TA • Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Jiang Yuduo stared blankly for a long while after Cheng Ke roared at him, then finally came to his senses. “Fuck.”

Cheng Ke ignored him and kept looking at his phone.

“From now on, watch your tone when you talk to me,” Jiang Yuduo said. “Nobody in this area has ever dared to talk to me like that.”

“I’m not from your area,” Cheng Ke said irritably.

Jiang Yuduo frowned. For a moment, he couldn’t think of anything to argue back with, so he just tilted his head and watched Cheng Ke play on his phone.

Cheng Ke’s phone was extremely boring. Jiang Yuduo watched him flip back and forth through pages, tap into one thing and back out, tap into another and back out again.

No games, no fun apps. Cheng Ke even tapped into a ride-hailing app and the navigation system to take a look.

It was the most boring phone Jiang Yuduo had ever seen. It felt like the thing was basically only good for making calls and receiving messages, with no other use at all.

“Do you know it’s really rude to stare at someone else’s phone like that?” Cheng Ke glanced over at him.

“Does your phone even need to be afraid of people looking at it?” Jiang Yuduo said. “There’s nothing on it. If you let me look, I’d be too lazy to scroll through it.”

“Is that what I was talking about?” Cheng Ke turned his head. “Can you not go off topic?”

“You might as well use an old man’s phone,” Jiang Yuduo said. “Using a phone that costs several thousand yuan is such a waste. This thing would cry itself to death in your hands.”

“I told you not to look at my phone!” Cheng Ke glared at him. “Did you understand that?”

“Got it!” Jiang Yuduo felt a little embarrassed and shouted back, “You were definitely kicked out because you talked too much!”

After shouting, he still felt annoyed, so he flung his own phone onto Cheng Ke’s chest. “Come on, look back at mine. Hurry up, look at whatever you want!”

Cheng Ke clicked his tongue, picked up the phone, and glanced at the lit screen. “Her snow-white thighs…”

“Hey, fuck?” Jiang Yuduo reached out to grab the phone back. “What the hell? Let me see!”

Cheng Ke blocked his hand and turned sideways, continuing to read from the phone. “The wind lifted her hair, revealing her snow-white neck and…”

“Ah!” Jiang Yuduo shouted. “You fucking did that on purpose, didn’t you!”

“You insisted I look,” Cheng Ke said, handing the phone back. “How are you even shameless enough to hand your phone to someone else when you’re looking at this kind of stuff?”

“What kind of stuff am I looking at?” Jiang Yuduo was speechless. He jabbed at the screen a few times. “She raised her sword and pointed at that man, saying, today, only one of us can leave here… Why don’t you read this line? This is a fucking fight, and you’re only picking the bits about snow-white this and snow-white that, what the fuck.”

“Isn’t everything snow-white just the kind of thing you’re looking at?” Cheng Ke said.

“Can you have a little awareness of being under someone else’s roof?” Jiang Yuduo asked.

“Good night.” Cheng Ke smiled, pulled the pillow down, and lay back.

Jiang Yuduo was frustrated enough to burst. It had been a perfectly normal story, and Cheng Ke had forcibly turned it into some trashy smut. Frowning, he kept reading slowly.

The next chapter started fighting right away. There wasn’t a single word about snow-white, nor a single leg or neck in the whole thing. He glanced at Cheng Ke.

Cheng Ke was lying on his side facing the wall and hadn’t moved at all.

“Hey, are you asleep?” Jiang Yuduo asked.

Cheng Ke didn’t move or make a sound.

Jiang Yuduo hesitated, then leaned over, held the phone up in front of Cheng Ke’s face, and gave him a shove. “Read this for me!”

Cheng Ke still didn’t move or say anything.

“Pretending to sleep, are you?” Jiang Yuduo asked.

Cheng Ke laughed, and without meaning to, let the sound slip out.

“You saw that? You fucking laugh one more time and I’ll throw you out, believe it or not?” Jiang Yuduo said. “Read it!”

“Sigh,” Cheng Ke said, looking at the phone. “Her soft waist gently twisted…”

“Get lost!” Jiang Yuduo snatched the phone back and looked. Cheng Ke really hadn’t made it up.

If you’re writing a fight, then write a fight! Does this author have some kind of problem? Who the fuck wants to look at whether your waist is soft during a fight?

“I’m not reading anymore,” Jiang Yuduo said, yanked a pillow over, and tossed it toward Cheng Ke’s side of the wall. “I’m going to sleep!”

