Ji Qian’ang stopped walking.
The corridor stayed silent for so long that Tang Yu almost began to regret speaking. Then the person across from him answered, “I can.” The tightness in Tang Yu’s chest loosened a little.
He looked down at him with cold arrogance.
“If you’re willing to stay and suffer, no one’s stopping you.”
“But let me make this clear first. You’ll live in the side quarters. Don’t come to the main house unless you have to. At school, stay close and don’t cause me trouble. When I need you, be there. When I don’t, don’t let me see you.”
The side quarters were on the easternmost edge of the old house, where sunlight barely reached all year round. After Tang Yu threw him there, he stopped asking about him. Butler Lin sent over a new school uniform and a new schoolbag. But Tang Yu deliberately told him not to send a pillow. Ji Qian’ang lay on the hard wooden bed in the side quarters, the back of his head resting on his folded new uniform. He knew Tang Yu had done it on purpose.
But he did not care.
He had slept in places harder than this. The floor of the ancestral hall. The concrete of a warehouse. The wooden boards in the Ji family attic. That young master merely wanted him to understand one thing.
He owed no one here.
But he should not expect to be treated well either. The night before Tang Yu returned to school, he lay in bed, sleepless as always. Beside his pillow was a note that had been crumpled and smoothed out again. On it was Tang Yifeng’s handwriting.
Wait for me to come back, Xiao Yu.
Tang Yu did not know why he still kept that note. Every time Tang Yifeng went out, he would write things like that.
Wait for me to come back for dinner.
Wait for me to come back and play basketball with you.
Be good and stay home.
Tang Yu clenched the note in his palm and closed his eyes. What he dreamed of was something from even earlier. Tang Yifeng sat in the music room, smiling as he said, “Your hand position is wrong, sweetheart. How many times have I told you?” When Tang Yu woke, half his pillow was wet.
He sat up and pulled open the curtains.
Outside, the ground was damp.
The streetlights were still on.
Butler Lin was the one who brought Ji Qian’ang to school for enrollment. Tang Yu sat in the classroom. Tian Qianxing sat behind him, poking his back with a pen.
“Hey, I heard your family got you a study companion. Someone from the Ji family.”
“Is that true?”
“You talk too much,” Tang Yu replied impatiently.
Tian Qianxing obediently shut up.
Tang Yu spun the pen in his hand, thinking silently. Tian Qianxing had said someone from the Ji family. That meant Ji Qian’ang’s background had already spread through school.
He did not know who had leaked it.
Butler Lin would not. Grandmother certainly would not.
That left only Ji Qian’ang himself.
On his very first day at school, he had let everyone know who he was? For a while, Tang Yu could not understand why. During the break, Tang Yu went to the office to hand in homework. When he came out, he saw a crowd gathered at the far end of the corridor. At this school, there was always some new spectacle to watch. And the audience never minded if things got worse. Holding the folder in his arms, Tang Yu headed toward the stairs. At first, he paid no attention.
Until he heard someone say, “Is your blind eye especially fragile? If I touch it, will you cry?” A burst of mocking laughter exploded through the crowd.
Tang Yu’s steps slowed.
Someone was reaching out to lift the gauze over Ji Qian’ang’s left eye. Ji Qian’ang tilted his head slightly but did not dodge. The back of his hand knocked against the wall.
“Oh, pretty stubborn, aren’t you?”
The one speaking was Jiang Hao, a year above Tang Yu. His family was in real estate and had business dealings with the Tang family. Jiang Hao raised a finger and poked Ji Qian’ang’s shoulder.
“I’m talking to you. Are you mute or deaf?”
Ji Qian’ang did not move.
The indifferent expression on his face did not even change. Jiang Hao’s expression stiffened with embarrassment. He grabbed Ji Qian’ang by the collar and shoved him against the wall.
“Isn’t the Ji family about to collapse? I heard your father ran off after racking up a mountain of debt, and your mother doesn’t want you either. A ruined nobody like you, acting all high and mighty—”
“What did you hear?”
Tang Yu’s voice came from behind the noisy crowd. As soon as he spoke, the crowd automatically opened a path. Tang Yu walked over unhurriedly, the sleeves of his school uniform rolled up to his elbows. Jiang Hao’s hand was still gripping Ji Qian’ang’s collar.
When he saw Tang Yu, his smile froze.
