Chapter 21
At two in the morning, the faint blue glow of neon lights leaked through the gaps in the hotel curtains. Li Ruiyuan was awakened by a slight stomachache and found Wu Ye looking at him with his eyes open, his pupils shining in the dark like a hunting animal.
Li Ruiyuan woke up because of hunger.
He didn't eat anything in the evening and only ate half a loaf of bread after returning from the Forbidden City.
"Hungry..." He shrank into the quilt, his voice sticky with sleep.
Wu Ye ran his fingertips across his back: "Soy milk?"
"...roll."
Finally, he was dragged into the elevator. Wrapped in Wu Ye's down jacket and barefoot in hotel slippers, Li Ruiyuan staggered from side to side in sleepiness.
In Nanluoguxiang late at night, only the 24-hour convenience store was still lit. Amid the humming of the freezer, Wu Ye tossed instant noodles, rice balls, and a crispy sausage into his basket.
"I want oden..." Li Ruiyuan yawned while leaning on the hot food cabinet, his eyelashes stained with sleepy tears.
The young man scooped a full cup, and the radish was soaked in the soup, and the misty white steam blurred his profile.
On the way back, Li Ruiyuan squatted by the roadside and refused to move. Snow flakes like willow catkins fell on his hair, like a layer of icing sugar.
"Boyfriend... carry me on your back." He raised his head and mumbled in Cantonese, "My feet hurt a little..."
As Wu Ye squatted down, he heard a triumphant chuckle from behind him. His down jacket rustled against his neck, and warm breath puffed on the back of his neck.
The carpet in the hotel corridor swallowed up the sound of footsteps. Li Ruiyuan fell asleep on his shoulder, and his lips unconsciously brushed against the boy's ear.
"Wake up." Wu Ye tightened his grip on his knees, "Eat before you go back to sleep."
When he was put on the sofa, Li Ruiyuan curled up into a ball and acted like a spoiled child. The aroma of instant noodles filled the air, and Wu Ye suddenly took a mouthful of soup and leaned over to kiss his half-open lips.
A salty, fresh warmth slid down his throat, and Li Ruiyuan woke up with his eyes wide open. The boy took the opportunity to feed him another piece of radish soaked in broth, and his fingertips brushed the corner of his lips:
"Still sleepy?"
The answer he got was a kicked pillow.
Finally, the two of them sat cross-legged on the carpet, sharing their instant noodles. The blue light from the monitor shone on their crossed knees. Li Ruiyuan stole the last piece of fish cake, but Wu Ye snatched back half of it by biting the tip of his chopsticks.
"Childish." Li Ruiyuan sneered, but broke the crispy sausage into two pieces.
A fine snowflake drifted outside the window, and plastic bags from the convenience store swirled in the wind. Wu Ye suddenly said, "It's more beautiful than the snow at the Forbidden City."
"What?"
"The way you stole the fish cake."
Li Ruiyuan pressed the iced cola against his face, watching the boy squint his eyes in excitement. Drops of water slid down his jawline, like some kind of tacit understanding.
They fell into a deep sleep at 4 a.m. after brushing their teeth.
The sun shone brightly at noon, and the patch of light filtering through the gaps in the hotel curtains moved to the foot of the bed. Li Ruiyuan was awakened by the vibration of his phone. Squinting, he saw on the screen the floor plan of the store that Lin Lixin had sent him.
"Hmm..." He turned over and tried to touch his glasses, but bumped into a warm chest.
Wu Ye had woken up early and was playing with his curled hair with his fingertips: "The deposit for the shop next to the Lama Temple has been paid."
"...How much?" Li Ruiyuan suddenly woke up.
The boy reported a number and turned off the phone screen: "Watch for another five minutes."
Five minutes turned into half an hour. Li Ruiyuan lay down to study the plot map. Wu Ye hugged his waist from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder and pointing:
"There's a freezer here... There's a rocking car at the door..."
"Shake you!" Li Ruiyuan elbowed him. "Do you think this is kindergarten?"
During the argument, two buttons on his pajamas popped. Wu Ye suddenly fell silent, his breath brushing against his exposed shoulder blades.
"...What?" Li Ruiyuan was alert and wanted to escape, but was grabbed by the waist and dragged back to the mattress.
