TA •Chapter 40

When he was standing there waiting for the elevator, Cheng Ke felt so cold he was stiff all over, his muscles tight and aching. There was only one elevator running tonight, and he didn’t know if someone was coming off night shift or if someone from upstairs was heading down. In just a few minutes, it had already reached the 10th floor, with no sign of stopping.

"Fuck." Cheng Ke hopped in place with his body all locked up, trying to move around and warm himself up a bit, but he only managed that one hop before he stopped, like a wooden post, unable to bounce at all. It felt more like he’d just gone up onto his toes.

Jiang Yuduo pulled down the zipper of his own jacket.

Cheng Ke glanced at him and immediately understood what he meant, so before he could take his jacket off, he hurriedly said, "No need!"

Jiang Yuduo hesitated for a moment, then zipped it back up.

The elevator stopped at the 15th floor, then started heading down.

Jiang Yuduo slipped his left hand into his pocket, moved closer to Cheng Ke, and used his elbow to nudge him over a little. "Stand to the side."

Cheng Ke was a little helpless. He moved two steps over and kept his eyes on Jiang Yuduo’s hand, just in case that habit of his, reaching for a knife at the slightest disagreement, kicked in again.

When the elevator doors opened, Cheng Ke saw Jiang Yuduo’s hand lift slightly.

A young girl walked out. Cheng Ke had seen her before. She lived on the 15th floor, and at this hour she was probably heading out for something. She came out while talking on the phone.

The moment she looked up and saw Jiang Yuduo, Cheng Ke could tell she jumped a little, her body leaning back.

Jiang Yuduo just looked like someone who wasn’t a nice person, and standing there at the elevator entrance with his brows knit together late at night, he was enough to scare anyone on sight.

If he really were some dangerous person, he would already have lost to Jiang Yuduo’s presence from the start.

The girl turned and saw Cheng Ke too, and only then did she relax. Cheng Ke smiled at her, and she looked at him in surprise. "Aren’t you cold?"

"Cold," Cheng Ke said, following Jiang Yuduo into the elevator. "Freezing."

"You have to dress like me to stay warm." The girl laughed as she ran out, looking very happy.

A car had stopped by the building entrance. A young guy jumped out, and the girl rushed into his arms. Then came a whole string of kisses. By the time the elevator doors closed, they still hadn’t finished kissing.

"No shame," Cheng Ke said with a smile, leaning against the car wall and looking at the floor numbers.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jiang Yuduo standing silently facing the doors.

For some reason, Cheng Ke felt annoyed too. When the elevator reached the floor and the doors opened, he shoved Jiang Yuduo, who had been trying to go out first, aside and rushed out himself. Then, as if showing off, he glanced at Jiang Yuduo, who was still standing inside the elevator.

Jiang Yuduo didn’t move. The doors started closing.

Fuck?

Cheng Ke froze for a second. Pretty stubborn, huh.

Just as he was about to curse, Jiang Yuduo reached a hand into the middle of the doors and came out.

Being outside and frozen the whole time had only made him feel cold, but once they got indoors and warmed up, Cheng Ke ran into the bathroom and sneezed a whole string, probably ten times in a row.

"Fuck," he said, washing his face. When he came out, even what he was looking at felt a little wobbly. "Those sneezes nearly made me hypoxic."

"Drink some of that ginger brown sugar water," Jiang Yuduo said, cradling the cat that had climbed up his leg. "I looked it up. It’s good to drink when you catch a cold, and it can help prevent it too."

"Do I even have ginger? No," Cheng Ke said, flopping down on the sofa. "Do I have brown sugar? No."

Jiang Yuduo hesitated, then took a bag out of his jacket pocket.

Cheng Ke looked at it. "What’s that?"

"Ginger and brown sugar," Jiang Yuduo said.

"Where’d you get them?" Cheng Ke was very surprised.

"This morning, when I went back to get the cat, I took them from the kitchen. I have them over there," Jiang Yuduo said.

Cheng Ke looked at him but said nothing.

He probably had been planning to bring these over and boil them here to drink, but as soon as he came in, he was kicked out, and that had gone on until now.

"I’ll make it," Cheng Ke said, standing up. Even though every time he saw Jiang Yuduo he still remembered that scene from before, the one that had left him embarrassed, furious, burning with shame, and made him want to beat up a couple who were too lovey-dovey for their own good, guilt was real too. "You should work up a sweat or something. You’ve been frozen all night… all day, right?"

