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Zhou Zishu is quickly coming to the unfortunate conclusion that boarding the Five Lakes cruise ship has not been one of his better life decisions. 

It’s his third day on the ship, he's lying on a lounge chair on the bustling lido deck, and he's resolutely staring at the screen of his e-reader, jaw clenched. It's for Zhang Chengling's sake. It's only for a month. You've got 20 books to read. The mantra rewinds itself in his thoughts, and fails to calm him whatsoever.

"Say, A-Xu, are you being cruel on purpose? Why even come near the pools if you insist on wearing that horrible T-shirt?"

He breathes out through his nose and doesn't respond. The dog was barking furiously because of the noise, he reads. He has no idea what noise, or where the dog even came from. He's been stuck on the same page for over a minute, but he flicks to the next one stubbornly and readjusts his bucket hat.

"Don't get me wrong, I love a man of intellect," Wen Kexing says, continuing to leer at him from the neighbouring chair. "But you're also a man of beauty. Why don't you flaunt it a little?"

Zhou Zishu tips down his sunglasses, slowly turns to his right, and gives Wen Kexing a pointed once over. "Aren't you wearing a shirt, Lao Wen?" 

Wen Kexing stops spreading sunscreen over his arms and grins, eyes glinting. "Ah, but mine's not really hiding anything, is it?" 

It isn't. The shirt is unbuttoned, the silky material sliding off his right shoulder, and he's got his long legs spread out over the chair in clear provocation. When he arrived, Zhou Zishu couldn’t keep himself from looking, even though he’d tried. At least the glasses are tinted.

"Neither is mine," he says, and returns to his book. 

He's now flipped through the entire first chapter and he's got no idea what's going on with the plot. He refuses to let it show. There’s a dog, there’s noise, the main character has some sort of internal bleeding; he can work with that.

He could work with that, but there is a man he’s met two days ago trying to stare a hole into his chest. The pool is three rows of chairs and five parasols away and somehow he’s still getting splashed. A family of five has just arrived with a whole suitcase of pool toys, including an assortment of water guns, and the youngest son is already crying because there are other people in the pool. Zhou Zishu sighs and wishes he could be somewhere else.

Wen Kexing is still watching him with that indulgent smirk, looking like there’s no place he’d rather be.

Zhou Zishu’s expectations for the cruise were not high to begin with. 

It was a reward for his loyalty, a supplication, a last ditch effort from Helian Yi to keep him from leaving the company. Useless, as Zhou Zishu has already made up his mind. The pay rise didn’t work. Promises of extended annual leave might’ve as well been elevator advertising, for how much he had listened to them. The only reason he didn’t shoot the cruise down directly was that he was too busy laughing about the idea. 

Uncle Li, his next door neighbour, was the one who convinced him to take it.

“You’ve given your whole life to this company,” he said, during one of their weekly xiangqi sessions. “Why not get something back?”

“I don’t want it.”

“That’s besides the point. Let them pay you back.”

“Do you want to go on a cruise, Li-shushu?”

“Heavens, no!” Uncle Li spread out his arms in horror, then used the momentary uptick of Zhou Zishu’s gaze from the board to block one of his horses. “But someone else might.”

Zhou Zishu looked over at the unspoken someone and winced. Zhang Chengling was sitting in the corner of the drab living room, blasting off artillery attacks on his Nintendo. He was curled around the chair like a shrimp, expression blank, and the boba that Zhou Zishu had brought for him was sitting untouched on the side table, ice turned into a greying sludge.

He knew well enough that a cruise would hardly heal the pain of a grieving teenager; but it was his summer holiday, Uncle Li was due for a break from his sulking, and Zhang Chengling looked mildly interested when they suggested the idea. He looked up from his video game, at least. Zhou Zishu couldn’t speak teen, but he was sure it counted for something.

So, no, he was not expecting to be wowed by the experience. It was a means to an end, Zhou Zishu would endure it, and then bid his sales representative career a cheery goodbye and start living as a fulltime recluse, off his lifelong savings.

When he unlocked his cabin and found that the space was about the size of an average balcony, he simply blinked. When the air-conditioning broke down on the whole second deck, twenty miles from port, he just reminded himself that he wasn’t the one paying for the trip. And when he tried to order a glass of wine for dinner and got charged twice the price of a full bottle, he congratulated himself on smuggling in alcohol in old Wahaha bottles. 

He held onto his composure until the first evening on the ship, when Zhang Chengling dragged him to watch the sunset from the deck. His formerly well-repressed paternal instinct was so taken by the boy's suggestion that he forgot to fully consider what a horrible idea it was. A critical mistake, wrapped in sentiment and momentary weakness. There they were, standing near the railing, watching the water turn from peach-blush to ink, the wind picking up and making their hair fly in all four cardinal directions, when Zhou Zishu first felt a piercing gaze at the side of his face and heard the loud Oh.

His expectations for the cruise were not high, but he'd thought he had it handled. That was before he met Wen Kexing.

There are a number of things cruises are infamous for: petulant drunkards jumping overboard, truly upsetting queueing times, and their inherent potential to incubate germs. There are also a number of perks, such as the truly hedonistic food options, but Zhou Zishu isn't too keen to admit that being fed luxurious multi-course meals three times a day holds any sway over him.

It's all for Chengling's sake, he repeats in his head, as he watches the boy swing the Lazy Susan around, picking out all the chicken wings from the shared platter and drowning his french fries in crab salad and extra spicy mayo. His throat constricts in horror and he turns to his sensible bowl of egg-fried rice. A large piece of char siu pork lands on top of it just as he's about to lift his chopsticks.

"Eat some more protein, A-Xu. It's good for your muscles," Wen Kexing says, and plops another slice of pork in the bowl, along with a fried shrimp.

"Thank you, Lao Wen, but my muscles are just fine."

"Well, I wouldn't know, would I? You're the one who's too shy to show them off."

Zhou Zishu clenches his jaw. He eats all the pork but leaves the shrimp. 

Initially, he didn't even want to have dinners in the main dining hall. He planned on coming in with the Tupperware that he'd packed, picking out a few odds and ends, and eating in the sweet privacy of his cabin. But when he vocalised this plan to Zhang Chengling and saw his eyebrows draw together in disappointment, he relented. 

The first dinner was fine. They were set at a table near the end of the hall, a relatively quiet five-seater, with a couple that only spoke Japanese and an octogenarian grandma who spent the whole time chatting about her previous ten cruises. Zhou Zishu relaxed, happy that the cruise provided a fixed dining service and these would be their tablemates for the duration of the trip.

