Chapter 48: –Looking-for-My-Son-Tong-Xilin

Tong Xilin saved this photo.

For days afterward, whenever he had a moment, he wanted to pull it up and look at it. What exactly he was looking at, he couldn’t quite say. He just always wanted to look.

Days passed one by one. Studying, part-time jobs, occasionally receiving messages or calls from Kong Ji, and of course, the inevitable hand warmers whenever the weather changed.

He and Qin Ji still went to class at the tutoring center together. By tacit agreement, they didn’t engage in unnecessary communication. At school, Tong Xilin spent more time with Qi Yuan and Pang Xiaoda, and also grew closer to more classmates in his department. Listening to their noisy banter when going to the cafeteria together gave him a busy but fulfilling feeling.

It seemed like only now, at twenty years old, entering his second year, had his life truly and slowly stabilized, finding its own rhythm.

In his first year, Tong Xilin had only taken the CET-4 exam. In December of this year, after finishing the CET-6, using the break during the New Year holiday, he and Pang Xiaoda accompanied Qi Yuan to finally visit the ski resort Qi Yuan had been mentioning for so long.

Zhou Qi did come this time. He didn’t detour to Nankai. The two groups set off from their respective schools and met up at the ski resort.

Qin Ji still didn’t participate.

The ski resort was located a bit far from Nankai. The three of them hired a car and set off early in the morning. The trip there alone took two hours.

Pang Xiaoda brought a bag of snacks. Tong Xilin bought breakfast. They shared it in the car, not forgetting to offer some to the driver.

“The whole car smells like steamed buns,” the driver cracked the window slightly to ventilate but spoke with a smiling tone, sharing the buns with them.

“Just don’t spill anything and make a mess for you,” Qi Yuan, sitting in the passenger seat holding a bunch of food, turned back to remind Pang Xiaoda about the porridge in his hands.

“I won’t spill,” Pang Xiaoda showed him the porridge bowl. “Stop talking in that accent.”

Seeing Tong Xilin holding a cup of soy milk and drinking it absentmindedly, Pang Xiaoda nudged him with his arm, urging, “Eat a bun.”

“I’m eating,” Tong Xilin smiled.

“Did you and Qin Ji have a falling out?” Pang Xiaoda suddenly asked.

Pang Xiaoda usually spoke and acted slowly and methodically. He seemed quiet and unassuming, but his mind was actually sharper than Qi Yuan’s. Now that Qin Ji wasn’t there, without any lead-in, he just dropped this question.

Tong Xilin was stunned by his question.

Qi Yuan, as expected, hadn’t noticed a single thing. He also froze, immediately twisting his body around to ask, “What? What?”

“Why do you say that?” Tong Xilin observed his expression.

“Just asking,” Pang Xiaoda slurped his porridge. “I felt like you two haven’t really talked this whole semester.”

“Hey, now that you mention it,” Qi Yuan’s nerves were as thick as a vat. Hearing Pang Xiaoda say this, he began recalling, “Before, you two always did everything together. Now you don’t seem to hang out anymore?”

“Right?!” Pang Xiaoda waggled his eyebrows at Qi Yuan.

“You guys are having issues?” Qi Yuan looked at Tong Xilin.

There were only four people in their dorm. Now that the other two had caught on, if Tong Xilin said nothing was wrong, no one would believe it.

But how could he explain it?

“It’s not exactly a conflict,” he pondered over and over, eventually choosing a tactful phrasing. “Actually, it’s just that we’re doing fewer part-time jobs together. Maybe we just have fewer common topics now.”

Qi Yuan took a bite of his bun and blinked at him.

“Makes sense,” Pang Xiaoda nodded. “He’s a bit of a downer, always busy with his own stuff.”

“Doesn’t quite fit in,” Qi Yuan chimed in. “But he’s an okay guy.”

When guys gossip, they really don’t hold back. And this kind of topic just needed someone to start it.

Once the chatterbox was opened, Qi Yuan and Pang Xiaoda went back and forth, starting from how Qin Ji wanted to split the cost of a broom when they first moved in, pulling out all sorts of impressions they had of Qin Ji from their memories and reviewing them all.

