Looking at Zhao Buxi’s absolutely resolute expression…
Fang Peizhi: “…So you do know what an illiterate person is.”
The moment Fang rattled off his list of requirements, the woman on the other end of the call sounded as though she’d heard something outrageous. She hung up at once and threw her phone far away.
Good heavens! What kind of person was her son describing? Just listening made her feel as though she were developing an allergy. She hurriedly rubbed her arms to smooth down the goose bumps.
The man at the other end of the sofa watched her exaggerated reaction. “Just stop interfering with Peizhi. If he meets someone he likes, they’ll naturally get together.”
“Easy for you to say. What if he never meets anyone?”
The man had understood the truth long ago. He told her earnestly, “The more you try to arrange things for him, the less likely he is to do what you want.”
He’d learned that lesson several years earlier.
When it came to Fang Peizhi, the man knew that he and his wife owed their youngest son a great deal.
They had three children. Fang Peizhi was the youngest and had spent little time with his parents growing up. He lived in Hong Kong until he was ten. After another incident that year, they finally brought him to Beijing.
He wasn’t close to them, so they could hardly call their relationship warm. The days he’d spent with them since childhood weren’t even a fraction of the days his older sister and brother had.
Both parents had sacrificed much of his childhood for their careers. When he was little, they were too busy to care for him. When he grew up, they expected him to follow the path they’d chosen simply because he was their son.
Peizhi had received an elite education since childhood and was exceptionally intelligent. He finished his schooling at sixteen. His father had laid out two paths for him: enter business like his older brother, or follow his father and older sister into public service and politics.
Instead, Fang Peizhi did neither. The moment he returned to China, he went straight to the barren lands of western China to plant trees.
He found a place where yellow sand blew everywhere, a desolate wasteland so remote that even birds wouldn’t bother to shit there.
Planting trees to improve the environment and hold back windblown sand was, of course, a good thing. It benefited the people, and his father supported it wholeheartedly. But everything had limits. A short period should have been enough.
Who knew Peizhi would stay for one month, two months, three months, then half a year, with no sign of returning?
People only lived a century at most. There wasn’t time to waste so much of it in one place on one thing.
His father told him to come home. Peizhi refused.
In the end, his father called in favors and went to extraordinary lengths to bring him back. But Peizhi returned to the west that very day, stopping to dig up a tree his father had planted in the courtyard on his way out.
At the time, his father had cursed him furiously:
“Fang Peizhi! What are you, Lu Zhishen?!”
Elio’s Notes: Lu Zhishen is a famously powerful monk in Water Margin, known for uprooting a willow tree. Fang’s father is comparing Peizhi’s tree-digging to that scene.
After that, he finally understood that Peizhi hated being pushed more than anything. Even if you forced him, he still wouldn’t give you the result you wanted.
Back at the apartment.
Fang Peizhi ate a substantial amount, so Zhao Buxi had left him an absolutely enormous portion of meat-sauce noodles.
Even a pig would have needed a long time to get through it.
Before meeting Fang, Zhao thought his own appetite was impressive. He hadn’t expected Fang to eat even more.
At fifteen, Zhao Buxi had worked as an apprentice in an auto repair shop. He got food, lodging, and pay. If he learned quickly and worked well, he earned more, though the work was exhausting. The shop stood beside a national highway, with yellow dust swirling everywhere. Large trucks stopped for inspections and repairs every day, and apart from meals, there was almost no time to rest.
Sometimes a vehicle broke down on the road, and he had to ride out to the scene to learn how to diagnose and repair it.
He was the youngest person in the entire shop. When he first applied, the owner had absolutely refused to hire him.
The boss swore, “What am I supposed to do with a brat whose teeth haven’t even grown in? If anyone reports me, a whole month’s worth of repair fees won’t cover the fine.”
It was a godforsaken place visited only by trucks and people on road trips. How likely was anyone to report it? Zhao clung to the boss and insisted on working there.
“I can work hard!” he declared loudly, as though swearing an oath.
“Lots of people can work hard.” The boss snorted and pointed behind him. It was noon, and a crowd of mechanics were eating lunch and watching the scene unfold. “Everyone here works hard.”
Zhao Buxi spread his arms like a hawk playing catch-the-chicks and blocked the man’s way. Every time the boss shifted a step, Zhao moved an arm across his path. “I can stomach more than any of them! I’ll do any job! I’ll even climb into the sky and pluck down an airplane!”
