TA • Chapter 7

For the fact that his family had decided he was useless, Cheng Ke mostly didn’t dwell on it. But every now and then, he still felt a little unconvinced.

Today, though, he had gained a whole new understanding of just how useless he really was.

It had already been fifteen minutes since he started spreading the newly bought bedsheet over the bed. Tug the left side and the right side came up short. Tug the right side and the left side came up short. The middle was always wavy, and no matter how he pulled it, there were at least three damn wrinkles. He worked up a sweat, and the effort even made the wound at his waist ache a little, but he still couldn’t get it flat.

In the end, he gave up. He picked up the duvet cover, looked at it, and without even trying, gave up again. He shook it open, threw it over the bed, then put the comforter on top. That worked fine. He used the same method on the pillow, spreading the pillowcase over it, then took a change of clothes and went into the bathroom.

Actually, when he was staying at Xu Ding’s place, he showered every day too, but for some reason, now when he took off his clothes, he had the illusion that he hadn’t bathed at all since leaving home.

Maybe only now was he beginning to feel like this place was his own territory.

But then he quickly remembered that Jiang Yuduo, that crazy bastard, had a key, and wouldn’t let him change the lock. A wave of irritation hit him at once, even though he had no idea how one was supposed to change a lock in the first place.

Just go buy one and change it himself?

Would the locksmith do the installation?

Or should he call property management?

Did property management handle that sort of thing?

What was the number for property management again…

Was my waist fucking huge or what!

Cheng Ke stared at the mirror at his bare upper body. The knife wound at the right side of his waist, which had seemed almost healed, was now faintly red from the sweat.

Looks like he had overestimated Jiang Yuduo’s stabbing skills.

Jiang Yuduo wasn’t some expert with a knife who could stab exactly where he aimed, and this slash hadn’t been some deliberate little cut to intimidate him.

It was just that Jiang Yuduo wasn’t skilled enough and hadn’t gotten the angle right!

The moment he thought of that, the heat his body had built up while making the bed vanished all at once, and even his back felt a little cold. If the aim had been off just a little more, he could’ve been stabbed straight in the stomach.

Jiang Yuduo was absolutely a psycho. With that kind of skill, he had still dared to strike so fast. If he’d hit the stomach, it probably would’ve gone clean through.

Frowning, Cheng Ke pressed down on the wound and recited Namo Amitabha three times.

He didn’t know why he was reciting that. Anyway, his mother always did.

Cheng Ke sighed, turned on the faucet, and after a moment stepped under the showerhead, closing his eyes.

Wash away these last few days of frustration… Fuck!

The cold water from the showerhead jolted him so hard he jumped backward three or four times in a row, bumping into the bathroom door before he finally stopped.

Why was it cold water!

He had let the water run for so long, and it was still freezing!

He yanked a bath towel over himself.

There hadn’t been a water heater in the bathroom, so maybe there really wasn’t one?

He opened the door and stepped out, then saw a water heater mounted on the wall outside the bathroom, with "instant hot water heater" written on it.

So he went back in, turned on the faucet again, then came back out and found the heater still hadn’t started.

Was it unplugged? Cheng Ke looked up and saw the plug sitting perfectly in the socket.

Then maybe the gas hadn’t been turned on?

So he looked again, only to be shocked to find that there wasn’t even a gas pipe connected to the heater.

"Fuck." Cheng Ke was practically furious. Wrapped in a bath towel, he stormed into the living room, grabbed his phone, and dialed Jiang Yuduo’s number.

The screen showed, "Jiang Brain-Normal-Not" is dialing.

Jiang Yuduo picked up fairly quickly, though his tone was extremely rude. "Who is it."

"Me, Cheng Ke," Cheng Ke said. "That water heater doesn’t even have a gas pipe connected?"

"What gas pipe?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

"The water heater!" Cheng Ke walked back to the bathroom door and knocked on the heater a few times. "How am I supposed to shower if there’s no hot water? It won’t even start!"

"Whether it starts or not has nothing to do with whether the gas pipe is connected," Jiang Yuduo said, sounding like he was lighting a cigarette. "Even without gas, it can still start. It just won’t produce hot water."

"Stop talking bullshit to me. I’m just asking you…" Cheng Ke had only gotten halfway through when Jiang Yuduo cut him off.

"What does the water heater say on it?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

"I…" Cheng Ke felt like he simply couldn’t communicate with this person, but he still gritted his teeth and looked at the heater. "Isn’t it just some model number? Something something instant electric water heater!"

"Exactly!" Jiang Yuduo suddenly yelled. "This fucking thing is an electric water heater! What the fuck does it have to do with a gas pipe!"

Jiang Yuduo’s roar made Cheng Ke a little dizzy. He had to take the phone away and switch on speaker, then looked at the heater’s label again.

This really was, in fact, an electric water heater.

