When Miao Jing started her second year of high school at seventeen, she wasn’t plagued by melancholy or girlish sentiments. She entered the science track, busy with studies and beginning to touch the fringes of college entrance exam preparation. Chen Yi graduated from vocational school and initially became a nightclub security guard—in plain terms, he watched over the venue at midnight and handled troublesome customers. Their life paths began to diverge at this point. Miao Jing didn’t live in the school dormitory, spending her days at school and cycling back and forth morning and evening. Chen Yi worked from six in the evening until four the next morning, spending his remaining time playing basketball, chatting, eating, drinking, and having fun. They rarely saw each other at home, even after ten or fifteen days.

Miao Jing left home for school at six-thirty every morning, occasionally encountering Chen Yi returning home to sleep. Sometimes he wore a dress shirt, slacks, and leather shoes; other times he changed back into a T-shirt and jeans. The neighbors had long since learned to avoid him. Fresh from his night shift, he would furrow his brows and swagger with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Seeing Miao Jing sitting at the table drinking milk and eating eggs, he would toss her several hundred yuan. When she shook her head refusing it, he would head to the bathroom to shower, saying he won it playing pool and telling her to keep it for her meal card.

Money was no longer scarce now. Miao Jing didn’t have to worry about living expenses or various school tutoring fees anymore. Chen Yi’s nightclub wages were enough for his food and drink, and when he had free time, he would gamble on pool games—three to five hundred yuan per snooker match. He won more than he lost, and the money he could bring home was more than sufficient. He gave Miao Jing one to two thousand yuan in bits and pieces each month, completely enough for her food and clothing. She no longer needed to buy street stall goods and could wear pretty clothes and go out for entertainment with classmates.

Miao Jing used this money to buy clothes and shoes for both of them, replace worn-out daily necessities, and fix broken household items. She stood on tiptoe on a ladder to replace all the old fluorescent tubes with energy-saving bulbs, while Chen Yi stood below with his arms extended.

“Give it to me.”

“You dare?” She looked down at him. “I haven’t turned off the power.”

“Am I still afraid of that now?” He stood with his hands on his hips, looking up at her with a slightly deep smile. “You’re changing light bulbs without turning off the power—do you want to die?”

“I’m very good at physics and electricity.”

“How good can you be? Better than a professional electrician? Be careful of getting struck by lightning for bragging.” Chen Yi tugged at her pant leg. “Come down and put the new bed sheet on in my room.”

“Okay.” She patted her hands and climbed down from the ladder with smiling eyes. “The dining table leg is a bit wobbly too, it needs to be nailed down.”

“What else needs to be replaced or fixed at home?”

“The rice cooker is broken too. Can it be fixed?”

“Let’s buy a new one, it’s not that expensive.”

“We rarely eat at home now…”

“Since we have money now, of course, we should eat out.”

“Is my cooking that bad?”

“Don’t you know in your heart how bad it is? How many meals of noodles have you eaten these past two years? Tsk… no wonder you’re as thin as a noodle.”

As thin as noodles? Plain and unattractive like clear soup?

Miao Jing felt both sour and amused. She now had lunch and dinner at school, while Chen Yi’s three meals were all taken care of outside. She only had one day off per week, which happened to be different from Chen Yi’s rest day. One was like the sun, the other like the moon—they rarely had the chance to come together to fix and add things to their home.

Chen Yi’s eighteenth birthday fell on Christmas Eve, but the day passed as usual. He only got off work at five in the morning, returning home after having a late-night meal with his companions. He had gotten used to staying up late, relying on cigarettes to stay alert in the mornings. He briefly crossed paths with Miao Jing downstairs—her school uniform hung loose on her frame, a wool scarf wrapped around half her face, revealing delicate eyebrows and eyes as she pushed her bicycle and said good morning to him.

Her voice was like frost on tiles, somewhat emotionless but pleasant to hear.

“Are you cold?”

“No.” She asked him in return, “Are you cold?”

