PL | Chapter 2

Rumors of the Jianghu

Talk about… life.

Those two words, those four characters, were practically the key that unlocked Gu Zhong’s irritation.

His dad’s favorite thing to say was, “Come on, let’s talk.”

The usual ending was his dad flipping the table and smacking him, or him making a run for it. If he ran too slowly, the ending was the same.

The slightly better version was, “Son, this life of yours…”

That kind usually didn’t end with him getting hit, but Gu Zhong would rather get beaten eight times than listen to his dad criticize his life first, then compare it to his own life, and finally arrive at the conclusion that “your life is a complete mess.”

And now Qi Yue had put those two things together, which made Gu Zhong incredibly depressed.

By the time he sat down at the table, he could not even manage a fake attentive expression. He only frowned and said, “Why are you just like my dad, always trying to be some kind of life coach whenever there’s nothing better to do?”

“Really? That magical?” Qi Yue set a cup of coffee on the table, then sat down across from him. “How about you call me Dad and see what happens.”

Gu Zhong opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“Try this coffee,” Qi Yue said. “My favorite.”

Gu Zhong picked it up and looked at it. He did not see any coffee, only a huge lump of whipped cream. He quickly ran through that little booklet in his head.

“This is Irish coffee,” he said.

“I’m not testing you,” Qi Yue said. “Drink it. You’re just the odd-jobs guy, I wouldn’t test you.”

“Oh.” The moment Gu Zhong heard that, he wilted a little, then picked up the cup and took a sip.

“If this were a test, do you think you’d pass?” Qi Yue asked.

“Huh?” Gu Zhong froze, quickly took another sip, then said, “This is… Viennese coffee?”

“I ask one question and you change your answer?” Qi Yue smiled.

“Fuck.” Gu Zhong set down the cup. “It’s Irish.”

“Wrong.” Qi Yue lifted a brow. “This is Viennese coffee.”

“…You sure this isn’t a test?” Gu Zhong sighed.

“It isn’t.” Qi Yue shook his head.

“Irish coffee has whiskey in it, right?” Gu Zhong picked it up and drank another sip, just to make sure Qi Yue was not messing with him again. “I’ve got a pretty good alcohol tolerance. Maybe even if there was some in it, I still wouldn’t be able to taste it.”

“Oh?” Qi Yue smiled. “I’ve got some over there. Want to try it?”

“Forget it.” Gu Zhong shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll set me up again.”

“You get off work in half an hour.” Qi Yue stood up. “Before then, wipe down all the tables and chairs, mop the floor once, tidy up the bar…”

“How am I supposed to finish all that in half an hour?” Gu Zhong stared at him. Qi Yue had never mentioned that odd-job workers had to do this too. “Besides, don’t the tables get wiped once the customers leave? Why do they need wiping again?”

“What if nobody sits at that table for the rest of the day? Keep nagging and you’ll be working overtime. No overtime pay.” Qi Yue’s smile was utterly undisguised. “Also, the wages you’re getting right now are still being paid at the rate for a skilled bar server…”

Gu Zhong immediately drained the coffee in his cup, grabbed a rag, and ran upstairs.

Before this, Gu Zhong had always felt that although this blockhouse café had three floors, each floor only had three or four little tables. Added together, the whole place did not seem all that big.

But once he actually started cleaning, he realized that for one person alone, this much space was enough to make him experience the hardships of life firsthand.

There were not many customers on the third floor, so some places really had gathered dust. He went at it with the rag, scrubbing away. Once he finished, if he wanted to rinse the rag, he had to run downstairs, then back upstairs to wipe again, then back down again to rinse it…

By the third trip, Qi Yue looked at him and said, “Know why you only got into some crappy school like that?”

“Why?” Gu Zhong looked at him, rag in hand.

“Intelligence.” Qi Yue sighed. “Could you not just carry a bucket of water upstairs?”

“…You never said there was a bucket.” Gu Zhong was a little speechless.

“I didn’t say yesterday that I wanted you gone either, so how come you were so proactive about grasping my meaning for me?” Qi Yue handed him a small bucket. “Sometimes, a person has to be brave enough to face his own barren intelligence.”

Gu Zhong opened his mouth. In the short span of one hour, this was already the second time he had been left speechless today.

He carried the bucket, filled it with water, and went upstairs in silence.

To ease the exhaustion and boredom while wiping tables, Gu Zhong took a close look at all the little decorations around the blockhouse café. Aside from a pile of adorable succulents, there were lots of little odds and ends that were probably picked up at a flea market.

