Hua Xu waited for a long time in front of the dimly lit private compartment on the second floor.
Standing to his right was the owner of this old internet cafe, looking to be around forty or fifty years old. His sparse black hair was mixed with quite a few gray strands. He wore a thin autumn sweater paired with the most common black jacket on the market. Perhaps his beer belly was too eye-catching, making the jacket fit a bit tightly on him, so he could only leave it unzipped.
Hua Xu’s gaze withdrew the moment it touched him, capturing everything in a single glance: the pills on the sweater, the chipped belt, the washed-out blue jeans, and the thin calluses on the rough, sturdy hands.
Whether it was the owner or the internet-addicted youths pulling all-nighters on the first floor, none of them looked like people from a wealthy family.
The computers were machines manufactured seven or eight years ago. The main unit and the monitor did not match, meaning they must have been replaced, and even the glass display case at the front desk was covered in a thin layer of dust.
The stairway to the second floor was extremely narrow, accommodating at most two people walking side by side. The swaying light bulb hung from a wire whose origin was a mystery, and the wallpaper consisted of outdated celebrity posters stained with various dirty objects.
By all logic, Hua Sheng could not possibly come to an internet cafe like this.
Yet the phone’s GPS location was truly and clearly showing right here. Seeing this scene, he could not help but grow somewhat anxious.
His silly younger brother was already not very bright to begin with. What if he listened to some nonsense, got tricked into coming here, and something happened? The consequences would be unimaginable.
He could not help but knit his brows tightly.
Seeing this, the internet cafe owner knocked on the room door once more. Just as he finished his single knock, the door swung open from the inside.
A young man with a handsome appearance, a cold aura, upright posture, and fair skin walked out.
His face was like jade, his eyes like stars, and his posture heroic.
His straight bridge of nose supported a pair of semi-rimless glasses, his eyelashes so long they nearly touched the lenses, and his fair skin gave him the look of a top student. A faint, tiny mole sat at the bridge of his nose beneath a pair of standard peach-blossom eyes filled with indifferent light.
Seventeen or eighteen years old, this youth was slightly shorter than Hua Xu, and his build still carried a trace of the unique, slender delicacy of a young man.
Yet that white tea scented pheromone was unusually fierce, as if intentionally trying to suppress him, filling the entire room.
He wore sky-blue pajamas, his hair in a fluffy mess, and the look he gave him carried a hint of icy coldness.
Hua Xu looked him over twice and asked with an unfriendly expression, “Are you Yun’er?”
He did not know this youth’s name and had only heard the internet cafe owner shouting “Yun’er, Yun’er.”
Zuo Xingyun raised a hand to tidy his hair, his tone flat: “Zuo Xingyun.”
“Oh, Zuo Xingyun, have you seen my Hua Sheng?” Hua Xu did not care about his name, stepping forward and attempting to bypass him to enter the room. “May you step aside?”
“Hua Sheng is not here.” Zuo Xingyun blocked the doorway, seemingly intentional yet nonchalant. “He did come up earlier, but he left shortly before.”
A faint, subtle scent of sweet oranges lingered at the tip of his nose, which was his younger brother’s pheromone.
Hua Xu stared at him for a moment, raising his phone to show that the red dot on the screen was indeed located right at their internet cafe. “Words alone are not proof. My younger brother’s phone has a GPS tracker installed, and I followed the location straight here. Whether he is inside or not, let me go in and take a look to find out.”
“Mr. Hua, this is my personal room, and this is rest time.” He pressed against the doorframe to block Hua Xu, frowning as he spoke. “If it is as you say, that is very easy to explain. I helped Hua Sheng tutor tonight, and he went back. As a result, he took the wrong phone, and his phone is with me.”
With that, he fished Hua Sheng’s phone out of his pocket. “The phone was placed face down on the desk, and it was kept on silent, which is why I did not answer the incoming calls.”
“Tutoring?” Hua Xu paused visibly, taking Hua Sheng’s phone. The screen indeed displayed 27 missed calls and a dozen text messages.
The wallpaper was the family dog, so this was definitely Hua Sheng’s phone without a doubt.
