Chapter 20 20. Dream Back

Xie Kang sat down beside the bed, covered Zhuang Yongyuan with a quilt, and said, "You've had too much to drink."

Zhuang Yongyuan seized the opportunity to grab his wrist and spoke incoherently, "When you're drunk, you won't be completely unable to control yourself. No."

"Then I'll ask you tomorrow if you remember what we said tonight."

Although Xie Kang avoided the question verbally, he still let Zhuang Yongyuan hold his wrist and lit a cigarette with one hand.

Zhuang Yongyuan said that he could still control himself after being drunk, but Xie Kang took it as a joke.

Zhuang Yongyuan has a low alcohol tolerance and gets drunk after just a little drink. Xie Kang has seen him drunk countless times.

He would hug him and say a series of vulgar and cheesy love words, kiss and bite him all over his body, and then when he sobered up the next day, he would deny everything he had done last night. When Xie Kang showed him the marks on his body, he insisted that Xie Kang had bumped into him.

Zhuang Yongyuan closed his eyes and didn't speak for a long time. Xie Kang thought he had fallen asleep, so he pulled his hand away and wanted to cover him with the quilt.

Winter has arrived in Pingnan. The old house is still an old house after all, and the windows are constantly rattling due to the wind.

Just as Xie Kang picked up a corner of the quilt, Zhuang Yongyuan grabbed his wrist again, this time even tighter than last time.

"Don't go," Zhuang Yongyuan said. His face was red, and he reeked of alcohol.

"I'm not leaving." Xie Kang sat down on the edge of the bed again. Zhuang Yongyuan's eyelashes fluttered, as if he wanted to open his eyes, but he couldn't. After a while, his breathing became even and slow, and this time he was truly asleep.

Xie Kang touched his eyelashes for some unknown reason, and seeing that he didn't react, he boldly touched his hair.

The moonlight was bright, and Xie Kang looked at his face again. He was looking, but not really looking, just like when reading a book, he wouldn't carefully examine each Chinese character because they were so familiar. He simply focused his gaze on Zhuang Yongyuan's face, receiving many feelings and thoughts.

Before he knew it, Xie Kang had also fallen into bed. He didn't sleep well, unlike what is described in novels and movies, where he returned to the company of familiar people and had a rare good night's sleep.

Although Zhuang Yongyuan's new bed was a double bed, most of the quilt was used to cover Zhuang Yongyuan. It was too cold at night, and Xie Kang fell asleep in a daze. After a messy dream, he woke up again. He finally fell asleep at dawn, but was woken up by the ringing of his cell phone after a while.

It was Zhuang Yongyuan's ringtone. Zhuang Yongyuan opened his sleepy eyes, glanced at the number, didn't answer, turned on silent mode, and tossed the phone to the end of the bed. He squinted at Xie Kang for a moment, pushed him awake, and asked him fiercely, "Why are you here? Get down, get down quickly."

Xie Kang yawned repeatedly and asked him, "Have you forgotten what happened last night?"

When Zhuang Yongyuan heard this, he realized he was naked and sat up straight in bed. "Fuck, what happened last night?"

Xie Kang said nothing, looking at him playfully. Zhuang Yongyuan glared back at him, then jumped to the ground and searched the room for any suspicious signs. Xie Kang saw that he was anxious and quickly told the truth: "You were drunk. I sent you back. When we were leaving, you held my hand and told me not to go. There's nothing else."

"Don't make up stories when I don't remember. It's disgusting. Whatever we did was better than this." Zhuang Yongyuan curled his lips and stretched.

He happened to be standing in the morning light. Xie Kang was startled when he saw his bare shoulders and asked him, "Why is your birthmark gone?"

Zhuang Yongyuan quickly turned around and said, "Stop looking around. Can you have some sense of propriety between colleagues?"

"Let me take a look." Xie Kang walked towards him.

Zhuang Yongyuan immediately put on his shirt. A very regular scar flashed by where the birthmark used to be, and Xie Kang didn't have time to see it clearly.

Xie Kang asked, "What's going on?"

Zhuang Yongyuan yawned and ignored him, walking straight out of the room. When he reached the door, he suddenly turned back and asked teasingly, "You still have the mind to care about me? Your parents will be worried if you don't come home all night."

Xie Kang's heart tightened at his words, and he pulled out his phone. Sure enough, there were over a dozen missed calls from his parents. He had muted his phone during the drinking contest with Zhuang Yongyuan and hadn't turned it on since.

