Chapter 4: One of My Sister's Ears

Xu Chaolong laughed heartily a few times: “Then let me test you too. There’s a saying—’A person shouldn’t be too ETC.’ Do you know what that means?”

Lei Wu didn’t understand. Xu Chaolong explained, and Lei Wu had an epiphany. The two burst out laughing.

The atmosphere lightened considerably. Xu Chaolong handed his phone to Lei Wu: “Here, use my phone first to get familiar with it. After we grab a shower and eat, I’ll take you to buy a new phone. I originally wanted to just buy one for you—I figured picking the most expensive, newest model couldn’t go wrong—but Feiyan reminded me that it’s better for you to try it out in a physical store yourself. Ah, my sister is way more careful than me…”

Having not touched a 3C product in years, Lei Wu was somewhat out of practice.

The last phone model he’d used was an iPhone 4. He remembered the home button broke often, but he was too lazy to fix it—whenever it broke or got dinged, he’d just buy a new one and toss the broken one in the trash after wiping it.

Then one time that young girl saw him do it. She picked up the phone while scolding him for being a huge spendthrift—even a mountain of gold and silver at home wouldn’t survive his squandering.

What happened to that phone in the end? Lei Wu still wondered about it occasionally.

With the old iPhone 4, you could unlock the phone by pressing the home button. But as Lei Wu examined the device in his hand, aside from the button on the side, there were no other buttons on the black-mirror-like screen.

Seeing this, Xu Chaolong prompted: “Press the button on the side first. The password is 111213.”

Lei Wu did as told. When the screen lit up, the page that appeared made him pause.

It was a chat page. At the very top was written “yanzi,” followed by a gray bird-head icon.

Lei Wu’s eyes swept over the green bubbles and photos that made up most of the chat, and finally settled on the white bubble at the very bottom.

Her profile picture was a little girl with smiling eyes like crescent moons, holding something up in her hand. The image was too small for Lei Wu to see clearly. His finger had already instinctively moved to the little square and tapped it.

Perhaps he was a bit hasty—he tapped twice. The little square wiggled, the phone trembled, and then a line of gray text popped up: “I patted ‘yanzi’ and stuffed twenty million into her wallet.”

Lei Wu blinked. After a long moment, he asked Xu Chaolong: “…yanzi is your sister, right?”

“Yes!”

Lei Wu frowned, puzzled: “I think I accidentally used your account to transfer twenty million to her?”

Xu Chaolong burst out laughing: “Brother Wu, you overestimate me—where would I get that much money to transfer to her!”

He caught on, and said oh: “You patted her, right?”

Then he briefly explained to Lei Wu that it wasn’t a real transfer—just a fun little feature.

He’d made a small blunder right off the bat, but Lei Wu didn’t feel embarrassed. Xu Chaolong explained that tapping once on the profile picture opened the person’s contact card, and tapping twice turned into a “pat.”

Lei Wu patted her a few more times before pressing open her profile picture.

The little girl had thick brows and big eyes, with short hair reaching her ears. She resembled Xu Feiyan’s student days by twenty or thirty percent, but the child was a bit thin—her fingers had little flesh, about the same as the shell she held between her fingertips. Small, pure white.

Xu Chaolong glanced over and explained: “That’s Feiyan’s daughter. Her name is Xu Duoduo.”

It was as if a ball of soaked cotton had suddenly blocked his throat. Lei Wu’s voice was flat: “Feiyan’s in-laws have the same surname as you—Xu?”

“No, no, Duoduo takes Feiyan’s surname. Her in-laws… uh…”

Hearing him hesitate, Lei Wu turned to look. He was somewhat surprised to see obvious impatience and disgust rarely appear on Xu Chaolong’s face.

Lei Wu quickly caught on and frowned too: “Her in-laws treat her badly?”

Years ago when he learned Feiyan was getting married, he hadn’t asked for details. He’d only called Xu Chaolong, asking him to help wrap a gift of money for her and pass along his wishes for her happiness.

After that, Lei Wu deliberately avoided the topic and didn’t even call much. Only after long intervals would he call Xu Chaolong to let him know he was doing fine.

The expressway ahead was straight. Xu Chaolong’s grip on the steering wheel loosened and tightened. His voice slowly sank: “One of my sister’s ears was… beaten deaf by her in-laws. That son of a bitch.”

Hu Jun heard the cart wheels approaching from afar. He kicked his legs and slid out from under the car. Just as he sat up straight, he saw Xu Feiyan walking in through the big iron gate with her shopping cart, just like usual.

Today the little pull cart was packed full, and she was also carrying an earthen-red short basin in her hand.

“Why’d you buy so much stuff?” Hu Jun put down the tools in his hand and went up to help her with the heavy items.

Xu Feiyan shook her head: “No need, no need. You go do your work.”

Wufu, who was spraying foam on the roof of a Volkswagen, stopped and peeked curiously into the cart: “Sister Yan, what’s for lunch?”

