Sun Wenqu didn’t wake up very early in the morning, more than an hour later than usual. During the past two days of Fang Chi’s exams he had been a little insomniac. He didn’t know whether it was because he was worried about Fang Chi, or subconsciously making up for the part he had missed back then.
When he got up, Grandpa and Grandma had already finished doing Baduanjin and started working. Grandma was sweeping the front yard, and Grandpa was wandering around the small vegetable patch behind the house.
Sun Wenqu went to the rooftop and peeked inside through the window. Fang Chi was lying spread-eagle with his head tilted, still sleeping. During this period he was probably severely sleep-deprived; it would take a few days to recover.
Xiaozi followed behind him panting. Sun Wenqu “shh’d” at him: “Don’t bark.”
Behind the backyard was an open space. When spring began Grandpa planted quite a lot of vegetables there. Usually when they needed some they could just go pick them.
Sun Wenqu took Xiaozi to the vegetable patch. He was going to pick some vegetables.
“What are you doing here?” Grandpa was picking green beans. As soon as he saw him he pointed at his shoes. “You’ll step in mud in a moment.”
“It’s fine,” Sun Wenqu walked toward the rack behind Grandpa. “I’ll pick some vegetables. I’ll cook a dish for lunch for you to try.”
“Oh?” Grandpa laughed. “You know how to cook?”
“Just one,” Sun Wenqu said. “But I haven’t cooked it for many years.”
“What vegetables do you want to pick?” Grandpa asked him.
“Tomatoes.” Sun Wenqu pointed to the tomato rack ahead. “I saw some ripe ones a few days ago.”
“Go ahead,” Grandpa immediately laughed loudly. “Tomato scrambled eggs, right?”
“…Yes.” Sun Wenqu nodded.
“Good,” Grandpa said while laughing. “That’s the only dish you learned from your mom, right?”
Sun Wenqu smiled. “Mm.”
That’s right. Just like Fang Chi said, what he was going to make was tomato scrambled eggs.
But he didn’t learn this dish from his mom. Since childhood his mom had always been the kind who didn’t concern herself with worldly matters; she had hardly stepped into the kitchen. Cooking was impossible.
He learned this dish from Ma Liang.
During those years when Ma Liang was learning pottery from his dad, the happiest thing for the two of them was cooking something to eat in the small kitchen of the studio whenever his dad went out.
He didn’t know how to cook. The only thing Ma Liang knew how to make was tomato scrambled eggs. Every time he made it, it was usually to mix with noodles or pour over rice. Sun Wenqu had always thought it tasted better than the dishes made by the housekeeper at home.
Maybe it was because every time they ate it, his dad wasn’t there.
There were four people in total. Sun Wenqu estimated and picked five tomatoes, then thought about it and picked one more. The tomatoes they grew themselves weren’t sprayed with pesticides or chemical fertilizer, so they weren’t big, but they were very fresh and quite sweet.
He took the tomatoes to wash them and ate one himself first. Not bad.
There were eggs too, all free-range eggs.
Then…
Sun Wenqu lined the tomatoes and eggs up neatly on the counter in two rows.
And then what?
Oh, cut them.
Sun Wenqu reached for a knife from the knife rack, but then stopped.
This knife rack was probably handmade by Grandpa, simple and practical, well ventilated, but the knives on it… were all huge. Three cleavers, each bigger than the last.
He hesitated and picked up each one to weigh it in his hand. All of them were heavy, and he couldn’t tell what each one was for.
After looking at them one by one for quite a while, he turned around, preparing to go ask Grandpa.
As soon as he turned around, he saw Fang Chi leaning against the doorway, yawning while watching him. On his arm hung Chief Huang like he was being choked.
“When did you get up?” Sun Wenqu was stunned for a moment, then looked again at Chief Huang hanging from Fang Chi’s arm as if someone had him in a chokehold. “He’s going to be strangled by you.”
“It won’t. I’m holding him by the armpits,” Fang Chi lifted Chief Huang up to demonstrate, “he’s already too fat to hold properly.”
“Your family’s knives,” Sun Wenqu asked him, “which one is for cutting vegetables?”
