Chapter 50 50. It’s All the Moon’s Fault
Zhuang Yongyuan first thought of the early summer night when they rushed into the school in the heavy rain after their first commercial performance and sang in the radio room.
It turned out that on that sultry night, everyone had their own thoughts. At that time, most of his attention was on Xie Kang, and he did not notice the undercurrent between Li Xiuyu and Du Jiahao.
Du Jiahao kept saying, over and over again, "If I hadn't made that bet with him, he wouldn't have been sent to a martial arts school by his parents, and he wouldn't have been so depressed."
"He has already bought a ticket to Shanghai, and he wants me to go with him."
"If I weren't jealous, if I could afford to have fun, he would be fine now. We might not be in touch anymore, but he would be fine, fine..."
Du Jiahao was like a possessed person, haunted by these three words.
It was fine, not like now, where he didn't even know what Li Xiuyu looked like in his final moments. Even if he could touch his still-warm ashes, he didn't have the right to do so. They had done so many things together, intimate and crazy, but in the end, Du Jiahao couldn't even get a ticket to Li Xiuyu's funeral.
He had no right, no status to show or to speak of, to attend the funeral. The day before, they had reunited after a long separation, a summer night camping, and things were a little awkward between them. Du Jiahao wanted to know how Li Xiuyu had been doing during his year at the martial arts academy, whether he blamed him, and whether he was still willing to go to Shanghai with him.
He didn't find the chance to ask at that time, thinking that there was a long time to come, and the next time they met would be facing the black and white photo embedded in the tombstone.
The night before Li Xiuyu was sent to the martial arts school, they all gathered at the Echo Music Store. Xie Kang had written the first song for the Lily Heart Band, called "What Kind of Person". His piano skills were not good enough, so he asked Zhuang Yongyuan to play the accompaniment on the acoustic guitar, and he sang it to everyone.
Everyone was in high spirits. Xu Zhen and Li Xiuyu made many suggestions and even found songs of similar styles to compare with each other.
Du Jiahao had a hard time learning to play drums, and couldn't understand their more professional discussions. He kept going back and forth to get water and drink water, so bored that he stared at Li Xiuyu. For the first time, he noticed that Li Xiuyu had very little expression on his face, and looked aloof and difficult to approach. He also found that Li Xiuyu had swum with him for half of the summer vacation, and his arm muscles had bulged a lot.
When he spoke words he didn't understand, he sounded like a teacher. Du Jiahao admitted that he admired teachers and people with a lot of things in their heads.
Li Xiuyu suddenly turned his head, and Du Jiahao had no time to dodge and their eyes met.
Li Xiuyu smiled and said, "We are talking about how to arrange the drum set. You can listen too."
He held the drumsticks and pointed out each part of the drum set one by one, teaching Du Jiahao to remember their names and functions, the bass drum, the snare drum, the cymbals. When he was teaching people things, his voice was gentler than usual.
At around midnight, everyone dispersed and went home. Li Xiuyu rode his motorcycle to take Du Jiahao back to his home on the other side of the bridge, and made an appointment with him downstairs. He would pick him up at 3 pm tomorrow to go swimming together.
Du Jiahao said "hmm" indifferently and turned to go upstairs. Li Xiuyu called him again and took out two high-speed rail tickets from his pocket.
This was Du Jiahao's first time seeing high-speed rail tickets. Two tickets, from Pingnan to Shanghai. In recent years, there's been frequent news reports about high-speed rail speed increases. This trip only takes a little over three hours, much more convenient than flying.
Li Xiuyu stamped his feet a few times, and the sound-activated lights in the hallway slowly lit up. He looked at the tickets under the light. The hard cardboard, black text on a blue background, clearly printed with their names, raised the corners of his lips that usually glanced downward.
"You'd better leave it with me first. If you lose it, you can buy a ticket later. There may not be a ticket available."
They smoked another cigarette together, and Du Jiahao looked up at him. Li Xiuyu was leaning against a wall in the corridor covered with advertising stickers and graffiti. When she was alone with him, Li Xiuyu was no longer that arrogant and hateful look.
A thought flashed through Du Jiahao's mind: he didn't want to make those crazy bets with Li Xiuyu anymore. He had gritted his teeth and swallowed a lot of things, not to mention the humiliation and indifference Li Xiuyu had shown him in the past.
