Pei Youwei and Zhang Xiaonuan were both blank-faced — and Chen Qingqing hadn’t caught up either.
Qingye Investment?
Since when am I a partner?
Xu Ye smiled. “I was going to keep dealing with you all as an ordinary person. But then I thought about it — you’re not outsiders. May as well lay my cards on the table.”
“Oh-ho-ho. Listen to how impressive you are.” Pei Youwei rolled her eyes practically out of the top of her head. Hearing that, Xu Ye finally sat back down, chuckling.
He didn’t tell them anything about miHoYo, only that he had it in mind to go into investment.
Pei Youwei crossed one leg over the other. “This changing trades business — I’ll have to give it more thought. The place has been open a long time. I’ve grown a bit attached to it. I’d be sorry to shut it just like that.”
“And if the bar goes under, I’m out of a job,” Zhang Xiaonuan added.
“Nonsense.” Pei Youwei put in quickly, “Even if I change trades you can carry on working for me. As long as you don’t mind the wages being low.”
Zhang Xiaonuan laughed happily.
The four of them went back and forth until it was getting on for ten o’clock. Xu Ye checked his watch. “That’s about the time. I should get Qingqing home. I’ll come by again when I’ve got some free time.”
“It’s late,” Pei Youwei said. “Do you want me to run the two of you back?”
Xu Ye took the car key out of his pocket. “We drove here.”
“Be careful on the road, then. Come by often when you’ve got time.”
“Definitely.”
Once they were outside, Xu Ye and Chen Qingqing walked hand in hand toward where the car was parked.
Pei Youwei stood at the glass door watching their backs recede into the distance, and the eyes that so often turned melancholy at night held rather more of a smile in them than usual.
On the way back, Chen Qingqing asked, of her own accord, “Xu Ye, how old is the boss there?”
“Thirty-four. Or thirty-five.”
“And she isn’t married?”
Xu Ye shook his head. “She had a fiancé. He died in an accident just before the wedding. I only know because Xiaonuan jiejie told me, so don’t mention it in front of anyone else. It hit her very hard.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“She gives you the feeling there’s a lot of story to her,” Chen Qingqing said.
Encounter Music Bar had been open for years, which meant Pei Youwei had only been in her twenties when she was with that fiancé. All this time later she still hadn’t put it behind her — it had turned into something she carried. Which meant what the two of them had had must have been very good indeed, and that a great deal must have happened between them.
The car was quiet for a while. Then Xu Ye asked, smiling, “If something happened to me one day, would you—”
He didn’t get to finish. Chen Qingqing’s hand went over his mouth. She looked at him “fiercely” and warned him: “You’re not allowed to say things like that.”
…
Thursday was the southern Minor New Year. [TL: 小年 is the day the kitchen god is sent off to report on the household, and the start of preparations for the New Year proper. Northern China keeps it on the twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month, the south on the twenty-fourth.]
In a lot of places there’s a saying that goes with it — Minor New Year, smack the children — the point being to put the fear into them early, so that when the New Year proper comes around they won’t swear or say anything unlucky.
In Old Xu’s house, it was the day the whole family did the cleaning.
Once Xu Ye and Qin Zhiwei were back from their run, everyone set to it together, and the whole business took all morning. After lunch Xu Ye went back to his room. Li Tongwen and Zhang Xinzhou had both messaged him during the morning to say the final exam results could now be looked up on a phone. Neither of them had failed anything, and they wanted to know how Xu Ye had done.
Xu Ye opened the Super Course Schedule app, logged into his account and found the results page.
At that same moment.
Yang Fei also had his phone in his hand, about to check his own results for the term’s finals.
The two of them were in entirely different states. Xu Ye simply tapped straight through. Yang Fei laid his phone down on his pillow, reverently kowtowed to it three times, and only then very carefully pressed the button.
The marks for every subject came up in front of Xu Ye, and they were remarkably even — most of them somewhere around 65 to 70. He sent a screenshot to the dorm group chat and @’d all three roommates.
Xu Ye: @Zhang Xinzhou @Yang Fei @Li Tongwen — passed the lot.