Everyone at the shop laughed, finding the little brat amusing. Someone teased him, “If you can pluck an airplane out of the sky, go on. Do one right now.”
Without blushing or missing a beat, Zhao said, “I’ll pluck one down another day.”
He said it as though he genuinely could.
The garage erupted with laughter. But Zhao stubbornly refused to leave, so the boss hauled him into the workshop and demanded to know why he insisted on working there.
Was he a spy sent by the repair shop ten kilometers away? Was the plan for the boss to hire him, only to be reported for employing a minor?
Repair shops struggled to find workers, and plenty secretly took on underage apprentices.
Zhao shook his head so hard it was like a rattle. “No! How could I be? Nobody’s that rotten.”
People had to have some loyalty.
The owner didn’t believe him. “Drop the act. I’ve used that trick myself.”
Zhao looked at him, his eyes suddenly widening unevenly.
Holy shit. Someone really is that rotten!
So there really were people that despicable in this world.
For a moment, the workshop fell so silent you could almost imagine a crow flying overhead.
The owner tried to save face. “Meeting me has opened your eyes. That’s what society’s like. It’s business warfare, understand? You think doing business is children playing house?” Then his tone turned sharp. “Go home. I can’t possibly employ someone your age. I can’t afford the consequences.”
Keeping the boy would be like digging his own grave. If the repair shop ten kilometers away heard about it, they’d set off firecrackers in celebration before making the report.
But Zhao Buxi stood still, not moving a heel.
Seeing the child as stubborn as a mule, the boss grabbed at his hair in frustration. “Go away! I’m begging you, all right? Brother! Big brother! Please leave!”
The boss was reduced to begging every power under heaven.
But Zhao knew he would sooner die on the spot than leave. This was the best-paying job he’d found in six months, and he needed the money to bring Little Tiger home as quickly as possible.
He refused to budge, explaining that he had a younger brother to support. Without money, he couldn’t bring him home.
He begged the boss to take pity on him.
“If I pity you, who’s going to pity me?” The owner stared at him in horror. “What do I care if you can’t bring your brother home? Your brother isn’t mine. He doesn’t even have my surname.”
Zhao Buxi declared righteously, “My brother can take your surname.”
“…Go, go, go! Hurry up and leave! You really know how to take advantage. I have the same surname as Qin Shi Huang! Your brother can’t just take my surname because you say so!” But although the boss ordered him out, there was no force in the hands pushing him. The kid looked pitiful. In the end, he let him stay.
“When you’re outside, tell everyone you’re an adult. You hear me?”
Hearing that he could stay, Zhao nodded frantically, grinning from ear to ear. “Got it!”
The boss kept grumbling, “If we weren’t short-staffed, I’d never hire you in a million years.”
But hiring him turned out to be worthwhile. Zhao had meant it when he said he could work hard. He learned quickly, and after only a few days with someone showing him the ropes, he could handle jobs on his own. He never sat idle and did the work of two people, except for the fact that he ate an enormous amount.
The boss’s wife and the cook prepared the shop’s meals. Repair work was filthy. By the time anyone finished checking and fixing a vehicle, they were covered in mud or engine oil. At mealtimes, the boss’s wife always saw Zhao sitting on a stool, smudged like a little tabby cat, eating in great mouthfuls.
He might still have been a child, but he ate about as much as an adult.
Fang Peizhi ate quietly, but very quickly.
Zhao Buxi was still noisily slurping his way through the last half of his noodles when Fang set down his chopsticks. It was as if a gale had swept through his bowl. Not a grain of meat sauce remained. His appetite was as hearty as a hyena’s.
“Did you get enough?” Zhao asked.
“Plenty,” Fang replied.
“Good, you finally got enough.” Zhao laughed. “I know you eat a lot, so I made sure to leave you a big bowl. I was worried you’d still be hungry.”
He buried his head in his noodles again and resumed slurping. Fang put his bowl and mug into the dishwasher, then returned to his bedroom to change.
Aside from the extra serving of meat-sauce noodles and Zhao Buxi’s presence, the morning seemed just like any other. Yet something was different too, as though a slender thread pulled taut at both ends had become tied around Fang Peizhi’s throat.
After breakfast, Zhao Buxi went to work and met up with Lu Fengtong at the company.
Today they were visiting the factory. Lu’s company made bath and personal-care products. It couldn’t compare with multinational giants like Procter & Gamble or Unilever, with their numerous major brands, but after more than a decade in business, it had acquired a loyal following for several of its products and was reasonably well known among niche brands.
