TA • Chapter 17

Jiang Yuduo was exactly the kind of curious little brat Cheng Ke had run into plenty of times before. On one hand, he thought, You’re such a freak. On the other, he couldn’t help wanting to dig into the freak’s life.

Whether Jiang Yuduo thought he was a freak, that was hard to say, but curiosity was definitely there. No matter how much of a boss he was, he was still just a kid in his early twenties.

Cheng Ke wasn’t all that bothered by this kind of question, either. As long as there was no obvious malice, he always answered directly. Especially with someone like Jiang Yuduo, whose way of showing things was already pretty blunt, he was even less likely to hide anything.

"Oh." Jiang Yuduo looked at him, nodded, then said in a low, incredulous voice, "That kind of thing exists too?"

"Is that weird?" Cheng Ke also lowered his voice in cooperation.

"…Actually, not really." Jiang Yuduo thought about it, then waved a hand. "Forget it. Keep playing."

"Maybe don’t," Cheng Ke said, glancing at his phone. "At the way your novel’s going, I probably won’t be able to answer the rest anyway."

Jiang Yuduo picked up the phone and looked at it again. "Fuck, I’m not really comfortable drawing those, either."

Cheng Ke was about to speak when Jiang Yuduo raised one index finger at him and tilted his head toward the window.

Footsteps sounded outside the door. Jiang Yuduo heard them very clearly, but he soon picked out the rustling of a plastic bag mixed in with them.

"The barbecue should be here," he said, standing up and going to the back of the door to look through the peephole.

"That was fast," Cheng Ke said. "I thought it’d take a while longer."

"I know the老板[[1]], so he always makes the stuff I ordered first." Jiang Yuduo saw the barbecue shop owner step into the peephole’s range, and then there was a knock on the door.

He opened it, and a strong smell of grilled meat hit him at once.

"I grilled a little of everything. If it’s not enough, call me again," the owner said, handing over the bag. "And there’s a bottle of wine I made myself, too. I mentioned it to you last time. Give it a try."

"Okay." Jiang Yuduo took the bag. "Put it on my tab together. No need for a discount."

The owner smiled. "Sure. Eat well."

Jiang Yuduo closed the door, looked through the peephole again, then brought the bag over and shook it in front of Cheng Ke. "Smell that? That’s what good barbecue smells like."

Cheng Ke couldn’t judge whether barbecue was good by smell, but it did smell really good. A faint charred aroma wrapped in cumin, and before Jiang Yuduo had even brought the bag over, he had already smelled it, and his stomach had immediately started rolling around on the ground from hunger.

Jiang Yuduo was about to set the bag on the table.

"Hey, hey, hey," Cheng Ke hurried to stop him. "There’s salt all over the table!"

"No one said you had to eat the salt," Jiang Yuduo said, brushing his hand away and setting the bag down. "Hurry up. It’s still hot right now. It won’t smell as good once it gets cold."

Cheng Ke wasn’t a particularly fussy person. Especially now, compared with his life before, he was even less so. He could accept sleeping under a quilt with a duvet piled on top of it, but compared with Jiang Yuduo, he was still noticeably behind on the road to not caring.

"The salt’s stuck to the bag," he sighed.

Jiang Yuduo opened the bag and rolled the top edge down. "You fucking don’t eat the bag, so why the hell are you so particular? Eat."

"Okay," Cheng Ke said.

There was a huge variety of barbecue. Besides all kinds of meat skewers, Cheng Ke could tell that some of it was meat, but he couldn’t figure out what the rest were. He picked up a random skewer and bit into it.

"How is it?" Jiang Yuduo asked immediately, his expression so expectant it was like he’d grilled it himself.

"Good," Cheng Ke nodded. "Very fragrant. What is this?"

"Tendon," Jiang Yuduo said, taking a chicken wing. "You didn’t know that?"

"Never had it before," Cheng Ke said, finishing the skewer and taking another one he recognized, probably mutton. "I only ate barbecue two or three times before. Just ordinary meat, pork, beef, and lamb."

Jiang Yuduo paused and looked at him. "Did you used to be in prison?"

"…No." Cheng Ke didn’t know how to answer, so he sighed.

"Where’d you eat barbecue those two or three times?" Jiang Yuduo asked. "A five-star hotel?"

