DP Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Several people whispered amongst themselves for a while. One roommate peered toward the staircase and said in a low voice, “No wonder the music was so loud on that floor… Damn, this is too exciting.”

Another roommate, more timid, said, “I can’t handle this. Let’s go, let’s go.”

“You’re such a coward,” Wu Yiyue said. “This is illegal! We should report them immediately.”

“What if it’s a false alarm? Wouldn’t it be against the law to report a false police situation?” the timid roommate countered.

“Why don’t we go up and check it out?” the roommate who found it exciting suggested.

Xiang Yiye, however, was more rational. He calmly observed the reactions of the surrounding staff and gestured for them to disperse.

Half an hour later, the roommates took a taxi back to school. Xiang Yiye stood there for a moment, then turned back toward the club. He hadn’t taken two steps when someone suddenly clapped him hard on the shoulder.

Wu Yiyue, who had also returned, said, “What are you doing? Trying to be a hero all by yourself?”

“What hero?” Xiang Yiye retorted. “I know someone who might be connected to this place.”

“Who is it? Do I know them? Are they from our school?” Wu Yiyue asked.

“No, it’s hard to say,” Xiang Yiye replied.

“Then count me in. More people make things easier. What’s your plan?” Wu Yiyue asked.

Xiang Yiye’s initial plan was to pretend to have lost something and go back to look for it, taking the opportunity to inquire about the information on the upper floor, getting as much as he could. But with Wu Yiyue’s help, he could do much more.

They returned to the club, sat down in the lobby again, ordered a bottle of wine, and waited for the staff to search for the non-existent lost item while they drank.

Xiang Yiye swallowed the wine in his mouth and said, “In a while, one of us will pretend to be drunk and distract the security guard at the stairs. The other will take the chance to go upstairs and take a look, then come down immediately.”

“I’ll go upstairs.” Wu Yiyue had been obsessed with police and gangster movies since he was a child. The prospect of such an adventure had initially filled him with excitement, but after a while, he couldn’t help but hesitate. “Wait, Xiang God, can you give me a preview of what you look like when you’re drunk?”

Xiang Yiye thought for a moment. Actually, there were two scenarios when he was drunk. If there was no one around, he would be fine, quietly drinking by himself. But if someone paid attention to him, he would latch onto them and talk their ear off.

In his previous life, Xu Chuo had said that he had never seen someone so talkative in bed.

Xiang Yiye stopped his thoughts in time and said, “It should be quite a commotion.”

“Really going to make a scene?”

“We need to distract the guard, after all.”

Wu Yiyue imagined the scene and said honestly, “No way, I’ve never seen you like that. I’ll definitely collapse on the stairs laughing and won’t be able to move…”

Xiang Yiye rubbed his forehead for a moment and said, “Then I’ll go upstairs. You be the drunk. Can you do that?”

Wu Yiyue was filled with righteous indignation and drank straight from the bottle. “I can do this! Let me finish this bottle!”

The plan went smoothly. Xiang Yiye walked up the stairs, picked the closest private room, saw the crowd celebrating wildly to the music through the glass window, immediately stopped there, and prepared to go downstairs. This club was hiding something shady, and this kind of reconnaissance was already quite rash.

A waiter passed by in the hallway and asked him, “Sir, do you need anything?”

Xiang Yiye maintained his composure and said, “I’m a bit lost. Could you tell me where the restroom is? My friend is drunk and probably went to the toilet to throw up.”

The waiter showed a hint of suspicion, rolled his eyes, and said, “I’ll take you there. Which room are you in?”

Just then, a commotion came from downstairs. Xiang Yiye said, “No need, I can hear my friend’s voice. Thank you.”

When he went downstairs, Wu Yiyue was still flailing and acting drunk, denouncing his ex-girlfriend who had abandoned him to the air. Two security guards couldn’t handle him.

Xiang Yiye couldn’t help but smile, went up to appease him, and finally said they were leaving to take his friend home, leaving his phone number and saying he would come back later if they found the lost item.

The waiter helped him get Wu Yiyue to the door and hailed a taxi. The taxi drove a few hundred meters, and Wu Yiyue was fully revived in the back seat.

Xiang Yiye praised him tactfully, “Mr. Wu, do you perhaps have plans to enter the entertainment industry?”

“You flatter me. Just acting crazy, it’s what college students do best,” Wu Yiyue said impatiently. “What did you see upstairs?”

Xiang Yiye said, “There were straws on the table, and the people inside were acting very strangely. We can basically confirm…” that they were gathering to do drugs.

After hearing this, Wu Yiyue immediately called the police without another word.

Xiang Yiye recalled Xie Lei’s tired and listless state a few days ago and felt that everything was now explained. If Xie Lei was really involved with drugs, unless he turned back himself, no one else could help him.

But how to let Xu Chuo know that the person he had been with for ten years was not trustworthy, and to remind him to be careful, was a difficult problem.

Another week passed. On Friday morning, the teacher dragged on in class, and after class, Xiang Yiye looked at the time and realized he didn’t have time for lunch. He ran back to his residence with the brick-like textbook.

He opened his closet, which didn’t have many clothes, mostly black, white, and gray. Because he didn’t want to spend too much time buying clothes, he would buy several of the same style in different colors.

He took off the black windbreaker and cargo pants that college students wore like they were welded on, and changed into a gray hooded sweatshirt, washed blue jeans, and a black leather jacket. He looked neat and presentable.

As he was considering whether to add some accessories like glasses, Xu Chuo called and said he was downstairs.

Xiang Yiye parted the curtains and saw the car below. He put the clothes he had taken out back into the closet one by one and said, “I’ll be right down.”