The next day, of course, the grandma was nowhere to be found, and Wen Kexing waved them over with the enthusiasm of a child at kindergarten pickup time. 

It turned out that the Japanese wife spoke some English after all. A few dinners in, after a brief eyebrow conversation with her husband, she leans towards to Wen Kexing and asks: "You are married?" 

Wen Kexing dramatically laughs it off and plasters himself to Zhou Zishu's side. Zhang Chengling guffaws. Zhou Zishu considers ordering another overpriced glass of wine.

The couple appears even more confused, but Wen Kexing takes the opening provided by the wife's apparent language prowess. "Did you hear there is a morgue on board?" he asks, and upon receiving no reaction, proceeds to mimic the word morgue with ample gestures. The couple gasps in horror. 

"Cool!" Chengling stops stuffing himself with the crab salad and a piece of chewed up meat slips down his chin.

Wen Kexing reaches over to dab at it like a doting aunt and Zhou Zishu gets a faceful of his soft, floral-scented hair. He chews with even more vigour.

For the rest of the night, he is victim to the simultaneous performances of the cruise comedian and Wen Kexing's improv routine. The comedian, Xie Wang, slips from self-deprecation into nihilism so quickly the audience forgets to clap at the end of his routine. 

Wen Kexing, meanwhile, has the attention of the whole table. The couple watches him with confusion, Zhang Chengling with fascination, and Zhou Zishu with morbid curiosity. He talks about the cruise jail, a little padded room on the lowest deck, reserved for those who get a little too aggressive from their cocktails; he gossips about how the whole crew had to take drug tests earlier in the day, on account of some suspicious powder scattered over the lido deck before the morning water-aerobics class; he elaborates on the use of the morgue. "A lot of people die on cruise ships and sometimes there's not enough space. If they're serving extra ice-cream at dinner, that's probably why."

When Wen Kexing finishes his margarita and excuses himself for the night, Chengling is firmly a member of his fanclub, grinning from ear to ear. "Can we go play badminton with Wen-xiong tomorrow?" 

The Japanese couple bows to him politely and avoids Zhou Zishu's gaze until they also leave. He wouldn't be surprised to find their seats empty the next day. 

As for Zhou Zishu himself, the side of his thigh feels surprisingly cold after Wen Kexing's departure. He rubs his palm over it and says to Zhang Chengling: "Absolutely not."

Few things in life can be taken for granted. Not one's health, not having a career that comes without moral dilemmas, and not, as Zhou Zishu has recently found out, the sanctity of the do not disturb sign.

The ship is massive. It has two shopping malls, an indoor watersports and skiing complex, a casino, and more restaurants than a single passenger can visit. The cabins themselves are spread across six full decks. It’s a maze, the deck map is a headache, and getting lost is a daily rite of passage. 

Yet, when Zhou Zishu opened the door one morning and found Wen Kexing waiting for him, leaning on the railing and making innocent eyes from behind a fan, he didn't even find it shocking. A part of him was almost impressed. He threw his towel around his neck and headed for the lido deck. In hindsight, he’d say, that was the mistake – that he let Wen Kexing trail behind him without a single comment.

The next morning, Wen Kexing didn't even bother waiting, and simply manoeuvred himself into the tiny cabin. He sat at the foot of Zhou Zishu's bed, wearing another one of his nonchalantly-unbuttoned pastel shirts, and fanned himself with fury. "Poor A-Xu. I forgot your deck doesn't have air conditioning."

He came back the next morning and then the next. Zhou Zishu kept putting out the do not disturb sign, and it kept being ignored. Granted, he could've locked the door in the first place, or after getting ambushed that first time, but he reminded himself it was too late by then. He could've stopped Wen Kexing while there was still time, and he didn't. Now he had to live with the consequences.

It is still a tough pill to swallow, however, when it's seven in the morning, Zhou Zishu is still sweating an imprint of his body into the sheets, and Wen Kexing starts his perfunctory round of knocking. 

"A-Xu, are you up?" He sticks his head into the door. Zhou Zishu blinks his eyes open and almost gets a scare at the shape of his giant sunhat. He rolls himself over onto his other side in lieu of a reply. "Oh, good," Wen Kexing says and slips into the cabin.

He leaves the door open, blasting a painful salve of the corridor’s intense LED light straight at Zhou Zishu's head. He groans and shields himself with his arms. Wen Kexing sits down and taps his foot in sympathy.

"You have to get ready. I signed us up for today's excursion."

"Lao Wen, I already told you. I don't want to get off this ship until the cruise is over."

"Come on, A-Xu, live a little! We can go sightseeing. Daydrinking. Or get some reasonably overpriced souvenirs. I need something to remind me of you once we part ways."

He sounds almost melancholy and Zhou Zishu would almost fall for it. Then he sees the way Wen Kexing is eyeing the strip of skin where his tanktop has ridden up, and he shakes his head: "I can't leave Chengling behind."

Wen Kexing clicks his tongue like he's being silly. As if on cue, Zhang Chengling materialises in the doorway, face unevenly smeared with sunscreen, an actual camera strapped around his neck. "Zishu-ge, why are you still in bed? Aren't we meant to leave in five minutes?"

"It's better to leave late, anyway,” Wen Kexing lights up at the sight of him and waves his hair in the air, admonishing. “We don't want to go on the cruise tour, those are just a money grab."

"How about you two go and just leave me here in peace?"

Wen Kexing and Zhang Chengling shoot him twin looks of hurt and he groans once more before sitting up. He never stood a chance, anyway.

They disembark the ship way past the designated tour time. “Just as well,” Wen Kexing reassures them, and snatches a map from the first gift shop they pass. The town is fairly small, and they all reach an unspoken agreement to walk. Wen Kexing doesn’t look at the map once, and he doesn’t move from his spot on Zhou Zishu’s side, but still somehow manages to lead them through the narrow stone-paved streets, avoiding anyone who looks like a fellow passenger.

They get a quick breakfast from the convenience store, chocolate pastries and a cold drink each, and make their first tour stop at a sculpture museum. Zhang Chengling has keenly taken on the duty to document the excursion. Zhou Zishu has ruined one too many of his photos by frowning and hiding his face behind Wen Kexing’s sunhat, so now the boy’s focus has shifted towards more artistic subjects. He’s busy flitting about the museum, taking macro shots of marble busts, when Wen Kexing takes Zhou Zishu by the elbow and pauses in his steps.

He looks at a lifesize statue of a woman, clutching a newborn baby to her chest, and sighs wistfully. “What do you think she’s scared of?”

