As soon as the door opened, Tu Tutu threw himself into Su Qing’s arms. Though he was already over ten years old, Su Qing still tossed him up without any effort. “Have you been making trouble for Grandpa?” 

“How could that be?” Tu Tutu said brazenly. “Our Imperial Presence understands basic principles.” 

He got his butt slapped. 

Su Chengde found to his surprise that Su Qing had brought someone along. When Hu Bugui had come in carrying bags of all sizes and greeted him politely, he at last nodded a little disappointedly. Looking at Su Qing playing around with Tu Tutu without any care for his image, he thought, When will this little whelp bring home a girl?

How the fuck was it that he scared up a guy every time? 

Su Qing took one glance and knew what his dad was hung up over. He gave a dry cough and put an arm around Hu Bugui’s shoulder in a companionable way and made introductions: “This old man is my dad. Dad, this is our chief.” 

Hu Bugui said, “Hello, uncle. My name is Hu Bugui.” 

“Oh!” His boss? A boss was all right. Su Chengde put on a smile. “Oh, Captain Hu, I’ve heard of you. Don’t stand on ceremony, sit down, sit down.” 

Hu Bugui sat bolt upright. Su Qing cheekily said, “It’s snowing so much outside, and I didn’t have my car, so I had Captain Hu drive me. Headquarters is too far, so I told him to come over and stay the night.” 

Su Chengde hastily expressed warm welcome. 

Tu Tutu took part in the fun: “Grandpa, Chief Hu is a big hero.” 

Captain Hu, immovable as a mountain, actually blushed. 

“That’s right, that’s right,” Su Qing said. “Dad, we can sleep with the door open tonight. He can ward off evil spirits.” 

“Get out! Can you speak like a normal person? If you can’t, then shut up!” Su Chengde’s expression was absolutely foul while scolding his son. When he turned to Hu Bugui afterwards, the yaksha’s face immediately turned into a face smiling like a chrysanthemum. “Don’t be shy, Captain Hu, treat this like your own house. I expect my whelp has been giving you quite a bit of trouble out there?” 

“Su Qing is pretty good,” Hu Bugui said. Then he glanced at Su Qing and added, “Though sometimes he doesn’t quite observe discipline.” 

“What? Doesn’t observe discipline?!” Su Chengde furiously slapped the back of Su Qing’s head and scolded him: “How can you be a soldier and not observe discipline? Obeying orders is your duty. Do you understand what duty is?” 

Su Qing pursed his lips, indicating that he wouldn’t speak. 

So Su Chengde sat face to face with Hu Bugui. Su Qing occupied a corner of the couch and played on his phone with his head down. Tu Tutu looked from one to the next and felt that General Hu and Grandpa Su were successfully playing out a “naughty student’s teacher comes to pay a home visit to lodge a complaint” plot. This was his first time seeing the tyrannical prince regent so sullen. He was so delighted he was about to forget his own name. 

Then, at last, his wishes were fulfilled as he heard the most classic of lines. Su Chengde very boldly said to Hu Bugui, “This son of mine, I was busy when he was little and didn’t have time to discipline him properly on my own, and the housekeeper spoiled him. He’s grown up entirely unpresentable now. If he doesn’t behave, you just go ahead and teach him a lesson. Give him a couple of slaps or kicks, it’s no problem.” 

Hu Bugui looked at Su Qing with a slightly peculiar expression. Su Qing seemed to know what he was thinking. He looked up from busily playing Fruit Ninja and pulled a funny face. Hu Bugui laughed softly. 

Su Chengde thought that he was being a little oversensitive. He suddenly felt that his wastrel son and this Captain Hu were kind of…making eyes at each other. He began to be fearful. 

As soon as he had this suspicion, added to Su Qing’s prior record, Su Chengde began to pay attention and felt more and more that something was off. 

For example, he found that while Hu Bugui and Su Qing didn’t communicate much verbally, they had a particular tacit understanding. With practically nothing but a look and a tiny gesture no one else would notice, it was as though the two of them had had a conversation—of course, that was nothing, Su Chengde consoled himself. They were comrades-in-arms. They had carried guns and risked their lives together. How could they not have a bit of tacit understanding? 

But why do they have to be so close to each other when they speak? Su Qing, what do you have to say that can’t be said out in the open? You’ve got your mouth stuck to the man’s ear! And you’re smiling! And it’s such a suggestive smile! 

Then, when the two of them went into the kitchen to help serve food, Su Chengde saw with perfect clarity how a bit of vegetable soup accidentally splashed onto Su Qing’s fingers, and Hu Bugui wiped it off for him… These comrades-in-arms really were on good terms, but if he was going to wipe, then he could wipe properly. There were so many towels and napkins in the kitchen and dining room that he didn’t use; he actually used his tongue to lick it clean! 

Su Chengde saw Su Qing raise his head and look his way a little guiltily, then immediately pretend to be counting chopsticks and not have seen anything. He felt his head turning into a big teapot, steam puffing out from the top of it. 

His son was no longer extravagant, no longer wasteful. He didn’t count grains of rice when he ate and wasn’t totally incompetent anymore. Now, like the return of the prodigal, he had appeared before him in a new form as though reborn, and Su Chengde had thought that there could be nothing more perfectly satisfying in the world. 

But it turned out that while all his various bad habits had changed, the only one that remained unchanged…was the one it was hardest for Su Chengde to accept! 

So the “naughty student’s home visit” atmosphere began to move quickly in a certain awkward direction. Throughout the evening, Su Chengde appeared absent-minded. On the surface, he pretended to be a fairly up to standard host, but he couldn’t resist furtively looking back and forth between Su Qing and Hu Bugui. When no one else could see, the expression on his face was now troubled, now relieved, oscillating like a sine wave, going on without end. 

