A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 109 – Phone Call

“I Know You’re Not Coming Back Alone, Isn’t That Room Still in the House?”

Some things cannot be resolved in a simple matter of a few words, there has to be time left for the person to process it. Jiang Ou did not have any obvious emotional issues, which was already the greatest sign of success; the rest will have to be left to time. In the end, Jiang Tian did not let her come in contact with Sheng Wang either. He helped Jiang Ou book a car, and accompanied her downstairs.
The driver got up from the driver’s seat and helped to open the car’s door. Jiang Ou sat at the back, straightened her clothes, and gave in in the end — she turned around to look outside via the back window of the car.

She saw Jiang Tian striding in the other direction away from the door. When he reached the corner of the hospital parameter, someone came out from the car parked by the side of the road.
Jiang Ou could only see the familiar navy blue coat and the thick black scarf he wore around his neck from such a far distance.

That is really Sheng Wang? Jiang Ou looked at that young man vacantly.
She could still recall the indifferent and mature air of the person as he spoke on the phone — perhaps he was talking about work matters, so he gave people the impression that he was methodical and capable, the one who would stand out the most if he was placed in a crowd — that wasn’t the Sheng Wang in her memories. It was to the point that in her fleeting glance, she genuinely mistook him for a stranger that resembled Jiang Tian.

“Is the temperature in the car just right?” The driver queried as he started the car.
Jiang Ou snapped out of her thoughts, and gave a hurried yet courteous smile. “It’s pretty good.”
As she turned back around, she could still vaguely see the young man leaning over the car window, smiling as he waved. The instant he faced Jiang Tian, there was finally a shadow of his past self; like he was still the animated youth who would laugh, who would throw little tantrums.

Jiang Ou watched him dazedly for a while. She finally turned back around, and her eyes lowered in silence.

*
Sheng Wang briefly scanned around behind Jiang Tian, and did not spot any other familiar figure. Although that was entirely expected, he still felt a little disappointed for some unfathomable reason.
As a result, just as he was about to buckle his seatbelt after he sat back on the driver’s seat, Jiang Tian closed in and kissed him for a while.
Sheng Wang was a little stumped. “The windshield is transparent.”
Jiang Tian sat up straight, and buckled in his seatbelt too. “Do you mind that?”
“Of course I don’t.” Sheng Wang touched the corner of his lips, “I was worried that you thought the windshield was unidirectional.”
“……Am I retarded?”

Sheng Wang started laughing.
That wasn’t it, actually. He merely felt that this move was a little unusual, coming from Jiang Tian. He was worried that the conversation between mother and son did not go well. However, upon hearing the familiar tone of mockery from his Ge, he relaxed again.
Everything was much better than what he imagined.

“Is auntie going back by herself?” he asked.
“Mn, it was out of the way,” Jiang Tian said.
Sheng Wang kind of wanted to laugh, thinking, there’s no way she’ll take my car even if it’s convenient. His Ge had always been straightforward and forthcoming, having to come up with a crappy excuse of “out of the way” must have truly been hard on him.

Sheng Wang considered himself as handsome and considerate, of course he wouldn’t expose him on the spot. As he searched on the GPS, he asked, “She’s not living in the nursing home anymore, right?”
“Not for a long time now, she rented an apartment with the old man nearby.”
“What apartment?”
Jiang Tian eyed him from the side. “Am I that easily tricked?”
Sheng Wang muffled his laughter as he typed, his wrists resting over the steering wheel. A while later, he raised the phone screen at Jiang Tian. “You think I wouldn’t know where she stays if you don’t say it? I’ve asked Xi-ge before I came here.”
He tapped on the route on the screen, “See, it’s — su—per — convenient.”
Jiang Tian: “……”