Zhou Zhishu considers the sculpture, walks a few steps closer to look into the mother’s expression. It appears frozen – beyond its preservation by the stone, beyond the timestopping quality of the medium – in absolute terror. “I don’t know,” he says, stops himself just short from reaching out to touch her cheek. “I hope she got away.”

Wen Kexing presses himself against his shoulder and hums. “I hope they did, too.”

They continue looking at the statue until Zhang Chenling returns and attempts to take a portrait shot of it. Sighing about disrespect, Wen Kexing hip-bumps him towards the exit and walks back onto the sunlit street. Zhou Zishu watches the way the sun paints his face in profile and feels a sudden kinship with the sculptors. He curses himself for the thought.

The next stop is a lapse in judgement. They vander into a sleepy looking bookshop and get accosted by the shopkeeper, who tries to sell them a family package of fridge magnets. The woman, sharp elbows and a bargaining poker face, speaks excellent English; Zhou Zishu thanks her in Mandarin and restarts the door chime before it's welcoming pang even has a chance to wind down. Somehow, two thirds of the magnets still make their way into his fanny pack. 

The market is a bigger success. It's squished between a church and a dilapidated building with windows covered in peeling stickers of girls in bikinis. Zhang Chengling keeps sneaking glances at the sorry display, but Wen Kexing is taken by a different set of globes. "Let's get some watermelon! This is a farmer's market, isn't it? I bet it's ripe and sweet!"

Not even blinking at his innuendo, Zhou Zishu mutters: "I bet it's fresh from the supermarket." 

He knocks on all the watermelons twice, lifts some up to his ear, and points at the two champions. Wen Kexing picks the heavier one, and Zhou Zishu ends up carrying it to the stand with gooseberry preserves, to the one with sun-melted candles, all the way to the table with a suspicious arrangement of gemstones. 

"I don't think you should touch it," he says to Wen Kexing, throwing the watermelon into the crook of his other elbow. "You might mess with the energy."

"Which one keeps people in high spirits?" Wen Kexing ignores him and leans close to the seller. 

She blinks, shows him two rows of brilliant teeth, and points at none of the gems in particular.

"This one would suit you, A-Xu, don't you think?" 

"I'm not really an amethyst guy."

"Come now. Let me buy it for you, as a gift." 

Zhou Zishu bounces the watermelon in his arms demonstratively. "You already got me magnets. Now let's get Chengling before somebody sees him leering at stickers." 

Wen Kexing lets him walk off, but Zhou Zishu sees him buy the amethyst pendant and pocket it before turning in his direction. 

They don't end up eating the watermelon, on the account of having no cutlery. Instead, Wen Kexing picks a pricey restaurant near the port and lures Zhang Chengling with promises of banana split sundaes. 

"Don't worry, A-Xu. They've got other things, too. Rice. Shrimp."

"I don't eat shrimp."

He picks at his plate of bland pasta while Zhang Chengling polishes off three full courses. The watermelon sits at his feet. His wallet cries in apprehension. Wen Kexing orders a respectable salad, but caps it with a margarita. When a flock of seagulls starts splashing about in a nearby water fountain and Chengling runs off to capture the mess, Zhou Zishu gets a drink of his own. Whiskey, neat. 

Wen Kexing watches him from behind his salt-rimmed glass, and some of the crystals catch on his smile. “So what happens to him when you go back?”

Zhou Zishu doesn’t answer. He takes a swig and savours the burn of the liquor. 

“He can't stay with your poor neighbour forever. Is he going to move in with you?”

"I'm not his family."

"On paper."

"He's got four uncles. I'm sure one of them can take him in." Zhang Chengling gets a faceful of water from the fountain and Zhou Zishu averts his gaze. He contemplates nursing his whiskey, to take tentative sips in answer to Wen Kexing's questions. When he sees his sympathetic frown, he downs the whole glass.

"It's not easy losing your parents. Especially this young." 

"Don't preach to the choir," Zhou Zishu says and rubs at the bridge of his nose. He's too rough, the pinch almost painful. "Look, I don't get any say in all of this. I'm a stranger. I'm sitting here drinking while he's getting attacked by seagulls. Soon, I won't even have a job."

Wen Kexing purses his lips and sets down the margarita glass. Empty, most of the salt licked off. He folds his hands together and leans forward on the table, like he's about to unleash a full lecture, but all he says is a soft: "A-Xu."

Zhou Zishu rolls his eyes and also leans his elbows on the lace-woven tablecloth. "Lao Wen?"

They stare at each other over a bowl of Chengling's melted, uneaten ice-cream, until the boy returns, sandals squelching and water dripping down his fringe. "Zishu-ge, the tour is boarding. Should we head back?"

What greets them onboard is not unlike complete pandemonium. Someone has thrown a lit cigarette into a bin while they were away, it caught on fire, spread to four separate cabins, and the residual smoke hazard led to half a deck getting evacuated. The right wing of the third deck, to be precise, where their own cabins are. They get a complimentary upgrade to the fourth deck, with promises of more spacious cabins and a luxurious view of the ocean. The view is exactly the same as before, but now Zhou Zishu can theoretically do a push-up in his cabin, as opposed to a cramped sit-up. The fourth deck also has functioning AC and chairs next to the elevators. He learns all this from Wen Kexing, before they even go pick up their smoked-out belongings. He takes the news of the fire with unadulterated glee. Zhou Zishu chalks it up to the fact that they'll now be sharing the same wing. He wonders, though.

For years, he used to go to the same gym as his cousin. Helian Yi would call him his designated spotter, force him to share his chalky protein drinks, and indulge in the fact that Zhou Zishu never called him out on the exaggerated personal bests he’d be sharing with their co-workers. 

He used to think he liked the gym. It was uncomplicated, in the rigidity of his training routines, the linear curve between weight lifted and the degree of his exhaustion. It made his body strong and he liked to think there was a similar correlation there, that he could iron-proof his mind, too. To make himself tougher. The job needed him tough, and he didn’t build his reputation on empty anecdotes. 

He’s going back to his cabin, hair wet, towel in hand, when it hits him that the gym was just another cage. A self-designed one, which he’d utilise to make the transition between his flat and the office a little less jarring. His subconscious must’ve realised it earlier; when he first went to the cruise gym, and, instead of heading for the racks, lunged into the swimming pool.

In the early mornings, before the sun comes out, there’s barely anyone there. Zhou Zishu goes to swim his laps, washes the chlorine out of his hair, and makes it back to his cabin for a short nap, before there’s that reliable knocking on his door. Before he has to face Chengling and wonder if he’s making a mistake. 

