After dropping Jiang Muzhou off at the entrance of his studio, Shang Shixu drove away.
In the city at past eleven o’clock, the roads were still quite busy. Shang Shixu stopped his car at a red light, waiting for it to turn green.
In the past, he would have grown somewhat impatient, but after dropping Jiang Muzhou off, his mood was remarkably relaxed.
His phone rang. Shang Shixu put on his Bluetooth headset and answered.
Wu Wanting’s gentle voice came through the earpiece. “Are you off work yet?”
The green light turned on, and he started the car. Ever since returning to the country, he had been very busy, and the two of them had barely seen each other.
This did not feel like a normal dating state, and Shang Shixu felt a trace of guilt toward Wu Wanting.
They exchanged a few words, though there wasn’t really much to talk about, nothing more than the usual clichéd topics.
Traffic started jamming up at the intersection ahead. Shang Shixu watched the red taillights of the cars in front and slowed his speed. The continuous waiting made the pleasant mood from dinner gradually turn irritable due to the congested road section.
Toward the end of the call, Wu Wanting’s voice sounded somewhat hesitant. This kind of tone meant the other person had something on their mind.
Shang Shixu hadn’t dated much and didn’t know how to coax girls, so he kept his tone as gentle as possible. “Is there anything you need my help with?”
“No, nothing. My family can handle it; I just missed you.” Within the warm and gentle words of missing him, however, there was a hint of formality.
Shang Shixu knew she wasn’t telling the truth, but he didn’t press further.
The two of them really hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and relationships need cultivation, especially a relationship that would step into marriage in the future.
Things couldn’t keep going on like this, polite and distant like strangers. Even when speaking words of longing, the person being told they were missed didn’t feel the emotional weight of that longing.
It sounded very fake and unreal.
Shang Shixu said, “I’ll treat you to dinner in a couple of days, and then we can catch a movie. You can let me know if there’s anything specific you want to eat or do.”
“Okay.”
After hanging up the phone, traffic had come to a complete standstill. He drafted a message to Chen Jinghuai to clear out the schedule on the day of the date, preventing himself from forgetting due to work again.
His phone lit up, and Chen Jinghuai replied: [Received.]
Shang Shixu leaned against the car window, his hands gripping the steering wheel. The cars in front formed a long queue, and the distant red traffic light was counting down: 52, 51, 50.
The index finger resting on the steering wheel tapped rhythmically to soothe his restless state of mind.
He didn’t understand why he was experiencing this bizarre state. He fished a cigarette out from the car, lit it, took a drag, and forced down the discomfort rising from his chest.
The green light turned on, and the vehicles ahead began to move. Shang Shixu started the car, drove for a short stretch, and immediately pulled into the left-turn lane to make a U-turn.
Jiang Muzhou had just taken a shower after returning to his residence when he heard the doorbell ringing downstairs.
Puzzled, he walked out of his room, looked outside through the floor-to-ceiling window next to the front door from the stairs, and saw that the big G parked at the studio entrance was back in its previous spot.
He opened the door, and sure enough, it was Shang Shixu, who had just left.
Jiang Muzhou stepped aside to let him enter the house. “Why did you come back?”
Shang Shixu looked at Jiang Muzhou. The person who had just finished bathing had a rosy complexion, water still dripping from his hair, and was dressed in only a bath towel. Jiang Muzhou had cold, fair skin with light body hair, and the white towel he held in his hand made his fair skin look even more translucent, highlighting the small mole on his wrist.
A momentary sense of awkwardness left Shang Shixu unsure of what to say. Just like last time in Suzhou, this person seemed entirely unconcerned about being half-naked in front of another man.
Seeing that Shang Shixu remained silent, Jiang Muzhou smiled, wiped his hair, and asked with a puzzled look, “What’s wrong?”
Shang Shixu shifted his pitch-black gaze away, casually pulled over a workstation chair, and sat down. “I’m a bit tired, not fit for driving, and wanted to rest at your place for the night.”
“You just push yourself too hard at work. You ought to take a break and give yourself a vacation,” Jiang Muzhou said as he went to the lounge refrigerator to grab a bottle of water, bringing it out to hand to him. “You were the one who said work is for a better life. When it comes to applying that to yourself, you don’t follow your own advice.”
