"What a beautiful primrose, everyone loves it..." Gu Fei pushed the shopping cart, singing along to the music in the supermarket for quite a while, "What a beautiful primrose, welcoming the bright light to the earth, what a beautiful primrose, flowering in every home..."

"You guys may still remember this person who is singing, the shining star of the steel factory's silly activity last time," Jiang Cheng followed behind him, holding up his phone to record a video, "Today we're here to see his supermarket trip... To be honest, the Cantonese pronunciation sounds pretty good to an outsider like me, it can compete with Pan Zhi..."

"Insert the primrose, its fragrance spreads to thousands of families, insert the primrose, everyone is happy together..." Gu Fei looked back at him while singing, then immediately followed the music without hesitation when it changed, pinching his throat, "God of Wealth knocks on my door, God of Wealth knocks on my door, God of Wealth knocks on my door, baby come light the lamp..."

"Damn!" Jiang Cheng laughed, "Don't tell me you know all these songs."

"I know them all, and I won't get the lyrics wrong," Gu Fei said, "Songs like these for New Year, I used to buy the CDs and play them in my shop during New Year."

"How come I don't see you play them now?" Jiang Cheng pointed the phone at him.

"The machine broke, been broken for years," Gu Fei said, then continued singing in a pinched voice, "Wishing everyone happy New Year, prosperous New Year..."

After this song ended, it was an instrumental, Gu Fei finally stopped singing along: "Want any snacks? I'm buying some for Er Miao."

"Don't know, let's go take a look." Jiang Cheng put away his phone.

The supermarket was very crowded, many who only got off work today were doing their last minute shopping here, and many shelves were already empty, couldn't restock fast enough.

Luckily they didn't need to buy any ingredients anymore, just wanted to experience their first New Year's shopping trip together.

"Eat walnuts?" Gu Fei picked up a box to look, "Brain food."

"Don't eat them," Jiang Cheng declined very straightforwardly, he didn't particularly like eating these things, pork jerky was more acceptable.

"Brain food," Gu Fei repeated.

"My brain is extremely outstanding, much more complex than the ridges on walnuts," Jiang Cheng said.

Gu Fei didn't say anything more, just put that box of walnuts into the cart, then slowly moved forward.

"No wait," Jiang Cheng looked at the price tag, "This is too expensive, it's so cheap at the market, same paper shell walnuts."

"The market is closed now," Gu Fei said, "Bought them for you to snack on these couple days."

"I want pork jerky," Jiang Cheng said, "Dried beef, spicy small fish, and..."

"Didn't you say you were tired of meat?" Gu Fei interrupted him.

"And spicy green peas," Jiang Cheng quickly held back the salt baked chicken wings he was going to ask for, and said green peas instead.

"Grab them," Gu Fei smiled, "Get them all."

"Just grab a few bags, that's enough," Jiang Cheng picked up a bag of dried beef, scared by the price tag that he immediately put it back, and changed to normal beef jerky, "Damn expensive."

"Grab them, don't worry about it," Gu Fei took the dried beef and put it in the cart, "I have a shopping card, five hundred bucks."

"Huh?" Jiang Cheng was surprised.

"Li Yan gave it to me," Gu Fei said, "Used to be more in previous years, but this year he's still fighting with his mom, haven't finished yet, so his mom only gave him one card."

"Then the fight isn't that intense huh, still gave five hundred?" Jiang Cheng laughed.

"After all, precious son," Gu Fei grabbed a pack of jelly.

"We have jelly at the shop though? Grab something we don't have," Jiang Cheng said.

"Er Miao doesn't eat what's at the shop," Gu Fei said, "I told her before, stuff at the shop are for selling, can't just eat as she likes, after that she basically stopped eating them, has to be specially bought."

"Oh," Jiang Cheng responded, "Solid logic."

After buying everything, they walked towards the checkout. Jiang Cheng saw the line from far away and immediately ran over, yelling as he ran: "Damn, I'll go line up first."

The line already snaked from the checkout to the shelves, even turning a corner. Everyone in line was pushing a full cart of stuff, Jiang Cheng squeezing to the front now was completely useless.

When Gu Fei got there, there were already 4-5 people lined up behind Jiang Cheng, but he didn't dare count how many were in front.

"I feel like we won't get out until noon," Jiang Cheng said.

"No worries," Gu Fei pointed to the prepared food area, "I saw, we can eat there."

"...You're really calm huh?" Jiang Cheng laughed.  

"Of course," Gu Fei leaned against the cart, "If I was alone, I would've ditched all this stuff and left already, but with you here, I don't feel anything... just that it's delaying your study time."

