"My friend..." Shang Zhitao turned to look, not seeing Luan Nian standing in the shadows. "My friend should be waiting for me outside. It's fine, I'll wait here for him. Go on up and get settled, you have work tomorrow."
"Will you be all right on your own?"
"I'll be fine."
Shang Zhitao watched Sun Yuanzhu climb the stairs, then turned back and saw Luan Nian step out of the shadows. "Oh? I thought you weren't here."
Luan Nian glanced at her things but didn't help her, turning instead toward the car.
"You're not going to help me?" Shang Zhitao asked him.
"Don't you have hands?" Luan Nian tossed out that line and got into the car, watching coldly as Shang Zhitao struggled with everything alone. She didn't have much, two large suitcases and a big cardboard box. Someone drifting around Beijing alone probably didn't keep too many things. Moving twice a year like a migratory bird, what was the point of buying a lot of stuff?
Shang Zhitao worked hard to get everything into Luan Nian's trunk. He truly didn't lift a finger to help, and the moment she got in the car he started the engine and drove off.
His face could turn faster than the pages of a book.
Once home, he still left her to unpack on her own. When he went downstairs for something, he saw the gift he'd given her sitting in her big suitcase. He recognized it. It was still unopened, a thin layer of dust on top.
"Not going to use it?" he asked her directly, the question landing a little abruptly.
"What?"
Luan Nian tipped his chin at the box. "The bag I gave you."
"Oh, oh, oh." Shang Zhitao made a few noises of realization. "I can't bring myself to use it."
Luan Nian could tell she was brushing him off and walked away.
It was the next morning, on the way to work, waiting at a red light, that he asked her: "How much is your rent?"
"What?"
"That room you're renting, how much is it?"
"A little over a thousand for my room."
"You could rent from me. A thousand a month."
Shang Zhitao froze. Luan Nian's place was so nice, she'd have said yes even at two thousand a month. She actually thought it over seriously, then shook her head. "Thank you, but I think I'll go rent my own place."
"Why? Because you can't bear to leave your roommates?"
"Yeah." Shang Zhitao nodded earnestly. "My roommates are all really good people."
She felt no guilt saying it. Her roommates really were good people.
"Congratulations on finding good roommates." Luan Nian's tone was flat, neither warm nor cold, and Shang Zhitao couldn't tell if he meant it sincerely or was mocking her.
On Saturday, she went out early to meet up with Sun Yu and Sun Yuanzhu, still in the same area. They'd looked online ahead of time, called place after place, and gone to see them one by one. Finding an apartment was truly hard. The photos online always looked great, but once you got there in person, some of them were barely better than a pigsty. Every so often they found a decent place, but the rent was outrageous.
This is too hard, Shang Zhitao thought. Renting is too hard. I really need to buy my own place someday. Then I can have all my friends move in with me, and we can eat and drink together.
The three of them wandered the north fifth ring road all day, and by evening they were worn out. The weather was cold and their stomachs were empty, so they grabbed a quick bowl of knife-cut noodles and agreed to keep looking the next day. Just as they were about to part ways, Sun Yu got a phone call. On the other end was the warm voice of an older woman. "Kids, do you still remember me? This is your landlady."
"Of course, hello, auntie." The three of them exchanged glances, unsure why the landlady was calling.
"Have you found a place yet?" the landlady asked them directly.
"Not yet, auntie," Sun Yu answered politely.
"Since you haven't, why don't you come back and rent from me again? Same price as before."
"Huh? Aren't you afraid the agency will retaliate?" Sun Yu asked her.
"No need to worry about that. The police called me today and said the matter's been settled. The agency called me too, said they wrote up a guarantee, handed over their ID, and put down a handprint. Not only will they stop causing trouble, they'll even help keep an eye on things for us. Very good attitude, they had."
"Okay, auntie, let us talk it over and we'll call you back in a bit."
The dramatic turn left the three of them not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Sun Yu asked the other two, "Should we still live there?"
"Yes!" Shang Zhitao suddenly looked thrilled.
"Then let's do it!" Sun Yu nodded too.
Seeing how happy they were, Sun Yuanzhu nodded as well. "Fine, we'll stay there. But I have one small suggestion."
"What is it?"
"Let's redo the place a little. Zhang Lei moved out, and I'll cover his share of the rent, because I want a study of my own."
"Deal!" The girls knew they were taking advantage of Sun Yuanzhu's generosity, but neither wanted to keep strict accounts with him, because he was Sun Yuanzhu. If he was paying more in rent, they'd take on more of the daily expenses. Either way, they'd still be living with a good friend, and that was enough.
Shang Zhitao was in high spirits, humming a tune as she walked in the door. Luan Nian was on the phone with Dr. Liang and hit mute when he heard her, glaring up at her. Shang Zhitao clapped a hand over her mouth, pointed upstairs, and bolted.
"Huh? I think I just heard a girl humming?" Dr. Liang's hearing was sharp, and she asked him directly.
Luan Nian pretended not to hear and kept talking. "I've got a flight next Sunday."
"When are you coming home for good?"
"End of February. I have a meeting at headquarters, and there are two projects I need to review."
