“Ben, I emailed you the file for the construction materials company. Take a look and see if anything feels off. If not, just send it over.” Jiang Chu kicked his swivel chair back half a meter and propped his long legs up on the desk, calling Da Ben.
“Got it. Won’t even look, sending it now.” Da Ben said on the phone.
Jiang Chu covered his face with one hand and rubbed his eyes, chuckling. “Alright, if there are any problems later, have them deal with you directly. Don’t bother me.”
“Ugh, just mentioning them is annoying. We’ll talk about work tomorrow.” Da Ben smoothly changed the subject. “Have you eaten yet? My mother-in-law just made a pot of braised pork and sent some over. Come over tonight and try it? Bao Li was talking about you again last night. She wants to set you up with someone.”
Jiang Chu hadn’t even thought about food until Da Ben mentioned it. He was the type of person who either didn’t work at all, or worked until he finished a whole phase in one go.
The moment he heard “braised pork,” his throat tightened. He pulled the phone away to check the time. It was already half past four in the afternoon.
He’d only had that bowl of brunch noodles in the morning and hadn’t eaten anything else all day. Qin Zui hadn’t made a sound either.
Just like he’d thought from the start: give him food and drink, and he’d stay quiet as a mouse all day.
“What’s your girlfriend got to be talking about me for all night? Got nothing better to do?” Jiang Chu rubbed his stomach. He was getting a little hungry. “You two enjoy yourselves. I’m basically a family man now, I’m not the carefree me from last month.”
“Calling having a little brother to look after like you’re a single dad.” Da Ben laughed. “Alright, go eat with your little brother, ‘Boss Chu, Family Man.'”
‘Boss Chu, Family Man’ hung up the phone and sat in his chair for another five minutes.
He’d woken up late that morning and missed his usual nap time. Now he was in that weird in-between state, not quite sleepy but not fully awake. He didn’t feel like moving, unsure whether to take a nap or just push through until an early bedtime.
He scrolled through his phone absently, replied to a few messages, then clicked on Qin Zui’s WeChat profile picture.
After his phone call with Liang Xiaojia, Qin Zui bit on a cigarette and spaced out for a while. Then he picked up the book he’d picked up yesterday and hadn’t finished and read for the rest of the afternoon.
At some point, he got up for a glass of water. Zhou Teng took the chance to sneak into his room, take a nap curled up against the bed leg, and then slip out again when he went to the bathroom.
When his WeChat message notification went off, he was leaning back in his chair, legs crossed, staring thoughtfully at the phone Jiang Chu had given him, debating whether to swap the SIM card now.
His old phone’s speaker was pretty loud. The sudden ding! even made him jump.
He grabbed his phone and looked. Jiang Chu, for some crazy reason, had sent him a message: “brother”
Then another one, a picture.
It wouldn’t load. The phone was too slow, and its memory was too full.
Qin Zui had to clear the phone’s junk files first, then go to the album and delete a few screenshots before going back to WeChat and clicking on the picture.
After a painfully long loading time, the image finally crawled its way onto the screen. It was just two big characters: “I’m hungry”
Jiang Chu scrolled through Qin Zui’s Moments. He didn’t know if the kid had set it so he couldn’t see anything, but there wasn’t a single post.
Through the two doors separating the study and bedroom, he heard the sound of what was probably Qin Zui throwing his phone onto the bed.
Then came the sound of a door opening, footsteps. A few seconds later, Qin Zui appeared at the study door, expressionless, and asked with a hint of exasperation: “Noodles?”
Jiang Chu was still lounging with his long legs propped up on the desk. He twirled his phone in his hand and looked at Qin Zui for a moment, then suddenly felt like laughing.
Some things about Qin Zui were really quite cute.
“Whatever. I’ll order a couple of dishes.” Jiang Chu ordered a serving of braised pork and some cold noodles with sauce, then followed Qin Zui out of the study and into the kitchen. “That shrimp you ate yesterday didn’t give you an allergic reaction, did it?”
Qin Zui grunted in affirmation.
“Is that a yes or a no? What does ‘grunt’ mean?” Jiang Chu lifted Qin Zui’s shirt to check his stomach, then quickly backed away before Qin Zui could turn around and punch him.
While waiting for the braised pork to arrive, Qin Zui’s broken-gong phone rang again.
Jiang Chu didn’t know how long the call at noon had lasted, but by the time he’d finished plating the food and the noodles, and had sat down to watch a sketch on TV, Qin Zui finally came out of the bedroom.
Seeing the untouched dishes on the table, he seemed a bit surprised.
“Finished your call?” Jiang Chu went to the table and sat down, pushing Qin Zui’s bowl closer to him.
“You didn’t have to wait for me.” Qin Zui sat down across from him and finally spoke.
“Eating at the same table, having to calculate how much food to leave for the other person… it doesn’t feel right.” Jiang Chu said nonchalantly. He was genuinely hungry now, smelling the meat. He didn’t say much more and just started eating.
Once the initial edge was off his hunger, Jiang Chu leaned back in his chair, lit a cigarette contentedly, and continued watching the sketch, tilting his head. He asked casually, “Still haven’t switched phones?”
Qin Zui glanced at him flatly. “There’s dirty stuff on your phone.”
“What dirty stu… ah.” Jiang Chu turned, blinking.
Couldn’t be.
He usually streamed videos, didn’t download them. If he did, he downloaded them to his computer.
“Just factory reset it.” Jiang Chu scooted his foot under the table and nudged Qin Zui’s calf. “Go get it.”