“I don’t know,” Fang Chi glanced at the counter and laughed. “It really is tomato scrambled eggs?”
“Mm.” Sun Wenqu smiled.
“Grandma!” Fang Chi turned his head and shouted toward the yard, “which knife is for cutting vegetables, ”
Fang Chi seemed to be in a good mood after a full night’s sleep. The shout he let out made Sun Wenqu want to cover his ears. Chief Huang hanging from his arm struggled wildly.
Grandma came into the kitchen, showed Sun Wenqu which knife to use for cutting vegetables and which wok to use for frying, then said worriedly, “Do you know how? Don’t use the clay stove. Later just use that induction cooker to stir-fry. I’m afraid you’ll burn down the kitchen…”
“I know how,” Sun Wenqu said. “Grandma, don’t worry.”
“I think I can’t not worry. It’s just one dish and you started fussing with it an hour before mealtime. Is that something someone who knows how to cook would do?” Grandma muttered as she left the kitchen. “Taking an hour to make one dish, that’s someone who doesn’t know how to cook at all…”
“Want me to help?” Fang Chi kept laughing.
“You, take that fat eunuch and that one squatting outside the door drooling, take them and go away,” Sun Wenqu picked up the knife and prepared to cut the tomatoes. “Don’t stand here watching.”
“Oh.” Fang Chi nodded, scooped up Chief Huang, whistled at Xiaozi, and went to the backyard to play.
Sun Wenqu picked up this heavy Green Dragon Crescent Blade–like knife, took a tomato and set it down, and chopped down with one stroke. Not bad, the feel was pretty good.
Before, when he cut tomatoes with Ma Liang they used fruit knives. Now holding a big cleaver actually made it feel quite easy.
In the backyard vegetable patch Fang Chi chatted with Grandpa. In half an hour he answered seven or eight phone calls, all from classmates planning to go crazy and have fun for a few days before the results came out.
Fang Chi didn’t have that kind of “one last crazy burst before the verdict” impulse. Right now he felt pretty relaxed. He hadn’t had much pressure to begin with, and after pushing himself for the past half year he had expectations, but whether the score turned out a little higher or lower would still be a surprise to him.
Part of this relaxation also came from yesterday’s conversation with Sun Wenqu.
It had only been a few casual sentences. They hadn’t really talked anything out, yet it felt as if the cotton that had been blocking his chest had finally been pulled away.
He had finally told someone, not just an unspoken understanding, but said it clearly and discussed it. Even though there was no solution, at this moment he still felt lighter.
Sun Wenqu started cooking his dish almost an hour early, but by the time Grandma had gone into the kitchen and finished making all the dishes for lunch, he only came out together with her.
“Time to eat,” Grandma called. “Come see the dish Shuiqu made.”
Fang Chi immediately went inside and quickly walked to the table. At a glance he saw the red-and-yellow tomato scrambled eggs placed in the petal-shaped plate Sun Wenqu had made earlier.
It looked pretty good. The colors were quite bright, and it smelled good too.
Fang Chi looked at Sun Wenqu. “Seems like it’s very tasty?”
“I think so too,” Sun Wenqu smiled and nodded. “When I was frying it just now I already wanted to eat it, but I held back.”
“Hurry and thank me, he grabbed the sugar jar and poured it in like crazy, as if it’d be a waste not to,” Grandma said from the side. “If I hadn’t stopped him it would’ve been a plate of sugar-fried tomatoes. It’d choke your throat.”
“Thank you, Grandma,” Sun Wenqu immediately said.
The first dish Fang Chi picked up after sitting down was Sun Wenqu’s masterpiece. This was the first time he had eaten something cooked by Sun Wenqu, someone who looked like he would never cook in his life.
The taste was quite good. Aside from the tomato cutting, large and small pieces with no pattern, too painful to look at closely, everything else was great. Fang Chi scooped two spoonfuls and mixed it into his rice, and in a few bites he finished a whole bowl.
“Shuiqu’s dish is pretty good. I like it,” Grandpa said while eating.
“He just said he used to cook it often before. He practiced it out,” Grandma said with a smile.
