WHF Ch 16 – “Taking Off My Clothes”

Twenty minutes ago, outside the guesthouse wall, Tu Laoqi was clinging tightly to the edge, two stories below his feet, with his uncle’s wobbling backside swaying above his head.

“Uncle, can you reach the balcony up there? My feet are about to give out down here!”

Lao Wu, teetering precariously above, replied, “I’ve told you, the most important thing for a man… the most important thing is composure. Got it!”

The rope finally hooked onto the balcony. Lao Wu hoisted himself up, then pulled his panting nephew after him. The two collapsed onto the guesthouse balcony, sprawling in disarray, gasping like oxen.

Lao Qi, still catching his breath, hurriedly reeled in the dangling rope and whispered to Lao Wu, “Uncle, we made such a racket. You think they heard us?”

“What’s the big deal? Just do it with confidence,” his uncle said, straightening his crooked Lei Feng hat. “Let them think it’s a weasel climbing up to worship the moon.”

Lao Qi sat cross-legged on the ground, glancing at his feet and then down from the balcony, muttering, “But we made footsteps. Weasels don’t wear shoes…”

“Enough already!” Lao Wu roared, then quickly lowered his voice. “Hurry up and get inside. I’m freezing to death.”

The empty room off the balcony was unlocked. The uncle and nephew rubbed their hands for warmth as they slipped inside, then emerged with a pair of binoculars. After focusing the lenses, Lao Qi grinned, pointing at the viewfinder while looking at his uncle.

“The stuff from the3300 the factory director’s car is top-notch. High-tech!”

Praising the factory director was like praising Lao Wu himself. He smugly scratched the tip of his nose, nudged his nephew with his elbow, and said, “Keep watching. Your uncle’s going inside to warm up.”

But just as he turned, his nephew called him back.

“Hey, wait, Uncle, they turned off the light.”

“Turned off the light?” Lao Wu was puzzled. “Doesn’t high-tech gear have night vision?”

“It’s called night vision,” Lao Qi corrected.

His uncle’s face immediately soured. Clearing his throat and adjusting his collar, he pointed downstairs like he was issuing a command. “Keep watching. I’ll get that light back on for you.”

Lao Wu marched into the room, shoved aside a large wardrobe, and climbed onto a chair to fiddle with the electrical box. Lao Qi peered down skeptically. His uncle tinkered for a moment, and sure enough, the streetlamp outside the target room flickered on.

“It’s on! That’s amazing!”

Hearing his nephew’s praise, Lao Wu propped himself proudly against the electrical box. “Your uncle’s decades on technical posts weren’t for nothing!”

His self-congratulation barely had time to settle when the lamp flickered a few times and went out with a puff.

The uncle and nephew stared at each other for a long moment. Lao Wu, unwilling to admit defeat, let out a “tch” and propped the electrical box open again, forcefully flipping the switches to their limits.

“Any effect?”

Lao Qi didn’t answer, squinting through the binoculars. In the filtered lens, the lights in the two men’s room seemed to flicker on and off.

“What are they doing in the middle of the night?” Lao Qi muttered, turning to his uncle in a hushed voice. “The streetlamp’s still not working!”

“That’s bizarre.” Lao Wu’s face turned the color of an eggplant. He rolled up his sleeves, shoving the levers as far as they’d go.

This time, it worked—perhaps too well. With a deafening boom, every light in the guesthouse blazed to life, illuminating half the Northeast night sky in grandiose splendor. But then, with another puff, every single light went out.

—

Meanwhile, in the parking lot outside the guesthouse, inside a Wuling Hongguang van, Yu Tianbai climbed in holding a bowl of instant noodles. Xiu Ma, in the passenger seat, was already slurping his.

“The room we booked—are we just leaving it to the wandering ghosts passing through tonight?” Yu Tianbai, cradling his noodles, muttered to himself. The Northeast night sky was vast, a kind of vastness even the heater couldn’t warm. In other words, cold.

The young master silently swallowed a mouthful of noodles and asked, “So, if I’d told the dirty story you wanted, would they have given us the room back?”

The steam from the noodles rose. Yu Tianbai glanced at him. “You’re thinking about it now?”

“No.” Xiu Ma was firm. “How can I make up something I’ve never experienced?”

Silence lingered for a moment. Yu Tianbai thoughtfully twirled his noodles with his fork, then asked, “You’re not telling me you’ve never even held hands with a girl? Wasting that face of yours.”

Xiu Ma, noodles in his mouth, glared at him, earning an innocent shrug from Yu Tianbai.

About five minutes later, the young master finished his noodles. Holding the paper bowl, he stared out the window and said, “I’ve dated, sure. Just normal hand-holding and passing water bottles.”

With that, he pushed the door open and got out, leaving Yu Tianbai with only a view of his back. The light was too dim to see if his ears were red before the door slammed shut with a bang, leaving the unreliable boss alone with the sound of slurping noodles.

When Xiu Ma returned after tossing the trash, the car had warmed up considerably. Yu Tianbai, holding his now-empty bowl, mused, “If you’d listened to me back then, I could’ve told you plenty of stories.”

“I don’t want to hear them!” Xiu Ma’s shout left his boss looking unfairly chastised. A moment later, he added, “And I don’t believe yours would even work.”

Noodles done, Yu Tianbai sighed, opened the door, and got out. He’d noticed his appetite had grown since reuniting with the young master—a dangerous trend for a man nearing thirty, who could easily slide into the typical middle-aged build if he wasn’t careful.

Good thing he still had discipline. Rare for a thirty-year-old with no accomplishments to his name.

