Title: In the end, we are but animals
Fandom: Guardian (novel & drama blend)
Rating: G-rated
Length: 1500 words
Notes: Inspired by maggie33’s & amedia’s comments on a discussion of Da Qing and Zhao Yunlan’s fridge. Warnings: extreme lack of hygiene; insects/spiders; mention of vomit.
Summary: Da Qing sauntered over with the air of a fond uncle and perched on the table next to Guo Changcheng. “Xiao Guo, you’re a good kid. I’m going to do you a favour, and this favour involves you doing a small task.”




Zhu Hong was compiling the monthly stationery order when Da Qing came into the main room of the SID with a plastic container of grilled fish under his arm. He looked around until his gaze lighted on Xiao Guo, sitting at the table with a huge, leatherbound book from the SID library that Lao Chu had told him to study. His head was bent conscientiously, and every line or two, he stopped to make a detailed note in his notebook. At this rate, he would transcribe the whole volume.

Da Qing sauntered over with the air of a fond uncle and perched on the table next to him. “Xiao Guo, you’re a good kid. I’m going to do you a favour, and this favour involves you doing a small task.”

Xiao Guo’s head shot up, and he started nodding like a daisy in a gale. “Of course, Deputy Chief. I’ll do it right away.”

Zhu Hong laughed under her breath and called, “He hasn’t told you what it is, yet. I’d be careful, if I were you.”

Da Qing shot daggers at her with his eyes, then turned his kindly face back to Xiao Guo. “As an intern, it’s very important that you suck up to our boss if you want to be made permanent staff. You know that, right?”

“Oh.” Xiao Guo sat up straighter. “But how — ?”

“That’s what I’m here to tell you.” Da Qing patted his box of fish in a move that looked entirely unconscious. “Now, it just so happens that Lao Zhao has been very busy over the last few weeks, and he hasn’t had a chance to do much housework. If you were to pick up the slack, I bet he’d be incredibly grateful. He might even give you your own assigned parking space.”

Xiao Guo paled and began to tremble. “But I — I can’t possibly — How would I raise the matter with him without giving offence?”

To Xiao Guo, suggesting to his capable and accomplished boss’s face that he was a terrible housekeeper was incomprehensible. Especially since Xiao Guo always turned into an insignificant bug under Chief Zhao’s indifferent gaze. What if Chief Zhao squashed him without noticing?

But Da Qing had a ready answer. “No need to ask first! Just do it as a surprise. Trust me, he’ll be impressed by your initiative. Here’s the address and a key. Don’t forget to pay special attention to the fridge. Throw out anything that’s expired. He’ll definitely reward you for it when it’s time to review your contract.”

“Thank you, thank you,” said Xiao Guo, fervently, so relieved he didn’t have to talk to Zhao Yunlan that he didn’t even question the scheme. Abandoning his note-taking mid-sentence, he accepted the door key in both hands and started out.

“Hey, kid,” called Zhu Hong after him. When he came trotting back, she gave him a bunch of face masks from her desk drawer. “These just might save your life.”

He took them blankly, thanked her, and scurried off to throw himself at the unknown horrors in Zhao Yunlan’s flat.

Zhu Hong paused in her stationery order and wandered over to the table. Arms folded, she asked Da Qing, “What was that about?”

“There’s no room in the fridge at home,” said Da Qing, succinctly. “I’ve nagged and nagged, and Lao Zhao won’t lift a finger. And I need somewhere to keep my fish.”


*


Standing in the doorway, Guo Changcheng surveyed Zhao Yunlan’s flat in utter dismay. Every surface was cluttered and dirty, the floor a troubled sea of carelessly cast-off clothing, magazines, wine bottles, and half-empty takeout containers. By the bed, a bleached reef of used tissues and overflowing ashtrays. Mounds of half-full rubbish bags slouched by the fridge and, mysteriously, in front of the large flat-screen television. The only respite was the couch, a solid anchor in the chaos, bare but for the tangle of a soft-looking grey blanket smudged with long black cat hairs.