"It won't," Jiang Cheng lifted his eyebrows, and took out a stack of folded papers from his back pocket, "There's nowhere I can't study."

"Damn." Gu Fei was surprised, it was an English exam.

"I don't wanna be this cool either," Jiang Cheng took out a pen from the other pocket, "Thing is, only got a few days for break, the amount of exams handed out, averaging I gotta do two a day."

Gu Fei laughed for a while, then picked up a box of yogurt and put it on the kid's seat in the cart: "Write here?"

"Yeah," Jiang Cheng bent over to try, "Add some more."

Gu Fei put another box of orange juice on top: "Like this?"

"Good." Jiang Cheng put the exam on top and lowered his head to start working.

It was a strange feeling, Gu Fei held onto the cart with one hand, looking at Jiang Cheng's profile, he entered the zone in less than a minute, probably no longer hearing the noisy crowd around them, just his no longer super ugly handwriting below his pen.

The line moved up half a meter, Gu Fei didn't move, such a tiny distance meant nothing, plus his boyfriend was scribbling degraded hieroglyphics, he couldn't move.

The auntie behind got impatient and bumped the cart into Jiang Cheng's butt: "Scoot up, keep up!"

Jiang Cheng's pen didn't stop, seemingly didn't notice anything.

Gu Fei looked at the auntie, then went to stand in front of the cart, taking up that half meter space, looking at the auntie: "Scoot where?"

The auntie glared at him, then looked away and started cursing under her breath.

After a short while, Jiang Cheng stopped writing and pushed the cart forward a bit: "Let me through."

"I thought you didn't notice," Gu Fei moved aside and nudged the cart up a tiny bit.

"Heard it, but brain's single threaded during exams, can't process extra stuff. Only when you speak do I snap out of it," Jiang Cheng said softly while looking at the next question, "Your voice brings me back to this world."

"That's amazing." Gu Fei smiled.

"Brother Cheng taking you to see the world's first episode, the amazing top student," Jiang Cheng spun his pen, "Subtitle... Exams, or meditation?"

Jiang Cheng finished one side of the exam, and the few people in front who were shopping like moving house finally checked out and left. They moved up to the checkout area.  

Gu Fei conveniently grabbed a small box from the shelf by the checkout and threw it in the cart.

Jiang Cheng looked at that small box while folding up his exam.

Ultra thin.

Non-sensitive.

Just these four words made him immediately lower his voice: "You grabbed this?"

"What's wrong?" Gu Fei looked at him, also lowering his voice, "Ran out."

"...Can't you buy it at a pharmacy?" Jiang Cheng looked at him.

"It was right here, got a shopping card too," Gu Fei said.

"So shameless grabbing this in public? Don't you feel embarrassed at all?" Jiang Cheng flicked it with his finger, nudging the box into a crevice between stuff.

"Nope," Gu Fei laughed, "If you're embarrassed then don't use it."

"You'll definitely lead me astray sooner or later," Jiang Cheng sighed, "Definitely."

After the New Year's shopping was done, they brought everything back to the shop. They ate something simple, then Gu Fei sent Jiang Cheng home.

"I gotta clean up the place today, mop and stuff," Gu Fei said, "Also coming later to clean up here."

"It's really tidy here, nothing to clean," Jiang Cheng looked around.

"Still gotta dust, don't worry about it," Gu Fei kissed him, "Go study."

Compared to Jiang Cheng who had been required to keep the home clean and tidy since young, Gu Fei had zero system when cleaning. To him, cleaning was shoving everything into a pile, then stuffing it all into some hidden place like a drawer or cabinet, and he was done.

There wasn't really anything that needed cleaning here at Jiang Cheng's, other than the books and materials strewn everywhere.

He was a bit lost after pushing them together: "Now what? No place to hide these."

"I use them randomly, why you hiding them," Jiang Cheng sighed.

"Then nevermind," Gu Fei sprawled out on the floor, "Oh, I realized there's really nothing to clean here, you've lived here a while but it's not messy at all."

"I usually tidy as I go, putting things back after using them," Jiang Cheng said, "I hate cleaning up so I try not to make a mess, less to clean up afterwards."

"Too lazy to put things back," Gu Fei smiled.

"Cleaning up now will save time later. Leaving things messy for an hour means it'll take several hours to tidy up afterwards. Which makes more sense?" Jiang Cheng glanced at him. "No wonder you're a terrible student..."

"I don't have time for this, and even if I did, I really can't be bothered." Gu Fei sighed.

Jiang Cheng didn't say anything more. Gu Fei had a lot on his mind and was exhausted every day, so of course little details like this would slip by him.

When will he finally be free of this exhaustion?