WC ⋆ Chapter 50

Getting Jiang Yishen into the apartment was a physical ordeal. Qi Lin was half dead from exhaustion, and the moment he dumped him onto the sofa, the man woke up on his own.

Qi Lin was bent over changing out of his outer pants when a large hand suddenly hooked around his waist and pulled him backward. He lost his balance and toppled onto the sofa, and before he could get up, Jiang Yishen burrowed into his arms, pressing down on his legs with a heavy, solid weight.

His pants were only half off, still hanging around his calves. Qi Lin pushed at his shoulders. "Wait until I change."

Jiang Yishen paid no attention. He seemed incapable of coordinating his own limbs, and he clung to Qi Lin in an extremely awkward position without moving.

Qi Lin had the feeling of being coiled around several times by a snake that had then tied itself into a bow. He tried to roll over, struggled for a good while, and didn't budge an inch.

"Jiang Yishen!" Qi Lin smacked him with the back of his hand. "Ease up."

Jiang Yishen understood that much. He squeezed out a sound of complaint from his throat and still held on without letting go.

Qi Lin gave in. He stopped fighting and relaxed, lying back down. "Then help me change."

The slippers had been kicked far away at some point. Jiang Yishen made a labored effort to sit up, pulled Qi Lin into his own arms, but the sofa was too small and there wasn't enough room to maneuver, so it was extremely cramped.

Jiang Yishen's full attention was fixed on the outer pants hanging around Qi Lin's calves. He wasn't very clearheaded at the moment, and he processed Qi Lin's instructions with some distortion. After tugging at the pants a few times and finding it hard to get any leverage, he mumbled, "Come here a bit."

"Hm?" Qi Lin didn't catch it, and the next second he was pressed face-down onto the sofa cushion.

He quickly turned his face to the side and looked back. Jiang Yishen had arranged him into a particularly undignified position, elbow pressing into the small of his back, bending his back and waist into an ambiguous curve, and then roughly yanked the outer pants off.

Then he flung the clothes away, picked Qi Lin up, and stuffed himself wholesale into his arms.

The blood that had just come to a boil in Qi Lin ran through cold water all over again. He suspected that if this kept up he'd wither, and he looked down at the fluffy top of Jiang Yishen's head and confirmed for the third time: "What are you doing?"

"Mmm."

Qi Lin didn't catch it and leaned down. "What?"

"Egg roll crisps."

Qi Lin understood immediately what he was talking about. He paused. "You want to eat egg roll crisps?"

Jiang Yishen didn't answer, just squirmed and burrowed around shamelessly, as if searching for a comfortable lying position.

Qi Lin stopped paying attention to him, leaned his head back against the sofa, and only when the person in his arms finally stopped fidgeting did he let out a sigh and say, "We'll go to the supermarket tomorrow and buy some."

Jiang Yishen was asleep.

Qi Lin spent enormous effort prying him off, and the fire that had been stirred up had no one to resolve it. He didn't have the energy to get angry at him, so he walked into the bathroom alone and didn't even bother closing the door.

He had also drunk quite a bit today. The alcohol at the restaurant had only been ordinary beer, not particularly high in content. After all, it was already late, and the others still had to get back to school when it was over. Drinking was just to liven things up, not to get drunk.

Who could have guessed that even that was enough to knock Jiang Yishen over. This person had absolutely no sense of his own limits, and his WeChat status was still "three bowls and you can't pass the pass."

Qi Lin took matters into his own hands, and finally experienced firsthand why the Jiang Yishen he had seen during the time loop couldn't get anything done no matter what.

He thought for a moment about whether to wake Jiang Yishen up, or take the opportunity to borrow Jiang Yishen's hand, when he heard his phone ringing in the living room.

Qi Lin once again felt that his life was really too bitter. He leaned against the mirror and looked for a while, then raised his hand and touched his neck, and suddenly realized that what his friends had said earlier was right: he had indeed put on some weight.

On New Year's Eve, in the final second of the loop, he had seen Jiang Yishen for the first time at the intersection of the Pedestrian Street. After the loop, Jiang Yishen had said he would come find him at the rental apartment. Back then he had stood in front of the window waiting, looking at his own face reflected in the glass, his chin still sharp, dark circles hanging listlessly beneath his eyes.

Now, at least, he didn't look quite so thin. The bones at his shoulders and neck no longer jutted out uncomfortably.

The call was from Fan Zi, asking whether they had gotten home safely. Qi Lin reported that they were fine, then asked about the situation on the other end.

Xu Baili naturally had no way to go back to his own dormitory. The graduate student dorms weren't in the same area as theirs. Never mind whether he could even find the room, waking up his roommates at this hour wasn't great either, so they had carried him over to Jiang Yishen's dormitory.

"Oh, and one more thing. That student council thing you mentioned before, I asked around, and there really is a connection. Isn't that something?" The person on the other end snapped his fingers. "Guess who?"

What Qi Lin had asked him to look into was nothing more than the mess with the external liaison department. He couldn't think offhand of what kind of connection someone as unreliable as Fan Zi could possibly have found. "Who?"

"An Yufeng. Have you heard of her?" Fan Zi said. "Do you remember the girl in the same hospital room when I had my accident? Her best friend. One hundred percent reliable. She's in the student council's rights and welfare department now."

Qi Lin's first reaction wasn't about the rights and welfare department. "How did you reach so far? Don't involve too many people."

"How is that many? Just the three of us, nobody else." Fan Zi said. "All our own people. Reliable."

Qi Lin knew that Fan Zi and the girl from the hospital room were still in an ambiguous stage, and seemed to be getting along very well, with the air of people who regretted not meeting sooner.

