TA •Chapter 30

Honestly, seeing Chen Qing slam down his chopsticks and spring to his feet in genuine anger, Cheng Ke was deeply moved.

Jiang Yuduo had said that a friend was something weighty.

Chen Qing was his friend, and he really lived up to that "weight."

Cheng Ke had never experienced that kind of burden. He did not have friends like that. At his most difficult time, not a single one of his so-called friends had stood on his side. Instead, they had all, in perfect unison, become Cheng Yi's friends. The only one who had maintained the same relationship with him as before, unchanged, was Xu Ding, who strictly speaking did not even count as a friend.

So even now that Jiang Yuduo had accepted him as a friend, when faced with the same situation as Chen Qing, Cheng Ke did not even know whether he could do what Chen Qing had done and leap to Jiang Yuduo's defense in a fit of outrage.

"I’ve found that people like you are kind of hilarious," Chen Qing said, pointing at him. "You really don’t want anything good for people, huh? How long have you known him? And how many years have I known him? And you, you just open your mouth and call him a lunatic that easily? Who the hell are you calling a lunatic!"

"I didn’t say he was a lunatic," Cheng Ke corrected him. "I said…"

"I don’t care whether he’s a lunatic or not," Chen Qing cut him off. "I think you look exactly like one!"

"Sorry." Cheng Ke could only apologize. With Chen Qing this worked-up, he probably would not hear any explanation anyway.

"Third Brother treats you like a friend," Chen Qing kept pointing at him. For someone like Chen Qing, those three words, sorry, probably did not even weigh more than a cough to get attention. "He was worried something might happen to you, even specially had Dabin and the others follow you around. And this is how you talk about him behind his back?"

"That’s not what I meant," Cheng Ke sighed. "I just wanted to figure out what happened, after all, he nearly beat me to death today."

"And did he actually beat you to death?" Chen Qing said.

"What if he hadn’t stopped?" Cheng Ke slapped his chopsticks down on the table too. "You’ve been beaten by him, you know how hard he hits! I only asked because I was treating him like a friend! If it were someone else, I’d just call the police and be done with it! I wouldn’t give a damn about all this!"

Chen Qing frowned and stared at him for a while longer. His tone had lost some of its earlier fire, but he still sounded far from pleased. "I’ve noticed that you rich people, when you’re full and have nothing to do, do you just sit around thinking all day? It’s one simple thing, and you can still manage to come up with a whole Ten Thousand Whys out of it."

Cheng Ke poured Chen Qing some wine. "Let’s just say we have different ways of caring about a friend."

"I’ll warn you," Chen Qing said, "don’t go caring about him like that in front of Third Brother. The way you care is the kind that gets you slapped."

"Mm." Cheng Ke nodded. "How old were you when you met him?"

"He was ten, or maybe eleven," Chen Qing said, taking a sip of wine. "I was two years older than him, though back then I still wasn’t as tall as him."

"…You’re still not as tall as him now," Cheng Ke said.

"Do you even know how to talk to people?" Chen Qing clicked his tongue. "Are you taller than him?"

"About the same, I’m not shorter than him anyway." Cheng Ke smiled.

"Like that’s something to brag about," Chen Qing said. "If you’re so capable, go compare yourself to Bapin. He’s over one ninety. What the hell are your one-eighty-something centimeters worth?"

"Mm, fair enough." To stop Chen Qing from wandering further off-topic, Cheng Ke nodded and pulled the conversation back. "You said he was an orphan?"

"That’s right. He came alone, without even any luggage," Chen Qing said. "But he had money, maybe two or three hundred yuan. That was a huge sum back then, stronger than you. These days and you’re still emptying trash cans for a hundred yuan."

Fuck off!

"Ah." Cheng Ke lifted his glass and took a sip. "Then he really was rich."

"You know why I’ve stayed so loyal to him?" Chen Qing said.

"Why?" Cheng Ke asked.

"He saved my life," Chen Qing said. "The first time we met was when he pulled me out of a river."

"I see…" Cheng Ke blinked.

