ATLAS TRANSLATES

On the way home, Ji Fan found Jiang Qi Huai playing chess with Tao Xiu Ping.

The two sat before the Chinese chess board, with Tao Xiu Ping stroking his chin as he studied the board thoughtfully. “You’re setting a trap for me, young man.”

Jiang Qi Huai smiled without saying anything.

“However,” Tao Xiu Ping drawled, moving his cannon piece to the side and glancing up with a smile, “Let me teach you what it means when they say old ginger is spicier.”

Jiang Qi Huai’s gaze fell on the board. He seemed to be in a tough spot and didn’t move for a while.

Tao Xiu Ping snorted, “Still too young. Your attacking intentions are too obvious. You should learn to be more subtle.”

Ji Fan: “…”

He wasn’t sure why, but suddenly these two seemed to have become quite friendly with each other.

He changed his shoes and walked in, standing beside them.

Jiang Qi Huai moved his chariot piece.

Ji Fan cleared his throat.

Tao Xiu Ping captured his elephant.

Ji Fan took off his coat and tossed it aside, hovering around them for a while.

Then he watched as Jiang Qi Huai calmly moved his horse.

With that move, Tao Xiu Ping furrowed his brows again, tapping the captured pieces on the table as he fell into deep thought.

Ji Fan couldn’t help saying, “I’m home.”

“Be quiet for a moment,” Tao Xiu Ping said without looking up, “We’re playing chess.”

“…”

Ji Fan was shocked: “Hey, old man, how come you don’t recognize your own son anymore just because you have someone to play chess with? Do I have no status at home anymore?”

“You never play chess with me anyway, always going out to play. What status do you expect?” Tao Xiu Ping, seeing the game was beyond saving, pushed his pieces forward and looked up at him lazily, “Want to play a round?”

“…”

Ji Fan looked at the mess of chess pieces and his head hurt. Without another word, he strode upstairs: “Come to think of it, I don’t need any status. You guys keep playing.”

Tao Xiu Ping chuckled and glanced at the time: “It’s about time anyway. Weren’t you supposed to go eat with Zhi Zhi?”

Jiang Qi Huai nodded: “Mm.”

“Alright,” Tao Xiu Ping said while collecting the chess pieces, “Thanks for keeping me company playing chess. I know young people don’t usually like this sort of thing.”

Jiang Qi Huai helped him gather the pieces: “Not at all. My grandfather used to often ask me to play with him too. I find it quite interesting.”

Tao Xiu Ping paused, sighing: “It’s a pity I never got the chance to play a game with him.”

Jiang Qi Huai hesitated, lowering his eyes in silence.

Tao Xiu Ping glanced at him but didn’t say more, lifting his teacup instead: “Come play with uncle when you’re free in the future. That brat Ji Fan doesn’t have a single cell for this sort of thing.”

Jiang Qi Huai acknowledged.

Tao Xiu Ping looked at him cheerfully: “When Zhi Zhi comes home for meals, you should come along with her more often.”

When Jiang Qi Huai arrived at the magazine office building, Tao Zhi was just coming down.

She pushed open the glass door while looking down at her phone, with a young girl carrying a large bag running after her, talking to her.

Tao Zhi responded a few times, and then, talking about something, she lowered her head and smiled faintly, her lips curling up slightly.

Jiang Qi Huai’s phone WeChat notification rang at the same time.

Sitting in his car, he glanced at her and took out his phone, seeing she had sent him a message.

Jiang Qi Huai replied: [Look up.]

Tao Zhi: [?]

Tao Zhi sent a voice message directly: “I’m not hugging any other man this time, am I?”

As she spoke, she turned her head and saw his car parked by the roadside. Her previously maintained cool image instantly vanished. She bounced on the spot, raised her arms high and waved in his direction, then turned back to talk to the young girl beside her.

The young girl nodded and left.

Tao Zhi jogged over and got into the passenger seat. Jiang Qi Huai watched as she threw her bag in the back seat and reached for the seatbelt, laughing: “I told you to look up, not look back.”

“Well, they both have the word ‘look’ in them,” Tao Zhi said while fastening her seatbelt, still traumatized, “I get scared now whenever I see that word.”

Jiang Qi Huai chuckled and started the car.

He chose a Chinese restaurant and ordered several of her favorite dishes, then drove her home after eating.

