The wind on the square was a little rowdy.
Gu Lizhou was carried over from behind by Zhong Weishi. Passersby on the street all turned their heads to look. He shuffled over to the flowerbed to get away from the tricycle, fiddling with his phone in one hand while covering his face with the other—perfectly embodying the attitude of “I don’t know these people at all.”
Qiangzi and the others were enthusiastically discussing how to sell these roses quickly and effectively. The four heads were huddled together, voices not too loud nor too soft, just enough for Gu Lizhou to hear.
Qiangzi said, “I think we should find a big piece of white cloth, and write something like, ‘My wife died, leaving me all alone. My kid at home has a terminal illness and needs a huge sum for treatment. I have no choice but to help the flower shop sell flowers to raise money.’ Then kneel on the ground; the more pitiful the better. We need to create this feeling that I’m a good man, but fate is just way too cruel to good men.”
Da Fei said, “Wow, Qiangzi, you’re really full of ideas.”
Gu Lizhou: “…………” This was exactly why he didn’t dare get close. He just knew it. He knew things would unfold in a way completely beyond his imagination!
He really wanted to go home and watch horror movies alone in peace!
A’Wei slapped his thigh excitedly. “Qiangzi, you’re seriously a genius! So who’s going to kneel?”
Qiangzi: “Tsk, not me. I look too rough, not pitiful enough. How about you, Wei-ge. Just looking at your face makes me feel like fate has been really cruel.”
A’Wei: “……”
Da Fei: “I think good-looking people are more eye-catching. I’ll kneel with Weishi. I can play his poor cousin from the village, begging together for the sake of their children.”
Qiangzi gave a thumbs up. “I believe in your and Shi-ge’s acting skills.”
Zhong Weishi, despite being showered with praise, somehow managed to stay sober: “Did you guys forget what Old Li said back at the station? Absolutely no illegal activities.”
“How can begging be considered a bad thing? It’s not like I’m killing and setting fires, and I’m not harming anyone ah. Besides, this isn’t just ordinary begging, I’m even giving out flowers ah. It’s an equal exchange,” Qiangzi said with a frown.
“In any case, taking advantage of others’ kindness to fulfill your own desires is just wrong! I’m not doing it!” Zhong Weishi’s tone was firm and left no room for doubt.
Gu Lizhou smiled slightly in relief.
Although Zhong Weishi wasn’t the oldest among these difficult brothers, he always carried a kind of commanding presence that said “I’m the boss.” Since he refused, the other three naturally dropped the pitiful scheme as well.
“The key is still to catch people’s attention,” Zhong Weishi, as someone with rich experience from part-time acting gigs, began analyzing. “Here’s what we’ll do. Qiangzi, see if you can call in those fox friends1Pack of rogues. of yours.”
Qiangzi said, “My fox friends are all already here ah!”
Gu Lizhou couldn’t hold back his laughter, but he quickly realized something and forced himself to stop.
He really wanted to go home!
Zhong Weishi pouted. “Not us, I mean those friends in your group chat. In a bit, we need to create the impression of ‘Wow, these flowers they’re selling are cheap and pretty, if I don’t buy, I’ll lose out.’”
“So how do we create that exactly?” A’Wei still looked confused.
Qiangzi was the first to get it. “Stupid ah! Just ask for help!” As soon as he finished, he immediately started calling people on WeChat.
Very quickly, someone replied saying they’d head out right now.
Gu Lizhou wasn’t the type who liked to trouble others, so this kind of rallying response amazed him and even moved him a little.
What a display of hardship-born socialist brotherhood!
Qiangzi’s crowd of hype-loving friends soon began arriving at the square one after another. Just as planned, a dozen or so people surrounded the tricycle, picking and choosing from the flowers.
As expected, someone soon squeezed into the circle, eager to give it a try.
“How much for the flowers ah?”
It was A’Wei’s first time doing business in such a lively, bustling place, and he was so excited he got tongue-tied. “E-eight! Eight yuan a stem!”
“So expensive?” The boy turned and started to walk away.