But he still felt uncomfortable when he thought about those things, even more uncomfortable than when he first started out and was pinned to the ground and had his face stepped on.
A couple was arguing in the building. Du Jiahao bit deep teeth marks on his cigarette holder and said to Li Xiuyu, "You guessed wrong when we first met."
"What did I guess wrong?"
"I'm not an orphan. My parents treat me very well. If they hadn't been hit by a car, maybe we could have met at school." He lowered his head and laughed. "Would you like me better if I wore a school uniform?"
Li Xiuyu was silent for a while, then touched Du Jiahao's face and said, "I like you. I like you so much, you know that, right?"
Without waiting for Du Jiahao to answer, he continued, "I've never liked anyone or anything for so long."
Du Jiahao said: "Then one day you will still dislike it."
Li Xiuyu hugged him again, as if he had made up his mind, and said, "Du Jiahao, let's make one last bet, okay?"
"Oh? Are you finally tired?"
"I want to be with you like everyone else, like... like in the movies, with a happy ending. When we get to Shanghai, we can live together, eat three meals a day together, and see each other every day."
"What's the bet?"
"You can bet on anything."
Du Jiahao pointed to the rooftop and said, "What if I ask you to jump off the building?"
Li Xiuyu raised his eyebrows, turned around and walked up the stairs without hesitation. Du Jiahao was choked by the smoke and followed him upstairs while coughing.
When he reached the eighth floor, the corridor leading to the rooftop was blocked by a locked iron door. Li Xiuyu picked up the iron lock, took a picture of it with his mobile phone, then squatted down and rummaged through the debris near the door. He actually found a piece of wire.
Li Xiuyu straightened one end of the wire and thrust it into the keyhole. Du Jiahao stood aside, his hands folded, watching him unlock the door. The corridor was dark and both of them were sweating profusely.
With a "bang", the rusty iron lock fell heavily to the ground, and the iron door popped out. The hot wind from the rooftop passed through them, and Du Jiahao felt dizzy with heat.
When Li Xiuyu stepped onto the last step, Du Jiahao reached out and grabbed him. Li Xiuyu looked back at him but didn't say anything.
Du Jiahao was about to say, "Forget it. This isn't a TV show, it's not a life-or-death situation." But then he looked up through the half-open door and saw the bright yellow full moon, bulging in the crimson sky. It brought out his resentment, his jealousy, and the hatred he thought he'd forgotten.
He was stingy, vindictive, and petty. He said to Li Xiuyu, "Let's change the subject of our bet."
Li Xiuyu leaned against the wall and said, "What's the matter?"
"Go tell your parents you're gay and that you've been having an affair with a scoundrel like me who didn't even finish junior high." He blinked. "You've been doing it for three years."
"This is the last bet." Du Jiahao added.
Li Xiuyu's eyes flashed with hesitation for a moment, and then he smiled easily: "Okay."
They separated at the door of Du Jiahao's house. Du Jiahao went to take a shower. The weather was very hot and he wanted to stay cool, so he took a long shower with cold water. When he came out, his cell phone vibrated. Li Xiuyu sent him three words: I won.
He stared at the three words on his flip phone for a while, thinking about calling to ask, but then he felt strangely sleepy. Anyway, they were going to meet at the swimming pool entrance at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon, so it wouldn't be too late to ask then.
Du Jiahao waited for a moment, but the imagined judgment didn't arrive. Xu Zhen lowered his head to play on his phone, while Zhuang Yongyuan and Xie Kang whispered to each other. No one pointed at him and said, "It's all your fault for being selfish. You killed Li Xiuyu, don't you know that?"
How can you have the nerve to go on living? You killed someone. Do you think you don't have to atone for your sins?
Xie Kang first looked up and said to himself, "Did Li Xiuyu give you anything?"
"He left me a USB drive with some arrangement files on it, but nothing else. Didn't he leave anything for you?"
Zhuang Yongyuan added, "He left Xu Zhen some money and bought a lot of equipment from a music store, telling him to keep it for the band."
"No, nothing at all." Du Jiahao shrugged, his free hands beginning to tidy up the mess on the table. He gathered the empty bottles into a pile and dumped the leftovers together, his fingers getting dirty, sticky and greasy, and feeling very uncomfortable.
He wiped his hands with paper and said, "If it were you, would you leave something for the person who killed you?"
Without waiting for anyone to answer, Du Jiahao laughed self-deprecatingly: "Unless you leave a message saying that I won't let you go even if I become a ghost."
