DJPWNK 33

Early in the morning, the ear-splitting doorbell made Jiang Xu lose all sleepiness. He yawned lazily. It was a rare morning off from work, but he now had to wake up before eight o’clock due to this unexpected guest.

Who had come to his house so early?

Jiang Xu opened the door expressionlessly, every eyelash full of annoyance. Outside the door stood a young man in black trousers, carrying a large bag of things and holding a small book. He cautiously asked, “Is Professor Shen here?”

Jiang Xu tilted his head and shouted into the house, “Shen Fangyu!”

No one answered.

Jiang Xu resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Shen Fangyu’s sleep quality was really baffling. If you say he was a heavy sleeper, but as soon as Jiang Xu threw the pink rabbit every time he got cramps at night, Shen Fangyu would immediately wake up and massage his leg, but if you say he was a light sleeper …… he just couldn’t be woken up…just like now.

“I’ll sign for him.” He asked the young man, “What is it?”

“Just some lab equipment, pipette, measuring cylinders, beakers and stuff.”

No wonder Jiang Xu thought the logo on the bag this man was carrying was familiar. He and Shen Fangyu’s laboratories were right next to each other, and Jiang Xu would at times bump into the students in Shen Fangyu’s group as they picked up their orders.

Jiang Xu signed the form, took the goods, and put them in the living room. He then went to the bedroom and kicked Shen Fangyu twice, “Why are things ordered by your lab being delivered to my house?”

Shen Fangyu opened his eyes in a daze, “They weren’t ordered by the lab, I bought them for you using my personal account.”

“What do I need these things for?” Jiang Xu asked, “You want to open a lab in my house?”

“It’s all because I wanted to make you a midnight snack but you only had instant noodles.”

“Do you use measuring cylinders, beakers, and pipettes to make midnight snacks in your house?”

“For accurate quantification, an electronic balance is needed,” Shen Fangyu closed his eyes, the hair on his forehead was scattered, and he looked lazy and comfortable, “My recent master’s student taught me, he said that experimenting and cooking are the same thing. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you how to do it tonight. “

Jiang Xu immediately understood, “So you don’t know how to cook?”

“Just give me some trust.” Shen Fangyu rubbed his eyes and looked at his mobile phone, then he couldn’t help but say, “Damn it. Jiang Xu, my student’s paper has been rejected again.”

Jiang Xu patted his dog’s head indifferently.

“How could the reviewers be so heartless?” Shen Fangyu couldn’t help complaining. “I personally corrected this article for three months and changed to several magazines. My student can even barely recognize his article, why doesn’t it pass the review?”

In the morning, the young Dr. Shen suddenly had a very vicissitudes feeling, he forwarded a few tutor-growing-bald-from-correcting-essays emoji packs, and touched his still healthy head of black hair, lamenting: “Teaching students is really more difficult than doing it yourself.”

Jiang Xu said from experience, “Maybe if you wrote it all for him, he’d pass.”

Shen Fangyu slammed his phone to the side and stretched out, “Why didn’t I think of studying clinical medicine in the first place? To be a doctor, you have to do scientific research, teach, and do clinical practice. The donkeys in the production team are not as busy as I am.”

Jiang Xu added: “You left out administration.”

“Oh yes, research, teaching, clinical and administrative practice.”

Shen Fangyu smashed his head on the pillow, “I stayed up late last night reading until after three o’clock, I might as well go back and inherit my second uncle’s two acres of fertile land. Do you remember Lu Tong from our class? The one who transferred to the basics and went to the agricultural college next door to be a postdoctoral fellow. He now sends me pictures of himself making wine in the fields every now and then, just like Tao Yuanming.”

*Tao Yuanming is a Chinese poet best known for his poems on a leisurely and idyllic life.

“They don’t give farms to non-agricultural households anymore,” Jiang Xu gave him a look, “You can’t inherit.”

“Oh, another dream dashed,” Shen Fangyu sighed, “I’m counting on that fund being announced next week. I’ll resign if I don’t get it,” He exaggerated. “Which day will it be announced?”

“Tuesday.”

“Okay,” Shen Fangyu nodded, “I’m going to invite my mother to go pay respects at the temple this weekend, should I pay respects for you?”

It didn’t matter whether you were a top student in the entrance exams or the top doctor in the department, as long as you had half a foot in the academic circle, you couldn’t escape the fate of applying for research funds for various projects.

The larger the amount needed, the more difficult it is to apply, and the funds he and Shen Fangyu applied for were one of those that were difficult to apply for and had a very low winning rate.

Jiang Xu listened to Shen Fangyu talk all morning. He made a few passing remarks and Shen Fangyu became more and more enthusiastic. He originally planned to stop this pointless and time-consuming conversation, but just as he was about to, he suddenly felt something inexplicable.

The comfortable morning, the short break from work, the small talk…. the whole atmosphere inexplicably gave Jiang Xu a rare sense of peace.

Since leaving his hometown for the university, Jiang Xu’s life had been filled with study, work, patients, and hospitals, and his house was more like a hotel to him, a place to sleep most of the time. This was the first time he felt a bit at home in A City.

Shen Fangyu thought his sudden silence was a sign of politeness and he smiled, “Don’t be embarrassed, it’s all trivial anyway.”

Jiang Xu’s face was a little unnatural because of the subtle association he had just made in his mind, and he slammed his pillow down on Shen Fangyu, “It’s all feudal superstition, get up early.”

