Cheng Boyan was sitting in the living room. While Xiang Xi was busy in the kitchen, he hadn’t gone in to check even once.

Although Cheng Boyan always insisted that aside from handwashing, he didn’t have obsessive cleanliness, Xiang Xi still felt that when it came to hygiene, Cheng could basically be crowned the Invincible East. (NT: Dongfang Bubai (Invincible East), a legendary character from Jin Yong's wuxia novel The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (笑傲江湖).)

Now, Master Cheng Boyan—invincible in hygiene—was actually letting Xiang Xi, whom he considered the king of sloppiness, cook in the kitchen unsupervised. Xiang Xi figured he must really be exhausted.

The supermarket had chopped the pork ribs into pieces that were way too big. Xiang Xi thought about trimming them a bit and rummaged through the knife rack for a while. He found a knife that wasn’t often used, figured it was for cutting through bones, and grabbed it. Then he raised it and brought it down on the cutting board with a loud thud.

“Hey! Dear god!” Cheng Boyan finally called out from the living room. “What are you doing? Didn’t they already chop the ribs?”

“They’re too big, hard to cook,” Xiang Xi replied from the kitchen, then came another loud thud. “I’m trimming them a bit.”

“…Oh.” Cheng responded from outside. After a moment of silence, he suddenly jumped up and rushed into the kitchen. “What knife are you using to chop them?”

“A bone-cutting knife,” Xiang Xi waved the knife in his hand. “You usually use that white-handled one, right? That’s for slicing, right? I figured since you don’t use this one, it must be... for cutting bones? Right?”

“I don’t have a bone-cutting knife,” Cheng Boyan said, a little exasperated.

“You don’t?” Xiang Xi was stunned and pointed at the knife rack. “Slicing knife, vegetable knife—there’s one of each. Isn’t this one…”

As he spoke, he looked at the knife in his hand again and suddenly noticed a small section of the blade had curled. His face instantly turned red. “Wait—what is this one for, then?”

“That’s also a slicing knife. The handle just looks kind of grimy, so I rarely use it,” Cheng Boyan also saw the damaged blade and sighed. “Just leave it there.”

“It’s curled,” Xiang Xi scratched his head, a bit embarrassed.

“You just touched raw meat and now you’re scratching your head!” Cheng Boyan smacked his hand.

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Xiang Xi shouted. “I feel bad for damaging your knife, that’s all.”

“Oh, so smearing lard all over your head makes up for it?” Cheng Boyan waved him off. “Fine, leave it. Big pieces are fine—just eat them big. You need the nutrition anyway.”

“So should I keep cooking, or go wash my hair first?” Xiang Xi asked, having put the knife away.

“Keep going. Just wash your hands—actually, forget it,” Cheng Boyan walked to the sink. “I’ll do it.”

“I got this,” Xiang Xi quickly moved to the counter to reclaim his turf. “If I’m not chopping bones, it’s pretty simple. You take a break, your face is looking dark already.”

“Don’t mess up the salt and oil,” Cheng gave him a look before turning to leave the kitchen. From the living room, he added, “Wash your hands.”

“Washing, washing!” Xiang Xi rinsed his hands under the sink.

This meal, Xiang Xi cooked way faster than Cheng Boyan. Pork rib congee, spinach in oyster sauce, and two fried eggs.

When he brought the dishes out, Cheng Boyan raised his eyebrows: “Not bad, you can fry eggs?”

“Well, about the eggs…” Xiang Xi stood by the table. “The trick when eating fried eggs is—don’t bite into them. Just use your chopsticks and press straight down…”

Cheng Boyan stared at the eggs for a moment: “Did you burn them?”

Xiang Xi grabbed a chair, sat down, and tapped his chopsticks on the plate’s edge: “Actually…”

“Don’t tap the plate,” Cheng Boyan said, taking a seat.

“Oh,” Xiang Xi withdrew his chopsticks. “Actually, they’re not burnt too bad—looks kinda like a map.”

Cheng Boyan didn’t say anything. He picked one up and flipped it over, then paused: “Is there any part not burnt?”

