Chapter 20
I cautiously pushed open the door, and the first thing I saw was a bed. Suddenly, flames burned into my eyes, then quickly disappeared. I touched my right eye in a daze; there was no injury, not even a trace.
That's good.
I breathed a sigh of relief and slowly peered inside.
The room was simply furnished. There was a bed, a few posters, books and bookshelves, a wardrobe and a desk, and a guitar hanging on the back of a chair.
Qinghe was lured inside.
A door completely separated him from the firelight; his nose couldn't smell the odors here to begin with, and now he had completely forgotten what was happening outside.
He walked to the table. On the table was a notebook with a cream-colored cover. The walls were covered with the owner's favorite pictures and posters, all of which had long since yellowed. There was a photograph of Arabidopsis thaliana, a copy of Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers," and a depiction of ghost grass wet with dew. The plants and figures were placed far apart and high up, so far that the water would never drip down.
The figures are only shown in blurry profiles, making it impossible to discern the exact shape of their eyes, as if the viewer were nearsighted to the point of being nearsighted. Others are only shown from behind, receding into the distance, like women or men holding umbrellas in the rainy night.
The umbrella seemed to be held specifically to avoid the rain on the ghost grass.
Qinghe looked around again. This time he made a new discovery: behind the door was a bright red calendar, with past days crossed out. A few days to come were circled, and similar circles appeared a few months before and after. Some were red, some were black, and some were completely covered in blue.
Qinghe looked at the calendar and couldn't help but chuckle at the familiar sight. He had once owned a calendar like this, or rather, more than one. Every year, year after year, his family only ever updated these kinds of calendars. They were given to him by the bank, picked up on the street, or handed out by some company. That's what people who brought him the calendars always said, but he didn't know if they were really that easy to get. He just kept counting the holidays and wondering why some days were missing—they were all crammed together, three days in one square.
He tirelessly hung the calendar on the wall, then took it down again to look at the pictures: this was the Year of the Rat, this was the Year of the Ox, and there was a chick here. He jumped around the house excitedly, putting on a one-man show. The rat wanted to eat the dog's food, so it called the rabbit and the lamb to help it distract the dog. The ox disapproved of its actions and slowly told its friend the snake. The snake didn't like the rat being eaten by the dog, so it instigated the pig to play the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind... a completely nonsensical story. He laughed and shouted, showing everyone his comic strips. Everyone praised him for being so amazing, a little lucky star sent from heaven, a little genius. "Our darling will definitely become the world's greatest comic strip artist!" "What, you don't want to be an artist?" "Okay then, a great novelist, a great playwright, a great engineer, a great astronaut..." He went on and on, tirelessly telling everyone how incredibly talented he was, seemingly ordinary on the surface, but secretly a superhero saving the world. He happily kissed the person speaking on the cheek, and the others wanted to too. Why does our precious child only kiss his mother? What about his father? Dad's cheek... His beard is shaved, it's not prickly at all. This child is so naughty. What are you saying? It's normal for children to be naughty. Come here, Grandma's lucky star, let Grandma give you a kiss... Why is the old man coming over to join in the fun? Go away, go away, go away.
He held his grandmother's hand in one hand and his maternal grandmother's hand in the other, his eyes blinking, his smile as bright as the stars in the sky. "I love you all too." He spoke with his small, still-babbling mouth, "I love you all so much, Mom, Grandma, Maternal Grandma, and Dad, Brother, Maternal Grandpa, and Grandpa." He saw the quiet figure and quickly added the person he hadn't mentioned: "I love you too, my good friend." He giggled and ran to the child his age who had been watching him shyly, hugging him tightly and rubbing against his clothes, trying to rub the food from his mouth onto the child. "Why aren't you saying anything? Don't you like me? I like you so much! I like you! If you don't say anything, I'll keep bothering you until you say you like me..." He said, and then fell asleep. The warm afternoon sun shone through the French windows, bathing him in its light, his cheeks puffing out with each breath, his hand still tightly gripping his friend's. His friend paused for a moment, then clumsily but skillfully picked him up, pulling him into his arms, staring intently at his eyelashes. He rolled over on his friend's lap, almost falling off, but his friend quickly caught him. He seemed to be dreaming of something delicious; his mouth opened and closed, occasionally letting out a silly chuckle. The birdsong outside the window was faint, the cicadas' chirping sounded weary, and the bright warmth helped him drift into a gentle, sweet dream.
A crisp sound jolted Qinghe awake from his reverie. He lowered his eyes and stared intently at the words on the calendar, realizing he had merely entered someone else's dream. The dream was so lovely, so hazy, that it made his heart tremble violently, so intensely that he felt he was about to commit suicide.
He glanced at the calendar again before putting the item back and checking other things.
The blankets and sheets on the bed are sky blue. The pillows are fluffy and were made from repurposed blankets.
Before leaving, the owner carefully preserved them all in good condition. They were laid flat on the bed, with the zipper side facing up. Qinghe pursed his lips, instinctively knowing that this was the side the owner used to cover himself with while sleeping. He must have seen the advice in the short video on his phone not to fold the blankets as soon as he got up.
He didn't sit down, but just stood to the side and watched. His fingertips unconsciously twirled, and he suddenly wanted to fold it neatly, to leave some message for the next person who came in, but he knew that the next person wouldn't know what this bed looked like.
But he still folded it neatly. Only after the pillow was stacked on top of the blanket did he notice a small smiley face in the corner.
The wardrobe was filled with clothes that smelled of laundry detergent, all in simple, uniform colors. The owner had secretly hidden a few adult coats, hoping that one day she could wear them without being seen as a child wearing adult clothes. Below them were a dazzling array of unworn shoes.
The bookshelf contains all the textbooks from elementary school to high school, along with neatly stacked test papers and various materials, filling those shelves with a crowded yet warm sense of memory. They are sealed away in the corridors of memory, their space increasingly squeezed by more and more books, with sophisticated terms replacing the various adventure novels and illustrated editions he loved to read in his childhood and adolescence. However, he still occasionally reads them when he thinks of them.
All that's left is that notebook.
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