This was the result of a few weeks’ neglect? It looked as if no one had so much as rinsed a dish since the neolithic period. And the smell! Changcheng picked his way to the window and forced it open, disturbing three generations of spiders and letting in a breath of fresh spring air which was immediately challenged and defeated by the ambient pong.

Where to start? So many things needed doing, it was overwhelming. He tugged his hair into tufts, trying to quell his panic.

Luckily, it so happened that Guo Changcheng was in the middle of rereading one of his favourite comics — an adaptation of Journey into the West. In the swirling alarm of his brain, the Monkey King appeared and gave him the following advice: Start in the East, and work Westward.

With no better strategy at his disposal, the dumbass took out his phone and opened the compass app to check his orientation.

Three hours later, exhausted and covered in smears of unspeakable grime, Changcheng reached the fridge. Deputy Chief had specifically told him to pay attention to this appliance, and he was determined to do his best. Unfortunately, prolonged exposure to his chief’s squalid abode had weakened his immune system so drastically that when he cracked open the fridge door, his dutiful resolve spurted up his throat along with a mouthful of vomit.

He slammed the door and leaned his masked face against the fridge’s cool outer surface, struggling for self-control. He absolutely could not throw up in Chief Zhao’s flat. He was already on shaky ground: here without permission, having touched and rearranged his boss’s personal possessions. And Chief Zhao was preternaturally perceptive. If Changcheng threw up in his flat, he would definitely know somehow, and Changcheng would never be made permanent at the SID.

He had to steel his stomach and try again. But although Changcheng was a valiant fool whose deeds up till now had amassed thousands of merits, his determination was no match for the fridge. When he opened the door a second time, he was once more assailed by the rotting souls of the ten thousand meals that had died there, some apparently partially digested.

He slammed the door once more and gulped down another mouthful of rising bile. Changcheng had cleaned the bath, including disposing of an unspeakable tangle in the plughole; he had single-handedly converted the kitchen from an amusement park for cockroaches into a functional workspace; and he had carried no less than six untied, squishy, and suspiciously rustling rubbish bags down to the dumpster behind the building. But in this final task, his animal body drew the line. Every soft nerve and quivering fibre rebelled. Surely there was no soul on earth who could conquer this foe. Not even the Monkey King himself could do it.

With the promise of a permanent position slipping from his grasp, Changcheng wrestled with himself. Could he try again?

His fingers touched the handle but refused to pull. Guo Changcheng had reached his limit. He was very sure that if he so much as touched anything inside this fridge, he would contract a condition so pestilent that he’d die in cramped agony within the week. The only proper thing to do with the appliance was to crate it up, cover it in biohazard stickers, ship it to an empty lifeless desert, have remote-controlled robots bury it deep beneath the surface, and then, to be completely safe, direct half a dozen missiles to obliterate the site.

Changcheng was not by any stretch of the imagination a strategist, but on this one, single occasion, he took a moment to ask himself what the others at the SID might do in his predicament. The first answer that presented itself: they would not be in this predicament, because they’d never have taken Deputy Chief’s advice in the first place. That was no help at all.

Well, then, what would Lao-Chu advise Changcheng to do, having already sunk himself this far into the quagmire?

Make an excuse and get out.

More helpful. Changcheng hadn’t an ounce of guile in his body, but perhaps if he pretended he did, no one would notice. He could say he’d misunderstood the Deputy Chief’s directions and thought the fridge should be left undisturbed.

Besides, he reassured himself, as he let himself out of the flat, all evidence suggested that no one else had opened the fridge in at least a year, if not longer. Which meant the chance of anyone noticing Changcheng’s lapse were extraordinarily slight.

Clinging to this optimistic reasoning with both hands, and unwilling to taint his car with any of the substances currently besmirching his person, Changcheng hunched his shoulders and set off for the nearest bath house to decontaminate.



END