Chapter 47

Jiang Chu stared at Qin Zui for a long moment, started to open his mouth, then closed it. Started to open his mouth, then closed it again. Finally, he just resorted to physical action, grabbing Qin Zui’s shoulder and spinning his whole upper body onto the back of the sofa.

“You just can’t stop for one day, can you?” He pinned Qin Zui down and twisted his knuckle into the hollow of his shoulder blade. “Worried about everything under the sun! Is that any of your damn business?”

The back of Qin Zui’s neck was magically more sensitive than his own ass.

Sometimes, Jiang Chu could slap him on the butt without getting much of a reaction, but one touch on the back and he’d tense right up.

Trapped by Jiang Chu’s grip and twisted by the shoulder blade, Qin Zui pursed his lips, reached back to grab Jiang Chu’s forearm, and flipped them over, pressing him back down.

They wrestled around childishly for a bit, until Jiang Chu hung limply on the sofa, waving his hand. He was laughing so hard he was out of breath. He nudged Qin Zui’s hip with his foot to get him off. “Alright, no more. My nose is too stuffed. I’m at a disadvantage.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone say fighting involves your nose,” said Qin Zui, looking down at him from above. He braced his arm near Jiang Chu’s ear for a second, then swung his leg over his waist and climbed off the sofa.

“Can’t breathe through my nose, no stamina, can’t use my strength.” Jiang Chu sat up and rubbed his nose. Qin Zui poured him a glass of water, then pulled his bathrobe around himself and shuffled off to the bathroom to wash up.

Walking halfway, he stopped and turned back to look at Jiang Chu. “Forgot to say.”

“What now?” Jiang Chu didn’t want to hear whatever other nonsense he was about to spout.

“Happy New Year,” Qin Zui said.

“That’s… quite a topic shift,” Jiang Chu said, barely managing to keep his expression neutral. He propped his forehead on his hand and laughed. “Happy, happy.”

New Year’s Day passed gurgling away in the hot springs. Back home, a few small snow flurries fell, Qin Zui started preparing for his final exams, and Jiang Chu was running around like a headless chicken every day, busy with year-end work.

The Spring Festival was late this year, not until February.

Meaning there was still another month of work.

For all of China, that month before the New Year was a strange mix of laziness and misery. Even the weather held out for a month, until finally, at the very end, it dumped a huge snowstorm, right on the day of Qin Zui’s exam.

Jiang Chu hadn’t closed the curtains the night before, and the next morning, he was woken up by the sheer brightness.

He went to the window to look. The whole neighborhood, from the buildings to the roads, was covered in a pristine white layer. Everything had been fine when he went to bed. It must have started snowing in the dead of night, and it still hadn’t stopped.

“Qin Zui, you leaving yet?” Jiang Chu opened his bedroom door and stuck his head out to call. Qin Zui had just finished washing up and was about to get his jacket.

“Did I wake you?” Qin Zui glanced at the clock on the wall. There was no morning reading session today, so he could head to school a bit later.

“No, it’s about time to get up anyway. I’ll drive you over.” Jiang Chu pinched Qin Zui’s sweater. “Wear something heavy. It’s snowing hard.”

Qin Zui went to the bedroom to get the down jacket Jiang Chu had bought him. After a moment’s thought, he took Jiang Chu’s out of his closet too and tossed it onto the sofa.

“Which is mine, which is yours?” Jiang Chu picked up the jacket and sniffed it. Then he lowered his head and sniffed Qin Zui’s shoulder.

“Mine.” Qin Zui sat on the arm of the sofa, tilting his head to look at him, deliberately saying, “Yours is on me. Do you want it back?”

“Dream on. You wore yours until it stank, and now you want to trick me into swapping.” Jiang Chu quickly pulled his own down jacket on. “Let’s go.”

It was warm in the room, so the snow outside didn’t seem so bad. But the moment they stepped out, the sharp, clean scent of snow hit them full force.

“The last time we had snow this heavy was two years ago,” Jiang Chu said, turning on the windshield wipers.