At 5am, one wouldn’t be silly to call the vessel a ghost ship. The lights on the promenade are dimmed, the air stenches of bleach and the lemongrass-y air freshener, the tinkling of the elevator is jarring. Zhou Zishu treads the silence carefully. 

“Why is this taking you so long?” 

The voice stops him in his tracks, a familiar drawl, hushed, with a hint of impatience. It’s coming from behind the nearest corner, where the promenade curves and splits the deck into ordinary cabins and luxury suites. Wen Kexing is leaning out of his; already dressed, the day’s shirt printed with powder-blue magnolias.

“You’re too demanding, ge!” the girl in front of him whines, arms akimbo. She’s a good two heads shorter, wearing a black dress and a crookedly tied apron. “Sneak into the kitchen this, water down the detergents that. I only have two arms, look!”

She sticks them out and Wen Kexing swats at them, shushing her. His eyes sweep across the promenade and Zhou Zishu freezes, but passes unnoticed.

“Fine. But you only have a week left.”

“We have almost three weeks left. Sixteen days,” the girl says. Zhou Zishu can hear her eyeroll. “Believe me, I’m part of the crew. We know.”

There’s a hint of fondness on Wen Kexing’s face when he jabs the girl under her ribs and says: “Two weeks, not a day longer. Now scatter, don’t you have some toilets to clean?”

“So annoying! You don’t appreciate me at all.” 

“Who sneaks you fruit tarts from dinner every night?”

“Whatever. I’m not settling for those crumbs anymore,” the girl shrugs and turns on her heel. “I made a friend in the kitchen. He can make me fresh ones, anytime I ask.” 

“Good,” Wen Kexing says, in what is a very much an undignified hiss. He watches as the girl walks towards the elevator, the doors start closing, and she sticks her arm out in a cheery wave. Only when the number above the elevator ticks down from four to three does he let out a deep sigh and closes the door. 

Zhou Zishu waits until the lock clicks and walks to his cabin.

“They won’t let a minor in.”

“Relax. They will.”

“Will they, Zishu-ge?”

They do. Zhou Zishu saves the energy and doesn’t even bother acting surprised.

The three of them walk into the casino without a single suspicious glance from the staff. Zhang Chengling’s guilt is so loud he’s practically glowing with it, biting the inside of his cheek and staring at the loud planetary swirls of the carpet. Zhou Zishu is wearing his best grandpa sandals and a tee that loudly proclaims he’s a Carrefour customer; he likes the material. Wen Kexing is decked out in a near-crimson tuxedo that's been making Zhou Zishu uneasy since dinner. Taken altogether, they should be definitely getting a talking to from the security guards.

However, nobody stops them as they weave through the crowds of passengers. Zhang Chengling tries to steer them towards the slot machines, but Zhou Zishu takes him by the collar and shakes his head. He has some dignity, after all.

They watch a few games of blackjack, taking whispered turns to explain the rules to the boy. He listens intently, but gets much more excited when they make it to the roulette table. Luck seems to be in short supply and none of the bets are landing. Wen Kexing is none too subtle about his schadenfreude.

"Care for a round, A-Xu?" he says, leaning into Zhou Zishu's space. 

"I'm not wasting money on keeping you entertained," he says, addressing both of his companions.

Wen Kexing chuckles. His breath grazes Zhou Zishu's cheek. "A personal bet, then? We can choose the prize."

Zhou Zishu turns his head and makes sure to hold Wen Kexing's gaze, though the proximity makes the task difficult. "Alright."

His response takes Wen Kexing by surprise, but he only looks vulnerable for a moment; for a knee-buckling flash between his mouth falling open, and its change into a self-satisfied smirk.

"What do you want, then?"

He could ask for anything. He could tell Wen Kexing to stop with his gaudy advances. He could suggest that he should look up the definition of personal space. He could tell him to leave him, leave them, alone. "I want one morning of peace," he says, measured. "To finish my book."

Maybe he's just reading the relief into Wen Kexing's features, but his shoulders relax, too, and bump into Zhou Zishu's own. 

"And you, Lao Wen?"

"Hm?"

"What do you win?"

"Oh, easy." Wen Kexing laughs and quirks an eyebrow. The act is back, the costume in place. "I want you to pay me a visit. We're on the same deck now. You practically live –" 

"Deal," Zhou Zishu cuts him off. It hits the target. He could watch Wen Kexing fumble to hide his surprise, but he turns his attention to the table, eyes the spinning vortex of doom. "Four, black."

"Uuh.” Wen Kexing scans the numbers. “Nine, red."

Zhou Zishu’s chosen an unlucky number, and never expected the ball to fall into its slot. Wen Kexing has chosen a lucky one. He appears shocked when the wheel stops spinning and the dealer calls it out. A searing white nine on a crimson square that matches his tuxedo. 

Zhang Chengling, though, has no such qualms. He whoops and claps his hands excitedly, reaching over to pat Wen Kexing’s shoulder. “Wen-ge, you won! Can I come over to your suite, too? I want to see the whirlpool tub!”

“No chance. You would clear out the whole minibar.”

“I wouldn’t! I just want to have a peek.”

“No, the whirlpool would suck you in. Let’s go have a look at the poker tables. They’re way more classy.”

The game was a gamble with luck, and Zhou Zishu knew this. He just wasn’t, and isn’t, certain whose luck it was.

There is a loft in the Lagoon Suite, as well as a piano, a patio, and a ginormous aquarium. Zhou Zishu’s cabin could fit in it ten times over, and there would still be enough space for the infamous whirlpool tub. Wen Kexing offers him a tour, first thing, but he brushes past him and parks himself in one of the leather armchairs. He unbuckles his sandals, puts his feet on the coffee table, and folds his hands over his chest. Waits.

Wen Kexing drapes himself over the sofa, leans against the armrest contentedly, and raises an eyebrow: “What’s the little fool doing?”

“Playing video games. Chatting. Sleeping. Who knows.” 

He plays at nonchalance but it falls flat. He checked on Zhang Chengling before leaving his cabin, and felt a fresh pang of guilt upon seeing him huddled under a blanket, furiously launching another attack on his Nintendo. The boy has become so animated in the broad daylight of their cruise extravaganza that the image served as a stark reminder. This is temporary, and Zhang Chengling is still not okay. “Do you have anything to drink, Lao Wen?”

Zhou Zishu scans the suite properly while he waits, notices the flashy art pieces and fresh flowers, the watermelon sitting on the mantle of the fake fireplace. He gets a glass of whisky and an earful about what drinking too much alcohol could do to his beautiful face. Wen Kexing comes back with a glass in each hand, and they clink them in an intuitive toast. 

