A lot of people were heading back to the city these two days. The shuttle buses were rushing to pick people up. Fang Chi had just gotten on and barely steadied himself when the bus started moving. He didn’t have time to look for a seat and first glanced out the window. He only managed to catch one glimpse of Sun Wenqu raising his arm before the bus had already driven off.
A little depressed, he squeezed toward the back while looking again through the rear window. Through the grimy glass he could only see a blurry figure standing by the roadside, and a small shadow that ran after the bus for a short stretch.
Xiaozi did this every time, ran after the bus for a bit, then turned back and ran home.
“Are you sitting or not? If you’re not, I’m putting my stuff there,” an uncle beside him said.
There was only one seat left in the back. The uncle had been about to put his bag on it, but when he saw Fang Chi come over he picked it up again.
“Sit,” Fang Chi said.
He stacked his own bag in the aisle and sat down.
The uncle stuffed his bag into the gap between their legs. Fang Chi put the cat carrier between his feet and held it in place so it wouldn’t slide, then lowered his head and took out Sun Wenqu’s flashy MP3 player, plugging in his own earphones.
Fang Chi had only listened to the songs on Sun Wenqu’s player once before, and that alone had shocked him enough. To prevent experiencing those “ten great tortures” of screaming again, he lowered the volume before putting on the earphones.
It was a guitar piece, accompanied by piano.
It actually sounded pretty good. Fang Chi turned the volume up.
A good player really was a good player, the sound was clearly different from his own.
Fang Chi leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.
After one piece finished he felt quite comfortable, but to prevent any sudden screaming he quickly turned the volume down again. The next piece was still very gentle, flute, distant drumbeats, with the sound of running water.
He lowered his head and opened the music library to take a look. There weren’t many songs, maybe a few dozen, but he couldn’t find anything like the death-metal rock he had heard that day. Judging by the titles, many were Chinese songs, and the names alone made them seem quiet and calm.
Sun Wenqu seemed to have replaced all the songs.
Fang Chi took out his phone and sent Sun Wenqu a message.
Did you change all the songs?
Two minutes later Sun Wenqu replied.
Of course I changed them. I was afraid the old ones would scare you into scoring the national top score and going crazy like Fan Jin passing the imperial exam.
Below it he attached a photo of Xiaozi, probably taken when Xiaozi barked at him.
The timing of the snapshot was perfect. It caught Xiaozi with his lips pulled back, showing four canine teeth. He looked fierce and vicious, mainly just very ugly.
Sun Wenqu’s photography skills were really something. Fang Chi laughed “hehehe” for a long time.
By the time the bus reached the city it was already getting dark. Fang Chi got off with two big bags and a cat carrier, hailed a taxi, and returned to the place he rented.
He first called his dad to report that he had arrived, then sent Sun Wenqu another message.
I’m here. The room’s all dusty.
Call a cleaning service to tidy it up, Sun Wenqu replied.
Corrupted. I’ll clean it myself.
Actually there wasn’t much to clean. There wasn’t much in the apartment, aside from the furniture and appliances the landlord had provided, Fang Chi’s own things were just clothes, books, and some climbing and outdoor gear. It was hard to make a mess even if he tried; at most he just needed to wipe some dust.
In the end he only wiped the table and chairs and left the rest alone.
He had covered the bed with a sheet before leaving; now he just pulled it off and threw it into the washing machine. The quilt had been aired before he left and still smelled nice.
Fang Chi let Chief Huang out of the cat carrier. Chief Huang darted around the room twice, jumped onto the sofa, and curled up. Fang Chi quickly organized his things, then took a shower, fed Chief Huang, and cooked himself a bowl of noodles.
While eating, his phone rang. He glanced at it, it was Xiao Yiming calling.
“Happy New Year,” Fang Chi answered.
“Happy New Year,” Xiao Yiming laughed. “Back already?”
“Just got back,” Fang Chi said. “What’s up?”
“Xu Zhou and the others are here near the school. Want to come?” Xiao Yiming asked. “Xu Zhou’s treating.”
