Chapter 121 #2
“Yes.” Jiang Cheng cleared his throat. “Very important. Extremely important.”
Xu Xingzhi nodded. “I understand.”
Jiang Cheng took a swift glance in his direction. There was a hint of a smile in Xu Xingzhi’s eyes, but aside from a simple ah, I understand , it didn’t contain anything else.
I guess he really did understand.
Jiang Cheng sighed to himself. When dealing with people in the field of psychology, he got the feeling that he could be seen right through at any given moment—he hadn’t exactly been subtle.
After a couple of gulps of soup, Jiang Cheng felt apprehensive again. “But how should we bring her here?”
“No need to bring her here,” said Xu Xingzhi. “Talk to your friend. I can make a trip there over winter break.”
“Really?” Jiang Cheng could hardly keep his eyebrows from climbing all the way up his forehead.
“Yeah,” Xu Xingzhi said with a nod, “really. I have my own considerations too. With the information you’ve provided about the little girl’s condition so far, intervention would be quite effective. Besides, I’ve never worked on a case like hers before.”
“Thank you.” Jiang Cheng didn’t know what else he could possibly say.
“You…look like you’ve lost quite a bit of weight,” Xu Xingzhi said, looking at him. “I don’t think your chin was this pointy the last time I saw you.”
“Ah.” Jiang Cheng pinched his chin. “You can tell, huh? I guess the fillers must be working.”
“Yeah.” Xu Xingzhi was caught off guard for a second before he laughed. “Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. Money problems can always be resolved.”
Jiang Cheng had been seen through once again. He couldn’t even bring himself to feel embarrassed anymore. He just smiled and said, “I’m fine, really. Lots of my classmates are tutoring on the side.”
“You can worry about the money later,” said Xu Xingzhi. “Right now, you just have to talk to your bo—”
Jiang Cheng froze, his eyes widening.
Xu Xingzhi didn’t even finish saying the entirety of the word “boy,” but he quickly changed tracks and carried on with a composed expression and not so much as a stutter: “Talk to your friend. The trust and cooperation of family members is key to treatment success. With her condition, we won’t be able to move forward if her family doesn’t cooperate. ”
“Oh,” Jiang Cheng said, looking at him. “Mm.”
Xu Xingzhi smiled. “Feel free to ask me anything you don’t understand.”
“Mm-hm,” Jiang Cheng continued.
The psychology half-expert—who seemed to be able to see through everyone—had made a Freudian slip.
For some reason, Jiang Cheng felt like laughing.
He didn’t mind that Xu Xingzhi had seen through him. Though they started as near strangers, they’d known each other for a while now, and he’d always had the sense that Xu Xingzhi could be trusted. When they were together, he found that he could relax easily, even when he felt awkward.
Which was why Xu Xingzhi’s smoothly glossed-over slip of the tongue allowed Jiang Cheng to suddenly drop his inhibitions and loosen up.
It was a good thing. If Xu Xingzhi knew he had a boyfriend, so be it.
After all, Jiang Cheng had been running himself into the ground for Gu Fei over this.
It would be exhausting if he had to keep a veil over their relationship at the same time.
“Those meat pies were pretty good.” Xu Xingzhi rubbed his belly as he walked out of the restaurant. “Next time, it’ll be my treat.”
“Sure.” Jiang Cheng smiled. “If you go up there during winter break, I can show you this other meat pie place. It’s super-duper guaranteed delicious.”
Xu Xingzhi laughed. “Sure.”
The meal hadn’t lasted very long. After saying goodbye to Xu Xingzhi at the front gate, Jiang Cheng made a dash for the library with the folder of case studies under his arm.
“I thought you weren’t coming. I even told people that you had diarrhea,” Zhao Ke whispered. “It was getting a little awkward saving this seat for you.”
“Sorry about that,” Jiang Cheng whispered back as he sat down. “I’ll buy you food later.”
“What were you doing?” asked Zhao Ke. “I thought tutoring was only an hour?”