“Every profession has its specialty. Ten years to sharpen a sword,” Sun Wenqu said, then leaned close to Fang Chi’s ear and asked softly, “Is it good?”
Fang Chi nodded and said quietly, “Mm.”
After finishing the meal Fang Chi felt a bit hot. In weather like this he would usually stay by the river in the mountains, letting the wind blow and swimming and fooling around.
He stood under the stairs hesitating whether to call Sun Wenqu along. Sun Wenqu had gone upstairs right after eating, probably because his work was urgent. Would it be inappropriate to ask him to go play now?
The spot by the stairs was the warmest place in the living room in winter because it was in a corner. In summer it became the hottest place. After standing there a while he felt sweat about to come out, so he ran upstairs.
Sun Wenqu’s door wasn’t closed. Fang Chi peeked inside and saw him sitting at the desk looking at that pile of design drafts.
“You…” Fang Chi lightly cleared his throat. “Going to work?”
“Hm?” Sun Wenqu turned around. “Not yet. What’s up?”
“Are you hot?” Fang Chi tugged his collar and shook it. “If you are… I’m going to wander around in the mountains. Want to go?”
“Climb a mountain?” Sun Wenqu froze for a moment.
“Not climb. Just… the mountains are cooler. And there’s water.” Fang Chi scratched his head.
“Okay.” Sun Wenqu stood up. “Yesterday that mosquito repellent, the Grandma brand one, do you still have some?”
“Yes, I’ll get you a bottle,” Fang Chi smiled and turned toward his room. “Works well, right?”
“Mm. Only got bitten twice all night,” Sun Wenqu watched his back.
It was a bit hot today. After eating, Fang Chi changed into a black tank top and gray athletic pants. He looked… like his legs were really long.
And the muscles… too beautiful.
Fang Chi originally wanted to bring Chief Huang, but after Chief Huang got fat Sun Wenqu felt his arms got sore holding it for too long. Now that it was hot and there were no clothes to carry it in, they only brought Xiaozi.
Chief Huang didn’t mind. It didn’t look like it wanted to go out anyway, lying like a big meat pancake on Sun Wenqu’s design drafts with its eyes half-closed, purring comfortably.
The two of them walked toward the back of the village with Xiaozi, greeting people from the same village along the way.
Sun Wenqu had been here for half a year already. Many people in the village knew him, and quite a few households still had Spring Festival couplets he had written pasted at their gates.
“You’re almost becoming one of our village people,” Fang Chi said.
“How nice,” Sun Wenqu said with a smile. “These past months have been quite comfortable. Cultivating the body and the temperament. I’m actually a little reluctant to leave.”
“Then don’t leave,” Fang Chi said casually, then immediately felt it wasn’t appropriate. “Even if you leave, you can come back.”
“You,” Sun Wenqu squeezed the back of his neck, “have you figured out how to fill in your college choices yet? You haven’t looked at the materials the school gave you, have you?”
“I don’t know. I still haven’t figured it out,” Fang Chi lowered his head. “Before I did think about studying something like sports.”
“That’s good. If you go to a sports university you could rush home on weekends to see your grandpa,” Sun Wenqu said with a smile. The sports university was in a neighboring city, not necessarily doable every weekend, but if there were three days off it would be easy to go back and forth.
“I never thought about that. That’s a first-tier university,” Fang Chi scratched his head. “I was thinking about getting into a second-tier sports institute or something…”
“Aren’t you about to test as the top scorer? Why do you have so little confidence about a first-tier university?” Sun Wenqu draped an arm over his shoulder. “Then have you thought about any major?”
“No.” Fang Chi always felt a bit lost when these things came up. “How about… when you have time, can you help me look at it?”
“I want to eat fish. The big kind of fish,” Sun Wenqu said. “Your grandpa and grandma have been busy with the vegetable garden lately and haven’t gone to the market, so there’s been no fish to eat.”
“Huh?” Fang Chi was stunned by the sudden change of topic. “Fish?”
“Yeah. I want to eat fish. Big fish.” Sun Wenqu looked at him.
Fang Chi stared back at him for about ten seconds before reacting. “Are you asking me to take you to the market, or asking me to get a fish from Grandpa Jiang’s house?”