Fang Chi hesitated a moment. “Sure.”
“Then we’ll wait for you. That Feiteng Yuxiang restaurant across from the school,” Xiao Yiming said.
He had only taken one bite of noodles and didn’t want to waste them. Fang Chi ate half a bowl. With half left, he picked up some noodles with chopsticks and offered them to Chief Huang, but Chief Huang looked utterly disdainful, so Fang Chi had to carry the bowl downstairs.
Stray cats, stray dogs, any would do.
But after standing in the wind by the roadside for ten minutes, he didn’t even see a passing rat.
Instead he ran into the landlord from the same complex driving by. Seeing him, the landlord rolled down the window in surprise.
“Little Fang, you… eating?”
“Ah,” Fang Chi froze.
“Is it frozen yet?” the landlord asked, looking at him.
“No…” Fang Chi looked down at the noodles in the bowl. “I wanted to feed a cat.”
“You silly kid,” the landlord laughed. “In weather like this stray cats and dogs won’t be running around. They’ve all found somewhere to hide. Hurry back.”
“Oh.” Fang Chi scratched his head and carried the bowl back upstairs.
In the end the noodles were thrown away. Luckily he had already picked out and eaten the meat… Should’ve just finished it.
The Feiteng Yuxiang restaurant was indeed boiling with activity, voices everywhere. Fang Chi looked around but didn’t see anyone, so he called Xiao Yiming again. Following Xiao Yiming’s directions through the corridor of private rooms, he reached the hall at the back and finally saw Xu Zhou and their group.
“Xu Zhou struck it rich?” Fang Chi sat beside Xiao Yiming.
“The last bit of madness,” Xu Zhou said after ordering, smiling and then sighing. “The nightmare is about to begin.”
“It’s not that bad,” Xiao Yiming said. “Just don’t set your goals too high.”
“Of course it’s not for you,” Xu Zhou sighed again. Xiao Yiming’s grades weren’t top-tier but were still pretty good. “It’s those of us stuck in the middle who suffer. Right, Fang Chi?”
“Hm?” Fang Chi smiled. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Ah!” Liang Xiaotao clapped her hands. “Fang Chi suddenly woke up. I’m so moved I’m crying.”
Fang Chi handed her a tissue. “Blow your nose.”
The whole table burst out laughing.
“Did you set a goal?” Xiao Yiming asked quietly while eating.
“A goal?” Fang Chi looked at him.
“A school. Didn’t you always say you hadn’t decided?” Xiao Yiming said.
“I still haven’t,” Fang Chi took a sip of soup. “I’ll think about it after the exam. If I don’t do well, thinking about where to go won’t matter anyway.”
“True,” Xiao Yiming thought about it. “But I feel like you’ll be fine… Did you spend the New Year at your grandpa’s?”
“Yeah, didn’t go anywhere else,” Fang Chi nodded. “Just stayed home the whole time. Oh right, my grandma asked me to bring you a bag of food. I’ll bring it to school tomorrow.”
“Sausage? I love the sausage your grandpa makes,” Xiao Yiming asked with a smile.
“There’s that, and other stuff too. They never forget you,” Fang Chi smiled.
Xiao Yiming looked at him, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t.
“What?” Fang Chi asked.
“Nothing,” Xiao Yiming said, still looking at him. “Just feels like after this New Year you’re a bit different.”
“More handsome?” Fang Chi asked.
“Not more than me,” Xiao Yiming laughed. “Hard to say. Just different from before, after New Year you used to always be listless.”
“This year I didn’t beat up Fang Hui, didn’t waste any energy,” Fang Chi said. “So I’ve got more vitality.”
“He’s still that annoying after another year?” Xiao Yiming sighed. “Once someone gets addicted to being an idiot it’s really hard to stop.”
Fang Chi laughed. “A lifelong career.”
After dinner no one went anywhere else. Their parents’ chain calls summoned them all home.
