TA •Chapter 23

Jiang Yuduo was a little regretful that he had asked those questions. He had never been exposed to any of that, and whenever he was with his brothers, they only talked about girls, breasts, legs… At his age, this was the first time he had ever seen a living, breathing… homosexual, and it had to be Cheng Ke, this miraculous rich young master. He really had not kept his mouth shut.

Although neither of them brought the topic up again afterward, it was clear that until they finished dinner, Cheng Ke’s mood had not been very good.

He still smiled. He still spoke the same way. Even his appetite had not been affected, and he ate no less than Jiang Yuduo did.

But something in his eyes, something Jiang Yuduo was already quite familiar with, was gone. More than once, Jiang Yuduo had the strange illusion that he and Cheng Ke had only just met yesterday.

After Cheng Ke settled the bill, he lit a cigarette and took out his phone. “I’ll call a car. It’s getting windy now.”

“Mm.” Cheng Ke responded.

“Want one?” Jiang Yuduo offered him the cigarette pack.

“No,” Cheng Ke said, shaking his head. “It feels stuffy.”

Jiang Yuduo put the pack away, then stared silently at his phone. When the car was fifty meters away, he stood up. “It’s here. Let’s go.”

After they walked out of the restaurant, Cheng Ke took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“The air inside wasn’t great, huh?” Jiang Yuduo said. “Places like this are all the same. Everyone’s smoking.”

“It’s nothing,” Cheng Ke said. “I used to eat in private rooms with friends too. If there weren’t any girls there, everyone would smoke as well.”

Jiang Yuduo waved at the car as it pulled up. It stopped in front of them. Cheng Ke got into the back seat, and after hesitating for a moment, Jiang Yuduo sat in the front passenger seat.

He figured Cheng Ke was unhappy, but he really had no idea what to do about it, and he was too proud to keep apologizing. So he decided to sit in front and, as long as he didn’t annoy anyone, that would be enough.

Neither of them spoke on the way. Cheng Ke leaned back in the rear seat with his eyes closed, looking drowsy. By the time the car stopped downstairs at his building, Jiang Yuduo called to him twice, but he still gave no response.

“Hey!” Jiang Yuduo reached back and slapped his leg. “We’re here!”

Only then did Cheng Ke open his eyes and look outside. “Already?”

“Yeah,” Jiang Yuduo said, looking at him. “Get out.”

Cheng Ke opened the car door and got out. He had only taken a step before he turned back and knocked on the front passenger window.

Jiang Yuduo rolled the window down.

“I’ll come find you tomorrow to pay the rent,” Cheng Ke said. “I’m going to buy clothes anyway, so I’ll stop by on the way.”

“Mm. What time?” Jiang Yuduo asked.

“Afternoon, maybe three?” Cheng Ke said.

“All right.” Jiang Yuduo nodded.

Cheng Ke turned and went into the building lobby.

Jiang Yuduo watched him go in, then looked around. Only after the driver asked did he give his own address.

As the car drove out of the neighborhood, he kept feeling like someone was there, but after leaning out and looking down toward Cheng Ke’s building several times, he still saw nothing.

He frowned.

There were several moments, during the time when Cheng Ke had suddenly become so cold toward him, when he had wanted to stop caring about Cheng Ke’s business altogether. Was he being watched? Who was watching him? Would he be in danger? Jiang Yuduo had almost wanted not to care anymore.

After all, he already had a pile of trouble he couldn’t deal with. When he opened his eyes, life was boring. When he closed them, there were nightmares.

Cheng Ke was a rich young master. Even if he had been kicked out of home, if he really ran into trouble, it was not Jiang Yuduo’s place to worry about it.

Today, when he had followed Cheng Ke and Xu Ding out of that art gallery and watched one person after another greet Cheng Ke, he had finally gotten even the slightest sense of Cheng Ke’s past life. Even if it was only the tip of the iceberg, it was still a completely different world.

He sighed.

When he got home, there was a car parked by the stairwell entrance. With a luxury car like that, if it was parked here, it had to be Chen Qing’s.

He walked over to take a look. The car had already been turned off, and no one was inside. He guessed Chen Qing was already upstairs. Every time Chen Qing went in on his own, he left the car here so that if someone saw him going upstairs, they wouldn’t get hurt by mistake.

Jiang Yuduo opened the door and went inside. Chen Qing was making a racket in the kitchen.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you just ordered takeout?” he said, walking over to take a look.

