One
Night slowly crept in.
A faint smell of burning filled the air, more somber than during the day.
Cheng Zhou knelt in the room where the body lay in state, dealing with Old Madam Cheng's clothes, a small speck of ember clinging to her long, dark eyelashes.
Hu Tong sat cross-legged to the side, chattering on and on.
"Do you think someone really offended her, or is there some other reason? Why did she have to run away right at mealtime..."
Just before the banquet was about to begin, Old Lady Li started making a scene and wanted to leave. No one could persuade her to stay. Hu Tong went to ask her why, but the old woman blushed and refused to say anything. She only said that someone had talked back to her.
In the end, we let her go; the commotion at the funeral was unsightly.
“If she didn’t want to give a gift, that would be understandable, but she already did. What a loss, she didn’t even get a meal…” Hu Tong was extremely puzzled. “If someone really upset her, why didn’t she say something? I’m the kind of person who loves to stand up for the underdog…”
Cheng Zhou stopped what he was doing, paused for a moment, and then told Hu Tong, "She is my grandmother."
Hu Tong suddenly shut his mouth, then slowly opened it again, in disbelief, "Really?"
"No wonder my mom avoided her today..."
Hu Tong belatedly realized Hu Jiale's strange behavior, clapped his hands, and said, "Then I understand!"
"Someone must have brought up what happened back then, thinking that your father's side of the family was dishonest. She felt embarrassed and didn't dare to talk back, so she had no choice but to leave!"
Cheng Zhou gave a soft "hmm," lowered his head, and continued cutting off the buttons with scissors. "It should be like this."
“My grandmother told me about what happened over there and told me not to blame her. She even changed her surname to follow her husband’s. What could she have done about what happened back then?”
"Besides, she wasn't having a good time over there either."
Cheng Zhou lowered his head even further, his eyelashes trembling, casting a cold, hard shadow on his cheek, like an iron railing trapping a tombstone.
“Her husband became paralyzed a few years ago, and she has to take care of everything, including eating, drinking and excretion. Her youngest son doesn’t care about anything and doesn’t do any proper work. Sometimes he even asks her for ‘subsidies.’ It’s really tough for her.”
"Actually, I don't resent my grandmother even if she doesn't say anything, because we don't have much of a relationship."
"But now that you've said that, I don't know what to do anymore..."
Hu Tong looked at him blankly and said, "If you don't know, don't think about it."
She pointed at the clothes in Cheng Zhou's hand, abruptly changing the subject, and gave a dry laugh. "Remember when Aunt Xiao Yin was around? You were supposed to help her cut buttons, but you were lazy and left one on every piece of clothing."
Recalling his childhood, Cheng Zhou smiled sullenly, picked up the clothes, brought them close to his face, and looked at them without blinking. "I remember you were very angry and asked me and Grandma why we sold Mom."
Hu Tong scratched his head sheepishly: "I must have misheard you, it was a misunderstanding!"
The rough cement floor, scorching hot during the day, had now cooled down and become pleasantly warm. Various clothes were piled up on the floor like dried paint palettes, followed by an ice coffin, its surface as pale as if it hadn't had time to be painted.
Hu Tong shifted his position, idly massaging his calves, and quietly watched Cheng Zhou cut his clothes buttons. The lights were off, but a fire burned not far away, its flames causing the shadows on the wall to leap and flicker.
"It's not that I'm being lazy."
Cheng Zhou suddenly spoke.
“Back then, I heard the geomancer tell my grandmother that the buttons had to be cut clean, otherwise they would trap and take away the children in the family, which was bad luck.”
"I did it on purpose."
I want my mom to take me away.
Hu Tong was horrified when she heard this. At the age when she was being unruly and throwing tantrums, Cheng Zhou was longing for death, as if it were a little red flower printed on a grid or a certificate of progress received at the end of the semester. He actually regarded it as a blessing.
Her heart was like an old garment, its buttons cut off, churning in the howling night wind.
Silence lingered for a long time.
Cheng Zhou looked up and smiled at her reassuringly, "What are you thinking about?"
Hu Tong turned her face away, secretly wiped away her tears, and said in a deliberately gruff voice, "I was thinking about how you were disobedient when you were little, and now you're so well-behaved, knowing to cut the buttons clean."
"Because there are reasons to do so."
Cheng Zhou's answer was brief, but Hu Tong reacted strongly by jumping up.
"You—" Hu Tong was speechless under his gaze, her cheeks burning red, "Cheng Zhou!"
What's wrong with me?
Cheng Zhou blinked slowly, then realized what was going on and blushed. "I'm just telling the truth. I'm not flirting with you in front of Grandma, Hu Tong! Don't... overthink it."