Fang Chi stood at the bus stop with Xiao Yiming waiting for a ride. It was cold; taxis had all been called away. Occasionally when an empty one appeared, five or six people would rush toward it at once.
“This is for you to play with.” Xiao Yiming took a box from his pocket and handed it over.
“What is it?” Fang Chi looked. It was a lighter. “You bought it?”
“Someone gave it to my dad. He has several already so I took it. Take it and play with it,” Xiao Yiming said with a smile.
“I’m quitting smoking,” Fang Chi laughed. “What kind of friend are you?”
“I said play with it, not light cigarettes,” Xiao Yiming tugged at his collar. “Didn’t you collect a bunch before? This one’s a commemorative edition.”
“Thanks,” Fang Chi slipped the box into his pocket. “You even remembered that.”
“I’ve got a good memory.” Xiao Yiming leaned against the billboard.
Fang Chi’s phone chimed. He took it out and saw a message from Sun Wenqu.
Your grandma found a pair of pants and insists they’re yours. She wants to mail them to you.
Fang Chi froze. He had only brought two pairs of pants back and had already brought them all with him. Where would there be another pair he forgot?
Too cold to type, he sent a voice message directly: “They’re not mine, right? I brought all my pants back.”
Sun Wenqu replied with a voice message too, laughing loudly: “Your grandma says she’s seen you wear them! Maybe from when you were little. They’re so skinny, and the style is pretty unique.”
Then he sent a photo. Fang Chi took one look and instantly felt depressed.
“These must be Fang Hui’s! How could I fit into these chick-leg pants? Tell my grandma to throw them away, use them to pad Xiaozi’s dog bed if she wants. Hurry.”
Xiao Yiming turned his head after hearing that. “Your dad’s using WeChat with you now?”
“No,” Fang Chi was still disgusted by the idea that Fang Hui had shoved those lousy pants into his cabinet. Without thinking much he said, “My friend.”
“Your friend? Living at your grandparents’ place?” Xiao Yiming sounded surprised.
“Yeah.” Fang Chi only then realized what he’d said.
“…Oh.” Xiao Yiming responded and said nothing more.
Both of them fell silent. No car came; they just stood there staring at the shop across the street.
Fang Chi wanted to say something to explain, but realized he didn’t even know what to explain. A friend living at his rural grandparents’ house, what was there to explain?
But if he didn’t explain… Fang Chi glanced at Xiao Yiming again and somehow it felt a little off.
“Is it the friend who brought you the backpack to school last time?” Xiao Yiming suddenly said.
Fang Chi looked at him without speaking. Xiao Yiming’s memory was really good… he hadn’t realized before that he remembered things so clearly.
“Oh. Yeah,” Fang Chi said.
“Oh.” Xiao Yiming turned back to keep looking at the shop across the street.
Fang Chi clicked his tongue. “What do you mean ‘oh’?”
“It means ‘oh, I know now,’” Xiao Yiming said with a smile.
“Oh? And what do you know?” Fang Chi felt like the more they talked the more confusing it became, but strictly speaking… it wasn’t that confusing.
“I might be overthinking it,” Xiao Yiming sniffed and looked toward the direction of oncoming cars, patting Fang Chi’s shoulder. “The bus is here.”
Fang Chi got on with him and squeezed to the back to stand.
Overthinking.
Not overthinking.
Watching the lights outside the window slowly slide backward, Fang Chi’s mood was a bit complicated.
Xiao Yiming was quite sensitive about these things, but Fang Chi didn’t really want others to know… even Xiao Yiming. He and Xiao Yiming could talk about almost anything; even though they had fallen out before, he was still a trustworthy friend now.
But it would feel awkward.
Not only because he had once crudely rejected Xiao Yiming, and not only because in the end he had to admit that he and Xiao Yiming were the same kind of person…
It was all a mess.
“This semester my mom wants me to sign up for a small tutoring class,” Xiao Yiming said quietly beside him. “Want to join?”
“Tutoring?” Fang Chi was momentarily thrown off when Xiao Yiming suddenly changed the subject, then came back to his senses. “What time?”
