Warm Water Spirits

Chapter 1: The temperature is right

Piezhe just got off the plane and was still at the airport when he got a call from the head teacher, Ms. Liu, of class 3 of the secondary school.

He scanned the foreign affairs documents handed over by Yu Chenyu and patiently waited for the middle-aged woman, who continued to speak for more than a minute, to finish before saying apologetically, “Yunqi did wrong. I’ll go back and have a talk with him.”

Hearing this, the teacher was dissatisfied because this thing had happened more than once.

Peizhe held the phone with one hand; no fluctuations in his expressions. While the other hand, holding the documents, hung at his side. There was no further action; no instructions with his eyes for Yu Chenyu what to do.

Even though the conference call was only 30 minutes away.

The document handed over to Peizhe was the latest detailed agreement from the second department of Foreign Affairs for the meeting after getting of the plane.

After the last round of arms control negotiations in Berlin, many changes were made. But so far, they seemed to be superficial words on the surface and the core of the reduction the clauses was ignored by the other party.

The information written in parentheses at the bottom of the agreement showed that the second department had a strong opinion about it, even using punctuation mark to separately highlight it.

Yu Chengan was transferred from the second department of Foreign Affairs to the Department of Armaments last month. He was still figuring out his immediate superior’s, Peizhe’s, ways of doing things*. Although he was anxious at the moment, but he held fast to the principle of less talk and more work and slightly calmed his heart down, quietly waiting.

(*what one says and what one does; words and actions)

A few seconds later, there seemed to be a different person on the other end of the phone.

Unlike the previous calm and bland tone, Peizhe voice was now lower, and tone a little coaxing, “…listen to the teacher. You’re not allowed to play games. After the college entrance examination, you’re free to play.”

Yu Chengan eyebrows raised up. He was slightly surprised. Why no one told him that Boss* Pei had a child…

(*Yu Chengqi uses ‘Pei Si裴司’ . Si means: department (under ministry); to take charge of; to manage, etc. So, I just used boss since I’m not sure about Peizhe’s exact position/rank. If you have better word/tittle, let me know. Or should I just use Pei Si?)

“Yunqi.”

Clearly two tones, the usual parental tactics. Hearing it at first hints warning.

Yu Chengan glanced twice with the corner of his eyes. Tsk! Looks not too good tempered right now. But last month, when the agreement was successfully concluded, boss Pei’s expression wasn’t this rich.

The other side seemed to be silent.

The hand holding the documents bent the finger and pressed at the center of his brow. Peizhe didn’t speak either.

A few seconds later, Peizhe looked at his wrist watch and said, “Be obedient. Or else, I’ll have aunt Song cut off the internet. Go to bed early today. Tomorrow morning, sister Pei Yue will come pick you up to take you to the hospital.”

Slowly, the person answered and seemed to have agreed but didn’t hang up the phone immediately.

Peizhe looked ahead, his thoughts unknown. Eyes lowered, he waited  for a long while, then smiled and waited for a few more seconds before hanging up the phone.

“Let’s go.”

Peizhe picked up the documents again and noticed the information at the bottom. The earlier fluctuation brought by the phone no longer there as he said, “Go back and tell the second department that if they have leisure time to put lines at the bottom, they might as well go to the research institute and observe the front-line engineers and learn from others’ pragmatic spirits.”

Yu Chengan: “…”

He didn’t dare speak.

“After the conference call meeting, you fly directly to Berlin so that they don’t tamper with the data again.”

“Okay.” Yu Chengnan nodded.

“Cutting down clauses is not a trivial matter and hesitation is understandable. I will explain this clearly in a meeting later. Also, inform research institute to send back the latest data next week, and we will talk about the second round of agreement. If you have more bargaining chips, you won’t be in a passive position.”

In the first month after the transfer, Peizhe gave Yu Chengan the same impression as his last sentence, ‘If you have more bargaining chips, you won’t be in a passive position’.

It’s not that this person was deeply shrewd, it’s just Peizhe just did everything rigorously.