Xu Chuo heard the sound of the closet opening and closing and chuckled, “You didn’t want me to pick you up from school, so you went home specifically to change clothes?”

“…Paying attention to one’s attire is the most basic courtesy to others.” Xiang Yiye took off his glasses, deciding not to wear them.

“So what are you wearing?”

Xiang Yiye said, “I’ll be down in a moment.” The implication was that there was no need to ask.

“How can hearing and seeing be the same?” Xu Chuo began to expound his twisted logic at length. “If you tell me in advance, in the few minutes I’m waiting for you, I’ll be constantly imagining what you look like now. Have you read ‘The Little Prince’?”

The fox said to the little prince: “You must be very patient, first of all. You’ll sit down a little distance away from me—like that—in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you’ll sit a little closer to me, every day… For instance, if you come at four in the afternoon, then at three I shall begin to be happy.”

Xiang Yiye couldn’t win against him, so he simply adopted a policy of non-violent non-cooperation. “Guess for yourself. Hanging up.” He put down his phone, took off the leather jacket, and changed into a more low-key black jacket.

He felt that the outfit was too much like protesting too much; Xu Chuo would definitely be smug.

As he changed clothes, Xiang Yiye complained inwardly that he had lived for two lifetimes, and the sum of his ages was 50, yet he was still so petty and unwilling to lose in such small matters. It was too childish.

He went downstairs, opened the car door, and found the car was well-heated. A dark camel coat was placed on the passenger seat.

Xu Chuo removed the coat and placed it on his lap, scanning Xiang Yiye from head to toe like a scanner several times. “More simple than I thought, but you’re suited to being simple.”

Xiang Yiye fastened his seat belt and saw that Xu Chuo was wearing a beige striped shirt, with the first button at the collar open. There was no sign of heavy styling. He secretly rejoiced that he hadn’t worn the leather jacket.

Xu Chuo took his gaze away from him, turned the steering wheel, and said, “When the weather gets warmer, I’ll take you to buy some clothes for spring. You’d look good wearing a leather jacket or denim jacket with today’s outfit.”

Xiang Yiye was slightly stunned. In his previous life, Xu Chuo had also loved to dress him up, treating him like a clothes rack. When they were together, it was the year his personal outfits were at their most outstanding.

A faint fragrance filled the car. Xiang Yiye looked down and saw three white snow towers behind the gear lever, inserted in a narrow-mouthed glass bottle, with a light-colored ribbon tied around the mouth of the bottle.

The double-petaled flowers were pure white and flawless, like layers of gauze skirts. Xiang Yiye couldn’t help but touch them.

Xu Chuo stared at the road ahead and said, “They’re for you.”

Xiang Yiye took the bottle out, looked at the delicate and slender flower branches through the glass, lowered his head to smell them, and a fresh fragrance filled his nostrils. “They’re very beautiful and fragrant.”

“Like you,” Xu Chuo said. “You were born in January. Camellias bloom best in January. It’s your flower.”

Xiang Yiye’s face silently began to heat up from being compared to a flower.

When they entered the parking lot, Xu Chuo saw him carrying the vase all the way and said, “You like it so much, are you going to hold it into the movie theater later?”

“I forgot. I’ll get it after the movie.” Xiang Yiye quickly put the bottle and flowers back in place and turned to see Xu Chuo’s mouth and eyes curving up together. “What are you smiling at…”

“Smiling at how easy you are to please,” Xu Chuo said. “If someone comes along later and sends you a whole garden, you’ll be so moved you’ll run away with them. What will I do then?”

“Then you can cry,” Xiang Yiye retorted, glaring at him and unfastening his seat belt to get out of the car.

Xiang Yiye picked a Hollywood blockbuster that had been released not long ago. It was difficult to concentrate during the first half because he was starving.

His mind was filled with the names of dishes: braised eggplant, sweet and sour pork, sweet and sour spare ribs, chicken stew with mushrooms, frozen pears, bean buns, corn soup, candied haws…

Occasionally, a trace of resentment would pop up: May there be no extra class time in heaven, save the children.

In the second half, when he was no longer so hungry, the movie developed into a key plot point. The protagonist and the villain were fighting in a hail of bullets, the gunshots were deafening, and blood was spurting everywhere, stimulating the senses of hearing and sight.

Xiang Yiye was immersed in the storyline when he suddenly snapped out of it, realizing that his little finger was being hooked by someone.

He turned his head and saw Xu Chuo staring at the screen with a serious expression, but his hand had already crossed the border and was holding his little finger hostage.

If you want to hold hands, hold hands properly. What’s with all the sneaking around? Xiang Yiye flipped his right hand over, covering the back of Xu Chuo’s hand, and warmed his hand inch by inch while watching the movie.

Xu Chuo kept fiddling with his knuckles, which was very annoying. Xiang Yiye simply intertwined his fingers and fixed him in place.

When the movie ended and the lights came on, Xiang Yiye let go of his hand first. Xu Chuo tried to hold it back but failed, lingering over the warmth on his fingertips.

In the elevator leaving the theater, someone was discussing the plot. Xu Chuo admitted, “I didn’t really watch it.”

Of course not, Xiang Yiye thought. Others were fully invested, following the ups and downs of the movie’s plot, while you were fully invested in racking your brains to figure out how to hook someone’s little finger.

“Next time, let’s sit one seat apart,” Xiang Yiye said.

“That won’t work, I did watch the first part,” Xu Chuo retorted.

That’s great, Xiang Yiye thought. He watched the first half, and I watched the second half. If we put our halves together, we can still piece together a complete movie.