Chapter 6: “I want to go home and visit my dad.”

As they were preparing to leave the studio, the man who had guided Tong Xilin earlier reappeared.

Holding an iPad, he knocked on the door of the breakroom. Seeing that Kong Ji was already in his coat, holding his car keys, ready to head downstairs, he asked, “You’re leaving?” with some surprise.

Kong Ji lifted his arm behind him, using his thumb to gesture toward Tong Xilin, indicating he needed to take the kid home.

“My partner,” Kong Ji introduced Jiang Lin to Tong Xilin. “You can just call him Uncle Jiang.”

“Uncle Jiang,” he nodded to him, “Thank you for earlier.”

“Politer than your uncle,” Jiang Lin also gave him a thumbs up, and after doing so, muttered under his breath, “Damn, looks like I’m part of the uncle generation now, too.”

Seeing they probably had work matters to discuss, Tong Xilin politely excused himself outside, but didn’t go far. He leaned on the railing in the hallway, looking down, which happened to let him overhear their conversation as well.

“Anything else you need?” Kong Ji asked.

“That guy, Little Fan,” Jiang Lin lowered his voice slightly. “Came looking for me to ask about you. Wants to know what you’re playing at.”

“Was never anything to play at,” Kong Ji chuckled softly. “If you find him annoying, just block him.”

“You brute,” Jiang Lin laughed too, in a tone that made it clear they were genuinely close.

On the way back, Tong Xilin couldn’t help but probe: “Who’s that Little Fan?”

Driving one-handed, Kong Ji flicked a cigarette from the pack with his free hand and lit it, answering candidly and without any attempt to hide it. “The one who took your cake.”

“Oh,” he blinked, roughly piecing together the connection. “He likes you. You’re ignoring him.”

Kong Ji didn’t elaborate, just let out a very faint chuckle from his nose. “You didn’t like him, so I’m ignoring him.”

Tong Xilin dropped the subject immediately, turning his head to look at the scenery out the window, thinking of the painting he’d saved on his phone, a pleasant feeling settling in his chest.

After returning home and studying for a while, he couldn’t resist opening his photo album again, staring at it for a long time. Then he posted the painting on his WeChat Moments, with a two-word caption: A gift.

It was currently his one and only post.

He’d registered for WeChat a long time ago, but he didn’t enjoy posting things. In the past, if he ever posted anything occasionally, he’d delete it soon after.

For no particular reason, again the genetics: like his father, he lacked the desire to share, nor did he like outsiders knowing his private life.

But this painting, he had no intention of deleting.

He really did like it.

A few scattered likes from current and former semi-acquaintances refreshed on his feed. Zhou Qi was the first to comment, asking: Wouldn’t let me give you one, so you found someone to paint you instead?

He didn’t chat with him in the comments, clicked into his avatar to message him privately and asked: Doesn’t it look like me?

Zhou Qi had no interest in appreciating art. He’d just finished a round of his game, tearing his eyes away from the garish hero skins and combat effects, and replied casually: It’s alright, got something.

Zhou Qi: A bit too old, though.

Zhou Qi: Looks like someone in their twenties.

Such were three offhand comments, yet they made Tong Xilin stare blankly at the chat box for a long time.

People were funny that way; they only liked hearing the good things, their eyes only seeing what they wanted to see.

He opened the painting again, zooming in on sections and moving bit by bit. Standing before the mirror, he compared it with his own features, meticulously checking.

Eyes.

Nose bridge.

Mouth shape.

The initial delight felt upon first seeing the painting at the studio now slowly cooled, like once-boiling water gradually losing heat, finally ceasing to bubble entirely.

—Amid the overlay of the portrait and the mirror’s reflection, the image that gradually reconstructed itself was unmistakably the youthful ID photo on Tong Yuzhi’s tombstone.

Tong Xilin set down his phone. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, a long, lingering look, and slowly, very slowly, pressed his lips together.

The first snow had fallen intermittently all day long, maximizing its sound-absorbing effect. When Tong Xilin woke the next day, the whole world felt steeped in a dead stillness, yet the sky was jarringly clear and bright.

Slipping on his slippers, he shuffled out to wash up. Kong Ji was already awake, not gone out today, and was in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

He walked over and stood in the kitchen doorway, watching his back.

“Awake?” He turned at the sound, a cigarette between his lips. “Sandwiches for breakfast today.”

Tong Xilin didn’t answer. He opened his mouth and said, “My leg hurts.”

Kong Ji took the cigarette from his lips and stubbed it out in the ashtray on the windowsill. He turned back and half-crouched down in front of him. “Which leg?”

“The right one,” He tugged up his pajama pants slightly, exposing a length of his straight, bare shin.

His hand, still damp from handling water, was a bit cold when it closed around his ankle. He didn’t move, just felt that chill of being fully grasped, hanging his head to watch him.

“The one that was fractured,” He stroked upward along his shin bone. Rising, he gave his nape a gentle pat. “We’ll go to the hospital to check it out in a bit.”

“No need,” He was used to it by now. Besides, it didn’t hurt today. “It happens whenever the weather changes. It goes away on its own after that bout passes.”

Kong Ji ignored his protests and, after breakfast, pulled him straight to the hospital.

For this kind of lingering ache left by a fracture, the doctor had no real remedies—just vague advice about keeping it warm. Following Kong Ji back into the car, he stared blankly at the snowy landscape outside.

“Want some milk tea,” he asked, stopping the car as they passed the Shopping Mall.

He didn’t feel like something sweet this early, but meeting his eyes, he nodded anyway. “Okay.”

Around ten in the morning, the Shopping Mall plaza was nearly empty. Banks of fluffy snow piled up along the curbs. Through the car window, he watched his tall, lean figure walk away, then lifted his phone to look at his own face again.