The switch on the wall clicked. The lights in the room went out.

Cheng Ke was startled by his wildly casual way of turning off the lights. “Wouldn’t it have been fine if you just let me do it?”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Jiang Yuduo said, putting his pillow back and lying down. “Son.”

“What?” Cheng Ke froze.

“You said it yourself, one more word to me and I’d be your son,” Jiang Yuduo said. “I’ve been giving you face and not acknowledging the family reunion, but now I’ve decided to accept it.”

Only then did Cheng Ke remember what he’d said when he stormed out and slammed the door earlier. “Childish.”

“You’re the most mature one,” Jiang Yuduo said. “Why didn’t you just throw away all your torn clothes today? Going home shirtless would have been great.”

“Shut up already.” Cheng Ke sighed, then thought of something and added, “Can that key still be gotten back? That cat-head keychain is still on it.”

“Mm,” Jiang Yuduo said. “I’ll go ask for it tomorrow when we get up.”

“Maybe I should… still file a report,” Cheng Ke said. “Get a fingerprint lock installed.”

“Fine, but let’s make this clear first, my fingerprint has to be registered too,” Jiang Yuduo said.

“…Why?” Cheng Ke turned his head.

“Because I could get in with the key before, but now I can’t,” Jiang Yuduo said. “And we said from the start, no changing the lock.”

Cheng Ke hesitated. He really wasn’t sure whether Jiang Yuduo would still come into his apartment. Strictly speaking, Jiang Yuduo wasn’t bad, not like the thugs he’d imagined him to be. Sometimes he even made Cheng Ke feel like this boss was downright childish, but he really couldn’t tell what Jiang Yuduo would do when he went off the rails.

In the end, though, he still nodded. “Okay.”

“I won’t go in,” Jiang Yuduo said. “I still keep my word.”

“Mm.” Cheng Ke answered.

Jiang Yuduo didn’t say anything else. The bedroom was quiet in a way that felt awkward again. Cheng Ke closed his eyes and kept ordering himself to fall asleep. Once he was asleep, it wouldn’t be awkward anymore.

But half his body had gone numb, and he still couldn’t sleep.

The back of his head was injured, so he couldn’t lie flat. If he wanted to change position, he could only turn to the left. But when he was trying to sleep, there was still another person lying in front of him, which was even more awkward than half his body going numb.

He held out for a while longer, but eventually he really couldn’t take it anymore. His right arm had gone numb too, and the key point was that there was an injury on that arm as well.

Clenching his teeth, Cheng Ke rolled over onto his left side. He glanced at Jiang Yuduo again. That man was sleeping on his back, motionless. Cheng Ke very much wanted to push him so he’d turn over and face away from him.

Just as he was thinking about it, in the moonlight, he saw Jiang Yuduo’s eyes blink twice.

“You have insomnia too?” Jiang Yuduo suddenly turned his head.

“…No,” Cheng Ke said, scooting back a little. “I just don’t fall asleep easily in a different place.”

“Oh.” Jiang Yuduo turned back to face the ceiling.

“Do you always have insomnia?” Cheng Ke asked.

“Not always,” Jiang Yuduo said. “Only about ten or eight days out of a month.”

“Then you should go see a doct…” Cheng Ke got halfway through before remembering Jiang Yuduo probably didn’t want to go to the hospital, so he stopped.

After a silence, Jiang Yuduo turned back to look at him. “Hey, why do you have such a name? I always wanted to ask.”

“What’s the why?” Cheng Ke said. “My dad gave it to me. ‘Ke’ as in to abide by, to keep to, something like that. The meaning’s about the same, I guess, but the expectations were too high, so the disappointment was a bit violent.”

Jiang Yuduo smiled. “What about your younger brother? What’s his name?”

“Cheng Yi,” Cheng Ke said. “The yi in translation, but with the heart radical.”

Jiang Yuduo didn’t say anything. Cheng Ke didn’t know if he was thinking or just hadn’t understood.

After a while, he grabbed his phone and tapped at it a few times. “There really is a character like that, yi, it means happy.”

“Mm.” Cheng Ke answered.

Jiang Yuduo tossed the phone onto the bedside table and thought about it. “Your dad hadn’t been disappointed yet when your brother was born.”

“What?” Cheng Ke asked.

“See, your name is really strict,” Jiang Yuduo said. “Then your brother just has to be happy, no other demands. So back then, he probably hadn’t turned into a waste yet, right?”