“To the best cruise of my life.” Wen Kexing’s teeth catch on his lower lip, making sure the innuendo is there, material, undisputable.

Zhou Zishu just rolls with it. “To the first cruise of my life, I guess.”

“I hope it’s proving to be a memorable experience.”

“It is. My clothes will probably smell like cured ham for the rest of forever.”

“Ah, A-Xu. Are you so peeved by a little fire onboard?” Wen Kexing clucks. “This sure is your first cruise.”

After thinking that over for a moment, Zhou Zishu asks: “And what does that make you, a cruise veteran?”

Wen Kexing laughs into his drink and also takes a tentative pause. “I am an aficionado, I suppose. I basically grew up on a cruise ship. Knew how to handle diarrhea in the pool before I could spell it.”

Zhou Zishu wants to press it further, but settles for encouraging silence, and this time, he truly loses the gamble. Wen Kexing finishes his drink in a swift motion, slams the glass down, and dislodges Zhou Zishu's feet from the table. 

"Let's not talk about diarrhea, A-Xu. That ruins the mood."

"I didn't know there was a mood."

"Not after all my trying? I don't believe that."

"Lao Wen," Zhou Zishu sighs and shifts towards the sofa. He can count Wen Kexing's eyelashes from the distance, see the faint specks of glitter on his cheekbones. "I'm not here to play games."

"What are you here for?"

"You tell me," Zhou Zishu says, with a faint hint of exasperation. "You were the one who made the bet."

Wen Kexing studies him in the dimming sunlight of the golden hour. His breath slows down, in a way that would be noticeable even if Zhou Zishu was not counting each exhale. His eyes flick from Zhou Zishu's hands to his mouth, back and forth, never any higher. When their eyes meet, his inhale is sharp, pointed, but then there's a knock at the door. Just like that, they're back in the Lagoon Suite, with its Egyptian cotton sheets and an outdoor grill.

It takes a few more knocks before Wen Kexing shakes himself off and yells his approach. Zhou Zishu massages the painful spot between his brows.

"Wen-ge, I'm sorry." He stops digging his nails in at the sound of Chengling's voice. "I don't want to bother you."

"Chengling, are you alright? You don't look well."

Wen Kexing ushers him into the suite, half-carries him to the sofa. Zhang Chengling falls into it with no resistance, like a body floating into a cove of rocks. His face is so pale it's almost translucent, but the veins under his eyes stand out in contrast. Zhou Zishu drops down immediately, kneeling on the soft carpet.

"Chengling, what's wrong?"

"Zishu-ge. Sorry."

"What happened?"

He clutches at his belly and only moans in reply. Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu exchange twin looks of concern, one supporting the boy's knees, the other massaging his shoulders.

"You didn't eat any of the shrimp at lunch. I told you they smelled rotten," Wen Kexing mutters, not a question; an assurance, mostly for himself. 

"'S not the shrimp," Chengling says. "It's my medicine."

"Medicine?"

"For seasickness."

"You're seasick?" Zhou Zishu can't hide his surprise. 

"No. I'm –" Chengling breaks off to moan in pain. "I took too many. Pills."

Both of the men suppress a gasp, but Wen Kexing's question is almost hysterical. "You tried to overdose?!"

"No!" Chengling tries to prop himself up on his elbow, but only manages to push his head onto the armrest. He shakes it in faint emphasis. "No, that's not – I didn't want to worry you."

"What do you mean? How long have you been feeling seasick?"

"A while "

"How long?"

His eyes shift towards the floor. "Since we got on the ship."

Zhou Zishu lets out the breath that's been choking him since Zhang Chengling materialised in the doorway; it comes out as an undignified snort, a laugh that he rushes to muffle with his palm. Hearing the sound, Zhang Chengling looks even more miserable and Wen Kexing changes the target of his concern. Yes, the laughter probably makes him seem unhinged. Zhou Zishu finds it less wild than the realisation that, a) Chengling has been hiding his seasickness for two weeks, b) he has brought pills for it which means that, c) he's agreed to come onto the cruise fully knowing that he'd be risking month-long nausea. The situation is so absurd Zhou Zishu doesn't even let himself consider the dramamine overdose. 

Wen Kexing, registering Zhou Zishu’s growing disassociation, claps his hands together. “Alright, we’re going to make you throw up, then you’ll sleep it off, and then we can smack you on the head for being a little idiot. Sounds good?”

They carry the boy into the bathroom, where Wen Kexing force-feeds him a bright orange concoction that smells like old garlic. Wen Kexing holds his hair and Zhou Zishu rubs his back while he spews the drink back out. They reach an unspoken agreement to douse him with water, clothes and all, and then Wen Kexing rushes out to bring him a spare pyjama. Seeing that Chengling now has enough wits about himself to blush in embarrassment, they leave the bathroom to let him change. Both of them keep an ear plastered to the door, exchanging a significant look of concern, but not daring to break their silence. 

When they finally get Chengling all snuggled up in Wen Kexing’s bed, he smacks the boy’s cheek, gently. “Did you really want to see the bathtub so badly?”

“Mn,” Zhang Chengling gives a weak smile and burrows his nose into the bedsheet. “It’s really nice.”

They sit at the foot of the bed until he falls asleep.

If, before, Zhou Zishu thought the cruise was a bad idea, the next few days do nothing to prove him wrong. 

Wen Kexing insists on keeping Zhang Chengling jailed to his bed, tries to convince Zhou Zishu to join him in the second bedroom, and eventually heaps enough pillows onto the sofa that Zhou Zishu thinks he’s making it uncomfortable on purpose. He feels so guilty for not noticing Zhang Chengling’s seasickness that he doesn’t sleep a blink; and the next morning, when he sees the boy nibbling on a piece of bland toast, he pronounces the issue resolved and sulks off to his cabin. Where, he reasons, he can still wallow in guilt, but at least with some privacy. 

He doesn’t feel like parading his remorse around; he skips his morning swims, writes off the lido deck entirely, and tries to read his book. He’s almost halfway through and he’s still not sure why the main character was bleeding, but the dog seems to be gone, and the setting has taken a turn for the supernatural. When chapter ten makes a mention of aliens, he scoffs and deletes the book off his e-reader. That’s one book done, technically.

