After Qiu Qiu left, Fu Ruien hastily finished his work and suddenly found himself with nothing to do.
The Xiangjiang Villa had always been his place for keeping a mistress, far from the city center, surrounded by silence. Standing with his hands behind his back before the floor-to-ceiling window in the second-floor study, he gazed into the pitch-black distance, feeling an emptiness in his heart for the first time.
How strange. Many people had come and gone through Xiangjiang Villa, so why was it only this time that he felt "lonely"?
Actually, Qiu Qiu wasn't noisy. When the two of them were together, what he did most often was sing for Fu Ruien.
Back then, Fu Ruien mistakenly thought this was Qiu Qiu hinting that he wanted to enter the entertainment industry, so he deliberately commented: "You sing just average."
Qiu Qiu had a gentle temper and didn't get angry. He just tapped Fu Ruien's head with the notebook where he wrote down his musical scores: "Godfather, don't be a tsundere. If you thought it sounded bad, you wouldn't have set my song as your ringtone."
Fu Ruien dodged, thinking this kid really had no sense of propriety. To teach Qiu Qiu what "propriety" meant, he carried him off to the bedroom, and the two of them ended up wrestling all afternoon.
...
Realizing he had fallen into memories again, Fu Ruien smiled self-deprecatingly. He poured himself a drink and relaxed into the sofa.
He and Qiu Qiu had always kept in touch by phone. They were friends on WeChat, but hadn't exchanged more than three sentences. Fu Ruien stared at Qiu Qiu's profile picture for a long time. This little fool was smiling brilliantly in the sunlight, enough to make anyone who saw it smile along with him involuntarily.
Fu Ruien's finger hovered over the red "Delete Friend" button for a long time. In the end, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he clicked to open Qiu Qiu's Moments.
And once he started looking, he spent the whole night at it. Qiu Qiu posted daily ramblings on his Moments, taking photos of every little flower, blade of grass, kitten, or puppy he saw. If he ate something delicious, he'd post a nine-photo grid to express his excitement.
Fu Ruien didn't just look; he also gave "little red hearts" to Qiu Qiu's photos.
The next morning, Qiu Qiu received the new phone and the replaced SIM card delivered by the driver. As soon as he opened WeChat, a notification showed a total of two hundred and eighty-three likes. The earliest like from his sugar daddy was on a Moment from three years ago, about receiving his university acceptance letter.
Qiu Qiu was shocked. He found his own posts from three years ago too childish to even look at, yet Fu Ruien had gone through all of them.
His roommate Da Xiong, seeing his troubled expression, asked him what was wrong.
Qiu Qiu picked and chose his words, downplaying the situation: "...Someone gave me three hundred likes in one night."
Da Xiong shared his indignation: "He's been creeping on you? Is this guy mentally ill?"
"He's not ill. And he's very smart."
"Then is he ugly and friendless?"
"Not ugly," Qiu Qiu corrected him very seriously. "Extremely handsome."
Da Xiong's eyes lit up upon hearing this and he pestered Qiu Qiu for a photo. Da Xiong was from the Sculpture Department. Since the dormitories for the Fine Arts College were full, he had been assigned to live with students from the Literature College.
Da Xiong had an eye that truly appreciated beauty. The first time he saw Qiu Qiu, he was stunned by his beauty. One night, Qiu Qiu felt an itch on his leg, opened his eyes, and found Da Xiong feeling his leg bones with a small sketchbook beside him, drawing his body. Da Xiong explained that true beauty lies in the bones, not the skin. He was too embarrassed to do it during the day, afraid Qiu Qiu would think he was sexually harassing him, so he could only do it in the middle of the night.
...As if climbing onto a roommate's bed in the middle of the night to feel around wasn't sexual harassment.
Da Xiong wanting to see a photo of Fu Ruien put Qiu Qiu in a difficult spot.
Actually, Qiu Qiu's cloud storage was filled with many, many photos of Fu Ruien, all taken secretly by him. There was godfather looking very serious at work, godfather looking satisfied while eating, godfather tiredly pinching the bridge of his nose, and godfather quietly napping... He had carefully hidden these photos deep within folders and secretly looked at them under the covers at night.
