Chapter 75: —

Fei Bolin often felt like his life was split clean in two.

On one side, a college life where every grocery run and every meal had to be counted on his fingers to save money. On the other, a family corporation worth billions sitting just a few dozen kilometers away in the same city, waiting for him to deal with it.

And the only bridge between these two lives was a single phone call from abroad on the day the college entrance exam ended.

But unlike most people, to Fei Bolin the first life felt more like the clouds, and the second like a pit of boiling mud.

Every time he stared out the window or up at the ceiling, lost in thought about it, Wen Fu would quietly nudge his head off the desk and rest it on Fei Bolin's arm. Fei Bolin would glance down and find Wen Fu looking up at him with two dark, shiny eyes.

So whether it was mud or clouds, Fei Bolin would settle back down to earth, steady and sure.

After military training ended, both of them had tanned quite a bit. With no adult around, neither of them had thought to buy sunscreen or anything like that.

Luckily the forecast called for rain for the next two weeks, and since Fei Bolin and Wen Fu were both fair-skinned to begin with, it didn't take long for their complexions to bounce back.

After National Day, Fei Bolin finally snagged a tutoring gig from a part-time job group.

The conditions weren't great. The family lived pretty far away, the pay was low, and they only wanted sessions on weekday nights after nine p.m., once the kid got back from evening self-study. So the post had been sitting in the group for days with no takers.

When Fei Bolin scrolled past it a few days later, he read it over twice, confirmed nobody had taken it, and started thinking it through.

He and Wen Fu were both freshmen, their weekdays packed solid with major and elective courses. But unlike Fei Bolin, Wen Fu had evening classes this semester—Monday through Thursday, he didn't get home until 11:30 p.m. Fei Bolin, on the other hand, was free after 5:30 p.m. As for the freshman evening self-study the School required—it was pretty loosely enforced anyway, basically unnecessary. And his advisor was a young, open-minded teacher who'd let him skip it if he gave advance notice.

The only catch was the commute—over two hours round trip. Which meant Fei Bolin wouldn't get home until past midnight, all for sixty yuan an hour.

Minus subway fare, that was a hundred a day, five hundred a week.

It was tiring, sure, but compared to other manual labor gigs, tutoring was a pretty good deal.

Once he'd made up his mind, Fei Bolin replied '1' under the post.

The admin quickly DM'd him the parent's contact info.

The conversation went smoothly. Fei Bolin's gaokao score wasn't anything special, and he didn't bother explaining it, but the parent knew the pay was low and didn't have room to be picky. So they clicked right away and locked in the schedule within twenty minutes. Starting this week, Fei Bolin would be heading out every night for work.

The only downside was that his weekends were now free.

Fei Bolin figured—if only he could find something for the weekends too. Two paychecks would ease his mind a bit.

Right now his savings only covered a year for him and Wen Fu, with three more years to go. If he didn't plan ahead, once the money ran out he'd really be living day to day, earning just enough to eat that day.

Just then, a new message popped up in the group.

Fei Bolin glanced at it casually, but his eyes froze on the screen once he read it.

A local delivery rider was looking for a weekend partner.

The guy was a rider on a delivery app, but he had exams to prep for this year and weekend classes to attend, so he could only deliver on Mondays and Fridays. He didn't want to waste his e-bike rental fee, though, so he was looking for someone to cover his weekend shifts. There was a dedicated phone for taking orders, each person kept their own earnings, and the weekend rider just had to cover the two days' e-bike rental.

Fei Bolin immediately tapped into the guy's DM.

He asked around about the rates. Delivery hours were 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a two-hour break in the middle. A typical run paid five or six yuan. Newbies earned less since they didn't know the routes yet, but once you knew the road network, thirty yuan an hour was no problem. After six, riders could take orders freely on the platform, and there was a night bonus after 11 p.m.

The hourly rate was way worse than tutoring, but the upside was you could work all day, so the daily total added up to a lot more.

Tutoring's hourly rate was great, but it was locked at two hours a day, a hundred twenty yuan. With deliveries, two or three hundred a day was doable.

Fei Bolin did some rough math—at this rate, he could easily pull in three or four thousand a month. And once his course load lightened in sophomore and junior year, he could pick up flexible gigs online too, like writing papers and reports for people.

So for all four years of college, as long as nothing major went wrong, he and Wen Fu would be covered.