“I’ll eat this one—you take that one,” Xiang Xi quickly put the badly burnt egg into his own bowl. “That one’s the map.”

“You shouldn’t eat it either. Burnt like this is bad for your health.” Cheng Boyan stood up and picked up the plate.

“Hey, don’t—” Xiang Xi tried to stop him. “Just don’t eat the burnt parts. I spent time making them. At least let me taste it—I’ve never fried an egg before.”

“Burnt is burnt…” Cheng Boyan stopped mid-sentence, thought for a moment, then put the egg back on the table and placed the better one in his own bowl. “Just this once.”

“Wow, giving me that much face?” Xiang Xi sat down, a little surprised. “I thought we’d have to fight for these two eggs.”

“It’s your first try—might as well give it a taste.” Cheng Boyan smiled and took a bite of the unburnt part.

“How is it?” Xiang Xi stared at him nervously.

“Pretty good. Unexpectedly good,” Cheng Boyan nodded, then took another bite.

“Really?” Xiang Xi raised an eyebrow and broke into a smile. He took a bite himself, chewed a couple of times, and then stopped, staring at Cheng Boyan. “Doctor Cheng, you’re really… giving me face, huh.”

Cheng Boyan laughed: “A little salty. Did you salt it properly, or not evenly?”

Xiang Xi stuffed another big bite into his mouth, then sighed: “Definitely evenly salted. Taste it yourself—it’s all equally salty… I find it salty, you must be dying.”

“It’s fine. Too salty? Drink some congee.” Cheng Boyan said.

“Better not eat it. Burnt and salty,” Xiang Xi got up, took the two bowls into the kitchen, and dumped the eggs in the trash. “I’ll let you try them again after I’ve practised.”

Originally, Xiang Xi thought he did okay with the meal. But not only were the eggs salty and burnt, the spinach was gritty, and the pork rib congee—while passable—was watery, with meat so tough it felt like tug-of-war.

After the meal, he didn’t even have the nerve to let Cheng Boyan do the dishes: “Let me wash them. Eating this is downright depressing.”

“I’ll wash,” Cheng put the bowls in the sink. “I really can’t trust you with dishwashing.”

“You don’t trust my cooking now either, huh?” Xiang Xi stood to the side.

“It’s not that bad. My dishes usually look good but taste like nothing. Yours, well, they taste like something.” Cheng Boyan chuckled.

“I… I’ll go wash my hair,” Xiang Xi sighed. “You’re surprisingly good at comforting people.”

That night, Xiang Xi didn’t mention the job interview at all. He just wasn’t in the mood. In the end, it was Cheng Boyan who brought it up: “Tomorrow, are you going after your injection?”

“Yeah.” Xiang Xi nodded.

“Did you prepare everything?” Cheng Boyan asked again.

“Prepare? Prepare what?” Xiang Xi looked blank.

Cheng was caught off guard by the question too: “You don’t need to prepare anything?”

“It’s just a restaurant job and a toy sales gig. What’s there to prepare? Just go, talk to them—if it works, it works. If not, move on,” Xiang Xi smiled. “Besides, I’ve got nothing to prepare. I’ve only got one fake ID.”

Cheng Boyan opened his mouth but didn’t say anything.

Xiang Xi didn’t sleep well that night. He kept thinking about whether he could get the job, and what to do if he did. He didn’t fall asleep until nearly dawn.

When he woke up, Cheng Boyan had already left. On the table, there was porridge and steamed buns. Usually there was only porridge—today must’ve been a special treat because of his interview.

After washing up, Xiang Xi picked up a bun and took a bite. He felt quite warm inside. There was also 200 yuan and a note on the table. The note had three lines, three characters per line. He stared at it for a while but could only clearly understand the last three characters—they were written especially neatly and carefully, stroke by stroke:

Take a taxi.

Judging by the style of those three characters, he could more or less guess the previous two lines said the same thing, just written messily—Cheng Boyan must have worried he wouldn’t be able to read them…

Looking at those words, Xiang Xi laughed for a good while. Cheng Boyan really went out of his way.