“T-Tang Shao. I was just joking.”
“Who did you just call a ruined nobody?”
Tang Yu glanced at Ji Qian’ang.
He was leaning against the wall, his uniform collar pulled crooked and wrinkled. One corner of the gauze over his left eye had been lifted.
Jiang Hao forced a smile onto his face.
“No one. You misheard. I was just chatting with him.”
Tang Yu sneered.
“Five people surrounding him just to chat?”
The boys behind Jiang Hao exchanged glances. No one dared make a sound. Jiang Hao could barely keep the smile on his face, but he did not dare drop it either.
“Tang Shao, I really didn’t know he was yours.”
Tang Yu snapped, “Now you know. So why aren’t you getting lost?”
The crowd scattered at once.
Only Tang Yu and Ji Qian’ang remained in the corridor. Ji Qian’ang straightened from the wall and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. His gaze followed the figures disappearing at the end of the corridor.
That disregard stung Tang Yu.
“You were just going to let them bully you like that?”
Ji Qian’ang lowered his eyes to the floor.
“I don’t need you to interfere.”
Tang Yu froze for a second. More than anything, he was incredulous.
“I helped you out, and you’re saying you don’t need it?”
“I didn’t ask you to help.”
Ji Qian’ang picked up his textbooks and walked away. Tang Yu stood there, stunned, feeling as if he had done something idiotic.
He had helped someone.
And that person had not appreciated it at all. Tian Qianxing appeared beside him at some point, holding a half-eaten piece of bread.
“Damn. Is there something wrong with his head?”
“You helped him, and he still gives you attitude? What kind of person is that?”
The truth was, Tang Yu had never wanted to care about anyone’s business.
So why had he helped?
Because Ji Qian’ang’s eye had been ruined by him. Because when he saw new injuries about to be added to that face so similar to Tang Yifeng’s, he could not bear it.
He had not helped Ji Qian’ang.
He had helped Tang Yifeng.
Through a stranger, he was repaying a debt he could never fully settle. When he realized that once again, a sour wave of nausea rose in his stomach.
“Enough,” Tang Yu said.
Tian Qianxing took another bite of bread and mumbled something indistinctly, then tugged at Tang Yu’s sleeve.
“Come on, come on. Next class is Old Zhou’s. We’ll get scolded again if we’re late.”
Tang Yu let himself be pulled back to his seat, absentmindedly flipping through a textbook titled A Course in English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation.
He did not want to read it.
Unfortunately, it was one of Grandmother’s strict requirements. She would personally test him later. Tang Yu stared at the words on the page. The core of simultaneous interpretation lies in establishing an instantaneous correspondence between the source language and the target language. The interpreter must process listening, memory, translation, and speech at the same time. A delay in any one stage may cause the entire sentence to collapse. Between him and Ji Qian’ang, there was also a kind of instantaneous correspondence. See Ji Qian’ang’s face, and he thought of Tang Yifeng.
Think of Tang Yifeng, and he lost control.
Lose control, then regret it.
Regret it, then try to make up for it. Ji Xuecha from the class next door slipped quietly in through the back door. Just as she was about to raise her hands to cover his eyes, Tang Yu stopped her.
“What are you doing?”
The girl grinned at him.
“Tang Yu, how long has it been since you came to school? Don’t forget the school anniversary is next month.”
Tang Yu did not answer her.
He looked as if he were reading, but his thoughts had already drifted elsewhere.
“Didn’t you promise to perform with us?” Ji Xuecha tilted her head. “Hey, you’re not planning to go back on your word, are you?”
Tang Yu answered shortly, “We’ll see.” Ji Xuecha waved a hand in front of him.
“Fine, fine. We’ll see.”
“But hurry up, okay? The others are all waiting.”
With that, Ji Xuecha slipped out of the classroom. Tang Yu lowered his gaze to his own hands. After Tang Yifeng was gone, he had never touched the piano again.
Could these hands still play?
Only when the class bell rang did Ji Qian’ang slowly wander in through the back door and take the seat beside Tang Yu. For the rest of the day, neither of them said another word to the other. After school, back at the old house, Tang Yu passed by the side quarters. The door had been left open by a crack. He walked two steps forward, then backed up again. Ji Qian’ang sat on the edge of the bed, holding an old wallet.