The boy buried his head in the crook of his neck and took a deep breath, like a drug addict smelling drugs:
"Baby, you smell so good..."
"...Are you a pervert?"
I didn't go out to look at shops until 2pm. The agent, holding the key, kept talking: "There are many students in this area, so opening a small shop will definitely make money!"
Li Ruiyuan was squatting at the door studying the flow of people when he was suddenly pulled up by Wu Ye.
"What again?"
The boy pulled him into the depths of the empty shop, where the shadows of the shelves cast on the concrete floor looked like a cage.
"Is it better than last time?" Wu Ye pressed his forehead against his. "See if you still feel any pain..."
Dust danced in the beam of light. Li Ruiyuan knelt and pushed him: "... Will you die if you don't get horny for a day?"
The threat was weak, and instead felt like flirting. Wu Ye chuckled and kissed his earlobe: "The landlord said the attic can be used as a bedroom..."
The distant chime of the Yonghe Palace bell startled the sparrows under the eaves. When the intermediary poked his head in and called out "Mr. Li," they were pretending to discuss the wiring—if one ignored Li Ruiyuan's red ears and Wu Ye's fingerprints on his lower back.
Walking through Guozijian Street in the twilight, the branches of an ancient locust tree fragmented the setting sun. Wu Ye suddenly said, "It's better than the supermarkets in Guangzhou."
"What's good?"
"It can lock the door." The boy shook the key, "This way..."
He suddenly pulled Li Ruiyuan into the shadow of the locust tree, kissed her on the lips and said vaguely:
"No one will bother you."
"Why the hell do you think about all this?" Li Ruiyuan was confused.
…………
The vacation was over and Li Ruiyuan returned to Guangzhou.
As Guangzhou's humid, hot steam blew against him, Li Ruiyuan fumbled with his Beijing keys in his pocket. A taxi stopped at the alley entrance, and he dragged his suitcase through the puddles, noting that his windows were unusually dark.
"Mom? Xuanxuan?" The key turned twice before unlocking the door.
The lights were off in the living room, and his mother sat on a wicker chair with her back to him. The TV flashed with snowflakes, reflecting her stiff back.
"You're back." The voice sounded like cold tea that had been steeped for three days.
Li Ruiyuan kicked the backpack to the ground—Li Xuan's pink backpack, the zipper open, revealing a torn math test paper. He bent down to pick it up and heard his mother say, "Don't move."
A faint sob echoed from the darkness. Only then did he see a figure huddled in the corner of the sofa. Li Xuan had buried her face in her knees, and a small spot on the shoulder of her school uniform was wet.
"What's going on?" Li Ruiyuan turned on the chandelier.
At the moment when the light was dazzling, the mother suddenly stood up and snatched the schoolbag: "Ask her yourself what good things she did at school!" A pink envelope fell from the interlayer of the schoolbag, with a heart-shaped sticker that said "To my dear Li Xuan" on it.
Li Xuan burst into tears. Her mother crumpled the envelope and threw it at her: "The homeroom teacher came to me today! He said that she and that little hooligans from the third grade were walking around the playground hand in hand every day!"
The air was like solidified syrup. Li Ruiyuan stared at the piece of paper on the ground, thinking of the mark on his collarbone in the Beijing hotel. He cleared his throat: "Let's eat first..."
"Eat, eat, eat! All you know is eating!" The mother suddenly threw a stack of photos on the table - young boys and girls taken from a candid angle, the boy had dyed yellow hair, his fingers hooked on Li Xuan's school uniform belt.
The most eye-catching one is the last one: the boy pushes Li Xuan against the basketball hoop and kisses her, and the nearby teaching building can be seen in the background.
"Your sister is only fourteen!" the mother said in a split voice. "That kid has been expelled! He smokes, fights, and does everything!"
Li Xuan suddenly looked up and screamed: "Liu Xu is not a gangster!"
"Shut up!" Mother raised her hand.
Li Ruiyuan subconsciously stood in the middle. A slap landed on his arm, making a crisp sound. The three of them were stunned.
"...Mom." He rubbed his arm. "Talk nicely."
"What do you mean? Huh?" Mother slumped back into the rattan chair. "Your father was like this... like this..."
