Fan Jun didn’t know whether Zou Yang genuinely understood it or was just pretending, but regardless, the way he sat there and pushed up his glasses made him look exceedingly confident; at the very least, he looked like a law school student.

However, Zou Yang only scanned it for a moment before raising his head to look at the landlord, Uncle Liu.

“This contract wasn’t even signed with you,” Zou Yang flicked his finger against the document. “This is a sublease agreement Boss Lu signed with the previous commercial tenant. The previous tenant signed directly with the mall. If you want to wrangle over this, shouldn’t you be wrangling with the mall?”

Fan Jun glanced at Uncle Liu.
He had never read the contract and wasn’t clear on how the martial arts gym’s space had been rented.
Lü Ze had never mentioned any disputes with the landlord to him. After all, the new gym was established by Lü Ze; Fan Jun practically just worked there, and Lü Ze was his bona fide boss.

“My storefront has a contract with the mall. I don’t care about any subleasing in between,” Uncle Liu lit a cigarette. “But the contract expires in August. I told Lü Ze two months ago that I wasn’t renewing with the mall. A six-month advance notice—that’s fair enough, right?”

Zou Yang didn’t speak; he just raised his palm toward Uncle Liu, signaling him to hold his words.
Then, he lowered his head and quickly flipped to the section of the contract regarding the lease term.

Liu Wenrui and the others also gathered around to look.

“The lease term with the mall on this contract goes until December, signed on a yearly basis…” Zou Yang tapped his finger lightly against the temple of his glasses twice. “So, what exactly are your intentions, sir?”

The transition from a casual “you” to a respectful “sir” was incredibly smooth.
However, even though he used respectful language, his attitude remained exactly the same—cold with a touch of arrogance.

Fan Jun didn’t go over to look at the contract. He leaned against the freezer, observing this side of Zou Yang that he had never seen before. Was this something he had practiced dealing with his dad?
When he was with Sister Shan, Zou Yang had never shown this kind of demeanor.

“Then I need to discuss that with Lü Ze,” Uncle Liu waved his hand dismissively. “There’s no point talking to you.”

“Alright,” Zou Yang put down the contract and leaned back in his chair. It just so happened he hadn’t expected the contract to be like this either, and he wasn’t sure how to negotiate it next. “Then you can wait.”

“Wait for what?” Uncle Liu slammed his water bottle heavily onto the table.

“Wait for Lü Ze,” Zou Yang said. “He went into the city.”

Uncle Liu’s punch had landed on cotton, making him momentarily awkward. He picked up the water bottle again and pointed it at Fan Jun: “You, call him and tell him to come back.”

“I already called, he didn’t pick up,” Fan Jun said. “Probably busy.”

Uncle Liu sneered: “Is this how he handles things?”

“Uncle Liu,” Fan Jun said, “Even if we go by your contract with the mall, it hasn’t expired yet.”

Right.
Fan Jun’s words reminded Zou Yang.
He raised an eyebrow: “Does Uncle Liu have some objections regarding the rent?”

Uncle Liu didn’t speak. He exchanged a glance with the people beside him, stayed silent for a few more seconds, and finally said, “I’m also thinking of your best interests.”

“Thanks,” Zou Yang said.

“Look, you guys basically got scammed by the previous tenant and the mall together, right?” Uncle Liu said.

Zou Yang didn’t make a sound or express any stance. He just looked at him.

Uncle Liu waited for two seconds, and receiving no response, could only continue: “As for me, I’m doing a good deed, and also saving myself some trouble.”

Uncle Liu paused again, waiting for Zou Yang’s reaction.
But Zou Yang still had no reaction.

Uncle Liu was getting annoyed, but he had already started talking and couldn’t just stop halfway, so he pressed on: “If you want to continue renting, that’s fine…”

But this time he was interrupted by Zou Yang: “Thank you, Uncle Liu. So, where exactly did things get stuck between you and Boss Lu?”

“…The rent.” Uncle Liu frowned, looking thoroughly displeased. “He wants to keep paying it to the mall according to the contract.”

“Actually, Uncle Liu, legally speaking, demanding to continue executing the lease according to the contract is perfectly fine,” Li Zhiyue suddenly chimed in.

Zou Yang didn’t speak.
He couldn’t exactly pull out his phone to check the law right in front of them, so he didn’t know if what Li Zhiyue said was correct, but Li Zhiyue sounded extremely confident.
Either it really was the truth, or he was banking on the fact that the other party didn’t know the law either.

