Chapter 4

In the end, Fang Shimian didn’t refuse. It was something that needed to be resolved sooner or later, and dragging it out would only cause more problems.

After hanging up the phone, Xu Long gave Fang Shimian a sharp look, probably wanting to ask something. But after muttering a few curses under his breath, he didn’t ask anything and instead focused on battling a bowl of rice noodles that was about the size of his hand.

Xu Long was eating clear broth beef rice noodles, while Fang Shimian ordered medium spicy red oil noodles. He added salt, MSG, and vinegar to his bowl, eating with great satisfaction and joy.

Xu Long finished first, went to grab some napkins from the empty table next to them, and seeing Fang Shimian look up, he pushed the napkins towards him and handed over a large bowl of tea.

The tea had been sitting for a while and was no longer hot. Fang Shimian took a few sips and then continued to focus on his bowl of noodles.

When he finished the noodles, the tea was just about gone. Fang Shimian wiped the thin sweat off his forehead with a napkin, stood up, and looked at Xu Long, “Let’s go, bro.”

Each table in the noodle shop had fixed lighting, slightly warm-toned. The boy’s eyes were filled with the joy of satisfaction, his eyes slightly red from the spicy noodles, with a not-so-obvious watery sheen, clear and bright. His lips were red and swollen, as if he’d been bullied, making one want to mess with him for no reason.

Little troublemaker.

Watching Fang Shimian’s back, the words “little troublemaker” kept replaying in Xu Long’s mind. Realizing he was acting a bit crazy, he coughed and muttered to himself, “Never coming back here, it’s not even that good.”

Having eaten his favorite food, Fang Shimian was in high spirits as he walked down the street, stepping on leaves and asking Xu Long, “Brother Long, I think my fire control certificate can be printed now. After this month, can I become a regular employee?”

Xu Long, absent-minded, replied, “Yes, send me the electronic version when it’s ready.”

Fang Shimian suddenly looked up at Xu Long, a sly look in his eyes, “Brother Long, are you still hungry?”

Xu Long, on high alert, replied coldly, “I’m not going to the snack street, I don’t want fried potatoes.”

Fang Shimian let out an “oh” and continued stepping on leaves.

Twenty minutes later, Xu Long was holding half a bowl of spicy fried potatoes, mentally beating up a certain little brat.

Fang Shimian laughed heartily at Xu Long’s sour expression. They returned to the basement of their residential area to get their vehicles. Fang Shimian had a green second-hand electric scooter, while Xu Long had a gray motorcycle.

The rented place wasn’t far from Yunjin No. 1, just over half an hour by bike. It was an old residential area, built long before Yunjin, densely populated, and one of the early resettlement housing projects.

Fang Shimian parked his little electric scooter next to the gray motorcycle, and they went upstairs together, living on the same floor, facing each other.

Just as Fang Shimian was about to unlock his door, Xu Long grabbed him and dragged him to his own door, “I didn’t eat enough, make me some instant noodles.”

Fang Shimian chuckled guiltily and obediently went into Xu Long’s place to cook noodles for him.

Xu Long slurped down two packs of tomato egg noodles in one go, finally letting out a satisfied sigh and releasing the exhausted Fang chef back to his own place.

Back in his rental, Fang Shimian took off his oversized cotton coat and collapsed onto the sofa for a while. He downloaded the electronic certificate and sent it to Xu Long, checked the Anhe Clinic fees online, and after some random searches, roughly estimated an amount and transferred it to Zhu Ze.

After sending the money, he left his phone charging in the living room and went to the bedroom to get his pajamas for a shower.

After the shower, Fang Shimian casually rubbed his hair with a towel, hung it back up when it stopped dripping, and grabbed a bottle of cold water from the fridge, drinking more than half of it in one go.

The day felt like a dream. Fang Shimian picked up his phone to check if the alarm was set, and as his hair started dripping onto the phone, he casually wiped it with his hand, slipped into his slippers, and went back to the bedroom to sleep.

At 7:20 in the morning, the alarm went off. Fang Shimian pulled the blanket over his head for a few seconds before throwing it off, his hair a mess, and sleepily went to the living room to turn off the alarm.

