a mother and daughter were arguing. The mother insisted on putting back the item her daughter had chosen, making her take a different brand. The daughter, face dark, didn’t say a word but kept putting the toothpaste back.
“What are you doing!”
After a few rounds, the daughter exploded, shrieking in the crowded supermarket.
“Can you stop always doing this? I’m the one using it, not you!”
Her force when she shook off her mother’s hand was huge. Her arm swung in a half-circle and smacked right into Tong Xilin’s hand. The small basin Tong Xilin had been carrying was knocked to the ground. The hand soap and laundry detergent inside rolled everywhere.
The harsh noise made the bustling supermarket fall silent for an instant. Everyone’s eyes, like searchlights, swiveled and landed on them uniformly.
The daughter was embarrassed and furious. Her eyes instantly reddened. She didn’t even buy anything anymore—she shoved through the crowd and strode out quickly.
Her mother, meanwhile, remained standing in place, smoothing her hair. She didn’t call out, didn’t chase after her, and with a tight face, still took the toothpaste brand she herself had chosen.
Tong Xilin crouched on the floor, picking up his things. He didn’t like being the center of attention. Even though he wasn’t the main character in the argument, he still felt his ears burn. Head down, he picked up his items while gradually inching toward the next aisle.
Midway through, a hand reached down and helped him retrieve the body wash that had rolled under the shelf.
“Tha—” Tong Xilin looked up to thank the person and met Qin Ji’s eyes.
“It’s you.” He smiled, a bit embarrassed. “What a coincidence.”
“Mm.” Qin Ji curved the corner of his mouth, crouched down and helped him gather his things. When he stood up, he even shielded the top of Tong Xilin’s head. “There’s a wire here. Be careful.”
Qin Ji had also come to buy things. All roughly the same kind of daily necessities.
Tong Xilin stood up, holding his little basin, and glanced over. It seemed Qin Ji didn’t have a companion. Still alone.
“The other roommates haven’t arrived yet?” They’d be living together for five years. He proactively found a topic to chat with Qin Ji.
“After you left, one more came,” Qin Ji thought for a moment. “Surname Qi, I think. I didn’t catch his given name.”
“Then everyone’s here now,” Tong Xilin said casually.
Qin Ji made another soft “Mm,” and pushed the glasses up on his nose.
As it happened, both needed to choose toothpaste. Tong Xilin casually grabbed the same brand he used at home and prepared to go on to buy towels. He realized Qin Ji was still in front of the shelf, unmoving. He seemed to be deciding.
So he stopped and waited a moment.
Tong Xilin had never been someone who paid attention to other people’s clothing or spending. But at this moment, with the two of them standing together, the waiting process idle and unoccupied, he very naturally sensed Qin Ji’s hesitation.
Supermarket shelves were arranged by price. The moderately priced items were placed at the most eye-catching middle section. The upper shelf was for the pricier goods. The cheapest were all placed on the bottom.
Qin Ji’s gaze had been lingering on the lowest level.
Tong Xilin was all too familiar with that kind of gaze.
Before Kong Ji had taken him home, every time he bought daily necessities, he’d also had that same downward, never-lifting look.
He immediately averted his eyes, pretending not to notice, wanting to look elsewhere. But then he saw the cuffs of Qin Ji’s shirt.
He hadn’t noticed it earlier in the dorm. Now, looking at Qin Ji’s cuffs, he found them very familiar too—the kind of frayed, fuzzy edges that only came from being worn for years, washed countless times.
“All set.” Qin Ji had chosen his toothpaste, turned his head, and called to him, his tone still that mildness with a trace of distant politeness. “What else do you need to buy?”
“Grab a towel.” Tong Xilin walked toward the next aisle, thinking as he went. “For cleaning the dorm later, we should probably also get a broom and mop.”
Qin Ji followed, also taking a towel. As Tong Xilin was about to go buy the broom, Qin Ji spoke up mildly: “Cleaning duties will probably be on rotation.”
“Hm?” Tong Xilin turned back to look at him, not understanding what he meant to convey.
“I mean,” Qin Ji paused, and smiled a little, “shared supplies. We should discuss with the roommates later and split the cost to buy them.”
Tong Xilin’s hand, reaching for the broom, stopped in mid-air. He let out a small “Ah.” He truly hadn’t considered that point.
This failure to consider made a strange, awkward embarrassment rise in him. Upon hearing Qin Ji say to split the cost, his first reaction had actually been to think: isn’t that a bit penny-pinching? Even if they were going to split it, buying it first and then talking money later wouldn’t be impossible.
The embarrassment instantly swept through his whole body.
—Even though every single day he’d been swearing to himself that he’d pay Kong Ji back, even though he’d once lived a life of scrimping and saving, hating to spend a single yuan, the current him seemed to have unconsciously started spending somewhat freely.
“Okay.” He pulled his hand back and nodded at Qin Ji. “Then let’s head back.”
Each carrying a load of things, on the way back to the dorm, Qin Ji introduced to Tong Xilin: the school had several cafeterias, their locations, where the library was. He even said that next-door Tianjin University and Nankai often had students crossing over to each other’s campuses.
Tong Xilin listened with interest, feeling Qin Ji knew quite a lot, and remarked, “You know this much even though you just got here.”
“I looked into it specifically,” Qin Ji said. “I repeated a year. Last year’s scores were too high. I wasn’t willing to settle, didn’t expect this year to be even higher.”
“No wonder.” Tong Xilin turned his face to study him.
“What?” Qin Ji raised his eyebrow slightly.
That little habit of lifting his eyebrow was a bit like Kong Ji.
Tong Xilin suddenly thought.
He looked at Qin Ji’s glasses again and recalled that when Kong Ji worked at home, he also wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses. No prescription—just blue-light blocking.
But the two had completely different auras.
“I felt you were more… steady,” Tong Xilin didn’t use the word “mature,” afraid Qin Ji would misunderstand and think he was saying he looked too old. “Not all flustered and scatterbrained like me.”
“Is that so.” Qin Ji nudged his glasses up. “You’re not quite what I expected, actually.”
Tong Xilin rarely heard people evaluate him. Zhou Qi’s personality was too carefree; they’d never chatted about such nuanced things. Back in the small town, those classmates had looked at him with much the same eyes as Wu Zihao.
“What am I like?” he asked curiously.
“Pretty easy to get along with.” Qin Ji gave him a careful, detailed once-over—from his hairstyle down to his shoes, looking at the clothes on Tong Xilin and the phone clutched in his hand. “When I saw you in the dorm with your uncle, I assumed your personality would be more… haughty?”
He used a word that typically only appeared in novels and movies. Tong Xilin didn’t even react at first—the term just didn’t fit him at all.
“Me?” He couldn’t hold back a laugh, raising his wrist to point at himself, a plastic bag still dangling from his hand.
“Yeah,” Qin Ji watched him laugh too, his eyes curving into crescents. His tone sounded sincere, yet also with a probing quality that wasn’t off-putting. “You can’t hide your style of dress and presence. You and your uncle look like the type who come from very good circumstances.”
The smile at the corner of Tong Xilin’s mouth remained politely in place. He just let his eyelids lower.
“That’s him.” Staring at the pavement, he said softly. “Has nothing to do with me.”
