Qiu Wuji was happy. Chu Ge was not happy in the slightest. Other people take a girl out on a date and then bring her home — what wonderful things might happen after that? He hadn't done a thing; he'd run off to fight somebody, taken a blade to the ribs, and come home to find the girl gone — and gone very far away at that.
Chu Ge had put a durian on his head of his own accord; he sat there with his hands tucked into his sleeves, staring blankly at the roses on the coffee table. He didn't even know if he could take a shower with this wound, and in this heat...
And to think that this hateful-looking rose — the one that had driven Qiu Wuji into going back early — after staring at it long enough, was actually rather gorgeous...
On the wall hung Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream. The calligraphy hadn't even been mounted, just pasted straight up.
The strokes flowed like dragons and snakes, light and elegant, and the words themselves were impressively high-class — the aura of a cultured man hit him in the face.
Bright windows, clean tables, the fresh scent of plants and flowers — the man's rented room had, without his noticing, been completely transformed.
There was hardly a spot in that room that didn't bear proof she had lived here.
"With my scant words I write down my wildest thoughts, / loving the madman who loves in my place. / I trade these eyes to see illusion as truth, / as if all things moved at my command..." His phone suddenly rang.
It was the ringtone he heard every day, the one he usually cut off after a single note before picking up. This time Chu Ge actually got into it; he let the whole verse play out before lazily answering: "Mom, still not asleep at this hour? Oh, right — how was your Qixi?"
"At my age, who celebrates Qixi? Yours is the one that matters."
"I had a great Qixi."
His mom didn't believe a single word of it: "Writing your chapters away happily, were you?"
"I saw Little Gu today. She said you're a good guy, but unfortunately it wouldn't work. Why does that sound like a nice-guy card to me?"
"It is a nice-guy card. Actually, I'd like to hand her one too. Not a match is not a match — a department like yours keeps you away from home more than with it, no time even to look after your own child. When I look for a wife, that's not the kind I'd pick."
"So you're saying your dad picked wrong with me?"
Chu Ge hurriedly smiled his apologies: "No, no... Dad's not much in other respects, but his eye is excellent..."
His mom wasn't buying it for a second: "And your eye? When are you bringing a girlfriend home to show me?"
"Soon, soon. Didn't Gu Ruoyan tell you? There's a woman I like."
"No, she didn't. Little Gu keeps her mouth shut; she won't go spreading other people's business." His mom sounded suspicious. "You have a girlfriend? Don't tell me you hired someone to play the part and save face — I remember there's a plot like that in your books... Though if you could actually pull that off, fine, but generally the fake girlfriend plays along until the male lead beds her."
"Read less web fiction — especially the fluffy kind by an author named Chu Ge." Chu Ge said: "I never said I had a girlfriend. She's just a woman I like, not my girlfriend. Does liking someone require hiring an actor?"
Qiu Wuji really wasn't his girlfriend; she hasn't admitted anything yet — how can I go around announcing it? And there was another layer to what Chu Ge had told his mom... He was afraid she'd want to meet her future daughter-in-law when he had no idea where the girl was.
Or maybe he'd never know. Ever since that talk about the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, Chu Ge hadn't voiced that fear again, but it had put down roots in his heart all the same.
Once everything settles down, then I'll tell Mom.
Now his mom perked up: "Really? What does she look like? Send a photo. Do you even have the skills to chase a girl? Want your mom to give you some pointers?"
"Uh, let's not. The tricks from your generation and today's aren't even from the same world..."
"At the very least, dress neatly, look sharp, keep your room clean and tidy — those work in any era! Go on, turn on the camera and let me see what kind of pigsty you're living in..."
This poked right at Chu Ge's proud spot. He hung up and called back on WeChat video.
On the video: a clean, tidy room, and roses gorgeous and dewy.
His mom was floored: "Did you hire a cleaning lady? How much does that cost a month?"
Chu Ge said, exasperated: "What cleaning lady puts out roses for you?"
"..." His mom said: "Turn the camera around, let me see your face. How long has it been since you shaved that stubble?"
Chu Ge turned it around, very smug — he'd shaved just before going out today. Hmph.
But one look and his mom hung up on him: "That's it, the boy's beyond saving — not even married and already balancing a durian on his head."
Chu Ge: "..."
Fuck, how did I forget about that...
A sticker came through on WeChat: "Ur Mom Punches You.jpg."
Chu Ge covered his face: "Stop looking at all that junk on the internet. That's not what you think it means..."
"Since when do you get to say what the picture means? Do you still want any standing in your household or not?"
"...Actually, the durian doesn't mean that either."
"Performance art, is it?"
"If I told you I was practicing, would you believe me?"
The other end went quiet for a while, and only after a long pause came a message: "Little Gu says a friend of yours got tangled up in something not so clean. It has nothing to do with you, but... you're an honest kid, all alone in Nanjiang. Mom's afraid you'll get the short end."
A towering classic of world literature: The Honest Kid.
Warmth welled up in Chu Ge's heart: "It's fine, Mom."
"You know our department is a bit special. Whatever else, we do have some pull. For now it isn't appropriate to bring you into the official side of things, but if something comes up, you can contact our off-the-books liaison... I'll send you a card. Just give your name; he knows who you are. But... best if you never have to touch any of this."
Chu Ge guessed Gu Ruoyan might work for state security, and by the same logic, so might his mom. But back then Gu Ruoyan had only said they were "more or less colleagues" — a vague phrase he didn't know how to read. By rights, even someone in state security ought to be able to tell their own son where they work. Maybe there was something even more special going on...
Thinking about it that way, the one whose safety he ought to worry about wasn't him, the "honest kid" — it was his parents. Their so-called confidentiality was, to a large extent, precisely to keep their family from being dragged in.
So of course they didn't want their child mixed up in any of this. Nothing was better than their kid living a safe, peaceful life.
But this world seemed to be changing shape, and saying you wouldn't touch it didn't mean you could really stay clear of it. Did the card his mom had sent mean that his parents had finally made some new decisions?
Chu Ge looked at the ID on the card his mom had sent: Zhong Buli.
Don't tell me this guy's a Genshin player too?
Chu Ge thought it over and didn't add him for the time being. He just said good night to his mom: "It's very late, Mom. Get some rest — I should sleep too."
His mom was utterly shocked: "It's only just past one."
Chu Ge planted his hands on his hips: "For me, this is the latest night I've had in recent memory."
His mom instantly brightened: "So you're actually being a proper human being now! Good, good, off to bed with you."
Chu Ge had no idea how to answer that. Was I not a proper human being before?
That night Chu Ge slept soundly.
But he'd noticed he was dreaming more and more these days. After that tragic wet dream the other day involving the durian, tonight's dream was a rerun — replaying every scene of the day.
Qiu Wuji walking beside him, smiling, eating an ice cream cone and cotton candy.
The instant the fireworks bloomed, her flawless profile.
The stepped-on foot in the haunted house, the held hands in the movie theater, the long hair streaming in the wind from the back of the bicycle.
And the roses that had come through a thousand tribulations and were still guarded safe and sound.
Her standing in front of him, twisting every dagger into a dough twist: "You think the likes of you can hurt him?"
"I really am in love, Mom." In his sleep, Chu Ge murmured unconsciously: "She's the most perfect person there is — I wrote her myself, pouring in all my imagination and hope."