WC ⋆ Chapter 34

Nobody knew what had gotten into Jiang Yishen tonight, but he was being incredibly demanding, as if he were certain Qi Lin wouldn’t refuse.

In the middle of all the chaos, Qi Lin kept feeling like Jiang Yishen had become a different person lately. Ever since he came back from that bizarre time reversal, he’d been acting spoiled and unruly every single day.

Qi Lin only figured it out in the last second before falling asleep: except for the first ten or so minutes, Jiang Yishen had apparently stopped being angry, and on the contrary, he was in a pretty good mood.

Maybe honesty signals that a relationship is heading somewhere good. Not only was Jiang Yishen full of energy, but after Qi Lin fell asleep he kept grabbing him and kissing him over and over, waking Qi Lin up once in the middle of it all, and even in that half-asleep daze Qi Lin still had to remind him not to kiss on the mouth.

After a whole night of fooling around, somehow neither of them overslept the next morning. The moment the alarm went off, both of them shot up like they’d had their tails stepped on.

Before falling asleep, Qi Lin had mustered the energy to arrange a time with Mom. Mom had originally planned to head home today, but she’d deliberately stayed an extra day for him.

This time Qi Lin took the initiative and suggested meeting at home, so they could have lunch together while they were at it. But as the time drew near, Jiang Yishen absolutely refused to leave, insisting no matter what that he would face it together with Qi Lin.

Qi Lin was so anxious he was fuming: “This place is tiny. If you hide here you’ll be found easily!”

“No I won’t! I won’t say a single word!” Jiang Yishen was busy rummaging through the wardrobe for something decent to wear. “I don’t want you to be alone. Last time you came out I wasn’t there, so this time I can’t leave you by yourself.”

Qi Lin could have ground his teeth to dust: “I don’t care about that. Don’t go all melodramatic on me! Look at what you bit me!”

He twisted in front of the mirror to examine the marks on his neck, trying every trick he could think of to cover them. Catching sight of Jiang Yishen changing clothes in the mirror’s reflection, his anger surged all over again: “You’re already getting ready to meet her?”

“Better safe than sorry! What does Auntie do for a living? I need to know what will impress her.”

“Middle school homeroom teacher.” Qi Lin said flatly.

Jiang Yishen finished buttoning up, didn’t pause for even a second, closed the wardrobe door with practiced ease, and headed straight for the exit, head down: “I think Auntie and I still need a more formal introduction. Let’s skip the whole caught-in-the-act scenario. I’ll head out first.”

He hadn’t even made it to the door when a knock rang out, startlingly loud, and he stumbled backward into the bedroom in fright.

Qi Lin was startled too. He sped up his tidying, remembering this was Xing Yun’s habit: always early, never late. In the middle of his rush he glanced at the clock and saw she was a full half hour ahead of the agreed time.

He shoved Jiang Yishen into the bedroom and shut the door: “Not a sound!”

Xing Yun’s way of knocking was very polite. She’d knock three times and then stop, waiting a while before knocking again. Qi Lin opened the door, saw who was standing there, and called out: “Mom.”

Xing Yun had been looking down at the garbage bag Qi Lin had hastily left by the door. When the door opened she stepped inside, changing into slippers just as she had the day before.

Before closing the door, Qi Lin glanced down at the garbage bag, his heart hammering with nerves. But that bag was practically the most textbook garbage bag in the world, looking exactly like an emoji icon on a phone screen. He had no idea whether it gave anything away.

There was no time to think about it. He closed the door, walked over to the coffee table, and poured Xing Yun a cup of tea.

“You have tea here?”

“Ah, yes.” Qi Lin’s mind was a little sluggish. The tea had come in the woven bag Jiang Yishen had lugged back, a southern specialty Xu Huaying had brought for the two of them.

Xing Yun picked up the cup and skimmed off the foam: “Not brewed very well.”

Qi Lin rubbed his nose. The tea had also been brewed by Jiang Yishen. Neither of them normally drank tea, so they’d just poured boiling water straight in. Even the step of awakening the tea leaves had only been looked up on the spot.

“What I said to you yesterday, have you thought it over?” Xing Yun said, then couldn’t help herself: “Doesn’t that collar cut into you? Why is it buttoned so tight?”

“It doesn’t.” Qi Lin took a deep breath. “Mom, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Xing Yun raised the corners of her eyes slightly, blowing at the steam: “Why so serious?”

Now that the moment to speak had actually arrived, it turned out to be not nearly as difficult as he’d imagined. Qi Lin made a conscious effort not to look toward the bedroom and said: “Mom, I… I’m in a relationship.”

The moment he said it he felt it wasn’t quite right. Would “I have a boyfriend” be more precise? That seemed a bit too blunt. But “I’m in a relationship” wasn’t exactly subtle either.

While his thoughts were spinning, Xing Yun showed no sign of surprise at all. She simply set down her teacup, her tone mild: “Is it the boy you mentioned yesterday?”

“…Yes.” Qi Lin’s ears practically perked up, straining to catch every sound from every corner of the apartment. He hadn’t told Jiang Yishen that Yu Jiaming had mentioned him, only that Yu Jiaming had let Mom find out about him quitting his job. Now that it had been brought up this way, Jiang Yishen absolutely could not act on impulse and make any noise.

“He’s still in school?” Xing Yun asked.

“Hm?” Qi Lin’s thoughts were pulled back. He blinked. “Yes.”

Xing Yun frowned, tugging at Qi Lin’s heartbeat: “How is he even younger than you?”

“Younger by… one year.” Qi Lin told the truth.

Xing Yun’s point of dissatisfaction was unusual. She picked up the tea again and took two sips, reluctantly letting go of the age issue: “How long have you been together?”

