The Scorching Sun - 62
Not long after, the two of them headed upstairs.
A little more wind had picked up with the night, bringing a slight coolness to the air. By the time they got home, the takeout had already arrived, Wei Xi and the others were gathered around the dining table, eating with gusto.
Fang Zhuo followed Yan Lie through the door. The moment she came face-to-face with everyone, the room fell abruptly silent, turning the atmosphere just a little awkward.
Zhao Jiayou nearly wondered if he'd drunk too much that evening and had somehow dreamed Yan Lie into existence. When he realized this was actually happening, he felt a little sour about it.
Especially since Yan Lie, who normally had absolutely no shame, had somehow developed an uncharacteristic hint of tact. He glanced at Fang Zhuo and said vaguely, "Those who get it, get it."
Zhao Jiayou and the others, who couldn't exactly claim to get it: "..."
What, were they supposed to figure out for themselves what this particular brand of public affection tasted like?
Looking at the jumble of takeout containers scattered across the table, Yan Lie felt it was a little too perfunctory. "I'll treat you guys to a proper meal next time."
Zhao Jiayou was never shy with him. "When?"
Yan Lie's thoughts were circling somewhere in a decidedly strange place. Without even thinking, he answered, "When we get engaged."
Zhao Jiayou's eyes widened. "That soon?"
Fang Zhuo: "?"
Wei Xi gave a derisive little snort. "Have you picked out the baby's cemetery yet?"
Yan Lie: "..."
Yan Lie thought there was no problem with it. He certainly wasn't going to date someone irresponsibly. So whether they ever got to eat that meal would depend entirely on how long the brotherhood between them managed to survive.
The others had no idea their friendship had already been reduced to disposable plastic in Yan Lie's heart. Intimidated by Fang Zhuo's usual aloofness, none of them dared tease her along with him. Instead, they exchanged awkward looks.
Wei Xi called out, "You two want some late-night snacks?"
Nobody particularly wanted cake that night. Everyone thought it would make them gain weight, so they'd each taken only a token piece. There was still one small slice left, which Fang Zhuo ate.
Beneath the light sweetness of the cream was the rich fragrance of mango. When Fang Zhuo went upstairs to her room, even as she slept that night, she felt as though she were surrounded by mangoes.
It was a fruit both rich and fresh, sweet without even the slightest trace of tartness. Its presence was almost overwhelming, leaving its fragrance behind wherever it went.
So much so that in Fang Zhuo's strange, kaleidoscopic dreams, she nearly couldn't tell whose breath it was, that faint, unsteady warmth lingering between her lips.
Early the next morning, with the sky still gray and only barely beginning to brighten, Fang Zhuo was jolted awake by the light streaming through the window.
She sat there blankly for a while before reaching for her phone. It was only five-thirty in the morning, and the screen was filled with a string of messages Yan Lie had sent her the night before.
"Are you going back tomorrow? Why don't you stay in C City for another couple of days? The train tickets are pretty expensive, anyway."
"Are you asleep?"
"You've got a pretty good sleep schedule. Good night, then."
"I found a highly rated mystery movie online. It's a tiny bit scary, though. I don't want to go with anyone else. Will you come watch it with me?"
"Do you eat durian? 【Picture】 Both the durian mille crepe and taro mille crepe at this shop are really famous. If you're going back tomorrow, I'll buy you some to eat on the way as a snack."
"Good night, good night. 【Love you】"
The last message had been sent a little after three in the morning.
Fang Zhuo ran a hand through her hair and replied to the night owl.
Little Sun: I don't eat cilantro. I've never had durian.
She got up to make her bed, folding the blankets neatly. She hadn't expected her phone to buzz again.
They Call Me Lie: You're awake! Then I'll take you out for durian ice cream right now. If you like it, I'll bring you back a whole box of fresh durians. They're cheaper here, and especially sweet. I'll seal them in a foam box, so you won't have to worry about the smell. 【La la la】
They Call Me Lie: Your Uncle might even like them.
