Chapter 18: Too Soft-Hearted to Bear All the Problems Alone

After finishing their meal, Li Leshan got up to help clear the dishes, but Lin Cuiqin, with her sharp eyes, saw him and was shocked. She waved her hands repeatedly, saying, "Oh, no need, no need! You child, sit down and rest..." As she spoke, she hurriedly gave Jiang Yueming a look, signaling him to take Li Leshan to play somewhere else.

"Come on, let's go do our homework." Jiang Yueming met Lin Cuiqin's eyes and immediately understood what she meant, then waved to Li Leshan.

Although it was called homework, Jiang Yueming still couldn't muster any interest in doing it. The test paper was like a drug; just looking at it made him lose interest. If he had known this would happen, he would have preferred to wash the dishes with Li Leshan earlier.

He slumped listlessly at the desk, his chin resting on his arm. Li Leshan sat quietly beside him. After a while, Li Leshan suddenly nudged him gently with his elbow, his eyes shining, and gestured in sign language: "Your family is so kind."

Jiang Yueming paused for a moment, then raised an eyebrow and laughed, "Cui Cui will definitely be very happy to hear you say that."

He felt a warm glow in his heart and thought, "Me too."

Anyway, Jiang Yueming suddenly felt energized to do the problems. He started reading the questions: "Both bus routes 3 and 5 depart from Donghu District. Bus route 3 departs every six minutes..."

Jiang Yueming imagined for a while how many minutes it would take for them to start their trains at the same time for the second time.

"Is this a question even humanly designed?" Jiang Yueming couldn't figure it out. He hated these kinds of questions the most, especially the one with water flowing in and out of the pool at the same time. He felt like the water flowing in wasn't from the pool itself, but from the question setter's brain. Couldn't they save water?! Did it really have to be that water flowed in and out simultaneously?

He wrote down the character "解" (jie, meaning to solve or explain), and looked at Li Leshan beside him. Unexpectedly, Li Leshan wasn't working on the problem; he seemed to be daydreaming or thinking about something, his gaze fixed on the camphor tree outside the window. The camphor tree was growing quite well, lush and green.

No one knew what Li Leshan was thinking. He was looking at the camphor tree outside, and Jiang Yueming was looking at Li Leshan. For a moment, there was an eerie calm in the room.

A faint singing voice drifted over from somewhere, perhaps from the old record store nearby, or maybe from the convenience store at the entrance. The record store at the alley entrance, which had been open for over ten years, was doing slow business, but Jiang Yueming was a regular customer, having bought quite a few Jay Chou tapes.

In short, the singing broke the silence and pulled Li Leshan back to his senses.

He seemed to realize he had been lost in thought for a long time, and when he came to his senses, his pen had already left ink marks on the exam paper. He glanced lightly at Jiang Yueming's exam paper next to him, which still had only one "solution" written on it, and said nothing.

As a result, Jiang Yueming became embarrassed first. He looked at the large blank space on the paper, put it aside, and tried to cover up the fact that he hadn't written more than two questions in half a day.

"This song sounds so familiar, is it 'Friends'?" Jiang Yueming muttered to himself, not quite sure. The song was so old, it sounded like something his father's generation would listen to, but for some reason he could always hear it in various places. Even Old Wang at the repair shop at the alley entrance liked to hum a few lines of "Friends for life" while working.

Li Leshan shook his head, found a blank space on the test paper, and wrote three words.

Too soft-hearted.

“Oh! I know that!” Jiang Yueming said quickly.

The song seemed to have grown legs, spreading to every corner of the county. From the smoky arcade to the noisy billiard room, and down to the hair salon downstairs that smelled of hair dye, everyone could hum a few lines of "You're always too soft-hearted, too soft-hearted..." Immediately, he pictured Han Jiang yelling the song at the top of his lungs, completely tone-deaf but incredibly into it, singing off-key to the extreme.

