PL | Chapter 1

The “Zhong” in Zhong-er

“Up ahead, turn left,” Mom said from the passenger seat, directing Dad. “After the next intersection, we’re there.”

Gu Zhong sat in the back seat, watching the streets outside. Temporary structures lined the road, filled with small convenience shops, snack stalls, vegetable vendors set up along the curb, and internet cafés whose prices you could tell at a glance, one yuan fifty per hour, no more.

Their destination was some junior college. It was only when the car pulled right up to the entrance that Gu Zhong noticed a small upright sign by the gate, black text on a white background.

“I feel kind of bleak,” he said.

“Because your grades are bleak, you can only go to a bleak school,” Mom said. “Get out.”

“You haven’t given me my living expenses yet,” he said.

“Fifty,” Dad said.

Mom took out fifty yuan and held it in front of him. “You go home every day for food and lodging. On weekends you go home to eat, live, and sleep. Ten yuan a day. Sounds fair, right?”

“Retaliation,” he said. “Can you just give me a full month’s worth at once?”

“Do you want it or not?” Mom shook the money.

He snatched it and opened the car door.

There were quite a few students gathered at the school gate for registration. A girl was crying and shouting at the same time, “I want to go home! What kind of crappy school is this? You call this a university? I want to go home! I want to retake the exam!”

“That sounds heartbreaking,” Gu Zhong said, holding onto the car door. The minimalist gate combined with the miserable crying created a strangely perfect sense of tragedy, and it made him feel unsettled. “Mom…”

“Then go back and retake it?” Mom said.

“Bye.” Gu Zhong shut the door, touched the fifty yuan in his pocket, and walked into the campus along with the girl’s crying.

At the moment the door closed, Dad’s disdainful voice squeezed through the crack.

“That’s as far as you’ll ever amount to.”

The school’s registration process was as simple as the gate. Gu Zhong felt like he hadn’t even properly experienced what college was like before he was already sitting in a classroom listening to the homeroom teacher.

Not that he had the mood to experience it anyway.

The homeroom teacher was a middle-aged woman who looked kind. Gu Zhong listened absentmindedly and realized that she also served as the counselor. He couldn’t help clicking his tongue. Simple.

“Alright, next everyone introduce yourselves so you can get to know each other,” she said. “Starting from my left.”

Everyone turned to look left.

Only when he realized all eyes were on him did Gu Zhong notice that he was sitting to the teacher’s left, and he was first.

“My name is Gu Zhong.” He gave a perfunctory introduction. The last time he introduced himself like this had probably been in his first year of middle school.

“Come up front and say it,” the teacher beckoned. “So everyone can see you clearly.”

Gu Zhong didn’t move.

“Feeling shy?” she smiled. “Then stand up and say it from your seat.”

“I already said it,” he replied, still not moving.

The teacher looked at him awkwardly.

Everyone was looking at him.

After a few seconds of deadlock, he had no choice but to stand up, suppressing his strong resistance to this elementary-school-style introduction.

“My name is Gu Zhong,” he repeated.

The teacher smiled at him. He looked back at her.

After nearly ten seconds of silence, she said, “That’s it?”

Gu Zhong glanced around. Everyone had the same question written on their faces.

“What else is there?” he asked, then added after thinking, “Male. Han ethnicity.”

The classroom burst into laughter.

The teacher checked her list. “Aren’t you supposed to be called Gu Zhongzhong?”

“Ah,” Gu Zhong looked at her, feeling like he’d just been shot in the chest. His already deflated mood dropped to the bottom. He said weakly, “Yes. Zhong as in Zhong-er.”

That’s right. Gu Zhongzhong was the name on his ID.

It was supposedly given by his grandfather. Gu Zhong had always felt that for an old man who was well-read and loved quoting classical lines, giving his grandson a name like that made it feel like his dad wasn’t actually his son.

He had fought for years to change his name, but never succeeded. His dad thought he was being ridiculous. It was just a name. What difference did it make?

“What’s wrong with Zhongzhong?” his dad would say. “It’s cute.”

But Gu Zhong didn’t dwell on the pain of having his name dragged out again for long. After the school’s minimalist military training ended, he decided to find a job.

