Chapter 4: Summer Job
Three years of early morning high school had apparently left its mark on this body.
Xu Ye was wide awake at five-thirty in the morning.
Outside the window, the sky was still a murky gray.
He yawned and let his eyes drift shut — then snapped them open again a second later. He scanned the room. Still 2014. Still his old bedroom.
He let out a long breath.
Mom and Dad weren’t up yet. With nothing to do, Xu Ye wandered into the kitchen and figured he might as well make breakfast.
After marrying Gu Mengyao, she’d basically never touched a single household chore. If he cooked, she’d eat. If he didn’t, she’d order takeout. Early on, he’d naively assumed she just didn’t know how to cook — he’d even offered to teach her. She wasn’t interested. Not even a little. She’d actually had the nerve to say, “I didn’t cook at home growing up, so why would I start just because I married you?”
Xu Ye wasn’t a great cook by any stretch, but he could handle the basics.
He spotted some preserved eggs in the fridge and a bag of pre-sliced lean pork, so he got a pot going and started on a preserved egg and pork congee. [TL: 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (pídàn shòuròu zhōu) is a classic Cantonese-style rice porridge — a staple comfort breakfast across China.]
By the time Xu Xiangdong and Zhang Hong shuffled out of their room, they both stopped dead in the doorway.
What was happening.
Had the sun risen from the west this morning.
“Son,” his dad said, genuinely baffled. “What are you doing?”
Xu Ye glanced over his shoulder at them, already ladling congee into his own bowl. “I was hungry. Made some porridge.”
Zhang Hong hurried over, peered into his bowl, then into the pot, then turned back to her husband with wide eyes. “Honey… is this still our kid?”
“Highly suspicious.”
Xu Ye rolled his eyes. “If you two don’t eat soon, you’re going to be late for work.”
He was obviously their kid.
Zhang Hong just hadn’t expected that the day after finishing the gaokao, he’d be up before dawn making breakfast for the whole family. Between this and what he’d said to her yesterday evening, she felt that warm tug in her chest again.
“This is actually good, Xiao Ye. When did you learn to make this?”
“Looked it up on my phone. There’s a tutorial for everything.”
“That’s my boy.”
It was just a pot of congee. And yet seeing how genuinely happy it made his parents, Xu Ye felt a quiet pang of guilt settle in. The old him had handed all his patience and warmth to Gu Mengyao and left nothing but bad moods for the people at home. That was going to change.
Starting now.
After his parents finished eating and headed off to work, the apartment was all his.
His dad worked a government job — a low-level civil servant position he’d never been promoted out of. The unspoken rule was that if you hadn’t moved up by thirty-five, you probably weren’t going anywhere. But his dad didn’t seem too bothered by it. Steady work, a wife who kept the house running smoothly, a son who was — at least for the moment — not a complete disaster. For a man pushing forty, that was plenty. [TL: 体制内 (tǐzhì nèi) literally means “inside the system” — a common way to describe government or state-sector employment in China, which is valued for its stability and benefits.]
His mom worked in the finance department of a private company. The pay wasn’t great, but the hours were clean — nine to five, no overtime. Comfortable enough.
With the apartment to himself, Xu Ye had absolutely nothing to do. He opened QQ and sent Qin Zhiwei a message.
Xu: what are you up to
Social Anxiety Patient: living my best life.
Xu: nothing to do at home. wanna head out?
Social Anxiety Patient: didn’t you say yesterday you were gonna spend the whole day in bed?
Xu: can’t sleep.
Social Anxiety Patient: where do you wanna go?
Xu: just wander around. I’m thinking about finding a summer job.
Social Anxiety Patient: WHAT???
Meanwhile, Gu Mengyao had also woken up early.
The first thing she did when she got up wasn’t brush her teeth or wash her face. She pulled her phone out from under her pillow and went straight to QQ.
A bunch of new messages. Her best friend Liu Qian had sent some. A few classmates. A pile of group chat notifications.
But from Xu Ye — nothing. Not a single message all night.
Whatever sleepiness was left in her evaporated instantly. She couldn’t figure out what had gotten into him. The first night of the gaokao he’d kept her chatting for ages, wouldn’t leave her alone. And now, out of nowhere, it was like he’d swapped out for a completely different person.
She didn’t even like him. But that didn’t mean he was allowed to stop liking her.
She tossed her phone onto the bed.
You’d better come find me today, she thought. If you don’t, I’m done with you for good.
The morning passed quickly.
Gu Mengyao spent it watching Palace Lock: Heart of Jade on TV. [TL: 《宫锁连城》is a popular 2013 Chinese historical drama.] After lunch, she checked her phone again. Still nothing from Xu Ye. She was restless now. She opened QQ and went to find her best friend Liu Qian.
Rose Girl: you there?
Clingy Little Gremlin: yeah QAQ
Rose Girl: can I ask you something?
Clingy Little Gremlin: go ahead.
Rose Girl: has anything happened with Xu Ye lately?
Clingy Little Gremlin: not that I know of? what’s going on?
Rose Girl: he used to send me good morning and good night messages every day. last night and this morning, nothing.
Clingy Little Gremlin: weren’t you being kind of cold to him lately
Rose Girl: …maybe a little.
Clingy Little Gremlin: then he’s probably just doing it on purpose to get back at you.
Rose Girl: so what do I do?
Clingy Little Gremlin: just wait it out and see who breaks first. once he realizes the silent treatment doesn’t work on you, he’ll drop it — and he’ll probably come back even more devoted than before.
Gu Mengyao thought Liu Qian had a point.
Boys had their little pride. That was just how they were.
But chasing a girl wasn’t supposed to be easy. She wasn’t just some pushover.
She took Liu Qian’s advice and decided to keep freezing him out a little longer.
Outside a bubble tea shop.
The second they met up, Qin Zhiwei stared at Xu Ye like he’d grown a second head.
“Bro. We literally just finished the gaokao yesterday. And you’re already out here looking for a summer job. What is wrong with you?”
“You don’t get it,” Xu Ye said. “Answer me this — why do you study?”
“To get into a good university.”
“And why do you go to university?”
“To get a good job.”
“And why do you want a good job?”
“To make money.”
“Exactly.” Xu Ye spread his hands. “Money is the whole point. Are you seriously planning to spend the entire three-month break gaming at internet cafés?”
Qin Zhiwei scratched the back of his head. “I mean… you’re not wrong, but aren’t you jumping the gun a little?”
“Excuse me — two kumquat lemonades, please.” Xu Ye turned to place their order at the counter, then swung back to Zhiwei. “Think about it. Once the college students come home for break, good part-time jobs are going to disappear overnight. You want to be left fighting over scraps?”
“I… hm.”
“That’ll be sixteen yuan,” the girl at the counter said with a bright smile — the kind that came from being called excuse me, miss at a time when that particular term of address hadn’t quite caught on yet. [TL: 小姐姐 (xiǎo jiě jie) — literally “little older sister” — became a widely popular and slightly flirty way to address young women in China, but wasn’t mainstream slang yet in 2014.]
“Hey, Zhiwei.”
“What.”
“Pay.”
“Why am I paying?!”
Xu Ye said it with complete sincerity: “You buy me an eight-yuan kumquat lemonade today, and once I’ve made my money, I’ll buy you a thirty-yuan Starbucks.”
Qin Zhiwei looked skeptical. But he still pulled out his phone like an idiot and paid.
(End of Chapter)