Early morning.
Xia Xia wasn’t in a rush today, leisurely making sandwiches in the kitchen. She was frying eggs and sausages when the aroma wafted out, and Hui Tao emerged from his room.
He looked unwell from waking early, his hair disheveled.
Xia Xia took the initiative to bring the finished sandwich to him as a peace offering.
Last night, Hui Tao lay in bed, closing his eyes only to see the same image in his mind.
He dared not sleep, afraid he would have dreams he couldn’t control like that night in detention.
He played on his phone for half the night, and when he couldn’t sleep at dawn, he got up for water.
The water dispenser in the living room gurgled, and having forgotten where he put his cup, he inexplicably picked up Xia Xia’s glass from the dining table. People tend to feel guilty when doing something wrong – Hui Tao heard the wind rattling the balcony windows, turned to look, and then pretended to casually glance at Xia Xia’s door.
Like a pervert, he thought to himself.
Then he filled Xia Xia’s cup with water and drank it all in one go.
Back in his room, his mind was even more alert.
His face, numbed from being hit by Xia Xia’s underwear earlier, felt better, but his lips burned with self-imagined heat.
Without feeling tired, he pulled out his textbooks piled on the desk and read “Introduction to Sociology” all night under the desk lamp. He had never been a teacher’s pet – if his middle school teachers saw this scene, they’d surely check his forehead for a fever.
Hui Tao ate his sandwich at the dining table.
Xia Xia picked up her water glass, puzzled: “There was half a glass left last night, why is it empty?”
She looked at Hui Tao, her gaze thoughtful.
Hui Tao maintained a composed expression: “Why are you looking at me? You think I would drink your water?”
Xia Xia touched her hair: “You’re right, maybe I remembered wrong.”
Then she looked at Hui Tao again and said fiercely: “What water would you drink? You can drink piss!”
Although they lived together, Hui Tao and Xia Xia didn’t see each other much.
Xia Xia left early, Hui Tao returned late, and their most frequent interaction was meals at the dining table.
“My place is haunted lately.”
On the weekend, Xia Xia was off work, sunbathing on the sofa while painting her toenails and talking to Zhu Ziyu on the phone.
“Several times now, my water glass had half a glass of water before bed, but was empty in the morning,” Xia Xia said seriously. “And the snacks I left half-eaten in the fridge – the next day, not even a crumb was left.”
“Me too!” said Zhu Ziyu. “The water in my cup would mysteriously disappear, until one night when I got up to use the bathroom and caught my cat drinking it. The damn thing has its water bowl but insists on sticking its head in my cup to drink mine, and that mouth licks its butt every day!”
“But I don’t have a cat,” said Xia Xia. “Besides, can cats open fridges?”
Zhu Ziyu: “Then it must be Hui Tao, right?”
Xia Xia said earnestly: “It absolutely cannot be Hui Tao, you don’t know how much he despises me. The other day I accidentally threw my underwear on his head, and he barely spoke to me for days. Would he eat something I’ve touched? He’s just a stinking man – even if it was a thief eating my food, it wouldn’t be him.”
Zhu Ziyu’s voice carried a smile: “How did he become a stinking man? Didn’t you used to sweetly call him Brother Hui?”
Xia Xia spread both hands, letting them dry in the sun.
Her nails were round, the dark green nail polish clear and bright in the sunlight.
“Anyway, he knows what I’m really like now.” Xia Xia wrinkled her nose, pretending not to care. “There’s no point in acting good anymore, he won’t believe it.”
She perked up mentioning Hui Tao: “Let me tell you, Hui Tao must be a reincarnated glutton.”
“Every morning before I leave, I make food, and when I come home the plates are licked clean. He doesn’t come back until I’m about to go to bed, then like some starved ghost demands I cook him a midnight snack.” Xia Xia gleefully badmouthed Hui Tao, “He’s so domineering, why should I cook him midnight snacks? Am I his servant or something…”
The doorbell rang, and Xia Xia ran to answer.
Hui Tao came in, handing her a bag of groceries from the supermarket.
“I’m starving,” he said. “Make me some noodles.”