The song continued, and the line "carry all the problems on your own" drifted into his ears. For some reason, Jiang Yueming felt a pang of hurt from the lyrics, as if something had been exposed. He shook his head, trying to shake off the strange feeling.

As dusk approached, it was time for Li Leshan to go home. Jiang Yueming escorted him all the way downstairs. The streetlights in the alley were dim, giving the impression that they were about to burn down. Fortunately, summer nights come late, and it wasn't too dark yet.

"Go back now," Li Leshan said.

"I'm going for a walk." Jiang Yueming walked with him for a while, then suddenly seemed to remember something and hurriedly said, "Wait, wait for me a moment, I forgot something!"

He rushed upstairs, taking three steps at a time, and slammed the door open. Lin Cuiqin had repeatedly told Li Leshan to take the fruit and milk with him, but he had forgotten. She had specially bought them from the supermarket for Li Leshan to take home and eat with his grandmother.

When Jiang Yueming handed it to Li Leshan, in order to prevent the man from refusing, he quickly made a gesture and said, "Stop—this is something Ms. Lin Cuiqin bought for you after traveling three kilometers."

It takes about ten minutes to get there by bus number 3.

Suddenly, that damned math problem flashed through Jiang Yueming's mind, and she immediately felt unlucky. She quickly banished the problem from her thoughts.

He looked Li Leshan up and down, then leaned closer to him with a puzzled look, and suddenly exclaimed, "Have you grown quite a bit taller?!"

Li Leshan was startled by his movement. He hadn't paid attention, nor had he consciously kept track of his height. He just let himself grow as tall as he could.

My height is only measured during the annual physical examination, but I often forget about the previous year's height when I measure the new year's height.

He pulled on the hem of Li Leshan's school uniform and walked towards the entrance of the convenience store. Grandpa Li saw Jiang Yueming from afar, along with the child following behind him, and asked Jiang Yueming with a kind expression, "Why haven't I seen this new friend before?"

"You only know Han Jiang," Jiang Yueming said. It wasn't that Han Jiang had left a deep impression on Grandpa Li; it was just that the kid loved to eat and play, and appeared in public so often that it was hard for anyone not to remember him.

"Here." Jiang Yueming gestured for Li Leshan to stand on a small patch of newly paved cement. On the white wall beside it, horizontal lines drawn with red bricks were clearly visible, with crooked height markings next to them, ranging from 1.2 meters to 1.7 meters, recording Jiang Yueming's "growth history." He would come and measure himself every now and then. There were also a few lines next to it for Han Jiang, but that guy always forgot, so even though Jiang Yueming had grown so tall, Han Jiang's mark was still pitifully stuck around 1.3 meters.

He had Li Leshan stand upright with his back against the wall, and carefully used half a red brick to draw a shallow mark above the top of Li Leshan's head.

"This way, we can know how much it has grown every now and then," Jiang Yueming said.

“You’ve really grown taller,” Jiang Yueming said. He remembered that when he first met Li Leshan, he was so much shorter than him, but now, after a month or two, he had only gotten a little shorter.

Jiang Yueming spoke while gesturing.

Li Leshan couldn't discern any difference between the two gestures and asked, "About three centimeters?"

"Really?" Li Leshan didn't notice at all.

"Even a centimeter is a growth, okay?" Jiang Yueming said. Height was probably the only thing he was slightly better than Li Leshan in. Although he had a bad feeling that Li Leshan would probably be taller than him in the future, the future was a matter for the future, and seizing the present was the right thing to do.

"Yes, yes." Li Leshan nodded in agreement.

Jiang Yueming hadn't intended to just drop Li Leshan off downstairs. He helped Li Leshan carry the milk and said, "Are you busy tomorrow? I heard there's a performance at Leshan Square tomorrow night. Let's go see it."

"The kind where you break a boulder on your chest?" Li Leshan asked.

“How could that be?” Jiang Yueming said, “You think this is a movie shoot? Those kinds of shows require tickets, at least 20 yuan each. But we should be able to sneak in... I guess we’ll just sing some songs and do some magic tricks.”

