Cheng Boyan massaged his neck for a while, then flicked the back of his head: “Move aside, let me work on the photos.”

“How are you going to ‘work on’ them?” Xiang Xi opened his eyes and looked at him.

“Just sort them a bit, and add names and dates to the photos. Looking at this huge pile is annoying,” Cheng Boyan said.

“Hey, you really…” Xiang Xi stood up and moved over to sit on the couch. “You’re not tired?”

“I am tired. Then do you want to do it?” Cheng Boyan sat down on the chair—and then stood right back up.

“I don’t feel anything bad about having a big pile,” Xiang Xi said with a laugh, then saw him still standing in front of the chair without sitting, and sighed. “Has your condition gotten worse? I changed my pants, you know.”

“Get lost, it’s scorching hot,” Cheng Boyan held the back of the chair and spun it a couple of times. “Feels like sitting on a teppanyaki grill.” (NT: Japanese cooking style where food is grilled on a large, flat iron griddle)

“Young people, that’s how it is,” Xiang Xi hopped down from the sofa, grabbed the printed notes and fanned the chair with them. “A little fiery ball of heat right out of your butt.”

“Are you hot?” Cheng Boyan laughed. It was already pretty warm out, but since it was still morning, the place hadn’t turned on the AC yet.

“Barely. Where I live, it’s the same. The landlord brought me a little electric fan to blow on me. If it blows head-on, the wind is too harsh; if it swings, I get a stiff neck—turn my head once and it won’t come back.” Xiang Xi patted the chair. “Alright, not hot anymore.”

Cheng Boyan took the remote and turned on the AC. “Watch some TV.”

“Mm.” Xiang Xi turned it on and sat back on the sofa. “By the way, could you put those few photos of Liu Yuanping and them onto a USB drive for me? I’ll give them the pictures.”

“Okay.” Cheng Boyan looked at the computer and began renaming the files in the folder, adding dates afterward. “Your rental’s about to expire, right? Maybe change to—”

“Hey! Director Xu!” Xiang Xi suddenly pointed at the TV and shouted, “That’s Director Xu, right?”

Cheng Boyan glanced at the TV. “Yes. Her program airs every Saturday around this time.”

“Let me see—today she’s talking about summer diet.” Xiang Xi sat cross-legged. “Hey, Director Xu really doesn’t look like she has a son as big as you.”

Cheng Boyan smiled without answering.

Xiang Xi watched the program very attentively for a while before saying, as if remembering something, “The rental has half a month left. I want to extend for three more months.”

“Why?” Cheng Boyan already thought that place looked like a den of thieves, and after seeing Xiang Xi’s photos, he felt the indoors were even worse. “Even the electric fan gives you a stiff neck. How are you going to survive summer?”

“The small oscillating fan at the farmers’ market is 55 yuan—if you haggle it’s probably only 40,” Xiang Xi said casually. “The rent there is cheap. Didn’t you tell me to rent there before?”

“I didn’t know the conditions inside were that bad,” Cheng Boyan sighed. Back when he’d told Xiang Xi to rent there, his feelings toward Xiang Xi were completely different from now, so naturally he hadn’t considered so much.

“You can’t compare that place with your home, obviously it’s worse. You have to look at the money— you get what you pay for. If I switch to some better place, of course it’ll cost more. Right now I’m trying to save up to buy a computer.”

“Buy a computer?” Cheng Boyan paused.

“Yeah.” Xiang Xi nodded. Just mentioning this made him immediately energized. He even stopped watching Director Xu and ran over to lean against the desk. “If I have a computer, I can get my photos out and save them, and I can go online—won’t have to trouble you to look things up for me. Liu Yuanping and the others got an internet connection, the student-discount type. They said they can split it with me—20 a month. Do you think it’s worth it?”

“It’s fine,” Cheng Boyan said. “What kind of computer are you going to buy?”

“A second-hand one, of course.” Xiang Xi leaned over the desk, propping up his chin so he was face-to-face with Cheng Boyan. “Liu Yuanping said since it’s graduation season, lots of students are selling theirs. A few hundred yuan should be enough.”

