Happy birthday
More than a month has passed quietly, and the autumn atmosphere in Beijing is already deep.
The night fell earlier, and the inky velvet was dotted with clear cold stars, as if they were within reach.
In the depths of the night, bathed in the autumn colors, Xiang Yang and Jin Yu, still known online as "A Luo," sat in their respective bedrooms, silently communicating through WeChat messages across their screens. The gentle tapping of keyboards was the only symphony between the two spaces.
They have gradually become familiar with each other on the Internet, but out of some tacit reserve (or "protection" that they themselves do not understand), they have never let their voices penetrate this thin barrier.
Jin Yu's WeChat profile picture is a deep-sea whale, powerful, silent, and mysterious. Xiang Yang's profile picture is completely different. It's signed with his real name, "Xiang Yang," and his profile picture is a perfectly formal ID photo, with clear features and a boldness that reveals him facing the world head-on.
Without warning, a new message popped up in A Luo's dialog box on the screen: "Don't look for Lan Yu's shadow in anyone else. It's unfair to you and him." The typing sound of the keyboard seemed particularly unruly in the quiet night.
Xiang Yang's fingertips moved quickly: "Have you finally seen 'Lan Yu'?"
"You kept bringing it up to me, forcing me to listen. I watched Stanley Kwan's film and also found the online novel 'Beijing Story'."
Jin Yu's words seemed to reveal a hint of complaint. Forced indoctrination? Ha.
"In fact, Lan Yu is an icon, a vision of love, a utopia, a refuge of love and a nostalgia."
There was a gleam in Xiangyang's eyes, a burning passion for some ideal.
"Alas," Jin Yu's words were filled with the weariness of someone who had seen the world, "no utopia can withstand the betrayal of lies."
Xiang Yang's heart moved slightly. He typed, "A Luo, we've been chatting online for over a month, but we still know so little about each other. What's your name? You really don't want to let me see what you look like. I've never..."
Before he finished typing his sentence, something changed on the other side of the dialog box.
Jin Yu’s WeChat page refreshed.
The deep-sea whale disappeared, and in its place was a photo of a young boy with clear eyes and brows, the kind of clearness that was as bright as a cloudless sky, so handsome and dazzling.
The boy in the photo has a rare masculine look between his eyebrows, and his smile is so bright that it can melt ice and snow.
Jin Yu himself could not explain what kind of subtle mentality led him to choose the photo of his younger brother "Jin Cang".
Perhaps, at the deepest level of his subconscious, he longed to be as pure and innocent as ever, untainted by dust, without having experienced the scars of hardship, and without the scars of fleeing to a foreign land at night.
In short, he used this photo, a look that he hoped would last forever.
At the same time, his ID signature changed from "A Luo" to "Jin Cang".
For some inexplicable reason, he is still trying hard to hide his true self from the world.
Xiangyang's breath suddenly hitched. His eyes widened, fixed on the image of Jin Cang on the screen. A fierce electric current surged from the depths of his heart, rapidly coursing through every cell in his body. He froze, as if under a spell, his mind hazy.
In the dialog box of "Jin Cang", a teasing and mischievous message popped up: "What? Are you ugly?"
Xiangyang suddenly came back to his senses, his chest heaving violently. He felt his blood boiling in an instant, and he had to use all his strength to barely suppress it.
His fingers trembled slightly as he typed with difficulty, "This is how I imagined Lan Yu to be."
"Get lost, you're obsessed!" The person on the other end of the screen seemed to spat lightly, but the text remained calm and unhurried. He replied in a split second, without a trace of embarrassment, "No more chatting, I'm going to shower."
Those words, like a warm current, rushed out across the barren screen.
Jin Yu unexpectedly felt a long-lost spring breeze in his heart. It felt like a child who had scored full marks in an exam and was gently patted on the cheek by his mother, giving her the purest, most flawless and most sincere encouragement.
He closed the dialog box, stood up, and headed for the bathroom. Unaware of it, a smile still played on his lips. It was a smile he hadn't seen in ages, a smile that was almost unfamiliar to him.
Time quietly slipped into the depths of winter, and another two months passed.
It was freezing cold in Beijing in December, and heavy snow was falling outside the window, painting this huge city in white.
In two rooms far apart, the dim light of the screen and the clicking sound of the keyboard are both immersed in a subtle warmth.
Xiangyang and "Jin Cang" were still chatting online in their respective bedrooms. Their heavy clothes echoed the changing of seasons.
"Happy birthday to me." On the screen, this sentence suddenly popped up in the dialog box belonging to "Jin Cang".
Xiang Yang raised his eyebrows, slightly startled: "It's your birthday today? How did you celebrate it? Today."
"To be honest, the day I was kicked out of the house was my birthday, so I didn't celebrate it." The loneliness was evident between the words.
Xiangyang's heart seemed to be tugged at by something: "So... after that, you came to Beijing?"
"At the beginning of my self-exile, I happened to hear Mao Buyi's "Horse Herding City," and my heart was filled with warmth. I was completely lost for a while, and when I came to my senses, I had already settled down in Beijing."
"You've been living here for three years?" Xiang Yang asked. He was eager to learn more about the past of this "Jin Cang" in front of him.
"Do you remember what you wrote in your novel? The bondage of parents is like an ice silk string wrapped around the neck. The deeper the love, the deeper it penetrates the flesh. The distant future of children is like a thorn in the palm of your hand. The deeper the care, the deeper the struggle to break free... That's what I am talking about." "Jin Cang"'s words seem to be revealing his own deep-buried scars.
Xiang Yang's heart moved. "So that's what inspired you to write the second half of that song in just half an hour? A distant place called home."
He was referring to the first song demo that Jin Yu had sent him before. The melody and lyrics had deeply shocked him.
"Taipei is nearly 1,700 kilometers away from Beijing. We are actually very similar." "Jin Cang" mentioned it lightly, but it made Xiangyang feel an inexplicable closeness.
"What about love?" Xiangyang's fingertips paused on the keyboard. After a moment's hesitation, he finally asked, "Beijing is so cold, you won't be alone for the past three years, right?"
"Actually, it wasn't my dad that really made me leave Taipei. It was my disillusionment with love. I probably won't trust another relationship easily again."
Jin Cang's answer was filled with a resoluteness that could be described as tragic.
Xiangyang tapped it lightly: "Don't say too much."
"I sing in bars, which is a very public job. There are a lot of people who bother me, and I can't even tell them off. It's very annoying."
"Jin Cang" seemed unwilling to talk more about this topic.
Xiangyang stared at the avatar of "Jin Cang" on the screen, that young and sunny face, and then compared it with the vicissitudes and wariness between the lines of the other party's words, and his heart was filled with mixed feelings.
He took a deep breath and suddenly amplified his voice, as if to penetrate the cold network and reach the other side far away.
"Ha, I get it, A Cang, happy birthday!" He almost shouted, even though he knew that the other party couldn't hear his shout through the screen.
But he hoped that through his resounding blessings, he could bring greater encouragement and strength to "A Cang" on the other side of the Internet, to that soul who might be celebrating alone at this moment, or who might not even have the heart to celebrate his birthday.
"Happy birthday, A Cang, happy birthday!" He repeated in his heart, over and over again, devoutly and enthusiastically.
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