Because compared to his name, having daily expenses that weren’t even enough for one cup of milk tea hurt more.

He wasn’t going to ask his family for money. Based on years of painful experience clashing with his dad, not only would he fail to get more, his dad might even cut his ten yuan a day in half.

He was going to get a job.

He was going to prove with facts that he was a capable person.

Aside from having terrible luck with school and ending up in this minimalist college, occasionally getting into small fights, and constantly arguing with his dad, he wasn’t useless.

He was someone who could endure hardship and support himself, no, at least cover his own pocket money.

Some classmates also worked. Night shifts at internet cafés where they could also surf the web, helping at late-night food stalls while eating skewers… Gu Zhong thought all of that lacked class. He had already ended up at a place like this. If he didn’t raise his standards for a job, that would be a real internal injury.

So after wandering around nearby for a few days, he walked into a café.

The café’s name was “Pao.”

It was small. You could see the whole place from the entrance, yet it somehow had three floors.

Gu Zhong felt it should be called “Paolou.”

From the outside it looked old, but inside it looked like renovations hadn’t been finished. Several windows were still empty.

He checked the recruitment notice at the door, then walked in.

Only after entering did he realize it didn’t look unfinished. It looked like the aftermath of a fight. A complete mess.

There was only one man inside. He had a cigarette in his mouth, standing with his back to the door, looking out through a broken window.

Hearing someone enter, he turned slightly, glanced at Gu Zhong, then turned back.

Gu Zhong stood at the entrance for a while. Seeing that the man had no intention of turning back again, he awkwardly spoke up, “Is the boss here?”

The man turned again, stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Here.”

“You’re the boss?” Gu Zhong looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone else. “Are you hiring staff?”

“Hm?” The man paused, looked at him again, then seemed to remember something. He walked to the door and tore down the recruitment notice. “Forgot to take it down.”

Gu Zhong opened his mouth but said nothing.

The man went back to the window with the torn paper, still smoking.

Gu Zhong stood there for a moment, then turned to leave.

As he stepped out, the man asked, “You here to apply?”

Even though the place already annoyed him, his standards for part-time jobs made him stop. “Yes.”

“Sit.” The man stubbed out his cigarette and hooked a chair off the floor with his foot, sitting at a table.

“Didn’t you say you forgot to take it down?” Gu Zhong picked a chair without shoe prints and sat across from him.

“Yeah. Already hired enough people,” the man glanced around. “They all got scared off… Name.”

“Scared off?”

Gu Zhong paused before realizing that was followed by a question. “Gu Zhong.”

“ID,” the man held out his hand. “You’re from that crappy school next door, right?”

ID. Crappy school.

Both hit at once. Gu Zhong could practically feel two holes blasted through his chest, with wind whistling through them.

He handed over his ID.

“Gu Zhong… Zhong,” the man said. “Cute name. I thought it was Zhong as in loyalty.”

“Zhong as in Zhong-er,” Gu Zhong said.

“Gu Zhongzhong,” the man returned the ID. “You…”

“Can you not call me that?” Gu Zhong looked at him.

They held eye contact for a moment. The man nodded. “Fine.”

“Thanks.”

“Zhong-er, huh,” the man said. “Surname Qi. Qi Yue. You know coffee?”

Gu Zhong stared at him. “What did you call me?”

“You said it yourself. Gu Zhong-er,” Qi Yue said. “Did I hear wrong?”

“My name is Gu Zhong,” he said firmly. “Gu Zhong.”

“Know coffee?” Qi Yue asked again.

“…I drink it a lot,” Gu Zhong said, not very confidently. “In cafés or at home.”

“Instant?”

“No.”

“I’m short on time. Start tomorrow. Come when you don’t have class.” Qi Yue stood up and tossed him a business card. “My number’s on it.”

Gu Zhong picked it up. Qi Yue was already heading upstairs.

“What about salary?” he quickly asked.

“Oh. Forgot.” Qi Yue turned back and sat down again.

When he came out of the café, Gu Zhong had no idea whether he should feel happy or worried.