“Too late to go to the market,” Sun Wenqu smiled.
“You made such a big circle with that I could’ve climbed two mountains,” Fang Chi sighed. “Even if you didn’t help me look, if you wanted fish I’d still help you get some.”
“This way is more fun,” Sun Wenqu said. “Grass carp is fine. Not many bones.”
“Mm,” Fang Chi nodded. “Braised, sweet-and-sour, steamed, my grandpa is good at all of them.”
“Braised. Braised,” Sun Wenqu rubbed his stomach. “Ah.”
As soon as they entered the small woods by the mountainside, the glaring sunlight that made people squint immediately turned into scattered patches of light. The temperature dropped, and it felt quite cool.
“That day I went up the mountain from here with your grandpa,” Sun Wenqu pointed to the path ahead leading up the mountain. “But we didn’t reach the top.”
“We’re not climbing today either. Too hot,” Fang Chi moved his arms. “I’ll take you to play in the water. I used to go there all the time when I was little.”
“That little stream?” Sun Wenqu looked at him.
“How do you play in a stream? There’s no space to move,” Fang Chi led him onto another fork in the path. “This road doesn’t go up the mountain. It circles to the back. The water there is deeper.”
The mountain was tall but not very large in area. The path to the back wasn’t easy to walk, but before long they had circled around. A large area behind the mountain was full of bamboo.
A gust of mountain wind blew through. Fang Chi stopped. “Listen.”
When the wind blew through the bamboo forest, the bamboo beside them swayed gently. The bamboo leaves rubbed together making soft rustling sounds, and occasionally there were cracking sounds as the bamboo stalks shifted.
Quiet and cool sounds.
“Nice, right?” Fang Chi asked.
“Mm.” Sun Wenqu smiled. “Didn’t expect you’d notice things like this.”
“I grew up here. These sounds are my…” Fang Chi thought for a moment. “Homesickness, right?”
“Yes.” Sun Wenqu walked into the bamboo forest, stepping on the bamboo leaves covering the ground. After walking for a while he heard the sound of water. “The water’s ahead?”
“There’s a super tiny, super thin waterfall,” Fang Chi chuckled. “I call it a waterfall.”
The “waterfall” Fang Chi was talking about was actually just a small stream flowing down from the mountain. When it reached here it was blocked by a large rock and dropped into a small pool about two meters below.
What Fang Chi called the waterfall was actually just a thin strand of stream water.
The pool wasn’t big, only about a quarter the size of a basketball court, but it looked quite deep. Some bamboo leaves floated on the surface, giving it a rather poetic feeling.
Sun Wenqu stood by the pool. He vaguely remembered that he might have painted something similar before. He couldn’t remember when, bamboo forest, stream water, a summer afternoon.
“You know how to swim, right?” Fang Chi’s voice came from diagonally above.
Sun Wenqu looked in the direction of the voice and discovered Fang Chi had already climbed onto the big rock and was standing at the top of the “waterfall.”
“I can… can’t… maybe…” Sun Wenqu looked at him. “Probably can?”
“So do you know how to swim or not?” Fang Chi laughed.
“In a swimming pool I do,” Sun Wenqu said. “I’ve never swum anywhere outside a pool… you’re not planning to get into the water, are you?”
“How else would you play in the water?” Fang Chi raised his hand and pulled off his tank top. “I’m going to jump from here.”
“What if you hit your head?” Sun Wenqu froze. He didn’t even have time to look at Fang Chi’s beautiful abs before lowering his head to check the pool. “How deep is this water?”
“Two or three meters,” Fang Chi said with a smile. “I’ve never hit my head… want to come up and experience it?”
Sun Wenqu wasn’t afraid of water, and he wasn’t afraid of heights either. But jumping from a two-meter-high rock into a random mountain pool like this still made him a little worried.
When he climbed up the rock and stood in the rushing stream looking down, for no clear reason he felt a bit dizzy.
“Not that high, right?” Fang Chi stood behind him.
“In theory it’s not that high, only about a head taller than me standing,” Sun Wenqu looked down. “But standing in the water feels different, and jumping into the water feels even more different. The key point is that it’s not a swimming pool… If my foot slips and I fall, what happens?”
