Chapter 9

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Since Zheng Yi had to sneak in, they didn’t dare take the lift, instead opting for the stairs.

After climbing 10 floors, Chen Gong was covered in sweat. Finishing off the beer on the desk, he stripped off his sweat-dampened shirt for another shower.

He turned off the light for Zheng Yi and went into the bathroom.

“Dawn breaks at around 6AM there, but we’ll still be able to see some sunrise by the time we arrive.”

“I’ll be using the bathroom in a bit. Don’t shower, go straight to sleep after eating.”

“The location is pretty far, you can sleep for about an hour in the car tomorrow.”

Chen Gong spoke at length, but Zheng Yi didn’t reply. He could only keep his head down and munch on his burger, mulling over how shameful his night had been.

Here he was, staying in Chen Gong’s room, eating his food, and drinking his water.

He hadn’t even turned the page from the “slander” and “snitching” incidents of the days past, and now he owed a debt of gratitude to top it off. The more he thought about it, the more he felt like the villain of this story.

Zheng Yi’s face crumpled, unwilling to accept the image he’d made for himself.

–

But thinking it over, he decided: whatever, what was the point of blaming himself? A strong man can bend and stretch. If he hadn’t brought himself to stay with Chen Gong, he’d easily be sleeping on the streets tonight…

Swallowing the last of his burger, Zheng Yi lay down.

Chen Gong had turned off the room lights before entering the shower – only the warm bathroom lights remained for him to see while he washed up.

The bathroom had quite an awkward design – the shower walls were made of frosted glass.

As Chen Gong showered under the yellow lights, Zhengyi couldn’t see anything specific, but he could still make out blurry silhouettes.

Zheng Yi felt like laughing. If a proud man like Chen Gong knew that his soaping and showering and even his crotch-rubbing movements had all been witnessed by his arch-enemy, he would probably die of shame.

Taking that into consideration, both of them had lost face tonight, so they could call it a draw. Imagining that he had regained some dignity, Zheng Yi felt a lot better. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Chen Gong massaged his face under the shower. He took a deep breath.

Chen Gong didn’t actually want another shower. Sure, he did sweat a little after moving Zheng Yi’s luggage, but he didn’t stink. He simply made an excuse out of awkwardness: two people sharing a single bed — two enemies, to boot — would be a delicate situation no matter what position they slept in. Better to wait until Zheng Yi fell asleep before heading out, to avoid the embarrassment.

Standing blankly under the shower, Chen Gong recalled what had just happened. He couldn’t help but smile.

Earlier, at his suggestion (which Zheng Yi could not refuse) to sneak in through the back door together, Zheng Yi had made a show of his reluctance. Chen Gong understood. On one hand, Zheng Yi found it shameful; on the other, he couldn’t think of a better solution, so he could only hold his temper and snort coldly to express that he was only agreeing because he was forced to.

But his snort had sounded a lot like a child’s petulant huff.

The more he thought about it, the more Chen Gong felt like laughing — Zheng Yi had made such an awkward face when he realised the strange noise he’d made, yet preserved his unwilling expression.

Thank goodness the pattering shower noises hid the laughter he couldn’t hold back.

He’d been in the shower for at least ten minutes. Figuring that Zheng Yi was asleep, Chen Gong started to rinse off.

As he closed his eyes and raised his head under the shower, Chen Gong heard the soft click of the bathroom door opening and felt a cold draft pass behind him. Chen Gong rubbed his eyes clean and turned to see Zheng Yi tiptoeing by the door. “The fuck are you doing?!” Chen Gong hollered in alarm.

Zheng Yi made a shushing gesture at Chen Gong. He whispered, “Room inspections! The inspectors were knocking, it’s a vice raid!”

Seeing Zheng Yi’s panic, Chen Gong perked his ears up to listen.

–

The two of them looked at the door, not daring to move.

As they listened, Chen Gong’s gaze fell upon the back of Zheng Yi’s head.

Zheng Yi’s head faced the doorway, listening so intently that his ears twitched.

Again, Chen Gong felt amused by this detail, but just as he lifted the corners of his mouth, he came to his senses — there was a raid ongoing, it was no time for laughing.

So the two stood for a whole minute, the noise of the shower in the background as they broke into cold sweats… but no other sound came.

When the water had evaporated from his body, cooling him down and raising goosebumps on his arms, Chen Gong finally asked, “Are you sure you heard them?”

Zheng Yi massaged his temples. “Pretty sure — the sounds were very clear, I distinctly heard –“

Chen Gong grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself. After a moment of silence, he frowned. “Check the peephole?”

The two tiptoed to the door and looked out for a minute… at a deserted corridor.

“Did they leave?” Chen Gong whispered.

Zheng Yi was even less bold, merely shaking his head to indicate that he didn’t know.

Chen Gong straightened his back and knitted his brows. “Are you absolutely sure you heard it? And it wasn’t a dream?”

At this question, a flash of doubt appeared on Zheng Yi’s face — if he really thought about it… he couldn’t remember.

But he was still wary.

“Did you hear what they said?”

“I think they said ‘Kontrolle’!”

“…Wuzzat?” In his excitement, Chen Gong’s accent slipped.

Zheng Yi tsk-ed. He patiently explained to the country bumpkin: “Kontrolle is German for ‘inspection’!”

Chen Gong’s brows tightened into a “/ \” shape. “That’s what you heard?”

“Yeah!”

