Chapter 62 62. Half Dirty
The three of them separated downstairs. Shen Xifu planned to go to the cafeteria to buy something to fill her stomach and then go back to the classroom. Xie Kang and Zhuang Yongyuan went out to eat.
When going downstairs, Xie Kang asked Shen Xifu if she wanted to have dinner with him. Shen Xifu waved her hands and refused repeatedly, with a cunning look on her face, as if she knew something but kept it secret. Xie Kang regretted that he should not have confessed his relationship with Zhuang Yongyuan to her on impulse.
At this point, half of the evening self-study class has already been over. The teaching building is brightly lit, but there are few people on the campus. It is empty and quiet. The street lights are hidden in the old banyan tree, and the sparse shadows of leaves on the ground sway in the night breeze.
When they were almost at the school gate, Xie Kang suddenly called out to Zhuang Yongyuan, "Don't go out yet."
"Did you forget to bring something?"
Xie Kang shook his head: "Let's go for a walk over to the former residence."
Xie Kang was talking about an old house with a red brick and tile roof on the school campus. A scientist had lived there decades ago. It was located in a corner of the campus and not many people came and went.
This place means a lot to them. Ever since they accidentally hid there and kissed one time, it became their secret base in high school. They often went there during breaks or physical education classes. Sometimes they shared each other's hormones, kissed and hugged each other, and did things that were inconvenient to do in public at school. More often, they would just stay in a room that was four or five times their age, each with a pair of headphones, listening to songs downloaded into their iPod or movies on their phones, and chatting casually.
Zhuang Yongyuan didn't know why Xie Kang suddenly suggested going there. He felt a little resistant, but there was no need to refuse, so he followed Xie Kang's suggestion and walked towards the former residence.
Pushing open the half-open heavy wooden door, the inside was still the same as before. There were many pots of carefully tended plants on the stone benches in the patio, and a plaque with the words "The House of the World's Advocate" was hung at the main entrance.
As soon as he walked in, Zhuang Yongyuan felt nervous, his stomach curling up. Every brick, every blade of grass, every tree here was too familiar, and too directly pointed to specific memories from the past.
He took a few deep breaths and asked Xie Kang, "If the old campus is to be demolished, will the former residence be demolished as well?"
Xie Kang: "We can't demolish it. We need to protect the building. Let's move to the new campus together."
"Can the house be moved?" Zhuang Yongyuan asked in surprise.
"Don't you know? The former residence was originally moved from somewhere else. It used to be near Wuhe Road."
Zhuang Yongyuan looked around as he walked and said, "Do you remember, we wanted to perform here before, but the teacher scolded us and we were sent back?"
Xie Kang smiled and said, "I remember. Li Xiuyu suggested it, but he didn't go himself. He asked me to go talk to the teacher in the Moral Education Department. Not only did I fail, but the teacher also caught me there and scolded me for a long time."
"He was counting on you to stay at the top of the city and then the province, but you ended up playing in a band so much that you couldn't even study. Of course he'd be angry." Zhuang Yongyuan sniffed the air inside the old house. "If you met a student like that now, you'd be pissed off too, right, Teacher Xie?"
"It has nothing to do with me anymore."
"How can it not matter? You teachers have to evaluate your professional titles, participate in competitions, and move up the career ladder. How can it not matter?"
Xie Kang rarely showed impatience towards Zhuang Yongyuan and snapped, "Stop talking!"
Zhuang Yongyuan was a bit stunned and kept quiet. He noticed that Xie Kang was also very nervous. This place was like a mysterious place in a horror movie that could pollute the mind. As soon as they walked in, it was obvious that something was wrong between them.
They walked to the room where they had hidden their kiss and stopped at the same time.
The window that had saved them hadn't been repaired yet; it didn't close properly, leaving a gap that let the cold wind pour in. The wardrobe they had once used to hide from the janitor was too cramped for their long arms and legs, and it couldn't accommodate them even more now.
Zhuang Yongyuan walked over and knocked on the wardrobe door, producing a dull thud. The wardrobes in the former residences of famous people were made of high-quality, sturdy wood, but the wardrobe in his own home had an unreliable humming sound when knocked on.
Returning to the place where their memories were so vivid, Zhuang Yongyuan expected Xie Kang to kiss her, but nothing happened. They walked around the room without saying a word.
When he reached the door, Zhuang Yongyuan cleared his throat and said, "I thought you came with me to do something."
Xie Kang said teasingly, "Are you hungry?"
Zhuang Yongyuan became irritated and said, "I'm advising you to cherish your time. We don't have many days left."
“Do I have to do something to cherish my time?”
"What else? Is there anything else we can do together?"
Xie Kang frowned, and the look in his eyes made Zhuang Yongyuan feel uncomfortable. "You weren't like this before. Who made you become like this?"
"What do you mean?"
"Let me ask you, who made you become like this, treating everyone like a sex buddy?"
Zhuang Yongyuan couldn't help but think of how different they were back then, when they often stayed here. He asked, "What else do you want?"
"I don't want anything, I just think you've changed too much."
Zhuang Yongyuan sneered: "Am I the only one who has changed?"
Xie Kang glared at Zhuang Yongyuan. He was inexplicably furious, but he was also secretly expecting something. He himself didn't know what he was expecting.
"Anyway, it's not like it is now," said Xie Kang.
"Oh, do you want to hear me cry and talk about how painful it is to not be able to perform and make an album as soon as I see you, or do you want to hear how I managed to get through this?"