He'd just finished exchanging contacts with the rider and set up a time and place to meet, when he heard a hiss right by his ear.

Fei Bolin dropped his phone and rushed to shut off the gas on the stove—he'd been scrolling through the group chat so long he'd almost forgotten about the noodles boiling on the burner, foam nearly boiling over.

He grabbed his chopsticks, fished the slightly overcooked noodles into two bowls he'd already seasoned, and called out, 'Meimei!'

Wen Fu zipped over and appeared at the kitchen door.

Every time he did this, Fei Bolin couldn't help but smile. What Wen Fu said the day they signed the lease was true—Fei Bolin just had to call, and Wen Fu would be at his side in a blink.

'Come get the noodles,' Fei Bolin said.

Wen Fu loved his noodles with the thick gravy, never got tired of them. Back in high school, Wen Fu had eaten them two weeks straight once, and only stopped when Fei Bolin couldn't take it anymore.

They carried the bowls to the table, each on a plastic stool, heads down, eating.

In a lot of unguarded moments, Fei Bolin felt like he and Wen Fu were still back home in Rongzhou, and after finishing this bowl they'd head out into the sunset for weekend self-study.

Then he'd blink, and realize he'd already taken the gaokao and been in college a month.

Their homeroom teacher back then was right—most students' high school years are a besieged city. The people inside want out, the people outside want in. Only after you've fully left behind those days of a fixed classroom, a fixed seat, swaying your head as you watched flowers bloom and fall through the glass window, do you spend years afterward catching moments where you remember just how precious those days were.

Now, thinking about it, the days of watching Xie Yining and Su Haoran bicker felt like a lifetime ago.

When he'd eaten about enough, Fei Bolin set down his chopsticks, wiped his mouth, took a sip of water, and said, 'I won't be home during the day on weekends anymore.'

Wen Fu was slurping his last bite of noodles. Hearing that, his mouth froze mid-motion.

Fei Bolin went on, 'And I'll be home later on weekdays too.'

Wen Fu looked up at him, lost, a bit of noodle broth still at the corner of his mouth.

Fei Bolin explained, 'I found two gigs. Weekday tutoring, won't be done until late. Weekends delivering food.'

Wen Fu stopped eating. Fei Bolin could see the questions and things he wanted to say swimming in his eyes, but that's how people are—when your head's stuffed with too many thoughts at once, you end up tongue-tied, not knowing which one to say first.

So Wen Fu was quiet for a moment before finally squeezing out one question: 'What time will you be back?'

'Midnight,' Fei Bolin said. 'If you get home first, just go to bed. Don't wait up. I'll make extra food in the afternoon and leave it in the fridge. If you're hungry, just heat it up.'

Wen Fu's mind went blank for a moment, then turned into a jumble, and he only managed to ask, 'Every day?'

Fei Bolin nodded.

Wen Fu turned away woodenly, stared at his noodle bowl for a while, and finally figured out what he actually wanted to say.

'I'll go with you, Bo-ge.'

Fei Bolin knew he'd say that. So he said patiently, 'One person's enough for this. And tutoring's at someone else's house—how would I drag you along?'

Wen Fu said, 'I'll tutor too.'

Fei Bolin: 'They only want one teacher.'

Wen Fu said, 'Then I'll deliver food.'

'You still have elective classes on weekends,' Fei Bolin reminded him. 'Music theory on Saturday, and you're auditing at Chuan Yin College of Popular Music on Sunday.'

That had been Fei Bolin's call when Wen Fu was picking courses.

Wen Fu lacked systematic music training and composition practice. His performance technique and stage presence were still a far cry from the trained students. If his raw talent just grew wild on its own, he'd never really become anything.

Luckily, Chuan Yin College of Popular Music was right next door to Wen Fu's School, so whenever he had time, he could sit in on classes.

Freshman year was packed, so Wen Fu only had weekends free. Fei Bolin had asked around in a local group and gotten the first- and second-year course schedules and elective times for Chuan Yin College of Popular Music's pop music program—perfect for Wen Fu to sit in on Sunday afternoons.

Wen Fu went quiet. Fei Bolin figured he just wanted to stick close, and was about to say something sweet to cheer him up, when Wen Fu lowered his eyes and said in a low voice, 'The household shouldn't only depend on Bo-ge to earn money.'

Fei Bolin froze for a second.

Wen Fu said, 'I can earn money too.'