The ship carries on being a disaster, parallel and ignorant of his personal crisis. A burst pipe closes down one of the shopping malls, and the water leaks into the main storage room, where the ship keeps most of its toilet paper. They install a sign-up sheet at the reception, where passengers have to ask for rations. The amount of toilet paper each deck is entitled to is proportional to its number of elderly guests. Normally, there might have been enough stock to make it the last two weeks; however, a norovirus outbreak turns the receptionists into lifeless zombies. The lemongrass air freshener becomes even more prominent. Nobody quite knows where the virus came from, but there are whispers on the board about undercooked shrimp. Zhou Zishu ignores all of this, for the sake of his sanity.

Wen Kexing keeps Zhang Chengling holed up in his suite for three days, and explains it as patient monitoring. Something in his demeanour makes it sound convincing. Zhou Zishu brings him food and stays in the evenings. He refuses offers of drinks and keeps the TV on, not listening to the baseball commentary, but not engaging with Wen Kexing’s conversation, either. 

On the fourth day, he passes another visitor to the Lagoon Suite in the doorway. The girl he’s seen Wen Kexing talking to gapes at him with open curiosity when Wen Kexing shoves her towards the elevators. There’s a glint of violet on her chest, an amethyst pendant. Zhou Zishu doesn’t ask about her, and he shoves a change of clothes into Zhang Chengling’s arms.

“You’re fine now. Time to go be a commoner.”

There is an envelope waiting for Zhou Zishu on his pillowcase, on the second to last Saturday. It's addressed from the cruise ship owner, Zhao Jing, and calls him a "most treasured friend of our oceanic family". He throws it away after reading the first three lines, but Chengling runs into the cabin with an envelope of his own, beaming. "Did you see the invitation, Zishu-ge?"

Wen Kexing dismisses it as a glorified apology for all the ongoing disasters. "I mean, the raffle prizes are ridiculous. A private island? Beijing license plates? He's basically buying the passengers' silence.”

Despite his better-than-thou attitude, he immediately starts asking Zhou Zishu about his black tie outfit, planning to coordinate.

"I didn't bring anything like that," Zhou Zishu says, shrugging in a weak apology. "I'm not going."

They keep pestering him about it for two days, to the point that he forgoes the do not disturb sign and locks the door properly. The second book he starts is about Han-dynasty court politics and it’s a lost cause from the start, with twenty characters getting introduced on the first page. He goes to the swimming pool in the afternoon and does a swift U-turn when he sees it swamped with people. He reluctantly joins Zhang Chengling on the lido and watches him chase after somebody's lost beach ball. 

"You can have my raffle tickets," he tells him when Chengling gets out of the water. He dries himself like a dog, the towel just an accessory to his rabid shaking. 

"But Zishu-ge, I don't want to go alone."

"Go with Wen-xiong. You're bound to win the private jet, with his luck."

On the day of the gala, he avoids Wen Kexing. Blaming an upset stomach, he orders room service for breakfast and later keeps Chengling company in his own cabin, luxuriating in the easy silence of his pretend-reading and the boy's Nintendo campaign. He helps him get ready for the gala. Tying the satin bow tie around his neck, he reminds himself that they have a week left. It's hard when the boy gives him a grateful smile; he tries not to blame himself too much for the sentimental pat on his back, before he wishes him a good night and heads next door. 

An hour until the gala. Thirty minutes. The e-reader lies abandoned on his nightstand. He keeps glancing between the clock and the plastic bag in his open closet, the one with the overpriced suit he's gotten from one of the ship's boutiques. It's black, because that goes with everything. 

You’re a fool, he tells himself, and starts putting it on.

Chengling hugs him when he joins their table, midway through the opening piano act. As he reciprocates with a clumsy squeeze of the boy's arms, he beats himself over the head with an image of him, lying curled up on a leather sofa, sticky with sweat. It doesn't work as intended, his heart still swells at the genuine happiness in Chengling's face; and Wen Kexing choking on a sip of wine, upon seeing him take the seat on his right, only makes matters worse.

"A-Xu!" he gasps with delight, clutching at his elbow. "Showing your true colours. Finally."

"Living up to your expectations?"

"Far beyond them."

There's a new face at their usual table, the Japanese couple pressed shoulder to shoulder as a frowning man in a white suit sits with his legs spread, ignorant of their discomfort. He's one-handedly destroying the appetizer, crunching on breadsticks and spitting out olive pits onto the shared plate. Zhou Zishu raises his eyebrows in a silent question, but Wen Kexing only shakes his head and sets his jaw. His nostrils flutter, like he's breathing out smoke.

When the piano player finishes his piece, he ceremonially opens the dinner service; in his speech, he mentions the raffle no less than eight times. With the lights turned on, the piano gets switched for a harp and there comes that horrible comedian who’d joked about jumping overboard to get his stepfather's attention. His playing is much better than his jokes, but maybe the bar is simply set too low. They start bringing out the first course dishes and the unfamiliar guy slurps up three oysters in quick succession, then points an empty shell at Zhou Zishu.

"So you're the A-Xu person?" he asks, cleaning his teeth with his tongue. "Disappointing. The way these two were going on about you, I'd expected you to be some sort of trophy wife."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Wen Kexing barks out, but Zhou Zishu elbows him.

"Nice to meet you, too," Zhou Zishu says, voice level.

The man introduces himself as Ye Baiyi and explains that he's requested to be moved to their table because his own dinnermates stank of urine. His words, not Zhou Zishu's. While he's busy shovelling abalone soup into his mouth, the noise level far above the harp solo, Wen Kexing leans into Zhou Zishu with an an angry whisper: "He took five minutes choosing the right seat, because he wanted to have a good view of the stage. Haven't seen him look at it once. He almost shoved Chengling into the wine carafe!"

Zhou Zishu listens to him indulgently; he doesn't ask why there is a sixth chair at the table in the first place, why had Ye Baiyi simply not taken his.

Once the man is done with his soup, he starts snapping his fingers in the air, whipping his head around. The waitress that flocks to their table is familiar and Zhou Zishu realises it's the girl in the maid uniform, the one he's seen going in and out of Wen Kexing's suite. 

"I've seen my great-grandmother moving faster than this wait staff," Ye Baiyi tells them once the girl disappears. He had complained about the soup being too cold, and asked her to bring him a fresh serving. 

"When was this?" Wen Kexing smiles at him, all sugar. "In the middle ages?"

Zhang Chengling tries to chat to the girl when she brings them the second course. "Xiang-jie!" he calls her, trying to get her attention, but the girl just shoots him a pointed glare and ignores him completely. Zhou Zishu watches the amethyst stone swing like a pendulum, as she leans over the table to set their dishes down. 

Ye Baiyi makes an absolute mess of his steak. Or, rather, he makes an absolute mess of their table, splatters of beef fat and brown sauce making the tablecloth look like an abstract art piece. 

