Chapter 45

"Then you've taken a bribe, so you have to keep my secret," Shen Yi said.

Fu Cheng said, "Don't worry. My lips are sealed."

Shen Yi said, "Go home on your own this afternoon."

"Okay." Fu Cheng paused mid-bite of his apple. "Aren't you going back?"

"No, I'm going somewhere," Shen Yi said casually.

Fu Cheng asked curiously, "Where? On a date?"

Shen Yi's voice carried a hint of laughter. "Yeah. Want to come?"

Keyboards clattered nonstop in the internet café, punctuated by an occasional angry shout. The place was somewhat noisy, so Shen Yi asked for a private room. He and Fu Cheng sat side by side, while Fu Cheng held his backpack and looked around.

"Don't be nervous." Shen Yi handed Fu Cheng a lollipop. "We're adults."

Fu Cheng clutched his backpack tightly, as if someone might jump out and rob him. "I'm not nervous."

Shen Yi unwrapped a lollipop for himself and held the little pink stick between his lips. He wore a black baseball jacket and a baseball cap to shield him from the wind, which he hadn't taken off even after entering the internet café.

He lounged in his chair, typing on his phone.

[Shen Yi: Ge, are you getting off work soon?]

[Fu Yuhe: I'm the boss.]

So Shen Yi changed his approach.

[Shen Yi: Get off work soon, ge. I want to eat the mango pancakes you brought on Monday.]

Shen Yi switched off his phone screen and said to Fu Cheng, who was having trouble settling in beside him, "You can go home first."

Nervousness mingled with novelty as Fu Cheng said, "I'm really not nervous!"

Shen Yi said, "...Mm."

He pressed his lips together to suppress a smile, feeling as though he were a bad influence leading a good student astray.

Fu Cheng switched on the computer beside him and started watching TV. Shen Yi didn't ask him again. With the lollipop in his mouth, he tapped away at the keyboard for a while, then propped his cheek on his hand and looked at the screen.

After a while, Fu Cheng leaned over and asked what he was doing.

"Looking for something fun," Shen Yi said.

"What is it?" Fu Cheng was intensely curious.

Shen Yi said softly, "It's interesting to me, but not to you."

Fu Cheng hadn't heard him clearly. "What?"

Shen Yi said, "Nothing. Go back to what you were doing."

Fu Cheng thought it was some kind of game. He glanced at Shen Yi's screen a couple of times, but all he saw was a long string of web addresses he couldn't make sense of, so he turned back to his TV show.

At one point, Fu Cheng went to take a call. When he came back, he said his brother was coming to pick them up. Shen Yi checked his phone and saw that Fu Yuhe had replied more than ten minutes earlier, asking what he was in such a hurry for.

He had thought Fu Yuhe would get off work later today.

Shen Yi had found just about everything he was looking for. He closed the web pages and played a mini-game for half an hour. Then Fu Cheng got a call from his brother, and he and Shen Yi left the internet café together.

After they left, a few yellow-haired thugs with their ankles exposed in the dead of winter followed them out.

"Do you think they're following us?" Fu Cheng tried to walk naturally, without turning to look at the people behind them, lest their eyes meet and the others mistake it for a provocation.

Shen Yi had none of his concerns. He looked around and immediately identified the people Fu Cheng meant-they were easy to spot, and clearly no good at a glance.

Besides, they'd been following them all the way from the school gates.

"They are following us," Shen Yi said.

No sooner had he spoken than the young men behind them, who had met Shen Yi's gaze, began walking faster and faster.

When Fu Cheng noticed them catching up, he quickened his pace too. As the distance between them narrowed, his keen instincts sensed danger. He grabbed Shen Yi's wrist and broke into a jog. Shen Yi didn't pull away, following him at a jog to Fu Yuhe's car.

The black car was parked in a parking space. Fu Cheng braced his hands on his knees, panting, while Shen Yi's breathing remained steady, only a little heavier.

The rear window rolled down, gradually revealing Fu Yuhe's sharply contoured profile to Shen Yi. Fu Yuhe glanced sideways at them, and his gaze paused briefly when it fell on their joined hands.

Fu Cheng hadn't yet had time to let go of Shen Yi's wrist. He was gripping it tightly and even used it for support to steady himself. Panting, he called out, "Ge."

Shen Yi's eyes curved beneath his baseball cap, and he too called out, "Ge."

For some reason, the scene resembled a younger brother bringing his wife home. The two of them kept calling him "ge," sounding very close.

Fu Yuhe knew Shen Yi and Fu Cheng were close, but when he glimpsed the details of just how close they were, it stirred a subtle feeling in him.

In theory, this was perfectly normal, but his excessive possessiveness and his subconscious reluctance to let anyone get too close to Shen Yi-a nearly pathological state of mind-were slowly eating away at his heart. Fu Yuhe had discovered this "self" he hadn't known about when he had seen Shen Yi chatting and laughing with a girl that time.

He cast a dark look at Shen Yi and Fu Cheng's joined hands and squeezed his knuckles. By the time he raised his eyes, the expression in them had faded, leaving them calm again. He noticed the "tails" following Shen Yi and Fu Cheng.

"Who are they?"

Not far away, the yellow-haired thugs didn't approach, only watching in their direction.

"I don't know." Shen Yi looked innocent and bewildered. "We don't know them."

He turned to look at them. The group hesitated for a few moments, then turned and left.

Shen Yi said, "Ah, they're gone."

Fu Yuhe glanced at him. "Disappointed?"

"No." Shen Yi bent down and leaned against the car window. "I just feel like nothing will happen as long as you're here, so I feel very reassured."

Fu Yuhe said, "..."

His hand stilled around his fingers, and his heartbeat was thrown out of rhythm by Shen Yi's equivocal tone. He pulled at the corner of his mouth and gave him an inscrutable look.