"Xie Kang, admit it, you just want to play with me."
Zhuang Yongyuan gritted his teeth, trying to sound nonchalant. He stood there and spoke these words with malice, deliberately insulting those who had passed their adolescence.
He envied the two of them in the past, when neither of their hearts had been roughly worn down and covered with scars and nodules, but was just beating softly and quickly in the chest.
The words "play for fun" completely infuriated Xie Kang. He suddenly reached out and tried to grab Zhuang Yongyuan's collar. In an attempt to avoid his hand, Zhuang Yongyuan stumbled and fell backwards. Halfway through the fall, Xie Kang reached out to pull him back, holding Zhuang Yongyuan in his arms and angrily said, "Play for fun? Say that again?"
Zhuang Yongyuan didn't thank him, nor did he cooperate with him. He said calmly, "You can lie to yourself, but isn't it enough that I've been acting with you for so long?"
"What do you mean by acting?"
"You're playing a high school student in a premature love relationship. Do you think I'll be grateful just because you clean up the house and cook a few meals for me?"
"You're bothering me so much, why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"I'm not annoying you. Why should I? I should also thank you. If it weren't for you, I don't know how boring I would have been in the past six months."
Zhuang Yongyuan tilted his head and looked at Xie Kang: "I don't understand why you are angry? If you loved me as much as you think you did, why did you leave then?"
He coughed a few times and continued, "You just left without saying a word. How long had you been upset with me in your heart, and you didn't dare to say it out loud?"
He pointed at his body and said, "But no one hates having sex. Even if you hate me, you can't hate having sex with me, right?"
It wasn't Xiao Miao anymore. Zhuang Yongyuan's words crushed Xie Kang's body. Xie Kang felt like fire was gushing out from his heart, gushing out and burning him from the inside out. He trembled with the burning pain.
He stared at Zhuang Yongyuan intently, trying to detect the slightest flaw, the slightest hint of anger in his otherwise calm face. But there was nothing. Zhuang Yongyuan simply spoke these words calmly, and the feelings Xie Kang had assumed to be genuine over the past few months began to fade away. Zhuang Yongyuan was as unpredictable as he had been when he first returned to Pingnan, looking down at him from the stage with a condescending air.
But Xie Kang no longer had time to verify it.
He saw the dead: Li Xiuyu, who had committed suicide by jumping from a building, Zhuang Fu, who had died of illness, and his grandfather, who had taken his own life by swallowing pills. Death surrounded him, and surrounded him and Zhuang Yongyuan. He couldn't figure out the specific relationship between these dead people and himself, but he could see the subtle connection.
He followed the thread and saw the rented apartment he and Zhuang Yongyuan had shared during college. It was an old family housing complex in the university town. They slept in the bedroom and wrote songs and practiced in the living room. Xie Kang was the one writing the songs, while Zhuang Yongyuan was still waiting, always feeling that time was long, taking his time, waiting to write his first song.
Friends he knew from playing in bands would often come over to hang out, and everyone would get drunk and sprawled out on the floor. It was a mess, and every day felt like a dream, the complete opposite of his current life.
Xie Kang was about to find out, he was about to figure himself out, why he wanted to leave, why he wanted to escape from Shanghai back to Pingnan, the place they hated the most?
"Thank you, thank you!"
Some noisy sounds disturbed him, forcing Xie Kang to leave the rental house and open his eyes to face the real world.
In addition to Zhuang Yongyuan, there were a few more people in front of him. Xie Kang blinked and focused his eyes. He vaguely recognized that the people in front of him included school leaders. They looked at him with increasingly puzzled eyes.
He forced a respectable smile and said, "Hello, Principal, hello, Director."
The principal then smiled relaxedly and said, "Thank you, Teacher. What a coincidence."
He pointed to two middle-aged people beside him, a man and a woman, and introduced them: "These are teachers from Peking University, who are here to visit our school."
Xie Kang shook hands with two Peking University teachers. Looking up, he felt they looked very familiar. He was just trying to figure out when he had seen them before when the female teacher spoke first: "Teacher Xie was a student here before, wasn't he? We had a competition there back then. I remember you."
Xie Kang's mind buzzed with excitement, and he remembered that he had indeed met these two people at a dinner party before his college entrance examination.
He nodded stiffly: "Yes, I have participated in competitions."
The male and female teachers exchanged glances but said nothing.
The principal smiled and said to Xie Kang, "Since we all know each other, let's go eat together later."
He didn't give Xie Kang any room to refuse, and turned to look at Zhuang Yongyuan: "You..."
Zhuang Yongyuan said, "I'm a substitute music teacher this semester. The principal can just call me Xiaozhuang."
The principal thought for a moment and suddenly became enthusiastic: "Yes, yes, Xiaozhuang, Zhuang Yongyuan, a great singer, is also a talent from our No. 1 Middle School! Let's go eat together."
The male teacher asked curiously, "Is Teacher Zhuang a singer?"
Zhuang Yongyuan explained: "I just play in the band for fun."
The female teacher interrupted, "Oh, rock music. My daughter likes it too. It's nice to have some fun as a hobby."
Zhuang Yongyuan smiled and said nothing more. He couldn't continue his argument with Xie Kang, so he followed him into the principal's car and into the private room on the third floor of the Haiyuan Hotel. He sat next to Xie Kang, inexplicably accompanying him at this dinner.
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