The next morning, Wang Cheng was awakened by his stomach protesting nonstop. Sunlight filtered in around the curtains, brightening the room without being harsh. His entire body felt as though it had been run over by a truck. When he moved, his bones seemed to crackle all over, as if he might fall apart at any moment.
Remembering yesterday’s absurdity, Wang Cheng could not help letting out a hoarse groan. He had shouted far too much last night. In twenty-five years, he had never imagined he would skip straight past holding hands and kissing and end up in bed with a man. He had thought his life would proceed step by step like most people’s, uneventful and unremarkable until he died peacefully of old age. Who knew shocks always arrived so suddenly?
Wang Cheng rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock on the wall. It was already nine-thirty, long past the time he was supposed to clock in at work, so he immediately lay back down without the slightest pressure.
A little while later, Chu Yifeng walked in carrying a glass of water. Wang Cheng’s eyes were closed, but Chu Yifeng seemed to know he was awake.
“Get up and drink some water.” Chu Yifeng sat down beside the bed.
Wang Cheng felt the mattress sink slightly beneath his weight but kept his eyes shut instead of listening. He had intended to ignore him, then suddenly realized he would only be making things harder on himself. He immediately pretended he had just woken up, but the moment he opened his mouth, he gave himself away. “Did you ask for leave for me?”
“I did.” Chu Yifeng helped him sit up.
The movement tugged painfully at his backside. After several hours of rough sex the day before, and with this being Wang Cheng’s first experience of anything like it, even now he still felt as though something were lodged there, an indescribably strange sensation.
Wang Cheng drained the glass from the rim Chu Yifeng held out to him. Chu Yifeng tried to help him out of bed afterward, but he refused. He was a grown man. So what if they had done it six times? It was not as though he were disabled. Why would he need someone to help him walk? He insisted on going out under his own power, and the consequence was that his whole face twisted with pain.
Chu Yifeng could not cook. The congee had been bought at the morning market, freshly made, though it had cooled a little by now and was just the right temperature to eat.
“Why congee?” Wang Cheng did not actually mind eating congee, but he had the distinct feeling Chu Yifeng’s choice carried a deeper meaning.
“You’re not feeling well. Have something liquid first. Once you’re better, you can eat whatever you want. I won’t stop you.” There was no way Chu Yifeng was going to let him eat greasy food first thing in the morning.
Wang Cheng immediately thought of his backside. A moment of pleasure had come with a rather steep price. He swore there absolutely would not be a next time. Of course, many things started with a first time, then came a second and a third, and once the cycle began, who still remembered their original resolve?
This year, Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day fell almost back-to-back. After Mid-Autumn, there were only two workdays before National Day. The statutory holiday lasted seven days, and some office workers were shrewd enough to use two days of annual leave in between, giving themselves more than ten straight days off. They would then use the time to travel abroad or around the country with their families. Wang Cheng’s leave had been accidental, but Cheng Cheng, who knew nothing about the real reason, assumed Wang Cheng had planned just as cleverly and even texted to ask where he was going on vacation.
Naturally, Wang Cheng could not tell him that he had overindulged in sex, left himself physically worn out, and was now recuperating at home. How was he supposed to face anyone afterward if word got out? Even thick-skinned people had limits. So he lied and said he was still back in his hometown, and Cheng Cheng believed him.
After hanging up, Wang Cheng lay sprawled on the sofa. Suddenly remembering something, he nearly jumped up, only to tug painfully at his backside again and flop back down, wilted.
“Why are you jumping at shadows again?” Chu Yifeng was sitting opposite him with a laptop open on the coffee table. The logo was the same as the one on the computer Wang Cheng had bought for his sister. Chu Yifeng’s fingers moved over the keyboard without him even looking up.
“What excuse did you use when you asked for leave for me this morning?” Wang Cheng asked urgently.
Chu Yifeng finally looked up at him, more or less guessing what he was worried about. “I said you were sick, of course. What excuse did you expect me to use?”
“Sick is good. Sick is very good.” Wang Cheng finally relaxed. At least he had not said hemorrhoids. So the man still had a conscience after all.
“Although Gao Yongfu did ask what illness you had,” Chu Yifeng suddenly added.
Wang Cheng’s heart shot straight back into his throat. “Wh-what did you tell him?”
“I said you had hemorrhoids.”
Wang Cheng grabbed the cushion beneath him and hurled it at Chu Yifeng with all his strength. “Fuck, you’re the one with hemorrhoids! Couldn’t you come up with any other excuse?” He had only just praised the man for having a conscience. Retracted.
Chu Yifeng caught the cushion easily and said with a perfectly serious expression, “Would you rather I told him you couldn’t get out of bed because we had sex?”
