Ch43 - I also have something that I’ve been keeping from you

The next day, an entire afternoon had passed and I saw no trace of Shen Xiao Shi at work. I considered that he probably had drank too much with Wei Shi last night, so was most likely still hung over. I dialled their numbers amidst these thoughts, once each, however neither of them picked up.

“Welcome~.” 

I looked up, and a young lady had walked in, fitted in a polka dot dress. She wasn’t someone I recognised and looked to only be in her early twenties. As soon as she stepped in the shop, her gaze darted back and forth, as if she was insatiably curious.

“Hello, was there anything I could help you with?”

 

 

She placed her luxury designer bag on the counter and rummaged through it, before fishing out a black VIP card as she passed it to me.

“Could you take a look at this and see if I can pawn it off? When I purchased it, it cost me pretty much thirty thousand a year for this membership. I went once but couldn’t deal with it anymore.” She tightened her hand into a fist as she proceeded to massage and beat her shoulders in a delicate fashion, “I only wanted to go there to check out the hot guys, as well as conveniently work out. However, the intensity of the training routines were admittedly beyond what I imagined, so I’m going to grit my teeth and let go of this card for a fraction of the price.” 

I took the card from her hand and examined it. It was an exclusive membership card for the Hong Fei Muay Thai Fight Club.

 

No wonder there was a phrase going around saying that people nowadays were truly talented, as they could find ways to reinvent the definition of the industry. There were only things that you couldn’t imagine being brought in, but nothing that was out of bounds to them as items they couldn’t pawn off.

“Hong Fei Thai Boxing…” I smiled at the other party, “Please wait a second, this is the first time for us to have received such a product, so we will require some time to verify it.”

“You can call them to check. This is the best fight club in Qing Wan. The annual membership fee is more than twenty thousand renminbi, yet I’m here willing to sell it for ten thousand renminbi.” The lady picked up her dainty handbag and then proceeded to sit down on the sofa, elegantly crossing her legs.

 

In the meantime, Liu Yue called the phone number that had appeared after she searched up the fight club on the internet to enquire about the authenticity of the card and the rules regarding membership transfers. After learning that the card was genuine and could be transferred, she directed a light nod at me.

I held the black card up between two fingers as I raised my hand and waved to the lady wearing her polka dot dress outside the iron fence as I exclaimed, “Hey lovely, It’s done.”

The other party walked towards the counter again and reiterated: “Ten thousand renminbi, I won’t accept even one cent less.”

 

“Eight thousand renminbi for a pawn off with no returns, we’ll pay you the full amount in cash.” 

“Woah, you really have no mercy.” The polka dot lady replied, shocked. “In one move, you’re proposing a counter-offer of twenty percent less than what I asked.”

“Nowadays it’s difficult for fitness cards to be sold, not to mention it’s this kind of fight club membership card too.” I explained patiently, “The rich wouldn’t care about this discount being offered, and those who don’t have money wouldn’t consider this kind of club with exorbitant membership rates at all. Therefore, it’s also inconvenient for us. I offered the price of eight thousand renminbi seeing that you were a new client, for everyone else I would’ve offered five thousand or so. If you don’t believe me, you can go visit other shops and enquire with them.”

Generally, whenever this classic last sentence was used, it was enough to seal the deal.

Sure enough, the other party hesitated for a while hearing my words before finally nodding, as she signed the papers, took the money and then left. 

I folded the invoice and passed it to Liu Yue as I told her, “I’m taking this card, just deduct the money from my salary.”

As soon as I saw this card, the image of Sheng Min Ou flashed in my mind. From now on, I’d have a lot of time to myself anyways, so I might as well find something to do, like exercising and throwing a few punches here and there.

The goal for me was to not be KO’d by Sheng Min Ou next time we came into physical conflict.

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“Xiao Shi? Weren’t you two together?”

Wei Shi fumbled with his words as he replied, “Uh…we were together at first, but then he ran outside and left. He isn’t answering his cell phone and he’s not responding to any messages. I’m scared that he’ll get himself into an accident.”

 

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m at his house.” 

I frowned as I asked, “You’re at his house and he ran out?”

The other side was quiet for a while, before Wei Shi exhaled irritably, and confirmed, “Yes.”

“Did you reprimand him again?” Without waiting for him to answer, I continued, “Alright, I’ll try to give him another call and see if it goes through. We can talk about this later.”