Qi Yue’s absentminded manner made it very easy to suspect that he had beaten up the previous owner and seized the place for himself. The chaotic, post-battle state of the café practically confirmed that guess.

Still, he decided he would take the job. The pay was decent, much better than pulling overnight shifts at an internet café or tending the stove at a late-night street stall, especially when he got back to the dorm and saw that after buying one bottle of water today, he only had seven yuan fifty left in living expenses.

“Gu Zhong, wanna go watch the basketball game?” A few guys in the dorm were heading out and called over to him, where he was still sitting on the bed contemplating his bleak life.

“Basketball game?” Gu Zhong froze.

“Yeah,” someone replied. “The vocational division.”

“What?” He shot to his feet in shock. “Vocational division? What vocational division?”

“Our school’s vocational division. Didn’t you know? That building by the school gate belongs to them. They just come in through the side entrance.”

Only then did Gu Zhong realize what that building by the main gate, the one with its backside facing inward, was all about.

Vocational division?

No matter how unclear his own path into this school had been, it was still a junior college. And there were actually vocational-school kids taking classes on the same campus?

The school grounds were minimalist too. One soccer field and two basketball courts, that was it. The vocational division’s basketball game had taken over the newer court. When Gu Zhong got there and saw a sea of little brothers and sisters waving their arms and shouting, he turned around and walked away without hesitation.

“Where’re you going?” someone asked.

“Home,” Gu Zhong said.

What a minimalist yet not-so-simple school.

His ride home was a bicycle, a very flashy one. He had fought desperately with his mother for a whole week to get this instead of the electric scooter she wanted to give him.

Electric scooters were great, efficient and effortless, but they had no style. He would rather waste time and effort than give up riding a flashy bicycle.

As he stylishly rode his flashy bicycle past Paolou, he stopped.

It was a little early to go home. If he went back now, his dad might lump him in with the loafers. Especially after finding out the school also doubled as a vocational campus, his mood was not exactly peaceful, and he was prone to clashing with his dad.

He did not want to make his father unhappy right now. Ten yuan a day was still money.

When he walked into Paolou, he was suddenly startled. In at most an hour, the place that had been in total disarray before had already been cleaned up. A worker was even installing windows.

Qi Yue was standing by the bar with his arms crossed. When he saw Gu Zhong come in, he raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Er?”

“Wha…” Gu Zhong frowned, irritation immediately rising, especially when he noticed that besides the guy installing the glass, there was another person sitting at a table in the corner.

In front of all these people!

But before he could finish, Qi Yue flicked his eyes toward that person and said with contempt in his voice, “This is the guy you called over?”

Gu Zhong was baffled. The person at the table glared over impatiently and asked arrogantly, “Who the hell are you?”

The fuse on top of Gu Zhong’s head lit instantly. “Your dad.”

Qi Yue burst out laughing and moved behind the bar, bracing one arm on the counter.

The guy kicked the table over and stood up.

Nice. Gu Zhong glanced at the crooked table on the floor. He had always wanted to flip a table once, but never had the chance. His dad had done it twice, but the tables at home were too heavy to produce this kind of effect.

“You looking to die?” the guy walked up to Gu Zhong and said in a low, vicious voice.

“Yeah, I’m looking for you,” Gu Zhong nodded.

“Hey,” Qi Yue rapped his knuckles on the bar. “If you’re gonna fight, go outside.”

The guy whipped his head around and glared at Qi Yue.

“Can’t understand me?” Qi Yue took out a cigarette, lit it, and bit it between his lips, crushing the empty cigarette pack in one hand. “I’ll count to three. Get out.”

The guy did not move.

“One, two, three.” Qi Yue tossed the cigarette pack aside and came out from behind the bar.

“You, get your ass out here!” the guy jabbed a finger toward Gu Zhong’s face and strode out.

“Damn.” With his head full of burning, inexplicable anger, Gu Zhong followed him toward the door.

“What are you doing?” Qi Yue asked from behind him.

“What do you think?” Gu Zhong turned around, thoroughly annoyed.

“I tell you to go out and you go out?” Qi Yue clicked his tongue and righted the table. “Call you Er once and you really start acting like one.”

