Chapter 18
“Here you go, young man. Yours is ready.”
Xia Fengsheng took the jianbing guozi from the street vendor. “Thanks.”
He had not really eaten much that night, so once he got it, he took a slow bite.
Mm. Burned his mouth.
Xia Fengsheng pulled out his phone and adjusted himself.
Balance: 9.64
Mm. Not hot anymore.
The air around the vendor’s snack cart was full of warmth and everyday bustle, and standing there was warm, so Xia Fengsheng did not move away. He stood there, his features sharp and sculpted like a statue, tall and poised enough that even the little cart beside him seemed elevated into something high-end.
“Young man, you’re not local, are you?”
Xia Fengsheng chatted with him casually. “No. I’m from Shenzhen.”
Beijing and Shenzhen lay at opposite ends of the country, one in the north and one in the south.
“That far away? Must be a hassle going home.”
“It’s fine.” Xia Fengsheng did not go home much. After the college entrance exam, he had never gone back again, so he had no such trouble.
The vendor smiled as he cleaned the fryer. “My son’s about your age. After graduating from college, he went abroad. Found work there, settled down, even got married. But the economy’s not good, so he doesn’t earn much.”
Every time he saw a young person around his son’s age, it felt like he was seeing his son’s shadow.
Hearing the last few words, Xia Fengsheng’s gaze shifted to the QR code pasted on the food cart.
When he paid just now, the payment profile picture had been a photo of two young people holding a dog.
After swallowing the food in his mouth, Xia Fengsheng said, “How often does he come back?”
The vendor waved a hand. “He doesn’t come back anymore. Haven’t seen him in years.”
When they missed him, they video-called.
Xia Fengsheng’s voice turned cold. “Stop giving him money, and he’ll come running back soon enough.”
Anyone hearing that would think it cold-blooded and heartless.
But the vendor did not get angry. He only said he could not bear to.
“How can you just say you won’t give your own child anything?” It was not that he had never been angry about him not coming back to see them. But in the end, it was still the child they had raised from little on. He could not bring himself to watch his son struggle through hard days. Hearing him call them Mom and Dad, all the resentment dissolved into helplessness and heartbreak.
“As long as he’s living a little better, that’s worth more than anything.”
Not long after, the vendor’s wife came over too. They must have been short on ingredients just now, so she had gone back to get more. When she returned, she did not speak, only signed to the man in sign language.
She was deaf and mute, unable to speak and unable to hear.
At three in the morning, this street would fill with market workers. The couple set up their stall here every day in the dead of night and earned a little by selling food.
Parents who worked the late-night shift. A deaf and mute disabled mother.
Xia Fengsheng looked at the scene before him with cold eyes.
It felt like being dragged back to every evening of his three years in high school.
Back then, beside the road near the school, a cart selling egg pancakes would appear every day at the right time. One cost three yuan. The vendor, a sixty-year-old granny, could not speak either.
Memory overlapped with the present.
The vendor smiled as he signed to his wife, speaking at the same time. “Look at this young guy, what a fine figure he cuts. Tall and handsome, like an actor.”
The auntie leaned forward to look, her smile bright, and signed something to Xia Fengsheng.
The vendor, worried Xia Fengsheng might not understand sign language, explained, “Xiaoli says you look very distinguished.”
Xia Fengsheng looked at the smiles on their faces. He did not know why they could still smile. People squeezed dry and exploited by emotion—there was nothing cheaper in the world than a conscience.
People always treated vague, intangible things with no practical benefit as if they were noble virtues. Honest, dutiful people followed them, feeling they had done right by heaven and earth and had not lived in vain.
Xia Fengsheng found it only stupid.
The vendor’s son had not come back for years, yet they still worked tirelessly, only because that lump of flesh had been raised by their hands, and so they kept nourishing him, squeezing the last bit of use out of themselves.
Xia Fengsheng watched the two of them in silence. At last, he lifted a hand and signed thank you.