The end of the words disappeared in the sobs. Li Ruiyuan saw the new white hair on his mother's temples, like snow falling in Guangzhou's eternal summer.
The old building's soundproofing was poor late at night. Li Xuan's suppressed sobs echoed from her room, while the sounds of chopping meat in her mother's kitchen resembled the sound of dismemberment. Li Ruiyuan squatted on the balcony, smoking, his phone screen lit up with a message from Wu Ye:
"Have you arrived yet?"
He typed and deleted it, but didn't reply. Then the other party continued, "I want a big loft bed."
When the cigarette ash burned a hole in her pajamas, Li Xuan quietly slipped to the balcony. The little girl's eyes were swollen like walnuts, and she clutched the crumpled love letter in her hand.
"Brother..." She sniffed, "I'm just curious..."
Li Ruiyuan put out his cigarette: "And then they kissed?"
Li Xuan's tears welled up again: "You are all the same... Mom called me shameless... said I didn't love myself... But I just fell in love with someone, what's wrong with that?!" She almost yelled, crying heart-wrenchingly.
The word cut through the night like a blade. Li Ruiyuan paused. "Did she really say that?"
"She said... that girls who let people kiss them easily are..."
The following words were cut off by a hug. Li Ruiyuan stroked his sister's hair, remembering the warmth of Wu Ye holding his face in the snow in Beijing. He suddenly asked, "What do you like about him?"
"He..." Li Xuan choked up, "I fell while running the 800-meter race, and he carried me to the infirmary... None of you came. And he really cares about my feelings, always asking for my opinion first..."
Memories of missing the parent-teacher conference came flooding back. That day, he was arguing with someone over Wu Ye's math Olympiad tuition, while his mother was working all night taking inventory at the supermarket.
At dawn, my mother appeared at the balcony door. She held two bowls of sugar water, and her eyes were dark blue. "Ah Xuan, go wash your face."
The two sisters drank the sugar water in silence. Suddenly, their mother said, "I was sixteen when I started dating your father."
The spoon made a crisp sound when it hit the edge of the bowl.
"He rode his bicycle to take me to eat wonton noodles." The mother looked at the sky outside the security fence. "Your grandmother hit him with a broom, and he said, 'Auntie, I will drive a car to take Aying.'"
Li Xuan muttered softly: "Later, I lost all my money in gambling..."
"Yes." Mother smiled bitterly, "That's why I'm afraid you'll go the wrong way."
At seven o'clock sharp, the school alarm bell broke the silence. As Li Xuan was dawdling to pack her schoolbag, her mother suddenly stuffed a carton of milk into her bag:
"That Liu... ask him to come home for dinner after school."
The little girl was stunned, and the milk carton made a crackling sound when she squeezed it. Li Ruiyuan raised an eyebrow: "Mom?"
"It's better than hiding in the playground." The mother turned back to the stove and started frying eggs. "Let your sister have some dignity."
As eggs sizzled in the frying pan, Li Ruiyuan received a new message. Wu Ye had sent a photo of him jogging in Tsinghua University's morning campus, with a candid shot of his profile glimpsed in the corner of the camera.
"Miss you" the postscript reads.
He lowered his head and smiled, earning a glare from his mother: "What are you laughing at! Go pick up your sister from school this afternoon! Keep an eye on that boy and don't touch him!"
Sunlight finally squeezed into the narrow balcony. Li Xuan nibbled on a fried egg and asked quietly, "Brother, is Beijing fun?"
Li Ruiyuan showed her the screensaver of his mobile phone - in front of the red wall of the Forbidden City, the shadows of two overlapping hands fell on the sundial.
"Not bad." He ruffled his sister's hair. "When you get into high school, I'll take you to eat douzhi."
"Hey! I heard it sounds like swill!"
"Hmm..." He looked up at the gray sky of Guangzhou, "but some people just love to drink."
My mother hummed a Cantonese opera tune in the kitchen. Life seemed to be returning to normal, but some cracks would take time to heal.
Meanwhile, in Beijing, Wu Ye was frowning at his phone. In the chat box, Li Ruiyuan's new message carried the steam of Cantonese-style morning tea:
"Help me look at something"
In the attached picture, Li Xuan's wrinkled love letter was smoothed out and placed on the design drawing of September Supermarket.
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