WP Chapter 8

Jiang Yibai was burning with impatience, wishing he could somersault ten thousand li on the spot and appear right in front of Si Shaorong. Watching him fidget nonstop and glance at the time again and again, Chen Yi couldn’t help getting curious.

“Who are you going to pick up? Your girlfriend?”

Jiang Yibai let out a proud little hum, but he didn’t bother explaining anything to a kid. His entire expression was glowing with happiness, so much so that it made your teeth ache just looking at him.

Chen Yi curled his lip. “Some blind girl must’ve fallen for you.”

Jiang Yibai raised a hand and flicked his finger against Chen Yi’s forehead with a sharp snap. “If she didn’t fall for me, that’d be the blind one.”

Chen Yi: “……” He never expected someone could actually be this shameless.

Chen Yi picked at the hem of his school uniform and said, “People are realistic nowadays. You’ve got no car, no house, and you’re just a hobby tutor. Do you even have social security and insurance? Is your job stable? Do you get any perks at all?”

The driver up front chuckled. “Not bad, kid. You’ve got all the points covered. Your parents teach you this?”

Chen Yi looked down at his fingers and didn’t reply.

Jiang Yibai gave him a sideways glance and answered the driver, “Been watching too many mother-in-law dramas lately.”

Chen Yi: “……”

Driver: “……”

Jiang Yibai wasn’t about to argue with a kid who didn’t know anything. Seeing that Si Shaorong’s place was just one intersection before Chen Yi’s home, he simply said, “Sir, let’s pick someone up on the way, alright?”

The driver didn’t mind since it was all along the same route, and Jiang Yibai used the map on his phone to guide him.

After a while, Chen Yi asked, “You call him ‘Great Master.’ Is he your teacher?”

“No,” Jiang Yibai thought for a moment. “He counts as a senior.”

“He needs you to pick him up in the middle of the night. Did he get kicked out?” Chen Yi had a look like, wow, you and your senior really are two of a kind.

Jiang Yibai spotted someone standing at the upcoming intersection and couldn’t be bothered to scold his disrespectful student. He rolled the window down and called out.

“Ge!”

Chen Yi: “……” He’s calling him ge now? What a mess.

Si Shaorong was momentarily stunned by Jiang Yibai’s loud “ge.” Jiang Yibai’s tone was far too warm, far too familiar. It didn’t feel like this was the second time they were meeting. It was more like two long-separated family members reuniting after years apart.

Si Shaorong raised his hand and gave a little wave, stepping up to the curb with his bag.

Under the warm streetlamp, his expression wasn’t exactly pleasant. His brows were habitually furrowed, and the corners of his lips were pressed down slightly, forming a look that was far from cheerful.

Once the car came to a stop, Jiang Yibai jumped out to help him with his things.

Si Shaorong quickly waved him off. “It’s fine, just one bag… and this is?” He glanced at Chen Yi, who was seated on the far side.

“My student. I’m dropping him home,” Jiang Yibai said. “He lives nearby. It’s on the way.”

“Oh.” Si Shaorong gave the kid a small nod, tugged up the corner of his lips in a polite smile, but it was a little absentminded.

Chen Yi, on the other hand, stared at him with curiosity. Seeing him get into the front passenger seat, he leaned forward on the backrest and asked, “You’re Jiang Yibai’s senior? What do you teach?”

Si Shaorong paused, then turned his head to glance at Jiang Yibai.

Jiang Yibai shut the car door, pulled the kid back into his seat, and clicked his tongue. “What do you mean, ‘Jiang Yibai’? You think you get to call me by my full name?”

Chen Yi raised his chin defiantly. “Why not? I’ll call you whatever I want. Jiang Yibai. Jiang Yibai.”

Jiang Yibai folded his arms and looked at him. “Go on. Don’t stop. Let everyone know just how obsessed you are with me.”

Chen Yi: “……”

Si Shaorong looked at Jiang Yibai in surprise. His first impression had been that Jiang Yibai was especially easy to talk to. His smile was bright, sunny, and he looked like the friendly boy-next-door type. Very approachable.

When he had heard over the phone that he was dropping off a student, he had thought it suited him well. He had even wondered what subject he taught. If someone told him he was a kindergarten teacher, he would’ve believed it completely.

But now, hearing the way Jiang Yibai spoke, he was a little thrown. It wasn’t quite what he had imagined.