The delight in the auntie’s eyes overflowed. She rarely met anyone who knew sign language. The only person around her who knew it was her husband. Excited and happy, she moved her fingers in the air. “You know sign language?”
Xia Fengsheng extended one index finger, the other four bent. “A little.”
Before leaving, Xia Fengsheng signed many more things to the auntie.
It was too complex, and he signed too fast. The vendor was busy working and did not manage to see clearly.
After Xia Fengsheng left, the auntie visibly froze, and confusion and helplessness slowly spread over her face.
“Xiaoli, what’s wrong?” the vendor asked anxiously at the look on his wife’s face.
She stood there for a long time without coming back to herself.
Those pale fingers still seemed to hover before her eyes. His smile had looked like the warning sign of a nightmare beginning, bright and crimson.
“Do you know how much a hearing aid costs?”
He had tapped his wrist gracefully.
“It costs the same as the watch on your son’s wrist.”
He had wrapped his arms around himself.
“The dog collar brand on the dog he’s holding? The cheapest one starts at five thousand.”
And at last, his fingertip had pointed at Xiaoli herself.
“Does your son know sign language?”
*
Xia Fengsheng dug through every bank card app he had and managed to scrape together eleven yuan, enough for him to ride a bike back to school.
By the time he got back to the dorm, he was panting from exhaustion.
Seeing how drained he looked, He Qiang said, “Sheng’er, I can see Xiao Huang’s shadow in you.”
Xia Fengsheng: …
Xiao Huang was the campus stray dog.
But thanks to students feeding and sponsoring it, it lived in a tiny villa on the outrageously expensive grounds of Jing University.
Tired to the point of becoming Xiao Huang, Xia Fengsheng took a change of clothes and went to the bathroom to shower.
His wallet was empty. He had to think of a way to make money.
Late at night, lying in bed, he scrolled through his contact list. There were some people in it he could speak to, but without??, who would be willing to use him?
No one with real standing would choose him. There were plenty of people safer than him.
Deng deng—
A message popped up.
“Sheng’er, asleep yet?”
It was Qin Buming, a senior from the same school of study whom Yang Liwan had kept from graduating for two years.
The two of them had a great deal in common.
For example, both were puppets in Yang Liwan’s hands.
What Qin Buming was today was what Xia Fengsheng would be in the future.
Compared to two years ago, Qin Buming had visibly wasted away. He looked like an empty shell with no soul left, nothing but a skeleton walking around like a living corpse, with a bleak future ahead.
When Xia Fengsheng had first enrolled, Qin Buming had mentored him a little. At that time, twenty-four-year-old Qin Buming had been spirited and full of promise, utterly unlike what he was now.
Qin Buming had no family background. If Yang Liwan refused to let him go, he would never turn his life around. He would stay trapped under Yang Liwan like a prisoner until the day he had no value left to squeeze dry.
And by the time he was finally released, with the best years of his life already gone, what would he have left?
The reason Yang Liwan clung to him was even more laughable.
He was too outstanding. Those above him feared his talent and kept him clutched tightly in their palms for their own use.
“Not yet,” Xia Fengsheng replied.
Qin Buming: “Have you recovered your memory at all now?”
Xia Fengsheng replied the same as before. “Not yet.”
Seeing the message, Qin Buming hesitated, but in the end he still sent the next one.
“Do you want to work with your senior?”
“What do you mean?”
“Take on projects, negotiate contracts, earn money ourselves.”
“You mean… start a business?”
If they went off and worked on their own, it would be no different from walking straight into death. Yang Liwan would never agree. If he found out, there would be no good end for them.
“I don’t have my memory now. I don’t know how to do anything.”
“It’s okay. Xia Fengsheng, you’ve always been smart. In my impression, there’s nothing you can’t do well.”
In his memory, Xia Fengsheng handled everything with ease, calm under pressure, someone with the ability to bring dead situations back to life.
Xia Fengsheng was the next him. He was the previous Xia Fengsheng.