“I’m sick of it,” Chen Qing said, turning around. “Have you eaten?”

“Yeah. Just make your own food,” Jiang Yuduo said. “Go park your car.”

“I’m marinating meat right now,” Chen Qing said. “The keys are on the table. Park it for me.”

Jiang Yuduo said nothing. He turned, took the car keys from the table in the living room, and went out.

“Lao San, did you get your driver’s license?” a childish voice sounded beside him.

Jiang Yuduo turned and glanced at the three-and-a-half-year-old kid next door. The child was standing by the door, gnawing on a chicken drumstick.

“I got mine before you were even in your dad’s stomach,” Jiang Yuduo said.

“How could I be in my dad’s stomach?” The child laughed loudly. “You’re making things up.”

“I’m not.” Jiang Yuduo smiled.

“Lao San!” The kid’s grandmother rushed out and yanked him back into the apartment, pointing at him. “You never say anything good! How old is he? What are you saying to such a little kid?”

“…You actually understood that?” Jiang Yuduo was a little surprised.

“Pah!” The old lady glared at him. “If I hear you saying this nonsense to him again next time, I’ll break your legs!”

He said nothing. Smiling, he got into the car.

The old lady kept cursing as she slammed the door shut.

Jiang Yuduo started the car and looked at the parking spaces ahead. They were all full. He glanced in the rearview mirror, wanting to see whether there was still any space behind him.

There was one empty parking spot.

But his hand stayed on the steering wheel, unmoving.

He was no longer surprised or afraid of scenes like this. During the times when he had not seen them around his neighborhood, he had even felt anxious.

He was not afraid of danger. What he feared was not knowing where the danger was.

That was true fear, with no time and no place.

A person was standing in that empty spot, their hood pulled so low it covered their eyes. Their face was hidden in the shadow, impossible to make out.

But Jiang Yuduo could feel his gaze.

Too familiar a feeling.

That gaze he had never managed to escape all these years.

Like a shadow following him everywhere, like a vengeful ghost that would not leave.

There was not much harm, no serious consequences, but it was like a needle stuck in the flesh. The wound would never heal. It would not kill him, but it would turn red, hurt, get infected, and leave a person in permanent unrest.

He lowered his head and looked at the ground, then pulled the steering-wheel lock out from under the seat and got out of the car.

The person who had not moved at all lifted his head slightly, as if looking past Jiang Yuduo at what was behind him.

Jiang Yuduo’s heart sank.

His attention had been fixed on that person and he had ignored what was behind him.

It was too late to turn around and look. He immediately bent low, but still failed to avoid it.

Before he even had time to feel the pain, he was swallowed by the darkness that suddenly surged before his eyes.

His last memory was his suddenly weak knees slamming hard onto the ground, and a vaguely muffled “Cheng Ke.”

Cheng Ke opened the wine cabinet and took out a bottle of red wine.

He had bought this wine cabinet before and only randomly put a few bottles of wine in it. He did not even know why he had bought a temperature-controlled wine cabinet. He did not have any particular interest in red wine.

Maybe it was because, when the apartment was being renovated, several rows of those little wine cradles had been built into the cabinet. He had found them a little ugly, and since the humidity and temperature could not be controlled if wine was stored there like that, buying a wine cabinet was perhaps his way of showing those completely meaningless cradles who was boss.

He took the wine to the sofa and sat down. After staring blankly for a while, he got up and put it back.

He did not even want to drink. He did not know why he had taken it out.

He was bored.

He went back to the sofa, lay down, and closed his eyes with a soft sigh.

This hotpot meal had still been very satisfying. Big mouthfuls of meat, big bowls of wine.

The only regret was that later on, he and Jiang Yuduo hardly spoke at all.

Jiang Yuduo’s disgusting remark had indeed affected his mood, but not so much that he would remain silent for half a meal. The main thing was that Jiang Yuduo did not speak again afterward, and he was not good at salvaging the atmosphere in situations like that.

If the other person stayed silent, he would not speak either.

Whatever. He could not be bothered to waste energy trying to find the rhythm again, and he also did not want to think about what he should say next.

Whatever happened, let it happen. Whatever felt comfortable, do that.

People who knew him more or less all knew that. Those who did not probably could still tolerate him and try hard to keep the conversation going, after all, he was a rich young master.

His phone rang once. Xu Ding had sent him a message.