A certain someone found joy in watching other people expose him while he’s a teenager; now he’d grown some guts, and started to do it himself. Jiang Tian faced-off with him for a while with a stiff look on his face, and suddenly reached out to pinch the back of his neck. “If you want to laugh, go laugh your heart out at the back. I’ll drive.”
“Don’t treat me the same way you carry the cat.” Sheng Wang was ticklish all over, and every spot was enough to come for his life; Jiang Tian’s touch was even more terrifying. “Let go! I don’t trust that capitalism-bred driving skills of yours.”
“Try it.”
“What do you mean ‘try’, there are two lives aboard this car, hello, Ge.” Sheng Wang brushed his hand off, and switched gears, turned on the lights, lifted his foot off the pedal all in one shot, genuinely afraid that he would be shooed to the backseat. “I’m still young, I have a career, a family……”
Jiang Tian listened to a certain person spout nonsense as he leaned against the seat. He missed this nonsensical talk very much, the way noise and clamour once filled up his every single day. In his most ideal imaginings, he would get to listen to this for the rest of his life.

“I may be pretty handsome, but you still shouldn’t harm me.” Some people can roughly pass as reasonable at the start, but later on, it would all become unadulterated bullshit.
Jiang Tian lifted an eyebrow amidst the lights of the cars in the traffic, drawling, “I didn’t hear about you having a family when you were biting my shoulder last night.”

Sheng Wang let out a cold laugh, and stopped at the junction. Perhaps it was because of the red light shining down on him, but a wave of crimson blanketed his neck and face; his complexion was rather undisturbed, however.
He blinked as he watched the cars ahead, saying, “Of course I do, managed to cheat him into dating me when we’re too young. My family member is a PhD who came back from overseas, he’s both tall and handsome. Envious yet?”
“Envious of who?”
“Me, who else?”
Jiang Tian shook his head. “I’m more envious of that family member.”
Sheng Wang narrowed his eyes, and only touched his earlobe after quite a while later.
Although he was recognizant of this fact early on, but he really wanted to say, his Ge was truly secretly shameless…….

*
The last few days before the Spring Festival, everyone was mechanically busy. Gao Tianyang and Chili had booked tickets a long time ago, and asked when will Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian go back to Jiangsu.
Sheng Wang answered, “Why do you have to bring this topic up out of all things.”

Gao Tianyang did a little thinking, and figured, yeah, to Sheng Wang, there was only his ancestral home and Sheng Mingyang in his hometown. Now that someone is currently in the state of being out of the closet, going back will only add on to his dear old father’s frustrations. As for Jiang Tian……Jiang Ou was already in Beijing. Other than the old house at Fuzhong’s entrance that has already been rented out, there was similarly not much to look at in Jiangsu.
These two people’s circumstances were rather special; no matter if they stay or leave, the outcome would be pretty awkward.

Gao Tianyang said, “How about you two just draw up an itinerary, find an obscure spot, and have a seven-day vacation instead!”
Jiang Tian was used to travelling around for some sightseeing during festivals for the past few years, and was already subconsciously looking for tickets to various places of interest. However, he was stopped by Sheng Wang, “Why are you taking him seriously, there’s no such thing as an obscure spot during the Spring Festival — there’s more than a billion of us out there, hello?”

After much inner turmoil over two days, they booked a flight to Jiangsu in the end.
Firstly, it was because Class A’s WeChat group started to explode with activity before the New Year, agreeing to pay their teachers a visit after the New Year. Secondly……when there were still three days left until Sheng Wang went on leave, he suddenly received a call from Sheng Mingyang.

Ever since the dinner on New Year’s Day, there had always been a few traces of lingering awkwardness between the father and son. For a very long period of time, Sheng Mingyang did not share with him articles on keeping the body healthy, nor did he share anything in Moments. He was abruptly dead silent; nobody knew if he was going through some inner conflict, or he was simply giving him the cold shoulder.

This phone call was the first time he contacted him after New Year’s Day. The moment the call was picked up, both of them were silent for a few seconds. In the end, it was Sheng Mingyang who spoke up first. “You’re coming back for the Spring Festival?”
He did not use “are you coming back”, going for the half-certain sentence structure straight away. This was standard fare from him, to use what appeared to be a gentle method to cover up the forcefulness within. But for some reason, when used in this occasion, it seemed more like a twisted form of concession instead.