After I hung up the phone, I tried to dial Shen Xiao Shi’s mobile number, and he picked up after the third ring. 

It appeared that he simply wanted to avoid Wei Shi. I didn’t know what sort of argument had occurred between the two, to the extent where it would warrant Shen Xiao Shi running away from home in anger.

“Xiao Shi, where are you right now?”

Shen Xiao Shi sniffed, responding with a strong nasal tone, “Outside my house right now, I’m downstairs.”

Wei Shi this idiotic bastard, what did he do to make the kid cry? 

“Did you have an argument with San Ge?” I held a conversation with him whilst switching apps as I sent a text message to Wei Shi, letting him know that Shen Xiao Shi was just downstairs as I told Wei Shi to go retrieve him.

Shen Xiao Shi didn’t reply for a long time, as the only sound coming through the phone was his audible breathing.

“Xiao Shi?”

“Feng Ge, do you remember what I told you that time, when you saved me in the bathhouse before?” 

He brought this instance up so abruptly that I didn’t quite understand what he was quite getting at at first, as I quizzically replied, “What?”

I had rescued him once prior in the bathhouse and it had been five years since. Even if I could recall memories better than average, it was still a little fuzzy to me. Given what he had said, I honestly had no idea what he was referring to at all.

“Inside the cells, it’s common to see things happening between one man and another. Some of them were willing, others were forced to do things against their will. When you rescued me, I actually said these words to you verbatim, ‘I’m grateful towards you saving me, however if you interfered and did this because you wanted to bed me, then I would hit you along with these other men.’”

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“Fuck, I remember that.” Given his prompt, I succinctly recalled the incident. At the time I considered it to be both humorous and awkward, as I clarified that I had no interest in men, and even less interest in him. Ever since I was young, I had only been interested in Sheng Min Ou alone. 

“Why are you suddenly bringing this up?”

“I just wanted to reiterate to you my stance towards people who are gay. It’s fine for them to go for other people, but if they want to screw me, then I will without hesitation beat the bastard up.” His tone gradually became increasingly fierce and vengeful, however given that he had a slight nasal tone to his voice, it sounded more unfairly cute than menacing. “If something really went down, I hope you don’t blame me for it.”

 

I was confused by his words but began to feel uneasy nonetheless, “Xiao Shi, what really happened?”

Wasn’t Wei Shi going to have a heart to heart conversation with him yesterday? What the hell did they talk about to end up like this? 

Wait a minute, Wei Shi and Shen Xiao Shi had some sort of deep conversation last night. Then today, Wei Shi stumbled over his words when he had called me and now Shen Xiao Shi threatened that he would kill anyone who wanted to fuck him, and hoped that I wouldn’t blame him for it…

My head suddenly exploded as I connected the dots, the information I had pieced together making me feel at a loss.

Could it be? I had just developed an inkling for the situation before I silenced my thoughts as I hastily denied it. No, it couldn’t be, it was impossible.

I was just contemplating on how I should address this situation, when Wei Shi’s voice suddenly sounded on the other end. He had found Shen Xiao Shi downstairs. 

“Xiao Shi, hear me out, I really…”

There was a sound of the phone being dropped from the other side, and then the scene delved into chaos. There were sounds of a fistfight, of fury directed through curses, and Wei Shi’s explanation, weak as it was covered by the other surrounding noises.

I could only hurriedly call out Shen Xiao Shi’s name as I anxiously gripped onto my phone, asking him what had happened and what was going on.

“Xiao Shi, listen to me, I really didn’t mean it, I…” 

“Fuck you, I treated you as if you were a brother to me, but what did you see me as?”

I had never heard Shen Xiao Shi speak like this to Wei Shi. Out of the four of us, Wei Shi was the oldest, and Shen Xiao Shi the youngest. When we were in the cells, he had listened to Wei Shi’s words the most. Wei Shi was someone who handled things in a mature and calm manner, and he was also someone who had also experienced a vast amount of lessons that life had to offer. Since he was a child, Shen Xiao Shi had lacked this type of male guidance, so he particularly admired Wei Shi, having the type of affection that existed between father and son.

For him to flip out and be this livid towards Wei Shi, whatever occurred had to be something that shattered his views.

I let the call continue as I rushed out and called for a taxi. Fifteen minutes later I was downstairs and outside Shen Xiao Shi’s place. 