-Settle the bill within this week. Confirm the account again.

-Confirmed. Can you stop confirming every single time? If I ever change accounts, I’d definitely tell you.

-Just in case. It’s not a hassle. We filmed Lao San today. Do you want me to cut a separate clip for him?

Cheng Ke smiled.

-Okay.

Jiang Yuduo probably would not want to see what he looked like when he was staring at the performance with a seriously earnest expression and his mouth hanging open. Cheng Ke, on the other hand, wanted to see what he looked like on camera.

Thinking of Jiang Yuduo, Cheng Ke thought of Cheng Yi again.

Although he was not exactly surprised that Cheng Yi would talk to Jiang Yuduo, Cheng Yi had always been like that since he was little. Even if the other person had admitted defeat, as long as he did not think it had reached the final step, he would not stop.

Still, he was annoyed that Cheng Yi had chosen such a topic to chat about with Jiang Yuduo.

Probably because he had not really gone through the trash can yet, so in Cheng Yi’s eyes, it did not count as over.

But Jiang Yuduo’s reaction, aside from that last disgusting remark, was actually rather interesting. The more Cheng Ke thought about it, the more he wanted to laugh.

If Cheng Yi found out about that reaction, he would probably be a little disappointed.

Cheng Ke smiled.

When you were full and had nothing else to do, the most pleasant thing was sleep.

Sleeping on the sofa was pleasant too.

Cheng Ke woke up several times in the middle. The first time was a little after five, when his stomach told him the food he had eaten at noon still had not been digested. The second time was a little after ten at night, which was neither here nor there, and getting up at that hour was meaningless, so he might as well keep sleeping. The third time was in the middle of the night, when two men downstairs were arguing. They were fighting fiercely, and he half-awake, half-asleep, dragged himself from the sofa to the bed.

When he woke up again, it was already noon. More precisely, lunchtime had already passed.

When he got out of bed, he felt like his whole state of mind was bad, just like the clothes on him that he had not taken off, all wrinkled and crumpled.

Only after taking a shower did he become a little clearer-headed.

Mainly because he had been woken up once during the night… Cheng Ke paused.

Then he took two quick steps straight to the window and shoved it open.

He thought his reaction was a bit over the top, but during this period, Jiang Yuduo’s injuries and those things he had said, more or less, had made him sensitive while he was still half in doubt.

Down below was still a dull, gray mess, with remnants of snow and fallen leaves already merged into the ground, lonely as always.

He stared carefully at the ground below and did not see any signs of a fight. He let out a breath, and silently mourned his own absurdity for three seconds.

But when he went out to the mall to buy clothes, he still looked down from downstairs again.

No bloodstains. The security guard downstairs was calm as ever.

…Crazy.

Cheng Ke took a cab to the mall, and because it was so close, he had barely settled in before he arrived.

Buying clothes was pretty fast too. He did not look at brands or consider quality. If it looked pleasing, he took it. He had worn cotton jackets costing a little over a hundred yuan before, and he had thought they were pretty comfortable.

Today he just wanted to find the same style as the down jacket Jiang Yuduo was wearing. It was very comfortable, warm, and looked pretty good too.

But after circling the menswear floor twice, he still could not find it, so in the end he could only grab two random pieces and call it a day.

By the time he left the mall, it was about three o’clock. This place was already very close to Jiang Yuduo’s home, so walking over would be just right.

Halfway there, carrying several shopping bags, he started to regret it. No matter how he stepped, the bags kept bumping against his legs, irritating as hell.

In a fit of anger, he took all the clothes out of the bags and tucked them under his arm, then threw the bags away.

By the time he reached Jiang Yuduo’s door with four pieces of clothing tucked under his arm, he felt like an idiot.

“Jiang Yuduo!” he called when he passed the window.

“Hey!” Someone inside answered, but it was not Jiang Yuduo’s voice.

The curtain was lifted, and Chen Qing’s face appeared at the window. “Jiaji?”

“He’s not in?” Cheng Ke asked.

“He is, but…” Chen Qing looked at the clothes in his arms. “Were you robbed?”

“Yeah,” Cheng Ke said as he walked into the stairwell. “They robbed the bags and left the clothes.”

Chen Qing came over to open the door, looking stunned. “You got robbed and didn’t say anything? If you’d reported Lao San’s name, they wouldn’t have dared touch you! Are you stupid?”