“I had no idea my younger brother actually had a heart for studying.” Hua Xu remained half-doubtful. “Taking the initiative to look for you for tutoring, that is impossible, right?”
Zuo Xingyun’s expression did not change. “He did not initiate it. The class organized a study assistance group, and the two of us were assigned to the same group.”
Hua Xu put away his phone and chuckled lightly. “Your school is quite special. You are already in the third year of high school, and you still do these time-wasting study assistance groups. Would it be convenient for me to go in and take a look around?”
Zuo Xingyun showed no intention of stepping aside, his gaze fixed coldly on Hua Xu.
The man in front of him was tall and sturdy. Even in a casual black hoodie, it was a four-figure item, not to mention the watch on his left wrist, which was on par with the most expensive luxury watches in his biological father’s display case.
This man, who looked somewhat similar to Hua Sheng, had sharper facial features and smooth contours, his gaze carrying a sharpness that Hua Sheng lacked. If Hua Sheng was an ignorant and innocent cat, then this Mr. Hua was a vigilant and fierce falcon.
The two of them stood in a silent standoff like this.
Downstairs, the internet-addicted youths hammered away at keyboards and clicked mice frantically, punctuated by the occasional curse word from their games.
Amidst the noisy yet silent background noise, Hua Xu and Zuo Xingyun stood facing each other, each with their own unpleasant expression.
A chill seemed to sweep through the surroundings. The internet cafe owner rubbed the goosebumps standing up on his arms. In the late autumn season, cold sweat actually beaded at his temples.
“Does Student Zuo have something unpresentable inside? If that is the case, I am all the more curious.” Hua Xu’s tone was as cold as ice. “My younger brother is someone who likes novelty. Perhaps a unique internet cafe compartment like this made him linger and forget to check his phone, or perhaps he realized it was too late and knew he would get lectured by me, so he hid. Of course, these are all my guesses. If Hua Sheng is indeed not inside, I suppose you would not mind me going in to take a look, right?”
His voice was neither loud nor soft, but Hua Sheng, buried deep inside the wardrobe and drowned beneath layers of clothes, could hear every word clearly. His heart beat like a beating drum, and he did not dare to breathe heavily.
Zuo Xingyun was silent for a moment. Matters had reached this point; if he did not let him go in and inspect, this man would not let the matter rest.
Covering things up would only make it look like he had something to hide, even though Hua Sheng was indeed hiding inside.
Thinking of this, he stepped aside and made room. “The room is not large, there is nowhere to hide a person. Since you do not trust me, Mr. Hua, you may look for yourself.”
Hua Sheng had wriggled into Zuo Xingyun’s narrow wardrobe shoes and all. The innermost section of the wardrobe was blocked by a small bedside table, making it impossible to open. Ten minutes ago, Hua Sheng had clawed away for a long time to carve out a pit just large enough to hold him, leaped right in, and then had Zuo Xingyun cover his head with clothes without leaving a single gap.
Zuo Xingyun’s wardrobe was clean and tidy, with every piece of clothes folded neatly. But water too clear has no fish; if Hua Sheng wanted to pull off his deception, he had to mess up Zuo Xingyun’s wardrobe.
Therefore, when Hua Xu opened the right wardrobe door, he could not help but pause.
All kinds of clothes, winter ones, summer ones, autumn ones, were jumbled together in a mess. Socks and underwear fluttered all over the place, and some even fell to the floor the moment he opened the door. With a complex expression, he turned his head to look back at Zuo Xingyun.
Zuo Xingyun averted his gaze.
The books on the desk were arranged in strict order, stacked sequentially from largest to smallest, and even sorted and stored by different color codes.
Turns out everything neat outside was just a facade; he was actually the type to throw everything indiscriminately into the closet.
He raised a hand and reached toward the clothes in the wardrobe.
“You said you wanted to take a look, but do you still need to search through every single piece of clothing?” Zuo Xingyun suddenly spoke up. “Even the police need a search warrant to enter a house, Mr. Hua. Doing this is not quite appropriate, is it?”
“The room is so small it is clear at a glance. The wardrobe was not something I originally wanted to display to others, and now you are rummaging through my belongings in front of my family. If you do not find anyone, how are you going to apologize to me?”