Most of them were little clocks and all kinds of watches, and unbelievably, they all still ticked. Some no longer kept accurate time, and a few looked like they had once been smashed apart and later glued back together.

This Qi Yue really did have way too much free time.

As Gu Zhong wiped the tables, he started worrying a little. The boss was this idle, so this blockhouse café probably was not making much money. Maybe in a few days it would just go under…

And if it went under, what then? Would there be some kind of clearance sale?

Passing by? Don’t miss out. Premium coffee beans at ten percent of the original price…

The beans from the coffee he drank today were actually pretty good. At ten percent off, he wondered if the price would still come out to about the same as his daily allowance.

If the place really went under, would they hold back his wages? Gu Zhong glanced at the sign outside. Climbing up there should not be too difficult.

With heartfelt concern for his unreliable boss, he wiped down both upper floors and mopped the floor, then came downstairs dripping with sweat.

There did not seem to be any customers left on the first floor. It was empty, and Qi Yue was not in the shop either.

“Where’d everyone go?” Gu Zhong muttered. He turned the corner and had barely taken a step toward the bar when he saw someone standing in front of it. Before he could speak, another person flashed out from behind the bar.

Gu Zhong stared at the two of them without making a sound. He had originally meant to ask them what they wanted, but the moment the second guy popped out, he swallowed the words back down. These were not customers.

Those two probably had not expected someone to suddenly appear in the shop either, and all at once they froze in place.

The three of them stared at each other like qigong masters preparing to communicate through mental force alone.

Qigong masters had very good tacit understanding. Even if one of the three was not actually on the same side as the other two, they could still manage to freeze together and move together.

Just as Gu Zhong was about to step over to block the route they had to take to reach the door, the two of them suddenly lunged toward the entrance at the same time.

“The hell you are!” Gu Zhong did not have time to stop them. As he chased after them, he swung the bucket in his hand and hurled it out.

It had no power behind it at all. Water splashed everywhere, the bucket did not even hit their heels, and the rag that dropped to the floor almost tripped him instead.

Gu Zhong did not even have time to check what exactly those two had been trying to do at the bar. He charged straight out the door and took off after them. To boost his own momentum a little, he even roared, “Stop right there! You bastards steal stuff and still dare run!”

The second he yelled it, he felt like what he had shouted sounded kind of weird. If someone had already stolen something, why wouldn’t they run?

Of course those two were not about to stop just because he yelled at them. They kept charging ahead.

While chasing them, Gu Zhong pulled out his phone to call Qi Yue. But before he could even wake the screen, the person in front suddenly slammed on the brakes and stopped.

By the time Gu Zhong saw that the one in back had a knife in his hand, inertia had already made it almost impossible for him to stop. Even though he desperately tried to slow the speed of his own ass in order to drag the rest of his body back, he still went sailing with perfect flair straight toward the blade coming at him.

This should count as an on-the-job injury, right?

If I can’t dodge it, am I going to get disfigured…

This handsome face of mine has not even lived a whole neat twenty years yet…

A hand shot out from the side and cut off the torrent of thoughts exploding through his head. Before he could crash into the knife, that hand grabbed the man’s wrist.

Twist downward, blade tip down. One strip along the wrist, the knife came free. Then, with the handle caught in hand, a sharp upward jerk.

In utter shock, Gu Zhong watched that man get smashed in the chin by the knife handle and flip backward onto the ground.

Clean. Efficient.

Fast as lightning.

Like the whole thing had been put on fast-forward.

In all martial arts under heaven, speed alone is undefeated.

It was only after the man had already hit the ground that Gu Zhong managed to sort through the memory of what had just happened and understand exactly how he had been taken down, and whose hand it was.

But Qi Yue seemed to have no interest at all in those two. He watched them get up and run off together. He even stretched out an arm to stop Gu Zhong when Gu Zhong wanted to keep chasing them.

“No, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Gu Zhong glared at him, full of righteous fury. “Those two were definitely trying to steal money just now. You’re just letting them run?”

“What money could they steal? All the cash is locked in the register.” Qi Yue placed the two plastic bags he was carrying into Gu Zhong’s hands. “Smashing the cash register would make way too much noise. They definitely wouldn’t dare.”

“So because they only tried and failed, that means it doesn’t count?” Gu Zhong took the bags automatically. “Because it was only attempted, nobody’s going to beat them up for it? Not even on behalf of their parents…”

“So which is it exactly?” Qi Yue looked at him. “Are you bravely protecting the shop, overflowing with a sense of justice, or do you just want to pick a fight?”