“You’re blocking my view.” Half the screen was covered by Xiang Xi’s head. Cheng Boyan picked up a pen and poked him on the tip of the nose.

“We’re talking serious business here.” Xiang Xi grabbed the pen. “I just happen to have enough money.”

“Buy mine,” Cheng Boyan said.

“Yours? Buy your computer?” Xiang Xi straightened up, looked at the monitor, then bent down to look at the tower. “I can’t afford it. Yours looks pretty high-end.”

“Eight hundred for you. I’ve used it a long time anyway,” Cheng Boyan said. “I was thinking of getting a new one.”

Xiang Xi looked at him, and after a while finally said, “No.”

“Do you know what the computers in student dorms look like after graduation?” Cheng Boyan asked.

“No idea. I just know yours can’t possibly be only 800 even second-hand. But if it’s more expensive, I won’t have enough money.” Xiang Xi chuckled twice. “So I’m not taking it.”

“Up to you.” Cheng Boyan smiled—he knew exactly what Xiang Xi was thinking. “Just make sure you buy from someone reliable.”

“Mm.” Xiang Xi nodded.

Cheng Boyan finished organizing the photos and copied a set onto the USB drive.

Xiang Xi stayed comfortably slouched on the couch—watching some TV, then glancing at his book.

“I realized a lot of characters I can recognize—if you look at what comes before and after, you can guess the meaning and then figure out how it’s pronounced,” Xiang Xi said as he flipped through the book. “But your books are pretty hard to guess.”

“There are novels in the study; if you want, take those,” Cheng Boyan said. He clicked open Weibo, thought for a moment, and registered an account for Xiang Xi. “Stop reading for a second—come look at this.”

“I don’t use this stuff.” Xiang Xi leaned over, took one look, realized what it was, and shook his head. “I haven’t even set up WeChat.”

“Here, this lets you post photos and say whatever you want. Think of it as a kind of record,” Cheng Boyan said. “Interested? If not, just forget it.”

“Do you use it?” Xiang Xi thought for a moment.

“I… do, but mine is mainly related to work,” Cheng Boyan smiled.

“Then I’ll use it too,” Xiang Xi leaned over the table. “How do I do it?”

“First, give yourself a name,” Cheng Boyan pointed at the screen. “Any kind will do, length doesn’t matter.”

“Let me think,” Xiang Xi lowered his eyelids and tapped his fingers on the table. “What’s yours? Let me see.”

“Mine…” Cheng Boyan cleared his throat lightly. “Big Bone.”

Xiang Xi turned to glare at him, then leaned back on the table laughing, giggling: “Big Bone! Are you secretly crazy? Admit it…”

“Now tell me yours. Have you decided?” Cheng Boyan looked at him and reached over to tousle his hair. “Stop laughing.”

“I’ll call myself Scar on the Leg!” Xiang Xi slammed the table.

“Your scar isn’t that big,” Cheng Boyan said.

“Then Small Scar,” Xiang Xi pressed his forehead to the table. “Small Scar and Light.”

“Good,” Cheng Boyan typed while speaking. “Do you want to write a short introduction?”

“Introduction?” Xiang Xi was puzzled and couldn’t come up with anything after thinking for a while.

“You can change it later when you have time,” Cheng Boyan smiled.

That afternoon, Cheng Boyan had to go to the hospital. He helped Xiang Xi organize all the photos, installed the app on his phone, and taught him how to use it. By the time they finished, it was almost noon.

They had originally planned to cook something at home, but they still had traces of the morning noodles lingering in their stomachs, so they gave up and went out for a meal at a wooden-bucket rice restaurant.

“Hey, this doesn’t look hard to make, and it tastes pretty good,” Xiang Xi said, studying the wooden bucket in front of him.

“I think,” Cheng Boyan said while eating, “with the way you and I understand cooking, we’re basically at the ‘rotten wood’ level, so don’t overthink making things yourself.”

“I’ll try it another day,” Xiang Xi replied as if he hadn’t heard him.

