TSIBAMS Chapter 9

Chapter 9

After passing by a repair shop, Ye Xing stopped his bike, gave it a quick wash, and pumped up the tires, hoping to make up for his guilt about disappearing with Zhou Tian’s bike for an entire night.

When he got to the bottom of his building, Zhou Tian was teaching Xiao Bao how to write at the entrance of their shop. Ye Xing rang the bike bell at them, “What important guests need you to personally make a delivery!”

“You’re finally back! It was an old lady who ordered some clothes. She’s a regular, and she lives far away. My mom saw I was free, so she told me to go.” Zhou Tian put down the stone in his hand and came over. “Whoa! Is this really my bike? It’s so clean, I can barely recognize it!”

Ye Xing got off the bike. “You’re quite the helpful one.”

At this moment, Zhou Tian suddenly asked loudly, “Why are you wearing Qi Guang’s clothes?!”

“Huh???” Ye Xing looked down at his clothes. It was still the same stupid T-shirt Qi Guang wore yesterday. For a moment, he didn’t know how to explain. Given Zhou Tian’s tendency to dig to the bottom of things, he would probably start from the time Qi Guang was surrounded by those three punks.

Just as Ye Xing was trying to sort out the logic in order to confess, Zhou Tian spoke again, “So, you were playing games with him! Qi Guang is so unfair, he always promises to play with me but never calls. If he thinks I’m bad at it, he should just say so! Hey, Ye bro! Next time, you take me, I’ll pay for the whole night!”

“Huh?” Ye Xing was confused. When he finally understood, he silently gave Zhou Tian a thumbs up for his self-consistent logic. “Oh…”

Right now, all he wanted to do was go back to his bed and catch up on sleep. After returning the bike to Zhou Tian, he hurried home.

He slept until one in the afternoon when he vaguely heard someone calling his name. He woke up from his dream.

“Ye Xing! Ye Xing!” Zhou Tian was shouting loudly downstairs, “Coming down for lunch?!”

Ye Xing confirmed that he wasn’t dreaming, so he got up and went to the window. He saw Zhou Tian raising his head and cupping his hands around his mouth, continuing to yell at him: “My mom made chicken soup! Come down and eat with us!”

Ye Xing originally wanted to politely decline, but his stomach had been tortured by the school cafeteria for a whole week, and he found the lure of chicken soup hard to resist.

Zhou Tian, seeing his slow movements, wished he could run upstairs and drag him down: “Hurry up! It won’t be good if it gets cold!”

“Okay! I’ll be down soon.”

Ye Xing went to the bathroom to wash his face. He saw that his eyes were puffy again in the mirror. He already had single eyelids, and when they were swollen, it was especially noticeable.

He wouldn’t drink so much anymore!

His alcohol tolerance wasn’t good anyway, and he was in someone else’s house. He should have known his limits!

And he was still wearing Qi Guang’s clothes!

Ye Xing quickly changed his clothes, put on his shoes, and rushed down for his chicken soup.

When Ye Xing walked downstairs, Zhou Tian was setting up a table at the door. Seeing Ye Xing coming, he called him over to sit down.

Ye Xing had never been a particularly outgoing person. Before meeting Zhou Tian, he didn’t know that a person could be so naturally familiar. Of course, now that they had known each other for a week, he couldn’t call it natural familiarity anymore. But to be invited to dinner at someone’s house after knowing them for only a week, and to be greeted so naturally, was a first for Ye Xing.

Ye Xing had almost never been to a classmate’s house and eaten with their family. He felt a bit awkward.

However, what made him feel even more awkward was eating by the side of the road!

“Do you usually eat by the road here?” Ye Xing asked tentatively.

Zhou Tian was setting up the table, checking if the legs were even, while answering him: “My mom needs to watch the store, so we usually eat at the door. Eating inside might get the fabrics dirty. People who run stores here usually solve their lunch this way, and the air outside is better. When I was a kid, on my way home from school, I’d often get stopped by a familiar uncle or aunt and end up eating with them.”

“Wow!” Ye Xing found it quite amazing, “So there really are people who get to eat for free every day!”

“Yeah! Eating based on my good looks!” Zhou Tian said proudly.

At this moment, Auntie Shen came out of the store carrying the chicken soup, and Xiao Bao followed closely behind, carrying a few bowls and chopsticks. Seeing Ye Xing, Auntie Shen said to him warmly: “Come, come! You students work hard! Eat more and grow taller!”