Gu Zhong froze. He ran through all those possibilities in his head and discovered, to his own surprise, that he actually could not answer.

After they went back into the shop, Qi Yue checked the bar. Nothing was missing. If anything, there was now an extra fruit knife lying on the floor.

“Perfect timing.” He picked up the knife, washed it, set it on the table, and said, “Come on, have something to eat.”

Only then did Gu Zhong notice that the two bags in his hands contained two papayas. He casually blurted out, “Trying to grow your boobs?”

“Yeah.” Qi Yue stretched both arms across the chairs on either side of him and puffed out his chest. “How do you think the results look?”

“…Pretty good.” Gu Zhong sat down.

“Then come bulk yours up too.” Qi Yue took the papayas out, set them on the table, and started cutting. “Yours is probably only about an A-minus. Eat some for a while and let’s see if you can make it up to an A…”

“Can you not?” Gu Zhong instantly lost his appetite.

“In a bit, clean up the water on the floor.” Qi Yue smiled and picked up a slice to eat.

Gu Zhong, looking dejected, grabbed a slice and chewed on it too. After he had eaten two pieces, he glanced out the door and suddenly felt like something outside was missing.

Then it hit him, hard. There was still one very important matter he had not dealt with.

“Where are those two guys?” he asked in shock.

“Didn’t you chase them off?” Qi Yue said.

“I’m talking about the two who came looking for me!” Gu Zhong stood up and went to the doorway to look both ways.

“Didn’t you stand them up?” Qi Yue said while eating. “They only wanted to set up a fight. Who’s going to wait around for you for over an hour?”

“You…” It took Gu Zhong quite a while to come back over and sit down again. “I just remembered, you said you wanted to talk to me about life. Where’d life go?”

“Got stood up.” Qi Yue did not even lift his head.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Gu Zhong was genuinely shocked. “Your acting is incredible. So immersive I didn’t even notice.”

“When I have time, I’ll teach you.” Qi Yue smiled.

Gu Zhong said nothing. Holding the slice of papaya, the more he thought about it, the more humiliating it felt.

Anyone who knew what happened would know the boss had played him. Anyone who did not know, like those two guys who had come looking for trouble earlier, would just think he had chickened out.

Ridiculously humiliating.

He sighed.

Took a bite of papaya, then sighed again.

“Not much lung capacity there.” Having finished his papaya, Qi Yue slowly wiped his hands. “Palpitations, shortness of breath, in traditional Chinese medicine that’s called…”

“Why are you like this?” Gu Zhong cut him off. “At this rate, people are going to laugh me to death.”

“Laugh at you for what?” Qi Yue asked.

“What else would they laugh at?” The more Gu Zhong thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt. “That I chickened out, obviously. That when people come looking for me, I only know how to hide. I’ve grown this big and I’ve never chickened out in front of my dad.”

“Really?” Qi Yue smiled. “You’ve never chickened out in front of your dad?”

“Probably not?” Gu Zhong instantly sank into thought. Since he was little until now… maybe that was not exactly true. When he was younger, after getting beaten, he often did wilt. “I mean, sometimes I just can’t be bothered arguing.”

“Why can’t you be bothered arguing?” Qi Yue asked.

“Aren’t we getting off topic?” Gu Zhong snapped back to himself.

“We’re not. You can’t be bothered with your dad, so why aren’t you equally too lazy to bother with other people?” Qi Yue propped up his chin and asked again, all seriousness.

“Other people aren’t my dad!” Gu Zhong raised his voice.

“Ah.” Qi Yue nodded. “Right… bad example.”

“No, what are you actually trying to say?” Gu Zhong was practically speechless.

“I’m trying to say you’re kind of a fucking idiot,” Qi Yue said.

“What did you say?” Gu Zhong froze.

“Fucking idiot.” Qi Yue pointed at him. “You, Gu Zhongzhong.”

“Can you stop already?” Gu Zhong exploded. “You couldn’t be a life mentor, so now you’re just insulting people?”

“I insulted you, so what?” Qi Yue arched a brow, stretched lazily, and said, “I’ll give you a chance. You can hit first.”

Gu Zhong glared at him.

Qi Yue held the stretching pose for quite a while. Seeing that Gu Zhong still had not moved, he lowered his arms, braced a hand on the table, and leaned right up close to Gu Zhong’s face. “What, not daring to?”

