Seeing them, Shang Shixu walked straight over, and there was no one behind him.
“Brother Xu, where is your little girlfriend?” Zhang Ning called out curiously, his voice cutting right through the gaps in the music to reach Shang Shixu’s ears.
“It’s getting late, so I had Lao Xia take her home.” Shang Shixu sat down in the empty seat beside Jiang Muzhou, unscrewed a bottle of tea, took a sip, and looked at the two of them. “What were you two chatting about just now? You even sat all the way over there to eat.”
Zhang Ning draped an arm over Jiang Muzhou’s shoulder and used that leverage to lean his head toward Shang Shixu. “We were talking about you, Big Boss Shang.”
Shang Shixu’s gaze swept over the hand Zhang Ning had resting on Jiang Muzhou’s shoulder, then shifted away as he asked, “What about me?”
Jiang Muzhou wasn’t used to being put in a headlock or having someone wrap an arm around him like that, but out of consideration for Zhang Ning, he didn’t push him away. Instead, his fingers absentmindedly rubbed against the half-finished beer bottle in his hand. “Thank you for investing in me. I bumped into you last time at President Zhang’s birthday banquet.”
With other people around, Jiang Muzhou instinctively used the polite form of address (nin).
People in Beijing always liked adding nin to their speech.
“Safe travels.” “Have you eaten yet?” “Thank you.”
Yet coming from Jiang Muzhou’s lips, Shang Shixu found it sounded somewhat off, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint why.
He looked at Zhang Ning and said, “Some people missed out and didn’t give him a chance, but I certainly have an eye for talent.”
Zhang Ning immediately protested, “I was drunk last time, otherwise how would it have ever gotten to you?”
He then grabbed Jiang Muzhou’s shoulders and turned him around. “How about I invest a little bit after all? Following Brother Xu’s lead in investing can never be wrong.”
Shang Shixu reached out and swiped Zhang Ning’s hand off Jiang Muzhou’s shoulder. “It’s too late now. The quota is full.”
“How many slots were there in total?”
“One.”
Over by the stage, people were starting to switch songs. Familiar music began to play, and Zhang Ning called out, “Hey, I know this song.”
He immediately got up and headed toward the standing microphone at the front. When the others saw it was him, they willingly gave up their bar stool for him.
Credit where credit was due, Zhang Ning actually sang quite well. Dressed neatly with his refined glasses, sitting on the bar stool in front of the large screen and gripping the standing mic, he really gave off a rather artsy vibe.
During an instrumental break, someone in the crowd cheered for him.
Zhang Ning spoke into the mic, “Thanks for the support.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than another person’s voice rang out through the speakers: “Come on, come on, those with money pitch in with money, five yuan per person, scan the QR code right here.”
In the dimly lit private room, Jiang Muzhou tracked down the owner of the other microphone—a very tall man with a buzz cut. From his profile, his bridge of nose was high and straight as he held up his phone, displaying a QR code on the screen.
Zhang Ning’s voice quickly blared through the sound system: “Chen Xu, go screw yourself.”
Chen Xu looked at him through the mic and replied, “Too bad, I don’t have any older uncles.”
As the second half of the song started, Chen Xu glanced at the lyrics on the large screen behind Zhang Ning and began singing along. His voice was much deeper than Zhang Ning’s.
Zhang Ning cut his engine and stopped singing altogether.
A tiny flame flickered beside him. Jiang Muzhou turned his head to look and saw that Shang Shixu had lit a cigarette.
Almost all the men in the private room smoked, and many had long since lost their patience and lit up.
Jiang Muzhou’s mind began to grow hazy as he leaned back against the sofa. For some reason, he thought of that pretty girl from earlier today and teased jokingly, “You maintained your image so well in front of your little girlfriend just now, can’t hold back anymore now?”
Shang Shixu didn’t mind the teasing. “Naturally. Young ladies don’t like people who smoke, so of course I had to keep up appearances—unlike certain people who don’t even have a partner.”
With that, he extended his cigarette case toward Jiang Muzhou.
Seeing that it was still those slim cigarettes, Jiang Muzhou shook his head, pulled out one of his own from his pocket, lit it, and exhaled a puff of smoke into the air.