“Hey hey hey,” A’Wei lowered the price with zero dignity, “Six yuan a stem! Six yuan a stem!”
“I only have three,” the boy said, pulling out three coins from his pocket.
“WeChat or Alipay also works,” Qiangzi quickly chimed in.
The boy rolled his eyes. “Selling or not? If not, then fvck off!”
Hey!—
This little brat wasn’t big, but sure had a temper! Qiangzi rolled up his sleeves, revealing a sexy 3D tattoo, and said with full force, “What kind of attitude was that? Say that again if you’ve got guts!”
The boy was clearly intimidated, froze for a few seconds, then hesitantly said, “I only have three yuan, and I didn’t bring my phone.”
Qiangzi pulled out a rose and handed it to him. “You gotta respect laborers, got it?”
“G-got it.” The boy took the rose and ran off.
A’Wei held the first bit of income in trembling fingers, moved to tears: “I’ll treat everyone to late-night snacks later!”
Gu Lizhou poured a bucket of cold water over the moment: “It’s just three yuan. That’s not even enough for bottled water.”
Everyone: “Tch!”
Soon, business started coming in one after another. Some guys bought roses for girls, some girls bought them for guys, some girls bought them for girls, and even some guys bought them for guys…
Gu Lizhou had a sudden idea. He picked the prettiest champagne rose, held it to his lips and sniffed it, then mimicked A’Wei’s gestures and carefully tied a butterfly ribbon around the flower for packaging.
“What are you doing! Don’t mess with that! We still need to sell them! What if you break it?” Zhong Weishi snatched it from his hands and stuck it back into the arrangement. “You just focus on collecting money.”
The old man trying to act romantic: “……”
As their WeChat and Alipay balances kept climbing, everyone’s faces were glowing with the joy of a good harvest.
Da Fei had to head home for something, so Qiangzi brought him to the station and came back shouting even louder:
“Flower nursery boss ran away, roses now on clearance sale ah… Valentine’s Day—if you’ve got someone, give them a surprise; if you don’t, give yourself a surprise… Buying is earning!”
“Buying is earning!” Zhong Weishi echoed like backup vocals.
A few school-aged kids passed by, holding skewers of fried chicken sticks, the smell wafting through the air.
Gu Lizhou noticed the kids eyeing the skewers and swallowing hard.
“Wanna eat some? I’ll go get you some.”
“Mhm!” Zhong Weishi grinned like a Samoyed and nodded vigorously.
Gu Lizhou bought a portion for everyone. Zhong Weishi sat on the tricycle, happily munching away.
“Want a drink?” Gu Lizhou handed over a can of Coke.
Zhong Weishi opened it one-handed and mumbled, “You really get me.” As he spoke, he held out two sticks of chicken to Gu Lizhou’s mouth. “Want some?”
Gu Lizhou beamed and opened his mouth.
When it came to coaxing kids, food really was the way to go.
Just then, a few people stepped out of the restaurant across the street.
Zhong Weishi’s gaze met with one of the girls among them. She stared at the flowers in front of him for quite a while, and he thought she might come over.
But unfortunately, she didn’t.
He felt a little disappointed.
The girl walked over to a white SUV, opened the door, then turned around after greeting a few friends and headed back.
Zhong Weishi quickly put on a smile and greeted her. “Would you like to buy some flowers?”
“How much are they ah?” the girl asked.
“The red ones are six yuan each.”
A few of the girl’s friends also came over. “Yunyun, you want to buy flowers ah?”
The group was mixed of men and women, some older, some younger. The oldest woman looked around 40, while the girl who had met his gaze earlier looked about 25 or 26.
Zhong Weishi guessed they had just come from a dinner after work and hurriedly added, “If you’re buying a lot, we can give a discount. These flowers can last for a week in water.”
“Then wrap a bouquet for me,” the girl named Yunyun said.
“How many?” A’Wei asked.
The girl thought for a moment. “I’m putting them in a vase, so not too many. Around twenty should do.”
A’Wei couldn’t help chatting when he saw a pretty girl. “You’re so pretty, no one sent you flowers today?”
