Chapter Ninety-Two: The Gathering

That night, Cheng Yao went out to meet Tong Bin for skewers and drinks.

Bai Xiao, as always, stood on the balcony and watched him go.

Once again, Cheng Yao could feel a gaze resting on his back. He looked over his shoulder, only to find, as before, nothing.

When he arrived, Tong Bin had already ordered several plates of grilled skewers and opened the beer to wait for him.

“Over here!” Tong Bin waved at Cheng Yao as he came through the door.

It was still before the dinner rush, so several tables in the shop sat empty. Tong Bin had chosen a good seat under the air conditioner, directly facing the entrance—cool and breezy.

“Long time no see.” Tong Bin scratched his head a little awkwardly and poured Cheng Yao a drink.

“Yeah. How have you been lately? Still going on blind dates?” Cheng Yao asked with a smile.

Tong Bin blushed. “Not lately. A few days ago I went to Kong Yajie’s wedding. They’re on their honeymoon now, and they even sent photos to us old friends. Oh, and they picked out gifts too.” As he spoke, he took out his phone and showed Cheng Yao the chat record in the group.

Kong Yajie had chosen a somewhat remote island nation for the honeymoon. The scenery was lovely, every meal a feast of seafood, with chances to try local specialties as well, and they had also bought a number of handmade trinkets unique to the place.

The photos were just shared snapshots from the chat—no filters, no careful framing, simply scenery captured as it was—but they looked vivid and engaging.

Cheng Yao raised an eyebrow, noticing Tong Bin’s way of addressing her and the tone he used. He handed the phone back and asked, “What about that blind date partner you mentioned before?”

Tong Bin’s face flushed again, though he quickly regained his composure. “We just chat normally, and we’ve eaten together a few times. She went on a business trip yesterday and won’t be back until next month.”

“Oh—” Cheng Yao drew the syllable out. “A few times, you say?”

Tong Bin sighed. “Later on we ate together twice more, and that was about it.” He took a bewildered sip of beer. “I feel like we get along pretty well, but also… nothing much, somehow. It feels like... the same way things were with Kong Yajie. Do you think something’s wrong with me?”

Cheng Yao ate a couple of lamb skewers at an unhurried pace. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know...” Tong Bin looked at him. “How did you meet your wife?” He stared for a while at the wedding ring on Cheng Yao’s hand, then changed the subject with a suddenly eager, almost pleading expression.

“In college.” Cheng Yao glanced at his ring as well and answered, “My shoelace came undone, she reminded me, and I asked her name.” As he spoke, he could not help smiling.

Tong Bin studied him. “With that baby face of yours, you could meet girls that way in college. I don’t have that kind of luck.”

Cheng Yao laughed. “The two of us fell in love at first sight, then realized we were perfectly matched. Things went pretty smoothly.” He paused at that point. He could never mention to Tong Bin the car accident that had torn them apart between life and death. He touched the brand-new ring on his finger.

Tong Bin said in distress, “I don’t think I felt love at first sight with her. As for being well-matched... eating together and chatting like this is nice enough. We just don’t really have any deeper exchanges.”

“And the last two meals were the same?”

“More or less. She was supposed to watch a movie with a friend, but her friend stood her up. After the movie she just left, and the two-person dinner they had booked couldn’t be refunded. I happened to be free...” Tong Bin admitted, “The second time was because she felt a bit embarrassed about suddenly dragging me in to fill the gap, so she asked me out again. That doesn’t really count as a date, does it?”

“But it’s not a bad thing, either,” Cheng Yao said.

“Mm... I just don’t know how she gets along with her friends. Back when I was following Kong Yajie and her dorm mates to do projects, eat, watch movies... Kong Yajie treated me the same as her two roommates. Oh, men and women probably talk about different things. Come to think of it, there were some topics they didn’t even mind discussing in front of me.” Tong Bin suddenly began reflecting on his former life. “I think I may have been treated like a guy best friend.”