“People are paid to clean this,” he says, when Wen Kexing suggests he should brush up on his table manners. 

“How classist of you. Are you an actual monster, or are you just pretending to be one?”

“Sensitive, much?”

Zhou Zishu goes for the elbow again. It only half-works, as the two of them continue bickering all the way through dessert, but neither takes an opportunity to snag the steak knife. That has to count for something.

When the raffle starts, Zhou Zishu’s poker face gets another workout. The first ten tickets turn out to be blank; the eleventh calls for a Sun Wukong; and the next few more realistic names get no responses from the passengers present, leading into an endless circle of empty tickets and awkward silences. Wen Kexing barely spares the display a glance, concentrated on his chocolate mousse. He keeps chewing at the inside of his lip, though, the corners of his mouth quaking. 

They announce a short break “for refreshments” and wheel the raffle box behind the stage. The forgotten Japanese couple bids them goodnight. The now-notorious waitress comes to clean up their table and drops a piece of paper into Zhang Chengling’s lap. Zhou Zishu bites his tongue as the boy’s face flashes through a whole spectrum of emotions, landing on an imploring grimace. 

“Xiang-jie -- my friend is inviting me to eat some leftovers with the crew,” he says, voice breaking like he’s having a rapid onset of puberty. “Can I go, Zishu-ge? Just for a little while.”

Absolutely not, Zhou Zishu wants to say. He questions the relevance of leftovers after having watched Chengling eat his weight in cheesecake; partying with the crew sounds like a recipe for disaster; he still doesn’t know who the girl is. 

“You can go,” Wen Kexing says, before he has a chance to speak. “Right, A-Xu?”

Zhou Zishu looks between them and sighs. “No drinking. Back before midnight. And cool it with the food, too, or you’ll get nauseous again.”

Chengling thanks him profusely and tries to go in for another awkward hug. Wen Kexing looks at them with something akin to pride, eyes soft. Ye Baiyi waits until the boy leaves and snorts into his piña colada. 

“Is this your first attempt at parenting? You’re really bad at it.”

Wen Kexing rounds upon him, and the softness disappears almost as quickly as the pineapple syrup in Ye Baiyi’s glass. “Can you just – stop being rude, for a little while?”

“Why? Did I hurt your feelings?” Ye Baiyi sucks on the straw with a wet whistle. “I don’t care.”

“Lao Wen,” Zhou Zishu jumps in, and puts a hand on Wen Kexing’s knee. The man turns around slowly, like a terrifying doll from a horror movie, neck almost creaking with the effort, eyes flashing above his sickly sweet smile. Zhou Zishu drops his voice. “Let’s go back to my cabin.”

“But A-Xu, he –”

“I want to get a drink. Care to join me?”

He stands up before getting an answer; before thinking too hard about what he’s stepping into, or, worse case scenario, what he’s leaving behind. Ye Baiyi whoops at his departure but he doesn’t care enough to say a goodbye. He takes measured steps, listens to the ukulele-heavy lobby music, and smiles when he hears the hurried footsteps, when Wen Kexing catches up to him.

"You invited me here to get," Wen Kexing pauses and narrows his eyes at the bottle that Zhou Zishu's fishing out of his underwear drawer, "water?"

"It's baijiu," Zhou Zishu says and grabs the tiny coffee cups that sit on his nightstand, next to the kettle. 

"God. You're such a slob." Wen Kexing laughs, fondly, and takes a quick sip of the liquor. 

He sits at the edge of Zhou Zishu's bed, too tall, his head almost brushing the overhead storage cupboards. Zhou Zishu crouches on the carpet. It smells like a vacuum cleaner, somehow clean and dusty at once, so he tells himself he's probably fine. It's possibly the first time he notices the gentle rocking of the ship, fixated as he is on not noticing how his shoulder presses against Wen Kexing's knee.

He squeezes the half-empty Wahaha bottle and listens to the air pop. Wen Kexing stares at the side of his face. He feels that gaze, burning, much more than the liquor warming his throat.

"Earlier, you asked me," Wen Kexing says, after what could be a minute or an hour, "why did I invite you over to my suite."

"Mhm." Zhou Zishu nods.

"Well," Wen Kexing starts, but brings the cup back to his mouth. Zhou Zishu mimics him. He notices a dust-ball right next to his left palm, and so goes his vacuum hypothesis. "You see, A-Xu, I – I really want you."

"Good." Zhou Zishu nods again.

"Good?" Wen Kexing repeats, like he's accidentally burnt his throat with the liquor, and he's forcing himself to speak around the scab. "You mean –"

"For heaven's sake, Lao Wen," Zhou Zishu grabs his knee, hard. Wen Kexing jumps. "How are you still being this slow?"

He extends his hand, reaching for Wen Kexing’s jaw. He tugs. Wen Kexing’s hand comes to clutch at his fingers, but he lets himself be pulled, down and below, until Zhou Zishu’s mouth is on his; a hard, unyielding press, one that’s meant to test the boundaries, not smash through them. When Wen Kexing’s lips open and he pants, grasps at the suit on Zhou Zishu’s back and tries to haul him up, it’s like that feeling he gets when his body meets the the swimming pool; overheated skin on cool water, all of his muscles pulled taunt until they make contact, until muscle memory takes over and he lets his body float. 

He gets off the floor and arcs above Wen Kexing, the splayed-out surface of him. It’s a challenge to keep himself suspended. Wen Kexing grunts in impatience and reaches for his cock, but Zhou Zishu is not the one who freezes at the contact. He squints at Wen Kexing’s blushing face, at odds with his careful facade, Zhou Zishu’s big-game trophy. Wen Kexing must realise. He tugs him into another frantic kiss and pulls his fly open.

“Wait, wait,” Zhou Zishu says into his cheek. “Let me get the suit off.”

“The dry cleaners can deal with it,” Wen Kexing says.

“How classist of you,” Zhou Zishu quotes back at him.

“Shut up.” 

Wen Kexing chuckles and bites at the skin of his neck, just above his adam's apple. It works exceptionally well, reminding Zhou Zishu to put his mouth to better use. His hands, too. It doesn't take long before his head draws a complete blank on words, anyway, in the three and a half languages that he speaks. 

Zhou Zishu really feels bad about the ruined suit, later. A hasty purchase or not, he had rationalised it as a future investment, and it came straight out of his retirement money. He briefly wonders if he should take another sales assignment after this. Just one more, to give himself a cushion. He dismisses it with an insistent kiss to Wen Kexing’s chest. 