“Who are you calling Er?” The anger Gu Zhong had not gotten to vent yet nearly flared straight onto Qi Yue.

And honestly, that would have been fair. Wasn’t he only catching this stray bullet because of him?

“Why’d you come here?” Qi Yue asked. “Didn’t I say start tomorrow?”

“I…” Gu Zhong gritted his teeth. “I wanted to come get familiar with the place first.”

“Oh.” Qi Yue went over and dragged the rolling shutter down, then locked it. “Come on then. I’ll show you around.”

Gu Zhong paused. The guy outside waiting to fight him looked even more stunned than he was, standing there with his mouth half open, apparently at a complete loss.

“There are two more floors upstairs,” Qi Yue said, leading him upward. “Couples usually come up here. Convenient for holding hands or sneaking a kiss.”

“…Oh.” Gu Zhong followed behind him.

“There’s surveillance from the bar,” Qi Yue said. “If anyone gets too into it, take a glass of water up.”

“…Mm.” Gu Zhong looked around the second floor. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through several round windows, making the place feel warm and comfortable.

Qi Yue took him around the third floor too, then led him back downstairs. The guy who had been outside waiting for a one-on-one had already vanished.

“Oh, he ran,” Qi Yue said, going over to open the shutter again. “Er, you…”

“Can you change what you call me?” The temper Gu Zhong had only just managed to settle was being dragged right back up.

“Hungry? Want something? My treat.” Qi Yue sat down by a table.

“Eat shit,” Gu Zhong said crossly.

“Don’t have that right now,” Qi Yue said, pressing a hand to his lower stomach. Then after thinking, he added, “Skewers then? I’ll treat you to…”

“What did you call me?” Gu Zhong’s voice went off-key.

“You’re called Gu Zhongzhong, aren’t you?” Qi Yue said. “And you don’t want people calling you Zhongzhong…”

“So you just combined the two characters into a neat pair, is that it?” Gu Zhong was so angry he was about to run out of steam.

“Yeah.” Qi Yue nodded.

“Qi Laoban,” Gu Zhong said very sincerely, looking at him, “could you just call me Gu Zhong?”

Because there were still workers at the café, Qi Yue did not take him very far. They went to a nearby pastry shop and got some little snacks and two cups of milk tea.

“There was nothing to eat in the café today. I’m starving to death,” Qi Yue said, drinking milk tea while eating pastries.

“I really just came to get familiar with things,” Gu Zhong sighed. “I don’t need anything to eat.”

“It’s fine. I treat my employees to food a lot,” Qi Yue said. “Used to it.”

Gu Zhong was not really in the mood. He only drank two sips of milk tea, then stopped.

“That guy just now,” he asked, “what was his deal?”

“Local punk,” Qi Yue said while eating. “Came to stir up trouble.”

“Collecting protection money?” Gu Zhong’s eyebrows lifted.

“You sound excited.” Qi Yue swept him a glance. “What, is that kind of thing your dream?”

“…No.” Gu Zhong quickly lowered his brows again and flicked the side of his milk tea cup. “Was he the one who smashed up the shop?”

Qi Yue laughed. “If he had the guts to smash my shop, would he have obediently gone outside the moment I told him to?”

“True enough.” Gu Zhong nodded.

“Don’t be scared,” Qi Yue said. “The place got wrecked because people were fighting in here. They ran off after the fight, so I had to clean it up myself. This kind of thing doesn’t even happen once a year. Don’t be scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Gu Zhong sighed.

Qi Yue finished all the snacks and both cups of milk tea, including the one in front of Gu Zhong, then stood up. “You don’t like milk tea?”

“You didn’t exactly give me a chance to keep drinking it,” Gu Zhong said. “I just drink slowly.”

“What a huge misunderstanding.” Qi Yue patted him on the shoulder. “Come drink coffee at the shop tomorrow. Drink whatever you want.”

The next afternoon, when he did not have class, Gu Zhong grabbed a quick meal at the school cafeteria and went to Paolou.

