Mama Wang got up early, as usual, cleaned the house, made breakfast, and then went out to buy groceries. By the time she returned, Papa Wang still had not gotten out of bed. She thought he was sleeping in, so she went to the bedroom to wake him. The moment she touched his arm, she realized his body felt hot. A thermometer confirmed it: he had a fever, probably from getting chilled outside the night before.
“Come on, drink some ginger soup.” Mama Wang went to the kitchen, made a bowl, and brought it into the bedroom.
Papa Wang was already awake. Learning that he had a fever made him sigh. He had always been healthy and rarely got sick, so he had not expected to be caught so easily this time. He accepted the bowl. The temperature was just right; Mama Wang had deliberately cooled it with a little cold water.
“Stay home and rest today. I’ll go by myself,” Mama Wang said in a tone that allowed no argument.
Papa Wang could only agree.
After taking care of her husband and giving him several reminders, Mama Wang left the house. The jam factory was some distance away, so she planned to stop at the jam shop first. She had left early as usual. It was only a little after seven-thirty. Guan Jiahe and the other three did not start work until nine, and when she reached the shop, it was only just past eight. The doors were still closed for business.
Mama Wang took out a key and opened the door. She had gotten it from Papa Wang. The shop had a smaller side door that could be opened without making much noise. She brought the breakfast she had carried over into the kitchen. It consisted of five-spice tea eggs that had been simmering since the night before and steamed rolls with ham sausage. When she came back out, she saw the mess on and around the coffee table and could not help shaking her head.
“This child…”
Mama Wang had always thought Wang Cheng was relatively tidy. Apparently, the moment he lived alone, he turned into this. She carried the bowls and chopsticks on the table into the kitchen, came back with a damp cloth, and wiped the table twice. Once that was done, she prepared to sweep the floor. When she discovered the broom and dustpan were not downstairs, she went upstairs to look for them.
The second floor was smaller than the first but still had about the space of two small attic rooms. There were two rooms there. One door was tightly shut. Mama Wang did not knock and wake anyone. Instead, she headed toward the large balcony. Sure enough, the things she was looking for were there. She picked up the broom and dustpan, but when she turned around, the clothes hanging overhead caught her attention.
“Hm?”
Mama Wang looked up in surprise at the clothes swaying in the morning breeze. Why were there two sets? At first she assumed they all belonged to her son, but she quickly realized the sizes were different. One set was clearly a size larger than Wang Cheng wore. Had someone spent the night here?
Mama Wang looked uncertainly toward her son’s room. If someone had stayed over, should Chengcheng not have called and mentioned it? And if there really was another person, someone should have slept in the other room, yet she had already seen that the open room was empty.
She had still not thought in that direction when she crept toward the bedroom door. Normally she would simply grab the handle and open it without hesitation. This time, however, an inexplicable panic rose in her chest, as though opening the door would reveal something she desperately did not want to see. She prayed her son had locked the door as usual, but when the handle turned beneath her hand, the unease only deepened.
Through the crack in the door, Mama Wang saw a narrow bedroom with a bed large enough for two. Two people were sleeping on it, both with bare shoulders and arms. Her son was resting against the other person’s shoulder, sleeping soundly. Her gaze moved upward and landed on a familiar face, none other than Chu Yifeng, the man she and her husband had once affectionately called Xiao Chu.
Even being struck by five bolts of lightning at once would not have been enough to describe her shock.
Mama Wang stared at the scene in disbelief. All the little things that had never quite made sense before suddenly came together. She had never learned anything about relationships between men, but even she could tell that the bond between these two was far from ordinary. Mere friends did not sleep like this.
Her body swayed, and Mama Wang caught herself against the wall, doing her best not to make a sound. Once she had calmed herself somewhat, she quietly closed the door and went downstairs without revealing anything.
Inside the bedroom, Chu Yifeng opened his eyes the moment the door clicked shut again. He looked toward it once, then closed his eyes.
Mama Wang left as quietly as she had come. The downstairs floor remained unswept. Having suddenly learned such a shocking truth, she had no mind left for cleaning. She stumbled out of the shop.
It was nearly nine when the harsh light coming in from outside finally forced Wang Cheng awake. He rarely slept this late. It was entirely because Chu Yifeng had gone too far the night before.