Cheng Ke looked at him. Sometimes Jiang Yuduo really could think things through.

“Yeah,” Cheng Ke said with a smile. “My brother is two years younger than me. When I was two, it wasn’t obvious that I was trash yet.”

“But not as impressive as that three-and-a-half-year-old kid next door.” Jiang Yuduo said.

“Tomorrow, we absolutely have to go next door and see what kind of kid it is you keep talking about every time,” Cheng Ke sighed.

“He’s pretty cute, really smart,” Jiang Yuduo said. “It’s just his grandma talks too much shit. She said he could speak when he was three months old. I asked her whether he was saying ah-ah-yi-yi or oh-oh, and then she stopped talking to me.”

Cheng Ke laughed. “You’re really asking for it.”

“About the same as you, I guess.” Jiang Yuduo said. “Honestly, at first I really didn’t think you were that kind of person.”

“Mm,” Cheng Ke said. “I also didn’t think you were the same as Chen Qing at first.”

“Get lost. Chen Qing is just an idiot.” Jiang Yuduo clicked his tongue.

“Your name, I actually wanted to ask about that too,” Cheng Ke said.

Jiang Yuduo was silent for a while before asking, “How so?”

“It’s just… kind of strange,” Cheng Ke said. “Why give someone a name like that? ‘Grant and take,’ ‘life and death are in one’s hands’… It all sounds a bit…”

“I don’t know,” Jiang Yuduo said, his voice turning a little heavy. “I can’t remember what they looked like anymore.”

Cheng Ke froze. He couldn’t see Jiang Yuduo’s expression, but from his voice, he seemed to have suddenly grown low.

“Sorry.” Cheng Ke said.

“Sorry for what?” Jiang Yuduo asked.

“It’s just… sorry.” Cheng Ke had to explain again. “I didn’t know about it, and then I brought it up.”

“Sigh,” Jiang Yuduo said. “Can’t you be a little thicker-skinned? You’re always saying sorry. Can sorry even cover that kind of thing?”

“Fine.” Cheng Ke smiled.

Jiang Yuduo didn’t have parents. Cheng Ke hadn’t expected that. He had always imagined that someone like Jiang Yuduo, a boss who spent all day collecting rent, fighting, and taking in little brothers, ought to have parents with a pretty similar style.

“Then you…” Cheng Ke didn’t really want to keep asking, but he was curious. After all, someone like Jiang Yuduo, living that kind of life, felt too far away from him. “How did you grow up?”

“Eat, drink, sleep,” Jiang Yuduo said. “Then I grew up.”

“Fuck.” Cheng Ke laughed.

Jiang Yuduo laughed with him, then after a while said, “A lot of things I can’t remember anymore.”

“Oh.” Cheng Ke looked at him.

“Not very good.” Jiang Yuduo said.

Cheng Ke suddenly remembered the injuries on his body, and instantly felt a wave of regret. How could he be so thoughtless right now, asking such a question? It really wasn’t appropriate.

The words sorry almost came out again, but he forcefully bit them back.

For Jiang Yuduo’s experiences, saying sorry might be far too flimsy.

“Sleep,” Cheng Ke said, closing his eyes. “Good night.”

Jiang Yuduo didn’t speak.

Cheng Ke felt that the alcohol he’d drunk today must have some strange formula in it. He couldn’t sleep now, and he wasn’t even sleepy, lying there with his eyes closed while feeling oddly alert.

It was really painful.

But what gave him a little comfort was that Jiang Yuduo seemed to have fallen asleep.

Probably about an hour after he said good night, anyway, by the time the left side of Cheng Ke’s body had started going numb again, Jiang Yuduo’s breathing had slowed.

Cheng Ke let out a breath.

After waiting a bit longer, he slowly turned over and lay on his right side again.

He hadn’t really experienced the misery of being unable to sleep at night before. His sleep quality had always been pretty good. Even during those days when Cheng Yi had inexplicably pinned something on him and his dad had pointed at his nose every day and called him trash, he hadn’t lost much sleep. After leaving home, he also hadn’t experienced many sleepless nights.

Now, at Jiang Yuduo’s place, he got a taste of it every time. He didn’t know if it was because Jiang Yuduo was always having insomnia, and the atmosphere in this room had been affected…

Then would this room also pass Jiang Yuduo’s weirdness on to him?