“What exactly are you trying to do?” Gu Zhong stared at him and asked.

“I’m picking a fight with you.” The corner of Qi Yue’s mouth curved up. “And I’m letting you strike first.”

Gu Zhong stayed stiff and did not move. He kept glaring at him. To be honest, his anger had already surged all the way to the top of his head. If he put enough force into breathing, he could probably breathe smoke.

“Don’t dare, right?” Qi Yue asked in a low voice.

“Fuck,” Gu Zhong said.

“Come on, then,” Qi Yue replied at once.

Gu Zhong did not move. He shifted back a little instead.

“Know why you don’t dare?” Qi Yue leaned back in his own chair, lit a cigarette, and looked at him. “Because even if you set aside the fact that I’m your boss, you still know you can’t beat me, so you didn’t make a move.”

Gu Zhong let out a snort. He put too much force into it and felt like he might have blown some snot out too, so he yanked over a tissue and wiped his nose.

Qi Yue smiled around the cigarette. “Chuan’er…”

“Gu Zhong,” Gu Zhong said through gritted teeth.

“Zhong Chuan’er.” Qi Yue looked at him. “Nobody goes their whole life without chickening out. Some people just don’t feel like quibbling. Some people don’t dare. The only times you dare to press the issue are when you think the other side is weaker than you.”

Gu Zhong looked at him.

“But,” Qi Yue stood up, went to the bar for an ashtray, then walked over and bent down beside him, “even if you had beaten those two up today, how do you know those same two wouldn’t come back later with people tougher than you? When that happens, would you chicken out? Bringing trouble onto yourself over some tiny matter just so you can end up being scared, do you know what that’s called?”

Gu Zhong stayed silent.

“Stupid,” Qi Yue said right by his ear. “Idiot. I know this isn’t going into your head. When the day comes that you suffer for it, I’ll give you another live demonstration. For now, you’re off work. Get out.”

Gu Zhong sprang to his feet. “Can I stop coming?”

“Sure.” Qi Yue leaned against the bar. “But if you haven’t worked a full week, you don’t get paid.”

Gu Zhong turned and strode out. He was moving so fast he nearly slammed into Qi Maomao, who was trotting over with a bright smile.

“Chuan’er-ge,” Qi Maomao called out to him. “Getting off work?”

The anger filling Gu Zhong’s chest almost all sprayed onto her. He turned his head. “What did you call me?”

“Oh my.” Qi Maomao took two steps back and patted her chest. “That expression. What happened?”

“Nothing.” Gu Zhong sighed.

“Did my godfather bully you?” Qi Maomao immediately cried out. “Right? He definitely did. He always bullies people. Sometimes he even bullies me.”

“He bullies you?” Gu Zhong’s anger instantly went out, and he looked at her in surprise.

“Yeah.” Qi Maomao threw the backpack in her hand onto the ground. “I’m telling you, this guy, he has no sympathy, no mercy. Whenever he sees somebody having a bad time, he absolutely has to tease them. Take me, for example. Isn’t getting a score in the forties painful enough already…”

“Forty… something?” Gu Zhong could not help interrupting her. “Out of a hundred?”

“Yeah.” Qi Maomao tossed her hair. “I was suffering, okay? It’s not like I did it on purpose. During a two-hour exam, I had diarrhea three times. And as a result, this person mocked me for an entire week. Forget comforting me with even fifty-eight cents, he didn’t even give me one mao. Cold-blooded!”

Gu Zhong looked behind her and lifted a hand to point.

Qi Maomao turned around. Qi Yue was leaning against the doorframe. “Even if you hadn’t had diarrhea, you still wouldn’t have passed physics…”

“Chuan’er-ge, we’ll talk tomorrow!” Qi Maomao turned back and waved at Gu Zhong, then ran into the café. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow?” Qi Yue picked up the backpack from the floor and looked at him.

“In your dreams.” Gu Zhong swung onto his bicycle and shot off with furious speed.

His willpower was actually pretty firm. Qi Yue, aside from seeming especially unreliable when it came to doing business, also loved sticking his nose into other people’s affairs, spoke in ways that constantly choked people up, and whenever he had nothing better to do, he liked messing with his employees. Gu Zhong could put up with all of that. But this meddling, this was the one thing he really could not stand, mainly because it made him lose face.

So what if he had to go find another job.

So what if his grand plan to earn some pocket money had died after taking only one step.

It was no big deal. He still had a guaranteed ten yuan a day at minimum.