The performances in the county town are basically the same. Shengping is a small county town, so the routine is the same old thing. But even so, quite a few people come to watch, mostly children and the elderly. They surround the town in layers, and many people bring small stools to watch in advance. After the performances, the singing and dancing, it's time to sell things.

“I was their shill,” Jiang Yueming said. He was only eight or nine years old at the time. Lin Cuiqin took him to see the excitement, but actually it was Jiang Yueming who insisted on going. Taking advantage of his small size, he slowly squeezed his way to the front row.

He was watching the show when suddenly someone tapped him on the shoulder and led him backstage. The person just grabbed him like that, and Jiang Yueming was terrified, thinking he'd been kidnapped. He was about to run away—

"And guess what happened?" Jiang Yueming asked.

Li Leshan's expression was unusually serious. He suddenly grabbed Jiang Yueming's arm, pulling so hard that it hurt Jiang Yueming a little.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Jiang Yueming was somewhat stunned by Li Leshan's reaction. He wasn't stupid; even if he was slow to react, he knew that Li Leshan was concerned about him. "No! I'm not injured."

Jiang Yueming isn't stupid; aside from his studies, he's quick-witted in everything else. If he wanted to run away, no one could catch him.

When he looked closely, he realized it was his second maternal uncle!

When did it become a performance troupe?

Li Leshan visibly breathed a sigh of relief and gestured, "So you went up there and acted as a shill?"

“Yes,” Jiang Yueming said, still remembering the magic trick. “I guess they saw that I was an acquaintance and didn’t have to pay me to be a shill, saving themselves some money.”

However, the magic trick almost backfired because it involved a bit of math. Jiang Yueming didn't calculate it correctly and forgot the answer. Probably no one would have guessed that this kid was so bad at math. In the end, he managed to get away with it amidst the host's smirks and the flickering lights.

Li Leshan laughed; just imagining the scene made him happy, and his shoulders shrugged slightly.

Jiang Yueming laughed along. That memory, which wasn't particularly memorable or pleasant, was worth bringing up now to make the people around her laugh. She accepted the embarrassment.

"After the event ended, my second uncle pulled me aside and asked me whether I came to support the event or to cause trouble," Jiang Yueming recounted vividly.

He put on an innocent expression, "How was I supposed to know I'd have to do math problems up there!"

He was full of anticipation for thrilling spectacles like magician's disappearing act or aerial acrobatics—those exciting and cool things. But instead, standing on that creaky, makeshift stage, he was faced with a math problem that left him completely bewildered. The magician rattled off a bunch of rules, but Jiang Yueming didn't hear a single word.

As they chatted, they arrived at Li Leshan's door. It was already late, but Jiang Yueming insisted on helping Li Leshan carry his things upstairs. He didn't linger, even though Li Leshan invited him in to sit for a while.

Jiang Yueming waved her hand and said, "I'm leaving! Tell Grandma I won't stay. See you tomorrow! I'll finish my homework tonight."

Li Leshan nodded, and by the time he got his key to open the door, the kid had already dashed downstairs. Jiang Yueming's voice still echoed in the hallway, "I'm leaving, Li Leshan!"

His clear voice echoed in Li Leshan's ears, each word and syllable striking his heart like a drumbeat. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly, and the moment he pushed open the door, without even putting down what he was carrying, he went straight through the small living room to his room. The window was half open, and he quickly walked to the window, leaning out to look down.

In the dim glow of the streetlights, Jiang Yueming stood ramrod straight. His steps were light and quick, his school uniform jacket billowing slightly in the evening breeze. Li Leshan's gaze followed the figure intently, watching him slowly, slowly walk away, turn the corner of the alley, and finally disappear completely into the night, never to be seen again.

A note from the author:

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You're always too soft-hearted, too soft-hearted~

I always love collecting old songs, hahaha.