“If you fall then you fall. Kick the water and you’ll come back up,” Fang Chi said with a laugh, reaching out to steady a hand on Sun Wenqu’s waist. “Are you a little scared?”
“Yeah,” Sun Wenqu turned to look at him. “You should know, I’ve never been wild my whole life.”
“I know,” Fang Chi smiled. “You’re pretty delicate.”
“Are you going to push me down?” Sun Wenqu clicked his tongue.
“Do you think I’m the kind of person who’d do that?” Fang Chi clicked his tongue too.
Sun Wenqu turned again and looked at him seriously. “You, although you’re not that old, you’re actually pretty reliable. It’s just… let me think how to say it.”
“Even if you slipped right now, I could grab you and pull you back up,” Fang Chi said.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Sun Wenqu laughed. “But just now I really thought when you said play in the water, you meant just playing in the water.”
“You mean the two of us sitting side by side at the edge, soaking our feet and splashing water with our toes?” Fang Chi glanced at him sideways. “You rich young masters even play with water in such a girly way?”
“Did you go apprentice yourself to your Uncle Liangzi?” Sun Wenqu burst out laughing.
Fang Chi laughed with him. Maybe because suddenly the college entrance exam was over, suddenly he and Sun Wenqu had said certain things, suddenly everything felt a bit lighter.
Suddenly he just wanted to laugh, and couldn’t quite stop.
To prevent himself from laughing too hard and pushing Sun Wenqu into the pool, he wrapped an arm around Sun Wenqu’s waist and pulled him closer.
They had not been standing far apart to begin with. Sun Wenqu’s back pressed directly against his chest.
Fang Chi’s laughter hadn’t stopped yet, but it slowly became broken, then turned into dry chuckles. After a few dry laughs, it stopped.
“Why did you stop laughing?” Sun Wenqu tilted his head.
“…Can’t laugh anymore,” Fang Chi cleared his throat.
Now it was Sun Wenqu’s turn to laugh. He laughed happily, and also couldn’t stop for quite a while.
“Stop laughing,” Fang Chi said.
“I think I ate Xuanmai gum,” Sun Wenqu said while laughing.
Fang Chi sighed softly. After a pause, he hugged Sun Wenqu and kissed him on the neck.
Sun Wenqu’s laughter paused.
Fang Chi looked at his neck and shoulder, and his collarbone.
Sun Wenqu still wore that bone pendant on his neck, tied with a thin black leather cord. Against his quite pale skin, together with the collarbone, it looked very sexy.
Fang Chi slowly raised his hand and hooked a finger lightly in the hollow of his collarbone.
Sun Wenqu narrowed his eyes slightly and grabbed at the arm Fang Chi still had around his waist.
“I’ll… jump first,” Fang Chi suddenly said.
“Hm?” Sun Wenqu was stunned. It felt a bit like that day when Fang Chi flirted and then fell asleep.
“I’ll jump to show you. D-demonstrate,” Fang Chi said.
“Huh?” Sun Wenqu felt that encountering such a strange person was really something worth commemorating.
Before he could say anything else, Fang Chi had already let go and stepped in front of him.
Then he stripped off the shorts he was wearing and, in just his underwear, jumped without any hesitation.
Fang Chi’s jump came rather suddenly, with no preparatory movement. Before Sun Wenqu could even react, he had already drawn an arc through the air and plunged into the pool below.
Sun Wenqu had thought that jumping into water out here in the mountains probably meant going straight down headfirst or curling up and smashing the surface with your butt.
He didn’t expect Fang Chi to actually do a fairly standard diving posture. The splash wasn’t even that big.
“Not bad!” Sun Wenqu stuck his head out and shouted toward the pool.
Fang Chi hadn’t surfaced yet. What appeared on the water first was his… underwear.
Sun Wenqu’s praise instantly turned into laughter. When he saw Fang Chi’s hand break the surface and grab the underwear, he laughed so hard he squatted down in the stream.
“Come down,” Fang Chi’s head emerged from the water. He shook off the water; his body was still submerged, probably putting his underwear back on. “Jump down. I promise I won’t laugh at you.”
