A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 100 – “Wangzai”

“What’s the Name of the Cat?”

The first day of the new year, Sheng Wang’s phone began vibrating at 6am.
Eyes not even opened, a head full of morning grumpiness, he reached out from the quilt and groped around by the side of the pillow. However, instead of touching his phone, the vibration stopped on its own.

A question mark slowly rose over Sheng Wang’s head, still groggy from sleep.

He was still in the momentary post-hangover blackout stage, and did not instantly realise where exactly he was. Neither did he immediately recall what he experienced last night, he was merely robotically going through the motions every morning — the alarm clock’s ringing, he has to turn it off and wake up.

However, he didn’t need to turn it off before the alarm stopped on its own today. And then there was someone who caught his hand — still messily feeling around — and stuffed it back under the quilt.
Enveloped by warmth again, his consciousness began wavering and sinking back down once more. He was dazed for a few seconds as he laid over the pillow, and suddenly realised that something’s wrong — he looked up with a start.

The curtains weren’t open, it was impossible to tell the time of the day. Instead, there was a warm darkness in the house.
Jiang Tian seemed to have just woken up too, and traces of drowsiness could still be found on his countenance. Sheng Wang saw him grab his phone from the bedside cabinet, glance at the screen and say, “6.05am, you have to work?”
The pitch of his voice was rather low, bringing with it the hoarseness that came from the yet to dissipate drowsiness. After he said that, he added on as though he was afraid someone couldn’t tell the days apart, “It’s the New Year today.”

Actually, Jiang Tian also usually got up at this time. He would go for a morning jog if the weather was fair, or head to the laboratory bright and early if it was raining. However, the demonic deep wintry winds of Beijing come in gusts after gusts, and when it gets bad, it could even push tinier girls backwards. So he may be getting up early and all these few days, but he wouldn’t go looking for suffering in the wind.
Today was a rare exception; it wasn’t that he couldn’t get up, he simply wanted to nourish the harmless little habits of a certain someone back, like the sleep-ins on holidays.

Sheng Wang showed a hint of confusion. His eyes were bright in the darkness nonetheless, staring at Jiang Tian unblinkingly; like he was gradually sorting through the events of last night that led to this morning.
A few seconds later, he flopped back onto his pillow, softly answering, “I’m not working.”

To a certain degree, he was honestly a little alike to that cat son of his. The moment they startled awake, they would explode into a ball of fur out of alarm; once they discovered that there was nothing wrong, they would gradually soften up again, and melt back into his den.
He finally realised that he could have a sleep in, and his taut nerves relaxed too, allowing drowsiness to envelop his mind once more.

“I did have something on,” his voice was raspy and slurred, like he was unwilling to move his tongue even a little more. The pauses between every line was rather long, like an aimless, thoughtless casual chit chat while being half-awake. “The client is a monster. I was supposed to be away on a business trip for seven days, taking up the entire new year break.”
Jiang Tian enjoyed the grumbling that he had not heard for a long time very much. He didn’t say “I’ve heard”, only grunting affirmatively, allowing Sheng Wang to continue lazily.

There were gaps in the train of thoughts of a drowsy person, the content was all over the place too. After he finished the “supposed”, his breathing slowed down, like he had already fallen asleep.
A few seconds later, he suddenly said, “That client looks like Big Mouth Xu, y’know? I want to hide my phone whenever I see him.”
Jiang Tian chuckled.

Sheng Wang’s reaction was no longer catching up to the contents of his words. He was done grumbling before he recalled that he ought to ask “do you still remember administration’s Big Mouth Xu”. Upon hearing Jiang Tian’s seamless chuckle, the alert branches of his nerves relaxed once more.

It wasn’t just him who kept thinking about the days of Fuzhong all along. Whatever he remembered, Jiang Tian remembered too.
Time did not insert silence, confusion and pauses in their conversation and laughter — like they had spent the past few years together, shoulder to shoulder.

It was at this exact moment that Sheng Wang finally — truly — relaxed entirely. He switched to a more comfortable position, and half buried himself in the pillow, his voice muffled, “I’ve finished an entire week’s worth of work in two days, so I get to rest today.”

He felt Jiang Tian ruffle the back of his head, messing his hair up; he didn’t want to budge at all, so he fell asleep again pretty soon.

By the time the two truly got out of bed, it was nearly 10 in the morning.
When Sheng Wang sat up, he saw his long lost cat son of many years, sleeping on top of the quilt. It picked a gap between the two, and filled up the gap with itself. It slept in the shape of a long noodle, as though it was surviving in a fissure.

Sheng Wang had never truly owned a cat, and was too terrified to move due to its sleeping position. “If I shift my leg even a little, wouldn’t it get squished to death?”
“It wouldn’t,” Jiang Tian lifted the quilt up and got out of bed, “it would kick the person away.”