He smelled of cigarettes, wearing a white dress shirt under a black hoodie with the hood pulled up, looking quite wild and unruly.

“Not cold. Hurry to class.”

Miao Jing nodded and hurried on her way.

At noon, she didn’t stay at school. After classes ended, she quickly bought a birthday cake and brought it home. Chen Yi had just woken up and was doing push-ups on his bedroom floor. The thin muscles of his shoulders and upper back created beautiful lines with each movement. At the nightclub, he didn’t report his real age—in any case, to prevent people from realizing he was only eighteen, he needed a more robust physique and mature demeanor. Dumbbells, ab wheels, and various other exercise equipment were scattered throughout the house.

When the door opened, they both froze.

Chen Yi was wearing only underwear, bare-chested as he supported himself on the ground, looking up while drenched in sweat. Miao Jing, unsure if he was home, had turned her head while carrying the cake box and caught sight of the straight line from his back to his feet and his round, firm buttocks. Her face suddenly flushed red, though she tried to maintain composure as she put the cake box on the table.

He sprang up from the ground, his seemingly casual movement betraying some urgency as he retreated from her line of sight and put on long clothes: “Why did you come back?”

“I bought a cake and some food.” Miao Jing unwrapped her scarf. “Have you eaten lunch?”

“Not yet.” His voice was muffled. “Just woke up.”

“Can I cook?”

“Let’s just eat something simple. Why did you come back? No afternoon classes?”

“The first period is PE class. I asked for leave and can go to school later.” She was still holding a bag. “Today is Christmas Eve, everyone is giving out apples.”

He knew—the nightclub had parties and carnivals these past two days with quite spectacular performances, all very hedonistic. Some women had given him chocolates and apples too, but he hadn’t brought them home, giving them all away to others instead.

After getting dressed, Chen Yi came out maintaining a neutral expression. Seeing the cake box, his lips parted in slight surprise, but he didn’t say anything and turned to go to the bathroom to wash up.

Miao Jing had bought two ready-made dishes. Within half an hour, she cooked rice and stir-fried two dishes, quickly ready to serve lunch.

The two sat at the dining table. Miao Jing picked up her chopsticks but hesitated and asked Chen Yi: “Um… should we eat the cake first? Or eat it after the meal?”

“How would I know?” He casually opened the cake. “It all goes into the stomach anyway, let’s eat it with the dishes.”

The cream cake was only six inches, not big, just enough for two people. It came with several candles and a birthday hat. Chen Yi watched as Miao Jing put the eighteen candles on top. He thought the birthday hat was too silly and threw it in the trash. The lighter made a hissing sound as it produced a flame, two flames reflected in four eyes. Miao Jing didn’t know what to say to liven up the atmosphere, and Chen Yi’s expression remained calm without any hint of celebration. He blew out the candles in one breath and cut two pieces of cake.

“Eat.”

“Thank you.”

They both ate the cake with their heads down. Miao Jing suddenly spoke while holding her spoon: “Turning eighteen and becoming an adult is quite important.”

“Mm.”

“I didn’t buy you a birthday present because it would all be using your money.” Her voice was very soft. “Whether expensive or cheap, neither seemed appropriate.”

“When you have time, help me buy a pair of shoes—leather boots, good quality, suitable for kicking people, and durable.”

“…” Miao Jing’s eyes widened. “Don’t fight, don’t use dirty words…”

“…” Chen Yi’s lips twitched as he lowered his head to eat cake.

They ate more of the dishes, and Chen Yi asked Miao Jing when her birthday was. She said April 19th. There had never been much of a birthday atmosphere at home. Chen Yi had never celebrated his birthday, but for Miao Jing’s birthday, if Wei Mingzhen remembered, she would give her some money to buy a few pastries.

Miao Jing left for school at three in the afternoon, around the same time Chen Yi needed to leave. After eating, they still had some time and lounged on the sofa watching TV, taking the unfinished cake with them. With two spoons stuck in it, they finished it between them, one bite at a time.