Before going to the hospital, he gave Fang Yin a call. Fang Yin said the photos from yesterday’s IV session turned out great, so they didn’t need to shoot more of that today. Instead, they’d go together to the job interview in the afternoon.

After getting the IV, Xiang Xi didn’t leave right away. He wandered over to the orthopaedic department. Cheng Boyan was sitting in the consultation room. An older man, probably with back pain, was leaning on the desk and talking right into Cheng Boyan’s face in a loud voice. Cheng Boyan nodded while writing on the medical record.

Xiang Xi didn’t go in. He stood outside and watched for a while. Just based on the way things were going, he felt like the man was about to start spraying saliva. Sure enough, after a bit of shouting, Cheng Boyan put his mask back on.

Xiang Xi chuckled to himself for quite a while and was still laughing as he walked out of the hospital.

But honestly, Cheng Boyan in a white coat with a mask on looked pretty handsome.

Xiang Xi didn’t have to wait long at the bus stop before Fang Yin’s car pulled into a roadside parking spot. He got out holding his camera tube.

“You’re quick. A bus just passed by,” Xiang Xi said, looking at him.

“I was just over by the pedestrian street, shooting another subject. I had my assistant follow that one. I had to come over to you,” Fang Yin said with a smile. “You’re the more important one.”

“Oh.” Xiang Xi replied and looked down to start pulling off the little gauze square from the IV needle site.

“Hold on,” Fang Yin quickly raised his camera and snapped two shots. “Done.”

“You’re shooting this too?” Xiang Xi peeled off the gauze and pressed down for a while—the needle mark was barely visible.

“Yeah, rushing off to job-hunt right after an IV—pretty heartbreaking,” Fang Yin said.

“What’s so heartbreaking about it?” Xiang Xi clicked his tongue. “Your heart’s not cooked through, huh?”

Xiang Xi decided to head to the toy sales job first. It was farther than the restaurant, but he figured sales would be more interesting than doing chores in a kitchen.

Even though Cheng Boyan had left him some money, Xiang Xi decided to take the bus after checking the stop map. It was hard to get a taxi near the hospital anyway, and the bus would get him close enough with not much walking.

The bus was crowded. Xiang Xi stood near the back door. After just two stops, he noticed two people standing on either side of a young woman.

“Watch your wallet,” he whispered to Fang Yin, turning his head.

“Huh?” Fang Yin was confused, but still pulled his bag in front of him.

After they got off the bus, Fang Yin asked, “You saw pickpockets? How could you tell?”

“It was obvious,” Xiang Xi said, walking ahead. The area was full of old residential buildings—nothing that looked like a toy factory.

“Why didn’t you warn the woman?” Fang Yin pressed. “Do you know them?”

“I told you, didn’t I? Why didn’t you warn her? Do you know her?” Xiang Xi turned to him, slightly annoyed. “I’m not that noble. Isn’t that why you’re filming me? If I actually joined in and stole something, wouldn’t that be even better for your footage? Don’t talk to me right now—I’m looking for the place.”

Fang Yin, surprisingly cooperative, stopped talking and followed him at a distance.

Xiang Xi finally found the toy "factory" on the ground floor of a residential building. Strictly speaking, it was more like a workshop. There was no sign above the courtyard gate, but Xiang Xi was sure it was the right place because he saw toys piled up through the open gate.

“What do you want?” a woman suddenly appeared behind the gate, half-closing it and leaving only a narrow crack as she eyed him warily.

“I... I called yesterday. You told me to come by...” As soon as Xiang Xi saw the setup, he didn’t want to go in anymore. It felt shady, like something out of a sketchy movie—worse than Uncle Ping’s place.

Before he could finish, the woman interrupted, suddenly peeking out a bit more and glaring past Xiang Xi: “You brought a reporter? What are you doing?!”

Xiang Xi froze. He turned around and saw Fang Yin thirty meters away with his camera up. Before he could say anything, the woman slammed the gate shut.

Then, sounds of chaos could be heard inside. She seemed to be talking to someone. Xiang Xi could vaguely make out words like reporter, undercover investigation, etc.