Sheng Wang was stunned, and did not instantly speak. In those few seconds, he acutely felt that Sheng Mingyang was a little nervous — his usually domineering father, seriously got nervous as he waited for his reply.
He did not expose his nervousness, and immediately answered once he came back to himself, “We’ll go back if we manage to snatch up the tickets, it’s a little hard to book hotel rooms in the Spring Festival too.”

Actually, he had already decided to not go back before this phone call was made. After a whole year of business, enjoying a world of two with Jiang Tian at home for the Spring Festival seemed pretty good too — much better than going out just to watch the back of people’s heads.
But he didn’t mention the original plan, only pushing the reason to the sparse availability of tickets; this was like an unspoken form of evasion, so he wouldn’t cause the person on the other end of the phone to feel hurt.

Upon hearing his words, Sheng Mingyang immediately said, “Why do you need to book hotels? Why are you staying in a hotel when there’s a house back home for you to sleep in?”
With that, Sheng Wang could no longer evade the question. He hesitated for two seconds, and said in resignation, “I’m not going back by myself.”
He no longer spoke after he said that.

The phone was quiet for a while — it was as though the off switch had been pressed on Sheng Mingyang, he could hear how stiff he was from his voice alone. A good while later, he finally said ambiguously, “I know you’re not coming back alone, isn’t that room still in the house?”

This time, it was Sheng Wang who was left tongue tied.

Intelligent people never needed to make things obvious whenever they spoke to each other, everyone knew how to infer. Sheng Mingyang was plenty smart, and Sheng Wang surpassed him as his successor. Yet, just this once, he wanted to be an idiot.
His lips moved — he looked up at Jiang Tian, who was opposite the dining table — and then asked Sheng Mingyang in seriousness, “Dad, do you mean what I’m thinking?”

Sheng Mingyang was silent for a moment, and did not answer this question directly. “I just saw Old Xu make a post in Moments, saying that those classmates of yours are planning to go back to school for a visit.”
Sheng Wang’s heart pounded a little heavily. He waited for him to continue.
“Doesn’t that include the both of you too,” Sheng Mingyang said.
Sheng Wang replied with a “Mn”.

Sheng Mingyang then continued, “I have a lot of things going on this year, I can stay for basically only two days, for the 30th and the first day. I can have a couple of meals, and then I’ll have to leave on the second day in the morning.”

Sheng Wang let out yet another “mn”, just that his throat was a little hoarse; it wasn’t as clear. “Yet another bunch of work dinners?”
“Got to go around during Chinese New Year.”
“Take a look at your legs before you drink,” Sheng Wang said.

Sheng Mingyang was quiet again for some reason. Many moments later, he finally said, “Can you still snatch up the tickets if you buy it now?”
Sheng Wang said, “It isn’t as difficult to buy plane tickets.”
Sheng Mingyang said, “Sure.”

Just one word, and the weight he had been shouldering for the past few years was gone by more than half. Only when he felt his back, the tendons, the strings and everything all slowly relaxed, then Sheng Wang realised: before this, he had been tense all along.
“I’ll get Auntie Sun to clean up the room a bit when it’s confirmed that you’ll be back,” Sheng Mingyang spoke again.
Sheng Wang thought, and said, “Then, let’s give auntie a little break. My room needs only a little cleaning, she can ignore the one next door. There’s no need for two rooms.”
Sheng Mingyang digested his words, and realised that he shouldn’t be looking at these words beyond its surface level, and hung up without a second word.

Sheng Wang complained to Jiang Tian, pointing at the phone, “See this, he hung up on me. He doesn’t wanna respond to me anymore.”
Jiang Tian thought about what he said just now, and was a little speechless. “You really did agitate him like that?”
“Didn’t do any less of it when I was younger either,” Sheng Wang thought about the daily life of talking off his head with Sheng Mingyang when he was young; it was as fresh as yesterday, but it also seemed like those days had passed for many, many years.
He plucked out the last green grape and tossed it into his mouth. He carried the bowl with only the empty stem left in it and walked towards the kitchen. When he passed by Jiang Tian, he reached his head out to give him a peck on the corner of his lips. He shook his head as he said, “The old comrade has gotten old and can’t withstand teasing anymore. I’m the one who hung up on him in the past.”

TO BE CONTINUED.