Their prospective partner was a major game company. A popular game’s merchandise line planned to release co-branded body wash, body scrub, and other personal-care items, and ninety-nine percent of the game’s audience was female.
The target customer profile couldn’t have been clearer.
Women were the main consumers of personal-care products. The game was highly popular, and if Lu’s company could snatch the collaboration out of a tiger’s jaws, it would give their brand a tremendous boost in recognition.
To ride that opportunity, product quality, design, and creativity mattered most.
A few days earlier, the gaming company had asked Lu’s company and Liang Shujia’s company to prepare complete sample sets of their proposed collaboration products for comparison and selection.
This had Lu Fengtong nearly tearing his hair out. The harder he tried to make it good, the worse it became. The more ideas he piled on, the more cluttered the whole concept felt.
The new bath products were meant to emphasize fruit scents. He’d tried adding every eye-catching idea he could think of, and the result was a mismatched jumble.
He’d been so worried about it that he hadn’t slept properly for two days.
Seeing Lu looking as stressed as someone who’d studied medicine for ten years, Zhao casually suggested, “Why not include little candies? Make them pretty. Don’t girls like that sort of thing?”
It was a revelation to Lu. Holy crap. Of course!
Why hadn’t he thought of it? Perhaps designing a product didn’t need to be so complicated or profound. Often the simplest, sincerest things touched people most.
Who didn’t love something sweet? Better still, the candy flavors could match the fragrances of the body wash and scrubs.
The wrappers should be special too.
There were so many details they could develop from the idea of a single piece of candy that it could take the place of all his previous brainstorms.
Lu shot to his feet and sprinted toward Zhao as though running the hundred meters. “Little Zhao! How did you come up with that?”
“Huh?” Zhao hadn’t expected his offhand suggestion to be useful. “I was just thinking most people are still kids at heart. Don’t kids all love candy?”
Walk through the office area and you could see plenty of employees snacking on small sweets.
People couldn’t see the future or hold memories of it, but they always carried memories of childhood.
Men and women, young and old, were all children at their core. Everyone had grown up from that stage, and some part of childhood never disappeared, however old they became.
You grew older and suddenly, at a certain age, you were an adult. Yet many people had no idea how to be adults. They were simply feeling their way across a river, one stone at a time.
Back at the repair shop, Zhao had been the youngest, but some of the older mechanics loved teasing him for being a kid. To Zhao, their behavior seemed as childish as that of five- or six-year-olds. He never thought they acted much more mature than he did.
With the new idea, Lu Fengtong was overjoyed. “This is brilliant. If we can pull it off, I’ll give you a share of the profits!”
“Really?” Zhao hadn’t imagined he could be paid for an idea.
“Of course! It’s your idea. I’m not going to take it for free.” Lu thumped his chest in promise.
When parents love their children, they plan carefully for their future.
At last, Lu understood why his mother had suddenly arranged for Zhao Buxi to work beside him, even though he was in no danger and all ten people he met on the street would be strangers.
She’d been helping him all along.
Lu was deeply moved. When he got home that day, he lay awake past midnight, then sent his mother a message.
“Love you, Mom. See you tomorrow.”
Ms. Lu, awakened in the middle of the night: Is this kid out of his mind?!
He was so touched that he even went home to visit the next day. His mother seemed a little disappointed to see him arrive alone.
He had no idea why.
Probably because the heights of happiness were always followed by a dip. After all, what mother wouldn’t be happy to see her eldest son?
They’d finalized the proposal a few days earlier and sent it to the factory. Today, Lu and Zhao had come to inspect progress.
The factory was in the suburbs, extraordinarily remote. Driving there from central Beijing took five hours. Beijing really was enormous.
Zhao and Lu slept like the dead in the car. By the time they finally arrived, it was already noon.
Just in time for lunch… No, for an inspection during the employees’ break.
The moment Zhao got out of the car, he smelled a natural soap-pod fragrance. The factory stored all the ingredients for its body washes, soaps, scrubs, and other products.
The place was enormous and couldn’t be inspected all at once, so Lu took Zhao to see the important areas first.
Lu’s previous visit had been two months ago. This time he noticed many additional security cameras around the buildings.
The factory supervisor explained, “There have been more thieves in the area lately, so we added a few cameras.”
Even this godforsaken place had thieves?
