Bought Relationships

Treating people to dinner—Chen Guohao used to think that was something only idiots did.

He picked a teppanyaki place in the East District that was decked out like a nightclub, starting at six thousand eight hundred per person. When he made the reservation, he deliberately said, “Mr. Chen, party of six.” The voice on the other end asked, “Mr. Chen, do you have a membership number?” He said no. There was a pause. “Then we’ll arrange a seat in the general section for you.” He hung up. Fuck. What the hell was “general section”? Was he the kind of person who sat in the general section now?

He called A-Kun. “Find out how to get a membership at that teppanyaki place.”

A-Kun said, “Boss, I think it’s either spend a hundred thousand or an annual fee system…”

“Then swipe it. No shit.”

A-Kun said, “Okay, I’ll do it right away.”

Ten minutes later A-Kun reported back: “Boss, it’s done. They said spending a hundred thousand gets you an upgrade, so I already swiped.”

“You swiped?”

“Yeah, I said it was on behalf of Mr. Chen Guohao, and they said I could do a proxy swipe, so I just took care of it for you. The bill will come to you anyway.”

Chen Guohao wanted to curse him out, but didn’t know what to say. Fuck. So this was what having an assistant felt like? Before he even said yes, things were already done? He felt a little good, and a little pissed—good because of the efficiency, pissed because how did A-Kun know he would agree?

“How did you know I’d pay for sure?”

“Boss, of course you’d pay. Look at your status now.”

Chen Guohao didn’t answer. He hung up.

On the day of the dinner, he called Lin Shufen, A-Kun, and three guys he knew from the old flyer-hustling days—Little Fat, A-Ming, and a guy he only knew as “Glasses” because the dude always wore a beat-up pair of glasses. He’d picked these three on purpose. Back in the day, they’d steal his spot at the MRT station, especially Little Fat, who used his size to plant himself right in the middle of Exit 6, leaving Chen Guohao stuck by the trash can.

“Hey, Guohao-ge, you really made it big now, huh?” Little Fat walked into the restaurant looking around, his voice loud as a vegetable market.

“Don’t call me ge. You’re older than me.” Chen Guohao sat down and deliberately placed his car keys on the table—a rental Mercedes, eighty-five thousand a month, keys shiny and new.

“Then let’s call you Chairman Chen,” A-Ming jumped in. “Chairman Chen, where are you living now?”

“Xinyi District. Rent a hundred twenty thousand a month.”

“Holy shit, a hundred twenty thousand?” Glasses’ glasses nearly fell off. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I only make thirty thousand a month…”

“Thirty thousand?” Chen Guohao laughed. “I used to make thirty thousand too. You still handing out flyers?”

“Yeah, what else?”

Chen Guohao glanced at A-Kun, who immediately said, “Glasses, why don’t you come work for the boss? The boss needs people.”

“Doing what?”

Chen Guohao waved his hand. “Let’s eat first. Talk after.”

The teppanyaki chef put on a show in front of them—pan-frying lobster, searing wagyu, a fire display. Everyone pulled out their phones to film. Lin Shufen wore a dress that was clearly new, sitting next to Chen Guohao, constantly refilling his wine.

“Guohao, seeing you like this now, Auntie is really happy for you,” Lin Shufen smiled like a kindly mother. “Back when you lived in that rooftop extension, I knew you weren’t ordinary. See, I was right.”

Chen Guohao remembered the air conditioner dripping water, and Lin Shufen cornering him on the stairs, saying she’d already called a repairman to look at it and he needed a new drain pipe: “Three thousand. You pay.” She called the repairman, he paid the bill, said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Auntie, back then you said the air conditioner drip needed a new drain pipe, and you wanted me to pay three thousand.”

Lin Shufen’s face stiffened, but she immediately smiled again. “Aiyah, back then Auntie didn’t know any better. Don’t hold it against me, okay? Come come, drink, drink.”

She downed hers. Chen Guohao didn’t drink.

Little Fat had already started talking about how hard his life had been—wife ran off, kids disowned him, buried in credit card debt—then suddenly said, “Guohao, now that you’ve got money, you ever think about investing in a friend?”

“Invest in what?”

“I got a buddy who’s in the used car business. Real profitable, just needs a bit of capital…”

Chen Guohao looked at Little Fat’s face. He’d seen that face a thousand times at the MRT station. Little Fat had never once looked him in the eye. One time, when he was standing by the trash can handing out flyers, Little Fat walked over and said, “What are you doing here? This spot’s mine.” He’d replied, “Nobody’s name is written on it,” and Little Fat shoved him.

He remembered the force. His shoulder hit the wall. Flyers scattered everywhere.

