One week later, at the Special Affairs Department’s affiliated sanatorium.
Zhou Hui tasted the soup and said, “This won’t do. It’s all MSG. This is so bad for the patient. And the little beauty has internal injuries, he didn’t just give birth to your child and can’t produce milk. Why are you making so many crucian carp and bone broths?”
“…” Yu Jingzhong humbly asked for advice, “I ordered this from the military hotel. What do you think he should eat then?”
—Zhou Hui was a person who liked to be a teacher.
He was different from Chu He, who would meticulously plan everything for you but never tell you anything. Chu He had no particular interest in anything, but Zhou Hui’s interests were very broad. As long as you hit on a topic he was interested in, he didn’t mind sharing the things he was most proud of.
“When visiting a patient, nourishing the blood and qi is the most important thing. And the most important thing about soup isn’t that it tastes good, but that it’s nutritious. Adding so many MSG and seasonings is actually useless. If you have money, just buy two 500-year-old ginsengs. I know a few ginseng dealers in Changbai Mountain. The price is another matter, but the goods are definitely real. If you don’t have money, simmering a black-bone chicken or black fish at home over low heat until the bones and flesh have all dissolved into the soup, adding bamboo shoots and goji berries, and simmering it down to just a small bowl is also very nourishing. Drinking a bowl a day is very good for the patient.”
Zhou Hui lifted the thermos he was holding. “Here, this is black-bone chicken stewed with 500-year-old mountain ginseng. A small piece the size of a fingernail is enough. Also, the most important thing about stewing soup is the heat. Don’t use an induction cooker or a pressure cooker to make up for it. Can the nutrition from twenty minutes of electric heating compare to two days of simmering over low heat?”
Yu Jingzhong nodded in acceptance. The two of them walked up the steps of the sanatorium together, crossed the bustling hall, and headed for the elevator.
Zhou Hui continued to lecture him, “Don’t think this is a time-consuming job. It’s actually not mentally taxing at all. Just watch the fire. Think about it, what is the little beauty with you for? Are you, a poor civil servant, rich enough to buy him a house and a luxury car within the Third Ring Road? Can you take him on shopping sprees in Europe three times a year? Don’t look at me with those eyes. You’ve been suspended from your job. Not only do you have no money, but your future is almost over. If you don’t spend some effort to keep him, what will you do? —And you’d better pray that the little beauty hasn’t heard the golden rule of ‘don’t be with someone for anything other than them being good to you,’ otherwise, it’s useless even if you send him a hundred or eighty bowls of soup a day. He’ll throw a green hat on you in minutes.”
“…” Yu Jingzhong said with great grievance, “I really don’t have any inappropriate thoughts about Yan Lanyu…”
“It’s best if you can think that way,” Zhou Hui slapped his thigh and said with great satisfaction and understanding. “—To be honest, as a brother, I should support you, but I really can’t speak against my conscience. Think about what you have. Let’s not talk about those few pitiful deposit slips, and let’s not mention that you were suspended from your job after finally getting a deputy director position. As for your age, to put it nicely, you’re a bit older and can take care of people. To be honest, your energy is not as good as a young man’s, and it’s hard to say how many times you can go at night… Ai, I feel sorry for the little beauty. Even if he found our family’s disastrous brother-in-law, even though he’s a bit stupid, he’s still a young, handsome, and interesting ‘gaofushuai’. But he ended up with a middle-aged uncle like you who has no money, no looks, and no sex life…”
“Zhou Hui!” Yu Jingzhong said angrily. “Yan Lanyu doesn’t have any of those feelings for me either! Don’t talk about him like that!”
The elevator door opened with a ding. Zhou Hui forcibly put his arm around Yu Jingzhong’s neck and walked out, a lewd, wicked smile on his face. “I get it, I get it. There’s nothing between you two, really nothing. You didn’t smoke and cry by his bedside like you were about to die, and he didn’t break his own two hands to save you… Nothing, you two have a pure revolutionary friendship. I get it, brother.”