Only then did something hit Fei Bolin square in the chest, like a tight knot of wind. Inside that wind were all of Wen Fu's real thoughts and his real face—not the naive, world-ignorant kid Fei Bolin had assumed. He'd thought he was raising Wen Fu well, or maybe he'd thought 'well' meant keeping him clueless and innocent. But how long had he actually been raising him? The ivory tower in Rongzhou had only sheltered Wen Fu for a year and a half. Before that, no matter the circumstances or the means, Wen Fu had always been the one keeping the family afloat—even if it meant stealing, even if it meant walking into the lion's den over and over, feeding that filthy, broken home.

Wen Fu had grown up.

The sixteen-year-old Wen Fu—thin, withdrawn, oblivious to the world, thrilled for days over a new pair of socks, rolling around in bed all night when he heard they'd gotten a new quilt—was already two years in Fei Bolin's past.

'Your birthday's in a month,' Fei Bolin said. It was the first time he'd compromised on something like this. He knew he had to respect the independent thoughts and personhood of a boy about to turn eighteen. They were supposed to stand as equals. Fei Bolin wasn't Wen Fu's parent, and even if he were, that didn't mean he could control Wen Fu's thoughts and decisions completely.

'Once you're eighteen, you can look for whatever part-time job you want.' He reached up and touched the top of Wen Fu's head, his voice softening.

Wen Fu instinctively nuzzled into his palm, looked up, and asked, 'Really?'

'Really,' Fei Bolin said. 'As long as it doesn't mess with your classes.'

'Won't it mess with Bo-ge's classes?'

'It won't,' Fei Bolin promised him. 'If it affects my classes, I'll find something else right away.'

And just like that, they'd agreed.

Fei Bolin started his gig the next day.

Freshman courses were brutal. They had 8 a.m. classes every day and didn't get home until late at night. The only hours they saw each other were the ones spent sleeping.

Fei Bolin got out of class at 5:30 p.m., had to leave for the subway at 7:30 to get to another district. The two hours in between were his dinner window.

To squeeze out every extra minute together, both of them sprinted home right after class at the same time every evening. Wen Fu would stop at the supermarket on the way and pick up the groceries Fei Bolin had listed for him the day before. Fei Bolin would start cooking the moment he got home. Minus the commute, that hour and a half at home was the time they treasured most.

They didn't do much in that hour and a half—just sat at the table and ate. Wen Fu would tell Fei Bolin how long the professor had made them stare at PowerPoint slides today, how vegetable prices at the supermarket had crept up another few mao, which fruit was on sale, and which anime he was planning to watch that night while waiting for Fei Bolin to come home.

Fei Bolin didn't say a word. He just ate and listened. Wen Fu wasn't talkative—actually, he was pretty quiet—but he seemed to know exactly how much Fei Bolin wanted to hear about his day at school. The more Wen Fu talked, the more Fei Bolin felt like they were attending classes together, going to college together.

So Wen Fu went through it every day like he was taking inventory at Lin's Convenience Store—patiently, tirelessly, recounting things that were barely different from yesterday. And Fei Bolin listened patiently, tirelessly, every time. A hundred tellings and it felt like he'd spent a hundred days right by Wen Fu's side.

So Wen Fu wouldn't go hungry after his evening classes, Fei Bolin cooked extra when he made dinner—enough for their meal plus a portion left in the fridge for Wen Fu.

He always told Wen Fu to go straight to bed after his evening class, but every night when Fei Bolin got home at 12:30, Wen Fu was never asleep.

Wen Fu was always curled up cross-legged on the sofa—sometimes watching anime, sometimes spacing out, but more often than not, he'd jump up and head to the door the moment he heard the key in the lock. His phone was never out of reach. Before Fei Bolin got home, Wen Fu would refresh his messages over and over.

Not wanting to disturb Fei Bolin's classes, Wen Fu never texted him first. And Fei Bolin, worried about waking Wen Fu up, wouldn't reach out either until he was home.

Those two-plus hours on the subway each day were the only chance Fei Bolin had to breathe, aside from being at home.

His daytime classes were too packed, so he could only use his ninety-minute lunch break to prep the tutoring material for that night.

The 7:30 p.m. rush hour subway was packed. Fei Bolin could rarely find a seat, so catching up on sleep was basically impossible. Best he could do was grab the handrail, close his eyes, and rest standing among the crowd.

