Zhao Buxi stopped in his tracks. “You drink?”
“I’m an adult,” Fang Peizhi replied.
“That’s not what I meant.” He was simply surprised that Fang Peizhi drank alcohol. The professor had always struck him as someone who never touched a drop.
But an impression was just that. Given how he pictured graduate supervisors, it would have been stranger if Fang Peizhi didn’t drink. The professor’s appearance had simply fooled him.
He’d heard plenty of news stories about supervisors taking students to business dinners, and there was never a business dinner without alcohol.
Some students even called their supervisors “boss,” earned salaries, and worked on projects with them. Little Tiger had mentioned that some of the senior students in his department even called Fang Peizhi “boss.”
“Room-temperature or cold?” Zhao Buxi asked.
“Cold,” Fang Peizhi replied.
Zhao Buxi went to get the drinks while Fang Peizhi handed the marked menu to the proprietress. She’d just cleared a table and wiped her hands on her apron before accepting the slip. Pointing to the quantities on it, she asked, “How spicy would you like it?”
Usually barbecue came in only two varieties: spicy or not spicy.
People who liked heat could ask for extra, but Fang Peizhi had never seen a place ask how many levels of spice.
Fang Peizhi asked, “What levels are there?”
“We have mildly spicy, medium, extra spicy, and insanely spicy,” the proprietress explained.
Zhao Buxi returned with the drinks just then. Fang Peizhi beckoned him over. “How spicy do you want yours?”
He repeated the options: “Mild, medium, extra spicy, or insanely spicy.”
Zhao Buxi could handle heat. “Extra spicy.”
“I recommend medium,” the proprietress warned. “Our chili is fragrant, but it’s hot.” Most customers chose medium; extra spicy could bring tears to your eyes.
“I can handle it,” Zhao Buxi answered with a smile. “Extra spicy.”
He’d been able to eat chili since he was little. His family planted plenty in their vegetable garden, both red and green.
Once, his father tricked him by saying a chili pepper was sweet. Zhao Buxi had eaten it and stuck his tongue out from the heat, but his face hadn’t even reddened.
His father was astonished. “Doesn’t it burn?”
Even he found it hot.
Squatting in the vegetable patch with his backside in the air, little Zhao Buxi looked perfectly untroubled. Then he jumped up and ran off to tell on his father. “Mom! Dad’s always tricking people!”
Fang Peizhi circled the extra-spicy selections on the menu. “These, extra spicy.” Then he circled his own choices separately. “These ones, no chili.”
“Not even a little?” the proprietress asked.
“None.”
Unlike other barbecue restaurants, theirs was famous precisely for being fragrant and spicy. The food tasted best with chili; even children usually ordered mild, and very few customers wanted no spice at all.
“It won’t taste as good without chili,” the proprietress said.
“Then give him more of the other seasonings,” Zhao Buxi suggested. He remembered Fang Peizhi liked salty food. He could polish off an entire bowl of egg sauce at one meal.
The proprietress added “extra seasoning” to the order, then went to the refrigerator for the fresh skewers prepared that day and placed them over the charcoal grill.
Customers came and went. Most were university students arriving in little groups of three or five after class, nineteen or twenty years old, laughing and chatting with youthful energy.
Zhao Buxi and Fang Peizhi had arrived late. Getting their skewers into the grilling queue was already lucky; there wasn’t a single free seat.
They decided they’d simply eat standing by the roadside when the skewers were ready.
“You really can’t eat chili?” Zhao Buxi asked.
“Mm.” Fang Peizhi added, “It makes my throat hurt.” And that would affect his teaching.
He had grown up in Hong Kong, where traditional Cantonese cooking emphasized light, fresh flavors rather than spice. His own tastes leaned toward Guangdong and Guangxi cuisine.
He was the kind of person for whom a single drop of chili oil could wipe out half of Guangdong.
The shop was swamped with orders. Fang Peizhi and Zhao Buxi waited a full half hour before an employee brought over two bundles of skewers, sizzling and fragrant from the grill. There were still no seats.
Seeing them ready to eat on the sidewalk, the shop lent them a blue plastic stool. They set their drinks and barbecue on it and ate standing, digesting as they went.
Both men were over 180 centimeters tall. Zhao Buxi was half a head shorter than Fang Peizhi, but still tall in any crowd, and both were well proportioned. Standing beside the road, they attracted plenty of sideways glances.