"Do they know what I'm trying to do?" Qi Lin asked.

"They know. She also really hates that He Jian. Says whenever there's something that needs doing she'll go through fire and water. It's not using anyone, we're more like an alliance." Fan Zi spoke with great conviction, as if the whole thing were already set in stone, and had already conjured up an entire revenge blockbuster in his head.

Qi Lin was still a little uneasy. "Let's find a chance to meet in person. We can talk more after we've met."

"I think so too," Fan Zi said. "I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Didn't find the right moment at dinner."

"Thanks."

Fan Zi laughed. His voice had a slight echo, probably because he had gone outside alone to make the call. "Don't be so formal. This isn't just your business either."

Jiang Yishen was still asleep on the sofa, hugging the cushion. One roll and he would tumble to the floor.

Qi Lin looked away and chatted with Fan Zi for a few more minutes, asking about Yin Yu's situation along the way. Fan Zi only said that Yin Yu had his own things to keep him busy, and that without making plans in advance you basically couldn't see him. If you wanted to meet, just contact him directly on WeChat.

They chatted on and off for half an hour before hanging up. Qi Lin glanced at the date: past midnight, January 10th. The cactus on the balcony looked the same as yesterday, and he couldn't tell whether the flower buds had grown or not.

He tidied up the apartment, dug out a blanket and draped it over Jiang Yishen, and didn't retreat to the bedroom to sleep until the small hours of the morning.

Jiang Yishen's special ability was that he never blacked out when drunk. The next day he was up earlier than a rooster. The moment the sky began to lighten he climbed off the sofa, aching all over but full of energy. The hangover left him a little dizzy, with a dull, stuffy headache. Seeing that Qi Lin wasn't awake yet, he boiled a kettle of water on his own.

The scenes from yesterday were still vivid in his mind, and many sentences whose meaning he hadn't understood at the time were replayed now. Jiang Yishen stood in the kitchen facing the electric kettle, itching to throw a full set of military calisthenics at himself, not knowing what had possessed him yesterday to drink that extra glass, letting his wife-in-hand slip away just like that.

Qi Lin had left his bedroom door open, unguarded, and you could see him curled up in a ball sleeping at the very edge of the bed, his messy hair covering his eyes.

Jiang Yishen stood in the doorway and felt like slapping himself a few more times.

There was a lingering smell of alcohol on his clothes. He took them off and changed, got himself sorted out. The sun rose, a bright and clear day. He quietly circled around Qi Lin's bed in laps.

He had said they would go to the supermarket together today, and when Qi Lin had agreed his voice was very soft, but he had heard it.

Jiang Yishen actually couldn't remember clearly why he had said "egg roll crisps." He had assumed Qi Lin no longer remembered the matter, but thinking back to Qi Lin's expression when he heard those three words last night, there had seemed to be something like regret and sadness on his face.

He didn't want Qi Lin to feel regret or sadness. Fortunately, it wasn't too late for any of it.

Buying egg roll crisps was the secondary purpose. Stocking up on New Year's goods was the main purpose. They had actually lost track of the last time they had gone grocery shopping together. Before, they had lived on campus and didn't need to go out and buy things specially. This time there was more to prepare: the vegetables, meat, eggs, and dairy they needed day to day, plus gifts to get ready for the New Year.

Qi Lin and Jiang Yishen went to the largest supermarket nearby. It was still early, and the two of them swept through the place like bandits, raiding all the sample tasting stations for breakfast.

The shopping carts at this place were extremely hard to push. Every time Qi Lin came here it drove him crazy, but this time he could hand the whole thing over to Jiang Yishen.

Grocery shopping is an activity that closes social distance at high speed. You can glimpse a person's living habits, personal preferences, and even explore their behavioral character through what they buy. Qi Lin greatly disliked going to the supermarket with other people. Not only were their shopping rhythms different, but he also had to rack his brains for topics to talk about.

But going with Jiang Yishen, he didn't need to worry about any of that. This person didn't care at all what he bought, and simply launched a sweeping attack on everything in sight.

When Qi Lin picked up a toothbrush set that looked rather coarse, Jiang Yishen commented, "Looks like something for picking a horse's teeth."

A customer standing nearby who had also been examining the toothbrush set quietly put it back. Qi Lin immediately elbowed him, looked at the toothbrush set, couldn't help wanting to laugh, and still managed to keep a straight face and say, "Look at you, so capable."

Jiang Yishen pushed the cart with one hand. The supermarket's heating was running full blast, and he had rolled his sleeves up a little. He put his arm around Qi Lin and they moved on, walking past a few rows of shelves. He was just about to say something teasing when his peripheral vision caught a familiar figure pushing a cart toward them, picking up that horse toothbrush set to examine it.

He spun around sharply. The figure was tall, sleeves rolled up, pushing the cart in a posture that looked like it had been cast from the same mold as his own.

"Hm?" Qi Lin also turned his head, but Jiang Yishen shifted sideways and blocked him, squeezing him between his chest and the shopping cart, and pushed off at a run.

"My dad, my dad!" Jiang Yishen was in a panic. "Don't let him see us!"

Not only was the cart hard to push, it was also extremely loud. There weren't many customers in the morning, and the two of them running was like setting off a string of firecrackers, full of noise and festivity.

Jiang Yishen hadn't anticipated it would cause such a commotion either. The moment he started running he regretted it, and could only pray that his dad didn't have the habit of craning his neck to look whenever he heard someone setting off firecrackers nearby, pray that his dad wouldn't recognize him from the back the instant he spotted him, and pray that when his dad noticed there were four legs behind the cart he wouldn't guess there was another person by his side.

Heaven did not grant his wishes. One minute later, Jiang Yishen's phone rang.

—

#