“No one’s chasing me.” The girl turned to ask her friends, “Do you guys want some too? I can get a few for you. They look nice at home.”
The girl was lively and talkative, and even performed a magic trick on the spot, making a rose vanish in front of everyone.
Zhong Weishi was amazed. “Awesome ah. How did you do that ah?”
“Wanna know?” The girl raised an eyebrow. “Add me on WeChat and I’ll tell you.”
“Ooh~~~~” The crowd around them erupted in playful teasing.
Gu Lizhou stood to the side with his arms crossed, watching coldly. He rather admired the girl’s boldness, and at the same time figured that Zhong Weishi wouldn’t embarrass a young girl like that in front of so many people.
Sure enough, after collecting the money, the kid pulled out the phone from his pocket.
But before the girl could even open WeChat, a harsh voice suddenly interrupted them: “What are you all doing here? Who gave you permission to sell things here?”
—It was three patrolling city management officers.
A’Wei was so scared. “We can’t sell here? Sorry, sorry, we’ll leave right away.”
One of the officers, a buzz-cut man, gripped the handlebar of the tricycle. “Leave the tricycle. Come claim it tomorrow at the City Management Office.”
There were still over a thousand yuan worth of unsold roses on the cart—if they went back empty-handed, his family would definitely skin him alive. With a thud, A’Wei dropped to his knees, switching to performance mode: “Dage, dage, we’ve got elders and children at home, we rely on these flowers to survive! The wedding company that used to contract our flower fields went bankrupt this year, we’ve got dozens of acres of roses with nowhere to sell them. We really have nowhere else to go ah… Begging you to let us off this time.”
Gu Lizhou hid behind Zhong Weishi, trembling with laughter.
Why do such weirdos even exist in this world ah?
One of the city management officers looked young, probably just started on the job. With sympathy in his eyes, he said, “Maybe I can buy a few from you guys. How much are these ah?”
But the buzz-cut officer shot him a fierce glare, and the younger one had to back off. The third officer just kept taking pictures for evidence.
Gu Lizhou quickly threw a scarf over Zhong Weishi’s head to cover his face.
“You’re disturbing public order! Look at this crowd you’ve gathered. What do you think this place looks like now? Pack it up and move out! You don’t know stalls aren’t allowed here?”
A’Wei scrambled up from the ground, nodding repeatedly, “Okay, okay,” but the city management officer still wouldn’t let go of the tricycle. “You can pick it up tomorrow after paying the fine at the office!”
Qiangzi rolled up his sleeves. “On what grounds ah? You own this street? Why can those old ladies do square dancing here and we can’t sell flowers?”
“Rules are rules!” The buzz-cut officer didn’t waste time and pressed his walkie-talkie. “Dispatch, send a vehicle to Zhong-Yuenan Square. Got a tricycle to haul.”
“fvck!” Qiangzi threw down the rose in his hand and shouted provocatively, “What the hell does it have to do with you whether I sell or not? Like hell I’m scared of you ah!”
Zhong Weishi, realizing things were going south, quickly reached out to pull Qiangzi back, but it was already too late.
Qiangzi’s slap came crashing down like a tidal wave. The buzz-cut officer fell right off the tricycle. He barely steadied himself and hadn’t even spoken yet when Qiangzi gave him another solid shove in the chest.
“fvck your mother! Don’t push it when I’m being polite ah!” the buzz-cut roared.
One look at the buzz-cut officer’s face and it was clear he wasn’t the type to back down. That shove ignited a full-on brawl.
The crowd, which had originally gathered close, shrieked and scattered to a safer distance.
Qiangzi and the officer wrestled together in a deadlock, neither gaining the upper hand.
Zhong Weishi immediately shoved a confused A’Wei onto the tricycle. “Run! What the hell are you standing there for?!”
Gu Lizhou helped clear a path through the crowd. A’Wei instantly caught on to Qiangzi’s intention and slammed his feet down on the pedals.
“Hey!—Don’t run!” the young officer whistled sharply. “Stop!”
But A’Wei didn’t care about anything anymore. His legs were practically motorized as he pedaled madly into a dim alley.