He didn’t hesitate. He turned and ran. But he’d barely gone a few steps when he heard the gate being flung open. Looking back, he saw a man charging out with a shovel. He was wearing just a long-sleeved t-shirt, and it was unclear if he was muscular or just fat.

Xiang Xi didn’t think twice—he took off like a wind-up toy. His feet were flying, and if his legs had been a bit longer, they might have kicked his eyebrows.

Fang Yin hadn’t caught on yet. As Xiang Xi dashed past him, he was still holding his camera and clicking away.

“Idiot!” Xiang Xi yelled, “Run! They said you’re doing an undercover exposé! He’s gonna beat the crap out of you!”

“What?!” Fang Yin finally panicked and sprinted after him with his camera in his arms.

The two of them didn’t stop until they reached a busy street. Xiang Xi sat down on the steps of a store entrance, panting hard.

“Damn! I quit! Don’t follow me anymore. Keep your money—I’m done,” he said.

“Have some water,” Fang Yin bought a bottle and handed it to him, sitting down next to him with his camera bag. “You really can run.”

“Seriously, ‘Master Photographer,’ you totally screwed me over,” Xiang Xi frowned, taking the water and gulping a few sips. “If I’d been a second slower, that guy would’ve smacked me in the face with that shovel.”

Fang Yin chuckled and stayed quiet for a moment. After looking through some photos on his camera, he suddenly patted Xiang Xi on the shoulder: “Actually, these few shots really have a vibe… This is real life—different for everyone, everyone struggling in their own way.”

“Struggling at the edge of darkness, an unlucky teen looking for work who ends up at an illegal workshop and almost gets hospitalized?” Xiang Xi glanced at him and let out a cold laugh. “You must be thrilled—what great material.”

“Xiao Zhan, do you know why I shoot this kind of stuff?” Fang Yin lit a cigarette and held it between his lips.

“Because people want to see it,” Xiang Xi said, adjusting his socks that had slid into his shoes from all the running. “Everyone wants to know how other people live. The farther removed, the more curious. The more miserable and bizarre, the more they want to see it.”

Fang Yin was silent for a while, exhaling a mouthful of smoke. “Xiao Zhan, it’s really a shame you didn’t get to go to school.”

“But what difference does it make after people see this stuff?” Xiang Xi tied his shoelaces, stood up, and stretched his legs. “They sigh a little—oh, someone’s got it that rough—then go right back to living their lives. Right?”

“Don’t you have any personal thoughts during the shooting process?” Fang Yin stood up with him.

“No,” Xiang Xi patted him on the shoulder too. “I’m just doing this for the 50 bucks a day, so you’d better finish filming before I completely lose my patience.”

*

The toy sales job didn’t work out, so Xiang Xi got back on the bus and headed to that restaurant. The place wasn’t a shady setup, just a small fast food eating place about three blocks from the hospital, mainly serving clay pot rice.

It was about the same scale as the fast food place back in Dawawa where Uncle Ping always dragged out the bill. When Xiang Xi walked in, he actually felt a weird sense of familiarity.

The place was run by a husband-and-wife team. Their helper had just quit, so they were urgently hiring.

Xiang Xi said he had work experience but didn’t mention Fengbo Zhuang. He just said it was another fast food restaurant—otherwise if they asked why someone who’d worked at Fengbo Zhuang would want to work in such a small place, he wouldn’t know how to answer.

“This kid seems alright?” The boss, a chubby and friendly-looking man, chatted with him a bit before turning to ask his wife, who was cooking, “Seems cleaner and sharper than the last one.”

“Looks good,” the wife said while working three small pans at once. She flipped the food in one hand while glancing at Xiang Xi. “How old are you, kid? You don’t look like you’re even legal. Got an ID?”

“Nineteen,” Xiang Xi said, pulling out Zhan Hongtu’s ID and handing it over.

“Hmm, Hongtu,” the boss said after a quick glance. “You can start today. We’re really short-handed.”

“Huh?” Xiang Xi was stunned. He did want to find work as soon as possible, but this was a bit too fast—it caught him off guard.