Zhao couldn’t imagine what anyone wanted with the raw materials for personal-care products. Half-finished goods couldn’t be sold for much. Were the thieves planning to take them home, add water, and blow bubbles?
The custom candies had already arrived at the factory, where they were piled up in a workshop awaiting packaging.
Since the collaboration wasn’t certain yet, Lu hadn’t ordered too many. There would be just over three hundred packages, enough for everyone on the gaming company’s collaboration team, right down to the cleaning ladies.
Sincerity mattered most in business.
The candy really did look lovely. The wrappers had been designed specially by an artist and were eye-catching. Lu Fengtong said, “I’ll ask my baby whether she wants any, then take some home for her.”
He pulled out his phone.
“Little Zhao, take some too.” Lu pointed to the large pile. “There’s plenty. Help yourself.”
“I’ll ask too,” Zhao said.
Zhao Sheng wasn’t particularly fond of hard candy, so their family usually bought soft sweets for holidays. Zhao himself wasn’t picky and enjoyed both kinds.
After asking Zhao Sheng, he hesitated over whether to ask Fang Peizhi too. A little present might help keep Fang favorably disposed toward him while he saved up for the larger gift.
But the workshop employees had returned from their break, and a phone call might disturb their work. Besides, he had no other way to contact Fang.
Seeing Zhao standing motionless with his phone in his hands, Lu asked, “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you contacting him?”
“I don’t have his WeChat.”
Lu was astounded. Almost everyone communicated through WeChat these days. “Then how do you two normally keep in touch? Send up smoke signals?”
After finishing his classes for the day, Fang Peizhi went to his company. He arrived at three in the afternoon. Before he’d even reached his office, he heard a familiar commotion coming from the employee area.
“Well, look who’s here! Professor Fang!”
Chatting animatedly with Fang’s business partner in the pantry was one of his primary school classmates, whom he’d met back in Hong Kong. Fang had received an elite education and been so bright that skipping grades was commonplace. Once he reached junior high, there were hardly any children his own age around him.
When Fang and his business partner founded their company, this former classmate had helped introduce them.
Fang and his partner hadn’t known each other before. If they’d passed on the street, they’d have been complete strangers.
But the classmate was friends with both of them. Once he learned that they shared an interest in starting a business, he acted as a go-between.
The classmate hadn’t joined them himself. His ambitions lay elsewhere, and a few years earlier he’d passed the civil service exams in Beijing. His position offered excellent prospects and a respectable salary. He’d managed to woo his wife and settled in Beijing, and their daughter had been born at the beginning of the year. With so many happy things happening, he was in high spirits. By ordinary standards, he was a winner in life.
He’d had some time today and decided to visit Fang and his partner at the company to maintain the connections he’d helped create.
He didn’t want the two of them to forget him after he’d introduced them. His daughter might need their help one day.
After all, uncles who each gave a newborn a large gold longevity lock were connections worth keeping.
Fang Peizhi was surprised to see him. “How did you find the time to come over?”
His old classmate said, “Time is like water in a sponge. Squeeze hard enough and you’ll find some. How’ve you been? You look pretty busy every day.”
That was true. Fang was extraordinarily busy, either traveling for business or lecturing at a university somewhere. Meeting him required a bit of luck. Today, the classmate had been lucky.
“Not bad,” Fang replied casually.
His workload was heavy, but it wasn’t enough to exhaust him physically.
When he’d planted trees in the northwest, vehicles couldn’t make it up the loess hills. To plant saplings higher on the slopes, people had to carry them up on their backs every day. Fang had hauled plenty of young trees, along with water.
Compared with that kind of physical exhaustion, city life was fairly easy.
Apart from the cold he’d caught a few days earlier, which had made him uncomfortable, most of his symptoms were gone today, except for his throat.
His old classmate suggested the three of them have dinner that evening to catch up and strengthen their friendship.
Nobody had pressing work scheduled that night, so after finishing for the day, the three went to a private dining restaurant.
Over dinner, the classmate went all in on being a proud new father. He insisted on showing them pictures of his daughter and even voice messages she’d sent saying she missed him. No one could stop him, and the happiness on his face was unmistakable.
After dinner, the partner and the classmate had drunk some wine. Fang had an early class the next morning, so he hadn’t drunk anything and drove the other two home.
They hadn’t drunk much and were still sober, but you didn’t drink and drive.
As they passed a shopping mall, the classmate suggested stopping to look around.
