Chapter 78 78. Always ignoring everything with cloudy eyes

The river water flows very slowly towards the estuary. Yanjiang River has always been like this. Except when a typhoon comes, it is usually slow and leisurely.

Zhuang Yongyuan said: "When I was a child, my father often scolded me and said, 'If I had known you would be like this, I would have thrown you into the Yanjiang River when you were born.'"

Xie Kang sat a little closer to him, and the warm and soft velvet of his coat rubbed against Zhuang Yongyuan's hands, which were cold from the night wind. Zhuang Yongyuan simply put his hands in his coat pockets.

Zhuang Yongyuan sniffed, turned around and looked carefully at Xie Kang, taking in every strand of his hair. He said, "Xie Kang, do you remember what you were like before?"

Xie Kang said: "I feel like my appearance hasn't changed much."

"At the high school New Year's Eve party, when you asked me if I could perform on stage with you, I was about to leave. I didn't want to go up. It was weird and embarrassing. You and I are not from the same world, so why should I force myself to be next to you?"

"When I was about to leave, I looked up at you. When I saw you on the stage, I couldn't walk anymore. I closed my eyes and opened them again, and I was standing next to you."

"You can obviously be like that, why are you doing this now?"

Zhuang Yongyuan ripped off Xie Kang's eyes and threw them into the Yanjiang River in front of him.

"You're not nearsighted, so why are you wearing glasses? Do you think you'll look like a better teacher this way?"

Xie Kang touched his eye sockets and said, "Actually, my right eye is a little nearsighted."

Zhuang Yongyuan laughed, sat up straight and said, "It just so happens that you've resigned. Let's go together."

"Where are you going?"

Zhuang Yongyuan pointed to the river under the bridge and said, "Or you can take me there."

He turned back again, looking at the end of the road: "Or we can go back to Shanghai together and leave tonight. Anyway, we have to go together wherever we go."

The river water beneath the bridge shimmered with a misty light, and at this moment, it seemed like a pair of beckoning hands. Zhuang Yongyuan calmed himself down and continued, "It's actually nice to go back to Shanghai together. It doesn't matter if I can't sing for a while at Lily Heart. I'll sing to you on the microphone first. Anyway, I can write songs now, and I write very well, better than you. It's okay, don't look so devastated, you can still practice, you have plenty of time. I've redecorated the kitchen and bought a lot of kitchen utensils and tableware, so we can cook and eat together instead of always eating takeout. I bought a nice big TV, and we can watch TV while we eat. It's boring to watch TV alone."

"Oh, we can even get a cat. Before, I didn't know where I would go after graduation, so I didn't dare to get a cat. Now we should live here together for a long time, right? There are more and more stray cats in the neighborhood, so we can take one home and raise it. We don't have to write some great songs or make an album that people will listen to decades later. If we can't, forget it. Let's go for a walk every day, right? After you left, I often took walks by myself. When I walked, I found that different flowers bloomed all year round. Our clothing sizes are similar, so we can change clothes. I can buy more clothes for the house and put them on your head. If one day you want to leave again--"

Xie Kang covered his mouth and repeated, "What if one day I want to leave again?"

"Why would I want to leave? Do you know that I deliberately gave you that coat to keep, deliberately giving it to you and not wanting it back. I heard you talking to the boss in the school canteen. You bought a bottle of Coke and a corn sausage that day. I heard your voice and knew you were the person I was looking for, the one playing the piano and singing by the second-floor window."

"As long as I don't go get the coat, you'll have to come to me with it yourself. Otherwise, my coat will always be hanging in your closet, and your clothes will have my smell. The smell on the coat may fade, but there will always be a little bit of it left in the gaps between the fibers..."

Xie Kang licked his lips and continued, "I only now understand why I left and why I was afraid of you."

"When I was about to graduate, my grandpa died. He took some medicine and died in bed. I went in to call him to eat, but he didn't respond. That's when I realized he was dead. The night before he committed suicide, he called my aunt and told her about me."

"What's up?"

"I didn't tell you at the time... Zhuang Yongyuan, I thought I could handle it on my own. I thought I could do it."

Zhuang Yongyuan knew what Xie Kang meant by this: he couldn't handle it anymore, he needed himself. He hugged Xie Kang openly, and Xie Kang continued in his ear, "During the first semester of my senior year, several teachers from Peking University came. The ones you met are the two we met at the old residence a while ago. My aunt works at the Education Bureau, and she knows the principal. She took me to their dinner party to negotiate a place for admission with a lower score."

