Chapter 42: Kong Ji: Next Time, Don’t Tilt Your Umbrella to One Side

This meal went down without much flavor.

The mille-feuille cake Qin Ji bought—halfway through eating it, Tong Xilin felt he couldn’t continue.

The artificial flavoring was too sweet, the mango filling wasn’t very fresh. The cream and the chilled layers of the mille-feuille felt greasy in his mouth, making him irritable.

If Tong Xilin had bought it himself, he would have eaten at most a third and then thrown it away.

But mindful of Qin Ji’s earlier words, and the gaze that occasionally observed him, Tong Xilin still ate the entire slice of mille-feuille completely.

“It’s okay if you can’t finish it.” Qin Ji handed him a glass of water.

Tong Xilin took it and drank a couple of sips, smiling without speaking.

Neither the dishes Kong Ji ordered nor the cake were finished. Qin Ji and Pang Xiaoda asked for takeout containers and helped him pack the leftovers to take back.

Stepping out of the private room, Tong Xilin glanced towards the window ledge direction—of course, Kong Ji was no longer there.

Recalling that Kong Ji said his departure flight was tomorrow morning, the thought of contacting him flickered through his mind. Tong Xilin gripped his phone all the way back to the dorm but still didn’t initiate a call.

“Hey? Tong’er!” Qi Yuan had downed three bottles of beer by himself. Not drunk, but clearly worked up and hyper. His voice rose when calling people, and his reactions were half a beat slow. “Why did you come back too? Where’s your uncle?”

“His flight’s tomorrow morning,” Tong Xilin said.

“Ah,” Qi Yuan slumped into his chair and rubbed his face. “You’re not going out to stay somewhere tonight? He came specially for your birthday, you’re not going to chat with your family a bit?”

Tong Xilin didn’t explain further. He put the cake on the table, told them to eat it as a midnight snack if they got hungry, and gathered his things to wash up.

Later that evening, as Tong Xilin sat at his desk reviewing, his phone buzzed. A message from Kong Ji came in.

Kong Ji: Do you still have hand warmers?

Ever since going off to university and truly leaving home, no matter the season—spring, summer, autumn, or winter—whenever the weather changed, Kong Ji would always order hand warmers for him.

Most of the time, he actually didn’t need to use them. There were still several packs stored in his locker.

Tong Xilin glanced at the message, finished memorizing a complete section of his review material, then picked up his phone to reply: My legs don’t hurt, Uncle.

The next message Kong Ji sent, however, veered completely off the topic of hand warmers.

He asked Tong Xilin: How was the cake?

Kong Ji: Which one tasted better?

Looking at these two sentences, Tong Xilin flipped the pen in his hand and tapped it against his textbook. The click-top pen made a soft “click” sound.

He answered truthfully: I didn’t compare. I only ate the one Qin Ji bought.

Kong Ji’s reply this time was much slower. Tong Xilin flipped through a few pages of his book before his message came through again.

Kong Ji: Taking care of friends shouldn’t come at the cost of sacrificing yourself.

Kong Ji: Next time, don’t tilt your umbrella to one side.

Tong Xilin stared at the chat box for a while. He tapped the input field and typed a few words, then deleted them one by one. In the end, he only replied with: Okay.

During this year’s summer break, Tong Xilin still didn’t go home.

After final exams ended, he and Qin Ji rented the old building’s rooms again. Qin Ji continued his part-time job at the coffee shop. He asked Tong Xilin if he wanted to join, but Tong Xilin declined.

He continued working at the tutoring center and giving private lessons to Zhao Linlin. However, this summer break, he found himself a new part-time job: working as the most basic intern at a dental clinic.

The clinic was located within a residential community—very small. Its profile claimed over a decade of history, but in reality, it could barely be called a clinic; it was a cramped and old environment.

The clinic was initially very unwilling to take anyone on. A rising second-year university student knew nothing; recruiting him was pointless.

“I can work for free,” Tong Xilin said. “Receiving patients, cleaning instruments—these tasks can all be handed to me. Or whatever else you see that I can help with.”

The clinic doctor sized him up for a long time and checked his student ID and ID card, asking suspiciously, “Dental medicine students start interning this early now?”

“Not much to do during summer break,” Tong Xilin, with his clean-cut looks and sincere eyes, appeared very pure and gentle. “I just wanted more contact with the specific profession, to experience life.”

Kong Ji seemed to have already gotten used to his decision not to return home. He didn’t ask much. Hearing over the phone that Tong Xilin had found himself this kind of part-time job, he only chuckled and didn’t comment.

“No need to rush growing up,” he told Tong Xilin. “Relax when you should, go out and have fun more.”

The only one who thoroughly implemented the concept of “having fun” was Zhou Qi.

Hearing that Tong Xilin wasn’t going home again for the summer, he simply decided not to go back either, carrying a suitcase straight to the old building.

Tong Xilin was very happy to see him, but amidst the happiness, he still had to ask: “Is it okay if you don’t go back? Won’t your dad beat you up?”

“Can he beat me for a lifetime?” Zhou Qi flopped onto his bed, grabbed the air conditioner remote, and pressed it down repeatedly with “beep beep beep.” “I told him I’m traveling with you. He even sent me money.”

“I might not have time to go traveling with you,” Tong Xilin said.

“Busy yourself with your stuff,” Zhou Qi didn’t care. “Next month, I might just go meet my online girlfriend anyway.”

Zhou Qi was quite an interesting character. He had been dating since middle school. After Tong Xilin transferred from the small town and got to know him, just from second to third year of high school, he’d heard Zhou Qi mention no fewer than three different girlfriends.