His family visited this mall often. It was a good place to stroll after dinner.
Fang wasn’t in the habit of shopping and couldn’t understand what anyone needed to buy so late after an evening meal.
The classmate got out first. As the partner unfastened his seatbelt, he explained, “Don’t get it? He’s a dad now. Of course he wants to bring something home for the kid.”
Just as predators on the grasslands brought prey home, parents liked bringing food or toys back for their children after work.
The classmate bounded into the mall like a duck diving into water. He bought clothes, then baby snacks, then plunged into a bookstore for early-learning books and cards to teach children characters.
Fang, neatly dressed and distinguished, looked completely out of place among the children’s books. His partner poked and prodded things, fascinated by the unfamiliar baby products. Acting like a complete idiot, he touched a talking wall chart.
“Mommy,” said the chart.
“Holy shit! That scared me!”
The partner jumped a mile. “This thing can talk?!”
He’d never imagined the chart would speak, and his heart was racing.
The reading charts stuck to walls when he was little had been silent. He couldn’t help blurting out the old refrain, “We never had stuff like this when we were kids.”
Fang had had such things as a child. Now his gaze settled on the talking wall chart.
His old classmate emerged from the bookstore carrying armfuls of shopping bags and noticed Fang was holding a bag of children’s learning materials too.
Inside were talking wall charts and audio learning books identical to the ones he’d just bought.
Fang saw him coming. “Let’s go.”
“I’ve had a vasectomy,” the classmate announced.
Fang gave him a look that said, Are you out of your mind? Why are you telling me? He didn’t care about his friend’s private birth-control arrangements. “I didn’t ask.”
“Then why did you buy the same wall chart I got for my daughter?” the classmate asked. Seeing Fang’s purchase, he’d assumed it was for his own second child.
But his wife had already given birth and he’d had a vasectomy. A second child was out of the question.
These days, one child was more than enough.
“It’s not for Little Meteor,” Fang said. Little Meteor was the classmate’s daughter’s nickname.
“Not for my daughter?” The classmate stared. “Then who’s it for?”
Was there another child among the three of them? He stepped backward, covered his mouth, and gasped. “You have a child?!”
“Something that important and you never told me?”
Fang Peizhi: “…”
He was busy to death every day. Where would he have found time to have a child?
“No.” Fang felt a headache coming on. “Don’t worry about who I’m giving it to.”
His partner chimed in. “Probably some materials for that Hope Primary School he’s supporting in the mountains.”
The classmate knew about the planned school. “It’s already been built?”
As a civil servant, he understood all the twists and turns of project approvals. Negotiating land and construction was a headache too. He hadn’t expected Fang’s Hope Primary School to go so smoothly.
His partner promptly poured cold water on that idea. “Not at all. There are obstacles everywhere.”
“Good grief. A great professor like him can actually lower himself to argue with officials?”
“You have no idea. He doesn’t want to ruin his image with the staff, so he hides in his office to take the calls. As soon as the door shuts, the swearing starts.”
“University professors do care about their dignity.”
Fang couldn’t be bothered listening to them tease him. He strode ahead to wait for the elevator. The other two hurried after him. Fang was the only one driving tonight, and they didn’t want to be abandoned on the roadside.
After dropping his partner and old classmate off, Fang drove back to Capital University. The talking chart lay on the passenger seat, but its top had a pop-up cartoon character. To comply with traffic rules and avoid confusing the road cameras, he pulled a seatbelt around the package.
False positives from traffic-monitoring cameras were common now. He worked in high technology himself and knew just how irritating artificial stupidity could be.
At an intersection, he turned the steering wheel left with one hand. Streetlights and tree shadows alternated over the bag on the passenger seat as Beijing’s strange, dazzling nightscape slid past.
Fang hadn’t planned on buying anything like this. But as a teacher, he simply couldn’t bear to have an illiterate person right under his nose.
Someone who guessed at every word he read, then made things up when he guessed wrong, cheerfully misleading himself.
After Zhao Sheng and his group finished discussing their report’s progress, everyone nervously submitted their completed papers to Fang Peizhi’s email before packing up. Looking out of the café, they saw that stars had already spread across the night sky.
They’d arrived together at one in the afternoon, each ordered a drink, then arranged their laptops in a circle and worked until now. Nobody had dared leave before the report was finished. Even bathroom breaks had been frantic, everyone racing back for fear of wasting time.