“Then let him follow the contract!” Uncle Liu raised his voice. “Follow the contract! Let’s see how far that gets you!”

“Uncle Liu,” Fan Jun’s voice was calm. “If we don’t follow the contract, what are your thoughts?”

Uncle Liu huffed and said nothing.
Zou Yang also stayed quiet, looking down to continue reading the contract. If it was simply a matter of changing who the rent was paid to, it wouldn’t have escalated to this point. The reason Lü Ze refused to rent directly from Uncle Liu was very likely because the rent was no longer the same. Uncle Liu wanted to raise the rent.

Beside him, Fan Jun must have realized this too, directly asking: “If the rent is paid to you, will it stay the same, or will there be changes?”

“If it stays the same, I’d be taking a massive loss!” Uncle Liu said grumpily.

Just as I thought.
By this time, Zou Yang had also found the rent details: 30 yuan per square meter per month.
He had absolutely no idea what a reasonable price range for rent was, nor did he know what the rent should be for a mall that looked like it was about to go out of business…

But Liu Wenrui suddenly exclaimed in realization: “It’s already thirty yuan, Uncle, and you still want to raise it?”

Was that expensive?
Uncertain.
But Liu Wenrui was the kind of person who dared to say whatever came to his mouth.

“You call this expensive?!” Uncle Liu was furious. “Do you kids know anything? This is an all-inclusive price! If it weren’t for this mall…”

“It seems Uncle Liu is also aware,” Fan Jun cut him off. “Business in this mall is indeed hard to do.”

“Heh,” the person Uncle Liu brought along sneered. “No one forced you to rent here in the first place, did they?”

“How about this,” Zou Yang said. “Uncle Liu, we are now clear on the situation. Once we’ve discussed the specifics with Boss Lu…”

“You can’t make the call, can you? If you can’t make the decisions, why are you spouting so much nonsense?” Uncle Liu flared up. “If you can’t make the call, what am I doing wasting my breath on you here…”

“The reason you’re here talking to me is because you couldn’t get through to Lü Ze,” Zou Yang crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

This made Uncle Liu’s expression turn even uglier than before.

Li Zhiyue stepped in to smooth things over: “You definitely don’t want to waste time and effort finding a new tenant either. With the mall in its current state, who knows how long it’ll sit empty. Every day it’s empty is a day of losses. Naturally, the best solution is to keep the current tenants.”

“Everything is up for negotiation, isn’t it,” Zhang Chuanlong, having finally grasped the situation, started backing them up. “We just found out about this.”

“Exactly how many bosses do you have?” the person opposite them couldn’t help but ask.

“Just one,” Liu Wenrui pointed a finger in a circle around them. “We are the shareholders.”

Uncle Liu froze, momentarily speechless.
Ultimately, aside from learning that this martial arts gym somehow had five shareholders, Uncle Liu’s group gained absolutely nothing. Dropping a final “Discuss this as soon as possible,” he took his people and left.

“Fuck,” Zhang Chuanlong sighed in relief. “I thought we were going to have to fight.”

“How could we,” Li Zhiyue said. “He brought so many people over precisely because he was afraid the coaches here would beat them up.”

“If Lü Ze finds out we became shareholders, he’s going to fight Zou Yang again, isn’t he?” Liu Wenrui said.

“I invested by buying a class, how am I not a shareholder,” Zou Yang said. “The rest of you better get your investment funds in place quickly too.”

“Sound logic,” Li Zhiyue said.

“You didn’t know about this?” Zou Yang turned to look at Fan Jun.

“I didn’t,” Fan Jun said.

“Uncle Lü didn’t know either?” Zou Yang asked.

“Probably not,” Fan Jun frowned. “If he knew, he would have told me.”

“What is Lü Ze thinking,” Zou Yang was a bit speechless. “Such a major issue, and he neither talks about it nor resolves it.”

Fan Jun didn’t know.
He took out his phone and glanced at it, pondering whether he should call Lü Ze to ask.
He had no idea what Lü Ze was thinking. Much of the time, Lü Ze spoke even less than he did, and they didn’t exactly have heart-to-heart conversations…
The new gym was something Lü Ze had insisted on setting up. Now it had come to this: either face a rent hike or move out, while still having to wrangle with the mall. He hadn’t made any money yet, just a pile of troublesome issues.
Lü Ze probably didn’t know how to bring it up himself.