"Let me tell you, when I was little I was pretty useless… of course, I’m not much better now," Chen Qing said, gnawing on a bone. "When I was a kid, I got bullied all the time. Those little punks who were a bit older than me, I couldn’t beat them, and my mouth was always too damn sharp, so I just kept getting beaten up."

"Why couldn’t you just shut up and behave?" Cheng Ke said.

"Nope, I’ve got blood in me too!" Chen Qing snapped the bone clean in his teeth. "That day, they went too far. They tied a stone to me and threw me into the river."

"What the hell?" Cheng Ke found it hard to believe. "Weren’t they afraid of killing someone?"

"Afraid of shit," Chen Qing said. "You’re local, right? Don’t you know this area only developed in the last seven or eight years? Back then there was nothing here. I heard the old dock area was a graveyard before."

"That was decades ago," Cheng Ke said.

"Anyway, even if I really died, no one would’ve known. It was late at night," Chen Qing said. "There were no cameras then. Back then, if someone was beaten to death on the street, it was just like that. There are still several murder cases with deaths that haven’t been solved."

Cheng Ke did know about that, and one of them had even been a family extermination case. His mother invoked Buddha every time she mentioned it.

"So it was Jiang Yuduo who pulled you up?" Cheng Ke asked.

"Yeah," Chen Qing nodded. "It was just after the start of autumn, not especially cold yet. He was sleeping by the bridge and saw it."

Cheng Ke did not say anything. A night right after the start of autumn, not especially cold, but still cold enough. A ten-year-old kid sleeping by a bridge.

"Back then, there were two things about him that I especially admired," Chen Qing said, holding up two fingers. "First, he was calm. Those bastards had already shoved me under the water, and they were still standing by the bank watching me bubble up. Anyone else would’ve been yelling and screaming, or else would’ve run. He quietly went into the water from the bank and swam over, and he didn’t let a single one of them notice."

Cheng Ke looked at him and nodded.

"Second," Chen Qing said, shaking the two fingers, then picking up a piece of rib and putting it in his mouth, "that motherfucker could really hold his breath! Holy shit, he’s the most insane at holding his breath person I’ve ever seen in my life."

"Aren’t you pretty good at holding your breath too?" Cheng Ke said.

"No. He untied the stone underwater, then pushed me up to the surface," Chen Qing said. "I could breathe, I could splash around on the surface. He stayed underneath, and with me dragging on him like a fucking kite, he hauled me downstream for several hundred meters before coming ashore."

"People who are drowning tend to grab wildly. That way he’d be safer too," Cheng Ke said. Just thinking that Jiang Yuduo had been only ten years old then made it feel unbelievable. "And that way the people on shore wouldn’t spot him, right?"

"You got it," Chen Qing said, pointing at him. "Smart. No wonder Third Brother likes you. He was already being especially careful then, afraid someone would discover him."

Cheng Ke let out a soft sigh.

"Ever since then, I recognized him as my boss," Chen Qing said. "Third Brother is the most badass boss I’ve ever seen."

"Why do you call him Third Brother?" Cheng Ke asked.

"Because his surname is Jiang, right? San Gong Jiang, get it? Same as Er Ma Feng," Chen Qing said. "So I started calling him Third Brother. If you’re mixing it up on the street, you’ve got to have a title."

Cheng Ke smiled.

Chen Qing’s alcohol tolerance was average. A little red wine was enough to make him excited, and he told Cheng Ke a lot about Jiang Yuduo as a child, how he fought people, how he went to work for Lu Xi, how he helped one little brother after another.

But to be fair, Chen Qing was not completely stupid. His mouth was tight. Even in such an excited state, he still did not say a single word about those things that had happened before Jiang Yuduo met him.

"Back then this area was pretty chaotic, fights everywhere, protection rackets," Chen Qing tsked. "A mess of demons dancing around, a hundred schools of thought contending… Third Brother never said he was the boss, but nobody dared mess with him. In a one-on-one fight, nobody could beat him."

"Mm." Cheng Ke nodded. He could hear how completely Chen Qing worshipped Jiang Yuduo.

