1. What is your IG?
It's snowing in Milan.
Yao Ling was in a secondhand bookstore, choosing postcards: one depicting the Milan Cathedral and another a Leonardo da Vinci painting. The paintings were exquisitely crafted, embodying the essence of Milan. After paying, she added stamps to the postcards and dropped them off at a mailbox on Nathan Road in Hong Kong, where her aunt Qiuping received them.
Yao Ling's phone rang. It was an Instagram story from a high school classmate. In the video, a person poured white wine, Aperol Orange Light, and soda water into a glass. A hand wearing a watch stirred the mixture with a stirrer, creating an orange-yellow liquid, which was garnished with a lemon slice. She knew it was an Italian spritz.
A high school classmate suddenly called her, and she answered the call standing by the mailbox. It was night over there, but still noon here. After daylight saving time, they were seven hours apart.
"Guess who he is?" Xiao Yu asked excitedly.
Yao Ling held the phone in her hand, and with her other hand, she reached out to the snow, which melted in her palm. "Old classmate."
“You guys don’t follow each other.”
"No need, we're not familiar with each other anymore."
Xiao Yu tutted twice, wondering if they were genuinely unfamiliar or just pretending. Then, she told him an interesting story from the day, "I was in Hong Kong today and had an appointment with a client to discuss business in Central. Afterwards, we went out for a drink and unexpectedly saw Deng Shilang working as a bartender."
"It suits him perfectly," Yao Ling replied. "A bar in Central requires fluent English, a fashionable demeanor, and the ability to cheer people up. He used to have all of those."
"As expected, you know the most, yet you say you're not familiar with it. Back then, one of you and your family immigrated to Italy, and the other moved to Hong Kong from mainland China with his parents. Only me and a few other close friends stayed in the old place, but we're all doing well now."
Yao Ling looked at the snow and smiled reassuringly, "As long as everyone is well."
"Actually, he's still across from me. My client left, and I'm alone. The alcohol is taking its toll on me, so I wanted to call you."
Yao Ling was startled and whispered to her good friend, "Drink less."
Xiao Yu cheered happily, "He's making a Bloody Mary."
Yao Ling still wrinkled her nose when she thought about the past, but her voice was normal. "I hate celery and tomatoes with wine."
"By the way, do you have a boyfriend now?"
"No, there is only one SP."
"Wow... I really don't understand how you can cuddle after you're done and not have the ship sink?"
Yao Ling noticed that when they spoke, one used words that were local to Hong Kong, while the other used words from nowhere else. "Where did you learn those words? I don't understand what they mean."
"My boyfriend is from Taipei, so I learned it from him," Xiao Yu added drunkenly, her Taiwanese accent uncanny. "Shipwreck means I can't help but be moved. I mean, after being intimate with someone for a long time, you're always tempted. Didn't Eileen Chang say the way to a woman's heart is through her vagina? Besides shipwreck, there's also seasickness, which is pretty much the same thing."
"You have no shame in saying that in a bar." Snow was falling heavily, and Yao Ling hurriedly hid under a second-hand bookstore to listen to her high school classmates chatting and laughing.
"Come on, you know more than me, you've seen everything, and you still have the nerve to criticize me."
Suddenly, a voice came from the other end, a string of pleasant English, "It's ready, drink it."
Xiao Yu was so happy that she was shaking with laughter. She praised him at the bar, "Deng Shilang, you look really good as a bartender."
Deng Shilang put two fingers together, stretched them at the temples, made a handsome salute, then leaned over the bar and said with a smile: "Try my cooking skills."
Xiao Yu was full of anticipation. Suddenly, she thought of her good friend. The music was just turning up, and she asked, "Do you want to talk to Lingling?"
Yao Ling rubbed her forehead on the other side and said, "I won't say it."
Deng Shilang was busy mixing drinks, and the music was turned up loud, so he didn't hear what they were talking about. He was still lying on his stomach, so he moved over to Xiaoyu and asked, "What? Who are you talking to on the phone?"
Xiaoyu pointed at the phone, and the screen lit up. There was a note on it, it was Lingling. Deng Shilang took a look and nodded in understanding, asking her to hand over the phone. Xiaoyu did as she was told, staring at them talking with wide eyes.