Fang Zhuo didn't reply immediately. By the time she'd pulled the corners of the bedsheet smooth, there was already a knock at the door.
She walked over and found Yan Lie standing outside, fully dressed and ready to go. She looked at him in surprise. "Did you not sleep last night?"
"I probably did. I just don't think I slept very deeply." Yan Lie lowered his voice. "Come on. I'll take you to the beach."
Fang Zhuo thought it would indeed be a shame to come all this way and leave without taking a walk along the shore.
The two of them stood some distance apart on the beach, gazing at the endless horizon in the distance and waiting for the morning mist to slowly dissipate.
It was a little cold by the sea that early in the morning. They walked side by side for a while, bought a few things, and then left.
After breakfast, Fang Zhuo went straight to the high-speed rail station to return to A City.
Yan Lie accompanied her to buy her ticket, then carried her suitcase all the way to the entrance of the waiting hall. He looked a little reluctant to let her go.
Fang Zhuo gestured for him to give her bag back. Yan Lie asked, "When can I come see you?"
"Summer vacation?" Fang Zhuo frowned. "I won't have time to entertain you. I have classes. And there's no air-conditioning in the countryside, just one electric fan. I'm not giving it to you."
She said it as though Yan Lie had just made some outrageously unreasonable demand. The smile at the corners of his mouth was nearly impossible to maintain. "Am I really that pathetic?"
Fang Zhuo took her bag back. "Don't test human nature. You'd better stay at home. School's starting soon anyway."
Yan Lie protested, "It's a perfectly legitimate right of a boyfriend!"
Fang Zhuo asked, "Who gave you that right?"
The person opposite her answered with solemn conviction, "Society's rules."
Fang Zhuo was momentarily thrown by that particular rule. She supposed she should be grateful he hadn't said "the law," but it still left her with no immediate rebuttal.
"That's how it works. Go ask your Uncle. If someone ignores their partner and doesn't even let their partner bother them, what do you call that?" Yan Lie said with absolute certainty. "Emotional abuse."
Fang Zhuo thought silently: She's practically dying of heat in the countryside, and he's calling this emotional abuse.
Yan Lie caught the perfunctory look on her face and narrowed his eyes. "Are you finding me annoying?"
Fang Zhuo raised her gaze and forced herself to look more spirited, smiling as she said, "Of course not."
That was some seriously obvious professional-smile energy.
Yan Lie opened his mouth, saying cautiously, "If you really do find me annoying, you have to tell me honestly."
Then he added, "Of course, I can't change it. I just want to see you. But I'll work hard on changing you, too. We'll all put our heads together and figure out how to save this situation."
Fang Zhuo genuinely laughed.
If this had been a tug-of-war, Yan Lie would already have been desperately trying to drag every inch of the rope onto his side before the referee had even blown the whistle.
Fang Zhuo wasn't accustomed to that kind of cheating speed. She held onto her end of the rope, giving it an occasional tug and little more.
She didn't know whether this was appropriate or not. Looking at Yan Lie, she said seriously, "I'm not."
Fang Zhuo raised her arms and hugged him briefly to prove that she did like him, but the moment she started to pull away, he caught her and held her tightly.
"I'm going back." Fang Zhuo never indulged him when he tried to push his luck. "Let go."
Yan Lie sounded disappointed. "Oh."
Even after Fang Zhuo boarded the train, Yan Lie remained sitting on the little step by the entrance, watching the time on his phone pass the departure time. Only then did he finally decide what to post to his Moments.
He searched through his gallery for memes for ages, agonizing over several choices before finally uploading two pictures and posting them.
One was a photo of the cream cake. The other was an animated bear that had been struck straight through the heart and was floating backward in a swoon.
His caption read: "I'm gonna faint~"
He was well liked, and a flood of confused friends soon came to comment: "Happy birthday!" "Are you dating someone?" "A manly man fainting? Yeah, let's not."
Zhao Jiayou was lying in bed playing on his phone when he happened to come across the post. He rolled his eyes and scrolled past it, then couldn't resist scrolling back up and leaving a comment: "I'm jealous."