“Yeah, the year you broke up,” Qin Zui said, looking out the window.

“…Are you sick in the head?” Jiang Chu looked at Qin Zui’s serious profile and couldn’t help but laugh. The two statements were so randomly connected he couldn’t figure out the logic. “Was my breakup really so tragic it summoned a blizzard?”

Qin Zui laughed at his own comment too. Ever since he found out Jiang Chu’s last relationship was almost two years ago, he’d been thinking about it from time to time.

And that train of thought would inevitably lead to wondering if Jiang Chu, now single for two years, might suddenly want a relationship, bring a girlfriend home, and make him call her “Sister-in-law.”

“So, you guys finish exams and just go straight on break, right?” Jiang Chu asked him.

Qin Zui pulled his focus back and hummed in affirmation.

“Study hard. Ace it, so you can really enjoy the New Year,” Jiang Chu said. “When I was a kid, that’s what my mom used to say every single exam.”

“What if I don’t do well?” Qin Zui asked.

“The one time I asked that, I got a slap.” Jiang Chu glanced at him.

“Heh.” Qin Zui smiled and turned his gaze back out the window.

They were still a little way from the school gate, but Qin Zui knocked on the window. “Stop here.”

“What’s wrong?” Jiang Chu pulled over and hit the brakes.

“Gao Xia.” Qin Zui pointed at a breakfast cart by the side of the road.

“You two can head over together. It’s just a few steps.” Jiang Chu had to admire Qin Zui’s eyesight. With all the hats and scarves, he had to squint several times before he could vaguely recognize Gao Xia’s silhouette.

Qin Zui hummed in agreement, pushed open the car door, then said to Jiang Chu, “Wait one minute.”

There were quite a few people in front of the cart. Jiang Chu leaned back in his car and watched as Qin Zui jogged over.

Gao Xia had just bought three steamed buns and a cup of soy milk and was about to turn and leave. Qin Zui walked up, said something to him, and just grabbed the breakfast right out of his hand. Gao Xia shot him the finger, then turned back to wave a greeting at Jiang Chu.

“Eat it while it’s hot. Saves you from having to stop and buy some on the way,” Qin Zui said, handing the stolen breakfast into Jiang Chu’s car window.

“What’s this, you’re out here stealing people’s breakfast now?” Jiang Chu laughed as he took it. “Now he has to get back in line.”

The corner of Qin Zui’s mouth lifted. “I’m treating him.”

Jiang Chu was about to say there were plenty of breakfast places right by his office, so he didn’t need to resort to stealing food, but Qin Zui spoke first. “Hold out your hand.”

“Huh?” Jiang Chu didn’t get it. He hesitantly extended his hand halfway out the window.

Qin Zui placed a perfectly round, small snowball into his palm.

“Fuck.” Jiang Chu was amused instantly. “When did you make that? I was watching you the whole time. I didn’t see you grab any snow from anywhere.”

“Is it round?” Qin Zui asked.

“Too round.” Jiang Chu was laughing his head off.

He hadn’t played in the snow in years. He had no idea why, but this suddenly appearing little battered snowball put him in an incredibly good mood.

It was kind of cute.

“Come here and let me rub your face,” Jiang Chu said, rolling the window all the way down.

There were people coming and going all around them, but Qin Zui simply braced himself on the roof of the car, leaned down, and brought his face close to the window. Jiang Chu crooked his index finger and gave his cheek a little rub.

Cute as it was, a snowball was still a snowball.

Even though Jiang Chu had turned off the car’s heater for the latter half of the trip in a desperate attempt to prolong its life, by the time he got to the office, the cute little snowball had mostly melted into a sad, pathetic little puddle.

Jiang Chu packed a layer of fresh snow on top to fix it up, then set the pathetic little snowball in a potted cactus on the windowsill outside. He snapped a picture and casually posted it on his Moments with the caption: [Heavy Snow]

The moment it was posted, he scrolled down and saw that Da Ben had already left a lightning-quick comment: [That little snow egg]

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Jiang Chu locked his phone and walked inside to kick Da Ben’s chair.