When Jiang Yibai talked to the kid, there was a natural sense of authority in his voice, but it wasn’t quite the authority of a teacher. Something about it just felt off. Either way, he no longer seemed like someone easy to deal with. The way he shut the kid down had left him speechless.

Chen Yi didn’t say anything else. He leaned against the window and stared outside, pretending he didn’t exist.

Si Shaorong wasn’t the type to overthink things like this, so he didn’t feel awkward at all. He opened up his laptop and got to work.

He typed quickly. For a while, the only sound in the car was the sharp rhythm of his fingers tapping against the keyboard. Jiang Yibai leaned forward slightly to sneak a peek, and saw his fingers flying over the keys. The joints were prominent and solid, his fingers long, and the veins on the backs of his hands stood out. There was a distinct sense of strength.

Jiang Yibai immediately let his mind wander. They said guys with long fingers were big down there too, didn’t they?

Since Si Shaorong’s old place was close to Chen Yi’s home, it only took ten minutes for the car to stop.

Si Shaorong was already completely absorbed in his plot work. He didn’t even lift his head.

Chen Yi grabbed his schoolbag and jumped out of the car. Jiang Yibai leaned out the open window and looked at him. “Go on. I’ll watch you go inside. Move it.”

Chen Yi dragged his feet. “We agreed, you’re not gonna tell my mom about this.”

Jiang Yibai had said earlier that if he said one more word, he’d report everything, down to the last detail. Since then, Chen Yi had been a lot quieter, though gossiping about Jiang Yibai didn’t count.

Jiang Yibai grinned and reached out to pinch his cheek. The kid was on the short side, seemed to be developing slower than the other boys his age. He was scrawny, but his face still had a bit of baby fat. It felt soft and smooth under the fingers.

Chen Yi frowned and stiffened his neck, managing to hold it in without talking back.

Jiang Yibai gave a satisfied nod, then said in response to the hopeful look on the boy’s face, “I won’t say everything in detail. I’ll say it… tactfully.”

Chen Yi: “……”

Fifteen-year-old Chen Yi, for the Nth time, felt the schemes and filth of the adult world crashing down on him.

The car got onto the elevated road. Without traffic lights, all the vehicles flew across the pavement without restraint. Under the night sky, the stream of headlights stretched out into a glowing river, like a galaxy on earth.

Next to them was a bus rapid transit lane. At the occasional stops, only a few people stood scattered about. On a normal day, Jiang Yibai would have observed them closely, trying to pull some inspiration from these little pieces of life. But right now, all his attention was focused on the person in the front seat.

He slowly shifted over to the spot where Chen Yi had been sitting earlier. Then he leaned forward, hands on the back of the passenger seat, carefully craning his neck to peek.

Si Shaorong was still typing rapidly. Even the driver glanced over out of curiosity.

“Those are some fast hands,” the driver said with a laugh. “What’s the rush?”

Si Shaorong seemed completely deaf to everything around him. He didn’t respond at all.

The driver didn’t mind and continued chatting to himself. “You’ve got to admit, it’s a lot easier to work now. Just one laptop and you’re good to go. You can share files, store everything in the cloud. Take it anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Jiang Yibai picked up the conversation. “Everyone’s pushing for paperless offices now. It’s a good thing. More environmentally friendly.”

“But everything has pros and cons,” the driver said. He didn’t look very old, maybe in his early thirties, dressed in a plaid shirt with a buzz cut. His tone was casual and familiar. “Tech’s moving so fast. Back in the day we had tapes, VHS, floppy disks. Those could hold stuff too. My dad even saved a bunch of tapes for me. Now there’s no way to play them. The devices are gone. The carriers have changed. You think about all these files we’re saving now… like photos in a computer. If tech changes again and none of it works anymore, then what?”

“Right, I’ve still got a bunch of cassettes saved. Kids these days probably don’t even know what a cassette is,” Jiang Yibai said with a grin.

“And all this stuff is virtual, after all,” the driver said. “Look at archaeology now. You dig up an ancient text on bamboo slips and you can study how people lived back then. What are we going to leave behind? Say one day aliens show up and all our tech stops working. If that wipes out everything we’ve stored, how would anyone even know we existed? Actually, forget aliens. If we end up fighting each other, it’s just one nuclear bomb away. Who would even remember us then?”

Jiang Yibai was laughing hard. This guy really had a lot on his mind.