The young officer jumped on his e-bike and went after him.
With A’wei gone, Zhong Weishi immediately turned to break up the fight between Qiangzi and the buzz-cut officer. He definitely didn’t want to end up being dragged back to the station to see Old Li again.
The buzz-cut officer was tall and burly. Under a two-on-one situation, Qiangzi was clearly at a disadvantage. He had already taken a slap across the face and, eyes bloodshot, tried to kick back at the officer. Gu Lizhou wrapped his arms around him from behind, dragging him sideways with all his might. “Stop it! Don’t make things worse!”
But the buzz-cut officer took the opportunity to land a punch on Qiangzi.
That punch landed squarely on Qiangzi’s abdomen. Gu Lizhou was close enough to hear the painful groan that came from him.
“fvck.” Zhong Weishi had been planning to keep things from escalating, but the moment that punch landed, he could no longer hold back.
Everyone could tell that Qiangzi had been deliberately provoking the officers to draw them away, he hadn’t truly fought back. But that officer’s punch had been full force, the kind that could seriously injure someone.
Qiangzi’s insides spasmed with pain. His massive frame crumpled down, squatting on the ground.
Zhong Weishi grabbed the back of the buzz-cut officer’s neck and returned the blow, landing it right in the officer’s stomach. At that moment, another city officer came from the side wielding a safety helmet, swinging it hard toward Zhong Weishi’s back.
It all happened in a split second.
Gu Lizhou was directly facing Zhong Weishi and clearly saw his shoulder flinch. Zhong’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and when they opened again, his pupils dilated—a visceral reaction to intense pain.
The screams from the surrounding crowd rose several octaves in that instant. A few men rushed in to pull Qiangzi and the buzz-cut officer apart.
Gu Lizhou had originally been trying to think of a calm way to de-escalate the situation—hide if they could, apologize if they couldn’t—but the moment he saw the city officer raise the helmet again toward Zhong Weishi’s face, he completely lost it.
His mind went blank. His body moved faster than his thoughts, throwing himself forward to block the blow.
At that moment, there was only one thing echoing in his head: Zhong Weishi’s face mustn’t get hurt.
The helmet clattered to the ground, and the visor shattered.
Zhong Weishi turned his head and saw a face just inches away.
Before anyone else could react, Qiangzi had already taken off his jacket and wrapped it around the city officer’s neck from behind, yanking him backward with all his strength while swearing, “Touch my bro? Tired living?”
Just as the situation was spiraling in an utterly unexpected direction, a white SUV screeched to a stop right in front of them. The driver stuck her head out from the window. “Get in!”
It was the same girl who had bought flowers earlier.
“Hurry up ah!”
Zhong Weishi leapt into the car like a swallow in flight. Behind him, the buzz-cut officer roared furiously, probably shouting threats like “just you wait.”
For a brief moment, Zhong felt exactly like a crime boss in a police movie, surrounded by police, dragged away by a loyal subordinate in a desperate escape.
So cool ah!
That is, until he noticed that Gu Lizhou, who had gotten in after him, hadn’t shut the car door. He quickly reached across to close it, nervously pulling it shut.
“Is your arm okay? Can you move it?”
Gu Lizhou had used his arm to block that helmet swing earlier. Under the dim streetlight, a swelling was visible on his left forearm.
It was sore to the touch, and there was a tingling sensation.
“Can you turn the light on? Thanks,” Zhong Weishi asked.
When the interior light came on, Zhong finally noticed just how pale Gu Lizhou’s face was. Sweat dotted the tip of his nose.
“Does it hurt a lot? Let’s go to the hospital and get an X-ray,” he said, clearly worried.
This time, Gu Lizhou didn’t argue. Qiangzi turned around from the front passenger seat and looked over. He asked the girl, “Can I trouble you to take us to the hospital? I’ll transfer you the fare.”
“No need. That was my plan anyway,” she said, stepping on the gas.
Gu Lizhou and Qiangzi were both admitted for emergency care—one to get an X-ray on his arm, the other on his ribs. Zhong Weishi sat on a long bench in the waiting area, completely drained, letting out a deep sigh. From the plaza to the hospital, his heart hadn’t slowed down once.