"I suddenly hated that. The majors I could study with the reduced admission score weren't what I wanted. Everyone was clearly talking about me, but no one asked for my opinion. I don't want this spot either. It feels like I snatched it from someone else. Zhuang Yongyuan, it's all your fault. This never happened before I met you."

"I'm sorry, I led you astray." Zhuang Yongyuan said in a pretentious tone, "Damn rock music!"

Xie Kang gently touched Zhuang Yongyuan's face and continued, "I've already made it clear that I don't want this spot, but no one listens to me. My parents keep glaring at me. I know they'll blame me for embarrassing them when they get home."

"I've heard this a thousand times, and even half a sentence makes me sick. In my impulsiveness, I decided to embarrass myself completely." Xie Kang laughed self-deprecatingly, "So I stood up and told them there was no way I was going to study this major. I forgot who pulled me aside, whispering in my ear, "Don't make trouble, how sensible I used to be..."

"And you told it?"

"I remember yelling at my dad in front of everyone, 'Do you think you know me so well? You don't even know I like boys.'"

Xie Kang rubbed his forehead and said, "Zhuang Yongyuan, why do I always want to mess things up? It's like I do it on purpose. I have a pretty good temper."

"So you came out so early?"

"right."

"You never told me that."

"I don't think you'll be happy to hear this. Did I...did I think you were too fragile?"

Zhuang Yongyuan thought for a moment and said, "If it were me in high school, it's hard to say. What about after you came out?"

"There is no future."

"What do you mean by no future?"

Xie Kang smiled bitterly, "Even after the dinner, apart from Grandpa telling Auntie before he died, no one mentioned this matter again. It's as if I never said this at all. If everyone hadn't reminded me to mend my ways as soon as possible, I would have thought this was something I had imagined."

"Everyone said I pissed my grandpa off to death. I didn't even get into graduate school, I was just one spot short. The band wasn't famous, and our expenses were getting bigger and bigger. In high school, I thought everything would get better in Shanghai, but it didn't. I thought we were talented, but Shanghai is full of talented people, and we were nothing."

"Li Xiuyu is smarter and more powerful than me, but he ended up like that... How could it be such a coincidence? Everyone died in front of me, as if trying to persuade me to turn back."

"You said you were afraid of me," Zhuang Yongyuan said.

Xie Kang nodded. "When we broke up, I was so scared of you. I didn't dare to read your messages or phone calls. I...I think I misunderstood you. I always felt that you couldn't live without me. Sometimes you would forget to turn off the refrigerator after you opened it. But at that time, I couldn't figure it out myself. I didn't know how to take care of you like before. I should take care of you, but I couldn't do it."

Zhuang Yongyuan raised his eyebrows: "Come on, even my own mother is not as responsible as you."

"Actually, I sometimes forget to close the refrigerator door now."

"Just keep driving." Xie Kang lowered his head. "I'm really useless. I was then, and I'm still useless now. I'm just an ordinary person. I'm not ordinary just because I memorized more ancient poems or was faster at arithmetic than others when I was a kid."

Zhuang Yongyuan kicked Xie Kang's leg: "You are not ordinary in my eyes."

After he finished speaking, he kissed Xie Kang hard on the cheek.

Xie Kang rubbed his hair. "I want to be like when I was a kid, with my parents paving the way for me. I just follow their instructions and everything will be fine. Things outside are much more difficult than I imagined. I can't handle it at all. Zhuang Yongyuan, I ran away, but when I returned to Pingnan, I regretted it. This is not what I wanted."

"There are many things I've done that I didn't know why I did them at the time, and I only figured it out later. Maybe I can blame my parents, or maybe I was born with a bad personality, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that I've thought it through. I want to be with you, live with you, play the piano, write songs, and perform with you. We can eat together, take walks, and go to bed together. We may quit smoking and drinking together and live to be over 80, or we may not want to live to be 40..."

He didn't dare look at Zhuang Yongyuan. He looked at the lights of thousands of households in the buildings on both sides reflected on the surface of the river. It was late at night, some lights were turned off, and the river surface was not as bright as it was at the beginning.

"But now I want to be with you, really, really want to be with you."

Zhuang Yongyuan said: "When you first left, I hated you. When people asked why we broke up, I told them that you were a bad person, that you often used pua against me, and even beat me in private."

Xie Kang said nervously, "If I go back, you have to clarify this."

"It would be nice if you were like that, then I wouldn't miss you all the time. I thought you were you and I was me, and we could just separate and get used to it after a while. But every day when I look in the mirror, I see your reflection."

