As soon as Xing Wu reached the backyard, he saw Qing Ye trembling and hugging herself, and Wu Lao’er standing shirtless at the bathroom door.
Walking over, he asked in an unfriendly tone, “What’s going on?”
Qing Ye was so frightened her eyes turned red, and she instinctively moved closer to Xing Wu: “This person snuck into your family’s bathroom.”
Wu Lao’er looked completely confused and turned to Xing Wu: “Wu-zi, what do you mean ‘your family’s’? The bathroom has always been shared. Who’s this woman?”
Qing Ye’s worldview was shocked once again – a bathroom shared among neighbors? What era were they living in?
Xing Wu glanced at the utterly shocked Qing Ye and said coldly to Wu Lao’er, “She’s my relative. She’ll bathe first, you wait.”
Wu Lao’er wasn’t particularly upset, but his eyes kept staring at Qing Ye. Xing Wu shot him a fierce glare and pushed Qing Ye inside, only then noticing her dress zipper was halfway down, revealing her smooth, delicate white shoulder blades. The scenes from Huang Mao’s house that afternoon suddenly flooded his mind.
He furrowed his brows and said harshly, “Why the fuck don’t you lock the door?”
Qing Ye replied in confusion, “What lock?”
Xing Wu walked into the bathroom, closed the door, and there was a broken rope tied to an iron plate on the door frame – wrapping it around a few times counted as locking. Qing Ye’s vision went dark – what kind of incomprehensible operation was this?
Xing Wu untied the rope and asked her, “Got it now?”
Qing Ye stared at the “lock” for a moment. Just as Xing Wu was about to pull the door open to leave, she suddenly called out, “Wait, why is there a hole in the door?”
Xing Wu glanced at it and replied, “Old lock hole. Fell off.”
Fell off, leaving just a hole, and he answered so matter-of-factly. Qing Ye became agitated and raised her voice, “How am I supposed to bathe? What if someone stands outside and peeks through the hole? They’ll see me bathing!”
Xing Wu said incredulously, “Who the hell would stand in the yard in this heat to watch you bathe?”
But he saw Qing Ye’s eyes looking behind him, full of wariness. Xing Wu followed her gaze and turned his head – Wu Lao’er was still standing shirtless in front of his house, smoking and staring in the direction of the bathroom.
Xing Wu fell silent, then said impatiently, “I’ll smoke a cigarette by the kitchen door. Be quick.”
Qing Ye watched Xing Wu walk to the shed a few steps away, take out a cigarette and light it, before returning to the bathroom and tying the “lock” like he had shown her.
Just after securing it, Qing Ye looked back and suddenly called out, “Xing Wu, are you there?”
“Um…”
Footsteps quickly approached, and Xing Wu’s voice came from outside: “Speak.”
Qing Ye quickly undid the “lock,” opened the door, and squinted at him in the moonlight: “Why isn’t there even shampoo in the bathroom?”
“Troublesome.” Xing Wu tossed these two words and turned to go inside, returning shortly with a bottle of Head & Shoulders and a bar of soap for her.
Qing Ye looked at the items in her hands, her frown deepening: “Just these?”
“What? You want Pantene?” Xing Wu’s lips curled with impatience.
“Do you have conditioner?”
Xing Wu reacted as if he’d heard something ridiculous, touching his crew cut: “Do I look like I need conditioner?”
“…” Qing Ye slammed the door shut.
Her hair was long, and with the dry climate here, without conditioner, her hair would be dry and difficult to comb. But forget conditioner – they didn’t even have facial cleanser. This distant aunt’s family even had just a thin sliver of soap left. Having lived a privileged life, Qing Ye never imagined she’d one day be bathing in a place without even a proper lock. It all felt absurdly surreal.
Usually taking over half an hour to bathe, Qing Ye finished in less than ten minutes due to her heightened state of tension.
Qing Ye put on clean clothes and was about to open the door when suddenly something dark moved in the corner.
Xing Wu had finished his cigarette and was getting hot waiting when he suddenly heard another scream from the bathroom, mixed with terrified sounds. He reflexively stood up from the wooden stool and hurriedly walked over, raising his voice to ask: “What the fuck is it now?”
Just as he reached the bathroom door, someone suddenly rushed out and crashed straight into his chest. Xing Wu felt a soft, fragrant warmth hit him, and looking down, the girl before him lifted her pale face and pointed behind her: “In there.”
Xing Wu consciously stepped back and raised an eyebrow: “A ghost?”
But unexpectedly, Qing Ye’s eyes went wide as she cried out: “There’s a spider!”
“…”
Xing Wu wordlessly opened the door, looked in, and said casually: “So it’s just a spider.”
As he was about to turn away, Qing Ye suddenly became anxious. It was truly her first time seeing such a large live spider, and her whole body was covered in goosebumps. She demanded: “Aren’t you going to kill it?”
Xing Wu’s expression became serious: “I don’t kill living things.”
He then watched as Qing Ye’s expression changed from shock to anger, and added playfully: “Spiders eat mosquitoes, why kill them?”
Qing Ye’s constantly changing expressions amused Xing Wu, and he said carelessly: “Besides, how do you know it’s not my pet?”
At this moment, Qing Ye truly wanted to throw the Head & Shoulders bottle at him.
Xing Wu went inside, with Qing Ye following behind, but then she stopped short – this was a hair salon, after all. How could even the most run-down salon not have conditioner? Xing Wu turned on the lights, and Qing Ye, her hair still dripping wet, went straight to the washing station, bent down to look around for a while, then picked up a bottle of cheap conditioner and questioned Xing Wu: “If this isn’t conditioner, what is it?”
Xing Wu completely ignored her, hands in his jeans pockets, merely grunting “Oh” before heading upstairs.
Qing Ye had never met such an annoying person – would it kill him to speak properly?
After entering the room, she immediately pulled the floral curtain between them tightly shut and said: “Your mom said you don’t come back to sleep at night.”
“If my mom said I turn into Spider-Man every night to save the world, would you believe that too?”
Qing Ye threw the essential balm oil from the bed to the adjacent bed and pulled over the blanket, but didn’t cover herself. Having just bathed, she felt like she was sweating again, unbearably hot.
She sat up again and couldn’t help but ask: “Why don’t you install a lock on your bathroom door?”
Game sounds came from the other side as Xing Wu asked flatly: “Which family would install it?”