There would be no fancy words and keep his subordinates guessing. He could achieve the goal at once, never doing unnecessary things. This required great patience and strong focus, and Peizhe never lacked these two.  

After following him to several meetings, Yu Chengan confirmed countless times that his boss was easy to get along with as long as one followed behind and worked steadfastly and in line.

During the conference call, the second department questioned one after the other. Yu Chengan was little overwhelmed dealing with it.

Peizhe sat on the side, looking through the documents, hearing Yu Chengan pause, without raising his head, he gestured, letting him deal with the matter directly.

Armament wasn’t a trivial matter. The document that takes effect immediately after signing, its lethality wasn’t a matter of a few lines of data.

The deputy head, Wen Yingyao, tone relaxed at the end of the discussion. He smiled, “If you weren’t thinking so clearly, I would have suspected that Peizhe didn’t come.”

 Yu Chengan: “…” This didn’t not sound like a compliment to him.

Wen Yingyao said to Peizhe who had been silent: “Pei Si, not gonna say a few words?”

Peizhe got up and said in a flat tone, “Have a nice weekend, deputy Wen.”

Wen Yingyao: “…come out for a drink on the weekend, hm?”

“No time.” Peizhe got up and picked up his suit coat from the back of the chair. “I’ll hand over the written report to the ministry on Monday. What does the Minister Sun say over there?”

Wen Yingyao said lazily, “You’re dealing with it; he shouldn’t be too at ease…You really don’t have time? Is Miss He back? But I heard Pei Fei say that He Jia has applied to go to Spain–”

Peizhe expressionlessly said, “Hanging up.”

Wen Yingyao: “…”

In the early November, the ginkgoes were already yellow. Except for being slightly cold, the weather was good, the sun was bright.

As the door closed, the cold air brushed past his cuff and entered the car. Peizhe sat down, looking distracted. His palm still carried the little chillness. He turned on his mobile phone to check the temperature. 14 degree Celsius.

Peizhe recalled that this time last year, the temperature dropped too much that Jiang Yunqi was hospitalized for a month.

He had hurried back to see him, only to see that the whole person was visibly thin, his nose had a breathing aid device and his eyes were red. Peizhe didn’t call out to him, so the other person’s head was still bowed and continued to play game on his phone.

Peizhe knew it was the game that Jiang Yunqi played; he played only this one.

Although, Pei Yue, at the side, was concerned about Jiang Yunqi, but after four years, her heart was more distressed for Peizhe.

Seeing the person come in, she simply let go. And before leaving, she handed over the medicine and meaningfully said, “You Bodhisattava sure are cheap. The hard work is someone else’s and name is yours.”

Jiang Yunqi had been accustomed to Pei Yue’s occasional outbursts. He pretended not to hear it, simply raised his head, looked at Peizhe and lowered again.

Peizhe looked amused. He walked over, tapped between Jiang Yunqi’s brows twice. The action was like pressing a switch. Then he spoke, tone much easier than the usual one, “Lost your tongue? Greet gege.”

Jiang Yunqi reached out and touched his nose, and made up his mind to not look at Pei Che properly, and only when Peizhe called him “Jiang Yunqi” in his deep voice did he slowly hummed out a sound between “hum*” and “ge”.

(*‘heng’ in Chinese.)

Peizhe expression didn’t change.  “Not well-behaving.”

Behind him, Pei Yue who was about to go out, rolled her eyes.

A few hours ago, he had received Pei Yue’s call but came Jiang Yunqi’s hoarse voice, ‘threatening’ him, “Even when I’m critically ill, you won’t come back.”

As his thoughts pulled back, Peizhe, still seated in car, lowered his eyes, a faint smile appearing on his face.

Thinking back, it seemed that Jiang Yunqi had gotten angry with him for the first time.

And he realized it only a year later.

At that time, he had just started going out with He Jia. Afterwards, for the first time, he had asked for one-week leave to take care of Yunqi in the hospital. He Jia almost suspected that the surname of ‘Yunqi’ he mentioned was surnamed ‘Pei’ and only later did she learn that it was ‘Jiang’.