He spends the night dozing in and out of consciousness, reality and dreams blurring until the only constant is the body nestled underneath his. The fluorescent lights don’t help him tell the time; neither of them bothers turning them off. 

“A-Xu, there’s something I need to tell you,” Wen Kexing says, in - what he simply assumes must be - the morning. 

“Hm?” Zhou Zishu hums and doesn’t even open his eyes.“About how you’ve been sabotaging the cruise? Don’t bother.” 

He feels the gasp more than he hears it, and holds Wen Kexing’s body closer as it tenses up, stubbornly pressing against the turmoil like he’s hoping to absorb it. Once it relents, Zhou Zishu pushes himself up on his elbow and blinks. “You don’t have to tell me why, but I’d like to know.” 

Wen Kexing doesn’t tell him all of it, not at once, but it’s a start.

The AC outage expands to the entirety of the ship, but there's way more ice cream available at the buffet tables. Wen Kexing comments on it, innocuously, and exchanges a significant glance with Zhang Chengling.

He spends the majority of his days, and nights, in Zhou Zishu's cabin, saying that heat travels upwards, and he's got the loft, and the Egyptian cotton sheets are not all that they're cracked up to be, when they're just getting drenched in sweat.

Zhou Zishu's bed sheets are not much better off in that regard; though, from their perspective, sweat might just be the least of their problems. They give Zhang Chengling spending money, Wen Kexing enlists A-Xiang's help, and they hide out in the tiny cabin like they're trying to tune out the world. They bicker, play Jenga stolen from the atrium, and have sex. Wen Kexing tells him more about his life, and Zhou Zishu listens.

Most of it, he's already been able to piece together. Wen Kexing really did grow up on a cruise ship, with his parents working as doctors on board. They died when he was eight, a marine engine freak accident. Zhao Jing's company won the lawsuit and he got off scot-free. Wen Kexing was left an orphan, a child thrown into the sea to sink or swim, only in his case the ocean was all he'd ever known and the land was uncharted territory. 

"What's your endgame, though?" Zhou Zishu asks him, one day, and presses a kiss onto his shoulder to soften the question. 

Wen Kexing shrugs underneath him. "I want him to pay for it. That's all."

He still doesn't know what role A-Xiang plays in the story, other than that they've met on another cruise ship, and underneath all his spiky demeanor, Wen Kexing harbours a fierce protectiveness. The more Wen Kexing talks about her, the more Zhou Zishu wants to meet her, but when it finally happens, he reconsiders that eagerness.

After sending Chengling on an impossible mission to find them more toilet paper, Wen Kexing slips into his cabin, presses Zhou Zishu against the wall, and doesn't wait a second before tugging his T-shirt off. Getting horizontal seems like a waste of time. Zhou Zishu has been on edge since the morning, when Wen Kexing kept squeezing his thigh under the breakfast table.

"Zishu-ge, I got the --"

The door flies open and there's Chengling, an armful of toilet paper rolls, and Gu Xiang, in her crooked maid uniform. They practically look like siblings, with their mirrored expressions of horror. 

"Ge! Ew!" She recovers first, throws one of the toilet rolls at Zhou Zishu's head, and slams the door closed.

With a meter of the white two-ply hanging off his shoulder, Zhou Zishu blinks. "You didn't lock the door?"

"I put out the do not disturb sign."

"Lao Wen," Zhou Zishu groans, and slams his forehead against Wen Kexing's collarbone. “You simply lead by example, don’t you?

It's for Zhang Chengling's sake. It's only for a month. You've got 20 books to read. That’s what Zhou Zishu came here with, but his unwritten rules extended well beyond that mantra. No unnecessary queuing, no shopping for unnecessary things, no unnecessary interactions with the other passengers. He didn’t want to play Zhang Chengling’s wet nurse, he didn’t want to catch a farmer’s tan, and he definitely didn’t want to disembark the ship at any point to play clueless tourist in some poor locals’ community.

But it has already happened once, and it wasn’t a complete disaster, and the magnets he got are truly a terrible set, a kitschy 3D batch not appropriate for a souvenir; so agreeing, again, comes almost easier than coming up with excuses. 

“We should take our luggage, I think,” Wen Kexing tells him the day before, lying in Zhou Zishu’s bed, legs thrown over his lap. “Oh, and A-Xiang’s coming, too.”

Zhou Zishu gives his ankle a pinch. “What are you not telling me, Lao Wen?”

“The cruise is almost finished, isn’t it? It will all be downhill from here. Teary goodbyes and everyone working overtime to get that extra tip. I’d rather skip it.”

Zhou Zishu moves his hand further up, to Wen Kexing’s calf, and kneads at the muscle. The other man winces. “So you want us to disembark in a random town and just be done with it? Are you that desperate to go back to your life?” To be rid of me, a silly part of Zhou Zishu adds, but it’s hard not to be melodramatic when he’s been counting on getting another three days of this. Whatever it is.

“A-Xu, now who’s being the slow one?” Wen Kexing smirks. He slaps Zhou Zishu’s hand away from his leg and clambers up, until he’s settled in his lap. “Who said anything about going back?” 

They get off at a nondescript port, where only a few hotels-in-construction break up the miles of sandy beaches. Zhou Zishu carries his backpack, Chengling's moderately sized carry-on, and one of Wen Kexing's three suitcases. It's bulky, and heavy, and Zhou Zishu fervently hopes watermelons don't stay fresh this long. A-Xiang keeps sneaking glances at him, as if assessing his threat on the basis of his weightlifting prowess. At some point, she drapes her shoulder bag over him, like he's nothing more than a walking, convenient Christmas tree. Wen Kexing scolds her, but doesn't take the bag off of him.

They get a set of rooms in the cheapest of the hotel monstrosities. The beach is inescapable and Zhou Zishu soon feels like he's eating sand with all his meals. He actually starts reading a book, lying on a beach chair, while A-Xiang tries to teach Chengling how to swim. Wen Kexing wears his obnoxious sunhat, uses his fan to blow more sand into Zhou Zishu's face, and only ever touches the water in the evenings, when the kids are arguing over god-knows-what, and they can steal off for a walk along the beach.

The cruise ship leaves without much pomp, and Zhou Zishu only later learns about its unfortunate final chapter. He scrolls through the news and reads about how a short circuit caused the whole ship to lose power; toilets broken, AC off, fridges thawed, helicopters had to deliver food for the rest of the passengers, before enough evacuation boats escorted them back to land. There's talk of lawsuits, and Zhao Jing has thrown a tantrum in front of some journalist. 

Wen Kexing doesn't bring it up, and neither does Zhou Zishu.