"No. I’d been in the security room before that, listening to the guard tell me stories," Jiang Yuduo said as he took off his jacket.

Cheng Ke didn’t know what to say. He took the bag of sugar and ginger into the kitchen, then thought about it and came back out. "How many meals does the cat eat a day? I fed it three times today, just a small handful each time, and twice I gave it canned food."

"About that. I just feed it whenever. It’s rough around the edges, so it doesn’t really make much difference whether I give it more or less." Jiang Yuduo picked up the cat hanging off his pants and tossed it onto the sofa.

"You… should take your temperature again," Cheng Ke said. "I’ll boil the ginger brown sugar water first."

"Mm." Jiang Yuduo nodded.

Ginger brown sugar water.

As the name suggested, it was water boiled with ginger and sugar.

So it should be as he imagined: just put ginger and sugar into water and boil it. Anyway, with this kind of drink meant for preventing and treating illness, taste was not the main concern.

He looked into the bag. There were three pieces of raw ginger, and four strips of a reddish-brown substance. Those should be the brown sugar.

This seemed to be the first time he had ever seen brown sugar.

He hesitated for a moment, then pinched off a tiny crumb from the bag and put it in his mouth.

Oh!

It was delicious!

A sweet taste, very fragrant.

There weren’t any crumbs left in the bag, so he picked up a whole chunk, wanting to break off a little more to eat. After trying to snap it twice, he found the sugar was pretty hard. He rubbed up a hand full of powder and still couldn’t break any off.

He held the piece of sugar, a little hesitant.

But he was a bit hungry at the moment. After all, he had not eaten dinner in a fit of anger earlier, and now that one bite of brown sugar had revived even the little greedy worms that had already starved into tiny souls in his stomach.

So after hesitating for two seconds, he simply bit into the sugar.

Wow, delicious.

Satisfied, he bit down again with a crisp crack. Fine, he’d only eaten half of it, so it probably wouldn’t affect the sweetness of the ginger brown sugar water later…

He turned around and reached toward the rack behind him to get a pot so he could boil the water.

He stopped halfway through the motion.

Jiang Yuduo was standing at the kitchen door, watching him.

"Fuck, why didn’t you make a sound?" Cheng Ke’s mouth still had a lump of brown sugar in it that he hadn’t swallowed yet, so his words came out a little muffled.

"…You ate that piece already, didn’t you? This sugar is pretty sweet. You don’t need all four pieces." Jiang Yuduo said.

"No," Cheng Ke said, a little embarrassed. He hurriedly swallowed the sugar in his mouth and took the pot to get water. "I was just tasting it… I was a little hungry."

"Why didn’t you eat the takeout you ordered?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

"It wasn’t good," Cheng Ke said.

"You didn’t even eat it? The chopsticks are still clean," Jiang Yuduo said. "How did you know it wasn’t good?"

"Just looking at the dish and seeing there wasn’t any sauce at all killed my appetite," Cheng Ke said as he filled the pot with water, took the ginger out of the bag and washed it, then threw it in the pot together with a few chunks of brown sugar. "I like it when there’s a little sauce to mix with the rice…"

"You’re just going to boil it like that?" Jiang Yuduo interrupted in shock.

"What’s wrong?" Cheng Ke quickly lifted the pot back up after placing it on the stove. "Isn’t it ginger brown sugar water?"

"I’ll do it," Jiang Yuduo said, walking into the kitchen. He washed his hands, took the ginger out of the pot, and said, "This has to be chopped up."

"Why?" Cheng Ke asked.

"If you don’t cut it open, the flavor won’t come out," Jiang Yuduo said. "If you drink it like that, wouldn’t it be useless?"

"But if you chop it up, won’t I end up with a mouthful of ginger bits? I’m not drinking that," Cheng Ke said.

Jiang Yuduo glanced at him, put the ginger on the cutting board, picked up a knife, and before Cheng Ke could react, he brought it down hard with a thud on the ginger.

Cheng Ke was so startled by the sound that he almost threw the pot he was holding: "What are you doing!"

"If you don’t want it chopped, just smash it once. That way you won’t get a mouthful of ginger bits." Jiang Yuduo put the flattened lump of ginger into the pot.

"Oh," Cheng Ke said, putting the pot back on the stove. "Just one piece?"