“Xu Xingzhi came by, so we talked for a while,” said Jiang Cheng. “He agreed to help.”
“Really? That’s amazing,” said Zhao Ke. “Though I honestly didn’t expect him to agree so easily.”
“Huh?” Jiang Cheng turned to look at him.
“He’s pretty hard to convince most of the time,” said Zhao Ke. “Usually, if anyone wants to see him for a psych consult or something, he refers them to someone else. And this little girl lives so far away.”
“He said her case is a little more unusual.”
“With such an impressive advisor, unusual cases aren’t that unusual to him either.”
“So…” Jiang Cheng looked at Zhao Ke blankly, suddenly a little disoriented at this new information.
Zhao Ke looked back at him.
Then, it was as though a lightbulb went off for both of them.
“Did you—” Zhao Ke was about to say something when a student sitting beside them rapped gently on the table.
“Sorry about that. Sorry,” both of them chorused, and immediately ended the conversation, putting their heads down to study.
When the library closed for the night, Jiang Cheng took Zhao Ke out for a midnight snack. He got chicken wings and Zhao Ke got deep-fried scorpions.
“How can you bring yourself to eat those things?” Jiang Cheng found it baffling.
Zhao Ke held a skewered scorpion up to Jiang Cheng’s mouth. “That’s a mystery you can only solve through practical experience.”
Jiang Cheng dodged him. “It’s not a mystery I need to solve.”
On their way back to the dorm after they’d eaten, Jiang Cheng took out his phone for a quick glance.
He’d messaged Gu Fei as soon as they came out of the library, but even after the scorpions, Gu Fei still hadn’t responded.
He hadn’t heard from Gu Fei since before the message he’d sent this afternoon at the meat pie place.
This had never happened before.
Did something come up? Was he too busy? Did he fall asleep?
Jiang Cheng went back and forth on whether he should give Gu Fei a call, but after staring at his phone for a long time, he still didn’t make a move.
He wouldn’t have hesitated in the past, but recently he got the feeling that Gu Fei was under a lot of pressure. Or was it Jiang Cheng himself who was under too much pressure? He always worried that he would be calling at a bad time.
Would it distract Gu Fei from working on his photos?
Would it disrupt Gu Fei’s playtime with Gu Miao?
Would it disturb Gu Fei’s sleep?
“Did you tell Xu Xingzhi,” Zhao Ke said, glancing at him, “about you and your boyfriend?”
Jiang Cheng turned to him. “Hm?”
As their eyes met, the contemplative atmosphere from the library surfaced again. “He…” This time, nobody interrupted him, so Jiang Cheng pressed on, “Is Xu Xingzhi…?”
“Yeah,” said Zhao Ke.
“What the—?” Jiang Cheng blinked. “How did you know?”
“I used to think he was going out with Zhao Jin, so I asked. His sexual orientation isn’t exactly a secret.”
“…Why didn’t you say so from the start?” Jiang Cheng was stunned.
“Why would I talk about that? It’s none of my business,” Zhao Ke said, looking at him. “You were meeting him so he could help that little girl, not for a blind date.”
“Ah. True.” Jiang Cheng was still unable to fully wrap his mind around it.
“Did you tell him that she’s your boyfriend’s sister?” asked Zhao Ke.
“No,” said Jiang Cheng. “But I feel like he’s…figured it out.”
“Oh.” Zhao Ke didn’t say anything else.
***
Back in the dorm, Lu Shi and Zhang Qiqi were both on their bunks, still studying.
Jiang Cheng put his stuff away before walking out onto the walkway with his phone. He still wanted to give Gu Fei a call. After all, this was the first time Gu Fei had gone a whole day without contacting him.
He glanced at the time. Usually Gu Fei wouldn’t be asleep yet at this hour. He tapped on the call button only to be met with a long silence—so long that he thought maybe he hadn’t actually pressed it.
Just as he was about to check the screen, an automated voice came on the line: “We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is unavailable at the moment. Please try again later.”