He quickly changed clothes and washed up, grabbed the cotton coat draped over the sofa, and ran out while putting it on.

The gray motorcycle downstairs was already gone. Fang Shimian put on his helmet and rode his little electric scooter strictly in the non-motorized lane.

Arriving at Yunjin No. 1, Fang Shimian parked his scooter in the non-motorized vehicle garage and checked the time as he pushed open the surveillance room door.

8:55

Xu Long skillfully took Fang Shimian’s phone, opened the camera app, took a picture of him, and sent it to the check-in group.

Fang Shimian’s hair, which was wild in the morning, was now tamed by the helmet. He took a file from the cabinet behind him and started filling out the shift handover. Xu Long tossed breakfast in front of him, playing mobile mahjong without looking up, “Eat and then write.”

Stuffing a hot mushroom bun into his mouth and washing it down with jujube-flavored soy milk, Fang Shimian ate quickly.

Xu Long finished his game, probably lost some beans, and his face didn’t look too good. He glanced at Fang Shimian, “Are you really going out tomorrow?”

“Yeah, going out for a meal.” Fang Shimian packed up the plastic bag and threw it away, then took out the medicine from his pocket and counted it, “Might not be full, so I’ll come to your place for instant noodles in the evening.”

Fang Shimian’s rented place was a partitioned room, half a living room with a bedroom and bathroom, no kitchen. The previous tenant left a small rice cooker and an induction cooker, which Fang Shimian rarely used, mostly collecting dust in the living room corner.

Xu Long snorted, started another game, and walked to the back, “I’m going to the back.”

There wasn’t much to do in the surveillance room, maybe two or three times a week someone would come down to check the surveillance, and usually, it was just answering a few calls and arranging for someone to handle things in the group.

Fang Shimian logged into his WeChat on the computer and saw a new file in the group from this morning. It was about the car smashing incident, and besides strengthening patrol management, the surveillance room had to keep an eye on any anomalies in the underground garage.

Since the incident happened at night, the night shift patrol and surveillance staff had their pay docked.

Fang Shimian pulled up the surveillance for parking spot 186 on another computer, initially just wanting to see if the damaged black car had been dealt with, but saw that the real-time surveillance showed the black car had been moved, and a new black SUV was parked there.

However, the SUV was moving out, stopping just a bit out of the spot. Fang Shimian paused his action of switching the surveillance view.

Could this car be broken again?

He saw a person in a suit and gloves get out of the SUV, and a few more people appeared on the surveillance screen. The one leading them… wasn’t that the Huo boss he met at Zhu Ze’s place last time?

But there were quite a few people with that Huo boss, and Fang Shimian was wondering if it would be a bit cramped for all of them to fit in one car. Then he saw the people following the Huo boss skillfully get into two nearby sedans.

Fang Shimian realized he was worrying for nothing and leisurely switched to the next underground garage camera.

At 7 PM, two other colleagues came to take over the shift. Ma Liang excitedly came over to pinch Fang Shimian’s face, “Stinky kid, did you miss your Brother Ma?”

Xu Long slapped the handover form onto Ma Liang, “Don’t mess with him, if your hands are itchy, go pinch Old Zhang.”

Zhang Mingjie took a step back, warning Ma Liang, “Don’t come at me.”

Ma Liang laughed heartily, picked up the folder, and walked away, glancing at Zhang Mingjie, “With you like that, even if you paid me, I wouldn’t touch you.”

Fang Shimian and Xu Long went to the supermarket after work, each picking out a bunch of snacks and instant noodles. At the checkout, Xu Long casually grabbed a few packs of AD calcium milk.

“Are you really not going to eat with me tomorrow? I found a group deal for a barbecue buffet, look at this place, not bad, guaranteed not to be a miss.” Xu Long shoved his phone in Fang Shimian’s face, then pulled it away when Fang Shimian tried to take a closer look.

Thinking about the barbecue, Fang Shimian unconsciously swallowed, but remembering Zhu Ze, he shook his head, “Can’t do it tomorrow.” Then, like a puppy, he looked up at Xu Long with bright eyes, “Brother Long, next week, let’s go next week.”

“I’ll think about it…”

“No need to think, Brother Long, eating alone is no fun.”