I finally found a job! That’s great!

Finally moving out from Cheng Boyan’s place… damn, I don’t wanna leave!

Those two conflicting thoughts were wrestling in his head like a brawl, his band-aid almost flying off.

“What? You can’t?” the boss asked. “Pay’s 1200, two meals a day. That’s not bad.”

“No, I can,” Xiang Xi said, pressing on his band-aid. “I just have some things to sort out. I haven’t found a place to stay yet, and I… I’ve got something tomorrow morning.”

“You can stay at the shop for now. We’ve got a loft in the back,” the boss’s wife added after handing a dish to a customer. “You can come in tomorrow afternoon too, but not after that. I can’t wait any longer—you saw how busy it is.”

When Xiang Xi came out of the shop, he saw Fang Yin sitting on the flowerbed across the street, camera raised, taking photos of him.

“How’d it go?” Fang Yin stood up and waited for him to cross the street.

“Starts tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got to head back now,” Xiang Xi checked the time on his phone—it was already past four. He hadn’t even had lunch. The smell of the boss’s cooking earlier had made his stomach growl. “You should take a break too. Haven’t even had lunch.”

“Starting tomorrow morning? Aren’t you looking for a place to live?” Fang Yin asked.

“I’ll stay at the shop. They’ve got a loft.” Xiang Xi said, walking toward the bus stop.

“In the loft? Isn’t that kind of rough?” Fang Yin followed him.

“It’s free,” Xiang Xi glanced at him and smiled. “Let me guess, you were hoping to get footage of me hunting for an apartment?”

“No rush. I’ll just keep filming your life here for now,” Fang Yin said. “If you find the loft too uncomfortable, I’ll cover your rent for three months. Go get a place.”

“Sure, get me a big three-bedroom,” Xiang Xi snapped his fingers.

“Whatever kind of place you originally planned to rent, go for that,” Fang Yin chuckled. “What do you say?”

“We’ll see. Depends on the situation.” Honestly, Xiang Xi wasn’t thrilled about living in the loft above a fast food place—he imagined it would be cramped and dark. He didn’t have much money, but he wasn’t planning on staying long-term anyway. Still, if Fang Yin really offered three months’ rent, of course he’d pretend to think about it before saying yes.

When Cheng Boyan got home, Xiang Xi was sitting on the couch watching TV. As soon as he walked in, Xiang Xi jumped up. “Don’t take your shoes off.”

“Huh?” Cheng Boyan had lifted one leg to change shoes but froze at Xiang Xi’s words.

“I’m treating you to dinner tonight,” Xiang Xi said, running into the study to change clothes and dashing back out. “To thank you.”

“Oh? Got the job?” Cheng Boyan looked at him.

“Yeah, it’s at a fast food place, clay pot rice,” Xiang Xi nodded, stepping outside. “Tomorrow morning I’ll get my last IV drip and some medicine—then no more hospital runs. I told the boss I’ll start tomorrow afternoon.”

“Tomorrow?” Cheng Boyan paused at the door, surprised.

“Yeah, I was gonna start a bit later, but the boss said they were really short-staffed, that’s why the job posting went up,” Xiang Xi scratched his head and mumbled, “You don’t know how hard it is for someone in my situation to find work. I just want to get started and figure the rest out later.”

“Still staying here after work?” Cheng Boyan asked as he shut the door. “You haven’t rented a place yet.”

“I’ve got it sorted,” Xiang Xi replied, not mentioning the loft. “I’ll move out tomorrow.”

“…Oh, alright then.” Cheng Boyan stood by the elevator. “Work hard. If anything comes up, call me.”

“Definitely. You’re the only decent guy I know,” Xiang Xi grinned. They stood in silence for a moment, and Xiang Xi rubbed his nose. “We going down or what?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you say you’re treating me to dinner?” Cheng Boyan asked.

“What, the elevator works by mind control now?” Xiang Xi raised an eyebrow. “Gotta summon it with your thoughts?”

Cheng Boyan reached out and hit the elevator button. “Forgot.”

 

Translator : DarNan