Jiang Chu heard the words tumble out of his own mouth and was stunned for a moment himself.
Probably because he still remembered that messy dream from the afternoon, or maybe because he had been secretly pegging Qin Zui’s… orientation in “that” direction for the past couple of days.
Anyway, the moment he heard Qin Zui’s “regardless of whether I am or not,” the words his brain automatically filled in after that felt utterly unreal.
But Jiang Chu had only been mulling it over in his head; he hadn’t expected it to just slip out of his mouth.
It made him look like he’d been intentionally eavesdropping on Qin Zui’s phone call… Well, okay, so he kind of had been, but asking so bluntly and directly was way too abrupt.
It was like the light switch was connected to his mouth!
Jiang Chu hesitated, feeling conflicted. He instinctively wanted to say something else to steer the conversation to a more natural place. He met Qin Zui’s gaze for a moment but still didn’t speak.
He wanted to hear what Qin Zui would say.
Even though he wanted to hear it, there was also this strange feeling of wanting to “keep his distance”—worrying that Qin Zui might actually give the answer he himself was dreading.
As Qin Zui listened to Jiang Chu’s question, to be honest, the moment he pushed the door open and found Jiang Chu awake, his heart gave a genuine lurch.
The chirping of insects on the gentle slope seemed to cooperate, fading into a quiet hum. Their gazes lingered in the silence for a brief moment before Qin Zui’s eyelids drooped, and he looked away first.
He was still carrying the T-shirt he’d wrung out after his shower. He shook the damp shirt out and hung it over the back of a chair. Instead of answering Jiang Chu, he said, “They’re still drinking in the courtyard. Ben said to call you over when you woke up.”
Jiang Chu really wanted to frown this time.
He had been a bit hesitant about the topic, but Qin Zui’s attitude made him immediately determined to get to the bottom of it.
He opened his mouth to speak, but another set of shuffling footsteps sounded from outside. Du Miaomiao poked his head in the door, waving cheerfully at Qin Zui. “Let’s go! The boss says we can catch fireflies on the slope behind!”
Jiang Chu and Qin Zui both turned to look at him. Du Miaomiao yelled, “Uncle Jiang!” Jiang Chu felt a bit helpless at being interrupted, grunted an “Mm” in response, thinking that this dumb kid was practically replaying the scene from noon.
“Oh, you’re already showered.” Having napped after lunch, spent the whole afternoon wild on the back hill, and just finished another plate of roast lamb to regain his strength, Du Miaomiao’s inner night owl was fully awake. He wanted to drag Qin Zui along to play, but seeing the dampness on Qin Zui, he waved his hand considerately. “Ah, forget it. You’d just get covered in mosquito bites again.”
Jiang Chu also thought Qin Zui wouldn’t go, planning to wait until Du Miaomiao left to pry some information out of Qin Zui.
But then Qin Zui actually grunted in agreement, casually pulled a shirt out of his bag, and threw it on. Without even glancing at Jiang Chu, he went off with Du Miaomiao to catch fireflies.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Du Miaomiao immediately got hyped. Usually, he was always being bossed around by his uncle. Seeing the look in Jiang Chu’s eyes now, afraid that Jiang Chu wouldn’t let Qin Zui go, he quickly grabbed Qin Zui’s arm and tugged him out. He even considerately closed the door behind him, shouting, “We’ll catch a couple and be right back!”
Jiang Chu stared at the door Du Miaomiao had slammed shut from beside the bed, stunned for a moment. Then he got up, went to the table, and lit a cigarette, frowning as he bit down on it.
Qin Zui didn’t want to talk about this. That wasn’t right.
He was even avoiding the topic just to escape Jiang Chu’s questions.
Hadn’t he been to a farm stay in the county before? As soon as Du Miaomiao called, he followed along, just followed along!
Jiang Chu felt an inexplicable spark of irritation. Cigarette clamped between his lips, he flopped back onto the bed, sprawling into a rough ‘X’ shape as he stared at the ceiling. A tiny flying insect had snuck in at some point and was buzzing around the light bulb on the ceiling.
Just like his brain right now, circling endlessly around the one thought: “Qin Zui might be gay.”