Xie Kang looked at the series of calls and messages bombarding him, and suddenly felt a surge of anger. He replied with a message saying that he had worked overtime too late and fell asleep in the office, then threw the phone back into his pocket.

There was the sound of running water in the bathroom, the chirping of birds in the early morning, and the sound of footsteps and voices downstairs, as people recycled old color TVs and refrigerators. Xie Kang stood there listening for a while, and his anger subsided a lot.

He was familiar with the nearby shops, so he went downstairs to buy some pearl dumplings. When he passed by the former Echo Music Shop, he took a special look. It had a sign that read "Antique Shop," but the door was covered in dust and had been abandoned for a long time.

When he came back, Zhuang Yongyuan had just finished taking a shower. He walked over with a towel wiping his hair, and a few drops of water splashed on Xie Kang's face.

"Again?" Seeing the dumplings on the table, Zhuang Yongyuan chuckled and said, "You don't have to go through so much trouble to sleep with me. Although you're more annoying than before, compared to the other people here, you're still okay."

"Hurry up and eat, then we'll go to school together."

"Why are you so high and mighty?" Zhuang Yongyuan grumbled, but he still tried a steamed dumpling. The juice burned him, and he threw down his chopsticks and said, "They must have changed owners. It's worse than before."

Xie Kang ate his buns and drank his iced tea without changing his expression, saying, "So the grandma who made the buns is dead."

"You're talking nonsense again."

"Her grandson is now running the store. I asked him personally, and he said his grandma passed away from cancer two years ago."

Zhuang Yongyuan remained silent this time, sitting quietly for a while before asking Xie Kang, "Then why do you keep coming here?"

He slapped his head and said, "Oh, I see. Ah Dian was afraid that I would be depressed, so he asked you to look after me, right?"

Xie Kang felt uncomfortable being stared at and asked, "Don't you have a boyfriend? Why are you asking me out so casually?"

"Don't try to trick me. Even if I do, so what? Maybe we can just have an open relationship." Zhuang Yongyuan was bored, tapping his fingers on the table. He said, "Tell Ah Dian to rest assured. Last time was an accident. I don't want to die in Pingnan."

"Yeah." Xie Kang responded and continued eating the buns.

Seeing that he had no reaction, Zhuang Yongyuan felt like he had punched cotton. He paced around the house in agitation and finally went downstairs. Xie Kang heard him close the door and didn't know where he was going.

Xie Kang let out a long breath. He didn't know why, but now that Zhuang Yongyuan was gone, he felt relieved. For a moment, he'd thought, since Zhuang Yongyuan seemed so open to accepting anything, he might as well just give in, just like that kiss before.

But he didn't want to. If he did, would their relationship be reduced to just physicality? Xie Kang would rather they were entangled in indescribable, mysterious emotions that collapsed upon observation than have them become simple and clear.

Xie Kang thought about last night again. He couldn't tell if it was a dream or reality. Perhaps it was too cold, so he crawled into Zhuang Yongyuan's quilt and slid very close to him.

He asked Zhuang Yongyuan: "Why did you come back?"

Zhuang Yongyuan also asked him: "Why did you come back?"

Xie Kang remained silent. Zhuang Yongyuan smiled at him with his eyes closed, tapping his nose. His voice was as sticky as melted taffy. "Didn't you teach me that only by speaking out what's on my mind can I be happy?"

Xie Kang's mind raced, unable to fathom whether this conversation had actually taken place. It was as if he were reuniting with two Zhuang Yongyuans: one irritable and distant, a constant reminder of a terrible decision he'd made, a terrifying one.

Yet, the other Zhuang Yongyuan, just like before, appeared in his dreams like a ghost. Melancholic, lovely, a reflection of the few good times in his life. Xie Kang felt that this Zhuang Yongyuan was perhaps just a figment of his imagination, unable to accept that he had changed. Therefore, each appearance was shrouded in mystery.

Xie Kang ate, drove, and went to school in a daze, where he wrote materials and corrected homework. He spent the entire morning wondering if he had really taught Zhuang Yongyuan to speak his mind.

When the squad leader came to hand in the registration list for the New Year's Eve party, Xie Kang finally remembered that he had actually said this, at the split second between 2009 and 2010. Now he was starting to fear his past self.