They took the bus together, both hands holding the same pole, standing side by side. Chen Yi was a head taller than Miao Jing. He glanced down at her a couple of times, then reached out to wipe something from her temple. Miao Jing looked up in confusion.

He pulled at the corner of his mouth, sucking the sweetness from his fingertip with a teasing smile: “How do you manage to get cream in your hair while eating? Don’t girls always check the mirror before going out? Don’t they always carry mirrors and combs?”

Every girl instinctively knows what’s important.

“Which girls are like that?”

“All of them.” Chen Yi said casually. “The girls at school, at the nightclub…”

He didn’t finish the rest of his sentence, quickly pressing his lips together. The nightclub was a mixed environment, different from the students at key high schools.

Miao Jing’s expression shifted slightly as she blinked her eyelashes but didn’t say anything.

The nightclub where Chen Yi worked was quite famous locally, owned by Boss Zhai. It was as grand as a castle, magnificent, with everything from performance halls, KTV, and bars, to cigar and wine rooms. It entertained all sorts of people. The security guards were usually ex-military men, big and imposing. At 187cm tall, Chen Yi’s broad shoulders and trim waist filled out a suit impressively. His features and gaze carried an air of defiance that warned people not to mess with him. He lied about his age, saying he was twenty-one. Though not talkative, he was quick-witted, playing ball and drinking with people, always reading their expressions and backgrounds first. With the wildness he’d grown up with, he showed no timidity at all. He even brought Bo Zi and other school dropouts in to work as parking attendants, monitoring room staff, and casino tea servers, making a living from tips.

Miao Jing knew that besides watching over the venue every night, he learned fighting and boxing during the day. There was a set of pole dancing equipment at home that he’d brought back from the nightclub. He started having his pool cues custom-made, probably from playing with others—the nightclub had a pool hall that attracted many people. Though billiards was considered a gentleman’s sport, in urban middle and lower-class entertainment venues, pool halls mostly gathered gangster-type characters. Chen Yi met many people at the pool table, and betting on games was common. Moreover, he had taken up both smoking and drinking heavily, and sometimes carried the scent of perfume.

It made her feel anxious.

At four in the morning, he would return home drunk from helping others drink, waking Miao Jing up. Seeing his pale face and bloodshot eyes, she had no way to drag him to bed to sleep. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home at all, with no sign of him changing clothes or returning home for several days in a row. It was rare to call him, and when she did, his end was either filled with shouting and joking, or deafening music and screaming. Only on rest days would she find Chen Yi at home, lying around lazily, smoking lazily.

“Smoking is harmful to health.” Miao Jing rarely spoke to him seriously. “The lung cancer rate from smoking is 80%, and it also causes chronic cough, arteriosclerosis, coronary artery disease, damage to the liver, bones, and reproductive function, makes you smell bad, and ages you prematurely.”

“Aging early is good, the older the more charming, and I shower two or three times a day, where do I smell? Get me a cleaner bar of soap. After showering every day, I’m all smooth and flowery-smelling, it stinks.”

Miao Jing scratched her cheek: “Isn’t there soap on the shelf?”

“Is that soap or perfumed soap? People lean in to smell me and say I’m effeminate.”

“There’s no scent though.” Miao Jing raised her hand to smell herself. “Who would lean in to smell you?”

“Women, of course. Their noses are sharper than dogs’. They can’t smell their perfume, but they’re quite keen on smelling me.” Chen Yi frowned, slowly blowing a smoke ring. “Thank heavens you at least didn’t get me milk soap.”

Miao Jing frowned slightly, pressed her lips together, and cast a sideways glance: “Oh, the women who call you every morning? Who comes to pick you up for work?”

He clicked his tongue and thought for a moment: “How about getting a girlfriend?”

Miao Jing’s hands paused, her tone somehow becoming heavier: “Sure, do as you please.”