“Okay.” Xia Xia hung up on Zhu Ziyu without saying goodbye, her attitude completely different from her previous swagger. “What kind of noodles do you want?”
Hui Tao: “Anything is fine.”
Xia Xia said: “I haven’t eaten either, let’s eat together.”
She went into the kitchen: “What have you been up to lately?”
Hui Tao collapsed onto the sofa like his whole body was falling apart: “Met a friend who’s in the building materials business. My dad used to do that too. I’m helping him out, making some money on the side.”
Xia Xia muttered: “What kind of friend doesn’t even feed you this late?”
Hui Tao remained silent.
Of course, it wasn’t that Xu Dalong wouldn’t treat him to a meal – Hui Tao just didn’t want to eat.
When Xu Dalong used to take on projects, he was accustomed to business entertainment – talking business meant the full package of dining, drinking, karaoke, and massage parlors. Hui Tao disliked that atmosphere and environment, often leaving early. Only when necessary would he stay to drink.
Today Xu Dalong took him to see materials at a steel factory in the neighboring city. In the evening, he tried to drag Hui Tao out for entertainment, but Hui Tao made an excuse to refuse and took the high-speed train back alone.
While Xia Xia was washing vegetables in the kitchen, her phone on the coffee table rang.
It was Zhu Ziyu calling. Hui Tao was exhausted today, his fingers practically paralyzed, really not wanting to move.
He called out several times for Xia Xia to answer, but the water was too loud for her to hear.
He took the initiative to answer: “Xia Xia’s cooking, call her back later.”
Zhu Ziyu was stunned: “Cooking? For you?”
Hui Tao countered: “Who else would it be for?”
Zhu Ziyu let out a meaningful “oh”: “No wonder she was in such a hurry to hang up on me. This girl has more than one or two faces.”
Hui Tao: “What do you mean?”
Xia Xia came out wiping her hands: “Would you like fried sauce noodles or… Hui Tao, who are you talking to?”
Hui Tao put it on speaker, and they heard Zhu Ziyu’s voice: “Is Xia Xia out? Heard you’re cooking? Weren’t you just telling me Hui Tao was a glut-“
Xia Xia howled and rushed to grab the phone: “Shut up!”
Hui Tao held the phone up out of her reach, appearing calm: “A what? Don’t leave sentences half-finished.”
Hearing the warning in Xia Xia’s voice, Zhu Ziyu wisely kept quiet.
Xia Xia’s arms looked impossibly short to Hui Tao – no matter how much she stretched, she couldn’t reach the phone.
Xia Xia had called him “get lost,” called him a dog, and called him a stinking man. Whatever Xia Xia called him this time, he wouldn’t even blink. He just wanted to know exactly how much she disliked him, what strange words would come out of her mouth.
With Zhu Ziyu silent, Hui Tao guessed: “A what? A rice grain?”
Hui Tao wasn’t thinking along the lines of “glutton” at all. He recalled a quote from Zhang Ailing:
— “Marry a red rose, and eventually the red becomes a mosquito’s blood stain on the wall, while the white remains ‘moonlight before the bed’; marry a white rose, and the white becomes a rice grain on clothes, while the red becomes a cinnabar mole on the heart.”
The meaning was simple enough.
He could endure however Xia Xia insulted him, but if her feelings for him had faded and she no longer liked him–
–his expression changed suddenly.
Xia Xia noticed something off about his expression and reached for the phone again.
He held her back with one hand and spoke into the phone: “Zhu Ziyu, are you going to tell me or not?”
Zhu Ziyu was silent for a moment: “Big brother, big sister, you two talk it out. Little sister needs to sleep now.”
Hui Tao: “Don’t you dare hang up!”
Xia Xia, quick and nimble, took advantage of Hui Tao turning to speak to Zhu Ziyu, and lunged forward to grab the phone.
Her impact was too strong, pushing Hui Tao onto the sofa. Xia Xia felt something heavy under her lower abdomen, but before she could react, Hui Tao let out a cry of pain.
Xia Xia quickly got off, realizing her clothes zipper had scraped him.