Even if Xia Fengsheng had lost his memory and all his abilities for now, Qin Buming was still willing to teach him. He did not see him as a burden.
Qin Buming’s fingers trembled as he typed. “Are you willing to work with your senior?”
This was the hardest he had ever tried in his life to live once for himself.
A mocking smile appeared on Xia Fengsheng’s face, laughing at Qin Buming for overestimating himself, trying to stop a cart with a mantis arm.
His long fingers tapped a few times on the keyboard.
“Okay.”
Qin Buming’s eyes flew wide open. He jumped up from the bed in excitement. “It worked!”
His voice shook with emotion, his whole body trembling, as if he had returned to age twenty-four, the happiest days of his life, when everything had still been full of hope.
His roommate woke in fright.
What happened? What happened?! Had Qin Buming finally gone crazy?
Xia Fengsheng turned off his phone and pulled the blanket over himself.
He was pretty laughable too.
If in the end he was destined to become an empty shell with no soul, then he might as well resist before dying.
Early the next morning, Xia Fengsheng woke to the sound of his ringtone.
He Qiang had already gone out. What for, he had no idea.
Caller ID: Shi Ye
Rubbing the stiff neck he had slept wrong, he answered the phone.
“Are you free from the end of December to early January?”
Xia Fengsheng had been very idle lately. Not to mention that last night he had?ed Yang Liwan’s crowd, so no one would be coming to find him anytime soon.
He had also taken leave from school because of his injury.
“Yeah. Why?” His voice was hoarse with just-woken rasp, carrying the comfort of still being wrapped in bed.
“You just woke up?”
Xia Fengsheng glanced at the time. Seven in the morning.
Waking up at this time counted as early rising, so he gave a hum.
Shi Ye had just finished his morning run and walked into the bathroom, turning on the shower. Water hit his flushed, pumped-up shoulders and neck. Hearing Xia Fengsheng’s voice, he rubbed his ear.
“I’m planning to go to America for New Year’s. You want to come?”
Shi Ye’s birthday was a few days after New Year’s. He liked watching baseball, and there happened to be opening games there in January, including the team he liked, so he planned to spend New Year’s in America.
Xia Fengsheng had never been abroad, and he certainly had no assets to speak of. Shi Ye, on the other hand, had flown all over the world for fun since childhood. The two of them were complete opposites.
Just getting a visa for America was already a huge hurdle.
“I probably wouldn’t qualify for a visa.”
Not probably. One hundred percent.
“Do you want to go? If you do, I can be your guarantor.”
Xia Fengsheng arched a brow. Only an idiot would say he did not want to.
Shi Ye got curious at the sudden silence from the other end.
The next second, a weird shrill cry in an affected voice made him shudder all over.
“Really? You’d really be my guarantor?”
Xia Fengsheng pressed the phone close to his lips. “I’m seriously so happy. I’ve never been to America before. If you’re willing to be my guarantor, does that mean you like me a whole lot?”
His voice was like a hook, deliberately choosing the most nauseating things to say.
“When we get there, let’s go on lots of dates together. Better yet, let’s kiss too, just like the first time, since we’re so deeply in love.”
Their first kiss had not been beautiful at all.
Xia Fengsheng said it on purpose to disgust him.
“Why aren’t you saying anything? Can we?”
Shi Ye turned the shower to cold water and brushed him off. “Whatever.”
His voice was stiff to a frightening degree. He was unwilling in a hundred different ways.
He did not want to kiss Xia Fengsheng.
Their first kiss had happened in summer, not long after Xia Fengsheng forced him into being with him. Like a bandit, he had ruthlessly stolen his face kiss.
With tycoon Shi Ye acting as guarantor, Xia Fengsheng’s visa to America was approved smoothly, and the two set off in the last two days of December.
Because of the weather, Xia Fengsheng wore a down jacket and black sweatpants.
The moment Shi Ye saw him, he secretly let out a sigh of relief.