“Longxing Auto Repair” wasn’t large in scale, but it still supported four young men, plus Brother Long and his wife—enough to fill a round table for meals.

Before Sister Feiyan came, the kitchen was the wife’s responsibility, but her cooking was so-so and she liked oily, spicy food. The group of young men from the southern coast didn’t have such heavy tastes—a few extra chilies and they’d break out in pimples on their foreheads and chins.

After Sister Feiyan arrived, the boss put her in charge of the kitchen, saying she’d studied cooking for a few years and was especially good at it. Sure enough, after just two meals, Sister Yan had their stomachs completely won over.

Xu Feiyan carefully stepped around the tools on the floor toward the kitchen behind the workshop: “Lunch will be simple today—soy sauce fried rice, and watercress soup with pork offal. Tonight’s meal will be much more lavish—fish, meat, and your favorite braised prawns.”

Wufu held up the foam sprayer with a blissful expression: “Long live Sister Yan!”

Pangzichang, holding the high-pressure water gun nearby, laughed and cursed at him: “Look at you, such a bootlicker, you useless thing!”

Xu Feiyan didn’t have time to deal with these two little brothers who bickered all day. She walked through the rows of cars into the kitchen. Hu Jun followed behind her and asked: “Did Brother Long pick up his friend?”

“Yep, they’re eating out. It’ll just be us for lunch.” Xu Feiyan took things out of the cart one by one, placing the bag of lightweight pomelo leaves together with the earthen basin.

“That friend must be really important to Brother Long, right? I’ve seen him going on about it for over half a month.”

“Yeah, we’ve known him for many years.” Xu Feiyan paused, tilted her head, and counted on her fingers: “I was just starting vocational school then… 2005… oh, so it’s really been that many years already.”

The kitchen was built of sheet metal, windowless, with a large exhaust fan installed on the side. A bit of cold winter sunlight seeped through the gaps between the fan blades. Particles floated in the air, light and unhurried, tracing deep and shallow light and shadow across Xu Feiyan’s slightly raised profile. Her phoenix eyes with their little upturned hooks were somewhat distant at this moment, and compared to usual, much of their alluring quality had faded.

Hu Jun was briefly dazed, his ears quickly warming.

Xu Feiyan waved her hand to shoo him away: “Alright, don’t stay here. Go work. I’ll start chopping ingredients after I tidy up.”

Hu Jun’s voice was muffled: “Oh. A-Yan, I only had two meat buns this morning…”

Before he could finish, he was bonked on the head with a big white radish. Xu Feiyan waved the radish, displeased: “Wufu and the others all call me Sister. You’re the most impolite!”

The young man grimaced, clutching his forehead and pretending it hurt terribly. He deliberately ignored Xu Feiyan’s displeasure and continued to act spoiled: “I’m already hungry now.”

Xu Feiyan shot him a look: “You’re always full of ideas. The moment you stick your tail up, I know what you’re thinking.”

She lifted the lid of the white foam box beside her. Her slender white fingers picked up a piece of braised goose meat—thin skin, thick meat, slightly seeping juices—and held it to Hu Jun’s mouth, scolding irritably: “Open up, open up.”

The youthful smile added a bit of warmth to the winter. Hu Jun immediately grinned and opened his mouth to bite directly into the goose meat.

Xu Feiyan quickly let go and shooed him away again.

Once she was alone in the kitchen, Xu Feiyan put away the meat and vegetables for dinner first, storing what needed refrigeration in the fridge, then took out eggs, ham, and onions to prepare for chopping.

She didn’t eat much herself, but the four young men were like chirping baby birds waiting to be fed. If they didn’t eat enough at lunch, they’d start complaining about being hungry by three or four in the afternoon. So she first cooked a big pot of rice.

Before preparing the ingredients, she remembered something and fished out the phone hanging at her chest, pressing it on.

She saw that her brother had patted her several times, “stuffing” lots of money into her wallet, but conveniently hadn’t transferred her the grocery money.

Xu Feiyan simply called him directly. She waited a while before it was picked up.

She tucked the phone between her right shoulder and neck, freeing both hands to crack eggs into an iron basin, and asked: “Xu Chaolong, why do you keep patting me? Where’s the grocery money? Also, find a chance to secretly ask Lei Wu—is that red underwear I bought too small? Looking at the photo you took, the clothes are obviously a size too small. If the underwear is too tight, after lunch I’ll go to the supermarket and buy two pairs in a bigger size. While the midday sun is good, I’ll wash them and dry them in the yard, so he can still wear them when he gets home tonight…”

In the time it took to say all that, all six eggs were cracked. Xu Feiyan picked up chopsticks and was about to beat the eggs when she suddenly realized something was off.

The air was quiet for a few seconds. Then her brother’s voice came out haltingly: “Sis… the phone’s connected to the car’s Bluetooth…”