Though speaking of it, ten yuan really was a little too little.

At dinner, he tried bringing it up with his mom. “About that allowance…”

“How was the winter melon soup today? I put in lots of pork ribs, so eat more.” His mom cut him off.

“Got it.” He immediately gave up on the fantasy of raising his living standards through the family.

The next day, he rode his bicycle slowly down the street where the blockhouse café was. He scanned the whole street in slow motion, then finally trudged back to school in low spirits.

If he did not go to the blockhouse café, then he could only sit in the classroom and do self-study, holding a book while resting with his eyes closed.

Behind him sat the two guys from his dorm, discussing all the strange stories and bizarre gossip they had collected through various channels since school started.

A male student wildly chasing after a female teacher.

A girl committed suicide by jumping off a building after her boyfriend cheated on her, and she had jumped from the roof of the very boys’ dorm they lived in. On nights with a full moon, people could hear someone singing on the roof.

A couple of classes ahead of them, somebody got drunk, fell into a puddle, and incidentally went streaking for two whole streets in high spirits.

…

The more Gu Zhong listened, the sleepier he got. None of it was juicy enough to wake him up. He flopped down on the desk and thought, should he go back to the blockhouse café or not?

The discussion behind him was still going, but the plot and style had already changed.

The top dog around here.

Back then there were two of them, a boss and a number two.

Gu Zhong tilted his head slightly. One boss with one second-in-command did not sound like anything unusual. What was there to talk about?

Undefeated across the district, loyal, righteous, true friends, ribs bristling with knives.

Gu Zhong closed his eyes. A hedgehog.

Then eventually they ran into someone truly hard to deal with. The boss held the line so the number two could run, but the number two refused to run, and in the end he got surrounded and beaten half to death.

Gu Zhong opened his eyes and turned around.

In the end, the boss made a last-moment comeback and turned the tables, taking out one of the other side’s main fighters.

Gu Zhong thought it sounded pretty awesome and sat up straight, wanting to hear more. But the guy behind him fumbled the ending. The first half had still been hot-blooded and thrilling, and then with the next sentence he suddenly wrapped it all up.

The boss went to prison. The number two retired from the jianghu, opened a coffee shop, and raised the boss’s kid.

“If you tried your hand at storytelling, people would bury you in eggs,” Gu Zhong said.

“That’s all I heard, okay? Jianghu rumor. Besides, it was ages ago,” the storyteller said with a few tsk-tsks. “No way to verify it now.”

Gu Zhong found it pretty dull. He stood up, gathered his books, and got ready to go wander around for a bit, and while he was at it, see whether there were any places hiring.

But after picking up his things and walking out of the classroom, he suddenly stopped dead.

“Opened a coffee shop?”

“Yeah.”

Qi Yue’s tattooed arm flashed before his eyes, along with the scene of him dropping someone in one move.

It felt as if all the hair on Gu Zhong’s body had been brushed by a gust of wind, rising and falling all over.

Awesome.

Gu Zhong did not know whether he was really just too picky, finding fault with every job he came across, or whether it was because of that jianghu rumor. Either way, he felt like he had wandered all over town, taking a pretty complicated route.

And yet, in the end, he somehow still ended up standing in front of the blockhouse café.

That was embarrassing.

Even more embarrassing was the fact that Qi Yue was standing right at the entrance, leaning against the door with his arms folded, smiling quite happily.

“Hi,” Qi Yue said.

“…I was taking a walk,” Gu Zhong said sincerely.

“Taking a walk while pushing a bike, very stylish.” Qi Yue turned and went back into the café. “Someone on the third floor ordered steak. Take it up.”

On what grounds?

He was not an odd-jobs worker. He was a former odd-jobs worker.

Gu Zhong carried a tray upstairs with a plate of steak on it, feeling deeply tragic.

So this was how it was?

Yesterday he had been worrying that the blockhouse café might shut down because the boss was unreliable. Today, Gu Zhong discovered that business was not always so dead.

Even though it was only Friday, customers had started coming in steadily from noon onward, and the orders never stopped.

That new employee started work today too, and he was so busy he kept spinning in circles like he was dancing.

Gu Zhong had originally wanted to use the opportunity to watch how coffee was made, but as the odd-jobs guy he really had no conditions for learning by stealth. He stayed stuck in a nonstop cycle of carrying trays, collecting trays, wiping tables, hello what would you like to order all right please wait a moment. When he ran into impatient customers who kept urging him on, all he wanted to do was glare at Qi Yue.