"If you put in all of it, the taste gets too strong. I can’t take that," Jiang Yuduo said.

"Then why did you bring three pieces?" Cheng Ke lit the gas stove.

"I figured more would be better, so I just took three pieces…" Jiang Yuduo was still talking when his phone rang in his pocket. "Just boil it. I’ll take the call… It’s from Xu Ding?"

"Answer it," Cheng Ke said.

Jiang Yuduo picked up the call. "Hello?"

Cheng Ke looked at the two ginger pieces left. To be honest, Jiang Yuduo’s face did not look very good right now. At first he had thought it was because of the cold, but even after being indoors this long, his complexion still looked a little dark. He probably still hadn’t broken the fever.

He picked up the knife, put the two pieces of ginger on the cutting board, and copied Jiang Yuduo, smashing down on them with two loud thuds. Jiang Yuduo suddenly turned around and glared at him. He ignored it, tossed the ginger into the pot, and said, "Who could drink this?"

"You, the one with a fever," Jiang Yuduo said after finishing the call, pointing at the pot with a pained expression. "What did Xu Ding want?"

"He wanted me to go watch your sand painting video tomorrow. Said it looked pretty fun," Jiang Yuduo said.

"Oh, then go," Cheng Ke nodded. "It is pretty fun."

"Is it okay for me to go?" Jiang Yuduo asked. "It’s different from performing, right? Would I cause trouble?"

Cheng Ke leaned against the wall and looked at him. "If it wasn’t okay, would you not go? Weren’t you the one who said wherever I went, you’d go too?"

Jiang Yuduo didn’t say anything.

"If you don’t want to go, then don’t go," Cheng Ke said. "Xu Ding is just asking. Tell him you’re not going."

"I’m going," Jiang Yuduo said.

Cheng Ke sighed. It took him a long time to organize his words before he spoke again. "Jiang Yuduo."

"Yeah." Jiang Yuduo answered.

"I don’t know why you’re like this," Cheng Ke said. "Do you treat every friend this attentively, or just give people the feeling that you do…"

Jiang Yuduo looked at him, seeming not to understand.

"I don’t have any ordinary friends who would do this for me, and I wouldn’t do this to a regular friend either," Cheng Ke said, looking back at him. "I definitely can’t say I don’t have any thoughts about you, after all…"

He looked Jiang Yuduo up and down a few times. "Someone like you… is very attractive to me."

Jiang Yuduo opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something.

"Fuck your beautiful little cutie, say that one more time and you’re drinking this ginger brown sugar water through your face." Cheng Ke said.

"That’s not what I was going to say," Jiang Yuduo said.

"Then I’ll finish first, and you can speak after." Cheng Ke said.

"Mm." Jiang Yuduo nodded.

"To me, your 24-hour-guard-duty routine is not something a normal friend would do," Cheng Ke said. He didn’t plan on making it too complicated. "If you want me to keep it in and not let you notice, then don’t give me a chance to not be able to hold it in."

"…Huh?" Jiang Yuduo looked at him in confusion.

"Other than the normal give-and-take between ordinary friends," Cheng Ke said, "if you’re not planning to tell me why, then stay away from me."

"I just…" Jiang Yuduo frowned.

"I know, you’re afraid I’ll be in danger," Cheng Ke said. "But whether I’m in danger or not has nothing to do with you. You don’t need to protect me to this extent. What you’re doing has gone beyond what I’d call friendship, understand?"

Jiang Yuduo looked at him, and his expression returned to blank confusion.

"If you keep doing this, I’ll just assume you have feelings for me." Cheng Ke said.

"What?" Jiang Yuduo was shocked.

"All right, I’m done," Cheng Ke said, glancing at the sugar water that had started bubbling. The strong smell of ginger was already rising. "Go rest for a bit. Did you finish taking your temperature?"

Jiang Yuduo looked down at himself, then patted his body. The thermometer fell out from the hem of his clothes.

But before it could hit the floor, Jiang Yuduo had already bent down and caught it.

"Great reflexes," Cheng Ke said.

"38… 37 now," Jiang Yuduo said, looking at the thermometer.

"38 and 37 make no difference," Cheng Ke said. "Your fever hasn’t gone down at all."

Jiang Yuduo shook the thermometer and tucked it back in place.

"What were you just about to say?" Cheng Ke asked.

Jiang Yuduo thought for a long time. "…I forgot."

