SES Chapter 97 Part 1

Chapter 97

Early in the morning, someone knocked on the door.

Calling it a knock was too polite—it was more like pounding.

Ma Tuwen was groggy, mouth open in a yawn, the stench of last night’s booze twisting his own face. He vaguely remembered what had happened: the keyword was breakup.

He and his girlfriend, Ba Mei, had broken up.

For ordinary couples, breakups usually boiled down to the usual laundry list: money, stability, housing, and the future. He and Ba Mei were just two lost, unsuccessful people with no clear road ahead. Breaking up or getting back together was nothing unusual.

The only difference was that when Ba Mei stormed out and slammed the door, she forgot to take the bag of beer she hadn’t managed to sell at the street stall.

So Ma Tuwen drank it all.

And once it was gone, with the alcohol fueling his grief, he sank deeper into his misery. Looking at all the couples in the world, loving and clinging—it all felt like bullshit emptiness to him. So he grabbed his guitar and started strumming and singing. The lyrics? Lifted from Carmen, only he’d butchered them:

“Love is nothing but some dumb-ass crap, nothing rare at all. Women are just crazy nonsense, what’s the big deal…”

His serenade was cut short when the woman renting the next room burst out of her tiny shower, wrapped in a towel, hair still full of cheap shampoo foam. She banged on his door and yelled, “Are you insane? It’s the middle of the night! Can’t a person take a shower in peace?”

Clutching his guitar, Ma Tuwen thought: See? Women really are crazy nonsense. If she couldn’t sleep because I was too loud, fine, I’d get it. But she’s showering! What the hell does my singing have to do with her bathing? What, did my guitar-playing give her an orgasm?

Then he toppled over, guitar in hand, and fell into a drunken sleep.

So the next morning, when someone started pounding on his door, his first thought was that the shower woman was back for round two. His second thought was that Ba Mei had returned for the beer money.

The second was more likely. Yawning, he got up, patted his pocket for his wallet, and then opened the door.

Standing there was a courier.

Not from SF Express, STO, YTO, or Yunda. This one was from Wanfenghuo—a premium delivery service.

Still foggy with hops in his brain, Ma Tuwen asked, “What the hell do you want?”

The man handed him a document envelope. “Please take this. I need to snap a photo as proof it was delivered directly to you.”

“Why the hell would I need documents? Isn’t this a scam?” Ma Tuwen protested.

The guy ignored him, raised his phone against the wave of booze breath. “Stand straight. Smile.”

Ma Tuwen grinned, eyes bleary with drunkenness.

Once the courier left, he shuffled back inside, pawing through the envelope as he walked, secretly hoping to find a bun, or maybe a hot pancake rolled with fried dough.

But he’d opened it upside down. A photo slipped out, landing at his feet.

Tilting his head down, he saw the picture of a stunningly pretty girl, smiling sweetly at him.

Oh. He remembered who that was.

He casually stepped on the photo, dragging his slipper across it, leaving a huge print right over the girl’s face.

Yawning, still woozy, he slurred into his phone as he called Luo Ren: “Hey, Luo Ren, maybe you should come over. I think I might’ve found your girlfriend.”

Luo Ren asked him something, but Ma Tuwen didn’t catch it. The morning air stirred his melancholy instead, tears rolling down his cheeks as he answered, “Ba Mei, that heartless woman…”

Then he collapsed face-first into the mess on the floor.

When he woke up, Luo Ren was sitting on the sofa. Next to him sat the envelope, and the photo—now wiped clean of the shoe print.

Staggering, Ma Tuwen tried to get up, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. So he crawled over on all fours and clutched Luo Ren’s leg.

Luo Ren looked down at him.

Ma Tuwen cried with drunken indignation: “Luo Ren, don’t bother looking for your girlfriend. Women can’t be trusted. They nitpick, they leave without warning. Forget them! You and me—we’ll stick together, side by side, till death do us part…”

He wept and smeared snot all over Luo Ren’s pants.

A second later, Luo Ren grabbed him by the collar, hauled him up, and dragged him straight to the bathroom.

Ma Tuwen struggled. “Hey, hey, Luo Ren, Luo Ren—‘til death do us part…”

Inside the bathroom, Luo Ren shoved his head into the sink. The tap roared open, ice-cold water blasting down. Ma Tuwen’s scalp felt like it was peeling backward. He shivered hard, like a shot of liquid clarity had been pumped straight into his heart, scouring his lungs, rushing all the way to his toes.

Five minutes later, he stumbled out, towel scrubbing at his dripping head, flashing Luo Ren an embarrassed grin as water ran off the ends of his hair.

Luo Ren didn’t answer.

Ma Tuwen fumbled for words. “I just remembered—I’ve seen your girlfriend before. Isn’t she the one with the little cat charm bracelet? She came by last time looking for someone, and now you’re looking for her again. What is this, some kind of hide-and-seek game between you two?”

He’d meant it as a joke to ease the tension, but realized right after saying it how off it sounded. He forced a dry laugh.

Then he tried again. “So what, you didn’t get along with her family? They dragged her home and didn’t bother to tell you?”

Luo Ren said, “I’m leaving.”

Ma Tuwen watched him walk away, suddenly feeling hollow and restless. The woman was gone, now his friend too. Was this all his social life amounted to—people coming and going in stiff, brittle exchanges, never anything solid?

His knees buckled. He dropped to the floor, kneecap crunching an empty beer can, denting it in.

Muttering, he said, “Luo Ren… you don’t even seem like the type to chase after a girl.”

Footsteps returned. Luo Ren came back, crouched, and looked him in the eye.

Ma Tuwen sneered. “What now? Changed your mind—coming back to shack up with me?”

Luo Ren smiled faintly. “We’ve known each other a long time. I’ve got something to say.”

Ma Tuwen lifted his head, listening.