Hua Xu’s hand stopped mid-air.
Zuo Xingyun lowered his gaze and continued, “Tutoring Hua Sheng has already taken up a lot of my personal time. Now, as his older brother, you are coming to violate my personal space?”
Hua Xu had nothing to say and pulled his hand back.
With such a small wardrobe, hiding a person did not look very easy either, and besides, Zuo Xingyun’s expression was already extremely unpleasant right now.
The internet cafe owner had kindly brought him upstairs, and this kid did not look like he had such kind intentions. What he said was also right; the police needed evidence to search for people, so by what right was he rummaging through someone else’s things?
Having no reason to continue searching, Hua Xu closed the wardrobe.
He turned around and raised both hands to show his apology. “I apologize. I was simply too anxious looking for my younger brother. Then may I ask, Student Zuo, do you know where he might have gone?”
Zuo Xingyun adjusted his glasses and shook his head. “He did not say where he was going. However, when I was explaining problems to him earlier, he was clearly absent-minded and seemed somewhat unsatisfied with my teaching method. He said that listening to lectures in the classroom makes him drowsy, and he hopes I can go to his home next time and tutor him in his room.”
The more Hua Xu listened, the stranger it sounded. Clearly, he was just asking where his brother might have gone, so why did this kind classmate say such a long speech?
He did not understand the meaning behind those words, nor did he believe that Hua Sheng would have such proper studying attitudes.
“The person you tutored really is named Hua Sheng, the one with curly hair?” Hua Xu could not help but doubt. Since when did he love studying this much?
“Curly hair with apricot eyes, wearing a band-aid on the bridge of his nose.” Zuo Xingyun described, “He loves swearing, gets distracted easily, and likes to prop his legs up on the desk.”
Fine, it was indeed his younger brother.
Hua Xu suddenly felt a bit embarrassed and changed the subject. “Sorry for taking up so much of your time tonight. The emotional compensation and the tutoring fees for Hua Sheng staying at your place will all be billed to me. Next time you come to my house, I will pay you. Sorry about that, Student Zuo.”
Zuo Xingyun’s expression cleared up slightly.
The misunderstanding had been resolved, and Hua Xu offered a couple more solemn apologies before heading back. On his way downstairs, as if remembering something, he fished out five 100-peso bills from his wallet and handed them to the owner.
The internet cafe owner was pleasantly surprised, his first reaction being to refuse. “No, no, how could I accept this money? It is good enough that the misunderstanding is cleared up, except we did not find your younger brother.”
“I have a rough idea of where he went, and I will continue looking for him. Sorry for disturbing you tonight and for my bad attitude earlier.” Hua Xu spoke with a sincere expression, stuffing the money into the owner’s palm. “In the future, I will have to trouble Student Zuo with Hua Sheng.”
“Aish, no, no, really not possible, please take it back.”
“Just keep it. This is a token of my apology.”
The two of them engaged in a round of pushing back and forth like relatives giving red envelopes during the Lunar New Year until their footsteps and voices gradually faded into the distance.
Only when not a single sound could be heard anymore did Hua Sheng finally let out a sigh of relief.
Zuo Xingyun stood on the second floor, watching Hua Xu leave the internet cafe before returning inside the room and gently closing and double-bolting the door.
Hua Sheng shoved aside the clothes piled tightly over his head, popped his head out, and took a heavy breath of air as if surviving a catastrophe.
“Hah.”
Zuo Xingyun moved the bedside table away, opened the left cabinet door, and Hua Sheng struggled his way out from the pile of clothes.
Just as he poked half his body out, he was grabbed by Zuo Xingyun. Supporting Hua Sheng under the armpits, Zuo Xingyun lifted him out just like picking up a small child.
“Hey, hey, hey, stop, stop, stop, treating me like a kid, hey wait a minute, wait a minute, my shoe is stuck!” Hua Sheng flailed around noisily, mostly afraid that Zuo Xingyun would drop him. “I can do it myself; I can do it by myself. Mph, mm.”
Suddenly, his lips softened, and the next second, the overwhelming, clean fragrance of white tea surged into his lips and teeth, teasing his slow-to-react soft tongue.