“Used cars,” Chen Guohao said slowly. “I’ll think about it.”

“Really? That’s great!” Little Fat raised his glass. “To Chairman Chen!”

Everyone raised their glasses. A-Kun was the fastest. A-Ming and Glasses raised theirs too. Lin Shufen raised hers higher than anyone. Chen Guohao lifted his cup and took a sip. Red wine. Eight thousand eight hundred a bottle. He couldn’t tell what was so good about it.

He remembered buying wine for a hundred-something at the convenience store, eating instant noodles, cursing the government as he drank. Not anymore. Now he drank eight-thousand-eight-hundred red wine with lobster, and everyone around him toasted him.

But he felt like these people knew that bottle better than he did.

When dessert came, he made an excuse to go to the bathroom and stepped outside to smoke. He wasn’t really a smoker. Used to smoke the eighty-dollar packs from the convenience store. Now he’d bought a box of cigars, but couldn’t even light them properly—he burned half the cigar before getting it lit.

He leaned against the wall and looked at his phone.

Unread messages: A-Kun (Boss, you done eating? Want me to call a car for you?), Lin Shufen (Guohao, Auntie wants to talk to you about something later, is that okay?), Little Fat (Chairman Chen, about that used car thing, I’m counting on you. Please.)

That was it.

He opened Line and scrolled from top to bottom. His chat history was mostly ads, group chats, convenience store promotions. Nobody chatted with him. He used to have a friend who’d send random nonsense, but that friend borrowed two thousand from him last year and never paid it back. He asked three times, and the friend left him on read.

He took a puff of the cigar. It choked him. He coughed until tears came out.

“Boss, you okay?”

A-Kun had appeared beside him, handing him a bottle of water.

“Fine. Just choked.”

“You gotta smoke cigars slow, not like a cigarette,” A-Kun said, his tone respectful as if he were teaching him. “Want me to light one for you?”

“You know how?”

“I saw people do it back when I was working a part-time job.”

Chen Guohao looked at him. A-Kun had never mentioned working at a hotel before. Suddenly he realized he knew about as much about this guy as he did about this cigar—only the name, not the flavor.

“Where’d you work before?”

“A hostess club. When I was young. I was a waiter, not a host,” A-Kun laughed. “Couldn’t hack it, so I started handing out flyers.”

“Why couldn’t you hack it?”

“Boss… they just docked all my pay, plus I had to deal with some… difficult customers.”

Chen Guohao didn’t press. He didn’t want to know too much. If he knew, this guy would be more than just an errand boy.

“Let’s go in,” he said. “People are still waiting.”

Back in the restaurant, Lin Shufen was already standing, waiting for him. Her face wore an expression he’d never seen before—not ingratiating, more like someone in need.

“Guohao, can Auntie have a word with you?”

“Say it here.”

“Here… it’s not convenient. Let’s go over there?”

He glanced at the others. Little Fat was playing finger-guessing with A-Ming, losing and arguing, “That doesn’t count, you threw too slow,” while A-Ming laughed and cursed, “Damn, you again.” Glasses pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and kept scrolling on his phone. A-Kun was refilling his wine. Nobody noticed them.

He followed Lin Shufen to a corner of the restaurant where the sofa area was empty.

“What’s up?”

“Guohao, Auntie knows it’s embarrassing to ask, but… Auntie’s son, you know, he recently… got into some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“He… went into business with a friend, and got cheated. Now he owes some money.” Lin Shufen’s voice got quieter. “Auntie thought, now that you’re rich, could you… lend him some to tide him over? Just a million. He’ll pay it back soon.”

Chen Guohao looked at her. Lin Shufen’s face blurred in front of him—he suddenly remembered, three months ago, he couldn’t pay the rent and called to ask if he could delay a week. She said, “No way, I need to eat too. You do this every month, it makes things really hard for me.”

Back then he stood at the door of his rooftop extension, phone pressed to his ear, the air conditioner next to him dripping water.

“A million?” he said.

“If that’s too much, half a million would do…”

“How much does your son owe?”

“…About two-something.”

“Two-something?” Chen Guohao laughed. “So he owes over two hundred, and you’re asking me for one? He’s supposed to figure out the rest himself?”

Lin Shufen’s face changed, but she kept smiling. “Guohao, you have so much money now. A million is nothing to you…”

“I know. It’s pocket change to me.”

“Right, so…”

“But why should I lend it?”

Lin Shufen froze. She probably hadn’t expected him to ask that. She probably thought that if she asked, he’d give it—because he was Chen Guohao, the guy who used to be too broke to pay rent, how could he ever refuse her?