“Thank you, Auntie!” Ye Xing rubbed his head sheepishly and then helped Xiao Bao take the bowls and chopsticks and placed them on the table.

“Mom! Isn’t he tall enough? You should be praying for me to grow taller!” Zhou Tian pouted.

Auntie Shen was ladling out the chicken soup and retorted, “Then keep sleeping in every day, you’ll shrink.”

Xiao Bao climbed onto the stool beside Ye Xing, sat down obediently, and pushed his chicken soup toward Ye Xing.

Ye Xing didn’t know what he meant, thinking he wanted to swap bowls. He was about to exchange his.

Zhou Tian stopped him and moved Xiao Bao to Auntie Shen’s side. From his experience of taking care of Xiao Bao over the past few years, he knew Xiao Bao meant he wanted Ye Xing to feed him.

Zhou Tian seriously told Xiao Bao, “Ye brother is a guest, you can’t make him feed you.”

“Huh?” Ye Xing was once again amused by the family’s natural familiarity.

In this unfamiliar city, this was probably the only place that made him feel like he was connected to “home.”

Ye Xing picked out the chicken leg in his bowl and gave it to Xiao Bao, “Xiao Bao, be good. Here’s a chicken leg, you can eat it yourself, okay?”

Xiao Bao nodded happily.

Auntie Shen laughed and asked Xiao Bao, “Why do you want Ye brother to feed you? Have you already abandoned your mom so quickly?”

“Because Ye brother is tall and handsome, I want to be like Ye brother when I grow up!” Xiao Bao said slowly, while gnawing on the chicken leg.

Auntie Shen laughed and put down her chopsticks.

Ye Xing lowered his head shyly and took a sip of the soup.

Zhou Tian sat on Ye Xing’s right, and quietly complained, “Alright, let’s swap places tomorrow, I think my family doesn’t need me anymore.”

Auntie Shen was busy wiping Xiao Bao’s mouth and feeding him soup, oblivious to Zhou Tian’s complaints.

Ye Xing took out his phone and asked Zhou Tian, “Um… do you have Qi Guang’s WeChat? Send it to me.”

“You guys hung out all night but you don’t even have each other’s WeChat, unbelievable!” Zhou Tian took out his phone.

Hearing the word “hung out,” Ye Xing rolled his eyes, “Don’t talk nonsense!”

Qi Guang was helping out at his cousin’s shop like he always did on weekends. He was woken up early in the morning by Shuai Xiaoyun, who had come to deliver breakfast. He was still dazed now.

She said she was delivering breakfast, but in reality, she was there to occupy his house.

Shuai Xiaoyun’s house was on top of her family’s restaurant, right next to the street, which was very noisy every day. She was currently in her senior year of high school and was easily annoyed. She couldn’t concentrate on studying at home. However, Qi Guang’s house was in a residential area, very quiet. She had asked Qi Guang a few times to make a room for her to live in, but Qi Guang didn’t want to move anything in his house, so he had refused every time.

So Shuai Xiaoyun could only come to Qi Guang’s house to study on the weekends.

Coincidentally, Qi Guang was never home on the weekends. He would go to Shuai Xiaoyun’s family’s shop to help out.

What a strange pair of siblings.

“You don’t need the money, why do you have to work so hard every weekend?” Shuai Xiaoyun had always been confused by Qi Guang’s work-study habit.

“I do need it! Why wouldn’t I need it?” Qi Guang always answered the same way.

“Alright then, you can do whatever you want!”

At that moment, Shuai Xiaoyun was probably studying at Qi Guang’s house, and Qi Guang was dozing off in Shuai Xiaoyun’s family’s shop.

He decided to play on his phone for a bit to wake up!

Qi Guang took out his phone.

A friend request?

He opened the person’s profile. The name was a sun emoji, and the source of the friend request was Zhou Tian.

Qi Guang quickly figured out who it was and accepted the request.

Then the other party sent a message.

-Thanks for the treat yesterday.

Not even a greeting?

Qi Guang remembered how arrogant the other person was when he asked for his WeChat number the first time, so he didn’t want to be polite. He slowly typed two words.

-Who are you?

The other party replied instantly.

-Stop pretending!

-I really don’t know anyone with a sun in their name.

Ye Xing’s WeChat name used to be a star, but after his classmates made fun of it as a girly name, he decisively changed the star to the sun and had never changed it since.

-Sorry, the sun is just a star.

Qi Guang was amused by his serious explanation and teased him.