Aside from the times customers ordered steak and he went into the back kitchen to deal with it for a while, Qi Yue spent all the rest of his time standing leisurely by the window watching the street.

After more than two hours of nonstop rushing around, the crowd finally thinned. Gu Zhong dragged the rag slowly across a tabletop, using it as an excuse to stretch himself out.

“Tired?” Qi Yue asked from the side, watching him.

“I don’t even feel like talking anymore,” Gu Zhong sighed.

“Didn’t you say today that you weren’t coming back?” Qi Yue said as he pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and slowly unfolded it. “I was just saying, I should probably go paste this up.”

Gu Zhong looked at the paper. It was a hiring notice.

There was nothing especially strange about the notice itself, but what he could not have imagined was that it was still the exact same sheet he had seen when he first came to apply.

“Is this thing some kind of family heirloom?” Gu Zhong was so shocked his back did not even ache anymore. “Just on the day I came, you used it twice already, and you’re still using it today?”

“My handwriting’s ugly,” Qi Yue said. Wind blew in from outside, making the torn parts on the sheet flutter in the air. “Maomao wrote this. Her handwriting’s ugly too, but it works well enough.”

Gu Zhong stared at the paper, then finally lowered his head. “You’re still hiring?”

“Yeah. The two of you aren’t enough.” Qi Yue said.

“Get me paper and a pen.” Gu Zhong tossed the rag onto the table. “I’ll write one for you.”

Gu Zhong’s grades were bad and he caused his share of trouble, but although his conduct and academics were both highly questionable, his handwriting was good enough to show off.

Hard-pen calligraphy, brush calligraphy, all of it had been forged through repeated tempering under his dad’s tyrannical rule.

Qi Yue rummaged around beneath the bar for close to five minutes without finding any suitable paper. In the end, he tore apart a milk carton, cut off a piece, and placed it in front of Gu Zhong.

“Will this do?” he asked.

“…Yeah.” Gu Zhong sat down.

“What kind of pen do you want?” Qi Yue asked.

“The paper’s already just packaging cardboard,” Gu Zhong said, looking at him. “You think I still get to choose the pen?”

Qi Yue pulled a black marker out of his pocket and set it on the table.

Gu Zhong picked up that old battered sheet and copied out the contents while looking at it. “Can you hire one more odd… one more for my type of position? Today alone I’ve run up and down these three floors at least fifty times.”

“Sure.” Qi Yue nodded. He picked up the sheet, looked it over, and as he walked toward the door said, “Your handwriting and your personality don’t really feel like they came as a matched set.”

Gu Zhong was too tired to argue. He sat in the chair and flexed his foot. People always said running made your legs slimmer. Totally wrong. Right now his legs felt swollen like giant radishes.

The kind not even ten rabbits could yank out.

As it turned out, the customers in the afternoon were actually fewer than the lunchtime crowd. Gu Zhong had no mood to sum up why. He only felt, very good, excellent, fantastic.

The new bar employee went home at six-thirty, and that left Gu Zhong as the only one doing any work in the café.

Only now did Qi Yue finally start helping. He busied himself behind the bar for a while, then asked, “Did you tell your family you wouldn’t be home for dinner?”

“No need. It’s fine.” Gu Zhong picked up a tray. It was for the final table’s order at this hour.

“What do you want to eat in a bit?” Qi Yue looked toward that table of customers. “We can eat dinner after this.”

“I’m so hungry I’ve gone blank,” Gu Zhong sighed. Then after a second thought, he added, “But I don’t want to eat shit.”

Qi Yue laughed, hooked over a nearby chair with his foot, and said, “Sit.”

“What for?” Gu Zhong looked at him warily. “Didn’t you say we’re not allowed to sit around during work hours?”

“Then stand,” Qi Yue said.

Gu Zhong sat down.

“Logically speaking,” Qi Yue moved behind him and placed his hands on his shoulders, “your legs and feet ought to be the most tired by now…”

Gu Zhong turned his head to look at his hands.

“But conditions don’t allow me to massage your legs right now.” Qi Yue gave his shoulder a squeeze, not too light and not too hard, lifted slightly, then let go. “So we’ll start with your shoulders.”

The wave of comfort that instantly spread from his aching, swollen shoulders immediately overpowered both the shock and the caution in Gu Zhong’s heart. He could not help giving a small cry. “Damn, that feels good.”