She probably forgot. He wasn’t that Chen Guohao anymore.

“Guohao, Auntie was good to you, wasn’t she? When you lived in the rooftop extension, Auntie never raised your rent…”

“Never raised it? Last July you said you wanted to raise it a thousand. I called to talk to you, and you said, ‘Then I’ll rent it to someone else.’”

“That… that was just the market rate at the time…”

“Market rate?” Chen Guohao stood up. “Fine. I’ll lend it. One million. Tell your son to come see me tomorrow.”

Lin Shufen’s face lit up instantly. “Really? Guohao, you really mean it?”

“Really. But there’s one condition.”

“What condition?”

“Tell him to come say thank you to me in person.”

Lin Shufen’s expression froze. She knew what that meant. Her son—the precious baby she’d coddled—would have to bow his head to the tenant she used to look down on.

But she nodded anyway.

“Okay. I’ll tell him.”

Chen Guohao walked back to his seat. Little Fat was still playing finger-guessing, slamming the table when he lost, cursing under his breath. A-Kun was scrolling on his phone. Glasses was already drunk, face down on the table.

He sat down, picked up his glass, and drained it.

The wine was sweet, but it tasted bitter to him.

At eleven at night, he returned to the luxury apartment. A-Kun had taken the dog out for a walk. When they came back, Afu’s paws were caked with mud, leaving a trail of prints on the white marble floor. A-Kun grabbed a mop to clean, but Chen Guohao said, “Don’t bother. You can go.”

Before leaving, A-Kun said again, “Good night, Boss.”

He opened the door. The air conditioner was already set. The TV was on, playing the news. He walked to the sofa and sat down. Afu lay at his feet, licking his own paws.

He looked at the dog. Ugly. Smelly. Mangy. But at least it wouldn’t ask him for money.

“You know something?” he said to the dog. “I could buy the whole street now.”

The dog looked up at him and yawned.

“But nobody dares to tell me the truth anymore.”

The dog ignored him, buried its head in its front paws, and prepared to sleep.

Chen Guohao sank into the sofa. The ceiling was high. The crystal chandelier was bright. But he felt colder here than in the rooftop extension. At least in the rooftop extension, there was the sound of the neighbor’s air conditioner dripping, the sound of motorcycles passing downstairs, that sense of comfort that came from “you’re rotting here too.”

Here there was nothing.

He picked up his phone and opened his contacts. Zhuang Yating’s name was still there, but the chat history ended with her line, “Don’t contact me anymore.” He tapped it and read through their old conversations. The messages he’d sent that she’d left on read. The times he asked, “Want to grab a meal?” and she said, “I’m busy this week.”

He tossed the phone to the other end of the sofa.

The phone vibrated. He reached over to grab it.

A-Kun: “Boss, want me to get breakfast tomorrow morning?”

He typed “no,” then deleted it. Typed “whatever,” then deleted it again. Finally typed, “Egg pancake, iced milk tea with boba.”

A-Kun: “Okay. I’ll be there at nine.”

He didn’t reply.

The living room fell quiet again. The TV was playing a news story about someone who won the lottery and went bankrupt and killed himself three years later. He watched the story and thought that guy was an idiot—how could anyone blow through one point two billion and go bankrupt?

But then a question hit him: if that guy’s problem wasn’t money, then what did bankruptcy have to do with suicide?

He turned off the TV.

Afu was already asleep, belly rising and falling, breathing steady. He crouched down and patted the dog’s head. Afu stirred but didn’t wake.

“You’re more honest than my friends,” he said. “At least you don’t say ‘Good night, Boss’ and then laugh at me behind my back.”

The dog farted.

It stank.

Chen Guohao laughed. It was the first real laugh he’d had all day.

“So that’s your honest opinion, huh.”

He stood up and walked into the bedroom. The bed was huge. The blankets were soft. There were four pillows. He lay down right in the middle and stared at the ceiling.

His phone vibrated again.

Lin Shufen: “Guohao, my son has time the day after tomorrow in the afternoon. He said he’ll come find you. Is that okay?”

He checked the time. Half past midnight.

He replied, “Okay.”

Then he realized: the day after tomorrow in the afternoon, he would meet a person he didn’t even know. That person would come to say thank you because he lent him a million.

And the reason he’d agreed was only because he wanted to see that person bow his head.

He put his phone on silent and rolled over.

Afu had somehow walked into the room, jumped onto the bed, and curled up at his feet. He was heavy. Made his feet a little numb.

But he didn’t push him away.

At least in this room, there was one living breath.

He closed his eyes.

Tomorrow would be another day.

Another rich day.

Another fucking day where nobody dared to tell him the truth.