Inside the wallet was a photograph of a woman. On the back was a line of writing.
Qian’ang, don’t become like your father.
Hearing the sound at the door, Ji Qian’ang quickly stuffed the wallet beneath his pillow. Tang Yu leaned against the doorframe and asked, “What are you hiding?”
Their eyes met.
Ji Qian’ang did not answer his question.
“Need something?”
Tang Yu walked in, hands in his pockets, and leaned against the edge of the desk.
“What did you mean at school today when you said you didn’t need me to interfere?”
Ji Qian’ang leaned against the headboard and answered coldly, “Exactly what it means.” Tang Yu was choked silent for half a second. Then he gripped his sleeve and pretended to sound casual.
“I just couldn’t stand them.”
He frowned, then said with complete justification, “Besides, I owe you an eye. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to interfere?” The person across from him was silent for a long while.
Ji Qian’ang had been beaten plenty of times.
He had knelt in the ancestral hall.
He had been locked in the attic and starved for three days and three nights.
That eye had already been damaged.
Before he entered the Tang family.
Before his father had thrown him out of the mainland like an abandoned pawn. His left eye had long since lost all sense of light. His own uncle had pinned him to a table and forced him to drink medicine laced with something.
It had burned out his optic nerve.
The doctor said he was already lucky to have kept the eye at all. The other eye might deteriorate at any time. The black-framed glasses Tang Yu had shattered with a basketball had merely made a wound that should never have been seen impossible to hide. Besides, on the day he was hit, Ji Qian’ang could have dodged.
He simply had not.
Ji Qian’ang closed his eyes briefly.
Then he forced the corner of his mouth up and spoke in a low, hoarse voice.
“If you think you owe me, then I suppose you do.”
He accepted Tang Yu’s guilt.
He needed that guilt in order to remain in the Tang family. To stand on a step from which he would not be kicked away. After hearing Ji Qian’ang’s answer, Tang Yu frowned and was about to ask something else.
But Ji Qian’ang pushed him out.
Tang Yu was already shorter than others his age. Compared with Ji Qian’ang now, there was nearly a full head’s difference between them.
And Ji Qian’ang happened to be unusually strong.
Tang Yu had no room to struggle at all. Being “invited” out by his own study companion in his own house. Tang Yu supposed that made him one of a kind. That night, Tang Yu leaned against the headboard in a daze, a comic book still in his hand.
Butler Lin entered with a tray of food.
“Young Master didn’t eat dinner, so I asked the kitchen—”
“Put it down.”
The butler placed the tray on the table but did not leave immediately.
He stood there, his expression somewhat uneasy.
“Anything else?” Tang Yu asked.
“Young Master,” Butler Lin hesitated, “I heard about what happened at school today. That child, Qian’ang… he didn’t cause you trouble, did he?”
“No.”
“That’s good. That’s good.”
Butler Lin patted his chest and let out a breath of relief.
“That child has had a hard life. With his family in that state, there’s no one to look after him.”
“Juefei said his grades are excellent. He ranks first every year at school. He’s just a little withdrawn and doesn’t like to talk. Please be patient with him.”
Tang Yu nodded, then asked, “When is Brother Juefei coming back?”
“He graduates next month. Once he graduates, he’ll come back. Then he’ll start working with the family and slowly take over.”
“He found Ji Qian’ang to be my companion,” Tang Yu interrupted him. “Was that his idea, or yours?”
A subtle change crossed the butler’s expression, but he quickly returned to his meek smile.
“It was my idea. Juefei only gave me a suggestion.”
“He said Young Master needed someone who could hold his ground. Someone with a bit of backbone. Qian’ang may seem quiet, but he actually has a mind of his own. He won’t bow and scrape. That is exactly the kind of person Young Master lacks by his side.”
After listening, Tang Yu said nothing more.
Butler Lin watched him finish all the food and drink that had been prepared before leaving the bedroom with the tray.
Night deepened.
Ji Qian’ang sat in the pitch-dark room, the faint glow of his phone screen lighting his chin. On the screen was a message from an unsaved number.
Did he let you stay?
Ji Qian’ang typed a few words, deleted them, and finally sent only one.
Mm.
The other side replied instantly.
How long are you going to stay there?
Ji Qian’ang pressed the screen dark and did not reply again. He turned his head toward the window of the side quarters. The lights in the main house were still on.