On the way back, Tao Zhi kept glancing at him several times.

Jiang Qi Huai focused on the road ahead, one hand loosely resting on the steering wheel. His whole demeanor had an inexplicably rare sense of relaxation, and he seemed to be in a good mood.

Tao Zhi thought for a moment and called out to him: “Jiang Qi Huai.”

“Hmm?” he responded lazily.

Tao Zhi tilted her head: “Do you want to spend New Year with me this year?”

Tao Zhi figured that last time when he visited, Tao Xiu Ping’s attitude seemed quite okay.

Although she wasn’t sure if he was completely accepted, more interaction would be good, letting Tao Xiu Ping get to know him better.

She licked her lips and said: “He seems to quite enjoy talking with you. You could chat with him more.”

Hearing her bring this up, Jiang Qi Huai didn’t hide it from her anymore and said calmly: “I met Uncle Tao today.”

Tao Zhi almost choked on her own saliva.

She widened her eyes and said urgently: “He found you? What did he say to you? You don’t need to listen to him, he already promised me he agreed to us being together.”

Jiang Qi Huai looked at her anxious expression and reassured her: “He didn’t say anything, just played chess with me for a while.”

Tao Zhi frowned, half-believing: “Really?”

“Mm.”

Tao Zhi relaxed slightly, nodded, and suddenly became curious: “So did you win or lose?”

“Some wins, some losses,” Jiang Qi Huai turned his head, “Is there some significance?”

“There’s too much significance,” Tao Zhi said, “Our old Tao is a little princess. If you lose to him, he won’t feel pleased, he’ll just think you’re too weak to compete with him.”

Jiang Qi Huai humbly asked: “What if I win?”

Tao Zhi: “If you win, he’ll feel like he’s lost face, be unhappy, and be even more displeased.”

Jiang Qi Huai raised an eyebrow: “That’s quite hard to please.”

“Much harder to please than me,” Tao Zhi sighed, speaking casually, “So, you should focus on pleasing me well, making me happy. Then I might grudgingly put in a few good words for you in front of old Tao, say some nice things about you.”

Jiang Qi Huai nodded, and just as they were about to reach her home, at the next intersection, he suddenly turned on his signal light and drove off in another direction.

Tao Zhi watched as they got further and further from her neighborhood, asking puzzled: “What’s wrong?”

“Going to my place,” Jiang Qi Huai said.

Tao Zhi: “?”

“To please you a bit.”

“…”

Though Jiang Qi Huai turned and drove off on another road, he didn’t actually take her to his home.

He drove along routes that went from familiar to unfamiliar, then from unfamiliar back to familiar, until the car passed by the street at the entrance of the Second Medical University branch campus, and Tao Zhi finally began to recognize the road.

Counting back, she hadn’t been to this area since graduating from high school.

The buildings along the road had changed a lot, yet somehow seemed unchanged. Almost all the storefronts had changed — the copy shop at the corner had become a beef noodle restaurant, though the small convenience store at the alley entrance was still open, just under a different name.

Jiang Qi Huai parked the car in a roadside spot and turned off the engine.

Tao Zhi followed him out, and before her was the familiar small alley. She looked at the row of scan-to-ride bicycles parked by the roadside, lost in thought.

Jiang Qi Huai turned around and looked at her: “Shall we go?”

Tao Zhi came back to her senses and nodded.

She followed him into the narrow alley. The already cramped space was made even tighter by an old tricycle parked against the wall, piled high with layers of cardboard boxes and various old furniture pieces and trinkets, all covered with a thick layer of snow. The dark red paint on the walls had almost completely peeled off, revealing the dark gray cement underneath.

She walked through the snow, following him forward in the dim yellow streetlight and complete silence, out of the small alley entrance, into the residential complex, and up the stairs.

Then she watched as Jiang Qi Huai took out his keys and opened the door.

The apartment was completely dark, and when Tao Zhi entered, she smelled a slight dusty scent from long-term vacancy.

Jiang Qi Huai turned on the lights.

Inside was exactly as she remembered it, unchanged to the smallest detail — the dining table right by the door that could barely let one person pass, the antique yet substantial old wooden furniture, the heavy coffee table, the big old TV.