"There was also this saying back then, and it spread pretty wildly," Chen Qing said with a cackling laugh. "They said Old Three had no pain nerves, that he wasn’t afraid of pain."

"Really?" Cheng Ke asked.

"Bullshit. But it’s true that he could really take pain, he could take it extremely well," Chen Qing said.

Maybe it was not just enduring it. Sometimes pain could be ignored.

Most of the dishes had basically been finished by Chen Qing. Cheng Ke watched him drink the last drop of broth from the bowl and could not figure out how he managed to keep such a wood-splitting build.

"Alright, I’ve said plenty today too," Chen Qing said, wiping his mouth. "Third Brother said if you have anything going on during this period, come find me. He probably feels awkward seeing you, since he hurt you."

"It’s fine," Cheng Ke said.

"I’m leaving," Chen Qing took out his phone. "Add me, I’ll send you the address. Bring the car over for me tomorrow, before nine o’clock. If you’re late, my shift leader will curse me into dust."

"Mm." Cheng Ke picked up his phone and added Chen Qing as a friend. He looked at the address Chen Qing had sent. "An auto detailing shop? No wonder you’re always driving different cars."

Chen Qing laughed. "If you want to drive some car for fun, just tell me. I know all the clients. Borrowing one for a day or two is no problem."

"I’m not that into driving." Cheng Ke smiled.

"I’m leaving," Chen Qing stood up, put on his coat, and headed for the door. "There’s one thing I still have to say."

"Mm." Cheng Ke responded.

"Third Brother isn’t a lunatic," Chen Qing said. "If he really were a lunatic, would people in this area still be this afraid of him?"

"Mm." Cheng Ke nodded.

"Rest well," Chen Qing said, opening the door and pointing at the corner of Cheng Ke’s eye. "Keep an eye on that injury. If anything seems off, tell me. My mom knows people at the hospital, I can take you there to get it checked."

"Okay." Cheng Ke said.

When Chen Qing left, he still yanked the door shut with a slam, shaking the windows along with it.

Cheng Ke sighed. Standing by the table, he froze for a moment, then grabbed the biggest trash bag he could find and swept all the takeout containers and the rest into it. Then he somewhat regretted it. If he had not used plates to dish the food out again, he would already have been done cleaning up by now.

Why bother with such fuss? Now he still had to wash dishes.

He slowly carried the plates into the kitchen sink. It looked like he should buy a dishwasher.

But even if he bought a dishwasher, it still would not solve the plates in front of him right now.

Since morning, Cheng Ke had not had much energy. After listening to Chen Qing talk all night about Jiang Yuduo without much of a point, he only felt even more tangled, even more clueless, even less motivated.

He looked for a while, then tossed the plates into the trash bag.

Fine. Cleaned up.

Anyway, there were extra plates, and normally he only ate instant noodles. He did not need them at all.

Cheng Ke took a shower. The wound on his shoulder, already scabbed over, stung again when water hit it. He casually sprayed some alcohol on it, then returned to the living room and sat on the sofa.

A long night ahead, how was he supposed to get through it?

He picked up the projector remote and wanted to watch a movie, but the instant he was about to press it, he set the remote back down. He remembered last night’s The Heirloom and felt a chill creep down his back.

The place was not that big, but once he thought of the blue-clad female ghost, being alone in the room made it feel strangely vast. And with the injury on his shoulder, if he linked that to the scene of someone supporting a shoulder…

"Fuck." Cheng Ke flopped onto the sofa and pulled over the blanket he had not yet put away, wrapping himself up tight.

Actually, what frightened him was not only Chu Renmei.

After the atmosphere, made lively by Chen Qing’s presence, disappeared, he slowly remembered again, out of the chaos, the fist Jiang Yuduo had swung hard at him that morning.

He had some lingering fear.

Chen Qing insisted that Jiang Yuduo had no mental problems. Cheng Ke could tell he truly believed that, and was not just protecting Third Brother’s image.

Cheng Ke was wavering. Some of Chen Qing’s words made sense. If Jiang Yuduo really had a mental problem, then how had he been able, over so many years, to make every hoodlum in this area fear him by three parts?