Qi Yue smiled and kept kneading his shoulders. Then he pushed Gu Zhong’s head forward a little and pressed all the way down from the neck to the lower back. “Better?”

“Did you used to work at a hair salon or something?” Gu Zhong rested his forehead against the bar counter, eyes half closed. “Man, this is really comfortable.”

“No,” Qi Yue said.

“Maybe I won’t quit after all,” Gu Zhong said. “There’s even this kind of employee benefit. It’d be a waste not to make use of it.”

Qi Yue pressed a finger against his forehead and pulled him back, so he ended up reclining against the chair back, facing Qi Yue upside down.

“In your dreams,” Qi Yue said. “Today I’m only doing this because you’ve worked hard.”

“Right, that other guy worked hard too. How come you didn’t give him a massage?” Gu Zhong grinned.

“Because you’re stupid,” Qi Yue said. When Gu Zhong started to wipe the smile off his face and sit upright, Qi Yue held him down with a hand on his forehead. “The way you’re an idiot kind of reminds me of a friend I used to have.”

“How long ago?” Gu Zhong kept his head tipped back.

“A long time ago. Back when you were still a kid.” Suddenly there was an emotion in Qi Yue’s eyes that was hard to put into words.

One boss had one number two… and one number two.

Through life and death together.

A jianghu rumor from a long time ago.

“Did he go to prison?” Gu Zhong asked.

Qi Yue looked at him, and only after a long pause did he say, “Been watching too many TV dramas?”

“What about that friend, then?” Gu Zhong asked again.

“He went to prison,” Qi Yue said. Then he lifted his head to glance toward that table of customers. “Go clean up. That table’s gone.”

Gu Zhong went over to gather the cups and things on the table, then took them behind the bar and washed them while asking, “Was that rumor true?”

“What rumor?” Qi Yue looked at him.

“I mean…” Gu Zhong suddenly choked on the words. If the rumor really was true, then for Qi Yue it might not be some especially beautiful thing to remember. He lowered his head and kept washing the cups. “Forget it.”

“Go home when you’re done washing,” Qi Yue said. “We’re closing.”

“It’s not even eight yet?” Gu Zhong looked at him. “Closing already?”

“Is there a fine for closing before eight?” Qi Yue asked.

“No,” Gu Zhong said.

“Then what are you asking for?” Qi Yue stretched lazily. “No need to wipe the other tables. Just finish up.”

“Oh.” Gu Zhong answered, then added, “Do you want me to help close up?”

“No need. I’m not leaving.” Qi Yue sat down beside a table and propped his legs up on the chair next to it. “I live here.”

“You’re not going home?” Gu Zhong was a little surprised.

Qi Yue turned and looked at him. “I don’t have a home.”

Then he closed his eyes and sang a line. “My home is inside a street-corner café…”

His pitch was not especially accurate.

Gu Zhong gave up on the idea of quitting. Any time he had no classes, he would head over to the blockhouse café. It was not entirely because he could not find any other work to do, and not entirely because Qi Yue had massaged his shoulders either.

It was because after realizing Qi Yue might actually be the protagonist in that jianghu legend, he felt a strange excitement, as though he had stepped right onto the tip of jianghu’s tail.

Even if he could not be there in person, he could still feel it from up close.

A man half-heartedly running a café, who could brew coffee, cook steak, had tattoo sleeves, had skills, had personality.

And also had a legend.

Tsk.

But if he wanted to experience all that, he would have to be patient.

Gu Zhong ran up and down between floors every day. There were now two people at the bar, yet the handyman was still nowhere to be seen, so everything still had to be done by him. With each passing day, he felt himself becoming more and more domesticated.

Whenever he found a moment to observe Qi Yue, he discovered that this man’s life was unbelievably monotonous.

Standing by the window and watching the street seemed to be his only form of entertainment.

It was hard to tell whether this was some kind of realization after going through storms, or if he had always been this dull.

After watching him like this for a full month, aside from gradually getting used to the busy handyman work, and confirming that the other handyman seemed to have vanished into a black hole, Gu Zhong had not sensed even the slightest trace of the jianghu.

No fun at all.

He walked over to the window and looked out at the street.

What was there to see anyway? The same people and cars coming and going every day.

He got off work rather late today. Two couples, one upstairs and one downstairs, dragged things out as if competing with each other. It went on until Gu Zhong felt like writing “FFF” across his own forehead in protest before they finally left.

“Close up, close up?” Gu Zhong rapidly cleared the tables.