“Let’s go eat.” Zou Yang clapped his hands together.

The slightly distracted Fan Jun was startled back to reality by the clap.

“Okay.” He walked over to the training area to check.
Tan Ru had heated up her lunch and was eating. Her schedule was packed today; she’d have another class in about half an hour.

“You guys go eat,” she waved her hand.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Fan Jun asked. “I can bring something back for you.”

“No need, the little girl in my next class will definitely bring me coffee again,” Tan Ru said.

Zou Yang wanted to eat fish, so he had Fan Jun take them to the restaurant the two of them had eaten at before.

“Holy shit,” Li Zhiyue looked at his phone. “This is that old restaurant I mentioned last time, the one we didn’t end up eating at.”

“Didn’t end up eating at?” Fan Jun asked.

“Zou Yang beat someone up on the street just before we got here, so we didn’t go,” Liu Wenrui said.

Fan Jun looked at Zou Yang in surprise.

“What,” Zou Yang kept his head down, wiping his glasses as he walked. “Did you think I only beat up champions? Actually, I beat up anyone I see.”

Fan Jun laughed.
Once Liu Wenrui and the others walked ahead, he softly asked Zou Yang, “When did that happen?”

“Just… the first time we came here,” Zou Yang said.

Thinking about it, it was quite surreal. When he left Nanzhouping that day, even if he hadn’t explicitly thought he’d never come back, he certainly never expected he would be showing up in this rundown place so frequently just a short time later.
He even had a go-to restaurant to bring his friends to.

There weren’t too many people at noon, so they sat down at a large table by the window.

“This place has some history to it, huh,” Liu Wenrui looked around.

“Yeah, over a decade. It was here when I was a kid,” Fan Jun nodded.

“Have you lived here since you were a kid?” Li Zhiyue asked.

“…No,” Fan Jun said.

“Oh,” Li Zhiyue didn’t pry further. “So you’ve been here for over a decade then.”

“Mhm,” Fan Jun replied.

“That’s a really long time,” Zhang Chuanlong remarked.

“Is it that long?” Li Zhiyue looked at him. “Isn’t it like that for most people? My family has lived in our neighborhood for over a decade too.”

Zhang Chuanlong paused, thinking about it: “Fuck, that’s true… But hearing you say it made it sound astonishing.”

“Then I’ve known Zou Yang for over a decade,” Liu Wenrui said. “Is that astonishing?”

“Not astonishing,” Zou Yang said. “Just annoying.”

Fan Jun smiled as he listened to them chat.
Over a decade.
He had been here for over a decade.
He had never left, nor had he thought about leaving.
Just hiding here, waiting for that knife that he didn’t know when would be thrust at him.

All that time had blurred together because of this waiting with no end in sight. It felt like he was already very far removed from those days, but when he looked back, he found they were still right there.

Zou Yang’s majestic phone ringtone interrupted his messy thoughts.
When Zou Yang pulled his phone out of his pocket, his eyebrows instantly knitted together.

“Your dad?” Liu Wenrui, true to his role as a childhood friend, reacted immediately.

“Yeah,” Zou Yang glanced around, stood up, and walked quickly toward the door. “I’m going to take this.”

At the beginning of every month, Zou Yang would go visit his dad. But because it was a long holiday at the beginning of this month, he had been very “considerate” and didn’t bother him.
He hadn’t expected his dad to call and chase him down.
Completely caught off guard, his mood instantly soured.

Zou Yang stepped out of the restaurant where it was a bit quieter, and answered the phone: “Dad?”

“Xiao Yang,” his dad’s voice came through. “Did you go traveling?”

“No,” Zou Yang said. “Rested at home for two days, just came out for a walk today.”

“Oh…” his dad chuckled. “Why haven’t you come over?”

“I was afraid… well, since it’s a holiday,” Zou Yang feigned hesitation. “I figured I’d come over after the long weekend.”

“It’s fine,” his dad said. “Why don’t… you and I get together this afternoon?”

“Is it convenient?” Zou Yang asked this with genuine sincerity; he really didn’t want to go over this afternoon.
In the past, he hadn’t felt such strong aversion. He just put on an act and suffered through an hour or two. But today his mood was quite good, which made him exceptionally unwilling.

“What’s inconvenient about it,” his dad said. “What’s inconvenient about seeing my own son?”