There were two tables of customers in the shop. Qi Yue was not there. Behind the bar stood a young girl who looked like she was maybe in middle school, skillfully frothing milk.

“Hi,” Gu Zhong greeted her.

“You’re Gu Zhong, right?” she said, glancing at him. “I’m heading out later. Help me tidy the bar first.”

Qi Yue looked at most barely past thirty, and he already had a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old middle-school-aged goddaughter?

A gale swept through Gu Zhong’s mind.

What a hoodlum.

He picked up the rag the girl handed him and started wiping the water off the counter. The girl said, “Thanks, Chuan-ge.”

Chuan-ge?

Chuan-ge?

What kind of nonsense was that?

The gale inside Gu Zhong rose again.

“My name is Gu Zhong.” He stopped, braced both hands on the counter, and took two deep breaths. “Gu. Zhong.”

“Oh, I know,” the girl nodded. “Your nickname’s Chuan?”

“No.” He clenched his teeth. “And it’s not Er either.”

“Hm? Then I’ll call you Xiao Gu-gege,” the girl said. “My name’s Qi Maomao.”

“…Oh.” Gu Zhong looked at her.

There were not many customers at this hour. Once Qi Maomao had brought coffee and pastries to the two occupied tables, there was not much else to do, so she sat behind the bar playing on her phone.

For the moment, Gu Zhong could not find any work to do either, so he took a rag and wiped all the tables upstairs on the second and third floors.

He had not looked carefully yesterday. The place was actually quite thoughtful in a lot of details. The cute little decorations scattered everywhere and the tiny succulent pots on the tables were all pretty interesting.

They just did not match Qi Yue’s vibe at all.

When he came downstairs after wiping the tables, Qi Maomao had her schoolbag on her back and was about to leave. “Chuan… Xiao Gu-gege, I’m heading to school.”

“You’re leaving now?” Gu Zhong immediately started feeling uneasy. “Then I…”

“The price list is here.” Qi Maomao pulled open a drawer and pointed. “Just charge according to that. Whatever people order, you make. At this time it’s usually just coffee and drinks. Steak and pizza only get made at night.”

Gu Zhong no longer had the spare mental capacity to be shocked that a tiny little café like this sold steak and pizza, or that Qi Yue could apparently make steak and pizza. What worried him now was that everything behind the bar was a total mystery to him. He did not even know which machine did what.

But he did not dare say he could not do it.

All he could do was pray that the two tables already there would not order anything else.

An employee standing behind the bar, anxiously waiting for the boss to hurry up and show up, while praying customers would not come and that even if they did, they would not order anything, this was not exactly a promising setup.

But just like how his name was always brought up at the worst possible time, his prayer had no effect. A girl at the table by the window raised her hand. “Waiter.”

Gu Zhong steeled himself and walked over.

“One more cappuccino,” the girl said.

He did not know how to make it.

He only knew how to drink it.

A bit of despair rose in Gu Zhong. After hesitating, he glanced down at the table and pointed. “Isn’t there already one there?”

“Huh?” The girl blinked. “That one’s for my friend.”

Can’t the two of you drink the same one?

Are you even really best friends?

What happened to the spirit of sharing?

“How about a mocha instead?” Gu Zhong struggled to suggest. At least that would not require frothing milk.

“No.” The girl rested her chin on her hand and smiled at him. “I want a cappuccino.”

Then why didn’t you order it earlier?

Gu Zhong turned and went back behind the bar.

Should he just say they were out of milk? He took the freshly opened one-liter carton of milk sitting on the counter and shoved it into the cupboard underneath.

Just as the girl looked over for the third time and Gu Zhong pretended to be busy for the third time, the café door opened, and Qi Yue walked in with a cigarette in his mouth.

“Qi Laoban,” Gu Zhong said, nearly about to throw himself over and hug his leg, “you’re here.”

“Just call me ge,” Qi Yue said.

“Qi-ge,” Gu Zhong said in a low voice, “that table ordered a cappuccino.”

Qi Yue glanced at him without saying anything, took a cup, poured in the coffee, then reached for the milk and grabbed nothing. Gu Zhong immediately pulled the hidden milk back out of the cupboard and handed it over.