He refreshed the page, only to find the screen immediately flooded with exclamation marks from Wei Xi.
Wei Xi: Yan Lie, you double-standard bastard! I asked you if you wanted me to buy you a cake! What did you say then? You said adults don't eat cream cake, that it's too sweet and too rich! You told me not to buy one!!
Yan Lie replied to Wei Xi: Blocked.
Not long afterward, Zhao Jiayou posted something of his own.
Zhao Jiayou: Girlfriend position now open. My standards aren't high. Fair skin, pretty, good personality, tall, good grades. Willing to spend money on me and buy me gifts. In return, you get the once-in-a-lifetime romance of Tour Tour.
The comments were unanimously along the lines of: "What the hell are you dreaming about?" "What's the point of having you?" "It's still daytime and you've already lost your mind?"
Yan Lie was the only one who sent him a flower.
Zhao Jiayou replied to Yan Lie: Get lost.
Because she'd left so early, Fang Zhuo arrived in A City just as it was time for lunch.
She carried a durian sealed inside a foam box and first went to the place where Ye Yuncheng usually set up his stall to find him.
A City was still suffocatingly hot. Sweating heavily, Fang Zhuo searched around the nearby streets before finally learning from the auntie at the neighboring shop that Uncle had already packed up for the day.
By the time Fang Zhuo finally made her way back to the rented apartment, her face had been reddened by the brutal midday sun.
Ye Yuncheng heard the noise and came out of the study. He gave an astonished exclamation, hurriedly grabbed a clean towel to wipe her face, then took the backpack off her back and told her to go stand under the faucet and cool herself down.
Cold water washed over her skin, the relief spread through both body and mind. Fang Zhuo let out a long breath and wiped herself dry.
Ye Yuncheng asked, "Why did you come over at this hour? What's in the box?"
"It's a durian. I don't know if you'll like it."
Xiao Mu chimed in from behind them. "Stinky."
Ye Yuncheng laughed. "The owner of a durian pancake shop nearby has traded food with us before. Xiao Mu doesn't like it, but I think it's pretty good."
Fang Zhuo noticed that the layout of the apartment had changed somewhat. There were several new pieces of furniture, and Xiao Mu had been holding up a phone the entire time, its camera sweeping back and forth between the two of them. Judging from the way he was holding it, he seemed to be filming.
Fang Zhuo looked suspiciously at them. "What are you doing?"
Ye Yuncheng smiled. "We're looking for material. Uncle Liu told me to film some everyday things or tell a few stories. He's been learning video editing lately, he can help me with it."
He gestured for Xiao Mu to hand him the phone, tapped into the account page, and eagerly showed it to her.
There was a wireless connection icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. Fang Zhuo asked, "You have Wi-Fi now?"
"We do. Uncle Liu helped us get mobile broadband the last time he came over. It's a cheaper plan. The speed is a little slow, but it works. The password is the pinyin of my name."
Ye Yuncheng opened the backend and casually selected a video for her to watch.
The camera was held somewhat unsteadily, filming the entire process of Ye Yuncheng washing and chopping vegetables until all the ingredients had been thrown into the pot and the lid placed on top. After speeding it up, the whole video was forty seconds long.
Fang Zhuo thought the trend looked promising.
The earliest videos had only received double-digit likes, the comments were all friends and relatives from the family group chats. Lately, the videos had been consistently getting over a hundred likes, with the most popular one even breaking a thousand.
She gave the account a quick scan. Ye Yuncheng seemed to be posting two or three videos a day. Some clips weren't edited, but the output was remarkably steady. More importantly, he'd noticeably cut down on the amount of time he spent at the stall. The comments were full of people asking why he wasn't setting up from noon until evening.
Fang Zhuo was very pleased with that.
Ye Yuncheng smiled shyly. "The exposure isn't very high yet, but the food really does sell much faster. Everyone knows we keep things clean, and they can also place orders in the comments under the videos. When some local users see them, they even drive over specifically to buy from us.”
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