"And," he cleared his throat, "my mom and grandma definitely want me to live a good life..."
"It's not just because of you..."
"Of course, it's partly your fault too..."
"Uh, I mean..."
"Sigh, stop glaring at me, I'm not saying anything more..."
Cheng Zhou lowered his head, avoiding her gaze, revealing his flushed earlobes.
Hu Tong pouted, then sat down next to him, feeling inexplicably uncomfortable, her clear eyes reflecting golden flames.
"Let it get even hotter," Hu Tong suddenly thought.
It would be best to dry up her heart.
The person next to me coughed lightly and quickly again.
"I suddenly remembered that my phone has automatic call recording enabled. I used it to record Grandma's shopping requests, deleting them one by one as I completed them. I probably haven't finished deleting them all. Could you listen to them with me?"
Hu Tong was incredibly soft-hearted; there was no way she wouldn't agree. She hugged her knees and waited expectantly for Cheng Zhou to pull out the recording.
Swiping from beginning to end with slender fingers, I only found three audio files related to Grandma Cheng. One was three seconds long, and the other two were zero seconds long. Perhaps the automatic recording was turned off the moment the call was connected.
Cheng Zhou, unwilling to give up, scrolled through the recently deleted posts and muttered, "They deleted them very cleanly..."
Hu Tong nudged his arm: "Isn't there a three-second one? Click to listen."
"Um."
Cheng Zhou clicked on it and turned the volume up to the maximum, but all he heard was a muffled broadcast sound. He couldn't understand it no matter how many times he played it.
He tapped the date displayed on the screen and said regretfully, "I can't remember what Grandma said to me that day."
Cheng Zhou felt a frustrating sense of bewilderment; he didn't know, he didn't know, his life was full of unknowns.
He didn't realize that his time with his grandmother would be so short. He thought there would be plenty of time in the future and didn't cherish the moments they spent together. To this day, he hasn't even left behind a single recording.
Grandma didn't know how to use any social media apps, so Cheng Zhou's video calls were always hung up. He would only get through once out of three attempts. When he finally answered, Grandma would put her face against the phone and apologize to him, "I'm sorry, Xiao Zhou, I mixed up the hang-up and answer buttons again."
He got too close and could only see the wrinkles on his grandmother's forehead.
Ironically, he still has many old phone recordings from deliveries or takeout orders, which he kept in case of unexpected disputes. Now, these densely packed recordings, like IOUs, accusations, and manifestos, are bombarding him, causing him unbearable pain.
His heart felt as if it had been chopped into pieces and thrown into a brazier, where it crackled and popped, the rising smoke threatening to bury him alive.
"I know what she told you."
Hu Tong reached out, turned off the phone, grasped his shoulder, turned him to face her, and pulled him out of his painful thoughts. Her eyes were firm. "I know, Cheng Zhou."
Cheng Zhou stared blankly at her, his voice hoarse, "What?"
Their gazes met in the flickering light; Hu Tong's face was taut, but his eyes were tender and watery.
Cheng Zhou had a vague guess, but dared not think about it in detail, dared not have any expectations, for fear that in the end he would be met with another despairing, unclear, and unknown outcome.
She seemed to be crying; her eyes were like a pair of red-rimmed porcelain bowls, filled with liquid that was about to overflow, perhaps lemon-flavored soda, with thousands of bubbles rising from the bottom of the bowls, refracting countless tiny, leaping points of light.
It also seems like it's smiling.
Her facial muscles twitched weakly and frequently, pulling up the corners of her mouth.
“You know Cheng Zhou,” Hu Tong said softly.
She let go of him, and a tear landed precisely on her fingertip as she was about to withdraw.
With tears in their eyes, he found the answer in his heart.
Hu Tong has always been a person who has nothing to do with being reserved, but now, looking at him, he couldn't say what he originally wanted to say.
So, he moved aside the old clothes in front of him and used his finger to draw a heart on the rough, dusty cement floor.
A tiny heart, its shape only revealed by the water stains around its edges, a heart that could vanish at any moment.
Hu Tong kept his head down for a long time, looking at the heart he had drawn, his voice thick with a nasal tone.
"This is what Grandma Cheng says every time she calls you."
Snap.
A perfectly round tear fell from the tip of her nose, filling her parched heart.
"I love you."
Hu Tong looked up, and the few tears that fell were as sparkling as seashells on the beach.
She finally spoke up; being reserved was definitely not her style.
"Cheng Zhou."
“This is what Grandma Cheng wanted to say, and it’s what I wanted to say too.”
We all love you.
I will love you forever.
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