"That's good, you can spend a few more days with us." Dr. Liang sounded pleased, taking a sip of water before she said, "So you're dating someone, is that it?" Dr. Liang was never one to be led off topic by her own son. No one understood how to handle him better than the woman who'd raised him.
"I definitely heard right just now. There was a girl humming." She said it again, this time as a statement of fact.
"I don't want to discuss this."
"Why not? If you're dating, you're dating. Are you afraid to tell me because you think I'll push you to get married? Don't worry, I won't, and neither will your father. The only reason we ever set you up on dates was because friends and family kept insisting."
"I don't want to discuss this, because I'm not dating anyone." Luan Nian paused. "I'm an adult."
At that, Dr. Liang understood. Not dating, an adult: wasn't that just fooling around? Her own son, and now he was just fooling around too.
"That's not good, is it? Not good for you, not good for the girl either," Dr. Liang said.
"I know how to handle it myself."
"Fine, handle it yourself then. I'm hanging up."
Luan Nian ended the call and saw Shang Zhitao coming downstairs with a water cup. "Isn't there a water dispenser upstairs?"
"It's empty."
"Why were you so happy just now?"
"I found an apartment."
Shang Zhitao drank a cup of water and set the cup down on Luan Nian's bar counter. "I can move out tomorrow. Thanks for letting me stay these past few days. I didn't mean to make noise just now, I didn't know you were on the phone."
"It's fine."
"Good thing it didn't cause any trouble."
Shang Zhitao pointed upstairs. "I'll go to sleep then? I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning, since I'll need to spend the whole day getting the place sorted out. Better to leave early so it doesn't get in the way of work on Monday."
"Mm." Luan Nian made a small sound of acknowledgment and said nothing more.
Upstairs, Shang Zhitao packed up her things, turned off the light, and lay down on the bed. She heard Luan Nian on the phone, and she hadn't meant to listen. I'm not dating anyone, I'm an adult, I know how to handle it myself. He might as well have told his own mother she was a long-term hookup.
Shang Zhitao thought Luan Nian hadn't done anything wrong. He'd only told the truth. Whatever warmth she'd felt from him that day just faded away. So that was really all it was: because they'd slept together, and because a woman he'd slept with had gotten hit, he'd had to step in for her once, if only to prove himself a man, or maybe it was just a man's possessiveness at work, and not because he liked her or loved her.
The next morning she got up early and quietly carried her things downstairs. After thinking it over, she wrote a note and left it on the pillow: thank you for taking me in these past few days, sorry for the trouble. Polite and proper.
The small moving truck she'd called carried her from Luan Nian's neighborhood to the north fifth ring road. The unreal feeling of the past few days was gone. Standing in front of the building, she felt like she was back in the real world. Her real world was exactly this kind of place, run down and lively all around her, but with good friends close by.
Light snow began to fall from the sky. She stood downstairs and watched it for a while. How fast time moved. Just like that, the year was nearly over. She felt this year had wrapped up well. There'd been a bit of dramatic trouble along the way, but in the end, things had worked out.
Sun Yu arrived too, dragging her things behind her, and when the two of them saw each other's luggage, they both burst out laughing.
"Who would've thought, after going all the way around, we'd end up back here. I guess this place and us are just meant to be. I got a mover to help." Sun Yu pointed at someone approaching in the distance. "No reason to wear ourselves out. I'm a partner in a company on the verge of going under, but I can still afford a hundred bucks."
"And I'm at least a top-tier foreign firm's errand girl. I'll cover today's meals. I can afford that much."
They exchanged a smile and headed upstairs.
They pushed the door open and found Sun Yuanzhu's things already piled up in the living room. He was assembling a bookshelf he'd ordered online, one that needed to be put together by hand. He'd also bought nice wallpaper, and the old sofa in the living room was gone.
"This..."
"Didn't we say we'd fix the place up properly?" Sun Yuanzhu smiled and brushed the dust off his hands. "The two rooms that face south are yours. I travel for work a lot, so I don't need the sunlight. You two can pick between them."
This kind of generosity was worth accepting, because he was Sun Yuanzhu.
The three of them put on music and quietly listened while they unpacked and settled in. Sun Yu sent Shang Zhitao a message: "Whatever's left of my romantic streak is acting up. I hope this moment, this scene, stays with us for a hundred years."
Shang Zhitao loved this kind of time too.
In this space, in this moment, with no people or worries pressing down on her, everything felt simple.
Setting up a home like this gave her, for the first time, a sense of belonging in this city.
Sun Yuanzhu sat in the sunlight in the living room assembling the cabinet, the whole place warm and golden, as beautiful as a dream.
They kept at it until night fell, and by then the home finally looked new.
Sun Yuanzhu pulled out a drawing and told them his plans for the place.
"I want to put a long desk here, so we can all sit side by side and work."
"Over here I want a few flower stands, a couple of potted plants, and a small fish tank. That'll bring the place to life."
Shang Zhitao raised her hand. "There's something I want to keep too."
"What?"
"I want a dog."
Seeing the other two's eyes go wide, she nodded with certainty. "I really do want a dog, as a New Year's gift to myself. Is anyone here afraid of dogs?"
The other two shook their heads.
"Then I'm getting a dog!"
Shang Zhitao applauded herself for the decision.