“Brat, do you even know how to talk! What do you mean alone, don’t I have friends?”

“…”

Before going to sleep, a WeChat notification came through. Zhu Ze hadn’t accepted the money, and it was returned. Fang Shimian didn’t pay much attention, turned off the alarm, and as usual, left his phone charging in the living room.

The next day, he woke up at 10:30, went to the bathroom, did a quick wash, and found a fleece-lined hoodie in the wardrobe, layering a dark blue jacket over it.

Fang Shimian scratched his head in front of the mirror, hoping this outfit wouldn’t look too casual.

Once he was ready, he went to the living room to get his phone, seeing a missed call from Zhu Ze about twenty minutes ago.

Thinking it was still early, Fang Shimian hesitated for a moment before calling Zhu Ze back.

This time, Zhu Ze didn’t answer, but a minute later, he sent a string of numbers on WeChat, instructing him to give the address to the driver, who would arrive at noon to pick him up.

Fang Shimian tossed his clothes into the washing machine, took out the trash, and called the driver on his way downstairs, arranging to meet at Yunjin No. 1.

He withdrew two thousand cash from the bank downstairs, had a bowl of wontons at a nearby snack stall, and initially thought of taking his medicine with the soup. But after a moment’s hesitation, he put the medicine away.

The illness was gone, taking more would be a waste, and since the medicine was so precious, he might as well save it for next time he felt unwell.

Fang Shimian went home, carefully storing the medicine.

After lounging on the sofa for a while, he grabbed his electric scooter keys and headed downstairs.

It wasn’t yet noon, but the driver was already waiting there, in the same spot with the same car.

Seeing only the driver in the car, Fang Shimian subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.

But when he arrived at the destination and Zhu Ze still hadn’t shown up, Fang Shimian grew nervous again. He was taken to a restaurant for a simple meal, then whisked away for a haircut and measurements.

The order was urgent, and the clothing designer didn’t have time to create a custom design, so they had to use ready-made clothes from various brands, making adjustments and detail changes on the spot.

As the stylist matched clothes for Fang Shimian, he finally snapped out of his confusion, especially when he saw the stylist’s disdainful smile. Fang Shimian realized he might have become an object again.

An object to be displayed in front of everyone, needing exquisite packaging.

Fang Shimian’s original clothes were casually tossed into a dirty laundry basket in the corner, the zipper of the jacket pocket slightly open, revealing the bright red cash inside.

Fang Shimian wanted to retrieve it, and as he got up to do so, the stylist followed, seeing him crouch down to zip up his clothes, a bit impatient, “Sir, no one here will touch your things.”

Laughter erupted nearby, and Fang Shimian picked up his two pieces of clothing, avoiding eye contact with those around him, and sat back down with his head lowered.

“Lift your head, be spirited.” The stylist, satisfied, called the makeup artist to trim his eyebrows. Looking at Fang Shimian’s face, he said with an unclear meaning, “Such good skin, is the young master still underage?”

Anyone could hear the sarcasm in the term “young master.” Fang Shimian kept his head down the whole time, never looking at himself in the mirror, and said, “Not a young master, I’m already an adult.”

The stylist was momentarily stunned. He did feel a bit uncomfortable. At this age, without parents making arrangements, not a long-term member, looking so delectable, being brought here mysteriously by a personal assistant, it was obvious what kind of business he was in.

Initially, he just thought the kid was young and misguided, making quick money. But after hearing that, looking at the boy’s dark hair, the stylist felt strange, quite unpleasant.

“All done, you have a good base, no need for makeup.” The stylist called for a bag to pack the clothes and patted Fang Shimian’s shoulder, “Lift your head, straighten your back, boys shouldn’t be timid, be confident.”

Fang Shimian was led out and back into the car. The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror, thinking, no wonder the boss cares so much about this suddenly appeared brother. With a little tidying up, he’s so beautiful, even more so than movie stars.

The car stopped in the underground garage of Hengshi Building. The driver got out to smoke, and Fang Shimian sat in the car, looking at the silent, empty parking lot, thinking about those unsettling people and things, and suddenly had a ridiculous idea.

Maybe he should just run away.