“Einstein said once,” Si Shaorong spoke up at some point, closing his laptop, “I don’t know what weapons will be used in the third world war, but the fourth will be fought with sticks and stones.”

The driver nodded. “Yeah, exactly. That’s the point.”

…

Jiang Yibai’s place wasn’t exactly in the city center, but it wasn’t far either.

The new development zone beyond the Second Ring had only been built in the past few years. Compared to the roads in the new area, the streets around Jiang Yibai’s older neighborhood were much narrower. The buildings had an aged look, like they carried the weight of time. Deep in the alleys, there were even a few old houses with red brick walls and black tile roofs.

“That used to be a grain warehouse,” Jiang Yibai said, leading Si Shaorong down a side path. The moment they turned in, the noise and neon lights faded away. Even the wind seemed to quiet down. “Next door was the Grain Bureau. Later they relocated, then got merged into something else. A lot of people from the subordinate offices were laid off back then.”

As he spoke, Jiang Yibai pointed things out to Si Shaorong. “I used to go to school over there. The school’s still there now. It only took a few minutes to walk there, but I still showed up late. Got called out by my homeroom teacher and had to stand at the entrance for an entire class.”

Si Shaorong smiled. “My school was also close to home. After school I used to hang around the newsstand by the gate, reading books and newspapers. Whenever I saved up some pocket money, I’d buy one of those little booklets to read.”

“When was that? Elementary school?” Jiang Yibai was clearly interested in anything related to Si Shaorong. “Did you always like reading?”

“My family subscribed to a lot of kids’ magazines. My grandfather also collected a bunch of books. Jin Yong, Gu Long,” Si Shaorong said. “My parents didn’t have much time to look after me, so I read on my own. My grandpa’s books were all really old. He had several editions of Dream of the Red Chamber. I couldn’t understand the classical Chinese back then. Books only cost a few mao per copy in those days.”

“My family had those old books too. They were my grandfather’s.” Jiang Yibai led Si Shaorong through a black iron gate. The house number was mounted next to it, the sign weathered and worn from years of sun and wind.

A small door was open beneath the tall iron gate. Inside, to the left, was a small room just a few square meters in size. The wooden door stood open, revealing a green mesh door behind it. Next to it was an old-fashioned wooden window frame, with a few iron bars welded on later as a makeshift security grille. It looked sturdier than any modern anti-theft window.

“You’re back, Xiao Jiang. You’ve got a package.” An elderly voice came from behind the mesh door. Rustling sounds followed, and then a chubby orange cat sprang out from inside, trailed by a white-haired old man.

The old man looked extremely thin. His neck was sunken, the bones and veins clearly visible, like his whole body was just a thin layer of skin wrapped around bones.

“Grandpa Wang,” Jiang Yibai walked over at once and took the package from him, “Thanks.”

The old man coughed a few times. Si Shaorong could still smell the scent of leaf tobacco wafting from the room. It wasn’t harsh. Instead, it carried a dense, settled warmth that felt strangely comforting.

“So late, and you’ve still got students coming by?” Grandpa Wang squinted at Si Shaorong.

“He’s not a student. He’s going to be my new roommate,” Jiang Yibai said. “His name’s Si Shaorong.”

“Hello,” Si Shaorong said.

It wasn’t clear if Grandpa Wang heard him or not. He shook his head and muttered something under his breath, then shuffled back inside, nudging the cat along with his foot, and closed the door behind him.

“He’s the gatekeeper here. Well, not really a gatekeeper exactly…” Jiang Yibai seemed unsure how to explain, leading Si Shaorong deeper inside. Past that little room was a small courtyard, packed with parked vehicles. At the back stood two buildings. “Just two apartment blocks. Each building has six floors. The place is old, but the structure is solid. No safety issues.”

Si Shaorong looked around. Under the cross-hung light bulbs stretched across the courtyard, he was able to make out the rough layout of the space.

Jiang Yibai looked a bit nervous. “You came on short notice. I thought you’d want to come check the place out first… But it’s convenient around here. Easy to catch the bus or subway. There’s a grocery downstairs. The house has everything you’d need. It’s just that the environment might be a bit old. I don’t know if it’ll suit you.”

“I like it.” Si Shaorong seemed to have found some kind of hidden treasure. There was a faint light in his eyes. He finally smiled, wide and genuine, the tension completely gone from his face. “I really like it.”