“Weekends, and also Monday and Wednesday evenings,” Xiao Yiming said. “Or I can go sit in first, if it’s good, you can come if you want?”
“Okay.” Fang Chi nodded.
“For the next half year, just block everything else out. If your grades aren’t good and you have to repeat another year, that’d be unbearable,” Xiao Yiming clicked his tongue.
“Mm.” Fang Chi smiled.
He wasn’t sure if Xiao Yiming was saying that for himself or for him, but it sounded a lot like what Sun Wenqu had said… Fang Chi grabbed the overhead strap and pulled out his phone to check. Sun Wenqu hadn’t sent any more messages.
Asleep?
Busy working?
By the time he got home it wasn’t that early anymore. Fang Chi didn’t read; he went straight to bed, lying face-to-face with Chief Huang.
“Good night,” he said to Chief Huang.
Chief Huang stretched, then came over and pushed his face a bit, curling up on the pillow.
After lying there for a while, Fang Chi still picked up his phone and sent Sun Wenqu a message: good night.
He even attached a photo of Chief Huang curled up on the pillow.
A few minutes later, Sun Wenqu replied with “good night,” paired with that same grinning photo as before. Fang Chi looked at it and laughed for quite a while, almost laughing away his sleepiness.
When school resumed and tutoring began, on the first day you could still feel a bit of the New Year atmosphere, classmates with fuller faces, classmates chatting about their red envelope money, classmates lamenting how the winter break felt as short as a weekend…
But two days later, all that festive feeling completely disappeared, and everyone went back to burying themselves in books, either listening in class or sleeping.
Fang Chi gritted his teeth and dragged himself out of the group that was always sleeping. Sun Wenqu was right, no one at home really had expectations for him, except his grandmother hoping for great-grandchildren…
Graduate, go back to the county town, help out in the shop, get a… girlfriend, get married and have kids. No need for big achievements, just being healthy and safe would be enough.
But that wasn’t what he wanted. Even though he didn’t know what he did want, it definitely wasn’t a life that filled him with deep fear and sadness just thinking about it. So he had to give it a shot.
People in the class were gradually splitting into two extremes: those who wanted to fight for it were pushing harder and harder, while those just drifting along were becoming lazier.
Every day during self-study, when Fang Chi lay over his desk reading, he would think of Sun Wenqu, especially when he got stuck on problems, he would instinctively leave them blank.
But now there was no Sun Wenqu to explain things to him. He could only finish first, then go back and struggle through them, or ask Liang Xiaotao. She was pretty decent, no matter how busy she was, as long as Fang Chi asked, she would stop and explain.
But when it came to explaining problems, Sun Wenqu was still better, just a few simple sentences and Fang Chi would understand.
After school, he walked home with Xiao Yiming. Every day they bought a bag of sugar-roasted chestnuts. Fang Chi didn’t particularly like them, but Xiao Yiming was hooked, and since it had always been like this, Fang Chi just kept eating along with him.
“That physics teacher for the tutoring class is from No. 1 High, really good,” Xiao Yiming said while eating chestnuts. “I’ve gone twice, and he explains things pretty clearly. Want to try it? The teacher said you can sit in for a trial class.”
“Sure. When?” Fang Chi nodded.
“Tomorrow. There’s a class tomorrow,” Xiao Yiming said.
“Okay,” Fang Chi responded.
When he got home, Chief Huang surprisingly didn’t push the food bowl or flip over the cat food. Instead, it was curled up in his slipper.
“Are you sick?” Fang Chi tossed his backpack aside and picked it up. It looked lively enough; its nose and eyes seemed normal. “Why are you being so well-behaved?”
For once, Chief Huang didn’t swipe at him, but instead hugged his fingers.
“Are you afraid I’ll neuter you?” Fang Chi clicked his tongue. “I’m telling you, that won’t work on me.”
Chief Huang climbed up his arm onto his shoulder, and when Fang Chi sat on the sofa to change his shoes, it burrowed into his coat.