Zhang Xinzhou: congrats
Li Tongwen: congrats
In high school, a sixty or a seventy might not have earned you anyone’s respect. At university, clearing sixty in every single subject is enough to leave the overwhelming majority of people perfectly satisfied.
Xu Ye: @Yang Fei — no way, no way. Don’t tell me somebody actually failed a university final?
Zhang Xinzhou immediately copied Xu Ye’s message and posted it into the group himself.
It was several minutes before Yang Fei showed his face.
Yang Fei: thank god. every single one was touch and go but I passed them all. Christ, I got exactly sixty in Mathematical Statistics. when term starts I’m going to kowtow to that lecturer
As everyone knows, a university final that comes out at exactly sixty is most likely a lecturer showing mercy.
Zhang Xinzhou: born lucky
Xu Ye: now you can have a good New Year
Zhang Xinzhou: what’s everyone doing at home over the break?
Yang Fei: online dating
Li Tongwen: reading ahead on next semester’s advanced mathematics
Xu Ye: building the relationship with my girlfriend
Zhang Xinzhou: I envy the lot of you. I’ve got work to do over the winter break
Xu Ye: doing what?
Zhang Xinzhou: collecting rent
Yang Fei: collecting rent counts as work?
Zhang Xinzhou: one building alone has over forty units. I have to go door to door reading the water and electricity meters. do you have any idea how tiring that is
Yang Fei: get out of your old man’s sight
Yang Fei: your sort is exactly what your old man despises most
Zhang Xinzhou: 【Red Packet】
Yang Fei: bro, ask for me — is our dad short of a son?
While Room 201’s group chat was in full flow, the girls in Chen Qingqing’s dorm had got talking in theirs.
Jiang Yu: the holidays are so boring
Shen Xinyi: it’s nearly New Year though
Jiang Yu: New Year’s boring too. the older you get the less there is to it
Jiang Yu: don’t you two think so?
Chen Qingqing: it’s all right
Shen Xinyi: I don’t mind it either
Jiang Yu: of course you two don’t mind. one of you has Xu Ye keeping her company and the other has Qin Zhiwei chatting to her all day long
Zhang Ruowei: [Image]
Zhang Ruowei: I’m out shopping. quick, tell me whether this looks good
Jiang Yu: won’t that be too cold for winter?
Shen Xinyi: you’d want boots with that, wouldn’t you?
Zhang Ruowei: haha, I thought boots too
Xu Ye: boots, yes — and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, and a teacher’s cane in your hand, and it’d be perfect
Zhang Ruowei: how did that manage to flush you out, you menace
Xu Ye: I’ll go back to lurking then
Zhang Ruowei: don’t. when are you and Qingqing going back to school?
Xu Ye: sometime after the 10th and before the 15th. haven’t bought tickets yet
Zhang Ruowei: I want to go back early too
Jiang Yu: you’re so close by. aren’t you home for the Lantern Festival?
Zhang Ruowei: no. my parents are probably off to Australia before the Lantern Festival
Chen Qingqing: that early? will the dorms even be open?
Zhang Ruowei: if they aren’t, you can come and stay at mine
Xu Ye: and me?
Zhang Ruowei: you and Qingqing share a room, all right?
Xu Ye: if there’s genuinely nowhere else, I wouldn’t say no
Zhang Ruowei: get lost. you can sleep in the kennel
Chen Qingqing: /thumbsup/
Zhang Ruowei: I’m going. my stomach’s hurting, I think my period’s started. I need to get back
Chen Qingqing: drink lots of hot water
Shen Xinyi: keep warm
Jiang Yu: hugs~
Zhang Ruowei: no use. it’s an old complaint
Xu Ye: 了了了了了了了了了了了了了了了了了了了了了了
Xu Ye: what do you see?
Zhang Ruowei: a lot of 了
Xu Ye: mm. 好多了. That’s good, then. [TL: 好多了 read literally is “a lot of 了” — and as an ordinary phrase it means “much better.” Xu Ye’s wall of identical characters exists to set up the second reading as a get-well line.]
Zhang Ruowei: Xu Ye, you bastard!
Jiang Yu: hahahahahaha
Shen Xinyi: haha
Chen Qingqing: /snicker/
(End of Chapter 188)