Everything was unexpectedly clean, without a speck of dust. Several potted plants were arranged in front of the living room balcony, some climbing up the curtain rod and along the radiator pipes in the corner, growing wild and lush, clearly well-cared for.

Tao Zhi walked in dazedly, looking at the small stool in front of the sofa where she had once sat doing test papers, looking at the rocking chair quietly placed by the balcony window. All of it was so familiar it suddenly made her nose tingle.

She raised her hand to rub her nose, trying to hide her emotions: “Didn’t the landlord move back in?”

“They moved away,” Jiang Qi Huai walked in and said, “Their son graduated and went south, so the whole family went with him. They sold the house before leaving.”

“Then, did you buy it?” Tao Zhi asked.

“Mm.”

The house was old and couldn’t be demolished for reconstruction, and the location wasn’t great, so even the rent was very cheap.

Jiang Qi Huai already knew people, and when the landlord was selling, they were very straightforward and even gave him a price below market value.

Starting from university, Jiang Qi Huai had been working on projects, then following his advisor on projects in America, investing in stocks, and spending a year on Wall Street — all of this was just to make money.

He wanted to earn as much money as possible in the shortest time. He couldn’t come back after all these years with nothing and foolishly hope that Tao Zhi would follow him.

During this process, he unexpectedly discovered that he was actually very suited for this line of work.

Jiang Qing He wanted him to become a doctor, placing the hopes he had for Jiang Zhi onto Jiang Qi Huai. Later, because of Tao Zhi’s mother’s situation, Jiang Qi Huai had also thought about studying medicine.

But also because of Jiang Zhi’s previous record, no matter how hard he worked, he would never be able to get an official position in a hospital.

So when he saw Tao Zhi together with Jiang He Sheng, he felt a very faint but sharp and distinct sense of concern.

Tao Zhi’s fingertips brushed past the corner of the dining table as she walked forward, through the living room, to the door of the first bedroom, then pushed it open and went in.

It was as if time had instantly traveled back to their high school days. The young man’s room was clean and simple, with few possessions — just a desk, a bed, a wardrobe, and a small bookshelf, that was all.

Although she hadn’t come here particularly often, she felt that this small room, which now seemed almost too cramped to take more than a few steps in, held all the connections between her and him from beginning to end.

When she first understood her feelings, when she wanted to get close to him but couldn’t help backing away, the snowy New Year’s Eve night, leaving without saying goodbye.

The wall in front of his desk was blank, though it had once been covered with photos. There were even still some slight traces of glue, but now it was clean and empty, with only one photo remaining in the middle.

Tao Zhi walked over and looked down at it.

In the photo, she was still wearing that ugly sports uniform from First Experimental High School, her long hair tied in a neat ponytail, her young face frozen in a troubled expression as she bent over her test papers with a pen in hand.

Tao Zhi didn’t even know when this photo had been taken.

She instinctively looked for writing in the corners of the photo, but found there was nothing written on this one.

As she stood there in a daze, suddenly someone’s arms opened and embraced her from behind.

Jiang Qi Huai lowered his eyes, his gaze also falling on the young girl in the photo, his voice quiet yet clear in the silent room: “I still can’t afford to buy Zhi Zhi a big house to live in, but at least, I wanted to keep this place.”

This place held traces of the two most important people in his life.

This was the place that allowed him to get close to her.

Many years ago, in that dusk, when he saw her carrying a small stool to sit in front of the coffee table, lifting her test papers and looking up at him with a smile, in the house filled with the warm and bright aroma of food, as she and Jiang Qing He played chess by the window, Jiang Qi Huai felt for the first time, vaguely yet clearly, that he could have a home.

He was no longer that four-year-old child crouching in the orphanage, eating alone, growing up alone, occasionally envying the ants under the tree who had a home to return to.

Jiang Qi Huai held her and said slowly: “This place is very important to me.”

Tao Zhi’s eyes suddenly turned red.

She quickly lowered her gaze and said softly: “Who asked you to buy a big house.”

Jiang Qi Huai laughed quietly: “A princess should live in a palace.”

Tao Zhi turned around to face him, looked up at him, and said slowly, “That’s not always true. Rapunzel only lived in a tower.”

She raised her arms to hook around his neck, slightly lifted her tiptoes to kiss his chin, then his lips, her voice soft and muffled as she whispered: “Your Highness’s princess is willing to live in a small house.”