While Qi Yue frothed the milk, Gu Zhong stared at him the whole time. After watching for a while, though, his attention drifted to the cigarette in Qi Yue’s mouth. “Won’t ash fall into it?”

“No idea,” Qi Yue turned to look at him. “I’ve never had an employee before who couldn’t froth milk.”

“I…” Gu Zhong instantly felt awkward. “I just don’t know the ratios.”

“Oh, is that so.” Qi Yue smiled faintly and poured the milk foam into the cup.

Gu Zhong hurriedly put it on a tray and carried it over to the girl, who already looked like she was on the verge of losing interest in the cappuccino.

When he got back to the bar, Qi Yue tossed a small booklet in front of him. “The ratios are all in there. Read it when you go home.”

“Oh.” He picked up the booklet and flipped it open.

A gale began howling through his head again.

It was in English.

Completely in English, not a single Chinese character.

Trying way too hard.

He took the booklet home and studied it. Comparing it against the kinds of coffee available in the café, he found that once you ignored all the extra introduction material, the actual preparation methods were not all that hard to understand. The diagrams were enough to get the general idea.

Still, for an employee with absolutely no experience like him, Qi Yue was probably only keeping him around because he did not have time to hire anyone else right now. Maybe in a few days, once he found someone experienced, Gu Zhong would be gone.

With the gloomy mindset that he might get fired at any time for being useless, he went to the café the next day without even eating lunch.

At the very least, he could figure out how all those machines worked first.

Qi Maomao was not there today. Qi Yue was sprawled on the table by the window. It was hard to tell whether he was sleeping or just zoning out.

“Qi-ge, I…” Gu Zhong walked over and said quietly.

“Chuan’s here?” Qi Yue turned his head.

“Can we not make fun of employees?” Gu Zhong asked.

Qi Yue ignored that, raised his wrist, and checked the time. “You didn’t eat shit?”

“Wha… what?” Gu Zhong was stunned. He almost lost control of the urge to throw a punch.

Qi Yue leaned back in his chair and stretched lazily. “Yesterday, when I asked what you wanted to eat, didn’t you say you wanted…”

“I don’t want to eat it!” Gu Zhong barked in a low voice.

“Then what do you want to eat?” Qi Yue said, getting up and walking toward the kitchen. “Want steak? Business hasn’t been great these past two days. Probably won’t sell out, so the two of us might as well eat it.”

Gu Zhong said nothing. He stared at Qi Yue’s back. It was only when Qi Yue stood up that Gu Zhong realized he was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt today, and he had somehow not noticed until now.

That was a shock.

“You eating or not?” Qi Yue turned back and asked again.

“You’ve got a full tattoo sleeve?” Gu Zhong walked up beside him, staring at the large expanse of tattoos on his arm. “What is it?”

“Let’s do beef short ribs,” Qi Yue said, pulling a shirt on over the T-shirt behind the bar. “This thing and this neighborhood don’t even exist in the same economic dimension. It never sells. I’m always the one eating it.”

“…Then you could just not sell beef short ribs,” Gu Zhong said.

“But I like eating them,” Qi Yue said, glancing at him. “So are you eating or not? If not, go eat shit.”

“You’ve almost talked my appetite away,” Gu Zhong sighed. “Of course I’m eating. You’re making it?”

“Yeah.” Qi Yue went into the kitchen.

Gu Zhong followed, wanting to go in too, but got stopped.

“I can’t watch?” He was a little unwilling. A café owner with full-arm tattoos who could make beef short ribs, no matter how you looked at it, was interesting.

“You’re front-of-house, not the cook.” Qi Yue shut the kitchen door.

Gu Zhong could only go back to the bar and try peeking in through the small window between the bar and the kitchen. Unfortunately, the angle was wrong, and he could not see anything.

Just as he was craning his neck to look, Qi Yue’s face suddenly appeared in the window. “Chuan, if you’ve got free time, learn to froth milk.”

“…Got it.” Gu Zhong felt like he was just about out of strength to resist this new nickname.

Frothing milk was not actually that hard. The machine in the shop had a strong steam function, so he could more or less get foam out of it. It just was not fine enough.