Cheng Ke looked at him. Total Protector probably only heard the word robbed and was already worked up. He sighed. “No need. I have a lot of money, I’m not afraid of being robbed.”

“What do you need?” Chen Qing asked.

“To pay rent. I told Jiang Yuduo yesterday,” Cheng Ke said, standing in the living room and looking around. He did not see Jiang Yuduo, and there was no one in the bedroom either.

“Oh.” Chen Qing turned and shouted toward the bathroom, “Lao San, Jiaji is here to pa…”

The bathroom door opened, and Jiang Yuduo came out with his brows tightly knit. “Shout your ass off.”

Chen Qing shut up and sat on the sofa, taking out his phone to play with it.

Jiang Yuduo looked at the pile of clothes he was holding and reached out to take the tag, checking it. “Bought them just now?”

“Mm.” Cheng Ke nodded.

“No bag to put them in?” Jiang Yuduo looked at him.

“Threw it away.” Cheng Ke put the clothes on the sofa, then picked them up again after setting them down, making sure this spot was not where Miao had peed before, before placing them down once more.

“…You’ve got some personality,” Jiang Yuduo said as he took the receipt from the drawer and lowered his head to write on it.

Cheng Ke looked at Jiang Yuduo and felt that his complexion was very bad, not the kind of bad complexion that came from insomnia, but a very pale one, like he was sick.

But Chen Qing was sitting right there, so he could not ask any more questions.

Jiang Yuduo kept his head down. He wrote very slowly, stroke by stroke, stopping after every couple of strokes.

After watching for a while, Cheng Ke still could not hold back and leaned closer, asking softly, “Are you sick?”

“He passed out again yesterday afternoon, he was fine by morning,” Chen Qing said from the side.

“Oh.” Cheng Ke did not know what to say, so he sat down in the chair and waited.

“He also got a big lump knocked onto his head,” Chen Qing said with a sigh.

“What happened?” Cheng Ke froze.

Jiang Yuduo stopped writing and lifted his eyes to glance at Chen Qing, who lowered his head and continued playing with his phone.

At last the receipt was finished. Cheng Ke took it, put it in his pocket, took out his wallet, and handed Jiang Yuduo the cash he had just withdrawn.

“Your coat,” Cheng Ke said, picking up Jiang Yuduo’s down jacket. “Should I wash it before I give it back to you?”

“No need,” Jiang Yuduo said. “I only wash these clothes when spring comes.”

“All right.” Cheng Ke did not insist. After thinking about it, he asked again, “Where did you buy this jacket? I spent half the day looking for the brand and couldn’t find it.”

“…At the wholesale market.” Jiang Yuduo looked at him.

“Oh,” Cheng Ke said, glancing at the coat again. “Pretty good.”

“If you want to buy one, I can take you there,” Jiang Yuduo said.

“This jacket costs only a little over four hundred,” Chen Qing’s phone rang. While pulling it out, he said, “You want one too?”

Before Cheng Ke could answer, Chen Qing said hello into the phone, then frowned.

“Who?” Jiang Yuduo looked at him.

“How many are there?” Chen Qing asked. “Mm, only four? Okay, I got it.”

“Who is it?” Jiang Yuduo asked again.

“Eight Slash’s people are at Sister Xi’s place,” Chen Qing said, standing up while dialing on his phone. “I’ll take a few guys over to check. If Eight Slash went there too, then it’ll be troublesome.”

“What good will you do going?” Jiang Yuduo took the down jacket from Cheng Ke and put it on. “When has Eight Slash ever been afraid of you?”

“No one’s ever been afraid of me either,” Chen Qing said. “Then what, are you going over like that?”

Jiang Yuduo went into the bathroom to wash his face. When he came out, water droplets were still hanging on his face. “Call Dabin and the others to go straight there.”

Chen Qing looked at him and said nothing.

Cheng Ke was still sitting in the chair, also looking at Jiang Yuduo.

It was probably in this very moment that he suddenly and clearly sensed just how different Jiang Yuduo’s world was from his own.

In the time it took to wash his face, the slightly tired look on Jiang Yuduo’s still pale face had already disappeared, replaced by the same aggressive swagger he usually carried, with a hint of ferocity.

“You…” Jiang Yuduo turned to look at him. “Go back.”

“Mm.” Cheng Ke stood up and put on a new coat.

Jiang Yuduo took an eco-bag from the cabinet, rolled up Cheng Ke’s other three clothes, and stuffed them all inside.