Fang was usually easy to talk to, gentle in his dealings with people, sometimes humorous, and invariably courteous. But when it came to students’ academic work, his standards were exceptionally strict.
High expectations, high efficiency, high standards.
He was like a chief judge at the highest court. A single instruction to revise and resubmit struck like a death sentence, leaving his students wanting to die every day.
The semester had been underway for only half a month, yet two new students had already cried in secret. Every morning, when they walked to their classroom on the eighth floor and glanced out the window, they felt as if the ground were rising toward them at thirty meters per second.
They wondered whether they’d ever manage to graduate under his supervision.
If they’d known postgraduate study would be so agonizing, they’d have taken the civil service exams instead.
The joy they’d felt at securing a place under Fang Peizhi was matched only by their despair now.
The group packed up and left the café, every face hollow-cheeked as though it belonged in a Western fashion ad. They were in the prime of youth, supposedly bursting with energy, but at the moment they were too tired even to talk.
Unless the conversation involved gossip.
Two classmates were walking in the same direction as Zhao Sheng. One of the women asked, “Hey, did you hear about that university supervisor in Shanghai who was bullying a student?”
The incident had caused a huge uproar online.
The other man followed internet news obsessively. “Of course. Wasn’t that half a month ago?”
Zhao Sheng had heard about it too. The scandal had shaken academic circles. The supervisor, who scarcely deserved to be called human, had forced the student to remain available twenty-four hours a day, stolen countless pieces of the student’s academic work, and treated the victim as less than a person. It was only when the student recorded the supervisor physically attacking them and posted the video online that the matter gained attention.
A string of other abuses during the supervisor’s teaching career had subsequently come to light, and more victims stepped forward with accusations.
Because of the scandal, universities were currently under intense pressure to investigate whether anything similar was occurring on their own campuses.
The young woman said mysteriously, “Let me tell you something, but you absolutely mustn’t repeat it to anyone.”
“Okay,” the male student said.
Zhao Sheng nodded along.
The three leaned toward one another with the furtive air people took on when sharing a secret. The young woman said, “A friend of mine has a classmate who started graduate school last year. Her supervisor kept hinting, both openly and subtly, that she ought to give him gifts. She couldn’t afford to, so she didn’t. After that, he kept refusing to approve her paper and data analysis. When that supervisor-bullying scandal broke half a month ago, my friend’s classmate told her own supervisor that if he kept obstructing her, she’d report him too.”
“And that unscrupulous supervisor wasn’t scared at all! He told her to go right ahead. Good grief, he acts as though he’s above the law.” The young woman sounded distressed. “Now my friend’s classmate might not even be able to graduate.”
Zhao Sheng and the other male student looked stricken, as though what had happened to her could easily happen to them. The young woman’s face was full of sorrow too.
As graduate students themselves, they understood the helplessness all too well. Merely hearing the story was dispiriting.
“At least Professor Fang isn’t that kind of person,” the male student said. If they ended up under a supervisor like that, they would fare no better.
“Exactly. That’s why I think we’re lucky, even if Professor Fang really is strict. And I mean strict,” said the young woman.
At first, she had been dazzled by Fang Peizhi’s devastatingly handsome face. But once she experienced what life was like as his student, even the slightest loss of expression on his face made her shiver. The warm classroom suddenly seemed to become the Arctic, home of the polar penguins.
“But I’ve heard that most supervisors start out enthusiastic,” the young man said. “They want to guide their students toward academic achievements and honors. Then, as time goes on, greed takes over, and gradually…” He left the rest unsaid.
Zhao Sheng offered an example. “Like Wang Jingwei?”
The young woman nodded in agreement. “Exactly.”
When he was young, he had fought on the front lines for his country’s survival. Later, however, he seemed to become a different person. His ideals and ambitions vanished, and he became a traitor who made people grind their teeth with anger.
“Professor Fang shouldn’t turn into someone like that,” Zhao Sheng said.
“I don’t think so either. Professor Fang is actually quite kind. When former students come to him for help after graduating, he’s willing to use his connections to put them in touch with people.”
They knew this because a few days earlier, some of Fang’s former students had come to see him, and they had happened to witness it.
The three walked on, talking through things they couldn’t quite understand.
“University professors already have money, status, and respect. So why would they bully students? What could they possibly gain from it?”
“No idea. If I had as much money as they did, I’d be cheerful all day. I wouldn’t have the inclination to do so many rotten things.”