But.

"I don’t care whether it’s electric or gas!" Cheng Ke controlled his voice, trying hard not to match the psycho’s volume. "It’s not starting right now, and it’s not giving me hot water!"

"Is it plugged in?" Jiang Yuduo’s voice returned to normal too.

"It’s plugged in." Cheng Ke glanced at the socket.

"Is the leakage breaker on?" Jiang Yuduo asked again.

"What?" Cheng Ke froze.

"There’s a little box on it. On the box there’s a little cover. Open the cover, there’s a little switch inside," Jiang Yuduo said. "Flip the little switch up."

Cheng Ke didn’t say anything. Following Jiang Yuduo’s series of little this and little that, he did as instructed, and the water heater’s screen lit up.

"Did it start?" Jiang Yuduo asked.

"…It started." Cheng Ke answered.

At that moment, he felt extremely embarrassed, and he had no idea what else he could possibly say.

"Good job," Jiang Yuduo said. "Much better than the three-and-a-half-year-old kid next door. That kid knows how to do it, but he can’t reach."

Cheng Ke said nothing.

"If you don’t hang up within three seconds, I’m coming over to beat you."

"Are your fingers fucking broken or something, that you can’t hang up yourself?" Cheng Ke said, then hung up. After a two-second pause, he violently hurled the phone at the living-room sofa. It bounced twice and crashed to the floor. He went back into the bathroom. "Go to hell."

He slapped the towel hard onto the floor, then twisted the faucet hard open. When the showerhead finally started pumping out steam, Cheng Ke stepped hard into the hot water and closed his eyes hard.

After standing under the hot water for a while, Cheng Ke felt much more relaxed. The tightness in his chest gradually eased too, but his body also started to go soft. He pressed his forehead against the wall and let himself be wrapped in the warm water and steam.

He let out a long breath.

Chen Qing sat on a chair with his legs propped on the table, laughing for five straight minutes without being able to stop.

"You done yet?" Jiang Yuduo looked at him.

"No, seriously," Chen Qing said with a grin, turning his head. "Is that Jiajie an alien? He doesn’t even know how to use a water heater?"

Jiang Yuduo ignored him, lowered his head to look at his phone, saved Cheng Ke’s number, then tapped a few times in the name field.

Cheng. Idiot. Ke.

"So that means," Chen Qing said once he’d finished laughing and started analyzing, "he really is some pampered young master. Rich people maybe don’t use water heaters at home, they just go soak in hot springs."

Jiang Yuduo bent down, grabbed his own slippers, and threw them at Chen Qing. "Shut up for a while."

"I’m sleeping," Chen Qing yawned. "I’ve got to go to the shop early tomorrow morning, then in the afternoon I’m going to Zhang Daqi’s place again. I’ll go in as soon as he opens the door."

"Mm," Jiang Yuduo answered. "Bring a couple people there and just sit tight. Don’t get into a conflict with him. That old bastard’s pretty dirty."

"Dirty?" Chen Qing thought about it. "He hasn’t really done anything all these years, has he? He just looks mean-faced. Doesn’t seem like he used to run with a crowd."

"You’re blind. What the hell could you tell?" Jiang Yuduo stood up and went into the bedroom. "Flatten the sofa and sleep on it. It’s wider."

"No need, I’m this narrow." Chen Qing flopped onto the sofa.

Jiang Yuduo slammed the bedroom door shut.

That night, he couldn’t sleep. He had insomnia.

In the middle of the night, Jiang Yuduo sat up and looked at the calendar on the bedside table. This month, the number of nights he’d had insomnia was a little high. He took the calendar and drew an X on today’s date.

He hadn’t run into anything major lately, so why was he always unable to sleep?

He tilted his head and looked at Miao sleeping beside the pillow, curled up like a twisted piece of dough and sleeping very sweetly. He poked Miao’s belly. How enviable.

Chen Qing got up at six-thirty in the morning. What an excellent young man. In all the time he’d been working, he had never once been late, and aside from often driving customers’ cars around all over the place, he had no flaws at all.

After hearing Chen Qing leave, Jiang Yuduo also got out of bed. He walked to the window and looked out through a crack in the curtain. It was still very dark outside, the streetlights were still on, and everyone who got up early walked with hurried steps.

Jiang Yuduo stood by the window for nearly twenty minutes. Miao climbed up his pants all the way to his shoulder, then meowed into his ear.

"Alright, alright, I know you want breakfast," Jiang Yuduo pulled it down and tossed it onto the sofa. "I’m telling you, you’d better behave. The day I get annoyed, you’ll have to go out and eat trash."

After taking care of Miao, and watching TV on the sofa for another hour or so, Jiang Yuduo went out and sat down at the breakfast shop across the street.

He sat against the wall, facing the street. He had already forgotten when he’d started this habit, or how many years he had kept it up.