Cheng Ke thought of Jiang Yuduo at the sink today, arms outstretched as he rinsed them with water.

And his eyes.

Maybe Jiang Yuduo’s recovery ability was just too strong. Only now, in the dead of night when people were asleep and his mind was wandering, did Cheng Ke think of all that again.

I don’t dare move.

They saw you.

Earlier, Cheng Ke hadn’t paid much attention to those two sentences. Compared with them, Jiang Yuduo’s entire state of being wrong had drawn all of his attention.

Now that he remembered them, a shiver suddenly ran down his back.

He couldn’t help moving back a little, forcing the blanket between them tighter against his spine before stopping. Then he couldn’t help propping himself up and looking back.

Jiang Yuduo was still sleeping on his back, unchanged the whole time.

Only his brow was furrowed.

Cheng Ke lay back down on the pillow and let out a soft sigh.

He had really never thought that after leaving home, he would end up with this kind of new life.

He had always felt it would just be a matter of changing places, changing environments, and continuing the kind of aimless life he lived before, doing whatever he wanted.

But these two months… really were something.

If you wrote down all 27 years of his wasted life and added them together, it probably still wouldn’t have as many words as these two months.

But he definitely wouldn’t write it. He didn’t even read novels…

Snow-white thighs.

Cheng Ke smiled with his eyes closed.

A rooster crowed outside the window.

Cheng Ke was a little surprised as he reached for his phone. He’d been running around in his head in every direction possible, and the rooster had actually crowed?

The time on the phone showed 3:11 a.m.

Cheng Ke froze, then stuffed the phone back under the pillow.

What kind of lousy rooster was that?

Wasn’t crowing at three a little too unprofessional?

…What time were roosters supposed to crow?

Four? Five?

Jiang Yuduo’s breathing, which had been steady all along, suddenly began to quicken slowly.

Had the rooster woken him up?

Cheng Ke hurriedly lay down properly and closed his eyes. If Jiang Yuduo woke up at this time, he really couldn’t think of anything to talk about.

Jiang Yuduo’s breathing became faster and faster, growing rough, sounding like he was gasping hard.

Cheng Ke opened his eyes.

What was that sound?

He didn’t dare turn around to look, because the noise sounded a lot like someone was in the middle of doing something unspeakable.

In the middle of the night, suddenly full of lust? And with an outsider sleeping right next to him.

That didn’t seem likely, did it?

Cheng Ke noticed the mattress wasn’t trembling either. Jiang Yuduo was lying there without moving.

Was he having a relapse?

Cheng Ke immediately grew tense and rolled over, staring at Jiang Yuduo’s face in the moonlight from beyond the curtains.

Jiang Yuduo’s brow was tightly furrowed, his breathing extremely fast.

Cheng Ke realized that this breathing was different from the kind you made while doing something. Jiang Yuduo seemed like… he couldn’t get enough air.

“Hey,” Cheng Ke hurriedly pushed him. “Jiang Yuduo?”

Jiang Yuduo’s body swayed with the push, but he still didn’t wake up. He was still struggling to breathe.

“Jiang Yuduo!” Cheng Ke sat up, grabbed his shoulder and shook him harder, raising his voice. “What’s wrong with you?”

Jiang Yuduo said something very softly. Because he was still gasping, the words were muffled and sounded like sleep-talking. Cheng Ke couldn’t make it out.

“What did you say?” Cheng Ke patted his face. “Wake up.”

Jiang Yuduo turned his head a little. Cheng Ke could clearly see the scar on his face. For some reason, in this state, the scar suddenly made him feel afraid.

“It’s not… real.” Jiang Yuduo said again.

This time Cheng Ke heard it clearly.

“What’s not real?” He froze, then suddenly realized, had he been having a nightmare?

“Not real.” Jiang Yuduo said, still breathing with great difficulty.

“Right, not real.” Cheng Ke had the sense that he was about to suffocate. In his panic, he directly grabbed Jiang Yuduo’s shoulder and pulled him up. Jiang Yuduo leaned forward onto his shoulder.

“Not real, not real.” Cheng Ke patted his back. After two pats, he couldn’t help but slap his back once too. “You fucking wake up already!”

Jiang Yuduo’s breathing stopped for a beat, then he sucked in a sharp breath, and after that let out a long exhale.

“Awake?” Cheng Ke patted him twice more and tilted his head to look, but Jiang Yuduo was still pressed against his shoulder, so he couldn’t see his face.