Regardless of whether I am or not… regardless of whether I am or not…
He replayed the phrase over and over in his head, connecting it with all the other puzzling things from the past two days. Combined with Qin Zui’s attitude just now, the unspoken conclusion about “whether he’s gay” or “whether he likes guys” was practically a sure thing.
Jiang Chu narrowed his eyes, staring at the flying insect for a while. Then he couldn’t stand it anymore and sat up, shoved his phone in his pocket, and went off to find Da Ben and the others for a drink.
At this moment, his mood was fit to make him Qin Zui’s dad: in this short amount of time, he’d gone from “Qin Zui might be gay” to imagining what would happen if Qin Zui and Du Miaomiao got together. Would Du Miaomiao call him ‘bro’ just because Qin Zui did, or would Qin Zui have to call him ‘uncle’ like Du Miaomiao?
The generations would be completely screwed up, dammit!
When he got to the main courtyard, Da Ben and the others had already managed to drink one guy, Hua Zi, under the table together.
Within their circle, there was a subtle hierarchy of drinking ability. Jiang Chu was at the very bottom. If it wasn’t baijiu, he could manage a few bottles of beer, but with the hard stuff, he was one-glass-and-done. Above him was Hua Zi, who was a bit better, topping out at four or five ounces. The best drinker was Old Du.
Seeing that Jiang Chu had finally woken up, the group immediately called him over to eat the roast lamb and started passing him drinks.
Jiang Chu felt lazy all over, like the midday slump hadn’t worn off. He hadn’t planned on drinking, but thinking about Qin Zui’s ambiguous words annoyed him. He didn’t need them to push the bottle on him; he voluntarily opened a beer.
Taking bites of meat and swigs of alcohol, the group chatted, talked nonsense, reminisced about the past, and enjoyed the slow, pleasant buzz without worrying about what they had to do tomorrow. It was comfortable.
But once he was there, Da Ben and the others weren’t about to let him just nurse a beer bottle. They called Old Du over to pour him some of the hard stuff too.
Old Du wasn’t as much of a shit-stirrer as Da Ben. He evenly split the last of the bottle among a few people, lit a cigarette, and stood up, saying he was going to check if Du Miaomiao was asleep yet.
Jiang Chu was about to say, “Asleep my ass, he’s catching bugs with Qin Zui,” when Du Miaomiao wandered around the corner, scratching mosquito bites up and down his neck and arms like a monkey scratching fleas.
“Where are the bugs?” Jiang Chu asked as Du Miaomiao passed him, catching a faint smell of cigarette smoke on him.
“There aren’t any. The boss lied to me.” Du Miaomiao grabbed a can of soda and chugged it.
No bugs, and they were out that long?
“Then where’s Qin Zui?” Jiang Chu asked again.
“He went back to sleep. I’m about to head back too.” Like a silly rich kid, Du Miaomiao shook the can that was still half full, unable to finish it. He shoved it at his uncle like he was throwing away trash, then scratched his calf and asked, “Did you bring the mosquito repellent?”
Old Du, as if pulling a rabbit out of a hat, produced a small bottle of cooling balm for him.
Jiang Chu stayed in the courtyard for a while longer, finishing the last of the baijiu in his glass. He checked the time—almost 2:30 AM. Preoccupied with Qin Zui’s situation, he had no interest in playing cards. He went to pee and grabbed an electric mosquito-repellent mat from the main building before heading back to his room.
The light was already off. Qin Zui was lying on the side nearer the door, appearing to be fast asleep.
In the dark, Jiang Chu plugged in the mosquito repellent. Next to it hung the shirt Qin Zui had worn outside. Jiang Chu grabbed the collar and sniffed it—it smelled of smoke.
“What are you sniffing?” Qin Zui’s voice suddenly cut through the darkness.
“You’re not asleep.” Jiang Chu tossed the shirt back over the back of the chair.
“You’re too loud.” Qin Zui rolled over to face the wall, as if guarding against Jiang Chu pressing him further on his earlier question.
Jiang Chu’s heart felt like a cat was scratching it. Afraid that Qin Zui would get up and go catch bugs again, he didn’t plan to ask any more questions tonight.
He lifted his hand, peeled off his own shirt that smelled of grilled meat, and kicked Qin Zui in the ass. “Scoot over.”
Qin Zui bent one leg and sat up, letting Jiang Chu take the side closer to the wall.