The affiliated secondary school finished an hour later than general secondary school.

When Peizhe arrived, it was already 6:00 pm. He parked the car and went over to ask. It turned out that the senior class three haven’t finished yet.

When the guard saw Peizhe’s upright-clothes and bearing were out of ordinary, his heart turned a little wary. Because several people came quietly from city’s Education Bureau last month. So, he inquired, “Parent?”

Peizhu understood at a glance, mildly replying, “Class three.”

“Head teacher?”

“The head teacher is Ms. Liu, teaches English. The math teacher has just transferred; his surname is Ma.”

Although he was not always around Jiang Yunqi but Peizhe was quite familiar with the people around him.

The guard’s doubts immediately dispelled, he waved, “Go in and wait. There’s still some time until 6:30.”

The sky was already dark.

He passed by several teaching blocks as he walked. Probably because most of the students had already gone, the campus looked very empty. The wind echoed in the playground. From the distance, he saw two students under the flag raising pole collecting flags.

In front of the third teaching block, Peizhe sat down at the side of flower bed.

In less than five minutes, the sound of footsteps came not from afar. At the top of the stairs, a few boys pushed against each other and jumped down the last few stairs. The girls at the back, sighed deeply as if they had an exam today.

Peizhe waited for more than ten minutes. The lights of several classrooms were turned off but he still didn’t see his family’s Jiang Yunqi.

He looked at his watch.  It was 7 o’clock, already around dinner time.

Aunt Song should have called, but Peizhe didn’t know if the boy answered the call or not.

He got up and patted the suit coat in the crook of his arm and went upstairs to look for the person.

Class one and two were already empty. The students on cleaning duty were sweeping the floor. In the front row sat some students who haven’t gone yet; they huddled together and muttered among themselves to solve problems.

When Peizhe stood at the back door of class three, a girl, holding a garbage bag, ran into him.

Seeing the tall and strong man standing in front of her, she was stunned and stood rooted on the place.

Peizhe smiled and apologized, stepping back.

In the darkness, the young girl’s face turned red. She ran away without a trace.

Jiang Yunqi was quite easy to recognize. Whether he was standing or not, sitting or not.

In the middle of second row, he was lying on his desk, using his left hand as a pillow. One leg folded under his seat while the other stretched out straight across the aisle. He seemed to be cold as the hood covered half of his head and a handful of hair fell at the front of him, some sticking up. The right hand was holding a red pen, stabbing at the eraser, almost breaking it.

Peizhe frowned, and looked for a moment, not making a sound. Then he walked over and looked down at Jiang Yunqi’s test paper.

Man Jiang hong*

(*Man Jiang Hong( A river of blossoms): Title of a set of Chinese lyrical poems sharing the same pattern.)

English.

A multiple-choice question. Between ABCD, the options were selected more than three times back and forth but it was still wrong in the end.

Jiang Yunqi sniffed, lightly sighing. The right hand selected an A again.

The tip of his nose was red and his eyelashes were hanging down, appearing very listless.

Peizhe felt that the other person must be feeling cold as the tip of his nose was red. His black eye dropped, seeming to be spiritless.

 Worried that he would catch a cold, Peizhe draped his suit coat over the other person, covering the student in front of him.

Feeling the heat and the little weight that came, Jiang Yunqi didn’t react. But the scent was familiar. Peizhe used this aftershave at home. Jiang Yunqi, when had nothing to do, would smell it. It smelled really good.

The next second, Peizhe reached out his hand, placing it over Jiang Yunqi’s forehead. The temperature was right. He felt a little relieved.

Jiang Yunqi didn’t move, his thoughts unknown.

Smiling faintly, Peizhe helped him out, “Choose C.”

Jiang Yunqi closed his eyes, “Oh”.

135 Claps

Note:

Ge哥/ Gege哥哥：Elder/older brother(relative or non-relative)