A few passersby even greeted them warmly.
“Professor Fang!” Someone waved enthusiastically at Fang Peizhi.
The person looked like a student, with that distinctive, innocent foolishness of a university student in their eyes. Fang Peizhi nodded.
Zhao Buxi watched while chewing, chewing, chewing.
Several more students walked past. “Professor Fang.”
He kept chewing, chewing, chewing.
Once someone had started it, others who recognized Fang Peizhi came over to greet him one after another.
“Are they all your students?” Zhao Buxi asked, stripping meat from a skewer. He hadn’t wiped the blackened tip of the metal skewer, leaving a charcoal streak beside his mouth.
Fang Peizhi noticed and frowned. “No.” He pulled out two tissues and shoved them into Zhao Buxi’s hand. “Wipe the skewer before eating.”
“It’s fine. It’s not going to kill me.”
“It could kill you with filth.”
Zhao Buxi knitted his brows but said nothing more, worried he’d irritate him if he kept arguing.
The professor did have quite a temper. Too much back talk and he might decide someone was challenging his authority.
Zhao Buxi wiped the tip with a tissue. He hadn’t thought it was all that dirty. Most skewers he’d eaten before were bamboo, and he’d imagined a metal skewer couldn’t get that black. It turned out the tissue came away shockingly filthy.
Remembering how the metal tip had touched his face earlier, Zhao Buxi asked, “Have I got any on my face?”
Fang Peizhi looked at him.
“Do I?” Zhao Buxi repeated.
“No.”
Zhao Buxi went back to eating. “If they’re not your students, why does everyone greet you?”
Without blinking, Fang Peizhi answered, “I’m famous.”
Zhao Buxi nearly spat out his food. “Aren’t you being a little immodest?”
He was being polite. What he really wanted to ask was: Aren’t you being a little shameless?
Fang Peizhi looked gentle, refined, and every inch the courteous gentleman, but he actually had a very thick skin.
Not just a little thick, either.
As far as Fang Peizhi was concerned, he’d merely stated a fact. Most students at the university knew who he was.
“Seriously?” Zhao Buxi asked.
“Believe it or not,” Fang Peizhi replied.
Fang Peizhi really was famous on campus, an unusually young professor at Capital University. His academic achievements, however, weren’t the main reason for his popularity.
No matter how accomplished you were, people outside your field generally didn’t follow your career with pride. A university was a little society of its own. Everyone was busy with their own discipline and might pay attention to departmental affairs at most. Who had time to learn the names of professors from completely unrelated fields?
Anyone who did clearly wasn’t getting enough work in class.
Eighty percent of the reason students at Capital University and other schools knew Fang Peizhi was his exceptional appearance.
He was handsome.
Extremely easy on the eyes.
Fair-skinned, tall, well-built, wealthy, and a professor with high social standing. His face alone could make people stare in fascination.
With someone like that around, it was difficult not to notice.
Once someone’s looks and physique were already outstanding, everything else they could do became icing on the cake, magnified without limit. And he happened to be genuinely distinguished academically, too.
That was why Fang Peizhi was famous while the elderly professors drew hardly a glance.
If Fang Peizhi was kind to others, people called Professor Fang gentle. If an older professor was kind, people said, “That little old fellow is quite easy to talk to.”
Of course, some students signed up for Fang Peizhi’s lectures just to look at his face, but that stopped after a session or two.
Fang Peizhi was strict in class. Once you sat down, you couldn’t just slip out. Anyone without a foundation in the subject would be lost, and being called on to answer a question was practically fatal.
He was renowned as a stern teacher.
The year had reached late summer. Evenings were no longer so hot that merely standing outdoors drenched you in sweat, as they had half a month earlier.
A gentle breeze felt pleasant against the skin.
They had almost finished eating, with only a few skewers left in each man’s hand.
“Is the non-spicy stuff good?” Zhao Buxi asked.
Fang Peizhi offered him two skewers without chili. Zhao Buxi tasted them. They were quite good, but the proprietress was right: the shop’s specialty was fragrant, spicy barbecue, and the version without chili wasn’t as tasty.
“Want to try mine?”
Two skewers coated in bright-red chili powder appeared before Fang Peizhi. “Is it hot?”
“Doesn’t taste hot to me.” Zhao Buxi had gone through the whole meal without turning red or drinking much water.