After he tried twice, Qi Yue glanced over during a spare moment. “Anyone who didn’t know better would think you made that with laundry powder. Those bubbles are huge. Give me a basket and you can float up to the sky with it.”

“Qi-ge,” Gu Zhong sighed, “do you always talk like this?”

“Like what?” Qi Yue asked.

“Like this.” Gu Zhong looked at him.

“Yep.” Qi Yue nodded and walked back toward the kitchen. “If you don’t like it, suck it up.”

Qi Yue’s mouth was unbearable, but the beef short ribs he made were shockingly delicious.

His mom liked steak, so back before Gu Zhong and his dad had become full-time argument opponents, his dad used to take the whole family out to eat it together. Later, he only took Mom.

Gu Zhong had eaten plenty of good steaks. With Qi Yue’s level, there was no way he should be hiding out in a tiny Paolou café like this, selling food that never moved.

“Good,” Gu Zhong said, twisting the pepper mill and nodding. “I really couldn’t tell. Did you used to work in some five-star hotel or something?”

“No,” Qi Yue said simply, busy eating.

“Then you had to have trained professionally, right?” Gu Zhong grabbed the rock salt grinder and twisted that too.

“No.”

“Then where did you learn?” Gu Zhong pressed on.

“You talk too much.” Qi Yue cut off a piece of meat from Gu Zhong’s plate. “When you can froth milk until it’s smooth, I’ll tell you.”

There were no customers at lunch today, so after finishing the short ribs, Gu Zhong went back behind the bar to froth milk.

To be honest, it hurt a little to waste it, even if he only used a small amount each time.

By the time he had used up a whole carton of milk, he finally stopped. It still was not smooth, but at least it was not at the level where he could hang a basket under it and float into the sky.

“Close enough.” Qi Yue took a look, then poured the used milk into a big bottle. “Take it home and drink it.”

“Oh.” Gu Zhong nodded. He had the feeling that while studying was not his strong point, maybe he was not bad at other things. Maybe he did not need to worry too much about being fired in a couple of days.

That thought had barely surfaced for three minutes when the café door opened and a young man walked in.

“Excuse me, are you hiring?”

Gu Zhong quickly turned toward the door and was horrified to discover that the recruitment notice Qi Yue had torn down earlier was back up again. It was wrinkled, ripped, and he had not even bothered writing a new one.

“Come over and chat,” Qi Yue said, beckoning to him from the window table.

It’s over.

As Gu Zhong wiped cups and secretly listened to their conversation, that was the conclusion he came to after a few minutes.

It’s over. I’m getting fired.

The guy who had come in was experienced. He had worked at cafés before, answered every one of Qi Yue’s questions fluently, and sounded extremely professional.

Gu Zhong felt deflated.

Qi Yue had not asked him those questions on the day he came. If he had, Gu Zhong would not have been able to answer a single one.

After the young man left, Qi Yue came behind the bar and sat down. “He starts tomorrow.”

“Then am I leaving?” Gu Zhong asked.

“Leaving where?” Qi Yue looked at him.

“Nowhere. Aren’t you firing me?” Gu Zhong said.

“Did I say that?” Qi Yue looked taken aback.

“Isn’t he starting tomorrow?” Gu Zhong was taken aback too.

“Do you have a grudge against him?” Qi Yue popped a sugar cube into his mouth. “Only one of you can stay?”

“No…” Gu Zhong said.

“Or do you think this café only needs half an employee?” Qi Yue narrowed his eyes a little.

“Isn’t there still… Qi Maomao?” Gu Zhong said.

“She only comes by to hang out when she feels like it.” Qi Yue tipped his head back and yawned. “This place needs at least two people. That way I won’t have to keep coming over myself. But your work’s changing.”

“Changing to what?” Gu Zhong got a little tense.

“He handles the bar. You handle the rest.” Qi Yue stood up and patted him on the shoulder.

“The rest meaning what?” Gu Zhong pressed immediately.

“Sweeping, wiping tables, carrying plates. Everything except bar work is yours.” After saying that, Qi Yue headed upstairs.