After the meal, Cheng Boyan drove Xiang Xi back to the “thief’s nest.” When Xiang Xi got out, he said: “When are you going to invite me to your place?”

“My place?” Xiang Xi laughed. “If you go there, you’re literally just sitting there. There’s nothing, not even a TV. You can only sit—there’s nothing else to do.”

“That’s fine,” Cheng Boyan said. “I’ll just sit.”

“Alright, next time you bring me back, if you have time, you’ll go sit there.” Xiang Xi chuckled.

He hadn’t been eager to let Cheng Boyan see his little apartment before, but now that thought wasn’t so strong. Cheng Boyan’s forever calm and steady attitude made him feel that no matter what his space looked like, he could let Cheng Boyan see it without worry.

Cheng Boyan wouldn’t be surprised, scornful, or mocking. That gave him a sense of security.

Walking back along the small path, Xiang Xi didn’t go straight home. Instead, he passed through the self-built houses and ended up at the small farmers’ market behind, wandering around until he bought a small electric fan.

The room faced west, so in the afternoons, after he got off work, it was like an oven inside. It would only start to cool down after a certain hour. If Cheng Boyan came over, at least there would be a fan blowing that wouldn’t cause a stiff neck.

The little fan was good, white, and quiet. The crooked-necked fan the landlord brought before rattled and coughed all night, and Xiang Xi always felt it wouldn’t last until morning.

He lay on the bed, the fan blowing, and opened Weibo on his phone.

Now he could recognize a lot of characters, and most of the words he saw in daily life he could understand. But when looking at his phone, he still preferred to look at pictures.

Cheng Boyan had selected some news, jokes, and small animal posts for him. He lay in bed browsing for about half an hour, his eyes getting a bit tired, so he put down the phone.

Just as he set it down, he picked it up again, almost forgetting.

Big Bone.

Cheng Boyan hadn’t let him see his account, probably because he was shy? Xiang Xi decided to search and see what Cheng Boyan usually posted online.

Just like “Refreshing Little Clips”, Big Bone was such a name that seemed completely unrelated to Cheng Boyan in any imaginable way, which made him very curious.

He searched for Big Bone, and many results appeared—some named “Big Bone this or that,” others written by different people, like “Made a pot of Big Bone soup, so delicious,” or “How to cook Big Bone well”…

Xiang Xi felt dizzy. How could he possibly find Cheng Boyan’s posts among all this?

He could only look at them one by one. If it looked right, he clicked. After clicking several, he wanted to call Cheng Boyan to ask if he was joking.

Looking further down, his eyes landed on a profile picture with a few green leaves and the name “Big Bone,” with no other characters, just a dash before and after.

He clicked in, and at first glance, he was sure it was Cheng Boyan.

Because the introduction said—“Would you like a bowl of mixed bean porridge, sir?”

(NT: 客官 (kèguān) is an old-fashioned, somewhat theatrical way of saying ‘estimed guest’. CBY uses it as a cute, unconventional, slightly melodramatic greeting.)

Xiang Xi laughed out loud when he saw the newest post.

“Good afternoon, Xiao Xixi. I thought you wouldn’t find it, amazing!”

“Crazy!” Xiang Xi whispered to himself, laughing, thinking of Cheng Boyan’s usual serious work demeanour and pairing it with this sentence… He laughed for a long time before slowly scrolling down.

Cheng Boyan’s Weibo didn’t have much content; there were few pictures. Mostly it was simple one- or two-line posts, and he posted only every few days.

-Director Chen wore a pink shirt today. When I went to the bathroom with him, I almost couldn’t pee.

-Ha ha ha ha ha.

-This young man is truly a football expert, both legs taking turns, able to shoot with both legs freely. The only drawback is both legs are prone to hitting the goalposts and fracturing.

-Big Sassy said we should escape, Little Sassy said “okay, let’s escape to that handsome guy’s house across the street. I’ve had a crush on him for a long time”. After hearing this, I quickly shut the window.