Cheng Ke took the bag and followed behind Jiang Yuduo and Chen Qing as they walked out of the stairwell together.

After they had only taken a few steps toward the intersection, Jiang Yuduo stopped. “We’re heading that way.”

“Mm, you guys…” He felt like he needed to say something at a time like this.

Don’t go.

Be careful.

Call the police.

None of them seemed appropriate, and none of them seemed to mean anything.

For some reason, he suddenly felt a little down, depressed to the extreme.

His feelings toward Jiang Yuduo had already gone back to what they were when they first met, so he also could not treat Jiang Yuduo like a stranger who was completely on a different road from him.

There were some things deep in Jiang Yuduo, things that were different from Chen Qing, from his little underlings, from those street punks laughing while kicking over trash cans.

What they were, he did not know.

But those things made him intensely uneasy whenever Jiang Yuduo was about to go and “deal with” trouble.

“Lao San!” Someone suddenly shouted from across the street, loud and dripping with obvious mockery.

Jiang Yuduo turned around.

Three people on the opposite side of the street slowly walked over and stopped directly in front of them. This little street was very narrow, and with people standing on both sides like this, it was almost like they were face to face, close enough to see the smug grins on the other side’s faces.

“Fuck, why is he here?” Chen Qing cursed.

Cheng Ke reacted immediately. The one in the middle, wearing only a tight sports outfit in the dead of winter like some idiot just to show off his muscles, was Eight Slash.

Jiang Yuduo and Chen Qing clearly had not expected him to show up here. The people they had sent had all gone straight to Sister Xi’s place.

Not bad.

He really knew how to use a feint.

“Cheng Ke, go back,” Jiang Yuduo quickly took a key out of his pocket and shoved it into his hand. “Now.”

Cheng Ke took the key, but he did not move.

Logically, he should leave immediately, go back to Jiang Yuduo’s place, or take another road. This was none of his business, and not something he should be involving himself in.

As Cheng Yi would have said, too low-level.

But he did not want to leave.

Chen Qing did not have much fighting ability. There was no need to test it. Just by looking at his tree-chopping build, it was obvious that this so-called Total Protector had been assigned through the back door. If Cheng Ke left, Jiang Yuduo would be the only one left.

The three on the other side were all fresh out of prison a second ago types. Jiang Yuduo was no match for them.

“That handsome guy,” Eight Slash tilted his chin this way, “isn’t he the one who beat up my newly recruited little brother that day?”

“That’s him.” The man on his right stared deathly at Cheng Ke’s face. “Might as well take care of him together.”

“Fuck.” Chen Qing gritted his teeth and said quietly, “Take care of your ass, go take a piss instead. What do we do, Third Brother?”

“What are you scared of? Have you never been beaten before?” Jiang Yuduo said.

“Fine,” Chen Qing said, shaking his head until his neck cracked. “Fuck being scared.”

“I’ll count to three,” Jiang Yuduo said, looking at Cheng Ke. “You run.”

Cheng Ke looked at him.

“Then call the police,” Jiang Yuduo said.

“What?” Chen Qing turned sharply to stare at him. “Fuck, call the police? What happens to the whole underworld act after that?”

Cheng Ke was also stunned. He could understand Jiang Yuduo telling him to run, but telling him to call the police was a complete surprise. Chen Qing’s meaning was also very clear, if they called the police in a situation like this, Jiang Yuduo’s status as “Third Brother” probably would not hold up anymore.

Although he did not think it would make any difference.

The people on the other side had already come over. On this street, ten steps was enough to bring them face to face.

“One, two, three.” Jiang Yuduo reached out, shoved hard at his shoulder, then turned and charged at those men.

“Fuck your mother!” Chen Qing roared and followed him into the fray.

A couple hundred scenes from TV flashed through Cheng Ke’s mind, all those tangled, melodramatic lines about “You go!” “I’m not leaving!” “Hurry and go! Don’t worry about me!” “No, I can’t leave!”

The ending of scenes like that was usually both people dying, while the audience complained for ten or eight whole lines.

He turned and bolted back the way he had come.

After running more than ten steps, he pulled out his phone, then glanced back.

Eight Slash slammed an elbow into Jiang Yuduo’s back, while Chen Qing was already down beside them, desperately kicking his legs like he was riding a bicycle.

“Fuck.” Cheng Ke skidded to a stop.