Jiang Hansheng drove, following the directions Yan Bin had given him. In under twenty minutes they pulled up outside a hot pot restaurant.
The décor leaned toward a classical style. The place was still in its trial period, offering complimentary vegetables and drinks, and business was booming. The main hall was in full roar — nearly every seat taken — clouds of white steam blurring the light that poured down from the ceiling.
Yan Bin led them to a relatively quiet private room tucked in the corner. A server lifted the door curtain and stepped inside, addressing Yan Bin as Manager with careful deference. Yan Bin took charge of ordering, and finished by calling for three pitchers of beer.
“Two is enough,” Zhou Jin said. “He doesn’t drink.”
Yan Bin finally flicked his gaze over to Jiang Hansheng, who had been sitting in silence this whole time. “Is it that you don’t drink,” he asked, “or that you don’t want to drink with me?”
“I drove,” Jiang Hansheng said.
“Fair enough.” Yan Bin gave a knowing nod, then turned back to Zhou Jin with a grin. “Then Xiao Wu drinks with me. How about something stronger — the clear stuff?”
“No thanks. Beer is fine,” Zhou Jin said.
“Two pitchers of beer, then.”
Yan Bin relayed the order. The server left, and he reached over and unwrapped Zhou Jin’s full set of cutlery for her, then asked: “Well? Does Third Brother’s place pass muster?”
“You’ve finally managed to do something useful,” Zhou Jin said.
“Underestimating me?” Yan Bin clicked his tongue. “I may not be much of a student, but I’m not thick.”
“Then stick with it this time. No quitting halfway through.”
Hearing her earnest, almost lecturing tone, Yan Bin let out a light scoff. “Now you’re the one giving me speeches? I used to think we were comrades in arms — fellow academic disasters. Then you go and pull the rug out from under me, hide your ability, and get yourself into the Jingzhou Police Academy just like that.”
“I dragged you to tutoring sessions and you never showed,” Zhou Jin shot back. “You were too busy chasing girls every day. And now you’re blaming me for abandoning you?”
“Can’t blame you. I blame the tutors for not being as pretty as the girls.”
He laughed heartily at his own joke and launched into a proud retelling of his youthful pursuit strategies.
Zhou Jin countered with her own grievances — how Yan Bin used to rope her into covering for him constantly, making her tell his mother he was at a classmate’s house studying, when he was really off on dates with his girlfriend.
“Got found out eventually, didn’t I?” Yan Bin said. “My mom chased me up and down the whole alley with a broom.”
Zhou Jin raised an eyebrow. “And when my dad found out I’d been lying for you, he came after me with one too.”
“You had it easy — Zhou Chuan always shielded you. He took the beating for you. Your dad never landed a single hit. I had nobody in my corner, and then the girl turned around and broke up with me.”
Zhou Jin brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear and smiled at him: “I still remember when you had your heart broken and came running to cry to me. I’d never, in all the years I’d known you, seen you cry like—”
Something nudged gently against her elbow. She paused, and turned to find Jiang Hansheng’s eyes on her.
“Sorry,” he said.
…
She and Jiang Hansheng were sharing one side of a small sofa, sitting at an easy distance from each other. Jiang Hansheng’s expression was as calm as ever, yet somehow Zhou Jin felt it — a faint, almost sharp pressure emanating from him.
“It’s nothing.”
She said it quickly, feeling oddly unsettled without quite being able to name why.
Her gaze drifted sideways, landing on his dark hair, the composed line of his profile, and the faint reddish marks along the side of his neck.
She didn’t immediately register what they were. Then she thought about it — and arrived at a rather telling conclusion.
She couldn’t stop herself. She erupted into a sudden fit of coughing.
“What’s wrong?” Yan Bin asked.
Zhou Jin shook her head, hand pressed over her mouth, face gone scarlet, entirely unable to remember on which evening she had been responsible for that particular piece of work.
After a moment, Zhou Jin recalled there was still something important she hadn’t done.
“I haven’t made a proper introduction yet. This is Jiang Hansheng.”
“Oh, I know him — the young lord from Number 23.” Yan Bin grinned. “Xiao Wu mentioned you’re a teacher?”
“Yes,” said Jiang Hansheng.
“Which school?”
“The University of Science and Technology.”
“Oh, a university professor, no less?” Yan Bin’s smile grew more mischievous. “Still the young lord through and through — extraordinary as ever. Xiao Wu, what stroke of luck landed you someone like this? Quite a stretch up, isn’t it?”
Zhou Jin’s brow furrowed slightly. Something in Yan Bin’s tone was off — but she knew him well enough to know that this was just how he’d always been, as rough-edged as ever, saying things without a filter, and usually without any real malice behind them.
She was about to respond when Jiang Hansheng spoke quietly from beside her: “It’s not a stretch. Zhou Jin is exceptional.”
Yan Bin grinned and half-rose from his seat, reaching over in a teasing gesture to ruffle Zhou Jin’s hair: “I really can’t see it — what’s so charming about you, you little wretch?”
Jiang Hansheng’s hand closed into a fist.
Zhou Jin batted Yan Bin’s hand away immediately, irritation flashing in her voice: “How old are you? Keep your hands to yourself!”
She was about to retaliate when her phone rang, cutting her off. She glanced at the screen — a string of familiar digits. She raised an eyebrow, tossed a quick word to the others, and stepped out: “I’ll go take this.”
The moment Zhou Jin left, the private room fell abruptly quiet. On the table, the hot pot broth was beginning to bubble.
Yan Bin let his easy smile drop.
He leaned back, fished out a cigarette, and flicked his lighter. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked Jiang Hansheng.
There was no expression to read on Jiang Hansheng’s face. “I mind,” he said, coolly.