He was like a diligent little mouse, turning memories into sugar balls, dragging them into his burrow, and late at night when all was quiet, he would quietly take them out, dip them in honey, and eat them one bite at a time.
Qiu Qiu couldn't bear to share his private collection. He picked through and found the blurriest photo to show Da Xiong.
But how could Fu Ruien's handsomeness and aura be obscured by blurriness?
Da Xiong took one look, immediately clutched his chest, fell back into his chair, and exclaimed: "No, no, this is just too damn handsome."
"I told you he was handsome."
Da Xiong was extremely envious: "Someone this handsome, forget just creeping on me, he could have me!"
Qiu Qiu: "...You have no bottom line."
Da Xiong, lost in his own daydreams, couldn't hear him: "Oh my god, if he stood in front of me and said one word, I'd even have thought about where we'd adopt kids after getting married."
He added delightedly: "Hey, Qiu, you have to attend my wedding with him, okay?"
Qiu Qiu, for some reason, felt a strange, unpleasant feeling upon hearing this. The feeling... was like a little mouse having one of its sugar balls snatched away by a bear.
He couldn't just dismiss his roommate, so he reluctantly agreed: "If it's your wedding with him, I'll definitely attend..."
"Hey, that's what I call a good brother!"
"...But whether he attends or not, that I don't know."
"..."
At noon, Qiu Qiu originally planned to go to the cafeteria with Da Xiong, but his father called, telling him to come home for lunch.
Qiu Qiu wasn't keen. The year he started university, his mother was assigned to a European country to be the dean of a Confucius Institute. The dean's term was four years, long enough to be a presidential term. With the best cook in the family gone, his father started making a mess of things, cooking pots of stuff that looked like animal feed, which was what forced Qiu Qiu to learn cooking on his own.
Qiu Qiu asked his father: "What's at home?"
His father answered: "A father who, at fifty-five this year, is still peerlessly elegant."
"..."
Qiu Qiu thought about his biological father's beer belly, receding hairline, and thick glasses, and felt that his godfather was much more deserving of the phrase "peerlessly elegant."
Unable to withstand his father's relentless phone calls, Qiu Qiu was forced to go home. On the way, he specifically bought a jianbing pancake to eat while walking, afraid he'd suffer abuse at home and be forced to swallow a table of unidentified objects.
As soon as he entered the house, Qiu's father threw Qiu Qiu a brand new iPhone 7 Plus, still in its unopened box.
Qiu Qiu was both excited and flustered. My goodness, today he had actually received two high-end smartphones. He had the two best fathers in the world.
Qiu's father said: "Your mother always scolds me for not knowing how to use WeChat. I specially bought a new phone. Hurry up and install it for me, teach me how to use it."
"...Oh."
Well, it turned out he only had one good father.
Young people are very adept with electronics. In just a few minutes, Qiu Qiu had set up the new phone for his dad, downloaded WeChat, and registered a new account.
His dad had quite a few colleagues and students. Not long after registering, a bunch of friend requests came piling in. Qiu Qiu's finger got sore from clicking 'Accept'. Just as things quieted down, a chat window suddenly popped up.
Shang Shan Ruo Shui: Old Qiu, you finally have WeChat!
This is Qiu Qiu's uncle, Teacher Shang, a highly respected archaeology professor.
Old Qiu: Hmm.
Shang Shan Ruo Shui: Come, come, let me share something really thrilling with you.
Old Qiu: ...
Shang Shan Ruo Shui: [Shared an article]
Shang Shan Ruo Shui: "Pics or it didn't happen! These disheveled men actually stripped a beautiful young woman naked in broad daylight!"
Old Qiu: ...
Old Qiu: ...
Old Qiu: ...Uncle, this is Qiu Qiu.
Uncle Shang fell silent.
Qiu Qiu couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen. He peeked at his father—finding him watering the flowers—and quickly took his phone to hide in the bedroom.
He clicked to read the article, buzzing with excitement.
...According to the report, an archaeology team excavated a Han Dynasty tomb in a certain city and found a remarkably well-preserved female corpse inside the main coffin, her body intact despite the passing of a thousand years.
Qiu Qiu: ...???
Now that was really thrilling.