“I don’t know what goes through their heads. Maybe students are convenient to exploit, and they don’t have to pay them. I’ve even seen people making their students pick up their children.”
“Luckily, Fang Peizhi isn’t married, doesn’t have children, and isn’t that kind of person.”
Despite what they said, a quiet unease lingered in all three of them. Who could guarantee someone would never change? Please, Professor Fang, don’t mutate. Don’t mutate. Don’t mutate.
When they reached the student apartments, Zhao Sheng parted ways with his classmates.
“Zhao Sheng, haven’t they finished repairing your dorm yet?” the young woman asked.
A repair update had come through the dormitory group chat a few days earlier. “No,” Zhao Sheng replied. “They said it’ll take another week.”
“Living with Professor Fang every day must be pretty stressful,” the other man said.
If he had to do that, he’d be so nervous every day he might throw up.
“It’s all right. Professor Fang is a very good person,” Zhao Sheng said.
After saying goodbye to his classmates, Zhao Sheng headed toward the faculty apartments alone. Moths circled under the streetlights.
“Little Tiger!”
Hearing that warmly exuberant voice, Zhao Sheng looked back and saw Zhao Buxi standing some distance away with a pink-and-blue paper bag, waving at him.
Zhao Sheng stopped to wait. “Brother!”
Zhao Buxi hurried over. “Did you only just get off work?” Zhao Sheng asked.
“Yep.” Zhao Buxi lifted the paper bag and gave it a shake. “I brought you something!”
He didn’t take it out immediately. Instead, he made his younger brother guess.
“Guess what your brother brought you!”
His tone transported Zhao Sheng straight back to childhood. When he was seven and had just been sent to a welfare home by the Women’s Federation, his brother would come to visit every week or sometimes every two weeks.
And the first thing Zhao Buxi always said was, Guess what your brother brought you!
After Zhao Sheng started university, he saw his brother so infrequently that it felt much like the visits back when he’d been in the welfare home.
But now he got to see him every day. Zhao Sheng said nothing about it, but he was utterly delighted.
“What is it?” he asked.
Zhao Buxi took the sweets out of the bag. “Fruit candy!”
The fruit candies were tucked into a pouch, their colorful wrappers glittering brightly.
“It’s a new product from the factory at the company I work for.” He handed the candy to Zhao Sheng.
Zhao Sheng took it. “Brother, you’re amazing.”
Even fresh university graduates had a hard time finding work in Beijing, yet his brother had managed to land a job right away.
And the working hours were reasonable: no punishing nine-to-nine, six-days-a-week schedule, no unnecessary overtime, proper employee insurance benefits, and even delicious fish to eat.
Zhao Buxi drew him close. “Of course. Your brother has always been amazing.”
The two brothers laughed and jostled outside the building. As Zhao Sheng ducked his head under Zhao Buxi’s teasing, he spotted two more portions of candy inside the bag.
Noticing his gaze, Zhao Buxi explained, “Those are for Professor Fang.”
Zhao Sheng’s expression stiffened slightly. He remembered the conversation he’d just had with his classmates on the way back.
“Brother, what made you decide to come to Beijing all of a sudden?”
At first, he’d thought his brother was only bringing him apples and eggs. But Zhao Buxi hadn’t gone back home. He had found a job in Beijing instead.
Caught off guard by the question, Zhao Buxi hurriedly made up an excuse. “There’s not much work to do in the second half of the year, so I figured I’d come work in Beijing for a while and see you while I’m here.”
Zhao Sheng accepted the explanation.
The fields back home had already been planted and were only awaiting harvest. It was true that Zhao Buxi didn’t have much left to do there.
Last year, they’d also finished paying off the loans and other debts incurred for their parents’ medical treatment before they died.
With the financial burden gone, Zhao Sheng had expected his brother to rest in the village for another couple of years. But his brother was in his twenties, a time to broaden one’s experience, so coming to Beijing made sense too.
Everyone was drawn to the big city.
Zhao Sheng didn’t suspect anything was wrong. He and Zhao Buxi chatted and laughed as they headed toward the apartments.
Fang Peizhi returned carrying his things and happened upon the scene.
Zhao Buxi and Zhao Sheng were talking and laughing together, like two happy puppies bounding across a lawn with all four paws flying as they ran home.
Whatever Zhao Sheng was saying, Zhao Buxi kept his smiling eyes on him, listening intently to everything his younger brother had done that day. There was an inexhaustible tenderness in his gaze.