Jiang Cheng stared at his phone in confusion. Unavailable?
He hung up and called again. It still didn’t go through.
Had Gu Fei’s phone run out of battery? Or was there something wrong with his own phone?
Jiang Cheng rebooted his phone and tried calling for a third time.
“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is unavailable at the moment. Please try again later.”
What was going on?
Jiang Cheng suddenly felt a little uneasy. Frowning, he hung up the call, opened WeChat, and tapped into Gu Fei’s Moments.
His most recent post was from last week. It was a photo of a sunrise; the light shone through the gap between a few old buildings, drawing a long flare across the frame. The caption was only two words: good morning . Below that was a comment from Jiang Cheng, consisting of a single sun emoji.
He couldn’t find anything amiss in Gu Fei’s Moments. Jiang Cheng was at a loss for what to do.
Technically, there might be all sorts of reasons for the call not going through: dead battery, broken phone, or maybe the phone had been placed in a pocket and forgotten in a closet somewhere. But for some reason, at this moment, Jiang Cheng panicked.
He stood in the walkway for another five minutes, spaced out for a while, then tried calling a few more times to no avail.
He opened his contact list and tapped on Li Yan’s name. He stared at it for a long time. Then he closed the contact card—only to tap it open a few minutes later, then close it once again.
Li Yan didn’t live with Gu Fei, and they didn’t talk to each other every day. He wouldn’t necessarily know if something had happened to him. And besides, calling up Gu Fei’s friend after only one day of no contact felt…a little strange.
He lingered in the walkway until Zhao Ke poked his head out to check on him. Finally, he went back inside, but not before sending another message to Gu Fei:
- is something wrong with your phone? I can’t get through. I’m pretty free tomorrow, call me, ok?
***
“Da-Fei!” Liu Li stood outside his bedroom, knocking on his door. “Come outside. We have to talk.”
Gu Fei didn’t answer. He stayed where he was, leaning against the headboard of his bed.
It was dark in the room—hard to tell what time it was now, or whether “now” was yesterday, today, or tomorrow.
A tiny figure shrank itself into the lounge chair by the window; it was Gu Miao, who’d wrapped her arms around her legs and curled herself into a ball.
She’d been huddled up in a little corner of the chair, not eating, not drinking, and not moving.
He wasn’t sure how long for; it seemed like both a short while and a whole lifetime.
Gu Fei couldn’t begin to describe how it made him feel.
He wasn’t sure what kind of blow he had dealt her with his yelling, but even though Gu Miao had been so frightened by his outburst of rage that she wouldn’t stop shaking and screaming, she still refused to leave this room.
Gu Fei didn’t know what else he could do.
Liu Li was very angry. Gu Fei could understand why. His little sister had been screamed back into her shell. When his mom had come to demand an explanation from him, he’d shoved her to the ground. And when Liu Li had stepped in to stop him, he’d turned and beat the guy up.
Gu Fei didn’t know what was wrong with him. In that moment, appalling violence seemed to be his only form of release. When he exploded in rage and raised his hand, he could almost see the shadow of that man—the one whose mere footsteps had once terrified him.
It had struck him with horror and confusion.
He didn’t know how long Liu Li stood there knocking. It wasn’t until the voice on the other side of the door changed to Li Yan’s that he turned his head slightly.
“Da-Fei,” Li Yan said. “I’m not here to talk. I’m here to remind you.”
Gu Fei looked at the door.
“It’s been two days,” said Li Yan. “Jiang Cheng hasn’t been able to reach you for two days. The least you can do is give him a call. Out of everyone who cares about you, he’s the only one who has no idea what’s going on.”
Jiang Cheng. Gu Fei leaned a little further back, pressing his head against the wall. Has it been two days?
From his sea of numbness, he suddenly felt a little ache in his heart.
“I’m coming in now,” Li Yan said. “I’m breaking the lock. And if you dare lift a finger against me when I come in, you can kiss our friendship goodbye.”
Gu Fei struggled to sit up a little straighter.