This was the first time since the two of them met again that Xia Fengsheng had gone out dressed so normally.
They checked their luggage, went through security, and boarded without incident. To get into the sky, no need to rely on Shenzhou anymore.
By the time the plane landed, they had already spent fifteen hours in the air.
The airline food was awful and suited neither of their tastes, so they came out of the airport starving.
It was now four in the afternoon in America. By the time they drove into the city, it would be exactly dinner time.
Ding Qizhen drove over to pick them up. Shi Ye had already told him that Xia Fengsheng was coming too, so he was not surprised.
The three got in the car.
Ding Qizhen asked the two of them, “What now?”
Shi Ye said, “Eat. Have you eaten?”
“Not yet. Let’s go together.” Ding Qizhen turned and asked Xia Fengsheng in the back seat, “Chinese food okay?”
“Okay.”
Ding Qizhen rubbed his nose. Today Xia Fengsheng’s mental state seemed pretty normal. At last, those floral pajama pants were gone.
He followed the GPS to a Chinatown in the city, full of restaurants lined up one after another, with dazzling food choices everywhere.
Ding Qizhen and Shi Ye saw candied hawthorn and planned to buy two skewers. Xia Fengsheng was not interested and went off to the other side to buy something else, then planned to come back and find them.
After buying his snack and paying, Xia Fengsheng winced at the exchange rate.
Holding the food, he turned back to find Shi Ye and the others, only to discover a dispute had broken out in front of the candied hawthorn shop.
It started with a mother and daughter waiting in line outside. The little girl looked five or six. At first she stood in front of her mother, but because she was too short and could not see, later she moved behind her mother to look at a passing dog. A young man around twenty standing behind them saw it and said the little girl had cut the line.
The girl’s mother argued her case, saying the child had not cut in line and that he should not wrongfully accuse her daughter.
The young man said nothing more, took out a water bottle to drink from, and deliberately poured it over the little girl’s head.
A fierce argument exploded on the spot.
Being righteous people, Shi Ye and Ding Qizhen refused to stay silent spectators and immediately stepped forward to stand up for the little girl.
The first things out of their mouths were: “Do you think this is the right way to treat a little girl?”
“Apologize to them right now.”
“You’re the one in the wrong!”
Xia Fengsheng looked at the two of them with a complicated expression.
What were they doing, arguing?
Someone who did not know better would think they were chatting.
There was not a trace of aggression.
Had rich young masters never learned how to curse people growing up?
The male student had thick skin. Even though Shi Ye and Ding Qizhen were tall and imposing, he was not frightened in the least.
He kept talking loudly and self-righteously, not feeling he had done anything wrong, his face full of arrogance.
“So what if I dare you to touch me!!”
“I was just drinking water normally. She insisted on standing there. If she didn’t dodge, whose fault is that?”
“I haven’t even complained that she washed her hair with my water. Did she thank me?”
A vicious look surfaced on Shi Ye’s face.
Just when the crowd thought he was about to explode with some foul language fit to be sent by telegram, he opened his mouth and said:
“Don’t live with your face so thick.”
“……”
Xia Fengsheng pressed his tongue against his cheek and laughed.
Standing beside Shi Ye, Ding Qizhen chimed in, “Don’t you feel ashamed?”
The next second, someone yanked both of them backward by the shoulders.
“Move.”
Before Shi Ye had even managed to see clearly, there was already a bag of snacks in his hands.
Xia Fengsheng strode forward in big steps, started with the internationally recognized friendly gesture, and opened with: “Idiot!”
The insult came so suddenly that the young man froze, completely dumbfounded. Xia Fengsheng stood across from him. “Couldn’t see clearly, huh?”
He gave a light sneer. “Can’t function as a person, and your eyes don’t work either.”
The next second, he raised both hands at once, giving him the full double satisfaction.
“Idiot, idiot, idiot! I’m calling you an idiot! Hear that clearly?!”