At 11:20, he caught the last subway home. That was when he could finally let go, exhale, and doze for the hour-plus ride.

Fei Bolin wished a day had twenty-five hours. Just one more would do—enough to come home and chat with Wen Fu for a bit. Unlike now, where money was tight and time was tighter.

That day, Jin City had a rainstorm—autumn had officially arrived, and the weather had cooled down. Fei Bolin was on the 11:30 subway and accidentally dozed off.

When he woke up, the whole car was empty. He looked up at the route display—he'd slept past two stops.

He got off at the next stop, but by then there were no more trains going back.

Fei Bolin had to leave the station and look around for a shared bike he could rent.

While he was looking, an empty taxi drove past and honked at him. Fei Bolin politely waved the driver off—meaning no thanks.

Even counting prep time, three hours of work a day only earned him a hundred twenty. Minus the round-trip subway fare, he took home a hundred. He couldn't bring himself to spend over ten yuan on a cab.

The driver saw through him and drawled, 'Ain't no shared bikes around here! Not even a single rickshaw!'

Fei Bolin waved him off again, too tired to even say a word.

The driver let out a quiet but clear scoff into the cool autumn night, spat out the window, and sped off into the dark.

The driver wasn't wrong. Fei Bolin walked for ten minutes and didn't spot a single shared bike. He was still fifteen minutes from home, and a cab wasn't worth it. He thought about it, then kept walking.

He got home around 1 a.m. Wen Fu had been up at 6:30 that morning eating breakfast with him. Fei Bolin figured, no matter what, Wen Fu had to be asleep by now.

He stood at the front door, took out his key, and before inserting it, let out a long, exhausted breath—as if he could sigh out all the tiredness from the day and leave it outside, not bring it in with him.

He rested against the doorframe for a moment, then opened the door.

The door was barely open before he couldn't step inside.

Wen Fu was sitting cross-legged on the floor right inside the door, looking up at him. No idea how long he'd been waiting.

Fei Bolin saw Wen Fu holding a notebook and a pen, like he'd only just put them away when he heard Fei Bolin's voice.

He held the door open and just looked at Wen Fu in silence.

After a long moment, the corner of Fei Bolin's mouth curved up.

Like he really wasn't tired anymore.

He bent down, slid his hands under Wen Fu's arms, and lifted him off the floor in an embrace.

Wen Fu stood up with his help.

Keeping that position, Fei Bolin rested his head on Wen Fu's shoulder, toes against Wen Fu's, and walked them both inside, with Wen Fu stepping backward in sync.

'Sorry...' Fei Bolin's voice was hoarse from the day's exhaustion. 'I'm home late.'

Wen Fu hugged him back, resting his own chin on Fei Bolin's shoulder. 'You're not.'

The moment Wen Fu spoke, something in Fei Bolin gave way. He stopped dead in the middle of the living room and just hung there on Wen Fu, resting.

'Why are you sitting by the door?' Fei Bolin caught his breath, asking between rests.

Wen Fu said, 'That way I can see Bo-ge sooner.'

Fei Bolin smiled again.

After a moment, he asked quietly, 'Were you afraid I was still in class, so you didn't dare call and rush me?'

Wen Fu didn't answer.

'What's that notebook in your hand?' Fei Bolin asked whatever came to mind, aimlessly, like he just wanted to hear Wen Fu's voice, get a response. 'Writing something?'

Wen Fu nodded, but after thinking for a moment in silence, said, 'Nothing.'

Fei Bolin knew right away Wen Fu was hiding something, but he didn't have the energy to press right now.

Another day, he thought. Tomorrow. He'd ask tomorrow, once he woke up.

As if some cat dared keep secrets from its owner. The nerve.

The two of them held each other in silence.

The room was quiet. A standing fan on its lowest setting blew softly.

The breeze drifted over them as they held each other, necks crossed. Wen Fu slowly ran his hand through the hair at the back of Fei Bolin's head and asked softly, 'Bo-ge, are you really tired?'

Fei Bolin shook his head, wanting to say he wasn't, wanting to say he was fine.

But Wen Fu's palm was patting his back, slow and soothing, and that gentle rhythm kept the words from leaving his mouth.

Eyes closed, he laughed like he'd given up fighting it, nuzzled his chin into the crook of Wen Fu's neck, and nodded. 'Maybe a little.'