Yu Jingzhong struggled to break free, but Zhou Hui held on tightly. The two of them scuffled their way down the corridor, and doctors and nurses greeted them along the way. The young nurses’ faces flushed with shyness when they saw Zhou Hui.
Zhou Hui was in a good mood and greeted the pretty girls, while asking Yu Jingzhong, “So you’re really being taken down?”
At the mention of this, Yu Jingzhong wanted to reach for a cigarette, but seeing the bright red “No Smoking” sign in the hospital corridor, he forced himself to endure it. “I got emotional and killed that old man. The old man’s faction wants to kill me. Suspending me from my job is a way of protecting me, I guess.”
“Then when will you be reinstated?”
“I don’t know.”
Zhou Hui looked at him with pity. “How about it, why don’t you come work for me? Last time, the Korean side sent people to ask me to be some kind of minister, offering me the equivalent of 800,000 RMB a month… How about you do it, and I’ll still be your lackey, how about that?”
Yu Jingzhong said gloomily, “No.”
“Aiya, you,” Zhou Hui said. “You don’t know how to be flexible, and you don’t know how to make money. Who the hell would be your wife? I was originally going to sell you half a ginseng at a cheap price. How are you ever going to afford it now!”
Without another word, Yu Jingzhong immediately rummaged through his pants pocket. “Where’s the ginseng? Hand it over!”
Zhou Hui covered his pants and cried out, “Lao Si Old Four, come out!—Deputy Yu has gone crazy and wants to rape your man! Come out and protect me!”
In a hospital room not far away, Chu He put down his book and rubbed his forehead, thinking, Please, just let him rape you. You two really are a perfect match.
Zhou Hui held his crotch with one hand and had to protect the thermos with the other. He soon lost his ground and Yu Jingzhong pulled out half a small, translucent, white ginseng with hands and feet from his pants pocket. He carefully tucked it into his pocket and turned to leave. Zhou Hui pretended to chase after him for two steps, and Yu Jingzhong immediately ran off to the monitoring ward. He heard Zhou Hui still shouting from behind, “Ten thousand a year!—I’ll give you a discount, nine thousand eight hundred a year, with an extra two-point handling fee for credit cards!”
Yu Jingzhong staggered and quickly ran away.
“Poor civil servant, can’t even find a wife on a blind date.” Zhou Hui shook his head with great emotion, carried the thermos into Chu He’s room, and said in a flirtatious tone, “Darling~ what are you doing?”
Chu He put away his book. Zhou Hui immediately pounced on him and, despite his resistance, forcibly snatched it away. “Hehehe—I knew you were secretly reading a pornographic book while no one was looking. Do you miss your husband? Your husband’s eighteen times a night is much better than that useless Fan Luo, right? Let me have it so I can review and guide you—eh?” Zhou Hui flipped through the old, yellowed, thread-bound book and asked in confusion, “Holding a Corpse’s Son? I’ve heard of a Corpse’s Son, but what’s a Holding a Corpse’s Son?”
Chu He snatched the book back, stuffed it into the drawer, and said calmly, “What did you sell to Yu Jingzhong?”
Chu He was wearing thin pajamas and sitting in an armchair by the bed, squinting his eyes as he stared at Zhou Hui. For his human form’s age, his skin and figure were extremely well-maintained. The lines from his shoulders to his back and waist were lean and straight, and a section of firm, lean arm was exposed under his sleeve. The calves extending from under his robe were straight and long, even supermodels’ training levels couldn’t compare.
“Oh, I gave him half a ginseng…” Zhou Hui’s gaze fell on Chu He, and his attention was immediately diverted. He carefully scrutinized him from top to bottom with an undisguised gaze a few times, almost spilling the soup when he was ladling it.
“Darling,” he said solemnly, “why don’t you just stay like this for a few hundred years? I think this is quite good.”
Chu He raised an eyebrow subtly and didn’t comment. He took the soup and took a sip.