Shen Fangyu hugged the pillow and smiled at him, “I’ll get up if you let me touch the baby.”

Jiang Xu gave him a blank look. After the conversation they had that night, Shen Fangyu never mentioned compensation or selling the house again, but it was unknown what he had learned from Jiang Xu’s words, as he suddenly started to harass him.

For example, he insisted on taking a day off with him, or always coveted to touch his stomach.

Jiang Xu said heartlessly, “Then you’d better lie down for the rest of your life.” He walked out of the room without giving Shen Fangyu a single look.

Of course, Shen Fangyu couldn’t lie down for the rest of his life, he rolled around on the mattress on the floor with his pillow and slowly wiggled up. It was a rare day off work, so when he got up and saw Jiang Xu planning to make noodles again, he couldn’t help but say, “Put that down.”

Jiang Xu glanced at him inexplicably and saw Shen Fangyu taking out the electronic balance, pipettes, measuring cylinders of various sizes, and beakers one by one, and arranging them all over his kitchen.

“There are no ingredients in the fridge.” Jiang Xu reminded.

“You really have the nerve to say it.”

Shen Fangyu opened the fridge, and Jiang Xu saw that the fridge, which had always been empty, was now stuffed to the brim with all kinds of ingredients.

“I went to the supermarket after work last night,” Shen Fangyu explained, “You were working the night shift.”

Ever since Jiang Xu smashed the mirror in the bathroom that day, Shen Fangyu began to leave work with him. Although they still went their own ways and drove their own cars, the stretch of road from the car park to the doorstep of their house was their closest intersection of the day, except for times one of them had to work the night shift.

After arriving home Jiang Xu would usually work for a while longer, and Shen Fangyu would go to wash up, after which it would be his turn to work and Jiang Xu’s turn to wash up. The two of them would sometimes talk about work, and sometimes they would tussle over various trivial matters of life, but they were tired and busy most of the time and this was the first time since Shen Fangyu had lived here that they had such a leisurely and comfortable morning.

“You’re really going to make breakfast out of these?” Jiang Xu looked at the experimental equipment in the kitchen again, always thinking that the food made from them was highly poisonous.

However, Shen Fangyu believed in the cooking techniques his unreliable student had taught him. He slipped on the floral apron he had bought under Jiang Xu’s suspicious gaze and confidently unscrewed the gas stove, only to almost get blown away by the sudden fire.

Shen Fangyu was so frightened that he took a step backward, and with another “bang”, the flames suddenly went out again, plunging the kitchen into dead silence.

“What’s going on here?”

Jiang Xu said slowly, “It’s been six months since I last lit the stove.”

The stove was only put to use when his parents visited and cooked, but he was always busy at work and they hadn’t retired, so it was quite a hassle for them to come. This way, the gas stove remained unused all year round, so it was prone to various problems.

Shen Fangyu said in shock, “You’re really *a lady who doesn’t dip her fingers in spring water.”

*A sentence to describe pampered young masters and ladies.

Although he was not a good cook, he did not expect Jiang Xu to be even more outrageous than him, as he did not even turn on the stove at home.

When he tried to light it again, he couldn’t get it going, and after a few attempts, a pungent gas smell wafted over, causing him to choke and cough a few times.

“Could it be a gas leak?”

Jiang Xu said calmly, “Not really.”

Shen Fangyu: “……”

He took off his apron and picked up the keys he had left in the entrance hall, “I’ll go buy breakfast and find a gas stove repairman on the way.”

Jiang Xu gave him a look and reminded him, “Remember to go to the street on the left, don’t let the master who came to fix the lock the other day see you.”

He was a bit worried that people would misunderstand that there was some kind of terrorist activity in his house, either the door was broken or the stove blew up day after day.

The master who fixed the gas stove was quite sharp and he was done just after the two of them had finished their breakfast. He handed a pile of business cards to Shen Fangyu and said with a heated smile, “Mr. Shen, I remember you, you asked our Xiao Liu to fix two doors.”

Shen Fangyu looked at Jiang Xu with the business cards in his hand, and finally explained before he could ask him a question, “I really went to the street on the left.”

“Oh haha,” the master explained, “The people on the left and right streets are all with us, and we register all the people in the Yue Feng community who often call for repairs. This way, everyone will get work.”

He pointed to the pile of business cards he handed to Shen Fangyu and said, “We can fix toilets, light bulbs, and home appliances, and we can even upgrade you to a VIP user if you want to repair them again. Remember to come back to us next time you need something fixed. You are welcome to come back anytime, we are waiting for you!”

He smiled and winked as he typed on his phone and walked out of Jiang Xu’s door.

At that moment, Jiang Xu wondered if he was shouting in some work group, “There are two ingrates in 3-4-1202 in Yue Feng community. They’ve broken two doors plus a stove in a week, they’re about to become VIPs.”

“To be honest, I don’t really want to become a VIP,” Jiang Xu said.

Shen Fangyu nodded, “Me too,” he lamented as he flipped through the pile of various repairmen’s business cards, “And I suddenly felt that my previous act of giving people hospital parking cards …… seems no different from this. I’m quite indebted.”

“……” Jiang Xu said, “I’ve given them away too.”

The two men looked at each other and saw the same deep introspection in each other’s eyes

“How about giving out something different next time?”

Shen Fangyu pointed to the repaired stove, “Like a dish I make with my own hands or something?”

Jiang Xu gave him a look and commented, “Then I think it might be better to give out a parking card.”