He Chu lowered his head and looked at the pair of Gucci shoes on Bai Huan's feet.
"I don't want them. They won't fit me."
"What size are your feet? I'm a 43."
"...I'm a 43 too, but I don't want shoes like yours. They're ugly."
"I have others. Come upstairs with me and pick some out."
He Chu was accustomed to brushing things off carelessly, but Bai Huan was extremely particular about his OOTD.
He Chu listened as Bai Huan went on about the Renaissance, then moved from the Renaissance to the Baroque period, from Baroque to Rococo, and finally to Classicism.
He Chu was thoroughly confused by everything he heard, but he still maintained his impassive expression as he asked whether Bai Huan intended to become a fashion designer.
Bai Huan replied that he had taken specialized aesthetics courses and that this was merely the tip of the iceberg.
The two boys busied themselves going up and down the stairs for ages before finally changing into each other's clothes.
Standing in front of the mirror, Bai Huan ground his fist into the palm of his other hand, trying to imitate He Chu's air of being able to knock someone dead with a single punch without so much as changing his expression.
Unfortunately, he couldn't pull it off.
He could only tug at the hem of his shirt and click his tongue.
Looking at He Chu, he said helplessly, "Even stripped of my finery, I still look like a young master."
He Chu let out a laugh at his antics.
But when he looked at himself in the mirror again, he felt like a piece of cheap candy wrapped in luxurious packaging.
He awkwardly averted his gaze, only to meet Bai Huan's eyes.
"What are you looking at?"
"Don't you have any friends? You look really stiff."
He Chu took off the clothes.
"I don't need any."
"I do."
Bai Huan patted him on the shoulder.
"From now on, we're friends."
Wherever Bai Huan went, excitement followed. There had never been a shortage of people surrounding him.
He had grown accustomed to relationships like that.
Yet at this moment, he suddenly realized what friendship meant.
Wearing the same pair of pants as someone else ought to count as friendship, shouldn't it?
This was the first time he had ever worn the same pair of pants as another person.
Their legs against the same fabric, their bottoms pressed against the same seat of the pants.
He Chu said nothing.
He walked out of the room, took a pair of similarly faded canvas shoes from the shoe cabinet, and placed them in front of Bai Huan.
"Here."
Bai Huan glanced down at the canvas shoes.
He stepped barefoot onto the floor, put on the left shoe, then the right.
"You're a year younger than me. How about I call you Little Chu from now on? You can call me Taimi."
He Chu nodded.
After tying his shoelaces, Bai Huan seemed to remember something.
He took out his phone and snapped a full-length photo of the two of them in the mirror.
"Wow, Little Chu, I've got so much style."
He Chu looked into the mirror and blinked.
"Mm. I look pretty cool too."
Down in the courtyard, Xiao He had also found a new friend.
It was a white Schnauzer, and the two dogs were mischievously chasing each other around a tree.
Woof! Woof, woof, woof!
The gathering with his old friends was scheduled for the last weekend before school started.
When Chen Yuanyuan and Wang Caiyi learned that Bai Huan was going out with his friends, they gave him five hundred yuan.
Bai Huan put the money away and glanced at Chen Yuanyuan.
"Have you given any money to my aunts and Second Uncle lately?"
Wang Caiyi was the one who handled the family's social obligations.
She said somewhat sheepishly, "Chen Jinbao turned five, so I gave him a red envelope with five thousand yuan. It's what an elder should do."
"When Youngest Aunt met me for the first time, she only gave me eight hundred. Mom, you're certainly generous."
Bai Huan opened a bottle of mineral water, took a sip, and walked away with it.
Wang Caiyi was caught off guard by his reaction.
She turned to Chen Yuanyuan.
"We probably should have given less. Taimi seems to mind quite a bit."
"When his older cousins came into the family, we gave them all five thousand. If we suddenly give him less, what will the adults think?" Chen Yuanyuan said.
Various emotions flickered across Chen Yuanyuan's face.
After a while, he took Wang Caiyi's hand and hurried over to the desk in the living room.
He sat down, having made up his mind.
"We both happen to have the day off today. Let's write each of them a letter, one by one, making it clear that we won't be fools anymore. We'll tell them to stop taking advantage of us."
"Each of them?"
Chen Yuanyuan had already taken out several sheets of writing paper.
"My older brother, my older sister, my younger sister, and your older sister. Today, we'll make everything clear to them once and for all."
But Wang Caiyi appeared hesitant.
She smoothed down her skirt and sat down uneasily.
"But my family was poor when I was little. My older sister dropped out of school and went to work so I could continue my education. If I stop helping her, how could I ever face her?"
Chen Yuanyuan was a reasonable man who valued kindness and righteousness.
He thought of a solution.
"How about we transfer a fixed amount of money to your sister at regular intervals?"
"But..."
"There's no need to say any more. Your sister takes six or seven thousand yuan from you every month, sometimes as much as ten thousand. We both know exactly what she spends it on. She's raising a child with her lover, buying milk powder and diapers."