This question was no easier to answer than the logical reasoning problems he’d done the past two days. There were many ways to respond, each with its own logic, but there was only one correct answer, and it was locked inside Xing Yun’s mind. Qi Lin had no way of cracking it.

“Quite a while.” He weighed his options and chose that answer.

“Oh.” Xing Yun’s gaze drifted aimlessly around the apartment, making Qi Lin’s nerves stand on end, until he finally heard her say: “You two got together in the second half of the year?”

This question was even harder. It was pure pattern recognition now. The reasoning was piling up in his head, but faced with the actual question he couldn’t find the right approach.

“Not exactly. We… we broke up back then.”

Qi Lin bit the tip of his tongue. His tongue root already ached, and now everything ached. Talking about his romantic life with his parents was an unspeakable source of shame for Qi Lin, all the more so because the other person involved was right there in the apartment listening.

He shifted uncomfortably. Xing Yun fixed her gaze on him and leaned slightly forward: “So in the second half of the year you were still alone, no job, just staying here.”

Qi Lin dimly understood what Mom was really focused on. He instinctively tried to make up for it: “I’m fine on my own, I can take care of myself.”

That sentence hit Xing Yun right in the heart. She stood up at once and poured out everything she hadn’t finished saying yesterday: “It’s not like the family doesn’t care about you. There’s no need for you to be out here taking care of yourself all alone.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Qi Lin hurried to stand up too, but he couldn’t stop Mom’s emotions from erupting.

“Look at how much weight you’ve lost! I didn’t have the heart to say it yesterday, and you still think you’re doing just fine?” She walked quickly to the kitchen and yanked the refrigerator open, scanning it top to bottom. “Hardly any vegetables! What’s the point of an empty fridge? You haven’t been eating vegetables, have you? I saw the takeout boxes by your door!”

Jiang Yishen ate those. Qi Lin said it in his head.

“This bok choy has already gone to seed and you still haven’t eaten it? You bought tomatoes that aren’t even ripe! Don’t drink milk with trans fats!” Xing Yun went through everything one by one, launching an indiscriminate attack on every item in the fridge. “Why aren’t you buying name-brand yogurt? Ten yuan won’t make you poor or me rich. If you’re going to eat, at least have some standards. What’s the point of money if you won’t spend it?”

Qi Lin felt terribly guilty. He was rarely scolded like this by Xing Yun, and right now he was so flustered his heart was drumming: “Mom…”

“It’s too dry in here. I told you to put a cup of boiled water on the radiator!” Xing Yun moved with swift efficiency, walking straight to the bedroom door, pulling it open, and stepping inside. “You need to air the place out in winter too! Even if it’s stuffy you still have to open the windows!”

She marched straight to the window in one breath. Qi Lin followed anxiously, looking around the room, and somehow saw no sign of Jiang Yishen.

The cold air blew in, and Xing Yun calmed down considerably. She patted the dust off her hands, her tone gentler: “It’s not that Mom won’t let you live on your own. But you shouldn’t have hidden the job situation from the family, right?”

All Qi Lin wanted right now was for Mom to hurry up and leave this room. He swallowed: “Mm.”

“This jacket can’t be hung like that…” Xing Yun took down a jacket hanging on a hook nearby. “Hanging it this way stretches the collar out.”

She walked toward the wardrobe with complete naturalness: “Don’t leave clothes you don’t wear often out in the open. The dust is hard to clean off…”

The wardrobe door swung open, and she came face to face with a man inside.

Qi Lin was inwardly thunderstruck, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. Jiang Yishen was crammed into the packed wardrobe in a thoroughly wretched position, wearing thin house clothes, his hair loosely gathered behind his head in a disheveled bundle. It was a textbook scene straight out of a hidden-lover situation.

Xing Yun, to her credit, had remarkable composure. Faced with this sight, she didn’t make a single sound. She simply stood frozen in place, shocked and disbelieving, eyes locked on Jiang Yishen, the jacket in her hand beginning to tremble.

“Mom!” Qi Lin was the first to snap back to his senses. He stepped forward and tried to push the wardrobe door shut. “That is…”

Jiang Yishen had been frightened badly too. Shaking, he steadied himself against the door and greeted her: “Hello, Auntie.”

Xing Yun took three steps back, her gaze never leaving Jiang Yishen the entire time, watching as he climbed out of the wardrobe, awkwardly straightened his clothes, and scratched his hair.

She stared for a long moment, and finally something surfaced from deep in her memory: “I know you. You brought Xiao Qi flowers at his graduation ceremony.”

Jiang Yishen was stunned by a teacher’s memory. His back was drenched in cold sweat, and he forced himself to say: “That was me, Auntie.”

Xing Yun’s face had gone completely pale, perhaps from the shock. Qi Lin felt bad looking at her. One second ago he had just promised not to hide things from family, and the next second a living, breathing person had come tumbling out of the wardrobe.

Xing Yun looked Jiang Yishen over from head to toe, then finally asked in a suspicious tone: “He’s younger than you?”

“Mm.” Qi Lin gave a small nod.

Jiang Yishen gave a small nod too.

Xing Yun registered something important, belatedly: “Why are you in Xiao Qi’s apartment?”

“I came to… I…” Jiang Yishen racked his brain. “I came to help him tidy up, and I brewed some tea while I was at it.”

He found his footing, and the words came more smoothly: “But then you arrived a full half hour early, and I didn’t make it out in time. I was afraid you’d see me, see me and get upset, so I hid in the room.”

Xing Yun still had the unhung jacket raised in her hand, her mouth half open. She stood there recovering for a good while, then her gaze sharpened: “Wait, that’s not right. Did you spend the night here?”