"A street stall," Cheng Ke said.

"Wow." Jiang Yuduo looked dramatically shocked. "You’ve even eaten street-stall food?"

"Fuck off." Cheng Ke finished the mutton, then picked up a skewer of something he didn’t know and bit it. "Crispy. This one’s good too."

"Cartilage," Jiang Yuduo said. "There’s grilled vegetables in the bag. Never had those? Want to try some?"

"No." Cheng Ke picked up a skewer of broccoli. "You’ve grilled all the water out of it. Can it still taste good?"

"It can," Jiang Yuduo said. "You want some wine? The老板 gave us some, but it’s homemade. No idea whether you’ll be used to it."

"Okay," Cheng Ke said.

Jiang Yuduo still took out two bowls and poured in the wine the老板 had given him.

The barbecue shop had been open for quite a few years, and Jiang Yuduo had known the老板 for quite a few years too. He had always thought he was a pretty good guy, the honest, easy-to-bully type.

But Lu Xi had said that when he was young, back before there were these bars and nightclubs, back before Building 1234 had even existed, he had been the boss who made the poor common people in this area tremble at the very mention of him.

Strange. Jiang Yuduo glanced at Cheng Ke.

For these so-called bosses who mixed around on the streets, the only people they could really scare were people just like themselves. If they ran into someone like Cheng Ke, even a useless piece of trash who’d been driven out of the house for being too useless, most bosses would become just as useless too.

Cheng Ke must have been genuinely hungry, or maybe he just hadn’t eaten barbecue enough times, because he was eating rather greedily, taking a mouthful of wine with a mouthful of meat.

"This wine," Cheng Ke said, pausing to take a sip, "is really awful."

Jiang Yuduo laughed. "Then why are you drinking it so enthusiastically?"

"The meat’s too greasy, it cuts the richness," Cheng Ke said, gulping down the rest of the wine in his bowl. "Pour me some water."

Just as Jiang Yuduo was about to stand up and get a bowl, Cheng Ke had already stood up himself. While he grabbed a tissue to wipe his hands, he took the bowl to the water dispenser and filled it with water.

"I said that out of habit," he said. He drank half the bowl of water, then filled it up again. After sitting back down at the table, he suddenly sighed. "Fuck, I’m full?"

"Nonsense. With a bowl that big, if you chug half a bowl of water, where’s there still room to eat?" Jiang Yuduo said.

"…I already ate quite a lot too," Cheng Ke touched the back of his head. "That won’t affect the wound healing, will it?"

"I never worry about that kind of thing," Jiang Yuduo said dismissively. "Do I look like any of my injuries haven’t healed?"

"I’m talking about affecting it, not about it failing to heal," Cheng Ke said, putting down the skewer in his hand and looking at him. "Are all those injuries on you trophies from fighting with people?"

Jiang Yuduo didn’t say anything.

He had a lot of injuries, big and small, so many that he himself had never counted them carefully. Add in the ones that had already left no trace, and there were even more he couldn’t count.

But no one had ever asked him like this before. His little brothers, his enemies, everyone had just assumed those scars came from fighting. After all, he had lived like that from the day he arrived here.

Yet Cheng Ke had asked that one sentence.

Jiang Yuduo narrowed his eyes. Every time he was about to fully trust Cheng Ke, Cheng Ke would do one or two things that made him pay attention.

Today, when Cheng Ke had walked past his door, he had been standing behind the curtain. The people who had followed Cheng Ke from Building 3 had only left five minutes earlier.

No matter where Cheng Ke took a shortcut to get to that street, he didn’t need to pass by his home.

And before those people had kicked over the trash can, Cheng Ke had already stopped, maybe because he had already noticed someone following him.

Then came the fight.

And now, Cheng Ke was asking something like this again, as if hinting, I know your injuries weren’t all caused by fighting.

Jiang Yuduo didn’t want to suspect Cheng Ke. Cheng Ke really… didn’t seem like someone dangerous. When he was with Cheng Ke, if he didn’t deliberately think through all the coincidences, he couldn’t even remember to stay on guard around him.

"The minor ones were," Jiang Yuduo said.

Cheng Ke couldn’t help glancing at his chest. Minor ones were, but the ones on his back and chest definitely couldn’t count as minor. If those injuries hadn’t come from a fight, then where had they come from?