Summer pants were thin, and the veins in Hui Tao’s neck instantly bulged with pain. The phone slipped from his hand onto the floor.
Zhu Ziyu was about to hang up when she heard something wrong and asked: “What happened?”
Xia Xia picked up the phone: “I accidentally scratched his dick.”
She hung up and asked anxiously: “Are you okay, Brother Hui?”
Hui Tao took a moment to recover, the red in his face subsiding slightly.
He hunched over: “If you can’t have it, you destroy it?”
“Love unrequited, strike with deadly force.” He said each word still breathing through the pain. “Xia Xia, you’re too cruel.”
Hui Tao gave up on dinner and went to his room to cool down.
Outside, the range hood stopped – Xia Xia hadn’t continued cooking. Hui Tao lay in bed tossing and turning restlessly.
He waited for the pain to subside, but then his stomach was too hungry to sleep.
“Damn it.” He remembered Xia Xia’s rough move earlier and fought the urge to drag her in and teach her a lesson.
Hui Tao rolled over in bed, got up to find instant noodles in the cabinet, and poured hot water from the thermos to make them.
This time he was truly angry – he wouldn’t forgive her unless she properly apologized.
While adding the seasoning packet, he thought viciously that she would have to personally bring him a bowl of food before he could calm down.
The noodle aroma wafted out, and Hui Tao took a sniff, self-praising: “Even instant noodles smell this good when I make them, Hui Tao is an exceptional man.”
When the noodles softened, Hui Tao was about to eat when he suddenly remembered Xia Xia saying she hadn’t eaten either.
He had an idea, opening the door a crack and putting the instant noodles by the door, then casually taking a fan from the table to fan the smell outward.
The scent of Sour Vegetable Beef noodles drifted out.
Hui Tao thought, when Xia Xia realizes he’s eating instant noodles alone in his room, surely she’ll sense his anger?
She’ll come to apologize and beg for forgiveness.
But the noodles were getting cold, and Xia Xia hadn’t come in.
Hui Tao couldn’t help opening the door to look. Indeed, Xia Xia wasn’t using the range hood to cook, but she had bought Zhou Heiya food hidden in the fridge. Now she sat with duck neck in one hand and freshly made milk tea in the other, sweating from the spiciness. In front of her was a plate of cut fruit – watermelon and cantaloupe arranged together, looking appetizing.
Hui Tao looked down at his Sour Vegetable Beef instant noodles, which suddenly seemed completely unappetizing.
Xia Xia heard the door open and turned to call him.
She seemed relaxed, as if nothing had happened: “Brother Hui, are you feeling better? Come eat something.”
Hui Tao ignored her, went back to his room, and locked the door.
Hui Tao only ate one bowl of instant noodles and was too hungry to sleep at midnight.
He got up quietly and went out. The light in Xia Xia’s room was off – she had gone to bed.
“Heartless,” he cursed. “Doesn’t even ask if Brother Hui is in pain. If you break me, your future days won’t be so good.”
Hui Tao rummaged through the fridge and ate some cantaloupe.
Xia Xia’s water glass on the dining table was full, and he casually picked it up to drink.
Having gotten used to her cup these past days, his face showed none of the nervousness of his first time stealing from her cup, like a thief.
The door lock clicked.
Hui Tao still held the cup handle when Xia Xia’s door opened.
The girl came out barefoot, hugging her toy rabbit.
She looked at the open fridge door.
Hui Tao said: “What are you looking at? I’m hungry.”
Xia Xia then looked at the cup in his hand: “So you were the one drinking my water.”
Hui Tao was embarrassed and explained: “I forgot to turn on the lights when I came out for water. It’s so dark in here, it’s normal to grab the wrong cup, right?”
“Oh.” Xia Xia said flatly. “Is it also normal to grab the wrong cup every night?”
“Normal.” Hui Tao said with a straight face.
Xia Xia asked: “Then what you said earlier was also normal?”
Hui Tao frowned: “What did I say earlier?”
Xia Xia looked up, staring at him puzzled: “If I break you, my future days won’t be good.”
The girl looked confused: “Why wouldn’t my days be good?”
Hui Tao: “…”