“Not showering?” Qin Zui asked as Jiang Chu stepped over his leg.
“Dizzy. Can’t be bothered.” The double bed was depressingly small. Once Jiang Chu crawled in, he was pressed against the wall, having to awkwardly wiggle his butt to pull out the thin blanket.
Qin Zui didn’t say anything else. He grabbed the air conditioner remote, lowered the temperature a bit more, and shifted himself towards the edge of the bed, trying his best not to touch Jiang Chu.
Even though that last glass of baijiu had left Jiang Chu feeling a bit dizzy, he had slept too much during the day. Now, with his eyes closed, his mind was churning, but he absolutely couldn’t find a trace of sleep.
He guessed Qin Zui couldn’t sleep either.
Jiang Chu listened to his breathing—steady, even, but too shallow. Someone truly asleep wouldn’t have that rhythm.
“Qin Zui?” Jiang Chu didn’t know why he felt the urge to say something to him. It didn’t have to be about the gay thing; anything else would do.
“Still awake?” He propped himself up on his forearms, raising his torso slightly, and spoke from behind Qin Zui’s head.
As he said it, he suddenly remembered the mosquito bites all over Du Miaomiao. He lifted the blanket a little, scanning Qin Zui’s back and arms. “At least you don’t attract mosquitoes. They all got the dumb kid.”
Qin Zui was awake, but he didn’t react, nor did he turn his head to acknowledge Jiang Chu.
He could feel the body heat radiating from Jiang Chu’s chest through his back. The air conditioner in the room was set low, but it couldn’t stop the heat rising from within, brought on by the alcohol metabolizing. The faint, almost imperceptible contact, combined with the feel of Jiang Chu’s breath on the back of his neck and behind his ear, and his slightly husky, drowsy voice from the drink, made Qin Zui restless.
As seen in the two previous experiences, Jiang Chu always got chatty and mumbly when he drank.
At the same time, Qin Zui had been suspecting that Jiang Chu must have understood everything he said to Liang Xiaojia. But now, with Jiang Chu acting like this, he thought maybe he hadn’t caught on at all.
—Otherwise, Jiang Chu wouldn’t be crammed into a bed with his suspected-gay self in the middle of the night, and he certainly wouldn’t be moving around and being so annoying.
Qin Zui didn’t know why he’d been feeling this way about Jiang Chu lately, or rather, about Jiang Chu’s body. But his physical instincts were what they were.
This upset Qin Zui even more.
He had to analyze it calmly: Even if the person behind him wasn’t Jiang Chu, but just a stranger who happened to fit his aesthetic preferences as perfectly as Jiang Chu did, from looks to physique, he would still inevitably feel some restless urges.
It was just that this person happened to be Jiang Chu, so these naturally occurring restless thoughts came with a heavy dose of guilty frustration.
Seeing Qin Zui pretending to be asleep and ignoring him, Jiang Chu simply turned on his side, stretched out his leg, and kicked Qin Zui in the heel.
“I’m thirsty, little brother.” He started bossing Qin Zui around without any shame.
Qin Zui let out a deep breath from his chest, threw off the blanket, and sat up. He fetched a bottle of water for Jiang Chu.
Jiang Chu downed two mouthfuls, finally feeling comfortable from his stomach to his toes. He flopped back onto his pillow feeling drowsy, let his mind drift, and unconsciously drifted off to sleep again.
This chaotic sleep started a little after three in the morning and lasted until two the next afternoon. Jiang Chu was jolted awake by the sudden sound of Qin Zui leaping out of bed to wash up.
“…What’s wrong?” Jiang Chu rubbed his disheveled head, watching Qin Zui rush back in with a frown, quickly stuffing his own clothes into his bag.
“I’m heading back first. I’m leaving everything else here for you. Don’t forget to bring it when you go back.” Qin Zui pulled a shirt over his head with his back to Jiang Chu, the action stretching his waist and back into a strong, attractive curve.
“What?” Jiang Chu was still groggy, not quite processing. “Go back now for what?”
“My friend is here.” Qin Zui glanced at him, speaking succinctly.
Jiang Chu was taken aback, a name immediately popping into his head. “…Liang Xiaojia?”
Qin Zui glanced at his phone again and let out a low “Mm.”