The driver, with nothing better to do while driving, listened to them gossip for ages and eventually “Hah”ed, speaking with the tone of someone who’d been around: “Bottom line is, his financial situation isn’t great. If you’ve got money, who wouldn’t want to go out, eat and have fun? You guys, with plenty of allowance, can hire a car to go skiing. Someone in a tougher spot, working part-time every day, how could they bear to spend money on this?”

“It’s not like our meals are abalone and sea cucumber either,” Qi Yuan refused to accept this, arguing with him. “And it’s not like we’re out having fun every day. Just the occasional time or two, and we split costs evenly… I just think it’s not worth making such a big deal of it.”

“That’s true too,” the driver nodded. “If he never goes, you definitely won’t end up hanging out together. Being a student is the best time. Wait until you’re out in society; you’ll know that meeting a true friend isn’t easy.”

Tong Xilin listened to them talk but stayed out of it the whole time.

Although he and Qin Ji could no longer be friends, in his heart, aside from Qin Ji being overly self-conscious during that confession thing, leading to a bit of a fixation, he had always treated Tong Xilin quite well in other respects. This kind of conversation, practically ripping the fig leaf off Qin Ji, was still uncomfortable for Tong Xilin to hear.

Back in middle school, his classmates had probably talked about him behind his back just like this.

People are too complex. There’s never absolute good or bad. If only circumstances were sufficient, who wouldn’t want food and clothing, to be happy and carefree?

Fortunately, the driver changed the subject, starting to lecture them on how tough society is, based on his own experience.

Qi Yuan and Pang Xiaoda listened until they were drowsy and both stopped making a sound.

This kind of behind-the-back discussion ended where it started. They also had no intention of forming a clique to isolate Qin Ji.

Two hours later, they arrived. Qi Yuan was lively again, urging Tong Xilin to contact Zhou Qi and ask where he was.

Zhou Qi arrived half an hour later than them. Meeting up, Qi Yuan immediately teased him, asking why he suddenly remembered his buddies in Tianjin and wasn’t running off to Sichuan to see his girlfriend.

“Broke up,” Zhou Qi took Tong Xilin’s coffee cup and drained it in one go, his words misting in the cold air.

“How come you broke up?” Tong Xilin was surprised.

“Fighting, what else? Too many conflicts. She dumped me,” Zhou Qi said.

Although Tong Xilin initially thought online dating was unreliable, and knew Zhou Qi never lasted long with any girlfriend, hearing this casual tone, it still felt too flippant.

He treated relationships like child’s play.

“Didn’t you meet her in person?” Pang Xiaoda asked.

“With all those WeChat Moments posts—plane tickets and hotels,” Qi Yuan pressed on, “Ah, all that stuff happened and now you’re not going to date her?”

“Son of a btch!” Zhou Qi was so angry his head hurt from these two. He gave each of them a kick on the rear. “I fcking said I was the one who got dumped! Dumped, you hear?!”

Qi Yuan and the others completely ignored this and started calling Zhou Qi a player one after another.

The ski resort was very crowded. Tong Xilin and Pang Xiaoda were both first-timers who knew nothing. The two Qis led them, teaching them everything from renting equipment to getting on the slopes, hands-on. But teaching didn’t help much; the four kept tumbling into piles, laughing and causing a ruckus.

They were having so much fun, getting addicted to it. Partway through, Tong Xilin went to the side to rest. Holding up his phone, he took photos: the snowy slopes, the blue sky, his friends.

Zhou Qi and Qi Yuan were posing, pretending to kick up snow—one striking a fake pose, the other kicking snow from below.

Discovering Tong Xilin was taking pictures, they all gathered together. The four of them, wearing ski goggles, made peace signs, capturing a group photo full of smiles.

The photos happened to form a perfect six-picture grid. Tong Xilin posted a WeChat Moments update.

Kong Ji’s message came in very quickly, asking: Having fun?

Tong Xilin replied: Yes.