“Mm,” Qi Yue, who had been standing by the window the whole time, responded and walked behind the bar. “No need to wash. You can head back.”

“It’s fine,” Gu Zhong said as he briskly washed the cups. “Honestly, I feel like even if my family made me do all the dishwashing during New Year gatherings, I could handle it without a problem.”

“I’ll take care of it in a bit,” Qi Yue said as he turned off the faucet. “You should go. It’s late.”

“Then I…” Gu Zhong stopped, turning out of habit to tidy the bar, then thought better of it and looked back. “Why are you so gentle today?”

“I’ve always been gentle,” Qi Yue said.

“You believe that yourself?” Gu Zhong laughed.

“For now, I do,” Qi Yue glanced at him, his face expressionless. “But if you still don’t leave, I won’t.”

Gu Zhong noticed the faint smile that had been on his face was gone. He had no idea what he had done to irritate him, and immediately felt a little down.

Moody like a girl. Changing at the drop of a hat, and there was no switch to be found.

“Alright then,” he said, tossing the rag onto the bar. “I’m going.”

“Take this.” Qi Yue tossed an envelope over.

“What’s this?” Gu Zhong picked it up, rubbed it open, and peeked inside. His eyebrows shot up at once. “My pay? This much?”

“Bonus included,” Qi Yue said as he pushed him out from behind the bar. “If you think it’s too much, give me half back.”

“Thanks, boss.” Gu Zhong quickly stuffed the envelope into his pocket, grabbed his bag, and ran out the door.

Before he could even unlock his bicycle, the rolling shutter behind him was already pulled down by Qi Yue.

He paused, slightly stunned. Qi Yue had never been this fast before. Normally it would take at least ten minutes just to close up. Today, Gu Zhong had not even had time to leave. Even the curtains had already been drawn.

“What’s with him?” Gu Zhong muttered as he swung onto his bike and slowly pedaled forward.

After a few strokes, he turned back and glanced at the Paolou. Suddenly, he saw a van parked by the roadside, and three people got out, quickly heading toward the Paolou.

Gu Zhong squeezed the brake, one foot planted on the ground as he stared at them.

They did not go through the front entrance, but circled around the side.

They moved with familiarity. That side led to the back door of the Paolou.

The three figures disappeared into the darkness. Everything around fell quiet.

A sudden feeling crept over Gu Zhong.

He turned his bike around and returned to the entrance of the Paolou.

Maybe he was being overly sensitive, but he still felt as if he had sensed something dangerous. He leaned his bike against the wall, pressed close to the window, and tried to peek inside through a gap in the curtains.

Not a single curtain had been left with a gap. Like a thief scouting a place, Gu Zhong checked each window. Only at the one facing the bar did he catch a flicker of a shadow passing by. It should have been Qi Yue.

He was just about to circle around to the back door when a sound came from inside.

It was not loud, but it made people uneasy. It was the sound of a door being kicked apart. The back door was made of metal, so it could not have produced that sound. The one that had been kicked apart was the small wooden door between the kitchen and the front hall.

After the sound of breaking, he heard voices inside.

He could not make out what was being said, but from the tone and the voices, it was clear that it was not Qi Yue.

Something was going to happen.

Gu Zhong suddenly felt a numbness in his hands. He could not tell whether it was fear or excitement.

He looked around. There was nothing he could use. He had no choice but to circle to the back of the Paolou first. Old tables and chairs were piled near the back door.

Moving lightly, he grabbed half of a broken chair and edged closer to the back door.

The door was open, light spilling out from inside.

The earlier voices had already stopped. The room was quiet.

Gu Zhong cautiously leaned in, sticking half his head through the doorway. He had intended to take a quick look with just one eye, but with only half an eye, he had already seen the three men from before.

They stood with their backs to him, forming a semicircle around Qi Yue.

Gu Zhong’s palm grew damp with sweat as he gripped the chair. Before he could adjust his position, one of the men inside suddenly raised his hand and swung something down hard, smashing it into Qi Yue’s back.

The dull thud nearly made Gu Zhong cry out. Half his body slipped out from behind the doorframe as he prepared himself. If they struck again, he would rush in.

Qi Yue did not make a sound. He staggered forward a few steps and only managed to steady himself by bracing against the wall.

He lowered his head and coughed twice, raised a hand to wipe his mouth, and when he looked up, his gaze met Gu Zhong’s.

Both of them froze.

Qi Yue was clearly far more shocked than he was. It took several seconds before he frowned and mouthed silently at him:

“Go!”