Truthfully, he was quite handsome and generous. He’d get into fights and stir up trouble sometimes. This type of guy was often quite popular in high school, and quite a few young girls liked him.

But he wasn’t into dating in real life. He preferred online dating, enjoying the ambiguous thrill of leading a girl in a game.

“Who is it?” Tong Xilin felt like laughing hearing this.

“You wouldn’t know her,” Zhou Qi propped his head up, lying like a Tang Dynasty Consort Yang. Chilled by the air conditioning, he pulled a corner of Tong Xilin’s blanket over his stomach. “Not certain either. Hard to say if it’ll even last until next month.”

Whether or not the meetup happened, he was determined to stay in the old building with Tong Xilin for at least a month. Zhou Qi had this all planned out.

Tong Xilin had no objections to this. The bed in the second-floor bedroom was big enough for them both. On mornings when he had to go to his part-time job, he and Qin Ji left early. Zhou Qi would sleep by himself in the building. On days without the part-time job, the two of them would sleep in together, and once the evening cooled down, they’d go out to stroll around.

A week after Zhou Qi moved in, Tong Xilin sent Qin Ji a small amount of money.

“What’s this for?” Qin Ji held up his phone and asked him.

“From Zhou Qi,” Tong Xilin made up a white lie casually. “He said since he’s staying here, things like utilities are expenses, so he’s sharing a bit of the rent.”

“If he hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have even thought of these things,” Qin Ji politely declined a few times but eventually accepted the transfer.

After accepting the money and crossing an intersection, Qin Ji made conversation: “How’s it going at the clinic?”

“Just odd jobs,” Tong Xilin thought for a moment. He couldn’t quite describe it. “It’s okay.”

Not every day did people come to the clinic for dental issues. Sometimes, no one showed up all day. Other times, several people would queue up over the course of an afternoon.

Tong Xilin indeed did odd jobs—as he initially promised, registering patient symptoms, cleaning instruments. Sometimes, when there was a complex dental situation, he would assist on the side, handing over tools, organizing medications.

No one formally taught him anything. He just watched and learned in this atmosphere, memorizing different types of symptoms, then going back to study materials he’d borrowed from the library on his own. He could still learn a lot, and it was quite interesting to ponder.

He was flipping through a book at his desk. Zhou Qi, lying on the bed behind him, played a couple of rounds of his game, then suddenly stretched out a leg to kick him. “Tong Xilin.”

“Hm?” Tong Xilin was taking notes on his phone and responded without turning his head.

“Be honest with me, bro,” Zhou Qi’s tone was quite serious. “Why exactly do you never go home?”

No matter how carefree or thick-skinned Zhou Qi was, with Tong Xilin having been at university for a full year and not once going home, he could sense something was off.

“Are you still mad at your uncle?”

He had asked Tong Xilin this question once before, during last year’s winter break.

“Before, you couldn’t say three sentences without mentioning your uncle. You’d rush home right after school. Going home a bit late, you’d be afraid he’d catch you. You even asked me what gift to buy him… Honestly, since that year when you showed up out of the blue in the snow, sitting on the swings across from my family’s residential compound, I felt you’ve definitely had something on your mind.”

If I told you the truth, it’d scare you to death.

Tong Xilin turned around, looked at Zhou Qi for a moment, and seemed to be thinking.

“He’s not actually my biological uncle,” he began.

“He’s not your…” Zhou Qi was still holding his phone, continuing his game, unconsciously repeating it. Halfway through, he suddenly jerked his head up. “Not your biological uncle?”

“Mm,” Tong Xilin nodded. “A friend of my dad’s.”

Zhou Qi let out a blank “Ah.”

Not a biological uncle—then from an outsider’s perspective, it was easy to understand.

Without the slightest blood relation, Kong Ji looked after Tong Xilin as a deceased friend’s son. Whatever care he provided, good or bad, it was all a kindness. Since Tong Xilin had gotten into university, he surely felt embarrassed just living off someone else, which was why he was always thinking about finding part-time work to earn his own money.

“Then you,” Zhou Qi sat up cross-legged, his game abandoned. Looking at Tong Xilin, he furrowed his brow, his voice also softening. “Your parents are gone, and your uncle isn’t even your real one. Doesn’t that mean you have no family at all?”

This was the concern of a friend; Tong Xilin understood, but he was long past the age of feeling sad about it.

Who knows if I have any family or not.

To both Zhou Qi and Qin Ji, he claimed both his parents were dead. In truth, whether his mother was alive, or dead, no one knew.

If she was still alive, he might as well consider her dead.

“What’s with that expression?” He could even joke with Zhou Qi. “The sentimental route really doesn’t suit you.”

“No time for that,” Zhou Qi, seeing Tong Xilin was unruffled, relaxed and went back to his game. “Then I actually think you should get on better terms with your uncle. He dotes on you so much. Having him as a backer—isn’t that better than wearing yourself out tutoring students for peanuts?”

If only it were that simple.

Tong Xilin propped his chin on both hands and turned back to his desk to continue studying.

As he studied, his fingers dragged his phone over and opened Kong Ji’s profile picture on WeChat. That rainy day—his birthday—Kong Ji’s sudden appearance and those conversations sprang back into his mind.

They sprang so suddenly that when Kong Ji’s new message popped out simultaneously, it made him freeze.

Kong Ji sent him two words, calling his name: Tong Xilin.

Tong Xilin checked the time. It was indeed just sent. He picked up his phone to reply: Hm?

Kong Ji: Just calling you.