Shang Shixu unscrewed the cap and drank half the bottle. The ice-cold water slid across his throat and down his esophagus, waking him up entirely, surprisingly more effective than smoking.
Hearing Jiang Muzhou’s words, Shang Shixu expressed agreement. “Things will settle down once we get through this busy period.”
Jiang Muzhou glanced at the time; it was already close to midnight, well past bedtime.
“My single bed can’t fit both of us, so you’ll have to bear with sleeping on the sofa tonight.” He pointed to the large sofa where they had sat playing games last time.
Shang Shixu didn’t mind, indicating that anything was fine, and followed Jiang Muzhou upstairs. Jiang Muzhou handed him his own loosest T-shirt and casual athletic shorts.
He took a quick shower. When he came out, Jiang Muzhou had already changed into his own clothes and gone into the bathroom to collect the clothes Shang Shixu had just taken off.
“Should I throw these in the washing machine with my clothes?”
Looking at the bundle of clothes in Jiang Muzhou’s arms, similar shirts and trousers piled and tangled together, Shang Shixu pressed his lips together and said, “Sure.”
The light from the streetlamps outside shone through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Even though the lights inside were off, the entire indoor space was clearly visible.
Lying on Jiang Muzhou’s sofa and covered by Jiang Muzhou’s blanket, Shang Shixu stared at the pitch-black eaves outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
He felt a hint of puzzlement regarding his own calmed state of mind. It had been a very long time since he allowed anyone else to sway his emotions like this.
No matter how displeased he was with a situation or how out of sorts his mood, it had never reached the point of staying overnight at a friend’s place.
What was he even doing coming here?
Someone had once said that when people outside feel their soul lacks an anchor, they always want to go home, yet his original home was practically empty and devoid of an anchor, leaving only freezing cold air upon return.
Ever since he was young, his parents taught him self-discipline, to plan things out himself, to be his own reliance, and to accomplish everything independently.
He used to think getting married would fix things, and now he was actively interacting with marriageable prospects. So why did interacting with women still feel like drifting on a duckweed leaf without a sense of belonging? He seemed much less eager for marriage than before.
When he drove over, his mind hadn’t really been racing; he simply felt that if he went, Jiang Muzhou would certainly take him in.
He needed a place that would accept him, and instinctively chose this spot.
Is Jiang Muzhou really that wonderful? Just seeing him made his inner self grow so much more tranquil?
Could it be that he had listened to Zhang Ning talk about his affairs too much, got influenced, and developed a liking for his own gender?
Shang Shixu pondered this, then immediately dismissed the notion. For now, he clearly had no such desires toward his own gender; when those desires arose, the only images in his mind were female.
Listening to the sound of Jiang Muzhou moving about upstairs, he must be hanging up the laundry after washing it, Shang Shixu tugged on the T-shirt Jiang Muzhou had given him and took a sniff. There was a faint scent of laundry detergent, an orchid fragrance, quite pleasant.
At this moment, Jiang Muzhou was likely hanging his shirt up with a hanger right next to the shirts he wore for meeting clients. The two white shirts probably looked very much alike, and the air must be floating with the scent of orchid laundry detergent.
He tugged on the tightly fitting shorts; Jiang Muzhou’s shorts were a bit small for him and not very comfortable.
Thinking back to the scene of Jiang Muzhou changing his pants in the room last time, and then recalling Jiang Muzhou as he looked just now.
His waist seemed terribly slender. He probably exercised regularly; there were abdominal muscles, though not overly pronounced, and his hips had some meat on them.
Shang Shixu shook his head and turned over, facing the back of the sofa.
He gave an internal scoff at himself. Why on earth was he thinking about these things for no reason?
The air conditioning was running downstairs. He clutched the blanket and buried his face in it. It was the blanket Jiang Muzhou usually used; it didn’t carry any particular scent, yet it provided a deep sense of security.
Amidst this haze, Shang Shixu drifted off to sleep.
Jiang Muzhou deliberately set his alarm early the next morning, much earlier than usual, just as the sun was beginning to rise.
Yet when he went downstairs, there was no one on the sofa. The blanket was neatly folded and placed on the sofa, with a sticky note left on top:
“I took my clothes with me.”
Jiang Muzhou curled his lip, crumpled the sticky note into a ball, and tossed it into the trash can. He glanced out the door at the empty parking space that now held only his motorcycle, hugged the blanket back to his room, and climbed back into bed.