"Were you in a car accident?" Cheng Ke asked.

Jiang Yuduo looked at him. After a long while, he suddenly laughed. He laughed for quite a while before picking up his bowl and taking a sip of wine. "Fuck."

"Forget it," Cheng Ke said. "I won’t ask."

"You didn’t know?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

"…How the hell would I know?" Cheng Ke said.

"You could guess."

Jiang Yuduo lifted the corner of his mouth.

It should have counted as a smile, but Cheng Ke couldn’t sense anything in that expression that had anything to do with smiling.

Ever since the day he met Jiang Yuduo, Jiang Yuduo had always been like this. He really couldn’t figure out why. He hadn’t dealt with people like Jiang Yuduo before, street bosses who mixed around outside, collected rent, and fought people. He didn’t know whether people like that were all this moody, treating every stranger as a threat.

"Guess what?" Cheng Ke frowned and flicked a grain of salt off his clothes, sounding a little annoyed. "I’m fucking guessing you got hit by a car, got beaten up, ate too much and started self-harming, or maybe you were abused…"

He didn’t finish.

Jiang Yuduo suddenly kicked the table hard and stood up. The empty bowl was smashed onto the table, then fell to the floor. His face had already gone completely dark. He stared at Cheng Ke, his eyes cold enough to seem as if they were about to send out blades of ice.

"Fuck, what the hell are you…" Cheng Ke flared up too. From childhood to now, aside from his family, he had never been treated with this kind of inexplicable anger, with bowls thrown and tables kicked.

He was about to stand up too, never mind whether there were fake bosses and fake lackeys looking for him outside. Right now he just wanted to leave.

What the hell kind of you-draw-I-guess game was this, what the hell kind of barbecue, what the hell kind of wine!

But he didn’t manage to spring up with any grace.

Jiang Yuduo’s kick had been too hard. The table lurched toward Cheng Ke and pinned him between the table and the chair.

"Fuck!" he cursed.

Jiang Yuduo looked at him, reached out, grabbed the edge of the table, and pulled it aside. The table was dragged away.

Cheng Ke sprang up elegantly at once, grabbed the chair and shoved it aside, took his coat from the sofa, opened the door, and walked out.

"Cheng Ke!" Jiang Yuduo called after him.

"Don’t fucking call me! I’ll tell you one more thing and I’m your son!" Cheng Ke shouted back, not even turning his head as he walked out of the stairwell.

His phone buzzed twice.

He took it out and looked.

Event reminder, second time.

Pay rent.

"Your uncle!" Cheng Ke gritted his teeth. He was so angry the wound on the back of his head started throbbing.

It was already very cold outside. The north wind blew hard. After two gusts, his whole head went numb, so he hurriedly pulled up the hood on his coat.

The moment he raised his hand, a big tuft of white fluff fluttered past in front of his eyes. He followed it with his gaze for a long time. Only after the fluff disappeared into the night did he finally react and look at the sleeve of his coat.

What the hell kind of quality was this!

Trash!

The place where his arm had been injured had torn a huge hole through the sleeve, from outside to inside. It looked like it had been rubbed against the ground for ten minutes.

In just those two seconds, another tuft of fluff floated out.

He pinched the sleeve. The down in that section was gone, leaving only two thick layers of cloth.

Cheng Ke couldn’t describe how he felt right then. He didn’t know why he was so furious. In the cold wind, he could even smell the cumin scent of his own anger burning off him.

He only felt that Jiang Yuduo’s rough attitude had kicked all the goodwill and affection he’d had for this man into embarrassment and self-delusion in one go.

It made him feel a lot like a stray dog that had lost the rotten cardboard box at the street corner and was desperately wagging its tail at everyone.

His family had always regarded him as useless. He had even once thought, with complete resignation, that he was probably the kind of person who didn’t have much self-respect in some respects, as long as he could live however he wanted.

Now it seemed his self-knowledge had been incomplete.

All his irritation and anger were now aimed at this coat, which clearly had not been dragged across the ground but still somehow had a friction hole in it.

He took off the coat and flung it hard to the ground.

Fuck it!

Cheng Ke had only taken two steps forward when he heard a sound behind him. Wrapped in the wind, it sounded a bit like footsteps, and a bit like a stone rolling across the ground.