Seeing Zhao Buxi’s normal complexion, Fang Peizhi took a chili-coated skewer and bit into it. The next moment, he spat it straight out.
Holy crap!
Why had he turned into a Peashooter again?
Zhao Buxi was drinking orange-flavored Arctic Ocean soda and nearly jumped out of his skin at Fang Peizhi’s reaction. The instant the chili-laden skewer touched Fang Peizhi’s tongue, the heat attacked his taste buds without mercy. His face reddened all the way down his neck.
“Cough, cough… cough…” Fang Peizhi held a fist to his lips and coughed, his eyes squeezed shut in agony.
The chili went down his throat as he coughed, burning so fiercely that even his ears hurt. It felt as though fire ran all the way from his throat into his ears.
“Water.” Fang Peizhi gripped Zhao Buxi’s shoulder, desperate to put out the blaze. “Water…”
Fang Peizhi coughed so hard it seemed he might bring up his stomach, his grip on the other man’s shoulder tightening with every spasm. His eyes were squeezed shut beneath long, straight lashes. Zhao Buxi hurriedly pressed the bottle of Arctic Ocean soda he had been drinking to the coughing man’s lips.
Fang Peizhi had no time to worry whether Zhao Buxi had already drunk from the bottle. He grasped the glass as though it were a lifeline and gulped down the soda.
If anyone asked Zhao Buxi how he felt about this, his answer would be regret. Profound, overwhelming regret. He never should have asked Fang Peizhi to taste his skewers.
Fang Peizhi was such a glutton that if offered food, he’d definitely eat it.
Even the cold drink hadn’t soothed the fire burning in his throat.
Fang Peizhi lowered the bottle, still coughing. “Somewhere else.”
“Where?” Zhao Buxi asked.
“Don’t know. Anywhere.” Fang Peizhi coughed. “I don’t want to… cough, cough… keep coughing in front of all these people.”
It was mortifying.
Bent double with coughing, Fang Peizhi wanted nothing more than to escape and preserve his dignity. A man could give up everything except his face.
The street was full of people; there was nowhere to hide. Zhao Buxi knew how much his companion cared about saving face, so he looked around helplessly for somewhere to take him.
He lifted his shirt and covered the other man with it. The next second, Fang Peizhi could no longer see anyone around him.
Zhao Buxi had stuffed him under his shirt.
Fang Peizhi: …
Now there was no need to worry about losing face. He’d lost it completely.
The two stood by the roadside looking utterly deranged. Passersby stared and seemed to think, How wonderful it must be to live without a shred of inhibition.
Indeed, the more you cared about something, the faster it slipped away.
When Fang Peizhi emerged from Zhao Buxi’s shirt, he wanted to die of embarrassment.
Seeing his defeated expression, Zhao Buxi wanted to laugh but suppressed it. It was unexpectedly entertaining to watch him lose face. “There, there. You’re not coughing anymore.”
Fang Peizhi glared at his infuriating face. “You’ve got black streaks on your face.”
What black streaks?
Zhao Buxi opened the phone camera and looked at himself. His face resembled a grubby cat’s, with charcoal smudges on both sides of his mouth from the metal skewers.
“You just told me I didn’t have anything on my face!”
They had both made spectacles of themselves. Once they’d finished eating, they wasted no time, picked up their scattered dignity, and went home to the faculty apartments.
They entered through the electronic door and shut it behind them, still shaken, then hurried to wash their hands and faces.
Now that they’d eaten, it was time for handwriting practice and a test.
As usual, the test came last. First they learned new words, then practiced writing.
Sitting at the desk to practice, Zhao Buxi looked up at his teacher. “I’ve noticed you’re pretty good at embarrassing yourself.”
He’d already lost face several times right in front of Zhao Buxi. Who knew how many times he’d done it in public?
Fang Peizhi, who had been about to guide his writing, stopped beside him. “And you’re not?”
Two black smears on Zhao Buxi’s face from eating barbecue. It was difficult to decide which of them was more embarrassing.
Zhao Buxi held his pen and waited for his teacher to guide his hand. After a while, nothing happened. His teacher just stood there with his arms folded.
“Aren’t you going to guide me today?” Zhao Buxi asked.
Fang Peizhi said coldly, “Write it yourself.”
What a petty man.
Zhao Buxi grumbled under his breath.
Before starting handwriting practice, Zhao Buxi always copied the new vocabulary into his main literacy notebook.