…

-Oh, this young man’s legs are beautiful, long and straight. If possible, you should touch them properly.

Xiang Xi froze when he saw this, then went back and re-read it twice to make sure he hadn’t misread.

Young man?

Beautiful legs?

touch them?

This pervert!

Pervert!

Who was Cheng Boyan talking about?

Whose legs did he want to touch?

Xiang Xi widened his eyes and looked again. Suddenly he had a feeling that was hard to describe. It wasn’t anger at Cheng Boyan’s perverted tone, but… realizing that a friend who always brought you candy every day was apparently bringing candy to someone else too.

No no no no… that didn’t seem quite right either…

Who exactly was this!

Xiang Xi stared at this Weibo post for a long time before finally remembering to glance at the time.

He suddenly realized it was the day of his steel nail surgery.

“Damn it!” Xiang Xi muttered to the screen. This is unbelievable!

He clicked through a few more posts and continued scrolling, not even noticing when the inexplicable tightness in his chest had faded.

After lying in bed for nearly an hour, Xiang Xi finally finished reading Cheng Boyan’s very few Weibo posts, laughing to himself all the while, then closed his eyes and let out a long sigh toward the ceiling.

He never imagined that Cheng Boyan would write things like this. How could he ever connect these occasional, bizarrely perverted posts with the image of the doctor in a white coat, busy every day without time even to drink water, and always maintaining a faint smile on his face?

Xiang Xi rolled over and laughed at the wall.

Actually, this side of Cheng Boyan was kind of interesting.

Cute enough to be loved.

*

A few days later, Liu Yuanping helped him get a computer from a senior in their department, only five hundred yuan, and it even came with a game controller and a gaming mouse.

“Tonight Tongtong and I are going to watch a movie. I brought the computer back for you, it’s with the landlord downstairs,” Liu Yuanping called him. “I also set up the network cable; I left the end by your door. You just need to plug it in yourself.”

“Okay, thanks!” Xiang Xi was about to leave work, and hearing that the computer had arrived made him immediately happy.

“No need to thank me. You took such amazing photos for us. Tongtong even said she wants to treat you to a late-night snack. How about this weekend, nearby our school, a perfect spot for a little feast!” Liu Yuanping said.

“Sure,” Xiang Xi said with a smile.

Back at the “thief’s nest,” the computer was indeed with the landlord. It was quite old, but still looked clean.

Xiang Xi spent a long time getting the computer into his room, placing it on the desk, then stepped back to admire it. In the room where the most impressive appliance used to be a small oscillating fan, he finally had something even cooler.

Not bad!

After admiring it, Xiang Xi ran to the door, picked up the network cable Liu Yuanping left outside, and threw it through the window into the room.

Then he just stood there, not knowing what to do.

How to connect the computer?

Where does the keyboard go?

Where does the mouse go?

Where do you plug in the network cable?

Xiang Xi circled the computer for a while, not daring to touch anything. He didn’t know how, and he was afraid of breaking this, even as a second-hand computer, the most advanced appliance in the room that had cost him five hundred yuan.

But he felt too embarrassed to call Liu Yuanping for help—students like him probably couldn’t imagine someone their age not knowing how to do these things.

“Ugh!” Xiang Xi sat on the edge of the bed, feeling frustrated.

Every time it was like this: he got excited, tried hard, thought he was making progress and could fit into the world, and just when things were going well, something he couldn’t figure out suddenly popped up, causing unpleasant stress.

Finally, he picked up the phone and dialed Cheng Boyan’s number.

After several rings, no one answered. He checked his phone; work hours were already over, and Cheng Boyan hadn’t said anything about being on duty today… maybe driving?

Hesitating, Xiang Xi dialed again.

This time, after two rings, someone answered. Before he could speak, a female voice came through: “Dr. Cheng is performing an emergency surgery and cannot take the call right now. He’ll call you back later.”

“…Oh!” Xiang Xi was startled and quickly nodded at the phone.

After hanging up, Xiang Xi continued staring blankly at the computer. When he couldn’t focus anymore, he stood up and went downstairs to Sha County.