“Huh?” Fang Chi was genuinely surprised. “What’s up with you?”
Of course, Chief Huang didn’t answer. It stayed nestled inside his coat, making it impossible for him to take it off, he was afraid if he did, Chief Huang would have nowhere to curl up and might scratch him.
After hesitating for a while, he carried Chief Huang into the room, quickly changed into a tank top, put on a tracksuit over it, and then tucked Chief Huang back inside his clothes.
Chief Huang curled up comfortably and didn’t scratch him.
Fang Chi looked down at it for a long time and sighed softly. “Do you miss Sun Wenqu?”
He took out his phone and looked. Ever since they said good night that day, he hadn’t contacted Sun Wenqu again. Mainly because there wasn’t really anything to say, his daily life was just school and this room: classes, studying, memorizing, doing problems, sleeping. Nothing new.
More importantly, Sun Wenqu hadn’t contacted him either.
Sun Wenqu had been staring at the teapot on the table for almost an hour. He hadn’t checked the time, but he could roughly tell.
He wasn’t sure if this teapot matched what that person wanted, but it was close to what he wanted to express.
A simple shape, simple colors, so simple that at first glance it seemed like there was nothing special about it.
But every curve, every line, every stroke of color came from countless revisions and corrections.
Maybe not pouring his heart and soul into it, but he had truly put in effort.
His phone chimed.
Sun Wenqu sat back in the lounge chair and picked up his phone. Ma Liang wouldn’t send messages, so it had to be Fang Chi.
Fang Chi had sent a voice message.
“Chief Huang seems to miss you.”
There was also a photo.
At first glance, Sun Wenqu noticed Fang Chi’s firm chest under the tank top, and only then did he see the main subject, the curled-up Chief Huang inside Fang Chi’s coat.
Sun Wenqu cleared his throat lightly and replied with a voice message: “Maybe you finally won it over?”
“No idea. It just suddenly got like this today, acting all soft,” Fang Chi typed back instead of sending voice.
Sun Wenqu smiled, raised his phone, snapped a random picture of himself, and sent it over.
“This photo should help Chief Huang with its lovesickness.”
There was no response from Fang Chi. Sun Wenqu gently rocked in the chair, continuing to stare at the teapot. A few matching cups were still missing, once those were done in the next few days, the set would be complete.
After that, there were two more designs Ma Liang had asked him to help with, no constraints, no requirements, just a theme: “waiting.”
So artsy, Sun Wenqu clicked his tongue.
What kind of waiting?
Waiting for what?
The state of mind of waiting?
The process?
Or the result?
His phone chimed again, a message from Fang Chi.
“Showed it to Chief Huang. It’s asleep now.”
Sun Wenqu laughed for quite a while, then sent a voice message: “I miss your chocolate and sesame soup too. Send me a photo of you.”
“I’m not chocolate or sesame soup,” Fang Chi replied.
“You’re their spokesperson. Send me a front-facing photo, smiling, gotta see the dimples.”
No reply from Fang Chi again. Sun Wenqu yawned, put down his phone, and went downstairs.
His grandparents were already asleep. Only Xiaozi was in the living room. After the relatives left, Grandpa had moved Xiaozi’s bed next to the sofa, it was warmer there.
Sun Wenqu walked over; Xiaozi lifted its head and wagged its tail.
“You know, your older brother misses me,” Sun Wenqu said, lightly tapping its head, then sighed.
It was too cold that day. After a quick wash, he didn’t even shower before heading back upstairs.
His phone screen was lit, there was a message from Fang Chi.
A photo of him smiling, facing forward, dimples visible.
Sun Wenqu looked at the photo and smiled. Fang Chi seemed either shy about smiling or forcing it, the usual simple, silly grin wasn’t there. Instead, one corner of his mouth lifted slightly, carrying a hint of stubbornness and… a kind of wild-dog-like edge.
Kind of attractive.
Sun Wenqu saved the photo to his gallery.
Then he opened the calendar and glanced at it.