At the thought that there were still people out on the street looking for him to settle accounts, he quickly turned around.

There was no one behind him, but he saw Jiang Yuduo, who had somehow rushed out of the house and was running across the street.

Cheng Ke froze. He had originally thought that if he saw Jiang Yuduo now, the only possibility was Jiang Yuduo coming out to fight him, but Jiang Yuduo was actually charging toward the opposite street.

What happened?

Cheng Ke suddenly felt a bit cold.

"Go back!" Jiang Yuduo suddenly pointed at him. "Don’t come out!"

"What?" Cheng Ke was instantly lost.

Another burst of footsteps came from behind him. This time he heard them very clearly. He hurriedly turned around and saw several people rushing over, but the one in front he recognized.

It was Da Bin.

"Third Brother!" Da Bin shouted.

"You lot stay put!" Jiang Yuduo roared as he charged into the passage diagonally across from them.

Da Bin hesitated. He didn’t stop, but his pace slowed, and the others who had come with him were all looking toward the passage.

"What’s going on?" Cheng Ke was a little stunned. "What are you doing here?"

"Probably those guys just now," Da Bin said. "Third Brother told us to keep an eye on the area, afraid you’d get targeted when you left in a bit."

Cheng Ke stared at him without speaking.

"We saw two just now," Da Bin said, pointing behind him. "Just then Third Brother called and told us to come over and send you off…"

Before he could finish, Cheng Ke turned and ran toward the passage across the street.

"Brother Ke! Third Brother said not to go over there!" Da Bin called after him anxiously. "He told you to go back!"

"He’ll tell you to eat shit in a minute!" Cheng Ke ignored him and ran across the street. "If you’re that obedient, eat one for me and show me!"

It had to be said that Jiang Yuduo’s authority over these little lackeys really was pretty high. In this freezing weather, if he told them to patrol the street, they patrolled. If he told them to send someone home, they sent him. If he told them to stay put, they stayed put.

Da Bin and the others had already run to the mouth of the passage, but because of Jiang Yuduo’s one sentence, they still hadn’t dared to come in.

Cheng Ke rushed into the passage and saw no one.

This passage was a narrow lane between two buildings, too narrow for anything except people and electric scooters. Even a tricycle would probably have trouble getting through. There was nowhere on either side to hide.

"Jiang Yuduo!" Cheng Ke shouted once.

No one answered.

"Lao San!" Cheng Ke strode farther in and shouted again, then thought that calling him Lao San might make Jiang Yuduo, as the boss, lose face, so he added, "Third Brother!"

Still no answer, and he didn’t hear any movement either.

Cheng Ke suddenly felt afraid.

A few more steps ahead and the passage ended. Beyond it was another little road. There were streetlights there, but they weren’t very bright. From here, there was no one on that little road either.

But around the corner…

Cheng Ke saw a shadow flicker on the ground at the end of the passage.

"Jiang Yuduo!" he blurted, instinctively reaching into his pocket for something to use as a weapon.

He fumbled twice before remembering that he wasn’t even wearing his coat, so where was he supposed to have pockets?

The owner of the shadow turned out from the corner. "Who the hell told you to come over here!"

It was Jiang Yuduo.

Cheng Ke let out a sharp breath of relief.

Behind him, there was a burst of messy footsteps, along with Da Bin’s voice. "Third Brother! Are you okay!"

"Tomorrow I’m going to deal with all of you," Jiang Yuduo said, pointing at him.

Da Bin didn’t make a sound.

"Hurry up and go," Jiang Yuduo said. "It’s fine now. Go back and sleep."

"There are still two of them around here," another little brother said carefully. "How about we guys first…"

"If I told you to go back, then go back," Jiang Yuduo interrupted impatiently. "I told you to keep an eye on things, so keep an eye on things. Keep an eye on things, understand? Watch with your eyes! Don’t move your hands! Who the hell told you to go fight?"

"Thi…" The man wanted to say something else, but Da Bin slapped him once.

"Then we’re heading back, Third Brother," Da Bin said.

"Go on." Jiang Yuduo waved a hand.

Da Bin led the others away.

Cheng Ke followed Jiang Yuduo back to the entrance of his place. On the way, several windows had people peering out, and some were talking in low voices.

