After ten days in the hospital, Sheng Jingchu was finally able to go home to recover.
Cheng Liao took advantage of her time off to care for him.
Sheng Jingchu lived in an area with no direct transportation, so Xiao Qi would drive over to pick her up each time. He seemed a bit concerned, "Cheng Liao, could you maybe come less often?"
"What, are you tired of picking me up?"
Xiao Qi sighed, "No, it just makes me feel useless." He glanced at the camellias in the back seat. "What’s the point of planting flowers in this season?"
Cheng Liao couldn't sit still. The weather was already getting cold, and it was clear that vegetables wouldn’t survive, so she bought a few cold-resistant plants and spent her free time loosening the soil in the garden.
Sheng Jingchu and Xiao Qi, as men, always found everything to be a hassle, as long as their basic survival needs were met. As for love and beauty, they didn’t have time to consider such things.
Cheng Liao patted Xiao Qi on the shoulder, "Don’t you feel more human now?"
To accommodate Sheng Jingchu, the Go academy had practically moved its office to his home. Cao Xihe, Yao Ke, Ye Chen, Zhao Qiankun, and Xie Changan would arrive early and stay all day.
Cheng Liao took charge of cooking for them, much to the satisfaction of Director Zhu from the Go academy, who asked her several times, "Xiao Cheng, would you consider working at the academy?"
Cheng Liao grinned, "Only if I can be the director!"
She had been doing well at her current job at Show Time, even receiving a rare bonus last month. Her main responsibility was post-production for the shows.
By now, Cheng Liao had planted five camellia bushes in the garden and was preparing to plant a few more.
Sheng Jingchu was discussing Go with Yao Ke.
Yao Ke had a complicated background. He moved to South Korea with his mother when he was young and studied Go at a Go academy there for several years before returning to China, where he achieved impressive results in the professional Go exams. He had always wanted to apprentice under Xie Hanzhou, but Xie Hanzhou no longer accepted students, so Jiang Chunlai took him under his wing, though not officially as his teacher.
Yao Ke was very familiar with Korean Go players, having been a contemporary of Zhao Yanxun. However, he was usually reticent and didn’t like to talk much about Zhao Yanxun.
"He was Cao Xianluo's prized pupil. While other students had to pay tuition, Cao Xianluo visited Zhao Yanxun’s home four times and secretly gave him a monthly allowance, treating him even better than his own son."
Cao Xihe, always quick to badmouth Zhao Yanxun when given the chance, chimed in, "That guy Zhao Yanxun, he sure has a way with women. What’s up with women these days? Have they all gone blind? Calling him a flower boy? A man is a man—what kind of man is beautiful like a flower?"
Finally, he didn’t forget to flatter his senior brother, "My senior brother is the real standard of a handsome Go player."
Sheng Jingchu remained indifferent to the flattery, urging him, "It’s your turn to review the game."
Through the floor-to-ceiling window, Sheng Jingchu looked out at Cheng Liao in the garden.
She was wrapped up in a thick sweater, which she claimed her grandmother had knitted. It was a warm, buttery yellow with a knitted strawberry hanging from the pocket. Around her neck was a bright red scarf that looked like it might catch fire.
She seemed to sense him watching her, waving her arms energetically before bending down with a spade to dig in the soil.
As she dug, she suddenly hit something. She squatted down, picked up a small box, and noticed a light purple satin ribbon tied around it.
She took off her gloves, opened the box, and found a ring inside, silver in color, though she couldn’t tell what material it was made of. Engraved on it were two letters: YY.
Puzzled, she looked up and saw Sheng Jingchu lifting his teacup, a ring now visible on the ring finger of his left hand.
So she slipped the ring on. It wasn’t too big or too small—it fit perfectly.
She spread her fingers and held them up to the sunlight, admiring how beautiful the ring looked. But she couldn’t figure out what the two letters meant, so she pulled out her phone and sent Sheng Jingchu a message:
"What does YY stand for? Duck Duck? Sheep Sheep? Fish Fish?"
He replied during Cao Xihe’s game review:
"Yuan Yuan."
It was his childhood nickname.
So the ring on his hand must have LL on it, which combined with YY would be YYLL.
She replied:
"Great, so together we’re just the abbreviation for mediocrity? Sounds like we’re not destined for greatness."
He responded:
"No, it stands for instant fame."
Wait, so his ring didn’t have LL on it? She thought about the initials for "fame" in Chinese, CM, and used her phone’s predictive text to guess, finally realizing that the closest match was "cute fool" (蠢萌).
A bit deflated, she replied:
"I’m only cute, not foolish, okay?"
He replied:
"It stands for 'greedy cat.'"
During dinner, Cheng Liao quietly observed Sheng Jingchu. He was getting much better at using chopsticks with his left hand. She hadn’t yet gotten a good look at the letters on his ring, but Cao Xihe noticed it.
Cao Xihe exclaimed, "Oh my god, you’re wearing a ring?"
Cheng Liao waved her own ring finger. "I have one too."
Cao Xihe nodded, "Oh, it’s a couple's ring."
"Is it platinum?" Cao Xihe inspected the material. "Why didn’t you get a diamond? You should have asked for more! My senior brother is loaded—he’s won so many prizes, and he even has a luxury car in his garage."