Cheng Ke turned around and looked at the sugar water in the pot. "Once this boils, it can be drunk, right?"

"Mm." Jiang Yuduo answered.

"Go rest outside." Cheng Ke said.

After he heard Jiang Yuduo turn and leave the kitchen, he braced himself against the counter and let out a long breath.

Once the sugar water had boiled, he poured it into two bowls and carried them into the living room.

Jiang Yuduo was sitting on the sofa, head tilted back, and had already fallen asleep.

But the moment he gently set the bowl on the table, that little sound made Jiang Yuduo suddenly open his eyes.

"It’s ready," Cheng Ke said. "One bowl each."

Jiang Yuduo stood up and sat down by the table, and then the two of them stared together at the bowl of ginger-heavy brown sugar water in front of them.

"I’ve never drunk brown sugar water this dark before," Jiang Yuduo said.

"As long as it makes you sweat, that’s enough," Cheng Ke said. "Are you still worried about getting fat?"

"In that case, I should’ve just asked for a fresh ginger milk curd instead." Jiang Yuduo said.

"Just drink it already!" Cheng Ke said. "I’m exhausted and I want to sleep."

"How am I supposed to hurry this up?" Jiang Yuduo sighed, lifting the bowl and blowing on it hard.

Cheng Ke blew on his with him for about two minutes before carefully taking a sip along the rim of the bowl, then setting it down. "I’m not drinking it. I don’t have a fever. I’ll leave it for you."

Jiang Yuduo glanced at him. "Did you wreck it with three pieces of ginger?"

Cheng Ke didn’t answer. He just glared at him.

Jiang Yuduo lowered his head and slowly took a couple of sips, his brow knitting.

"Keep going," Cheng Ke said.

Jiang Yuduo looked pained as he drank, but he never stopped. Before long, he finished the bowl of ginger brown sugar water, and Cheng Ke could see a thin layer of sweat on his forehead and the tip of his nose.

"It worked. You’re sweating," Cheng Ke said, pushing his own bowl over. "Drink this one too."

Jiang Yuduo picked up the bowl with great reluctance, closed his eyes, and with his brows still furrowed, forced down the whole thing.

After finishing the ginger brown sugar water, Cheng Ke checked the time and went into the bathroom to wash up.

It was pretty late. He still had to shoot the video tomorrow. Although by Xu Ding’s usual style, Cheng Ke’s face was rarely fully captured in his videos, with the focus mostly on his hands, there would still occasionally be a bit of his face in frame. He didn’t want to sleep too late and end up in poor condition, since this was work.

When he came out, Jiang Yuduo had once again fallen asleep on the sofa.

He sighed, went into the room to get bedding, arranged the pillow, and then wrapped the quilt around Jiang Yuduo.

"Mm?" Jiang Yuduo woke up dazedly.

"Sleep," Cheng Ke said, pressing his shoulders and forcing him down onto the pillow, then grabbing the cat and stuffing it beside his face. "Don’t get up at night. If you dare get up, I’ll dare strip you."

"Impossible," Jiang Yuduo said. "You can’t beat me."

"Shut up and go to sleep!" Cheng Ke shouted.

Jiang Yuduo closed his eyes, rolled over, and buried his face in the cat’s belly.

Cheng Ke went into the room and closed the bedroom door behind him.

After lying down on the bed, he let out another long breath.

He had made things very clear to Jiang Yuduo. No matter whether Jiang Yuduo understood or when he understood, he felt much more relaxed.

But he still couldn’t help going over everything he had said again and again, afraid that one sentence had come out wrong and landed him in an embarrassing situation.

And then, carried along by inertia, he kept talking in his dreams all night.

It was like he was giving a fucking speech. He woke himself up several times from all that muttering.

When he got up in the morning and walked into the living room, the first thing Jiang Yuduo said when he saw him was, "You talked in your sleep last night."

"What did I say?" Cheng Ke asked, absolutely horrified.

"Couldn’t hear it clearly through the door, just mumbling," Jiang Yuduo said. "You talk in your sleep too?"

If it could be heard through the door, then Cheng Ke felt he really might have given a speech.

"No idea, maybe it was the first time." Cheng Ke went into the bathroom.

Jiang Yuduo picked up his phone and checked. Breakfast would probably arrive in about twenty minutes.

"I ordered breakfast. It’ll be here soon," he said toward the bathroom. "Youtiao and soy milk, okay?"