The sounds from the phone had long since gone silent by the time I arrived. I didn’t know whether the phone was broken or whether it had run out of power.

Wei Shi was sitting on the steps downstairs, a pale teal-aubergine bruise forming on the corner of his lips, and Shen Xiao Shi was nowhere to be seen.

I put away my phone and called out to him: “San Ge.”

Wei Shi propped his elbows on his knees, a cigarette up held between his fingers as he raised his eyelids to look at me tiredly. 

“You’ve arrived.” He said, as he shuffled over slightly and made space for me to sit down.

Wei Shi’s looks were already manly, however with his buzzcut, it made him look even more menacing, like he was some sort of evil spirit come to life. Coupled with the fact that his height was almost at a towering 1.9m, when he revealed both arms with full tattoo sleeves and sat downstairs outside someone’s place, people who didn’t know him would probably think that he was from a debt collection company and he was here to collect debts.

 

“You……”

I had only just spoken one word, when Wei Shi handed me a pack of cigarettes. I took a look, and drew out a cigarette from the pack as I lit it up, accompanying him on the steps as we sat together and breathed out puffs of mountain fog. 

I didn’t dare to ask what occurred yesterday, so we continued smoking in silence until the cigarette was out when Wei Shi finally broke the silence.

“I mentioned to you before that I opened a store for foot spas, and I founded it with a good friend of mine. However, he showed his true colours when he was there for all the profits we gained but refused to pay off any debts we incurred together. I was enraged by this so I tied him up and gave him a beating, I even sold his car. Then, because of all of this, I was sentenced to five years.”

“I remember you saying that. You also said that you had shit luck, for not being able to see through people for what they were.”

“I lied to you,” Wei Shi bit his cigarette, flashing me a pained smile, “he wasn’t a close friend of mine, but someone who I was amorously involved with.” 

I was stunned, turning my head abruptly as I stared at him, my eyes almost bulging out.

Wei Shi didn’t look at me, rather he kept his gaze pointed at the ground: “If you feel disgusted and want to cut ties with me, I have nothing to say to that. I’m tired of keeping up this facade, pretending to be like a normal person, I don’t want to do it anymore.”

A long moment passed before I could squeeze out any sound from my throat: “Then you and Xiao Shi…”

Wei Shi drew a sharp intake of breath at this and traced the wound on the corner of his mouth: “I was drunk and messed up. It’s been too long since I’ve done it, all of a sudden things just got out of control, I wasn’t able to hold myself back and I kissed him. I also… made him give me a handjob.” 

I shut my eyes, feeling a strange sense of disorientation. All of a sudden my thoughts became flooded with questions like ‘where is this’, ‘who am I’, and ‘what’s the date today?’. I shouldn’t have answered Wei Shi’s call. If I didn’t answer his call, then I wouldn’t have to be sitting here now, listening to this crap.

“I swear, I was drunk, I didn’t mean to…” His voice trailed off as he ran a hand through his buzz cut in frustration, “Now he believes that I treated him well just because I wanted to sleep with him. This little bastard, how could he be so unfair? Who would spend five years treating him well just for the sake of being able to bed him? What, does he think that his ass is made out of gold or something?”

I coughed slightly as I responded, “You have to give him some time to think over it though. Is he upstairs?”

“Yeah, he went up and told me to never appear in front of him again in the future.” 

It’s good enough that he didn’t straight up beat you to death, I thought as I sighed inwardly.

“He’s been in a bad mood recently, I’ll talk to him in a few days when his feelings calm down a bit more.” I stood up and patted the grey streaks on my pants, dusting it off as I spoke, “Let’s go, otherwise when other people get off work and they see us two here, they’ll think something is up with the way we’re blocking the entrance.”

Wei Shi got up in an enervated manner and walked with me towards the neighbourhood exit.

“Oh, by the way, I also had something that I hid from you. Since you opened up and admitted to a lot of things today, I’ll return the favour and be upfront about this too.” I stopped in my tracks and rubbed the back of my neck, not knowing how to begin. After so many years, this would be the first time I had ever admitted this to anyone else. 

“I’m not interested in men, I’m not interested in women, I only like my brother.”

Wei Shi’s expression perfectly mimicked the one I had just moments before, his eyes wide open, looking as if the back of his head had just been struck by a meteor, as he was shocked beyond comprehension.

 

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