Previously Fang Peizhi had guided his hand, and the characters on those pages looked decent. Today, writing alone, his characters came out crooked. He felt as though he’d spoiled the style of the whole notebook.
Whichever way he looked at them, they were painfully awkward. Since when had he cared so much about neatness? Writing the characters down should have been enough.
Zhao Buxi thought to himself, pressing his lips together as he kept writing. After ten characters, he couldn’t bear it anymore.
“Teacher, Professor Fang, guide me, won’t you?”
Fang Peizhi kept typing on his laptop and ignored him.
Zhao Buxi slouched in his chair and played the rogue. “They’re too ugly. Be the bigger person and forgive this little fellow. Help me write them?”
The new characters clashed horribly with the rest of the notebook. There had been ugly examples of his writing before, but at least he’d known the stroke order then, and they’d come out reasonably well. Today’s were a disaster.
Every time he opened the notebook and saw the characters he’d written, a warm swell of pride usually filled him.
Tomorrow, when he opened it and saw today’s work, all he’d feel was miserable.
“Professor Faaaang…”
“Professor Faaaaang…”
“Are you summoning a ghost?” Fang Peizhi stopped working and came over.
“Here you are, Professor Fang.” Zhao Buxi beamed like a cat that had stolen a fish, quickly straightening up and gripping his pen properly.
Looking stern, Fang Peizhi bent over and held Zhao Buxi’s hand to guide it. The faint malty scent of beer hovered around them.
Beautiful, well-formed characters soon appeared on the page as his hand was guided.
“I can’t even write properly without Professor Fang,” Zhao Buxi said with a smile.
Fang Peizhi glanced at him. “Spare me that act.”
“What act? It’s the truth.”
Zhao Buxi had an astonishing talent for making people angry, and an equally extraordinary ability to coax them back into a good mood.
A few words were all it took. His mouth could be maddening, but he had a whole repertoire of sweet talk.
With his teacher guiding his hand, the writing improved enormously, and the sight of the characters in his notebook lifted Zhao Buxi’s spirits, too.
Fang Peizhi guided his hand for half an hour. Then Zhao Buxi took out his exercise book and practiced on his own.
The bedroom door was open. As he wrote, he kept an ear out for sounds outside, listening for Zhao Sheng’s return.
He was almost finished, but there was still no sign of Zhao Sheng coming home.
It was nearly half past nine. With no assignments due, Zhao Sheng should have been home ages ago.
During a break, Zhao Buxi checked his phone.
Zhao Sheng had sent him a message an hour earlier.
Little Tiger: “Bro, my friend confessed successfully today and is treating everyone to dinner. I’ll be home late.”
Zhao Buxi replied: OK.
It sounded wonderfully youthful: falling in love, then happily inviting friends out to eat and meet the new partner.
Speaking of romance…
Zhao Buxi looked at Fang Peizhi. “You’re busy every day. Do you have time to see your girlfriend?”
Fang Peizhi had no idea why he was asking. He studied the spreadsheet on his computer with perfect composure. “We see each other every day.”
Every day?!
He’d thought they might only see each other once every ten days or two weeks.
“How did you two meet?” Zhao Buxi asked.
Fang Peizhi kept typing. “At a flower shop.”
“Does your girlfriend work at a flower shop?” Zhao Buxi pursued.
“At the botanical garden,” Fang Peizhi said.
She must love flowers and plants, then. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?” Zhao Buxi asked.
Fang Peizhi raised his eyes. “Are you an encyclopedia of ten thousand whys?” Question after question.
Zhao Buxi grinned. “I’m just chatting with you.”
He swung around to straddle the chair backward, resting both arms on its back and looking at Fang Peizhi with a radiant smile.
“It’s boring staying by yourself all the time.”
Since Zhao Buxi began visiting every day to learn characters, the professor’s room had gone from deathly quiet after work to surprisingly lively.
He spent every day with students, and they chattered noisily, too. But their liveliness was nothing like Zhao Buxi’s.
Zhao Buxi was a particularly lively handful, a born little troublemaker.
“Its surname is Xian.”
Zhao Buxi had never heard of that surname. “Is she called Xian Nü? Fairy?”
“Her name is Xian Renzhang,” Fang Peizhi replied.
Elio’s Notes: The Peashooter is a plant from Plants vs. Zombies that fires projectiles. The narrator compares Fang Peizhi’s involuntary spitting to it.