"Aren’t you cold?" Jiang Yuduo asked, turning his head.

"Wh…" Cheng Ke started to speak, only then realizing his teeth were chattering rather vigorously.

He quickly wanted to go get his coat back. He took two steps, only to find that the spot where he had thrown the coat was empty, not even a single feather left.

"Where’s my coat?" he asked in utter shock.

"Someone picked it up, obviously," Jiang Yuduo said. "With a coat that good, even if you’d only just walked away, someone would have come and grabbed it."

"Good my ass," Cheng Ke said, remembering the hole and getting pissed again. "There’s a huge tear in it."

"Patch it up," Jiang Yuduo said. "Don’t assume that because you used to spend all day around bars and nightlife over there on the main streets, everyone living in this area is rich."

Cheng Ke didn’t speak, and couldn’t speak. His teeth felt like they were about to freeze solid. He was almost unable to make a sound from chattering.

He seriously admired Jiang Yuduo’s ability to withstand the cold. At the very least, he was wearing a thin wool sweater, while Jiang Yuduo had only a long-sleeved T-shirt on.

And he could still walk with his head held high, not even tucking in his neck.

"Come on, go back to my place first," Jiang Yuduo said.

Cheng Ke followed silently behind him. As they crossed the street, a gust of wind blew over, and he almost wanted to shove Jiang Yuduo twice for walking too slowly.

Once they got inside, it took him almost two minutes before he finally recovered a little.

"Do you have anything valuable in your clothes?" Jiang Yuduo poured a bowl of wine and handed it to him.

"No." Cheng Ke touched the phone in his pants pocket. "I’ve only got a phone and a pack of cigarettes on me. Nothing else."

Jiang Yuduo nodded and took a skewer of beef. Just as he bit into it, he suddenly turned his head. "Just a phone and cigarettes? You fucking didn’t bring your keys again?"

"I did!" Cheng Ke was shocked. He hurriedly slapped at his pants pocket several times. When he didn’t feel anything, he reached in and fumbled around. It was empty.

"Where are they?" Jiang Yuduo immediately took out his phone and looked at the time. "It’s already 12 o’clock, damn it! Where am I supposed to get keys for you now?"

"I really did bring my keys," Cheng Ke said helplessly, sitting down in the chair. "They were in the coat pocket."

"I’ll give you a keychain later and you can hang it around your neck," Jiang Yuduo said, walking toward the door. "Or tomorrow you can file a report and apply to switch to a fingerprint lock."

"Where are you going?" Cheng Ke asked.

"To help you find your keys," Jiang Yuduo said. "The people who picked up the coat were probably just a few. I’ll ask them. But let me say this first, the coat definitely isn’t coming back. Just think of it as supporting poverty relief."

"Mm." Cheng Ke sighed.

When Jiang Yuduo passed by him, a flash of red suddenly caught his eye.

"You…" Cheng Ke turned and grabbed Jiang Yuduo’s hand. "What got hurt?"

There was a streak of fresh blood on the back of Jiang Yuduo’s hand, flowing out from his sleeve.

"Just got scraped." Jiang Yuduo pulled his hand away.

"Forget the keys for now," Cheng Ke said, standing up and examining him from head to toe. "Where are you hurt?"

"Tsk." Jiang Yuduo rolled up his sleeve, revealing a wound on his forearm. "Just this much. It only looks scary."

Cheng Ke looked at the wound. It didn’t seem like a knife wound. The edges of the cut were very uneven, as if it had been forcefully sliced open by something not sharp at all.

He didn’t know what exactly had done the scraping.

"At least stop the bleeding first," Cheng Ke said. "If you go out like this, even if someone really did pick up the keys, they won’t dare say anything."

"Annoying as hell." Jiang Yuduo frowned and turned into the kitchen, turning on the tap and running the wound under a stream of water.

Cheng Ke was completely speechless, but he really didn’t want to say anything anymore either. If he said one more thing, he felt like he’d become some nagging old housewife.

The sound of running water in the kitchen went on for a long time without stopping. Cheng Ke tilted his head and looked over there once.

Jiang Yuduo was still standing at the sink, holding his arm under the tap. Cheng Ke couldn’t see his face, but he could see that his arm was shaking very badly.