-Oh. Mr. Ye Xing, did I serve you well last night?

-It seems you can’t talk properly.

Qi Guang still had the coins that Ye Xing gave him when he paid his bill yesterday in his pocket. He touched them and typed a line.

-No, it was five yuan a night. And you even left early. I’m really wronged.

Ye Xing sent him an emoji, a GIF he made himself in his middle school days where he put his left index finger under his eye and rolled it.

Qi Guang saved the emoji and went back to work.

Ye Xing didn’t go to the supermarket to buy groceries for two days. Every time mealtime came, Zhou Tian would call him down to eat. Ye Xing started to feel embarrassed by this.

On Monday, Ye Xing still got up earlier than Zhou Tian. When he was buying breakfast at the school gate, he still bought an extra portion and sent it to Class 18.

However, Zhou Tian, the naive boy, ended up eating a bread and milk that came from who-knows-where.

During break time, Zhou Tian, happily drinking his milk, ran to Class 19 to find Ye Xing. Ye Xing was sitting by the window, looking at his phone. Zhou Tian knocked on the window to signal him to open it.

After Ye Xing opened the window, he heard Zhou Tian exclaim with delight, “You brought me breakfast again today?”

“Yeah, just happened to.”

He was just feeling guilty for eating at their house for two days.

“Hehe, bro Xing is awesome. The bakery is not close to our school!” Zhou Tian said while taking a sip of his milk.

Ye Xing didn’t know what he was talking about. “Bakery?”

Qi Guang happened to pass by at that time, and he reached out and dragged Zhou Tian away. “Let’s go! Go pee!”

“Hey, I’m still drinking milk!” Zhou Tian complained while walking.

“Stop drinking, you won’t grow taller with all that.” Qi Guang ruthlessly snatched the almost empty milk carton from Zhou Tian’s hand and threw it into the trash.

In the bathroom, Qi Guang lit a cigarette.

Zhou Tian also took one from Qi Guang’s cigarette box and lit it. He wasn’t a smoker. He never bought cigarettes, only occasionally bumming a few to relieve boredom.

“Why does he bring you breakfast every day?” Qi Guang said.

“Last time he promised to treat me to breakfast for a week.” Zhou Tian paused. “This week, it must be because I’m loved by everyone!”

Qi Guang made a retching gesture.

“Last time you said he was your neighbor?”

Zhou Tian replied, “Yeah, he moved in the weekend before last. He didn’t have anything at home. I went with him to buy everything.”

So the first time he bumped into Ye Xing, he had just moved in.

Qi Guang looked at Zhou Tian slyly, “Not bad, you just met him and you’re already eating, drinking, and shopping together.”

“Your big brother Zhou,” Zhou Tian puffed up his chest and pointed to himself, “has always been this helpful.”

“Is it really not because he is handsome?” Qi Guang shook the ash from his cigarette into the sink.

Zhou Tian almost choked on his smoke, “Cough cough! Damn, why are you like my brother, are you a Ye Xing fan? Are we going to make key points for the final exam?”

“Not competing with your brother.” Qi Guang unzipped his pants to pee.

Zhou Tian also put out his cigarette. Although he didn’t need to pee, since he was already there, he leisurely unzipped his pants.

“Stay away from me!” Qi Guang said with disdain.

“Hey! I haven’t even started to hate you!” Zhou Tian almost jumped.

“Then, stay away from me.” Qi Guang said each word clearly.

“You good-looking people are all so damn fussy.”

Zhou Tian turned his back to Qi Guang and found a stall.

After school in the afternoon, Zhou Tian pushed his bike and headed home with Ye Xing.

“Get on, let’s go home early for dinner, I’m starving.” Zhou Tian kept begging Ye Xing to sit on the back of the bike since he started pushing it.

“I refuse!” Ye Xing couldn’t accept being carried like a little girl.

Zhou Tian said angrily, “What’s wrong? If you don’t want to sit behind, you can carry me.

Ye Xing thought about it. If Zhou Tian sat behind, he would probably hug his waist all the way, and refused again.

“No, it’s illegal to carry people on a bike.”

“There aren’t so many rules in your big city!” Zhou Tian had run into a wall twice, he felt helpless, “You and Qi Guang are both from big cities.”

Just as Zhou Tian finished speaking, a stranger stopped him.

It was at the school gate. The person was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and casual pants. He didn’t look like a student, but he was very young.

He asked, “Excuse me, do you know Qi Guang?”