Hoodlums were hoodlums, but hoodlums were not idiots. They would fear a boss who was strong in a fight and could command people’s respect, but they would not fear a boss who was strong in a fight and could command people’s respect and… a mentally ill person.

Maybe it was not as serious as he had thought. Jiang Yuduo’s childhood had been full of hardship, so perhaps he was overly cautious, and because of his nerves, he sometimes hurt people by mistake.

Cheng Ke frowned.

That was the problem.

That kind of state, in itself, was not normal.

And it still did not explain why Chen Qing, who was close enough with him to come and go from his place at will, had never once seen those "they," and had never once seen those "they" hurting Jiang Yuduo in person.

Cheng Ke lit a cigarette and held it in his mouth, staring blankly at the television that was not turned on.

After finishing the cigarette, he went into the bedroom.

Sleep.

Stop thinking about it.

He had not even thought through why and how Cheng Yi had squeezed him out of the family home this carefully, so why was he being so invested in a street thug he had only known for such a short time?

Anyway, what happened in the morning had not brought him any serious consequences, and Jiang Yuduo would not appear again.

…Would not appear again?

Fuck.

Chen Qing’s car had to be returned before nine in the morning. Based on the estimated time the navigation gave him, Cheng Ke got up a little after seven, ate a cup of instant noodles, and left.

Normally at this hour he would still be groggy and sleeping in, but today he could get up, because he had not slept soundly all night.

Apart from the uncontrollable urge to keep thinking about whether Jiang Yuduo really had a mental problem, there was also that beating.

He did not want to think too much about Jiang Yuduo beating him, and he would not blame Jiang Yuduo either, after all, he had also dislocated Jiang Yuduo’s wrist.

It was just that although he had fought with people since childhood, and fighting with Cheng Yi had almost become a weekly occurrence of varying scale, never had any fight ended up like this.

He had to admit that, as a pampered young master since childhood, he had been frightened.

He picked the shortest route from the navigation.

Halfway there, he realized this road would pass the little street by Jiang Yuduo’s home.

The feeling was very strange. Cheng Ke had often come to this area before, to eat, go to bars, all sorts of things, but he had never taken this little street. Yet after moving here and getting to know Jiang Yuduo, he found that whenever he headed in that direction, this street became unavoidable, as if it were a transportation hub.

He wanted to turn onto the main road and loop back after passing this street.

But all the way until he saw the window at Jiang Yuduo’s place, he still had not turned off.

Even when passing the window, he glanced inside.

The curtains were still drawn.

He could not help but imagine whether, at this very moment, Jiang Yuduo might be standing there by the window, peeking out through a gap in the curtain.

"Third Brother, it’s not that I’m not paying," said one girl in 702, her makeup still on from the whole night, leaning by the door and looking at him. "You should’ve told me in advance. I could’ve prepared the money. You come so early in the morning, where am I supposed to get rent from?"

"Where’s your phone?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

"Why? My phone’s worth more than the rent!" The girl glared.

"Let me see it," Jiang Yuduo said.

The girl hesitated for a moment, then handed over her phone.

"Unlock it." Jiang Yuduo did not take it.

"What for!" The girl was very reluctant.

"If I tell you to unlock it, then unlock it!" Dabin said impatiently from behind. "If you don’t want to unlock it, then pay your rent! We’re not here to rob you. Why are you acting like paying rent is the same as going to the execution ground?"

The girl clicked her tongue and unlocked the phone.

Jiang Yuduo took it, opened the texts, scrolled down, found the rent notice he had sent a few days ago, then turned the screen around to face her. "I’m not here to make trouble. I’m just here to collect rent. If you want to make trouble for me, I don’t look at faces or chests."

"Ugh!" The girl snatched the phone back, turned around and went into the room, casually slamming the door shut behind her. "So annoying, wait here!"

Jiang Yuduo stuck out a foot to block it, so the door did not close. She looked back again.

"Hurry up," Jiang Yuduo said, looking at her.

A few minutes later, the girl finally dragged things out and paid the rent.

Jiang Yuduo put the money away, then kicked at the next door over.