The cat awoke from the two’s movements, and its neck stretched up with a dazed look on its face. Its nose was pointed up as it stared at Sheng Wang, face to face. Sheng Wang watched it roll around a couple of times, and was at the verge of falling off the bed as it dangled by the edge. Sheng Wang couldn’t resist and held one of its paws. “Would it fall off if I let go?”
“It wouldn’t, it’s not that foolish,” Jiang Tian said once more.
Sheng Wang let go, and the cat plopped onto the floor.
Jiang Tian: “……”
The look on his face was comparable to eating food that had gone rancid. The foolish son rolled over all at once and shot out of the room, Sheng Wang laughed so hard that he collapsed back onto the bed.

Jiang Tian went to wash up with a long face, and took out two eggs from the refrigerator, cracking it into the frying pan. He had never been picky with food at all, and only had two requirements: completely cooked, and not poisonous. Therefore, despite living overseas for so long, the growth of his culinary skills was rather slow. After much pondering, he figured that fried egg was the only one that was the least easy to mess up, as well as matching to someone’s extremely picky taste buds.

Sheng Wang found a new toothbrush and towel under his guidance, and began to stroll around the kitchen with the cat in his arms after he washed up.
Jiang Tian glanced at him a few times, and finally couldn’t help but bring up, “Do you plan to eat fried egg with cat fur?”
Sheng Wang’s throat itched upon merely hearing that. He silently went further away, and stuck his hand deep into the depths of the cat fur, combing through it. He did end up with a handful of cat fur.

“Why are you like a dandelion?” Sheng Wang dusted the fur off his hand, and pulled out a roomba from the side of the sofa, switching it on to get it to suck the fur away.
A short while later, his own son struggled and jumped down. It sat on the roomba, surveying its territory.

He suddenly recalled the way he dragged his grandfather to survey the streets when he was a kid. He touched his nose, thinking to himself, it’s really “related to me by blood”.Only, this flesh and blood son of his was honestly a little too heavy. The roomba struggled on its own for a while, and died on the spot, not moving anymore.

Sheng Wang beckoned at the cat, wanting to get it to come down. He opened his mouth, but only to realise that he still didn’t know the name of the cat.
He turned and called out to the kitchen, “What’s the name of the cat?”
Jiang Tian happened to come out of the kitchen with two plates of fried egg in his hands. He settled the plates on the dining table, and glanced towards here. For some reason, his reply was ambiguous. “You can call it anything.”
Sheng Wang: “?”

As they spoke, the doorbell suddenly rang.
Sheng Wang stood up, and went to open the door on instinct.

It was Jiang Tian’s fellow doctor who arrived, the one who asked “Why didn’t you say that you have an old classmate” earlier. Sheng Wang tried his best to recall the WeChat contact card, and remembered that his name seemed to be Chen Chen.

It was a holiday for the New Year today, with snowfall in Beijing too. Chen Chen and the few discussed, and planned to go to Xishan to ski, then treat the professor to a sumptuous meal to welcome the New Year next. However, they discussed for ages and Jiang Tian still did not appear in the group chat, so he decided to pop over and ask.

They could be counted as something like shixiongs and shidis, they all knew Jiang Tian was used to getting up early, no exception for all 365 days of the year. Therefore, he did not think carefully before he pressed the doorbell. He unexpectedly opened the door to a handsome young man wearing a spacious white T-shirt and grey sweatpants, looking at him in complete confusion.

Chen Chen’s first reaction was: “Sorry, wrong door.”
He closed the door perfectly naturally as though he was minding his own business, and looked up again……no wait, it is this place!

He silently opened up the door again, and saw that handsome guy laugh awkwardly, “Dr. Chen, you’re here to find Jiang Tian?”
Chen Chen found a bit of his mind back from the cloud of confusion, and stared at the handsome guy’s face for a few seconds — he realised at last, this was the talented youth he saw at the dinner that day — Jiang Tian’s old classmate.

He still recalled the awkwardness that filled the table when he said the wrong thing, and then stiff and yet ineffable atmosphere between Jiang Tian and this classmate.
And with another look—

It’s 9+ in the morning, snow was cascading outside. There probably wouldn’t be an ordinary friend who would come all the way here, braving through the wind and snow out of complete boredom — just to be a mere guest.
And said old classmate was still in the clothes Jiang Tian often wore at home; his hair wasn’t even completely styled, there was cat hair on his pants.

After rationally analysing everything, there was only a “what the fuck” left in Chen Chen’s mind. He understood at long last why the atmosphere around those two was so enigmatic that night.
That was no reunion of two old classmates, it was old flames being unforgettable, attracted to each other like magnets!

