It was the same door, but in Chen Ge's eyes and Wu Jinpeng's eyes, it carried entirely different meanings.
Night fell, and Wu Jinpeng had drunk quite a bit. As the alcohol crept up on him, he slowly shed the "armor" he wore on a daily basis.
A trace of exhaustion surfaced in his weathered eyes — something he usually hid well, never letting it show in front of his family.
"Wu Sheng, go to sleep now. I still have to take you to school tomorrow morning." Wu Jinpeng carried Wu Sheng to the bed. "Goodnight, you little brat."
After taking care of the little one, he still had to look after the big one. He pulled the cloth curtain shut and sat down beside his younger brother. "Kun'er, stop playing with the electric fan. If you're feeling hot, I'll fan you."
"Fan!" Wu Kun raised the fan with both hands and ran around the tiny room, refusing to give it back to Wu Jinpeng.
"Slow down, don't disturb the neighbors." Wu Jinpeng sighed helplessly and sat back down at the table. "Sorry about that — my little brother is a bit rowdy."
"Brother Peng, the fan at my old workplace broke once and I fixed it myself. Want me to take a look?" During the time Chen Ge had been running the haunted house on his own, he'd learned all sorts of things — installing surveillance cameras, running different kinds of wiring, and more.
"I left it broken on purpose." Wu Jinpeng took another sip of wine. "Look at my brother's left hand — once he stuck it right into the fan blades..."
"Got it."
"My biggest wish is for Wu Sheng to grow up like any other normal kid. My second wish is to buy an air conditioner. My brother has never experienced one — if he knew how good it was, he'd throw that fan out in a heartbeat." The rental apartment was cramped. Wu Jinpeng leaned against the wall, one hand holding a cup of wine, the other absently scratching the head of the stray dog at his feet.
"Brother Peng, I can tell you're a man with a past. There's still some time before midnight — would you tell me about your history?" Chen Ge wanted to recruit Wu Jinpeng to work at his haunted house, and for that he needed to know the man inside and out.
"What history? My whole life has been one accident after another." Wu Jinpeng was getting tipsy. "Brother, guess what the most expensive thing in my place is?"
"How would I guess that?" There wasn't even a television in the rental apartment. Chen Ge looked around — the only thing worth anything was the broken fan in Wu Kun's hands.
"I'll show you." Wu Jinpeng opened a wooden chest in the corner of the room. Inside sat a guitar. "This isn't one of those cheap practice guitars — it's the real deal."
"You play guitar?" Chen Ge slapped another tag onto Wu Jinpeng — multi-talented — and his opinion of this handsome older man rose yet another notch.
"I used to study music. I spent quite a long time as a street performer, too — that's actually how I met Wu Sheng's mother." Wu Jinpeng picked up the guitar, but afraid of disturbing the neighbors, he didn't touch the strings. He simply held it in position and air-picked a few notes. "Wu Sheng's mom was one of my fans. Eight years younger than me, and an absolutely wonderful person. So even though she left, I don't blame her one bit."
On the table sat the wine, beside him lay a stray dog, and in his arms he cradled a battered old guitar. The two men sat there in the cramped little apartment, talking about the past and about life.
"Do you still perform as a street singer?"
"Haven't done that in ages. Back then, my dream was to write my own songs — and even if I couldn't become a singer, I wanted to work in something music-related. Unfortunately, reality got too hungry and gobbled up that dream in one big bite." Wu Jinpeng closed his eyes, his fingers plucking invisible strings in the air. "I was too rebellious when I was young. I always thought I was right about everything. There was even a stretch where I thought the name my parents gave me was too old-fashioned, so I secretly changed it — my old man didn't sleep for three days, he was so furious."
Wu Jinpeng opened his eyes and knocked back another cup of wine. "I still laugh when I think about the old man puffing and snorting with rage. Shame I'll never get to see that face again."