Home/ The Selfish Gene/ Chapter 16
The low table can barely accommodate two people, and three people was really a bit much. The table was full with just four dishes, and the rice bowl could only be held in the hand.
Among the four dishes, the two cold dishes were specially bought by Yan Shanhua when she went out, including the roast chicken and sauced beef; other two are freshly fried home-cooked dishes, cucumbers and fish. If I hadn’t made a sudden visit, this fried cucumber and braised fish would have been their dinner tonight.
It’s really shabby.
From the moment I entered this house, everything I looked at was shabby. The chopsticks were stained with strange colors, and the bowl for serving the rice was chipped. The three pairs of legs under the low table had no place to rest, so they could only be uncomfortably folded. The only thing that can be called an advantage is probably the “silence”.
As the night fell, the birds returned to their nests, and this dilapidated residential area lost its last bit of vitality. Apart from the clattering of chopsticks and dishes, as well as the sound of the clock on the wall, there was no other movement in the ears. The streets and alleys outside the house seemed to be asleep. Even though we were in the city, there was no noise belonging to the city at all.
“Xiao…Mr. Sang, you eat, eat more.” Yan Shanhua put a piece of roast chicken in my bowl.
If I don’t give her any face, Ji Chenfeng’s impression of me will get worse, right?
It took some psychological construction to finally put that piece of chicken in my mouth. Its skin can’t be chewed at all, the meat was very dry, with a disgusting smell of oil… It was even more difficult to swallow it in comparison to swallowing medicine without water.
Chewing hard, I looked at Ji Chenfeng, the bowl of white rice that was piled up like a mountain in his hand was only half left.
Eating this kind of food can also make him grow so tall, he should be the kind of person who can eat rice without vegetables and think it’s delicious, right? He’s surprisingly easy to feed.
“Doctor Ji, I asked my aunt, and she said that she didn’t tell you about my identity. Then …how did you know that I am the one who lent you the money?” Putting down the barely touched rice, my meal came to an end.
Yan Shanhua looked nervously at me and then at Ji Chenfeng, shrinking her neck and not daring to interrupt.
Ji Chenfeng paused slightly in his action of picking up the rice, and only answered my question after swallowing the food in his mouth.
“I saw it.”
“Did you see it?” I frowned, and wanted to continue to ask, but Yan Shanhua couldn’t help but speak up, “Where did you see it? What did you see?”
Seeing Ji Chenfeng attentively eating his meal, I glared at Yan Shanhua and gestured for her to shut up. The woman was startled, and successfully received my message, then she pursed her lips and said nothing.
“On the day after the surgery, I opened my eyes and saw that you said that the 300,000 yuan didn’t need to be repaid.” Ji Chenfeng looked up at this point and said, “If it’s not a relative of our family nor a friend of mine, then it can only be a creditor.”
After the surgery… wasn’t that three years ago? Unexpectedly, it was already exposed so early.
Previously, I made a lot of guesses, and even wondered if this guy had a lot of evil intentions and followed Yan Shanhua to check. Now it seems that I thought too much. How could a little baby with only food in his mind possibly do such a thing?
After the meal, Yan Shanhua got up to clean up the dishes, leaving Ji Chenfeng and me in the small living room.
Ji Chenfeng sat across from me, he didn’t speak, so I looked at him silently. The two of us looked at each other for a moment, and suddenly he propped up the low table as if to stand up.
“Do you want tea?”
“No”
He sat back down again and fell silent.
“Are you very nervous?” I propped my elbow on the table, and my upper body slowly approached the other party, stopping at a somewhat ambiguous distance.
He didn’t answer my question immediately, but looked at the kitchen from where the sound of water kept coming out.
With some deliberate intentions, I specially didn’t lower my volume: “Your mother doesn’t know yet that you like men…”
My lips were firmly covered by his dry and hot palm, and Ji Chenfeng’s usually calm eyes were filled with anxiety.
“Please.” He seemed to be asking, but also sighing.
I can still smell a faint scent of disinfectant on his palm, which should be a disgusting smell, but for some reason, my brain seems to be stimulated to be excited after smelling too much.
I always feel… that my body remembers the feeling of that night? Now as soon as I am alone with him, my whole person will inexplicably become agitated.
Cheap scent, rough palms, the same sex or the opposite, whenever I think of these things, I have no other thoughts in my mind other than disgust. But if “Ji Chenfeng” is added to the premise, everything becomes a dizzying aphrodisiac.
Although I am not wearing tight pants, if I stand up at this moment, I will definitely be discovered -—It seems that I set up a tent just by myself.