"At first, I thought I'd be broke and starve to death in my rented apartment without you. I thought the hardest things would be remembering to turn off the refrigerator, earning money to support myself and the band, and dealing with people I didn't like. But that's not the case at all. After you left, I found I could do all those things if I gritted my teeth. The hardest thing is constantly thinking about you and the day you left. I don't even dare to eat McDonald's anymore."

Xie Kang held Zhuang Yongyuan's face with both hands, looked at him carefully, and said, "You are amazing."

"Do you know that when two people are together for a long time, they become more and more alike? Some of my expressions, movements, and habits are exactly the same as yours. It makes me think of you dozens of times a day."

"Me too." Xie Kang said.

"When Lily Heart sold out for the first time during the tour, I threw your guitar away, then ran after the garbage truck in the middle of the night to retrieve it. I really hate you. How can you do things like that? Breaking up without explaining things clearly."

"But on the day of the Pingnan Music Festival, when I stood under the stage and looked down and saw you, I just felt happy. You stood next to me with your guitar, and I felt like the world had finally become normal."

Zhuang Yongyuan touched Xie Kang's hand, his fingertips circling his joints.

He still remembered that feeling. As soon as he saw Xie Kang, all the chaotic things fell into place.

He heard that Guan Luoyin can allow people to see their Yuanchen Palace. If they tidy up the Yuanchen Palace and put the scattered items in the right place, their life will become smooth.

If watching Luo Yin really had this effect, Zhuang Yongyuan knew that the feeling of everything returning to its place was the same as standing on the same stage with Xie Kang again after many years.

It took him six years to convince himself that he could live well on his own, and that he didn't mind not having parents.

It's normal for even the closest of people to drift apart at a crossroads in life. Perhaps he was overly dependent on Xie Kang, putting too much pressure on him. Perhaps trivial frictions wore away their relationship. Or perhaps it was simply for no reason at all; they simply reached the end of their relationship. Countless scientific theories and popular opinions support the validity of this scenario.

After returning to Pingnan and meeting Xie Kang again, Zhuang Yongyuan thought he had accepted their separation the minute before. He only blamed Xie Kang for not explaining himself clearly.

Zhuang Yongyuan looked at Xie Kang suspiciously: "Xie Kang, are you good enough for me to like you so much?"

"Maybe the timing of our acquaintance was just right."

"Have you ever flown a kite?" Zhuang Yongyuan asked.

"Yes, I let it go. When I was little, my parents often took me to fly kites with my cousin and their colleagues' children."

Zhuang Yongyuan said sourly, "Look, this is the life of a child in a healthy family. It's exactly like what's written in the elementary school textbooks."

Xie Kang smiled and said, "Why do you suddenly ask this?"

Zhuang Yongyuan jumped from the railing to the road and shouted to Xie Kang, "Come down and talk while we walk!"

Xie Kang nodded and jumped down as well. There were no cars on the road, so Zhuang Yongyuan simply ran up, pretending to be holding a kite, and ran and jumped in the cold wind.

"I'm not as lucky as you. I only went kite flying with my friends for the first time last year."

"What friend? Do I know him?"

Zhuang Yongyuan glanced at him and said, "When I was flying the kite, I suddenly felt like I was the kite you were flying when we were together."

"If you hadn't held me back, I might have just drifted away."

Xie Kang caught up with him and tried to hold him back.

Zhuang Yongyuan looked up at the sky for a while, and the two of them walked down the bridge and into the streets and alleys of Pingnan.

Zhuang Yongyuan said: "When people fly kites, it is the kites that need people, not people that need kites."

A person can have many kites. He may fly a kite on a whim and go home when he gets tired of it. It doesn’t matter whether he owns a kite or not.

Zhuang Yongyuan didn't tell Xie Kang that when he realized this, he ignored the crowded park that afternoon and sat down on the grass and cried. It was the fifth year since he and Xie Kang separated, and he still thought of Xie Kang in random, everyday situations. He thought of himself as unimportant and disposable to Xie Kang, and the peace he had worked so hard to maintain would instantly collapse.

Of course he wasn't willing to accept this. He was talented, handsome, and eventually wealthy and famous. How could he have ended up hanging on Xie Kang's tree? But that was the most he could do. Zhuang Yongyuan felt that he should hate Xie Kang, but Xie Kang had taught him to love, not hate, through his own actions. He caught a glimpse of a vague and unfamiliar feeling, but he didn't know what it was.

If you hate someone, you want them to have a miserable life, right? But when Zhuang Yongyuan discovered that Xie Kang was not happy at all in Pingnan, he felt even more sad than Xie Kang, as if they were still one, as if they had never been apart.