That look was strikingly different from his usually boisterous, carefree manner.
A moment later, something apparently amused him and he burst into laughter. His features were remarkably handsome, the underlying structure and soft lines of his face fitting perfectly together. The studs in his ears shone like stars, his lips were pink and his teeth white, and he laughed so hard that he doubled over holding his stomach.
When his laughter subsided, he said something else to Zhao Sheng, animated and radiant.
It was good news, of course. “If the project succeeds, your brother could get a share of the profits.”
Zhao Sheng already knew his brother was capable, but he’d never imagined he was this capable.
Admiration crept into Zhao Sheng’s eyes almost without him noticing. “I know you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.”
It reminded him of a summer holiday in primary school, when he’d spent his days picking up discarded bottles until he was exhausted and completely forgot about his summer homework.
By the time he remembered, there was only one day left before school began.
Zhao Sheng had been eight then. Terrified that his teacher would scold him, he’d burst into loud tears.
As luck would have it, his brother came to visit him at the welfare home that day and asked what was wrong.
Zhao Sheng told him he hadn’t finished his summer homework.
Seeing his little brother crying until his face was a mess, with his eyes, nose, and gapped front teeth all scrunched up, Zhao Buxi laughed and rolled up his sleeves. “That’s nothing. Your brother will help you write it.”
His brother puckered his lips like the Fujiya candy mascot, then got to work on Zhao Sheng’s summer homework.
Elio’s Notes: Fujiya is a Japanese confectionery brand whose mascot, Peko-chan, has a recognizable cheeky expression. Zhao Buxi’s heroic homework-writing pose is a joke that lands rather differently once you remember he cannot read.
A whole night passed, and he really did finish it.
“Brother, you’re amazing!” Zhao Sheng exclaimed.
Then, the very next day, Zhao Sheng got a scolding.
He’d forgotten his brother couldn’t read.
Even when Zhao Buxi copied from the answers, the words in the homework were impossible to make out.
But the summer homework had been completed. How it was completed, and what the writing looked like, were apparently beside the point.
Zhao Sheng and Zhao Buxi returned to the apartment. They had barely stepped inside when Fang Peizhi arrived right behind them.
“Professor Fang,” Zhao Sheng greeted him.
Fang nodded. After exchanging greetings, the three changed their shoes in the entryway.
As they were about to head inside, Fang lowered his voice and said to Zhao Buxi, “Come to my room when you have a moment.”
“What for?” Zhao Buxi asked.
Fang didn’t explain, and Zhao Buxi didn’t press him. He happened to have something to give Fang anyway, so after changing his shoes, he simply followed him straight into his room.
The door shut. The apartment was well soundproofed, with no noise in the quiet rooms. The curtains over the open-air balcony had been left undrawn, and moonlight spilled into the living room.
Zhao Sheng gazed at the closed door, uneasy. A great drum seemed to be sitting inside his chest, its surface scattered with pebbles that were now rattling and bouncing.
It couldn’t be.
Professor Fang wasn’t that sort of person.
Besides, his family had no money now. Even if the professor did try to extort gifts, they had nothing to give him. What could he possibly want from Zhao Sheng’s brother?
Reassuring himself, Zhao Sheng went back to his room.
Fang had scarcely entered his room and was about to take a hanging literacy chart out of its bag when he turned to find Zhao Buxi holding up a packet of candy right in front of his face.
Zhao Buxi’s face appeared from behind the packet. “This is for you.”
Fang reiterated, “I don’t accept gifts.”
Still so stubborn about that. But this wasn’t really a gift, just a little snack. Zhao Buxi said, “It’s not a gift. Anyone at the company can take these. I brought some home after my shift. There was plenty left, so I brought you a packet too.”
Fang studied the packet for a long moment before reaching out to take it. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Zhao Buxi took out his phone. “Professor Fang, scan me.”
They weren’t connected on WeChat, which made it inconvenient to get in touch. Zhao Buxi figured they might as well add each other.
Now that Fang had accepted his candy, adding him as a contact ought to be easy enough.
Fang took out his phone and scanned the QR code. A payment screen immediately appeared.
“…”
“Have you recently started working in sales?” Fang asked.
“No,” Zhao Buxi replied.
A second later, a hundred yuan arrived on his phone.
Zhao Buxi’s eyes went wide. “Holy crap! That’s the wrong code!”