Originally, I wanted to tease him, but it turned out that I was the only one who was embarrassed in the end.
Backing away, I cleared my throat and said, “Pour me a cup of tea.”
Ji Chenfeng seemed to breathe a sigh of relief: “Wait a moment.” After saying that, he quickly stood up and walked to the kitchen.
With my legs crossed and my hands behind my back, I looked up at the yellowed ceiling above my head, counting the corpses of bugs in the warm yellow lamp, putting aside distracting thoughts, and waiting for the swelling to subside.
“Chenfeng, come and take a look. It seems to be blocked again, and the water can’t go down…”
“Let me see……”
The kitchen was silent for a while, and Ji Chenfeng came out with his sleeves rolled up.
“Wait a little longer.”
When passing by me, he quickly said a word and squatted on the balcony to rummage through. After a while, he returned to the kitchen with a coil of steel wire in his hand.
I stood up and followed.
The kitchen area is small, and Ji Chenfeng is inside, so Yan Shanhua has to come out.
“It’s an old house, so the sewer is too narrow and can get blocked sometimes.” When she saw me coming, she took the initiative to step aside and explained to me with a smile.
I leaned against the door, and from this angle, I could only see Ji Chenfeng’s tall and straight back
The neat shirt was splashed with sewage, and the muscles on his arms were tense, and the power hidden in it could be felt with the naked eye even without touching.
The kitchen was cramped and stuffy, and the pipes may indeed have been severely blocked. Finally, Ji Chenfeng had to work for a long time to unclog it, and the fabric on his back showed traces of sweat.
After washing his hands, he reconnected the pipe to the drain. As he turned his head around and saw me, he froze for a moment, and then looked down at his clothes.
It seemed like it was too impolite, so he made a request and said, “Can you wait a little longer? I want to take a shower first.”
After waiting for this long, there is no difference in waiting a little longer.
“Of course.” I stepped out of the way.
Yan Shanhua hurriedly said: “I’ll go get your clothes!”
I didn’t want to be alone with Yan Shanhua, so I put on a pair of slippers that seemed to belong to Ji Chenfeng, and went to the corridor outside for fresh air.
The night breeze was cold but not too much. The whole slum was undulating and looked like it was made of patchwork. Looking out from a high place, one can see the neon lights in the distance, and can also see the darkness and silence nearby.
As I was smoking an electronic cigarette, Yan Shanhua suddenly came out and put a cup of hot tea on the small table in front of me.
“This is… barley tea, it nourishes qi, so you will be able to fall asleep.”
Is my complexion so bad that she can tell at a glance that I need to replenish my qi?
Staring at the steaming cup of tea and exhaling a puff of white smoke, I asked, “Do you know he is gay?”
Indeed, Ji Chenfeng asked me not to say it, but I didn’t agree.
“Same sex…” The smile on her lips froze, Yan Shanhua was unprepared, and stared at me with her mouth wide open, accepting the blow.
For a conservative rural woman, the most outrageous thing she has ever done in her life is probably exchanging me and Ji Chenfeng. A man liking other men, she probably never thought that she would encounter such a thing in her life even if she broke her head.
With a little smile on my face, I said maliciously: “What is this expression on your face? What does it matter to you whether he likes men or women, and whether he will have children in the future or not? Do you have any right to control him?”
Yan Shanhua tightly clutched the clothes on her chest, as if she was about to lose her breath anytime, anywhere.
“I… you, how do you know?”
What does it matter if the child you stole is gay or not? Does she still want to help him get married and start a family, so that the children and grandchildren will be running around her knees in the future?
It’s really beautiful to think about, Yan Shanhua has almost made up all the beautiful dreams in this world by herself.
“I know everything about you.” I slowly approached, and whispered in her ear, “everything.”
Yan Shanhua’s body trembled visibly, as if scared.
At this time, the sound of the bathroom door being pushed open came from the half-open blue iron door. Ji Chenfeng first walked a few steps inside, then turned and walked towards the door.
The iron door slowly opened, and Ji Chenfeng appeared in front of Yan Shanhua and me wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt with half-dried hair.
Holding the doorknob, he glanced at the barley tea on the table, and went back into the room without saying a word.
Freak.
With a doubt in my heart, I stuffed the e-cigarette back into my pocket, and told Yan Shanhua that I was leaving, and went inside to change my shoes.
“Are you leaving?” Ji Chenfeng’s voice sounded from behind.