Cheng Yao was amused. “And what about your blind date?”

“We’ve only eaten a few meals together...” Tong Bin hesitated. “Maybe she treats friends she’s not close with the same way... Would your wife, uh, if I’m just assuming here, would she get along with male friends like that?”

“Her two best friends are women,” Cheng Yao said.

Bai Xiao had no male best friend, only unfamiliar male classmates and unfamiliar male coworkers. Perhaps that was because Bai Xiao, Yu Yu, and Hui Hui had known each other since childhood and had spent their whole lives as close girlfriends. Their bond was too tight for them to easily make other intimate friends.

“How do they get along?” Tong Bin asked curiously.

“They ditch me to chase celebrities. In private they also talk about other classmates and coworkers, and about their own boyfriends.” Cheng Yao thought for a moment.

Bai Xiao had been the first of the three women to marry, but when it came to romance, she had not been the first.

Before college, Hui Hui had been on and off with an upperclassman boyfriend. She argued, cried, and showed off their affection in front of Bai Xiao and Yu Yu... she had done everything, like the youngest sister among the three women, and Bai Xiao and Yu Yu had both taken very good care of her. Cheng Yao’s first impression of Hui Hui was that she was willful and childish. When Hui Hui and her senior boyfriend were in the middle of their break-up-and-make-up drama, Cheng Yao, as Bai Xiao’s boyfriend, was inevitably dragged into it. Naturally, he had no good impression of Hui Hui.

After she married and became steadier, after becoming a wife and a mother, she changed somewhat, but Bai Xiao was already gone. Sometimes Cheng Yao also thought that Hui Hui had not become steady only after marriage; rather, it was after she cried at Bai Xiao’s funeral until she nearly fainted that she seemed to grow up overnight and become a different person. Setting aside the troubles of romance, when it came to Bai Xiao, Hui Hui had been utterly sincere.

At that funeral, she had even swung a fist and hit him, crying out in anger that he had failed to protect Sheng Sheng... Yu Yu had held the frenzied Hui Hui in a death grip, dragging her along and comforting her, as though she were still taking care of her the way she had when Bai Xiao was alive. Only, from then on, the three sisters who had once been so close would forever be one person short.

As for Yu Yu, she was like a tomboy. Bai Xiao had once told him that Yu Yu had a father who was a boxing coach and a mother who was a Chinese teacher. During her school years, she had awkwardly trained in sports while also studying, doing only average in both, but her personality had been remarkably vivid. Cheng Yao had never imagined she would end up in a blind-date marriage, let alone quietly reach such a state of conflict with her ex-husband.

On the day of the funeral, it was Hui Hui who hit him with her fist, not Yu Yu, which had also been somewhat beyond Cheng Yao’s expectation.

But then again, Cheng Yao’s connection to them was ultimately indirect. He had even forgotten the full names of the two women. Only when they first met had Bai Xiao formally introduced their names to him; after that, the three of them had always called one another by those familiar nicknames. After Bai Xiao’s death, Cheng Yao kept in contact with them, and their manner of address, inherited from Bai Xiao, continued unchanged.

What he knew about them came either from fragmentary things Bai Xiao had told him in the past, or from these years of visiting Bai Xiao’s grave, seeing her parents, attending one another’s birthdays and weddings and their children’s celebrations, and from the occasional words exchanged at Bai Xiao’s parents’ funeral.

A relationship like that certainly had nothing to do with being well informed. What seemed surprising to Cheng Yao might well have been something Bai Xiao had long expected.

Tong Bin, seeing Cheng Yao drift into memory, urged him on. “Like girls’ private little talks? The kind you see in online posts? Or is it something else? Your wife acts differently around you than she does around her best friends, right?”

Cheng Yao looked up at the restless Tong Bin and, without answering directly, only teased, “Why are you getting anxious?”

Tong Bin was speechless.