In short, if he didn’t sit this way, he couldn’t eat.

But he hadn’t slept all night, so even sitting like this, he still had no appetite.

He ordered a bowl of doufunao and a steamer of buns, and seriously forced himself to finish them.

He had to eat. Three meals a day, morning noon and night, not a single one could be skipped. Even if he had no appetite, he still had to eat, because his body needed it.

After eating, he wandered around the street twice, and up ahead was Lu Xi’s rental apartment. Jiang Yuduo checked the time and planned to go collect the rent. It couldn’t be delayed anymore. If one household dragged it out, then two would follow.

Just as he reached the intersection, he saw the man from the second-floor unit pushing a breakfast cart back home.

This road was a bit rough. Jiang Yuduo had walked it for so many years and had never seen anyone repair it. The breakfast cart had very small wheels, and it bounced along the road in a miserably difficult way.

He walked over, grabbed the handlebar, and helped the man push the cart out of a pothole.

"Thanks." The man turned and said it.

"No problem." Jiang Yuduo said.

The man froze. His expression went from gratitude to shock, then to panic, and then collapsed into sadness.

"Third Brother," he said, pushing the cart, his whole body leaning against it, but the cart still didn’t move forward. "About that rent…"

"It has to be paid today," Jiang Yuduo said. "Stop dragging it out day after day. How long has this been now?"

"I really don’t have money on hand right now," the man said. "You saw it, my family is relying on this breakfast cart now. With the city beautification campaign going on, they won’t let us set up anymore. I even snuck out today, and before I sold much, they drove me back."

Jiang Yuduo kept helping him push the cart forward. "Pay this month later. First make up the arrears from before."

"Third Brother…" The man’s voice was full of misery. "The main thing is, my kids are all still little, they can’t be left alone, and my wife can’t go to work either. Last month something happened back in my hometown too…"

"If you can’t make it up today," Jiang Yuduo cut him off, "then find somewhere else to live within three days."

The man didn’t speak again. He pushed the cart with his head down.

Jiang Yuduo didn’t say anything either. He just helped push the cart all the way into the stairwell, then followed him up to the second floor.

As soon as the door opened, three children ran out. They called out for Dad and then ran back and forth in the doorway playing, shouting excitedly.

Jiang Yuduo’s brain was starting to ache from the noise, so he quickly went into the room.

Inside, the woman sat on a chair with a miserable look on her face, shelling beans. When she saw him come in, tears immediately welled up.

"Sister, control yourself," Jiang Yuduo pointed at her. "Don’t cry. I don’t fall for that. The more you cry, the more annoyed I get."

The woman lowered her head and wiped at her eyes.

The man sat down, let out a heavy sigh, and after a while pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and took one out, offering it toward Jiang Yuduo. "Third Brother…"

"Smoke it yourself," Jiang Yuduo took out his own cigarettes, bit one between his lips, and lit it. "In a situation like this, what’s the point of offering cigarettes."

The man lowered his head and took a few hard drags, then clenched his teeth. "Third Brother, just three more days, just three days…"

"Today," Jiang Yuduo said. "If I don’t have the money today, three days from now I’ll send people over to help you move."

The woman let out a sob at once.

"See that," Jiang Yuduo leaned back against the chair. "You both know that even if I gave you another three days, the result would still be the same."

"We really can’t get the money together. The kids need feeding, and we’re almost running out of food," the woman cried. "Third Brother, even if you forced us to death, we still couldn’t come up with this money. Please help us, give us some time to scrape it together."

"Who’s helping who," Jiang Yuduo said slowly. "Who’s helping who? Who can help who? There isn’t anyone in this world who can help you. Nobody can even see you. Do you understand?"

The man and woman both looked at him. Clearly, they didn’t understand.

If this were Chen Qing, Jiang Yuduo would have beaten him already. But right now, facing these two, he didn’t even have the slightest temper. All he felt was an irritating annoyance mixed with resistance.

"You have so many properties rented out, taking in so much money," the man said in a very low voice. "Really, you can’t miss just our one share, can you? Can’t it wait a little longer?"

"No," Jiang Yuduo said. "With your mindset, even if I gave you ten more years, you still wouldn’t be able to cough up this little bit of money."

The man said nothing.

Jiang Yuduo stood up. "If you have the money today, call me. If I don’t get a call before 12, in three days I’ll send people over to help you move."

By the time he reached the bottom floor, Jiang Yuduo heard arguing from the second floor. The woman was crying and cursing the children, and the man was shouting something in a muffled voice.

So damn annoying.

Jiang Yuduo lit another cigarette and held it in his mouth. Annoying.

He took out his phone and called Da Bin. "For the next couple of days, keep an eye on the family on the second floor of Building 1. If they want to run, let them run, but don’t let them take anything from the place, appliances and stuff."