Qin Zui slowly got up, got the phone, tapped it a few times, found the ‘dirty stuff,’ and tossed the phone to Jiang Chu.
Jiang Chu caught it, still finding it amusing. “An eighteen-year-old young man, acting all pure… ‘dirty stuff’…”
The moment he saw what the ‘dirty stuff’ was, he was completely speechless.
“Are you out of your mind? My abs are ‘dirty stuff’?” Jiang Chu wanted to punch him.
He flipped through the album furiously, shoving the phone back toward Qin Zui’s face. “I took a picture of a bruise on my stomach to show the doctor! It just happened to look too sexy when I took it, so it’s ‘dirty stuff’? I should make that your wallpaper so you can drool over it every day, you know?”
Qin Zui was sitting in front of the TV on the sofa, long legs stretched out, hands in his pockets. He turned his head and stared at Jiang Chu with a strange expression, wondering how he could say something so shameless.
Even more shameless was that he actually messed around and set the picture as the wallpaper.
“A high schooler knows nothing.” Jiang Chu said around his cigarette, tossing the phone back to Qin Zui.
Qin Zui stared at Jiang Chu for a bit longer before picking up the phone and turning on the screen.
Jiang Chu’s stomach and lower abdomen lit up the screen, bold and clear.
Qin Zui’s lips pressed together. He leaned his head back against the sofa cushion and covered his eyes with the back of his hand. For the first time in front of Jiang Chu, he couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
By the strict eight-pack abs standard, Jiang Chu’s body wasn’t as good as he claimed.
But for Qin Zui’s taste, the taut waistline and flat abdomen were actually pretty…
But something about it was just inexplicably ridiculous.
Jiang Chu sat with one foot on the edge of his chair, a dark look on his face as he watched Qin Zui laugh for a while. Then he drooped his eyelids and cursed with a laugh, “God damn it,” and rested his forehead on his knee, laughing along with him.
“Wash the dishes.” He got up to go to the bathroom. As he passed Qin Zui, he kicked him again.
Tending to Qin Zui was proving to be surprisingly entertaining for Jiang Chu.
Especially after that crazy, weird laughing fit at dinner. Jiang Chu’s drunkenness from yesterday had become ‘dirty stuff’ today. Qin Zui’s own, well, equipment had nearly been destroyed too. They were both completely exposed to each other, any pretense of distance or formality was gone. Living under the same roof naturally became even more relaxed.
Mainly because Qin Zui wasn’t an ungrateful kid. His personality might as well have ‘Coolest’ tattooed on his forehead, but he knew exactly how much kindness and care Jiang Chu was showing him.
After finishing the dishes, he even cut that watermelon in half, stuck a spoon in it, and left it on the table for Jiang Chu.
Jiang Chu ate the watermelon without a care, suddenly getting the feeling that it wasn’t just him observing Qin Zui these past half-month. It was like Qin Zui was also ‘evaluating’ him.
This relaxed rhythm—basically like having a live-in housekeeper, clothes laid out, food on the table, someone to mess around with when you were bored—ended before Jiang Chu could enjoy it much longer. It was shattered the next day by the arrival of Monday.
Jiang Chu usually woke up around 8:30. He’d eaten the watermelon and gone to sleep early the night before. He woke up at 7:20 AM, forced awake by his bladder, so he just tidied up and went straight to the office to catch up on work.
Mondays were always inexplicably busier. By the time he got home at 8:30 PM, the apartment was pitch black, only Zhou Teng’s eyes glowing in the dark. There was no familiar smell of noodles that usually greeted him when he walked in the door. He stopped, momentarily stunned.
Had Qin Zui gone out?
Just as he was pulling out his phone to call him, it suddenly hit him: today was Monday. Qin Zui had said two days ago—today was the first day of school.
Jiang Chu felt a little embarrassed. He didn’t even know when Qin Zui had woken up or left. He vaguely remembered that before he left in the morning, Zhou Teng’s food and water bowls were full.
It was the first day of school at a new place where he didn’t know anyone. He hadn’t even asked Qin Zui how he was going to manage lunch.
He sent Qin Zui a message: “Want me to pick you up after school?”
He was mostly just going through the motions. Jiang Chu had already changed clothes and was sprawled on the couch, not wanting to move.
But Qin Zui replied back pretty quickly: “Back gate.”
Jiang Chu sighed. He had to drag himself off the couch, grab his car keys, and head downstairs.
What time did school even let out? Was it even time yet for the ‘back gate’?
Spotting Qin Zui on the street by the back gate wasn’t hard. He was the tall, handsome one just standing there. Plus, he was wearing the new clothes from the other day. He stood out perfectly amongst the chaotic mix of student styles.
Jiang Chu remembered the first day he picked him up at the train station. It was like witnessing a small-town teen transformation.
He pulled the car up directly and honked the horn.
Qin Zui was leaning against a lamppost, on the phone. He was frowning slightly, a look of irritation on his face.
A few girls who were also heading home from school turned their heads. Qin Zui lifted his eyes and looked at Jiang Chu through the car window, but didn’t move. He was still saying something into the phone.
Jiang Chu rolled down the window. He only caught Qin Zui saying, “Don’t bring this up anymore. It’s not fun.”
With that, he hung up immediately, not caring if the other person had anything else to say. He pulled open the passenger door and flopped heavily into the seat.
His phone screen was still on the call log. Peeking through his fingers, Jiang Chu saw the contact name: “Liang What’s-His-Name.”