“If you care about her, then be more proactive. Don’t keep wondering what she thinks of you. I feel like your blind date is the straightforward type—you need to be direct too,” Cheng Yao said.

“But she said plainly that she doesn’t want to date, only to focus on her career.” Tong Bin sounded discouraged. “Going on blind dates is just to appease the family.”

“That’s how everyone thinks before they meet the right person,” Cheng Yao replied.

“Is that so? You got into love and marriage pretty early, didn’t you? You never thought about concentrating on your studies and not dating in college?” Tong Bin asked skeptically.

“Mm, but I had a friend who wanted nothing but a career, and in the end he fell hard,” Cheng Yao said.

He was not talking about Jiang Yifan.

Compared with Tong Bin, Cheng Yao had far more friends.

Tong Bin could only come to him with his troubles and ask for advice, but with one phone call Cheng Yao could call out people to drink with...

The wine glass Cheng Yao held paused at his lips, and he gave a bitter smile.

Now he could not call anyone out at all.

He took a long swallow of beer.

“How did he fall hard?” Tong Bin asked humbly.

“At work he met the liaison from the other company. When that project was finished and they held the celebration banquet, he suddenly fell for her,” Cheng Yao explained, remembering the wedding invitation he had received earlier. “Some time ago I even got a wedding invitation from a friend. After changing jobs, he met a coworker at the new company, and before long he was getting married.”

He was talking about Liu Yu. Cheng Yao calculated when he had last seen him. From changing jobs to marriage, Liu Yu had moved incredibly fast—it was basically a flash marriage.

Tong Bin made a pained face. “I’m not in the same line of work as her. She travels a lot for work and meets all kinds of people...”

“That’s why I told you to be proactive.”

“How?”

“Be direct. Ask her to eat, to watch a movie.”

“Will that work? Won’t she reject me?” Tong Bin hesitated.

“If she rejects you, then give up.”

“Hey, hey, hey!”

“Come to think of it, do you already have that deep a feeling for her?” Cheng Yao asked in return.

Tong Bin fell silent.

More customers had come into the barbecue shop, and the seats around them were now occupied, but it still was not yet peak hour, and the open-air tables by the door were still empty.

“She’s the most suitable person I’ve met through blind dating,” Tong Bin said.

“You’ve only gone on two blind dates,” Cheng Yao said, surprised.

“You make it sound so easy...” Tong Bin drooped.

Cheng Yao was silent for a while.

His former social circle had not lacked girls the right age for Tong Bin; he even had some old friends and former colleagues with unmarried daughters in their families. But now it was no longer convenient for him to contact them.

“Your conditions aren’t bad. Don’t self-destruct just because of Kong Yajie. Besides, in Kong Yajie’s matter, you were all heat and no sense, muddled and one-sided. Don’t tell me you went to her funeral, saw how happily she was on her honeymoon, and now are in a rush to get into love and marriage?” Cheng Yao lectured him in an elder’s tone. “Whether you date or marry or neither, think it through carefully now.”

Cheng Yao was already sixty. He had lived so many more years than Tong Bin, and among the people he knew there were not only families with unmarried daughters, but also people who were single, divorced, or living amid domestic chaos... the list was endless. Just a few months ago, he himself had been an old widower, taking care of four elderly people alone and then arranging their funerals one by one. In others’ eyes, he had been the unluckiest of men, yet he had lived that way for thirty-five years...

Cheng Yao slowly resumed drinking.

Tong Bin did not get angry at Cheng Yao’s tone or words. He listened earnestly, even with a bit of self-reflection, and nodded before quietly eating his skewers.

A hand landed on Cheng Yao’s shoulder, breaking the silence at their table.

Cheng Yao was not startled; the moment that hand touched his shoulder, he turned his head.

As expected, he saw Boss Le’s broad grin.

“Hey! I was just passing by and saw that silhouette—it looked just like you! Out here eating skewers with friends?” Boss Le greeted him cheerfully.

Cheng Yao smiled absentmindedly, then turned his gaze and found it landing behind Boss Le.