“At least make a snowman, man!” Da Ben was cracking up at the little snow egg. “Standing out there for ages, and all you come up with is a ball.”

“Don’t need me to. Tang Cai and the others will probably be out in the yard building a giant one in no time,” Jiang Chu said.

“Ugh, forget them. Last year, they built some monster on top of that broken bucket. Some idiot even stuck a water gun on for an arm. I walk out at night and there’s this six-foot-tall thing blocking my way. I almost kneeled down to it,” Da Ben said, wincing at the memory.

“What a scaredy-cat.” Jiang Chu laughed and turned on his computer.

For the past two years, they’d worked until the 28th of the lunar month before taking time off. But this year, with Qin Zui at home, who’d already been by himself for days after his exams, Jiang Chu handed out the New Year’s gifts on the evening of the 26th, did some cleaning with him, and started their vacation early.

“So, what’s the plan for this year? Just you and your little brother? Or are you taking him to your dad’s place?” Da Ben asked him.

“Nah.” Jiang Chu hadn’t really thought about it. Qin Zui probably didn’t want to go to Qin Shuman’s place, and Jiang Chu wasn’t keen on it either.

But he definitely had to go have a meal at his mom’s place.

“Can’t do your birthday this year. It conflicts with New Year’s Eve,” Da Ben said, pulling a carton of cigarettes out of his bag and handing them over. “I’ll give you a red envelope instead.”

“Forget it. Have I ever actually spent my birthday with you?” Jiang Chu didn’t stand on ceremony and took the cigarettes.

“That’s heartless of you to say,” Da Ben said, pointing two fingers at him. “What, with you being born on February 14th, I had to choose between you and Bao Li, didn’t I? If I chose you, I lose my home. If I chose Bao Li, she’d fucking kill me.”

“Besides,” Da Ben continued, “you don’t even like your birthday. You don’t care about it. Have you ever seen me forget it? And you tell me to forget it? I’ve never even brought up all the love and care I’ve shown you. I’m bringing it up now. You should be crying and calling me ‘Ben-Bro’.”

“Ben-Bro.” Jiang Chu nodded, and said it sincerely.

“Trust in Ben-Bro for eternal life.” Da Ben patted him just as sincerely.

“What a load of nonsense.” Jiang Chu laughed and was done with him.

After packing up and driving home, Jiang Chu called Qin Zui halfway there. He wanted to ask him, since it was right around mealtime, if he wanted to eat out or at home.

He called twice, but both times the line was busy.

If Qin Zui’s phone wasn’t broken, he must be on a call.

With a call that long, Jiang Chu could only think of one person: Liang Xiaojia.

Was this kid starting again?

Jiang Chu remembered the day at the train station when he went to pick them up, the look in Liang Xiaojia’s eyes as he stared at Qin Zui from the back seat. He sighed to himself.

When he got to the entrance of their housing complex, he called Qin Zui again. Still busy.

He’d originally planned that if they were eating out, he wouldn’t bother going into the complex; he’d just call Qin Zui to come out. But now he had to make the trip in anyway.

While waiting for the elevator, Jiang Chu boredly made a bet with himself, guessing if the phone call would still be going on by the time he got home.

He’d never really pressed Qin Zui for details about this subtle and awkward friendship with Liang Xiaojia. But if he got home and the call was still going, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from asking.

When he opened the door, Jiang Chu instinctively tried to be quiet. Qin Zui was on the phone, not in his room this time, but standing in front of the open balcony window.

And he was completely focused. Jiang Chu didn’t even get a glance his way as he came in, his back still turned.

Zhou Teng trotted up to him and flopped down on the floor in a lazy stretch. Jiang Chu stared at the cat for a moment, just in time to hear Qin Zui hum in acknowledgment, followed by, “I know.”

“Xiaojia. Don’t be scared.” His voice was so gentle and steady.

Jiang Chu couldn’t help but slightly raise an eyebrow.