This design had been recommended by the store clerk, and Sheng Jingchu couldn’t really tell if it was good or not. Judging by Cheng Liao’s expression, she seemed to like it, but he was still unsure, so he asked, "What do you think?"
Cheng Liao smiled sweetly, "I like things that are practical."
She looked at her cicada pendant. "Take this agarwood cicada, for example. It’s nice and all, but I don’t know how to appreciate it. If you’d given me one made of gold back then, I would have fallen for you instantly."
Sheng Jingchu looked at her, "Really?"
Cao Xihe, still eyeing her pendant, wasn’t giving up, "If you don’t like it, give it to me. I’ll trade you one made of gold."
Cheng Liao immediately hid the pendant, "No way!"
After dinner, Cao Xihe didn’t want to leave.
He was raised by his uncle, who discovered his talent for Go and sent him to Xie Hanzhou’s Go dojo.
Cao Xihe had spent most of his life with Sheng Jingchu. When he became successful and wealthy, he bought his own house, but after his uncle passed away, he didn’t like going home and often freeloaded at Sheng Jingchu’s place.
He suggested, "How about we play some mahjong?"
Yao Ke, usually quiet, couldn’t help but chide him, "Have some consideration for your senior brother. How is he supposed to play mahjong with his arm like that?"
Cao Xihe smacked his forehead, "How about poker then?"
He immediately started gathering people, making calls to set up a game.
Only Ye Chen responded, "Can I bring a friend?"
"Everyone’s welcome," Cao Xihe said, turning to Sheng Jingchu, "Did the prize money from your last Toyota Cup match come in?"
Sheng Jingchu wasn’t sure; he would have to ask Xiao Qi.
Cao Xihe didn’t press further, "Whatever, my senior brother is rich."
Cheng Liao sat nearby, watching TV, which was tuned to a sports channel airing highlights from the "Ji Shi Cup" qualifying rounds.
The tournament schedule and match times were long, so the TV station only aired selected clips.
Currently, the broadcast was showing a game between two young players, and Cheng Liao was watching with great interest.
Sheng Jingchu handed her an orange.
Cheng Liao had a habit of meticulously removing all the white fibers from the orange. After peeling the skin, she used a toothpick to carefully pick off every last string.
Noticing her interest in the game, Sheng Jingchu asked, "So, what do you think of the match?"
Cheng Liao nodded, "I've noticed quite a bit."
He continued, "Who do you think has a better chance of winning?"
Cheng Liao pointed to the player on the right. "Him!"
Sheng Jingchu couldn’t figure out what she was basing her opinion on. To him, the game was still too close to call.
"Why do you think that?"
"Because he’s handsome!" Cheng Liao rested her chin in her hands, her face full of admiration. "He looks just like my idol."
Her idols changed frequently. A while ago, it was Putin, but recently, it had switched to a new-generation male actor whose acting skills, she claimed, were excellent. She had watched the TV series he starred in three times.
Sheng Jingchu often felt that people were shallow because they liked to judge everything by appearance.
What he disliked most was evaluating a person based on their looks.
Professional Go competitions should be analyzed from a professional perspective; judging a player’s chances of winning based on their appearance was absurd.
But there were many people like Cheng Liao, including the large number of followers on his Weibo account.
Cheng Liao finished peeling the orange and offered him a segment.
The game on TV was nearing its end, and the player Cheng Liao was rooting for won. She triumphantly shouted, "Hooray!"
Sheng Jingchu asked her, "If you didn’t know me, who do you think would win if I played against him?"
Without hesitation, Cheng Liao answered, "Of course, you would!"
Sheng Jingchu felt a warm satisfaction.
Cheng Liao laughed, "Even before I met you, I had heard your name. Comparing an unknown player to the world’s number one—do you think I’m stupid?"
"What if neither of us were famous?"
"Well..." Cheng Liao thought seriously for a moment, "It would still be you."
"Why?"
She took a bite of the orange, and the juice splashed on her face. Sheng Jingchu grabbed a tissue to wipe it off for her.
"Because love makes him look like Tom Cruise."
She noticed Sheng Jingchu's phone on the coffee table and reached for it. His phone didn’t have a passcode.
The interface was as clean as his home, with only the pre-installed apps, WeChat, and Weibo.
She opened the photo gallery and found only one picture—of herself.
She waved the phone in front of him. "You secretly took a picture of me!"
It was just a side profile, taken in Hangzhou.
In the photo, Cheng Liao was sitting on a chair by a lotus pond, shielding her eyes from the bright light with her hand. The color of her eyes was very light, reminding him of freshly made cane sugar, a pale brown with a hint of yellow.
At that moment, she had been talking about her mother. Though she was smiling brightly, there was a hint of sadness in her eyes.
He had been listening to her carefully, but somehow, almost instinctively, he had taken that picture.
"If you’ve taken it, don’t waste it." Cheng Liao pressed a few buttons on his phone and then waved it again. "How about this?"
She had set the picture as his wallpaper.
Then she scrolled through his contacts and found only two entries: "Dad Xie" and "Cheng Liao."
Suddenly remembering the first night in Hangzhou, she recalled that he had taken a call, and she had only seen the word "Dad" on the screen. Now she realized it was from "Dad Xie," meaning the call was from his teacher.
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