There was no TV or internet in the apartment. Usually, Ming Zhifei would have nothing to do after breakfast, and he couldn’t even remember how he used to kill the long hours of the day. Since Yang Jianzhen moved in, Ming Zhifei felt the time that had been stagnant finally begin to flow again. He felt he needed to do something—likely because Yang Jianzhen, despite his injuries, was always humming and staying busy. Ming Zhifei noticed that after breakfast, Yang Jianzhen washed the dishes, wiped the kitchen spotless, and then started dismantling the range hood to clean it. That was when Ming Zhifei stepped in.
“Your leg is in that state, I’ll do it,” he said, walking over.
“Then I’ll sit nearby and coach you,” Yang Jianzhen stopped humming. It was a melody Ming Zhifei recognized but couldn’t name—perhaps something the younger staff at the hospital used to play.
“How do you know I can’t do it?”
“Oh? So, Fei-ge, have you ever dismantled and washed a range hood before?” Yang Jianzhen quipped with a grin.
Since he truly hadn’t, Ming Zhifei couldn’t argue. He only said, “I used to have a part-time cleaner for the kitchen.” Because they never cooked, he and Fan Wenya didn’t get the house very dirty. Neither of them were the type to look for chores. They had a cleaner come every week, and whether the cleaner ever dismantled the hood was something he didn’t know.
Yang Jianzhen sat on a chair beside him, propping his cheek on his hand, watching him with that smile again. “Fei-ge, you used to live such a comfortable life. What do they call it? Middle class?”
“Debtor class,” Ming Zhifei scoffed.
“You owe money too?”
“Not as much as you.” If the court ruled against him, the most he would face was full compensation, but his lawyer said that was unlikely and was doing his best to defend him. “With as much as you earned, did you still do your own chores?”
“When would I have the time? I was at the studio all day and night, supervising people, or out eating with ‘Gold Mine’ clients and friends, or just eating takeout. I haven’t lived in my own sweet-smelling home in ages,” Yang Jianzhen laughed. “Shame I rented such a big place and never got to enjoy it. Later on, I couldn’t afford it anymore anyway.”
“You always rented?”
“Of course. Money goes into the business. Why buy a house? Besides,” Yang Jianzhen grinned, “I guessed a long time ago that property prices were going to crash.”
“How could you guess that?” Ming Zhifei thought to himself that if he had known this man earlier, he wouldn’t have suffered such a loss—though perhaps not. Buying a house was a condition for marriage set by Fan Wenya’s parents, and his own parents agreed. The elders made the decision. Other than providing the down payment from years of untouched savings, he hadn’t really had the space to object. Furthermore, at the time, he was entirely focused on his profession; he was neither interested in nor knowledgeable about current events or economics, simply following the crowd.
Others said it was time to marry, so he married. Others said it was time to buy a house, so he bought one. Regarding matters outside of his work, he seemed never to have given them a single deep thought—just as Yang Jianzhen said, in most aspects of life, he had no idea what he wanted, what he didn’t want, what he liked, or what he hated.
“I could guess. I guessed it as soon as the birth rate started looking a bit off. You can’t survive in business if you aren’t sensitive to that kind of data,” Yang Jianzhen said. “When I first left the nightlife scene, I started leaning toward the ‘solitary economy.’ Real estate, naturally, isn’t something the solitary economy favors.”
“Then what is?”
“Personal entertainment, personal satisfaction—physical and emotional,” Yang Jianzhen replied. “I noticed it back in the clubs. A few years ago, it was the older ‘big brothers’ and ‘big sisters’ coming out to play. Later, it became young men and women. Not just young guys, either; there were plenty of young girls too.”
“What is… ‘the nightlife scene’?” Having heard Yang Jianzhen mention the term repeatedly, Ming Zhifei finally couldn’t suppress his curiosity.
“Nightlife means KTVs or nightclubs where they sell alcohol and have people accompany the guests.” Yang Jianzhen propped his chin on his hand again, smiling at Ming Zhifei. “You’ve definitely never been, have you?”
Ming Zhifei initially wanted to ask what kind of alcohol they sold or what exactly “accompanying” involved, but he thought better of it and changed his phrasing: “Does that mean… having to drink with people?”
“Of course. Drinking with them, chatting with them, singing with them—ah, sometimes you even have to dance. You do whatever it takes to make the atmosphere lively.”
It wasn’t that Ming Zhifei had never been to a KTV; when the department had social events, he wouldn’t easily decline. After all, it was part of the job, and one shouldn’t be too much of a social outcast. But when medical staff went to KTV, they never called for hostesses or hosts. He had heard those places had professionals who could be called in to sing and dance to liven things up; while you didn’t have to pay them extra upfront, they would supposedly push alcohol sales aggressively, making the bill sky-high. So, his colleagues never dared to call them.
“Is it… very profitable?”
“Depends on your own ability. When I entered the industry, it was right when male ‘liquor marketing’ was starting to take off. If you were good at it, you made bank.” Yang Jianzhen noticed Ming Zhifei’s hands pause while wiping the range hood’s oil tray. Those hands were clean and slender—hands that were meant to hold a scalpel, now doing something that seemed entirely out of place.
“To start that kind of work so young… was it because you didn’t want to study anymore?” Ming Zhifei calculated Yang Jianzhen’s age. If he was in his twenties now, had been in business for years, and had worked in nightlife for a long time before that, it meant he must have started working in his teens.
“Ha.” Yang Jianzhen gave a small laugh but didn’t answer.