Tu Tutu’s good days unfortunately ended after the prince regent’s glorious return. Before, he had been able to push the retired emperor forward as a target, but now, while the retired emperor was speaking rather convincingly, he was inwardly busy to distraction. He had no time to discuss the problems of the child’s education with his son. So His Majesty was sent off to his room to do his homework.

The TV in the living room was on and making a racket. After the news, it began to play TV dramas. Each of the three people sitting on the couch had his own thoughts. No one saw what was on the TV. Suddenly, Hu Bugui spoke softly: “It’s a good thing Su Qing has come home today. His personal materials and family background still need to be completed. There are some places where you can help take a look, Uncle Su, and fill it in for him. That will save trouble later.” 

Su Chengde came around and nodded. He took a pen out from under the coffee table. 

Su Qing didn’t know what Hu Bugui’s plan was. He saw Hu Bugui take a big stack of documents from his bag. This was a very thick stack. He had said it would only be filling in a form, but he laid papers out all over the table without finding that form. Hu Bugui had used a clip to clip together a whole lot of things. Su Qing couldn’t resist coming forward to help him arrange them, thinking, He’s a rather neat, rather careful person. How could he let his stuff get into such a mess? 

But Hu Bugui avoided his hands. “It’s fine. Many things have been set up anew lately. It’s a bit chaotic. It’ll be all right in a while.” 

When he dodged, the clip didn’t hold. Some pieces of paper floated out, falling right at Su Chengde’s feet. 

Su Chengde naturally bent down to pick them up for him. At a glance, the dropped items didn’t belong to a single person. There were unfilled forms, some with pictures stuck onto them. Then he flipped to the final page and froze. 

This was a final testament, written by hand, signed by Su Qing. 

Su Qing took a glance and immediately felt something was wrong. He snatched it back at lightning speed and hurriedly stuck it back in the clip. He glared at Hu Bugui, faintly understanding what he was up to. 

Su Chengde had taken too great a hit. Before he could catch up, he exploded. He scowled immediately. “Why did you snatch that? Take it out, let me have a look!” 

“No, no, that thing is unlucky. Listen, dad, you can’t take it seriously. Everyone at headquarters has one, it’s convention, it doesn’t mean anything. Right, Captain Hu?” Su Qing touched Hu Bugui with his knee. This was actually true. 

Hu Bugui nodded to show agreement, but he didn’t raise his head to look at anyone when he nodded, a clear display of “I can’t say the truth in front of the family, I’ll just go along to save others worry.” Su Qing stamped on his foot under the table, thinking, Who taught you this? Even making progress when my back is turned doesn’t fucking explain this. 

Hu Bugui accepted the stamp expressionlessly. Then he turned up the portion that he needed Su Chengde to fill in. With the speed of a strong wind, he swept the whole stack of documents off the table, just as though…he really hadn’t done it on purpose. 

So Su Chengde became even more absent-minded. That night, he had Hu Bugui stay in the guest room. He washed up and lay down in bed, but he couldn’t fall asleep no matter what. As soon as he closed his eyes, he seemed to see that slightly sloppy line of Su Qing’s writing: “If I really do meet with misfortune, please look after my father for me. It hasn’t been easy for him having such an unfilial son. Thank you.” 

Perhaps because he had gotten old, Su Chengde no longer had the ability he had had when he was young to cool his heart. His heart stung so that he felt bewildered. He was so upset he nearly cried. 

So he sat up and turned on a reading lamp. He picked up a photo frame from the nightstand and looked at the three person family in it. This was from back when Su Qing had still been an ignorant little brat. Su Chengde sat at the bedside with his back hunched, and his tears really did fall on the frame, landing on the face of the woman with her fixed smile. 

“Bijun, let me tell you, our son’s come back.” As he spoke to himself, he carefully wiped the tears from the frame with his fingers. He felt the eternally young woman’s gaze pass through the clear frame and radiate all the way to his heart. She was sitting beside him, like many years before, not saying much but knowing everything, understanding everything. 

“What should I do? You’re the child’s mother. What do you think I should do?” 

Su Chengde sat in the dim light of the bedside lamp for a long time. Then he wiped his face, stood up, and went to the bathroom attached to his bedroom to look in the mirror. He straightened his back, arranged a solemn expression, then silently walked out of the room and knocked on the door of the guest room. 

When Su Qing got up the next morning, he acutely felt that something wasn’t right—Su Chengde’s expression looking at him was even more complicated. He thought a little fearfully, Lao Hu couldn’t have said something to him last night, could he? Su Qing began to slightly regret deciding to take Hu Bugui home in a moment of soft-heartedness. He thought it really was a lousy idea. 

When they had eaten breakfast and were preparing to leave, at the front door of the Su house, Hu Bugui brazenly pulled a scarf off the clothes rack and, right under the old man’s nose, carefully tied it around Su Qing’s neck, then pulled his coat closed. Su Qing was startled and quickly took a big step back, turning to look at Su Chengde as though he had been exposed. But he found that while the old man looked grim, he saw them out as though nothing were the matter. 

Su Qing couldn’t come around until they were sitting in the car. He couldn’t resist asking, “So…the old man, he…” 

“Oh,” Hu Bugui said very lightly, “when you were asleep last night, I had a talk with him.” 

Su Qing feared neither heaven nor earth, but his expression abundantly told Hu Bugui that he had been frightened. 

“Did you…tell him everything?” 

Hu Bugui looked at him in the mirror, saw his expression, and suddenly felt a strange sense of achievement. 

“It’s fine. He’s your dad. The rest doesn’t matter. His greatest wish is for you to be safe and sound,” Hu Bugui said. “I just made him believe that I’m a fairly reliable person, and that I can just about live up to the requirements and fulfill that greatest wish of his.”