The cheaper the rent was, the harder it was to collect.

For many people who could only choose this price range of rent, even taking out a single cent was hard to do cleanly and decisively. If they could delay even one day, even ten minutes, they would feel it was worth it.

Jiang Yuduo had never experienced what it felt like to drag out rent payments.

When he had no money, he slept wherever he could. Once he had a little money in hand, when Lu Xi asked him for the rent, he paid without even a second’s hesitation.

He was afraid of being pressured like that.

Among the rentals in Building 3, the one who paid rent the most readily was this household, a thin middle-aged man living next to the girl.

Having lived here for a few months, every time rent was collected it was the same. The door opened, the money was handed over, the receipt was taken away, all in one smooth motion, without even needing extra words.

But today, the thin man still had not opened the door. Jiang Yuduo waited outside for several minutes, and there was still no movement inside.

"Doesn’t this guy never go out?" Dabin was also somewhat puzzled. He stepped forward, knocked a few more times, and shouted, "Open up! Rent collection!"

The door next to it opened, and the girl poked her head out. "I haven’t heard him come out to throw out trash for two days."

Jiang Yuduo looked at her.

"Maybe he’s dead in there?" she said. "He already seemed like he was sick."

Jiang Yuduo frowned and turned to glance at Dabin.

Dabin took out a key, went over and opened the door. As he pushed it open, he shouted inside again, "Where is everybody!"

The room’s window was open a crack. Once the door opened, air currents flowed through, and a stale, decayed smell rolled out.

Because rent collection had usually been quick, this was Jiang Yuduo’s first time smelling the odor in his room. He really could not figure out how the thin middle-aged man had managed to live in a room that had been cleaned so neatly into smelling like this.

But this smell, he was very familiar with.

No light, no ventilation, no tidying, no cleaning, and no human presence.

For many years, he had lived in just such an atmosphere.

This was the smell of seeing no hope at all.

"Fuck!" Dabin had barely entered the room for two seconds before backing out, his face full of panic.

Jiang Yuduo understood at a glance what had happened inside. He did not go in again, and after shutting the door, he had Dabin call the police.

The police came very quickly. The tenants who usually hid their rent dodging so thoroughly they seemed to have vanished from the world all came out now, crowding this floor to watch the excitement.

Jiang Yuduo felt a little short of breath.

Someone had died.

No one knew his name.

Lu Xi had records, but it was only a matter of recording it. Once the page in the register was turned, even after the next person’s information was written down, no one would remember who this person had been, what his name was, where he had come from, or what he was here to do.

Now this person was dead.

He had vanished from the side of many people.

Yet no one had seen it.

Jiang Yuduo had never seen anyone die.

But he had imagined it countless times.

Silent existence.

Silent disappearance.

After leaving Building 3, Jiang Yuduo did not go home. Instead, he went to the mall.

There were many people in the mall, and many sounds. If there was danger, it would not be easy to notice.

But the mall was bright, colorful, and every glance there could lift his stuffy mood just a little.

He sat on a rest bench by the mall stairs, quietly watching the crowd in front of him.

When Cheng Ke came in through the main entrance, the cotton curtain slapped him in the face, making him look a bit unhappy.

Jiang Yuduo pulled the brim of his cap lower, covering his face, but his gaze still could not help following Cheng Ke.

After coming in, Cheng Ke stood in front of the mall map for quite a while, probably not knowing which floor the thing he wanted to buy was on.

Cheng Ke stood in front of the map for almost a full minute without moving. Jiang Yuduo sighed. The pickpocket behind him was already practically pressed against him. If he breathed any heavier, the air could have blown onto Jiang Yuduo’s neck, and yet Jiang Yuduo really did not notice a thing.

As expected, a rich person. Unafraid of pickpockets.

When the pickpocket reached for his outer pocket, Cheng Ke finally finished looking at the map and turned toward the escalator. The pickpocket withdrew his hand, but did not withdraw his desire to steal. Probably not many such easy targets came along every day. When Cheng Ke got on the escalator, the pickpocket followed too.

Jiang Yuduo stood up and quickly got on the escalator as well.