Startled by the rare lack of a response, Ming Zhifei turned to look at him. He saw Yang Jianzhen’s gaze drift toward the window. Looking at the swaying grey power lines outside, the younger man said, “Fei-ge, the typhoon is coming soon, right?”
Ming Zhifei set down the oil tray and walked to the window. Outside, beyond the violently shaking wires, the windows of the old low-rise buildings were rattling loudly. Leaves danced in the air, torn from trees elsewhere. The sky was still bright and clear, with no sign of the impending gloom or gathered clouds.
Every year after the start of Autumn, typhoons frequently visited. A few had hit the southeastern coast earlier, and now that students had started the school year, one was finally coming south.
“Fei-ge, check your phone. Is there a typhoon warning?”
Ming Zhifei washed his hands and grabbed his phone. He found that the meteorological bureau had issued a Red Warning late at night. The typhoon was expected to make landfall in several southern cities within 24 hours and could bring severe impact. Residents were advised not to go out after noon; schools, businesses, and public transport were all suspended until the alarm was lifted.
“Wow, a total shutdown? It hasn’t been like this for years.” Yang Jianzhen leaned his head over to look at the screen.
Usually, even with a Red Warning, only schools closed. It was rare for work and transport to stop entirely. The last time there was such a massive shutdown was probably eight or nine years ago.
That time, eight or nine years prior, was the first major typhoon Ming Zhifei had encountered after coming here to study and work. As a doctor back then, he wasn’t among those allowed to “stop work.” Furthermore, as the Chief Resident of Gynecology, he had to go out with the ambulances. He remembered sitting in the ambulance as it bypassed uprooted trees and navigated roads submerged in floodwaters halfway up the vehicle’s body. They had made a risky journey to reach a patient and struggled immensely to bring her back to the hospital.
“I remember my first month here, I hit a typhoon. I was working a proper job shaking milk tea in a shop. On the day the typhoon hit, I had no experience and didn’t take precautions. I forgot to take down the shop’s shutters, and they hit someone. The boss made me pay the medical bills and fired me. I worked a whole month for nothing—didn’t earn a single cent,” Yang Jianzhen reminisced. “After that, I went to work in the nightlife scene.”
“As a liquor salesperson?”
“Yeah. I had to force myself, right? I owed over ten thousand yuan. I was young—what did I know? I was scared to death. A ‘sister’ I’d worked with at the milk tea shop had gone to the clubs; she said the nightlife scene suited me and that I could make money, so she came back to pull me in with her.”
Yang Jianzhen smiled and continued, “I didn’t understand anything at first. When the ‘aunties’ and ‘sisters’ touched my legs, I didn’t even know how to react. Oh, and I had to learn how to sweet-talk people. We started our shifts every evening, and the manager would train us beforehand. We had to memorize lines every day.”
“What kind of lines?”
“Things people like to hear, ways of speaking that make people willing to open their wallets for you—ah, Fei-ge, with the way you talk, you’d never get a repeat customer to request you.” Yang Jianzhen looked at Ming Zhifei and laughed. “Actually, maybe that’s not true. If someone looked like you… if you took off those glasses, wore contacts, grew your hair a bit, and changed your clothes, you could probably just sit there doing nothing and plenty of ‘big brothers’ and ‘sisters’ would want to buy your drinks.”
“Impossible,” Ming Zhifei said, sounding quite certain. He picked up the oil tray again; it was almost clean, the grease gone. Giving it a final rinse under the rushing water, he said, “I’m blunt. Like you said, there would be no repeat customers. Luckily, being a doctor doesn’t require much sweet-talking.”
“Just ‘scary-talking,’ right?” Yang Jianzhen laughed heartily. “The doctor who gave me my cast kept threatening me, saying if I didn’t stay in the hospital, the consequences would be on my own head.”
“Mmm. Doctors usually only speak the facts.” After saying this, Ming Zhifei turned off the tap and wrung out the rag to dry the tray.
Only the facts. That wasn’t entirely true either. He didn’t like lying, but he could choose what to say and what not to say—presenting different parts of the truth to different people. Yet, despite being so careful, he had still landed in such huge trouble.
While Ming Zhifei was lost in thought, Yang Jianzhen stood up from his chair. He reached out with both hands from behind Ming Zhifei, as if enveloping him, and took the oil tray to fit it back onto the range hood.
His chest was almost pressed against Ming Zhifei’s back. Ming Zhifei, who had never been approached this way before, froze completely the moment he felt Yang Jianzhen’s extreme proximity.
He wanted to pull away, but he didn’t dare move too suddenly. After all, Yang Jianzhen was balancing on one leg; he was afraid the man might fall.
“I’ll do it,” Ming Zhifei said, raising his hands to support the tray.
Yang Jianzhen was tall—half a head taller than Ming Zhifei—and his frame was a size larger. He didn’t pull his arms away. Instead, as Ming Zhifei tried to click the tray into place, Yang Jianzhen’s hands moved down and gripped both sides of Ming Zhifei’s waist.
In that instant, an unprecedented, strangely tingling sensation shot up from his waist. Ming Zhifei jolted; his grip on the oil tray faltered, and it clattered down onto the gas stove.
“Your waist is so slender,” Yang Jianzhen whispered into his ear.
Before Ming Zhifei could even begin to react, Yang Jianzhen stepped back as if nothing had happened. “Fei-ge, you should put some paper towels in the tray to soak up the oil. Otherwise, it’ll be a nightmare to clean next time. I’ll go get some for you.”