The group so called shixiongs had been long used to Jiang Tian’s cold personality; not going to dances, not going to gatherings, rarely eating together with his closest fellow doctors, completely unmoved by so many interesting and lively shijies and shimeis’ show of interest towards him. Yet, some girls come back stronger than ever despite setbacks, the more they couldn’t get a reaction from him, the more they chased after him.
Even with all that, nobody managed to bag despite so many years.
Never did they think……

Chen Chen’s spirit had ascended to the heavens as he stood outside the door, and as for Sheng Wang, he was already slightly embarrassed. Fortunately, the cat son had come near him during its patrol, and couldn’t bear to leave him to deal with that alone; it dashed over here to rescue him.
Sheng Wang scooped the cat up, holding it in his arms. Jiang Tian washed his hand, and came out of the kitchen at last.

“Who’s here?” He walked over, and saw Chen Chen, who was standing dumbfoundedly.
There was suddenly an additional cat and person before him, and Chen Chen finally came back to himself.
Jiang Tian asked, “Why are you here? Is it the project?”
Chen Chen immediately waved. “Nope! There’s nothing about the project at all. Today’s a national holiday. It was just that I didn’t see you out on your morning jog, and was a little confused, so I came over to check up on you.”

Jiang Tian silently glanced outside the window — snow filled up the entire view. “Morning jog in this weather?”
Chen Chen: “……”

For the first time in his entire life, he genuinely felt that a high EQ was a goddamn brilliant thing — unfortunately, he had none of that. Chen Chen’s eyes shot all over the place, and in the end, he gave two awkward laughs, touching the cat in Sheng Wang’s arms, saying, “Couldn’t I be here just to pet the cat? Right, Wangzai?”

In actuality, he had never pet Jiang Tian’s cat before, he was scared to death of furry animals like this. He only knew its name because of the professor. However, a cat that can save lives is a good cat, so after he greeted the cat, he then said, “Okay, I’m really just here for a look, that’s all. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be leaving now.”

After saying that, he slipped away like a fish, even remembering to help Jiang Tian shut the door. Due to how quickly he made his escape, he did not even notice the way the two in the house went completely silent after he called out “Wangzai.”
Sheng Wang stood for a while as he hugged the cat. He turned to ask Jiang Tian, “Was he calling out to the cat just now?”
Jiang Tian’s gaze was lowered as he looked at him, his lips moved soundlessly. It was plain that he did go through much inner conflict for a while before he completely gave up, and turned on his heels with a stony look on his face.

That fleeting expression was extremely alike to the way his face would look when he sneakily expressed kindness and goodwill in his youth, and then had it instantly exposed right before him.
Sheng Wang’s eyes crescented as he started laughing all of a sudden, mercilessly following behind him — like a tail he couldn’t get rid of. “Ay, don’t run away yet.

“Ge.” Sheng Wang refused to spare him on purpose.
Jiang Tian had already turned deaf; he took a carton of milk out from the fridge on his own accord and headed towards the kitchen.

“Jiang Tian.” Sheng Wang dallied into the kitchen as well.
Jiang Tian took out two glasses and poured the milk in.

“Dr. Jiang.” Sheng Wang was still beckoning behind him, like he’s summoning a spirit.
Jiang Tian crumpled up the carton and tossed it into the trash bin. He went back to the dining table with two glasses.

“I’m already sharing the same name as the cat, am I not allowed to ask for an explanation?” Sheng Wang followed along, and teased him, all while on the verge of laughing.
Jiang Tian put down the glasses, and watched his lips, opening and closing. He closed in, and sealed them shut. He kissed Sheng Wang until Sheng Wang couldn’t hold the cat anymore and had to grab onto the chair for support. He then straightened up, stating, “You should talk less often instead.”
Sheng Wang’s legs turned jelly from the kissing, and disdained himself for that on the inside for a bit. What left his mouth instead was a “dream on”.

Just as the two were messing around, Sheng Wang’s phone suddenly vibrated.
All his heart was on Jiang Tian; he accepted the call without even seeing who it’s from, and there was still mirth in his voice as he said a “Hello”.

The other person seemed to be taken aback by his mirth, and only said a while later, “What are you doing, sounding so happy? Are you in Beijing for these two days? Dad happens to have something on and is here now, want to come out for a meal?”

FUN FACT: the Wang-zai vs Wangzai distinction. Back in chapter 95, when Jiang Tian was watching the video of drunk Sheng Wang on his phone, his professor did come over and ask what’s the name of his cat. He gave “望仔”, which is indeed both sheng wang’s nickname AND the cat’s name, so his answer could be taken both ways and also serve as a pretty obvious foreshadowing. However, in this tl, I’ve taken upon drawing that distinction via “Wang-zai” and “Wangzai”, the former being Sheng Wang’s nickname as the “zai” is a diminutive (am I even using this correctly) for Sheng Wang’s name, specifically the “Wang” part. “Wangzai” serves as the full and proper name for the cat, so no hyphen.

TO BE CONTINUED.