Business was good at this hour; only after eight o’clock would it get a bit quieter. Most customers were nearby renters, students, or people running small businesses.

“Mixed noodles and steamed dumplings,” Xiang Xi told the owner, then turned to find a place to sit.

The shop was full, but there was an empty stool near the two small tables by the door. He walked over and nudged the stool with his foot. Just as he was about to sit, someone pushed him: “This seat is taken!”

“Who?” Xiang Xi looked around; there was no one standing nearby.

“They’ll be here in a moment!” the person said impatiently.

Xiang Xi looked. At the table were three people—two guys, one girl—taking up five or six stools with their bags, umbrellas, and belongings.

“I’ll take my food to go,” Xiang Xi said, pulling the stool aside and sitting down. “Owner, pack my order, please.”

“Sure!” the owner replied.

“I told you this seat is taken, can’t you hear me?” the previous speaker stood, glaring.

“Then clean up the seats you’re occupying,” Xiang Xi said calmly, lighting a cigarette. “If you want to sleep, go home. Stop hogging stools here like a dorm bed.”

“What business of yours? I’m sitting, so what? Get up!” the man shouted, preparing to rush over, and the other guy also stood.

The girl at the table shouted, “Forget it, what are you doing? It’s just one stool!”

The owner quickly came out to mediate.

Xiang Xi stood up. He didn’t want trouble. Since leaving Zhao’s house, he avoided conflict. He had already endured as much as he could.

The two guys at the table were still swearing; Xiang Xi felt annoyed. He hated people who wouldn’t stop talking, especially when they had already backed down.

Carrying his packed noodles and dumplings out, he glanced at the table and met one of their eyes.

“What are you looking at?” the man’s eyes widened.

“Just checking if you’ve set up your sleeping spot, grab two more if you need,” Xiang Xi said, turning and carrying his food.

Behind him came shouting and the girl’s impatient scolding. Xiang Xi quickened his pace, muttering to himself.

After staying there a while, he noticed not all students were like Liu Yuanping. Some were no different from the hooligans he used to know.

If there was a difference, it was mostly that most of them weren’t brave enough.

In Zhao’s neighbourhood, this situation would have ended in blood.

When he got downstairs, his phone rang. It was Cheng Boyan.

“Finished the surgery?” he quickly answered. His previously irritated mood immediately lifted, as if a light had been switched on in a dark room.

“Yes, now I’m in the car,” Cheng Boyan said. “Did you need something?”

“Nothing, just wanted to ask if you could help with the computer. Later is fine, you go rest first.” Xiang Xi smiled.

“I’m used to it,” Cheng Boyan said energetically. “Did you get that eight-hand computer?”

“Second-hand, not eight-hand,” Xiang Xi chuckled.

“Wait for me at the intersection in a bit,” Cheng Boyan said. “I should be there in about twenty minutes.”

“You’re coming over?” Xiang Xi stopped, immediately turning to leave. “Aren’t you going home to rest? Aren’t you tired?”

“No, I’m used to it. Even if tired, I have to come. Otherwise, you’ll stare at the computer and can’t sleep, right?” Cheng Boyan smiled.

Although Cheng Boyan said he wouldn’t arrive for another twenty minutes, after hanging up, Xiang Xi didn’t take the food back home and went straight toward the intersection.

The intersection was unusually lit by a single streetlamp, probably repaired recently, though it had been smashed and only barely survived.

A bit hungry, Xiang Xi squatted by the roadside, opened the container of steamed dumplings, and ate while watching in the direction Cheng Boyan was coming from.

When he finished the box of dumplings, he saw Cheng Boyan’s car approaching.

He tossed the food container to the ground and stood up, waving his hand. Then he bent down to pick the container back up, intending to throw it in the nearby trash bin, when three people came running out from the dark little path.

The one in front jumped up just a few steps away from him and kicked toward him.

“Damn.”

It was going to hit him.

Xiang Xi dodged to the side and, on instinct, threw the food container at this person’s face.

 

Translator : DarNan