Kong Ji: Rent a butt cushion. You’ll fall and end up black and blue.

Tong Xilin immediately asked him: How did you know I fell, Uncle?

Kong Ji laughed and sent him a voice reply: “Just a guess.”

The New Year holiday combined with the weekend to make three days off. This trip of theirs was for two days. They rented a local homestay near the ski resort.

None of the four slept that night. The other three were having too much fun. Tong Xilin wanted to sleep but wasn’t allowed to; he was dragged up to play games, then to eat a late-night snack, and after the snack, to chat while playing cards.

“That Qin Ji still didn’t come with you guys?” Zhou Qi arranged his cards and grabbed a skewer.

“Used to it by now,” Qi Yuan said.

“He has a lot of part-time jobs, busy,” Pang Xiaoda added to explain.

In the car earlier, they had said all sorts of things. But when Zhou Qi asked about it, after all, they were from the same dorm; neither of them showed any negativity about Qin Ji.

Zhou Qi had just mentioned it offhandedly, then turned to ask Tong Xilin, “You don’t have part-time jobs anymore?”

“I’m still working them,” Tong Xilin pulled the stick from his mouth and threw it in the trash. “Not as many as him, though. A bit easier.”

“I always thought it was unnecessary,” Zhou Qi said. “So will you go back home for New Year this year? If you do, I’ll come find you when we’re on break, and we’ll go back together.”

A semester sounds slow, but if you calculate the time, it would pass before you knew it.

Tong Xilin hadn’t decided on this question yet. Last time Kong Ji came, he proposed taking him traveling when he came home for winter break, and he hadn’t answered then either.

Renting a place with Qin Ji again was definitely out of the question.

If he went back, under what identity would he spend the long winter with Kong Ji?

The peacefulness of the past half-year sometimes made Tong Xilin entertain a thought: Kong Ji now wanted to be a good uncle, and he was indeed doing it well enough. After all, the man didn’t owe him anything. If he also just treated Kong Ji as an uncle, like a generous benefactor, slowly repaying the money later—perhaps that would be the most suitable arrangement for both sides.

But in his heart, he still couldn’t get past it.

There was still a bit of… unwillingness.

Thinking about those men who had once been in Kong Ji’s home, thinking about how maybe someday someone else would live with him, thinking about if Kong Ji encountered someone he liked again, someone like Tong Yuzhi.

Irritation bubbled up from the bottom of his heart. Tong Xilin even misplayed his card.

“We’ll see,” he could only give Zhou Qi this answer.

Troubled thoughts were stirring. After finishing this round, Tong Xilin didn’t continue staying up with them and went to find a room to sleep after showering.

When falling at the ski resort, he hadn’t felt the pain. But upon waking the next day, his body was, unsurprisingly, sore everywhere.

Qi Yuan and Pang Xiaoda were even worse off than him. They hadn’t just fallen but also pulled an all-nighter. In the evening, they parted ways with Zhou Qi to head back to their own schools. In the car heading back, they couldn’t chat anymore either, both leaning their heads to sleep as soon as they sat.

Winter days got dark early. The heater in the car was on full blast. Tong Xilin, wearing his headphones, leaned against the car window listening to music, gazing at the dim night outside. His whole body felt languid and comfortable.

The sound of a message suddenly broke through his music, making him jump.

He looked down at his phone. The message notification popping up on the screen was from a high school classmate from the small town.

Tong Xilin wasn’t close to this person, just had the contact info. They’d barely spoken a few sentences back at the small-town school. After moving to Kong Ji’s place, they hadn’t been in contact for even more years.

Curious, he unlocked his phone, thinking maybe the person needed him to help with a Pinduoduo bargain-hunting link.

Opening WeChat, what this person sent was indeed a link—but not Pinduoduo, rather a shared Douyin profile page.

Tong Xilin tapped it to take a look. The blood in his entire body instantly chilled, like a cup of warm water crystallizing in an instant in a world of ice and snow.

The profile name was very long, nine characters: Looking-for-My-Son-Tong-Xilin.

Classmate: Is this you?