Qiangzi was still able to bullshit with the girl in the car, so he guessed it was nothing serious. He was worried whether Gu Lizhou’s arm was fractured.
Who would’ve thought that selling flowers could lead to a fight with the city officers? Life really was a landmine at every turn.
Once again, the face that was close at hand came to mind.
He reached up and touched the red string on his wrist. When they were checking his wound earlier, he had noticed the red string was still on Gu Lizhou’s hand too.
All those moments of throwing caution to the wind, it was getting harder and harder for him not to think about how Gu Lizhou felt about him.
The emergency room was empty outside at this hour, with only a few nurses on duty.
Outside, the sky had gone completely dark. Zhong Weishi pulled out his phone and saw a new message in the group chat. A’Wei said the younger city officer had let him off the hook, and he’d made it home safely.
After all that chaos, they hadn’t made much money, and instead Gu Lizhou and Qiangzi had ended up injured. Feeling guilty, A’Wei sent two red packets to the group, calling it “medical reimbursement.”
Zhong Weishi accepted one and forwarded it to Gu Lizhou.
“Aren’t you going to get yourself checked, just in case?” the girl came over and handed him a bottle of mineral water.
“Thanks.” Zhong Weishi moved his shoulders and arms a little. “I have thick skin, it’s fine.”
The girl laughed lightly. “I’m Xie Yun.”
Zhong Weishi shook her hand. “I’m Zhong Weishi. Wei as in future, Shi as in time.”
“Weishi, what a unique name ah.” Xie Yun sat beside him. “How old are you? Are you still in school?”
“I’m with the Nanhu Theater Group, not in school anymore. I’m 22 this year, turning 23 after the New Year.”
“So young ah?” Xie Yun took out a business card from her bag and handed it over. “I’m from Qianhong Entertainment.”
Zhong Weishi took the card and nearly popped his eyes out when he saw her title: Deputy General Manager. He suddenly felt she might not be as young as she looked.
Xie Yun got straight to the point: “Our company is currently preparing a youth campus web drama. It’s called “Secrets of the Old Days”. Not sure if you’ve heard of it?”
Zhong Weishi had a feeling what the business card was for, but he still answered honestly, shaking his head, “Sorry, I don’t really watch campus dramas, to be honest.”
“That’s okay.” Xie Yun smiled. “To be honest, the moment I saw you in the square earlier, I felt like you really fit the image of the male lead I had in mind. Your smile is youthful and really infectious. Would you be interested in acting?”
Gu Lizhou came out of the CT scan room just in time to see Zhong Weishi happily scanning the girl’s WeChat QR code, practically glowing.
“What are you doing?!”
The voice came from right behind him like a ghost, startling Zhong Weishi so badly he almost dropped his phone. He turned back. “You scared me! Done with the scan?”
“Yeah. Still waiting for the results.”
Gu Lizhou sat right between the two of them, glancing sideways at Zhong Weishi’s phone and catching sight of the successful friend request.
He thought that this woman was really persistent and the purpose of driving them to the hospital was to add Zhong Weishi on WeChat. If he had known earlier, he should’ve called the police instead.
Xie Yun stood up and said, “It’s getting late. I’ll head off first. Bye-bye.”
Gu Lizhou turned his head slightly with a frown, just in time to see Zhong Weishi grinning like a Samoyed, nodding enthusiastically, “Bye-bye.”
……
He had only gone in for a scan and the kid had already run off with someone else.
The old man had mixed feelings inside, and a series of indecent English words floated through his mind.
It felt as if the temperature in the entire waiting hall had dropped twenty degrees in an instant.
Zhong Weishi, oblivious to it all, turned his head and noticed the bandage now wrapped around Gu Lizhou’s hand. He asked, “Is your hand okay? Does it still hurt?”
“Heh.” Gu Lizhou let out a cold laugh. “Do you even care?”
Translator’s Note: Hi, hi! Hope you enjoyed my 5-chapter streak to make up for past weeks! Will come back to once a week again o7
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