"We've been supporting your sister. Then we started supporting your sister's lover. And now we're supporting your sister's lover's child too. How long are we supposed to keep supporting them?"
Neither husband nor wife was willing to give way easily.
So after Chen Yuanyuan finished speaking, he saw that his beloved wife's face had turned bright red and offered her some comfort.
Wang Caiyi shed a couple of tears.
Remembering the mocking glance Taimi had given her before leaving, she gritted her teeth, picked up a pen, and began writing a letter to her older sister.
But after writing only a couple of strokes, she stopped.
She raised the sheet of paper and examined it critically.
"This paper isn't good."
Chen Yuanyuan, sitting beside her, commented that the ink wasn't showing up properly either.
The two of them had plenty of common interests.
Before long, they had temporarily set aside the matter of writing letters and begun carefully selecting and studying their writing materials instead.
After all, they didn't want their relatives to think they weren't taking the matter seriously.
The contents of their letters would be more or less the same, but Chen Yuanyuan had far more to write than Wang Caiyi, and their circumstances weren't entirely identical.
As Wang Caiyi wrote, she suddenly covered her mouth and began to cry.
She remembered how her older sister had supported her future on those frail shoulders.
"Just focus on your studies. I'll find a way to get the money."
Her sister had always said that.
Chen Yuanyuan's reaction, however, was completely different.
At first, he was melancholy, his brows drooping as he sighed repeatedly and adjusted his glasses from time to time.
Then his eyebrows began to tremble.
The corners of his mouth twitched.
His face flushed red, and his breathing grew heavy.
He pressed his pen so hard against the paper that the tip nearly pierced through it.
-Work by the sweat of your own brow, eat the food you've earned yourself, and handle your own affairs! A man who relies on others, on heaven, or on his ancestors is no true man!
Today, Bai Huan had put on the clothes he had exchanged with He Chu a week earlier.
As usual, He Youxiang was crouching downstairs, waiting to go eat soup dumplings with him.
When he learned that Bai Huan was going out to have fun with his friends, He Youxiang asked to come along.
Bai Huan slowly bit into the dumpling wrapper.
He studied He Youxiang with a meaningful look.
He had to admit that a fool could be an extremely useful tool at a time like this.
And unlike other normal people, a fool wouldn't turn around and bite him afterward.
Bai Huan had never been in the habit of treating people as people, much less someone who was merely a fool.
But fools were also prone to losing control.
And when they lost control, they could easily ruin things.
"No."
He Youxiang pointed his chopsticks at Bai Huan.
"You stole Little Chu's clothes! If you don't take me, I'll tell Little Chu!"
Oil from the chopsticks splattered onto Bai Huan's chest.
Bai Huan helplessly rolled his tongue around inside his mouth.
One cheek puffed out, then slowly deflated.
See?
He had said fools were good at ruining things.
They hadn't even left yet, and things were already going wrong.
Still, never mind.
A few grease stains weren't necessarily a bad thing.
They suited his current identity and circumstances even better.
"Little Chu stole my clothes too. My clothes are expensive, more than forty thousand yuan altogether. Do the math and think carefully about how you're going to compensate me," Bai Huan said.
He Youxiang immediately declared that he wasn't going anymore.
Stuffing the remaining dumplings into his mouth, he said, "Bye-bye, Taimi! I'm leaving!"
With no one left sitting opposite him, the owner came over and cleared away the empty bowls and bamboo steamers.
Bai Huan remained where he was, continuing to eat at his leisurely pace.
He never looked at his phone while eating.
Only after finishing his meal, wiping his hands, and wiping his mouth did he take out his phone.
No one had ever replied to the message he'd sent in his friends' group chat that day.
Two hours later, someone had posted a photo of a new pair of sneakers they'd bought, and everyone had immediately gathered around to make a fuss.
They had simply ignored him.
Bai Huan tugged at the corners of his mouth but couldn't quite manage a smile.
Phone in hand, he went to the supermarket next door and bought a bag of snacks.
There were potato chips, pickled pepper chicken feet, spicy gluten strips, and various other things.
He intended to share these snacks with his old friends, who had never eaten anything but expensive, high-end food.
He wanted to appear before them in the most miserable state they could possibly imagine a young master being reduced to.
He had absolutely no intention of playing the victim or wallowing in self-pity.
He simply understood all too well what those people cared about.
Just as he himself had once looked down even more contemptuously on poor people who scrimped and saved to dress themselves in awkward, expensive-looking outfits.
But he didn't need any of those things.
The saying that a Buddha needed gilding and a horse needed a fine saddle simply didn't apply to him.
Anyone hoping to enjoy the sight of him looking pathetic was dreaming.
When he imagined how that group of people had always been ravenous for his presence, no matter the occasion, and how he had held complete control over their every emotion and desire, Bai Huan wanted to laugh.
And so, today, he had deliberately dressed himself in shabby, ragged clothes.
He wasn't going to a gathering with them.
He was going to a duel.