Across from the barbecue shop was a supermarket, and like the other stores on this lively little street, it was brightly lit inside, its sign shining so strongly it could illuminate the entire road.

In that blaze of light, Cheng Yao saw a figure like a shadow.

It was a young man, his bangs covering his eyes, so that only the lower half of his face was visible, along with the cigarette clamped between his lips.

On this street thick with the smell of oil smoke, alcohol, and all manner of food, that thread of smoke was not noticeable. In fact, Cheng Yao had not even realized there was the faint scent of tobacco in the air.

Yet the moment he caught sight of the ember’s tiny red glow, all his senses were drawn toward that man.

An alarm rang in Cheng Yao’s mind, and an inexplicable sense of danger made him wary of the man.

In the brief time it took, Boss Le had already introduced himself to Tong Bin and vice versa, then naturally pulled out a chair and sat down, turning to Cheng Yao with easy familiarity. “What else do you want to eat? Let’s open another bottle.”

Boss Le tugged at him, and Cheng Yao could only look away, though his body remained tense and his attention stayed entirely behind him.

He put off Boss Le’s enthusiasm while his mind kept working.

A moment later, inspiration struck.

He understood at last what this feeling of “paying attention” meant.

When he had met Liu Yu, Mao Mao, Tong Bin... no, when he had met Kong Yajie... that feeling of attention had meant only one thing: a patient from the Monster Clinic!

Cheng Yao suddenly turned to look across the street.

He had been watching that strand of smoke so intently, but at the very instant he understood, the young man had vanished from where he stood.

Acting on impulse, Cheng Yao rushed to the shop entrance and looked around to both sides.

The bustling snack street had reached the busiest time of day. People flowed back and forth everywhere, and lines had formed outside every shop.

But there was no sign of that young man in the crowd.

Cheng Yao only felt a prickle between his shoulder blades.

He could not find the man, yet he was certain the man was still somewhere nearby.

The smell of smoke had vanished, replaced by the sensation of being watched.

All along, he had been the one following others; he had never imagined that one day he himself would be the one under surveillance.

Tap.

Boss Le patted Cheng Yao’s shoulder and asked in surprise, “What are you looking for? See someone you know?”

“Yeah. I think I saw someone familiar,” Cheng Yao said darkly.

“Judging by that look, did you finally find the person who owes you money?” Boss Le laughed.

Cheng Yao tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Come on in and drink. You’ve already scared Tong Bin half to death.” Boss Le pulled Cheng Yao back to the table and continued the subject he had been discussing with Tong Bin. “That dog I just sent back? Its owner is a single young lady. I’ve got quite a few customers like that in my shop. I’ll mention it to them when the time comes. But your personality there does need some work. The way you followed that Miss Kong before really scared us half to death. We thought you were some kind of pervert.”

Tong Bin looked very ashamed.

Boss Le went on to reassure him. “It’s not all your fault, though. Miss Kong happened to be feeling unwell at the time, so her reaction was more extreme.”

Tong Bin hurriedly asked, “Kong Yajie was unwell then? She looked pretty normal at work.”

“Just allergies. Your company doesn’t have any allergens, does it? I introduced her to a doctor, and after she went to get checked, she turned out to have quite a few allergens. She didn’t have them before. Maybe she’s gotten older and her immune system changed a bit.”

Cheng Yao was startled. “You recommended her to a doctor?”

Boss Le gave him a wink. “Director Gao from the Second Hospital. They only poached him last year and set up a separate allergy department for him—an allergy clinic, really—and expanded their lab too. I’m in this line of work, and customers sometimes come in allergic to cats or dogs, so I introduced him. Director Gao’s family had a golden retriever that got sick before. I introduced him to a veterinarian friend of mine.”

Tong Bin said enviously, “You know a lot of people.”

“That’s what it’s like in my line of work—you meet people everywhere.” Boss Le clinked glasses with Tong Bin.