They drank too much. Kinmen Kaoliang has a strong aftertaste, and it is even worse when mixed with beer. This scene is Zhuang Yongyuan's last impression of last night.
I forgot who fell asleep first, but the first person to wake up was Du Jiahao. He looked up from the table, and the refreshing morning sunlight shone directly into the box.
He looked at the time. It was just past ten in the morning. The dreaming time might have only been a few dozen minutes, but it felt like many years had passed in the dream. When he opened his eyes again, he felt so dazed that he seemed to be in another world.
Xu Zhen was sleeping on the ground in a slumped position, Zhuang Yongyuan was lying on a put-together chair, and Xie Kang was kneeling on the ground, lying next to Zhuang Yongyuan's face. The two were very close, and Zhuang Yongyuan's hair hung on his face.
Du Jiahao slammed the table, but no one responded. He pushed harder, but it still didn't work. He had no choice but to walk over to each person and wake them up one by one. When everyone was half asleep, rubbing their eyes and slowly standing up, he asked loudly, "Who of you can still drive?"
Xie Kang rubbed his temples, propped himself up on the table, and staggered to his feet, saying hoarsely, "What car are you driving?"
Du Jiahao stepped forward, excitedly tugging at Xie Kang's disheveled shirt collar, and shouted, "Drive, drive me to the old paper mill! I dreamed about it, I dreamed about it."
Zhuang Yongyuan was unsteady on his feet, half leaning on Xie Kang, and asked in confusion, "What did you dream about?"
"I dreamed of Li Xiuyu. I dreamed he was carving words in the corridor of the building where I used to live."
"What are the words engraved?" Zhuang Yongyuan asked.
Du Jiahao glared at him: "If I knew, would I need to go and see it now?"
He impatiently pulled up Xu Zhen, who was still rubbing his eyes, and said to Xie Kang, "You drive. I see you always drive when you come here with Zhuang Yongyuan. Stop dragging your feet and let's go."
Because the car was driving too slowly and the car behind honked at him, Xie Kang finally came to his senses. He wondered which was more dangerous, his driving or Zhuang Yongyuan's driving without a license.
He looked at Xu Zhen and Du Jiahao in the back row through the rearview mirror, and remembered the horror movies that Zhuang Yongyuan liked to watch, which often had scenes where people saw ghosts through mirrors.
Xie Kang blinked hard, and what he saw clearly in the rearview mirror was only two people.
"Turn left, turn left, do you know the way?" Du Jiahao looked out the window and shouted impatiently.
Xie Kang complained quietly, "I can get there by driving this way. I just take the main road."
Du Jiahao ignored his complaints, stood up from his chair several times, half of his body leaned out of the window, and was pushed down by Xu Zhen again. He excitedly gave Xie Kang directions, going around in circles many times. When they came to the same intersection for the third time, Xie Kang realized that Du Jiahao actually didn't remember the way at all. He ignored his anxious shouting and drove based on his own memory.
When the destination appeared in front of him, Xie Kang understood why Du Jiahao was in such a hurry to come and was unwilling to wait even for a minute.
The old residential buildings were surrounded by cordons and iron barriers. The concrete buildings with doors and windows removed looked riddled with holes, and the black holes looked like a bunch of eyes and mouths.
The new urban area is being expanded and developed, and the old industrial area in the south of the city has always been a core area. Xie Kang saw the news a while ago that this piece of land was being auctioned. Several nationally renowned real estate companies also came in to bid for the land. There was a fierce competition for the land, but in the end it was acquired by the local Xinding Real Estate for development.
The barrier was printed with the logo of Xinding Real Estate, which tightly surrounded the old building, leaving only one door for workers to enter and exit. But now the door was locked. Faced with the barrier that was as high as a person, Xie Kang didn't know how to get in.
He looked at Xu Zhen expectantly, thinking that she might be able to contact the person in charge of some construction site to open the door.
Xu Zhen rolled up his sleeves and looked at Xie Kang in confusion: "Why are you looking at me? Get to work."
"What kind of work?" Xie Kang was stunned.
Xu Zhen rolled his eyes at him and began to carry stones and bricks over from the side, placing them under the barrier. He nimbly stepped on the stepping stones, climbed over the barrier, and knocked on it from the inside. He asked them impatiently, "It's okay that you didn't help just now, but what are you waiting for now?"
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