Chapter 8 — Catching Up

The neighbour’s television sounds vibrated through the walls at a barely-audible level. Barely-audible, however, still means audible, and for an early-stage practicing cultivator, this was too much noise.

Lin Che had been sitting cross-legged on the living room floor for some twenty minutes, eyes closed and breath controlled in an attempt to find that feeling — that current — again. He’d managed to reproduce the results from last time, albeit with greater struggle than during the previous night, but could not get any further.

He’d planned to ask Shen Yue for advice, but she had somewhere else to be. Probably wouldn’t be back tonight. She’d presumably been living here long enough to have developed some level of managing the noise, or maybe subtle distractions of noise weren’t much of an issue at her stage. He wasn’t too sure.

Either way, tonight was not a cultivation night.

He sat on the floor for another minute anyway, comfortable in the patch of carpet he’d warmed up with his body heat, and then got up and texted Xu Fang.

you busy?

The reply came in under a minute.

was at lao chen’s thing earlier. just got back.

come over

now?

yeah

give me 20

***

Forty five minutes later, Xu Fang arrived, which, for him, was basically on time. Lin Che buzzed him up and had the door open by the time he came down the hallway, jacket dripping with moisture.

“It’s raining,” Xu Fang said, by way of greeting.

“I can see that.”

Xu Fang let himself into the building and looked around as though he were window shopping at a Swedish furniture shop. He was taller than Lin Che by half a head, broader in the shoulders, and had a face which defaulted to a light smile that he often complained about. He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook by the door.

“Nice place,” he said, running a hand along the wall.

“It’s hers.”

“Still nice.” He barged through the hallway and made a sudden turn to the right, entering the kitchen. “She’s not here?”

“Out.”

“On a Friday.”

“She does things,” Lin Che said.

Xu Fang turned around and looked at him with great seriousness. “Brother. Is your wife out on a Friday night without you, three weeks into your marriage?”

“She’s not—” Lin Che paused. “She had something to do.”

“Right.” Xu fang nodded and opened the fridge as though the apartment was already his. His eyes popped out for a split second as he studied the contents. “What can I take?”

“Beer on the left.”

He took two, nudged the fridge shut with his elbow, and held one out to Lin Che. Just as Lin Che reached for the can, Xu Fang evaded the motion by raising the can slightly higher, then to the left, then to the right, went in a circular motion, before finally conceding the beverage to Lin Che.

“We should go out. I haven’t been to Jincheng’s in a while,” he proposed, popping open the can with his now-free hand.

“The karaoke place?” questioned Lin Che.

“Do you know another Jincheng’s?”

“Let me get my jacket.”

***

Jincheng’s was a ten minute walk, as most points of interest in the city happened to be, and two flights of stairs below street level. It was a former sewer turned karaoke bar, which, despite initially sounding offputting, gave it its own unique charm.

The decor was the same as it had been since they were university students: low light, red upholstery, and small booths with screens and tambourines mounted on the walls for the musically or alcoholically talented.

They got a booth, and Xu Fang ordered a couple of beers and a large plate of fried chicken. Lin Che queued up a song without looking at what it was, and then looked at what it was.

“I’m not singing that,” he said, upon seeing the title on the screen in front of him.

“You put it on.”

“I misclicked.”

Xu Fang took the tablet from him before he could skip away from the song, and scrolled before adding something that Lin Che liked even less to the queue. He placed it on the seat beside him, and pulled out a microphone from the wall mounts, throwing it towards Lin Che. Then, he grabbed a tambourine and played to the beat.

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They went through nearly half of the beers before either of them said anything with some real weight to it. This was, as Lin Che had come to understand over many years, simply how Xu Fang operated. He needed about forty minutes to decompress in a new environment before he was actually present in it, though it was a bit faster tonight with the lack of new faces and presence of beer.

“How was Lao Chen’s thing?” Lin Che asked.

“Loud. Too many people.” Xu Fang pulled a bone out of his mouth and licked his thumb and index finger. “You know how his place is. Every time I go I think it’ll be a few of us, and then I arrive, and there’s twenty people and someone’s brought a speaker.”

“Why do you keep going?”

“Because I like Lao Chen.” He said this as if it were completely obvious, which it was. “I just don’t like everyone Lao Chen likes. The man has no standards for who he lets through the door.”

Lin Che drank his beer in agreement.

“So,” Xu Fang started.

“So.”

“Married life.”

“What about it.”

Xu Fang pointed at him with a chicken wing. “You know what about it. I get one phone call. One! Saying that you’ve registered, and then radio silence for three weeks. I had to hear about it from your mother before you even texted me.”

“My mother texted you?”

“She was awfully excited.” Xu Fang held his phone up to his face, unlocked it, and scrolled through his messages. “She sent four photographs from the registration and a voice message.”