"Got it, Third Brother," Da Bin said. "Just… let them leave?"

"What else," Jiang Yuduo said. "The little bit of junk they’ve got combined still wouldn’t cover the rent. They might as well leave quickly and make way for someone else to rent it."

"Then wouldn’t it be better to just chase them out?" Da Bin asked.

"It’s different." Jiang Yuduo said.

"Mm, got it," Da Bin said. "I’ll keep an eye on them these next couple of days."

When Cheng Ke woke up, it was already three in the afternoon. He looked at the time on his phone in disbelief. That sleep had been way too good.

He sat up, tugged at the quilt on him, and found that somehow the duvet cover he’d put inside had been kicked to the foot of the bed. The quilt itself was still covering him.

He sighed, got out of bed slowly, and after washing up stood in front of the fridge and started thinking.

Yesterday, he had bought a lot of things at the supermarket. Aside from daily necessities and household supplies, he had also bought quite a bit of food, planning to cook for himself at home.

Although he felt this was a task that probably couldn’t be completed, and he didn’t even know where to begin, he still bravely took out a tube of noodles and two Chinese sausages from the fridge.

Boiling noodles should have been the easiest thing. If the difficulty of making instant noodles was 0.1, then boiling noodles was probably 0.5.

There was a knife rack on the counter, with three knives inserted into it, wide, narrow, and long-bladed. He didn’t know what they were for, so he randomly took the long one, put the sausage on the cutting board, hesitated for a few seconds, then cut it into pieces.

The next step, as he understood it, was to boil water. Whether the noodles went in first or the sausage went in first, whether they went in once the water boiled or before it boiled, he decided to leave that to fate.

He took a small pot, filled it with water, and put it on the stove.

This was a gas stove.

Not an induction cooker.

Then he checked and confirmed that the gas pipe was connected properly. After another look, he saw a small valve, turned it, and it should have been open.

Next up was lighting the stove.

He turned the knob and heard a series of soft clicking sounds.

Yes, that was definitely the sound. He waited happily for a flame, but even after the clicking stopped, no flame appeared.

He reset the knob and turned it again. Click click click click click…

He shut off the gas valve, turned around, and walked out of the kitchen. Screw cooking noodles.

He decided to go out and find a place to eat, and while he was at it, get familiar with the neighborhood.

Standing at the elevator door and waiting for it to come up from the first floor, Cheng Ke couldn’t help taking out his phone and typing a few words into the search bar.

How to light a gas stove

Actually, he felt like there was something wrong with the stove, but after yesterday’s lesson with the water heater, he really didn’t dare call Jiang Yuduo immediately to complain about this crappy stove.

-Open the front valve, press the knob inward, then rotate it to the left until it reaches a horizontal position. That is the maximum point for the switch. After ignition, adjust the flame size as needed.

Cheng Ke stared at those words and read them carefully once. There was nothing wrong with the operation, right? It was just this part about pressing the knob inward… inward meant where exactly?

The elevator dinged. Cheng Ke put his phone back in his pocket. He could study it slowly when he got back.

The elevator doors opened, and someone was standing inside.

"…You?" Cheng Ke looked at Jiang Yuduo, who was standing straight and expressionless in the elevator. Had he come to collect rent after only one day of living here?

"You’re at home?" Jiang Yuduo said expressionlessly.

"Yeah." Cheng Ke looked at him and suddenly felt a little nervous.

He hadn’t actually seen Jiang Yuduo that many times, but every time he had, Jiang Yuduo had had some expression on his face, arrogant, mocking, annoyed.

Now that he saw a face with absolutely no expression at all, Cheng Ke suddenly felt uneasy.

He glanced at the fire axe beside him.

Jiang Yuduo raised his hand. Just as Cheng Ke was about to back away, he realized Jiang Yuduo was only tapping at the elevator control panel.

He was probably pressing the close-door button. The elevator doors began to slide shut.

Just as the doors were closing, leaving only a narrow slit, Cheng Ke saw blood sliding out from the hair at the left side of Jiang Yuduo’s forehead, running down along the knife scar on his face and leaving a dark red streak.

"What’s wrong with you?" Cheng Ke asked in shock.

Jiang Yuduo didn’t answer. The elevator doors shut.

When Cheng Ke rushed over and pressed the button, the elevator had already started going down.

"Fuck." Cheng Ke stood there, a little dazed. He had instinctively wanted to help Jiang Yuduo, but very quickly he came to himself. This guy was "Third Brother." It was obvious he had run into trouble, and Cheng Ke really did not want to get tangled up in any more inexplicable trouble.

But why had Jiang Yuduo, wounded like that, come here?

Had this place been his refuge before it was rented out?

Cheng Ke hesitated for a moment, then took out his phone and dialed the number for Jiang Brain-Normal-Not.

But Jiang Yuduo did not answer the call.