Wang Cheng wanted to pounce on him and bite him to death. If his body had not been sore, he would have fought the man for three hundred rounds today. Infuriating.
Chu Yifeng stayed home with him that day, perhaps because he was worried Wang Cheng would get bored alone. He spent most of the time working on his laptop, though occasionally he watched television or chatted with Wang Cheng. Neither breakfast nor lunch was cooked by Wang Cheng. Aunt Liu had come in to work that day, so Chu Yifeng had simply told her to make the meals.
That evening, Wang Cheng received a call from Papa Wang. He had already found out whether Wang Ningkai’s girlfriend really had her eye on several of Guanjia Village’s hills. The instant Wang Cheng heard that, he perked up and sat straight on the sofa, his backside apparently no longer hurting. Chu Yifeng came out after his shower and found him on the phone.
“Chengcheng, you really guessed right about this.”
Papa Wang had spoken with Secretary Guan. In fact, over the past few years Secretary Guan had already reflected on the issue and realized that Guanjia Village could not simply contract out all its hills. That was why he had raised the prices so high, assuming nobody would be able to afford them. He had not expected this situation to arise. The hill Eldest Uncle wanted was one of the tracts currently available, and also the richest in resources among the few hills left. Two or three million yuan would not be enough to secure it.
“Secretary Guan told me your Eldest Uncle really does want to contract one of Guanjia Village’s hills, and it’s North Mountain. He’s offering a very high price too, but Secretary Guan hasn’t decided whether to let him have it.”
That made sense to Wang Cheng. Secretary Guan was no fool. Eldest Uncle had money, but with his current assets he could not afford North Mountain. Thinking it through, the funding was probably connected to Eldest Cousin’s girlfriend. If they could see that, Secretary Guan certainly could too.
“So what exactly did he say?”
“Secretary Guan did think of one solution, but your Eldest Uncle probably won’t care.”
“What solution?”
“He set a condition. Anyone who wants to contract North Mountain has to take the hill on its right as well, so the total price would go up by about a third.”
Money probably would not be much of a problem for Eldest Uncle. As long as Lisa’s father was backing them, securing North Mountain was only a matter of time.
But the more generously they offered to pay, the harder it became for Secretary Guan to make up his mind. Whether it was Eldest Uncle or Lisa’s father, both were outsiders. Why would outsiders care what happened to Guanjia Village afterward? Once they contracted North Mountain, the first thing they would likely do was cut down the trees on a large scale. If irreversible damage followed, Secretary Guan would become the sinner of Guanjia Village.
“Then why not just refuse to contract it out?”
“The offer has already been put out there. How can they suddenly take it back? What would people think? And this isn’t something Secretary Guan can decide by himself anyway. He said your Eldest Uncle has already spoken to the village director. It’s impossible to withdraw it now.” Papa Wang had thought of the same thing.
“Then what do we do? Are we really supposed to just watch Eldest Uncle take North Mountain?” Whether for public or private reasons, Wang Cheng did not want Eldest Uncle to get his way.
Papa Wang sighed. “It’s not that there’s no solution. Secretary Guan said that if someone from Guanjia Village wants to contract it too, they’ll give priority to a local household. He’s been running around trying to find people and pull strings over this.”
That sounded good in theory, but there was not a single household in Guanjia Village that could afford a contract fee of several million yuan. Otherwise, the hills would not have sat unwanted for the past year or two.
“Dad, what do you think about our family?” Wang Cheng picked up a cushion and tucked it behind himself, finding a comfortable position before hesitantly voicing the idea. In truth, the thought had already started forming when he went home for Mid-Autumn, though it had still been vague then. It was only after hearing Papa Wang just now that he finally made up his mind. He definitely would not stay at Chu Yifeng’s company for long, and he had little interest in following Eldest Brother’s path and spending his life working for other people at one company or another. That kind of life did not suit him. His plan was to return to Guanjia Village once his agreed term ended, but he could not go back to drifting around with nothing to do the way he had before. He needed to find something worthwhile to occupy himself.
Papa Wang froze. It took him a moment to understand what his second son meant. “Chengcheng, you want to contract North Mountain?” He knew his son had money, but the idea still felt somewhat unbelievable.
“I think it could work. Dad, think about it. Our family doesn’t have to go into building materials, and we don’t have the foundation for that anyway. But that mountain has so many resources. It’s not just the trees.” Wang Cheng would not mind becoming a fruit farmer.
The more Papa Wang thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. As far as he knew, the mountain also had abundant medicinal-herb resources. Once they contracted it, they could go into the medicinal-herb business too. That way, they could protect Guanjia Village’s forests while still making money instead of throwing a fortune into the mountain with no return. And he knew his second son’s situation.
“I’ll discuss it with your mom and give you an answer.”
“All right.”