“Okay,” Zou Yang agreed.

Hearing his dad’s tone, which was slightly different from usual, it was highly likely things weren’t going smoothly on his end, and he needed to see this filial son to smooth out his temper.

Fan Jun watched Zou Yang walk back in from the restaurant entrance.
He didn’t look very happy. His eyebrows were knit, and he kept flipping his phone in his hand, radiating irritation.

Only after sitting back down at the table did he let out a long sigh.

“What happened? Called you over to audition for the dutiful son role?” Liu Wenrui asked.

“Yeah, this afternoon,” Zou Yang lowered his head and said. He tossed his phone onto the table, and by the time he looked up, the displeasure on his face had been swept entirely clean. “Let’s eat!”

Fan Jun was somewhat amazed by the speed at which his expression changed.

After lunch, Zou Yang didn’t leave with Liu Wenrui and the others. The group was going off to do some idle window shopping.

“Going back to the gym?” Fan Jun asked.

“Do you have a class this afternoon?” Zou Yang looked at him.

“Not until four,” Fan Jun said.

“I’ll go crash at your place for a bit,” Zou Yang said.

“Okay,” Fan Jun nodded.

Upon entering the apartment, Zou Yang smoothly kicked his shoes under the shoe rack, walked over to the sofa, and prepared to collapse onto it.

Fan Jun’s eyes swept quickly over the sofa. Just as Zou Yang’s body began to tilt, he grabbed his arm: “Cat.”

“Fuck,” Zou Yang got so scared his body snapped straight, looking back. “Where?”

Da Hei’s white head poked out from underneath the electric heating cape. He stretched and opened his mouth wide in a yawn.

Fan Jun let go of his arm.

“How did you see him?” Zou Yang asked.

“There was a lump there. He likes burrowing into things,” Fan Jun said.

“Oh…” Zou Yang responded, and fell backward onto the sofa again. “Ah… your sofa is so comfortable.”

Fan Jun walked over to the fridge and took out some water: “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Coffee.” Zou Yang lay on the sofa with his eyes closed.

Fan Jun took a bottle of latte and gently tapped it against his hand.

Zou Yang opened his eyes and looked: “You actually have some?”

“Yeah,” Fan Jun smiled.

“I need to perk myself up,” Zou Yang sat up and took two sips. “Seeing my dad for an hour is harder to endure than finals week.”

“Why don’t you sleep for a bit,” Fan Jun said.

“That’s exactly what I was planning,” Zou Yang pulled out his phone and checked it. “Are you going to sleep? If you aren’t, wake me up at three. If you are, I’ll just…”

“I’ll wake you,” Fan Jun said.

“Thanks.” Zou Yang took off his glasses, tossed them onto the small table beside him, and closed his eyes.

“Don’t…” Fan Jun was cut off halfway by Zou Yang.

“Shut up,” Zou Yang said.

“But I really do have to thank you,” Fan Jun said. “Earlier…”

“Have the Champion come over and kowtow to me instead,” Zou Yang said.

“Okay,” Fan Jun smiled, leaned back against the beanbag chair beside the sofa, and picked up his headphones.

“Fan Jun,” Zou Yang called his name.

“Hm?” Fan Jun responded.

“If things don’t work out with Champion Lu…” Zou Yang kept his eyes closed. “If the new gym… will it affect you guys a lot?”

“Most of the money is his own,” Fan Jun said. “Uncle Lü chipped in a little. There will definitely be an impact, but it won’t be huge. We originally only had the old gym anyway; it would just be going back to how things were.”

“The Champion is pretty good at saving money, huh,” Zou Yang said.

“Yes,” Fan Jun nodded.

“Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask you since that day,” Zou Yang opened his eyes and turned his head to look at him. “Why don’t you just get a new hearing aid? You must have saved up quite a bit too, right?”

“I’m used to it. I can do without it,” Fan Jun said.

“Saving up to buy a house?” Zou Yang said.

“Mhm,” Fan Jun smiled.

“I don’t believe you,” Zou Yang said.

Fan Jun didn’t speak.
Zou Yang didn’t say anything more either. It was impossible to tell if he was waiting for an answer or just spacing out, but it wasn’t long before his eyes slowly drifted shut.

After confirming that Zou Yang had gradually fallen asleep, Fan Jun put on his headphones.

Saving money was true, but what was he saving it for… Who knew. He just always felt that one day, he would need to use it.