Chen Gong took a deep breath. With the look of someone dealing with a particularly dense child, he said to Zheng Yi, “In Chengdu?”

“Yeah…”

Aware of the great change in the tone of his two “Yeah”s, Zheng Yi felt exceedingly awkward. Not quite daring to look Chen Gong in the eye, he frowned and thought about what he’d heard earlier. Was it really a dream after all?

Finally, unwilling to give in, he unlatched the door and poked his head out.

–Nothing.

Zheng Yi turned back to face Chen Gong’s cool expression.

Before Chen Gong even spoke, Zheng Yi’s face was already burning. In a fit of embarrassed anger he said, “Alright, fine then, stop looking at me with that face — I was just… being too cautious! Don’t think I’m a pain, I’ll only be a pain to you for one night, tomorrow I’ll get a new room once I make a new ID. Let’s sleep, ok?”

He pulled a stony expression as he walked around Chen Gong and to the bed, throwing himself heavily onto the mattress and burying his face in a pillow.

After this sequence of events, the shower foam on Chen Gong’s body had dried. He went back into the shower to wash it off.

Zheng Yi sank his face deep in the pillow, trying to suffocate himself. This day couldn’t get any more humiliating.

Under the cover of the shower splashing, Zheng Yi hit his head, soundlessly screaming “you-and-your-hot-head-you-and-your-hot-head-you-and-your-hot-head” at himself. He felt dazed — although maybe it was because he’d hit himself in the head a little too hard.

He closed his eyes and rode this shred of dizziness into sleep. But even as he fell asleep, Zheng Yi seemed to hear a snort under the cacophony of the shower.

Zheng Yi opened his eyes for less than a second before closing them again. This time he wasn’t going to care — it was probably another dream of his.

–

He’d set the alarm for five o’clock, but Chen Gong woke up at 4:52 from his own anxiety.

Rather presumptuously, Zheng Yi had a strong arm across his body –he pushed it away with slight impatience. Chen Gong rubbed his eyes and felt around for his phone. He looked at the time and sighed in relief.

–He hadn’t overslept.

It was Chen Gong’s specialty: if there was something happening the next day, his internal Circadian rhythm would always wake him up before the appointed time.

Perhaps his self-discipline had grown straight into his nervous system.

Seeing Zheng Yi splayed out like a starfish on the bed, Chen Gong considerately turned the alarm off.

This princely young man, who always groomed himself so smartly and fashionably, looked like any other boy while he slept — his hair was mussed up, his mouth slightly agape, letting out a light snore now and again.

Zheng Yi couldn’t see it, but Chen Gong still threw him a cold look before getting up to clean himself.

As he sat on the toilet bowl and brushed his teeth, his empty right hand reached for his phone and began to swipe.

His Wechat notifications showed a 3:39AM text from Qiu Mang: [Zheng Yi’s phone is dead, has he arrived?]

Chen Gong replied: [Yes, don’t worry.]

As he was about to lock the screen and poop in peace, Qiu Mang unexpectedly responded: [Oh good, I knew I could count on you, Chen Xuezhang! :heart:]

Chen Gong, the recipient of her compliment, let out an “oh”. He texted back: [Were you up till now, or did you just wake up?]

Qiu Mang replied with a phone-recorded video. In the video were two aggressively off-key men duetting a song that couldn’t be determined. The video turned to face Qiu Mang herself — the girl winked cheekily at the camera.

Fearful that Zheng Yi would be robbed of his precious sleep, Chen Gong hurriedly lowered the volume. He watched the video twice before tapping the X in the top right corner and replying to Qiu Mang: [Haven’t seen the two of them in a while, esp Lin Hang.]

Qiu Mang: [Hehe! Next time I’ll ask you out together!]

Chen Gong responded: [Mm.] Then he added: [You should get back home earlier, staying up late is bad for you!] in an attempt to end the conversation with his chatterbox friend. Qiu Mang sent a :pout: emoji: [Xuezhang, you’re still exactly the same.]

— Exactly the same. Chen Gong agreed.

Now, with a salary nearing 40k a month, he didn’t have any burdens apart from a paid-off car and a mortgaged apartment. And yet, pinching pennies wasn’t so much habitual as it was hard-wired into his system.

But Qiu Mang said this because every time she had asked him out for karaoke in their uni days, Chen Gong would refuse with the phrase: “No thanks, staying up late is bad for you.”

He had a number of such catchphrases:

“No thanks, I don’t like cinemas.”

“No thanks, I hate fried foods.”

“No thanks, I like having some alone time.

Chen Gong’s social life deteriorated because he would refuse every class gathering, claiming he had no interest. After a while, they simply removed him from the invite list “since he won’t come anyway”.

In reality, the young Chen Gong was just as eager to experience life as any of his classmates. But his allowance was so meagre that he took heed of how the spiced corned egg noodles were ¥2.50 cheaper than beef brisket noodles. There was no budget for entertainment in his accounts.

He was at the age of high spirits, but without the confidence to express them. Rejecting everything beyond his reach was Chen Gong’s most frequently used tactic to protect his dignity — or rather, his only tactic.

–

The author has something to say:

Mini-theatre:

Zheng Yi, shamelessly: “So are you cold to me because you think I’m your social superior?”

Chen Gong, coldly: “Hey fucker, drop dead!”

–

Credits:

Author – Liang Azha (Weibo|Twitter)

Raws – Nandemonaiya

Translation – Nandemonaiya

Proofreading – Nandemonaiya, Terukutie, Zhiming

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