Kong Ji returned carrying a warm cup of ginger milk and a pack of hand warmers.

“Pull your pant leg up.”

Instead of getting straight back into the car, he opened the passenger door and crouched down, gesturing for him to stretch out his leg.

Tong Xilin didn’t refuse. Holding the hot paper cup, he looked at him before him, thinking of that painting. His mood could not have been more different from the night before.

“Uncle,” he called out.

“Mm?” he responded, looking up as he smoothed his pant leg back down.

“After the monthly exams, it’s the New Year’s break,” he said. “I’m planning to go out and have fun with a friend.”

Kong Ji didn’t answer directly. He closed the car door and settled back into the driver’s seat before asking where he planned to go, with whom, and for how many days.

Tong Xilin himself didn’t know where. He just said it was with Zhou Qi, and that the exact destination hadn’t been decided yet.

Zhou Qi had zero objections to this proposal.

The way his family managed him was a bit strange too. They had zero tolerance for him breaking rules during school days, but as long as it was officially a public holiday, he could go wherever he wanted, and they’d fund him generously.

“Where do you want to go,” he discussed with him. “Skiing?”

“I want to go home and visit my dad,” Tong Xilin voiced the idea like it came from a dream. “It’s a small town, not much to see. Do you want to come?”

“Anywhere but school works for me,” Zhou Qi asked for the address and immediately started checking tickets on his phone.

A moment later, the realization that Tong Xilin’s dad was dead sank in, and he asked, slightly embarrassed, “Should I buy some joss paper or something?”

Tong Xilin actually cracked a laugh at that. “No need.”

From this city back to the small town he grew up in, flying was the fastest way. But the small town had no airport. They’d need to land in the neighboring city and then take a bus winding back.

The last subject of the monthly exams ended at 4:20 PM. Tong Xilin handed in his paper an hour early. Zhou Qi had long since scribbled all over his answer sheet and was already waiting outside the exam hall for him.

Only going back for a day, they didn’t bring any luggage beyond their ID cards. They went straight to the airport to catch the six o’clock flight.

The plane cut through the dark winter night sky for two hours. After landing, he reconnected his phone to the network. WeChat was empty.

He hadn’t told Kong Ji he was coming back. Kong Ji was probably still at the studio at this hour, wouldn’t know he wasn’t home.

The last bus heading to the small town just happened to be leaving. During the two-hour road trip, staring out the window at the increasingly familiar buildings and scenery, Tong Xilin suddenly felt a wave of bewilderment at the meaning of this whole thing.

“Anyone still at your place?” Zhou Qi pulled his power bank from his bag and plugged his phone in. Already exhausted by this forced-march pace, he asked between yawns.

“No,” he shook his head.

“So we’re staying at your house tonight?” Zhou Qi thought of a crucial issue. “After being empty that long, does it even still have water and electricity?”

A place to stay wasn’t a worry; there were hotels and inns everywhere.

He just wanted to go back and look for one thing.

The bus creaked and jolted to a stop at the small town station. He looked around the terminal.

He’d only been gone half a year, yet nothing had changed. By nine at night here, it was already looking bleak and deserted. In the summer nights, people might still be out for strolls, but in winter at this hour, aside from cars on the road, the streets were practically emptied of pedestrians.

He wasn’t in a hurry anymore now. They found a fast-food joint and ate first, then called a cab and gave the name of the address he’d lived at for eighteen years.

Usually loud and brash, Zhou Qi, mindful that his sudden return home must be out of longing for his deceased father, kept relatively quiet the whole way.

It wasn’t until the car pulled up in front of the old residential building that he let out a sigh. “You grew up here.”

“Mm,” Tong Xilin pointed vaguely in all directions. “My old high school is right over there.”

“Hurry it up,” Zhou Qi nudged him from behind. “It’s freezing.”

The motion-sensor light in the hallway had been broken for years. Tong Xilin used his phone’s flashlight to guide them up to the fifth floor. He pulled out his house key from his bag and, with two turns, opened the door.

In half a year, the town hadn’t changed, but the uninhabited home now carried a stale smell of dust.

“No electricity, really,” Zhou Qi groped along the wall for a switch. The pitch-black space was a bit eerie. “What did you come back for?”

“Wait a moment,” Holding his phone up for light, he walked toward the living room. He pulled open a drawer in the coffee table and took out a single envelope tucked inside.

He pulled the photo from the envelope, glanced at it once, pushed the drawer shut, and called to him: “Let’s go.”

They got a double room at a chain hotel in the town center. Zhou Qi took the bed by the window, immediately flopping onto it the moment they entered, stretching out with a groan and fiddling with his phone.

Tong Xilin stood by the desk and emptied the photo out. It was a double-row, two-inch photo sheet, eight headshots total. Three had been cut out for the funeral arrangements. The remaining ones were still intact, just a bit faded.

Not just faded in these past six months.

When he’d unearthed this envelope from the deepest part of his dad’s nightstand back then, the photos already carried the scent of years past.

“What exactly did you come back for?” Zhou Qi called from the bed, wanting to see too.

Tong Xilin thought for a moment, then handed him the photo.

“Is this your dad?” Zhou Qi took it and, with just one glance, couldn’t help looking up to compare the face with his right in front of him.

“It’s identical,” he said.

Tong Xilin curled his fingers. The half-day of travel hadn’t left him feeling tired, but right now, an overwhelming sense of listlessness seized his heart.

He wanted to open his WeChat Moments and let him see that painting again. Just as his phone unlocked, a message from Kong Ji came in: Where did you go.

He put the photo away and snapped a picture of their hotel room, sending it back.

He typed a reply: Already out having fun.

Two minutes after his message went through, his phone vibrated. Kong Ji was calling him on a video chat.