"You already bought it, so why the hell are you asking?" Cheng Ke said from inside.

Jiang Yuduo put down his phone and walked to the window to look downstairs.

Cheng Ke’s sleep-talking last night had been pretty loud. He hadn’t heard it all clearly, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t heard anything.

"A lot of things aren’t something you can just do however you want!"

"I just want to know! Why do cats shed fur!"

"How much is one serving supposed to be! What’s twice-cooked pork!"

He probably also recited some poetry, something about qi ming, something about sound but maybe also life or friendship…

Jiang Yuduo thought about it and almost laughed. He didn’t tell Cheng Ke. Cheng Ke cared about his pride, and if he knew he had said so much in his sleep, he would definitely get angry.

But when Cheng Ke recited poetry, his tone sounded nicer than when he was asking why cats shed fur.

He glanced at the cat. By rights, it shouldn’t be shedding now. The cat was still growing fur, and was already becoming almost a ball…

After breakfast, Cheng Ke called Xu Ding and asked what time they needed to arrive.

"Pack up and head out in twenty minutes," he said after hanging up, then looked at Jiang Yuduo. "Still running a fever?"

"No. I was sweating all night, and I just got up and took a shower," Jiang Yuduo said a little worriedly, glancing at the quilt on the sofa. "The bedding needs to be washed."

"Mm, wash it when we get back today," Cheng Ke said. "Change it out. Since you’re here, you can help put the duvet cover on."

"Didn’t you learn how to do it?" Jiang Yuduo was stunned.

"You want me to put on a duvet cover you dirtied?" Cheng Ke clicked his tongue.

"Oh." Jiang Yuduo nodded. "Is Xu Ding driving over later?"

"Yeah. He already picked up the model." Cheng Ke said.

"Model?" Jiang Yuduo was stunned. "Does sand painting need a model too? You draw on the model’s body?"

"…What are you thinking?" Cheng Ke laughed.

"What do they need a model for?" Jiang Yuduo still didn’t really understand. He only thought it sounded pretty high-level.

"Hey," Cheng Ke looked at him, "that idea is actually not bad. It’s just probably not easy to pull off…"

Jiang Yuduo waited for Cheng Ke to keep going, but Cheng Ke’s gaze had already drifted away, as if he were thinking.

When Xu Ding’s car arrived downstairs, Jiang Yuduo and Cheng Ke had just come out of the elevator.

"Did you eat breakfast?" Xu Ding was in the driver’s seat and rolled down the window to greet them.

"Yeah." Cheng Ke opened the car door.

"Brother Cheng." The person in the passenger seat turned back.

"This is Lin Xu, today’s model," Xu Ding introduced him. "Cheng Ke, you definitely know him already. This is his friend, Jiang Yuduo. Call him Third Brother."

"Third Brother." Lin Xu smiled at Jiang Yuduo too.

"Ah." Jiang Yuduo answered.

When he saw Lin Xu’s face clearly, he was a little surprised. This was probably the most handsome person he had ever seen in real life. Sure enough, models really did look different from ordinary people.

After they were all seated in the car, Xu Ding handed a few pages of paper to Cheng Ke. "Go over the details we didn’t settle that day. Mainly the parts where you and Lin Xu interact."

"Mm." Cheng Ke took them.

"Brother Cheng, please take care of me. I’ve never shot this kind of thing before," Lin Xu said. "I mostly do stills."

"It’s fine. I haven’t shot it either," Cheng Ke said, glancing at him. "Have I seen your photos at Xu Ding’s place? You look familiar."

"Maybe," Xu Ding said with a smile. "I have plenty of model photos there."

"I usually remember the good-looking ones." Cheng Ke lowered his head and started reading the page.

Jiang Yuduo turned and looked at Cheng Ke.

He wasn’t sure whether this Lin Xu counted as one of those… but he really was handsome, and Cheng Ke had clearly looked at him several times.

To be honest, though, Jiang Yuduo admired Cheng Ke a little. Being able to say something as overused as "You look familiar," something basically the same as "Have we met somewhere before?" and make it sound not even slightly annoying, even someone like him who had never chased after a girl knew that line.

Maybe it was because Cheng Ke hadn’t smiled once the whole time. When he said those words, Jiang Yuduo somehow felt a kind of pressure, and suddenly couldn’t connect him to the person who had talked in his sleep all night and couldn’t even make a decent bowl of ginger brown sugar water.