Deng Shilang held her hot phone and said, "Yao Ling."
Yao Ling hadn't heard his voice in a long time. Flakes of snow dotted her eyelashes. She blinked gently, and the snow felt damp and cold. She replied, "Long time no see."
Deng Shilang laughed cheerfully: "We are not meeting each other now. You should say that I haven't heard my voice for a long time, and it still sounds so good."
“It’s just so-so.”
"You say one thing, you mean another." Deng Shilang leaned against the bar and asked, "What's your IG?"
"Ask Xiaoyu and find her follow list."
"Ask later."
Xiao Yu waved over there, asking for her phone back, and suddenly asked Deng Shilang, "You just came close to me, and I smelled a very familiar scent. It seems like you've been wearing this perfume for years. Bulgari?"
"Giovanni."
Yao Ling paused when she heard their conversation. He was still using this perfume.
Xiao Yu said to Yao Ling, "I'm going to hang up now, Lingling. We'll talk next time."
"Okay, have fun." Yao Ling responded.
After Xiao Yu hung up, she asked Deng Shilang curiously, "DC, do you have a girlfriend?"
"Yes, a Hong Kong University student."
"We've been talking for a few years."
"Two years."
"Hong Kong people?"
“Hong Kong people.”
"Aren't you afraid that she might suddenly immigrate?"
"If she wants to, there's nothing we can do about it. Her current job requires her to fly all over the place. She just got back from Paris."
Xiao Yu said "oh", and decided not to mention the past events between him and Yao Ling. He lowered his head to take a sip of the Bloody Mary and nodded with interest, "It tastes good."
Deng Shilang smiled and asked Xiaoyu to tell him Yao Ling's Instagram. He opened his phone to search for her and followed her. Before he could take a closer look, a customer ordered a drink. He put the drink back in his pocket and continued to mix the cocktail.
On the way home, Yao Ling couldn't help but think of the scent she'd smelled that year: Giovanni, with a base of sandalwood. She remembered him because of the scent. They'd met in the hallway on the fifth floor of the school, he clutching a basketball, while she was filling her water bottle. They'd passed each other, and Giovanni's scent had held onto her physical memory.
They were in their third year of high school then, and he was only nineteen, but he was already using this perfume. He liked to wear sneakers to school, and his watch wasn't the popular Casio G-Shock, but a six-thousand-dollar Tissot he'd bought at Langham Place in Hong Kong. Later, she learned he also had an off-white G-Shock, a birthday gift from his father. He only wore this student-like watch for exams; he usually wore the Tissot. But no matter which watch it was, it looked good on him.
Under the heater, Yao Ling took a peach from the fruit basket, washed it, and ate it while lying on the sofa. A message came from her phone: a user named DCHayden had followed her. She knew it was Deng Shilang the moment she saw the name.
His Instagram profile is simple, just his Chinese name (DangSiLong). While others might add the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region flag or prominently list their university and occupation like they do on LinkedIn, he doesn't, as lazy as he is.
Deng Shilang was called DC in high school. Si sounds like C, and combined with his last name, everyone called him DC. Later, when his high school English teacher asked students to choose an English name, he called himself Hayden.
They studied in mainland China until they graduated from high school. She and he were in different classes, but they had the same English teacher. They often competed for the grade's English ranking, even though they were two classes apart. The English teacher would sometimes announce the rankings on the report cards: one month Yao Ling was first, the next it was Deng Shilang, and they'd alternate. When they tied for first place, the English teacher would touch her necklace with a smile of satisfaction. After all, they were both her class representatives, and her teaching was very effective.
Yao Ling shifted her posture, sprawled on the sofa, one hand holding a bitten-out peach, the other swiping down to check Deng Shilang's Instagram profile. She smiled, catching a glimpse of a photo of him and his girlfriend by Victoria Harbour, then scrolling down to a photo of him mixing drinks. She remembered him as handsome, but he rarely posted selfies; his profile was mostly about alcohol, cats, and dogs.
Yao Ling followed him, switched pages, played Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, threw her phone away, lay down on the sofa, ate peaches, and stretched her legs leisurely.
*
sp, sexpartner
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