“When your true form wasn’t destroyed before, you were always appearing in your Dharma form. To be honest, it put a lot of pressure on me.” Zhou Hui sat down on the hospital bed, his two strong, long legs spread wide, but he didn’t care at all. “Let’s not talk about that Fan Luo who’s always staring at other people’s wives and sons. Every time we went out, everyone only paid attention to you and not me. They dared to come up and offer their flattery right in my face. Do they think the main wife is dead? And that Trailokyavijaya Vidyaraja…”
“Cough, cough, cough!” Chu He choked on the soup and stopped him. “Zhou Hui!”
“Oh—now you’re not allowed to mention it. You’re such a double-standard.”
Chu He coughed repeatedly, slammed the bowl on the table, and asked in surprise, “What is this taste? What did you put in it?”
Zhou Hui stripped his ex-wife’s clothes off with a gaze mixed with ridicule, flirtation, and naked desire, before slowly saying, “…The ginseng you planted.”
A vein throbbed on Chu He’s forehead.
“Strictly speaking, it’s not really yours anymore. After all, I’ve been watering it for so many years. Ah—I was originally planning to save it for that idiot Yu Jingzhong’s mortal body when his time comes, to prolong his life.” Zhou Hui scratched his chin and said with emotion, “But that day after he killed the old man, I went down to find him and saw him squatting by the little beauty’s bedside, smoking, and he said to me while puffing out smoke, ‘Zhou Hui, ah, when I die one day, don’t prolong my life. Just let me follow the cycle of life and death peacefully.’—See how he’s showing off. I went home and pulled out the ginseng, sliced it, and made soup.”
Chu He said tactfully, “I think this is still the ginseng I planted.”
Zhou Hui immediately retorted, “What you think is not necessarily the truth. For example, many years ago, you thought I was your f*ck buddy. Do you still think so now?”
“…” Chu He thought to himself, I don’t think the time it took for you to upgrade from a fck buddy to a non-fck buddy was shorter than the time it took for these two ginsengs to grow. But he wisely did not say this out loud and instead said rather obediently, “Alright.”
Zhou Hui was immediately pleased.
The pleased Zhou Hui wanted to continue to expound on his high opinions about f*ck buddies, Deputy Yu’s savings, and the ownership of the ginseng, but at this moment, there were two soft knocks on the door, followed by Zhang Shun’s cautious voice. “…Brother? Are you in there?”
Zhou Hui’s face immediately darkened.
Chu He gestured for him to open the door, but Zhou Hui dawdled and didn’t move for a long time. It wasn’t until Zhang Shun knocked a few more times and finally asked, “Are you there too, surnamed Zhou? You’re in there too, right?” that he finally shouted impatiently, “Yes! What? Is the little tadpole looking for his brother to breastfeed?”
Zhang Shun said in a low, submissive voice, “Frogs… frogs are oviparous, they don’t breastfeed.”
The corner of Chu He’s mouth twitched suspiciously for a moment before returning to a blank expression. Only then did Zhou Hui shake his head, walk to the door, tear off an ink talisman stuck behind the door, and open it.
Zhang Shun poked his head in, first looking at Zhou Hui, then guiltily at Chu He. “…Brother, I came to see you.”
Ever since the day of the turmoil, Zhou Hui had been looking at Zhang Shun with displeasure. Although Zhang Shun felt a little aggrieved, he also knew he was in the wrong, so he had been walking around with his tail between his legs every day, running to Yan Lanyu’s room next door whenever he was free and not visiting Chu He often.
Zhou Hui actually couldn’t stand seeing people in this timid state the most—if it were someone like Fan Luo who came to fight and steal openly, it would be fine. At most, he would beat him to death and feed him to the dogs, and after reincarnation, he would beat him to death eighteen more times and drag him out to feed the dogs. But Zhang Shun was acting pitifully to his brother, a trick that he himself had played out years ago, and now it was being picked up and played again by this little bastard who was pretending to be a pig to eat a tiger. It was just so unpleasant to watch.