When Wang Cheng threw back the quilt, a rush of cold air hit him and made him shiver. He was naked underneath, his skin covered with scattered blue and purple marks. Things had gotten a little intense last night, though Chu Yifeng would not have escaped unmarked either. Wang Cheng had scratched him hard enough.
Wang Cheng casually pulled on the sleepwear lying on the floor. Downstairs, he found Chu Yifeng dressed in casual loungewear, heating water. The shop now had heating as well; they had installed it after deciding to start sleeping there, so the room was not particularly cold. “Go shower. I switched on the bathroom water heater already. The temperature should be just right now.”
Wang Cheng said nothing. He turned, got clean clothes, and went to shower. They had had sex twice the night before, and toward the end he had been too tired and simply fallen asleep. Chu Yifeng had wiped him down, but Wang Cheng still felt uncomfortable. There were places he had missed where fluid had dried on his skin.
Fifteen minutes later, Wang Cheng appeared at the dining table fully dressed. In front of him were two tea eggs, several ham-sausage steamed rolls, fragrant soy milk, buns, and pumpkin cakes. It was a far more generous breakfast than he had expected.
He picked up a tea egg and tapped it against the table, peeling the shell as he asked, “When did you get up? Why did you buy so much?”
Chu Yifeng ate a bun and a piece of pumpkin cake first, then finished a bowl of soy milk. People who paid attention to healthy eating knew it was better not to drink soy milk on an empty stomach, so having some flour-based food first was preferable. Only then did he answer, “A little after eight. I didn’t buy the tea eggs or the ham-sausage rolls.”
“Then who did?” Wang Cheng asked, taking a bite of the peeled tea egg. Before Chu Yifeng could answer, however, he recognized the flavor. No one but his mother made tea eggs like this. He froze instantly. The remaining half nearly slipped from his hand as he stared blankly at Chu Yifeng. “My mom was here just now?”
“If your mom made these, then probably. When I got up, the food was already sitting in the kitchen. If it wasn’t your mom, then it was your dad.”
“I’m dead.” Wang Cheng stared stupidly ahead. The other half of the tea egg finally escaped his fingers and fell to the floor, its yolk crumbling apart.
They had calculated everything except the possibility that one of his parents would suddenly come over. One of them had definitely seen something. Otherwise, they would never have come all this way without waking him. And that person was most likely Mama Wang. If Papa Wang had been the one to see them, he probably would have shoved the door open on the spot and woken them up. Only Mama Wang had enough self-control to stay silent. The worst possibility was that both his parents knew, but that seemed less likely.
“Look at the bright side. What was going to come eventually had to come. Being found out by accident this time isn’t entirely a bad thing,” Chu Yifeng analyzed calmly.
Wang Cheng rolled his eyes. They aren’t your parents. Easy for you to say. Chu Yifeng only smiled and said nothing.
Wang Cheng had lost his appetite. After a brief hesitation, he immediately called Papa Wang. No one answered at first. Normally, Papa Wang picked up after two or three rings. Just as Wang Cheng began to think his father must have been the one who came to the shop, the call connected.
“Cough, cough. Chengcheng, what is it?” Papa Wang’s voice came through the phone between coughs.
Wang Cheng froze. “Dad, are you sick?”
“Ah, I got chilled yesterday and woke up with a fever this morning. I’ve got a little cough too, but your mom made me some ginger soup and I’m feeling much better now. By the way, your mom went over to see you this morning. She brought breakfast too. Did you eat it?”
“I did.” Wang Cheng fell silent. So it really had been his mother. The last tiny bit of hope in his heart disappeared. He reminded Papa Wang to take care of himself, then hung up.
Wang Cheng clutched his head. “It’s over, it’s over, it’s over. My mom knows about us. What am I supposed to do now? My mom is the hardest person in my family to deal with, and of course she had to be the first one to find out. She definitely won’t accept it. It won’t be long before she confronts me. What am I supposed to say then? That you and I really are only friends, and because you can’t sleep in unfamiliar beds I let you sleep in mine? I wouldn’t believe that myself.”
“What you should be thinking about now is how to get your mom to accept our relationship, not how to explain it away,” Chu Yifeng said.
“Easy for you to say. Getting my mom to accept us would be harder than climbing to heaven.” Wang Cheng wanted to swing a few punches at him. If it were that easy, he would not be worrying now.
“We were going to face it sooner or later.”
Wang Cheng immediately fell silent. That was true, but he had never expected it to happen this soon. He was completely unprepared.