After putting on the shoes, I looked back and saw the black instrument on his ear, and suddenly realized that he should’ve gone inside to wear the cochlear implant. After all, this thing is not waterproof.
“Are you going to keep me overnight?” I asked him with a smile.
“You are not used to living here.” Not being fooled by my frivolous attitude, he turned around and took a thin coat from the coat rack, and spoke as he put it on, “It’s too dark outside, I’ll see you off.”
I didn’t refuse, and walked out of the door with him.
Yan Shanhua was still standing there, seeing that I was leaving, she didn’t ask me to stay, and just said goodbye with a slightly stiff smile and watched us leave.
Without street lights, it was indeed very dark. If you don’t turn on the flashlight of your mobile phone, you can’t even see the stairs in front of you clearly.
At a staggering distance, Ji Chenfeng walked in front, and tilted his hand holding the mobile phone towards me, illuminating a small area at my feet. Although the light was weak, it wasn’t completely useless.
“Are you still angry?”
If I push him down from here, his neck should break, right?
“You came today just to confirm this?” Ji Chenfeng asked.
From afar, you can hear the faint barking of a dog. Other than that, on the long and dark stairs, there was only the sound of me and Ji Chenfeng speaking.
“If I don’t confirm it, I won’t be able to sleep well.” I raised my hand to pinch the back of his neck, which looked particularly dazzling in the dark, and gently kneaded it, “I pretended not to know you because I was afraid that you would treat me as a benefactor, Doctor Ji, why don’t you understand my good intentions?”
As if I could feel the tiny goosebumps on the back of his neck, Ji Chenfeng raised his hand and walked a few steps forward to escape from my “clutch”.
Standing on the steps below, he turned his face and frowned slightly: “Please don’t touch me without my consent.”
One day, you will cry and beg me to touch you.
“Ok, ok.” I raised my hand as a gesture of surrender.
The long steps eventually came to an end, but Ji Chenfeng suddenly stopped and rushed down the steps with a skilled and swift running posture towards my sports car.
“Hey!”
Only then did I see that there were two children about 13 or 14 years old standing next to my car, not knowing whether they were stealing things or scratching the paint on the car.
Hearing Ji Chenfeng’s angry shout, the two children ran away without any hesitation. Obviously, this was not the first time they had done such a thing.
Ji Chenfeng tried to chase them for two steps, then looked back at me, and gave up. When I got closer, I found that the ground was covered with broken glass, and the window of the passenger seat was smashed.
Little bastards.
As I walked unhurriedly to Ji Chenfeng, the two figures had already disappeared on the complex terrain. It was so dark, and there were no surveillance cameras here, so we probably couldn’t find them.
Ji Chenfeng inspected the broken car window, and asked me to confirm if there was any missing money. As he spoke, he was about to call the police.
I quickly pressed his hand: “There’s no need to call the police for such a trivial matter, it’s so troublesome. There was no money in the car, and for how many days can they be locked up even if they are caught?”
Ji Chenfeng seemed to disagree: “In this way, they will become more and more unscrupulous.”
Then be unscrupulous. Do the rats running wildly in the slums still want to break free from their fate and become noble swans?
Ji Chenfeng has always been one of the few people who can break away from this kind of place. Most of the people living here were small villains when they were young, but as they grew up, they became big villains. Even wearing expensive suits couldn’t hide the stench in their bones, and they only deserve to rot in the sewer.
As for Ji Chenfeng being a special case and not becoming a criminal, apart from his genes, Yan Shanhua must have contributed a lot.
But why?
Raising him, sending him to school, caring about his life…why? Because she felt guilty?
Then what about me? Did she ever feel any guilt towards me?
“What does it feel like to have parents?” I blurted out without thinking, and it was already too late to take it back.
However, Ji Chenfeng didn’t keep up with my rhythm of changing the subject, and tilted his head in doubt: “What?”
In a panic, even a little exasperated, I quickly said: “It’s nothing.” After unlocking the car, I sent him away, “You go back, anyway, it’s not the glass of the driver’s seat, so I can still drive.”
Ji Chenfeng looked at me for a long time, without asking any further questions, and slowly retreated to the side of the road: “Be careful on the road.”
He didn’t go back immediately, as if he planned to wait until he was sure that I had left safely.
Even if he lived in the mud, he is still a white swan. He stood there as if to tell others that he didn’t belong here. He wasn’t born here.
“Doctor Ji…” I held onto the car door and hesitated slightly before inviting Ji Chenfeng not far away, “Would you like to come in and have a seat?”
Leave a Reply