The displeased Boss Zhou was about to unleash his mocking skills when he heard Chu He’s voice, tinged with a warning. “Zhou Hui.”
“—Yo! You’re feeling sorry for him already? That little bastard had a great time playing the star-sucking grand magic the other day, and I didn’t see him feeling sorry for you…”
“Zhou Hui!” Chu He shouted.
Zhou Hui rolled his eyes and was about to add a few more stabs when he saw Zhang Shun extend his right hand.
—The hand with the Buddha seal was wrapped in bandages, completely covered from the base of the fingers to the arm, with not a single bit of skin exposed.
“…” Only then did Zhou Hui give up, let out a cold snort, and say, “Come in.”
Zhang Shun lowered his head and hunched his shoulders like a child who had done something wrong. He tiptoed into the room and placed a fruit basket he had bought at the last minute downstairs on the bedside table. He had come to visit his brother, so of course he hadn’t brought anything. But when he got to the hospital, he felt guilty and ran to the hospital’s convenience store to buy the most expensive fruit basket as an emergency measure, thinking that if things got awkward and cold, he could still use the tried-and-true skill of peeling apples to save the situation.
“You guys chat first,” Zhou Hui straightened his sleeves and looked down at Young Master Zhang, saying in a slow, master-of-the-house tone, “Your brother’s body is weak. Don’t disturb him for too long. Have some sense and leave when it’s time.” He then waved the ink talisman in front of Chu He. “I’ll stick this on the outside of the door. Don’t run around. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
The door clicked shut. Zhang Shun couldn’t help but ask, “What’s that?”
Chu He raised his chin.
Looking in the direction he indicated, Zhang Shun was horrified to find that there were more than a dozen similar yellow paper ink talismans stuck on the walls, with flamboyant calligraphy. Even the head of the bed and the ceiling were not spared. At first glance, it was as creepy as a haunted house.
“A confinement talisman,” Chu He said. “To prevent me from running away when no one is paying attention. It’s been there ever since we came back to Beijing from H-City—don’t touch it.” He stopped the furious Young Master Zhang who was about to get up and tear off the talismans. “This is not something you can meddle in. And this kind of talisman is extremely powerful. You can’t handle it.”
“But he can’t just lock you up!” Zhang Shun said in disbelief.
“This is not something you can meddle in.”
His brother’s face was very calm, without any emotion, as if he were stating a simple fact. In the face of such an indestructible attitude, Zhang Shun was helpless. He could only sit down with a plop and say dejectedly, “I knew you wouldn’t give me any explanation…”
Chu He slightly adjusted his posture in the armchair. His long, slender, cold fingers were intertwined and resting on his lap. His gaze was fixed on Zhang Shun’s right hand, which was messily wrapped in bandages.
“What happened?” he asked.
The bandage didn’t look unusual at first glance, but within the corners of the wrapped layers, a faint, dark, old bloodstain could be seen.
Zhou Hui hadn’t noticed it just now, but in front of Chu He, it was as if all parents would immediately notice the slightest sign of their child’s illness. Nothing could be hidden. Zhang Shun thought of how his brother usually gave him everything he wanted, was so patient and meticulous with him, and had single-handedly taken care of him until he was this big. His nose tingled.
“I cut off the Buddha seal,” he mumbled with a nasal voice. “The skin on my palm didn’t come off cleanly, and I had to go to the emergency room to get it treated a couple of days ago.”
At that moment, he thought Chu He would flip the table, get angry, or even rush over and slap him. But his brother didn’t do that. He maintained his posture, looked at Zhang Shun, and asked, “Why?”
Zhang Shun took a deep breath, and his chest heaved violently.
He stared at his own hand without moving, as if he were so focused that he saw flowers blooming on the bandage. After a long while, he swallowed and asked in a small voice, “…Brother, is what happened to Maha related to me?”