His years as a soldier had given Yu Tianbai some discipline, keeping his days from feeling too empty, but they hadn’t slowed the passage of time. He believed in science, but these past few years, he’d started believing in fate too. Like when he saw Xiu Ma reappear at that door, he felt a little like this was something he was meant to carry with him.

Not exactly a “thing,” though, since the young master still had some leverage over him.

It was already past midnight. A bright white line was emerging over the mountains. Yu Tianbai stood by the trash can, pulling out a cigarette and putting it in his mouth, suddenly noticing the heavy feeling in his chest hadn’t been there in a while.

Unconvinced, he patted himself again. Sure enough, it was gone.

In the next second, Yu Tianbai frantically checked every pocket on his body, confirming one thing.

That bastard had swiped his knife!

Luckily, the car door was shut tight, so Xiu Ma didn’t hear Yu Tianbai cursing up a storm for a full twenty seconds in the freezing snow.

Half a minute later, Yu Tianbai returned to the car, his face calm. He closed the door, staring straight ahead. This wasn’t his usual style, and Xiu Ma noticed quickly.

“What’s up with you?” Xiu Ma asked.

“If I return your knife a bit late, would you mind?” The boss kept staring forward.

Yu Tianbai was starting to hate the heater. Every time silence fell, it hummed on its own.

“Huh?” The young master looked surprised. “You were planning to give it back?”

Now it was Yu Tianbai’s turn to be shocked. He lowered his voice. “That thing’s worth twenty grand.”

The young master guiltily turned his head, scratching his hair. “Anyway, my dad only called me once, when I used his card to buy that car.”

Not pretense, not acting—just stating facts.

The heater hummed even louder. Yu Tianbai stayed silent, then forced out, “You didn’t mention that earlier.”

“You didn’t ask,” Xiu Ma replied with the standard answer.

Yu Tianbai took a deep breath, turned down the heater, and looked at Xiu Ma. “Alright, I’ll ask. How’d you find me?”

Now they were getting to the point. Xiu Ma crossed his arms, a prelude to his outburst.

“I drank twelve non-alcoholic drinks, deleted twenty people who hit on me from WeChat, and got the info from a bartender at a bar.”

A path Yu Tianbai hadn’t imagined. Stunned, he asked, “You went to a bar and drank non-alcoholic stuff?”

Then added, “Twenty’s an exaggeration, right?”

Xiu Ma stared at him for a moment. “Exaggerated. Fifteen, probably.”

With his looks, fifteen wasn’t a stretch. Yu Tianbai fell silent again, then offered an assessment. “You’re pretty clever.”

“That counts as clever?” Xiu Ma couldn’t fathom his standard for cleverness. “I went to a bunch of wrong places too. The bus station—”

He didn’t dare mention the foot massage parlor or the photo slideshow, so he shut up.

“Those guys wouldn’t talk even if they remembered me. Drivers are sharp,” Yu Tianbai said with disdain. “But the bar was a good call. I don’t go often, but people who know me might.”

After mulling it over, he asked Xiu Ma, “What school do you go to?”

Xiu Ma looked at him, exasperated. “I gave you my résumé from the start. You just didn’t look.”

Yu Tianbai, mid-stretch, froze. His mouth hung open as he turned his gaze to the dashboard. The résumé was indeed there, sitting untouched since day one.

He pulled it out, scanning from top to bottom. A long list of research experience promptly shut his mouth.

After a while, Yu Tianbai realized he could only understand the university name at the top. But that name made him even quieter.

He was a common man, only aware of top schools like Tsinghua, Peking, or Shanghai Jiao Tong. But even a vulgar guy like him couldn’t miss Beihang University at 37 Xueyuan Road.

Yu Tianbai looked up at Xiu Ma, who looked back, puzzled.

“How’d you get in there—just took the college entrance exam, answered the questions, and got accepted?”

Xiu Ma, thoroughly confused by the question, replied, “How else?”

“So, you’re gonna be a pilot? Flying planes?” Yu Tianbai pressed.

“Not everyone at the school learns to fly planes,” Xiu Ma said, his suspicion easing. “I study optics. Think of it as research.”

Watching the man on his left marvel and flip through the résumé twice, Xiu Ma suddenly felt a bit out of place.

“Impressive, impressive,” Yu Tianbai said finally, setting the résumé back on the steering wheel.

In the first month of the lunar year, dawn came late. The mountains still showed only a sliver of light. Xiu Ma looked out the window, then turned to Yu Tianbai. “I’ve got a question for you too.”

Yu Tianbai, still basking in admiration, nodded eagerly.

“When I walked in, who was that guy behind you?”

The question shut Yu Tianbai’s grinning mouth. He stared ahead, giving a curt answer. “Someone I knew before.”

“Why’d you know him?” Xiu Ma pressed.

“Why so curious about him?” Yu Tianbai turned back, countering.

Xiu Ma stared, his face devoid of humor. “I saw him pull you.”

That was a lie. When Xiu Ma walked in, the man was pressed against Yu Tianbai. From ten meters away, he’d seen the man’s eyes locked on him, his nose brushing Yu Tianbai’s shoulder, his gaze cutting across the hall.

It gave him an inexplicable feeling.

Yu Tianbai sighed again, leaning back against the seat, one hand propping the window frame, lifting his hat brim—yes, even with his haircut, he’d dutifully put the young master’s returned hat back on.

“He’s my ex-boyfriend,” he admitted cleanly. “If you’d shown up any later, he would’ve started taking off my clothes.”