“Mm.” Jiang Yuduo responded with a heavy nasal sound, full of drowsiness.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Cheng Ke asked.

“Mm,” Jiang Yuduo answered again. After a while he gave another hum. “Mm?”

“Mm your ass,” Cheng Ke said, frowning. “Are you awake or not?”

Jiang Yuduo went quiet. Two seconds later, he suddenly sat upright and shoved him away.

“Fuck,” Cheng Ke had no support behind him, and that push sent him straight back onto the bed. Luckily, when his head hit down, there was a blanket underneath. If he’d struck the bedframe, he’d be able to jump up right now and slam that cat-head ashtray into Jiang Yuduo’s face. “I really should’ve slapped you awake with a few more hits just now.”

Jiang Yuduo glared at him for a while, then reached out and pulled him up.

“I had a nightmare.” Jiang Yuduo rubbed his face.

“Could tell,” Cheng Ke said. “You were really into it too. Couldn’t wake you up no matter how much I called.”

“Very… scary,” Jiang Yuduo said, lowering his head. His arms were braced on his knees, his hands over his head, and he ran them roughly through his hair a few times. “Fuck.”

“What did you dream about?” Cheng Ke asked. “You were gasping for air.”

Jiang Yuduo didn’t answer.

“Have some water and go back to sleep.” Cheng Ke said.

Jiang Yuduo stayed silent with his head in his hands for a while, then suddenly looked up at him. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Wh…” Cheng Ke froze. “Afraid of what?”

“I’ve got you.” Jiang Yuduo hugged his head again.

The way he said it made Cheng Ke feel both baffled and a little scared. “What are you talking about?”

“They saw you,” Jiang Yuduo said. “I’m a little worried. Don’t go out these next few days. I’ll send you back tomorrow.”

“Who saw me?” Cheng Ke asked.

“…I can’t explain it to you right now,” Jiang Yuduo said, raising his head. “My head’s a mess right now.”

“Fine,” Cheng Ke said, seeing that his expression really was somewhat dazed. “Then we’ll talk about it when you’re… awake.”

Jiang Yuduo looked at him, leaned back against the bedhead, lit a cigarette, and bit it between his lips. “Go to sleep. I can’t sleep now.”

“Mm.” Cheng Ke pulled over the blanket and lay back down on the pillow.

Maybe because he had been startled, once Jiang Yuduo said he couldn’t sleep, Cheng Ke actually closed his eyes and fell asleep in just a few minutes.

But he didn’t sleep for long. It was about the same time as usual when he got up for the day, and when he woke up, the phone showed 8:10 in the morning.

Cheng Ke turned his head to look over at Jiang Yuduo. He wasn’t there. The blanket was thrown down in a messy heap.

He got out of bed, put on his clothes, and went to wash up. He found that Jiang Yuduo wasn’t in the room either.

After washing up, Cheng Ke picked up his phone and, while scrolling through his contacts, walked over to the window and looked outside.

At a glance, he saw Jiang Yuduo crouching by the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, a cigarette pinched between his fingers.

Cheng Ke set the phone aside and watched him.

Not long after, a thin middle-aged man ran over and handed something to Jiang Yuduo.

Jiang Yuduo took it, stood up, looked both ways, and crossed the street.

“You’re up?” Jiang Yuduo froze when he saw him as he came in. “I thought you’d sleep until the afternoon.”

“Just got up.” Cheng Ke said.

“Here.” Jiang Yuduo tossed over the thing in his hand.

Cheng Ke caught it and looked. It was the key, and the cat-head was still on it.

“Chen Qing bought breakfast and will be here in a minute,” Jiang Yuduo said. “After we eat, I’ll send you back.”

“…Okay.” Cheng Ke nodded.

“You’re not going out today, right?” Jiang Yuduo asked.

“Shouldn’t…” Cheng Ke thought about it. “I won’t, I guess.”

“Okay.” Jiang Yuduo said.

“What is it?” Cheng Ke asked. “Last night you said…”

“For this period of time, I’ll stay with you,” Jiang Yuduo said, looking at him. “Wherever you are, I’ll be there.”

“What?” Cheng Ke thought he hadn’t heard clearly.

“Wherever you are, I’ll be there,” Jiang Yuduo said. “You’ve been half asleep all night and you’re already hard of hearing.”

“Why!” Cheng Ke felt like every inch of him was written full of confusion.

“No reason,” Jiang Yuduo said. “My turf, I do whatever I want.”