Even though he did not know much, standing behind the bar had still felt pretty good. And now, in only a couple of days, he had abruptly been demoted into a miscellaneous errand boy. Gu Zhong found the gap hard to accept.

Just like he still could not accept the fact that every day he had to walk around the same campus as a bunch of vocational-school kids, and even when he played basketball, the other side might be from the vocational division, and sometimes they even beat his side.

The next day, he almost did not want to go at all. After afternoon class ended, he stayed in the classroom and did self-study like a model student.

“Gu Zhong, playing ball?” someone asked.

“No.” He lay face-down on the desk, messing with his phone.

When the fourth person asked him the same question, he packed up his stuff and left the classroom.

He did not want to play ball, and he did not want to go home, so the only option left was to ride his flashy bicycle to Paolou.

Across the street from the school gate was the market, and there were a lot of people around. But when he shot out through the gate, he did not slow down. Mostly because he wanted to show off how good his biking skills were.

But the moment he came out, before he had even turned into the bike lane, two people dashed right across in front of his front wheel, moving with astonishing speed, the kind of speed that clearly said they had emergency syrup in their veins.

Gu Zhong tapped the brakes and did not think much of it. But when he saw there were two more people behind them and tried to brake again, it was already too late. His front wheel tripped both of them cleanly to the ground in one perfect move.

“Sorry…” Gu Zhong said quickly. He was about to get off the bike, then stopped.

Both of them were holding sticks.

The two of them sprang back up almost at once, apparently unhurt. One of them swung his stick down onto the handlebar. “You blind, idiot?”

Gu Zhong had not managed to move his hand away in time. The stick scraped across it as it came down, and pain shot through it. Before he could get angry, the guy had already taken off running again.

The other one stared at Gu Zhong’s face for a while, then stared at the bicycle, then pointed his stick at Gu Zhong’s face. “Don’t let me catch you being with those guys.”

“The fuck?” Gu Zhong had the sudden urge to pry his mouth open and pour in a bottle of brain tonic syrup.

But that guy also took off running in no time, and all the inexplicable anger in Gu Zhong’s chest got forcibly stuffed back down.

What the hell had been going on these past few days?

Had he offended some random deity somewhere?

Should he go burn incense?

Forget it.

Incense cost money too.

“What happened to your hand?” Qi Yue asked from where he was curled up on a little chair behind the bar.

“No idea.” Gu Zhong had no clue how to describe an encounter this random. Frowning, he held his hand under the faucet. It was bright red all over, and blood was seeping out from the scraped skin.

“Get into a fight? Or get hit?” Qi Yue asked, pulling two bandages out of a drawer and handing them over.

“Got hit.” Gu Zhong took them, his voice muffled. “Totally out of nowhere, just as random as the day you got me shot for no reason.”

Qi Yue laughed. He looked downright pleased as he went upstairs.

Maybe the bicycle really was too flashy. Near the end of Gu Zhong’s shift that afternoon, he saw the two members of the wrestling duo hanging around his bike out front.

The duo quickly spotted Gu Zhong standing inside the glass door and pointed at him.

Gu Zhong looked at them expressionlessly, but inside, he suddenly felt a little nervous, mixed in with excitement.

The feeling he always got before a fight.

Nervous and excited. Excited and…

“Love rivals?” Qi Yue’s voice suddenly sounded right behind him while he was staring outside in complete concentration, scaring him so badly he nearly rushed right out the door.

“They waiting for you?” Qi Yue leaned against the doorway and looked outside at the two guys.

“Maybe,” Gu Zhong said. “Those are the two who smashed my hand today.”

“You going out to play with them?” Qi Yue turned away, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat down at the empty table nearby.

“They’ve already come all the way here to wait,” Gu Zhong said, glancing at them. “If I don’t play along, that’s disrespecting the effort they made.”

“Yeah, I really shouldn’t call you Chuan’er,” Qi Yue said after taking a sip of coffee. “I should still call you Er.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gu Zhong frowned.

“Come, sit. Perfect timing, your shift’s over.” Qi Yue crooked a finger at him. “Uncle’s gonna have a little chat with you about life.”