“This kind hits the spot.”
Shang Shixu smiled without a word.
Picking up right where he left off, Jiang Muzhou looked over at Shang Shixu with bright eyes and asked, “President Shang’s efficiency is quite high. How about helping me set up an introduction?”
The guy who had been saying he wanted to start a family just a few days ago during dinner already had a target now.
His execution speed was truly astonishing.
Then again, it wasn’t surprising that he could find a partner so quickly. With conditions like his, it was purely a matter of him doing the choosing.
If Shang Shixu wanted to find a partner, how could he possibly fail?
Smoking his cigarette, Shang Shixu’s clear, cool eyes flashed with amusement. “You’re still young, no need to rush.”
Jiang Muzhou put on a look of mock distress. “A boomerang. That is definitely a boomerang.”
Just then, the song changed once again. Zhang Ning grabbed the mic and glared in Chen Xu’s direction. “This song is mine, you giant idiot, don’t you dare steal it.”
Right as he finished speaking, he seemed to choke on a breath of smoke and coughed twice. “I’m begging you grand masters to have some mercy and smoke a little less. Right now I feel like a celestial maiden performing in the heavenly palace; it’s so hazy with smoke I can’t even see any of you immortals anymore.”
Chen Xu chuckled and tucked the cigarette he had just pulled out back into his pocket.
Everyone else in the room was either playing finger-guessing games, rolling dice, smoking, and drinking, or sitting together chatting just like Jiang Muzhou and Shang Shixu.
Hearing Zhang Ning’s protest through the sound system, someone laughed, “A pack of cigarettes a day keeps you happy as an immortal. Everyone here is an immortal, Brother Ning, go ahead and sing your heart out.”
The rest of the group joined in laughing.
Laughter aside, quite a few people did pinch out their cigarettes.
Realizing that he had already missed a few seconds of the lyrics, Zhang Ning hurriedly scrambled to catch up and sang the next line.
Watching Jiang Muzhou gaze at Zhang Ning, Shang Shixu fell silent for a moment before hesitatingly asking, “Do you like men or women?”
With his sluggish brain, Jiang Muzhou froze for two full seconds, finding the question utterly baffling. “Women, obviously.”
Shang Shixu stared at him for a couple of seconds. Seeing his strange expression, he gave a light cough to change the subject.
“It’s a bit stuffy in here. Want to go outside and get some fresh air?”
Jiang Muzhou also felt that singing was getting boring and the air in the room wasn’t great, so he got up and left the room together with Shang Shixu.
The two of them sat on the sofa in the outer lobby for a while playing with their phones, but soon found it rather dull.
By this point, the alcohol was starting to hit Jiang Muzhou. He let himself lean back, lying against the sofa with his eyes closed to rest. After dozing for a little while, he opened his eyes again and checked his phone screen—it was already approaching 2:00 AM.
The lights in the outer lobby were much brighter than those in the private room. At the moment, the corners of Jiang Muzhou’s eyes were faintly reddish, and because of a yawn he had stifled earlier, his entire eye socket glistened with moisture.
Shang Shixu said, “I’ll take you back.”
Still feeling hazy, Jiang Muzhou looked up at him blankly. “Huh?”
Shang Shixu patted his shoulder and stood up. “Let’s go.”
Beijing’s nightlife could basically stretch all the way until dawn. Jiang Muzhou reflected on the fact that, aside from working overtime, he had truly never stayed out this late before.
Suzhou didn’t have a nightlife like this; at an hour like this, you wouldn’t even see a stray dog on the streets. Yet Beijing’s avenues were still bustling with cars coming and going.
In the past, if he wasn’t home by nine o’clock, his family’s phone calls would have already started bombarding him.
In the few years since leaving home, even though his family no longer questioned his whereabouts, every time he came home late, he still carried a lingering sense of guilt, as if he had done something wrong.
As he got into the car, Shang Shixu sent a text to Zhang Ning, casually tossed his phone into the center console, and started the vehicle.
After driving for a short stretch without hearing a peep from the person beside him, he looked over and realized that Jiang Muzhou had already fallen asleep against the backrest.