Mu Yicong.
An old name wrapped around a blurry face, slowly surfacing in Qi Yang’s mind as Liu Dameng shouted and hollered.
He scratched his hair, walked back to the sofa, and grabbed his phone.
“Which Mu Yicong?” Qi Yang asked.
“Which other one could there be?” Liu Dameng was pretty dissatisfied with his reaction. “How many people in the whole world share that damn name? Did you really forget, or are you too embarrassed to remember?”
Liu Dameng’s use of the words “too embarrassed” had a reason behind it.
While interrogating Qi Yang, he himself felt a bit awkward. Recalling those ridiculous years from middle school, he didn’t bother joking about the Andrology Hospital anymore. Instead, he sighed with feeling: “It’s been a full ten years since we last saw that bunch of classmates, right?”
It was ten years.
Qi Yang dropped out the year Qi Xing was diagnosed. He couldn’t remember much else, but he remembered that vividly—exactly ten years.
Time was like pissing: you just muddled through and ended up here.
But right now, Qi Yang wasn’t in the mood to reminisce with Liu Dameng.
He lit a cigarette and stepped into the bathroom, jangling as he undid his belt. “If you bump into him, you bump into him. Why’re you so worked up?”
“I didn’t even recognize him at first,” Liu Dameng said, excitedly off-topic. “That buddy’s changed completely. Back in school he was like a scrawny chicken, and now he’s, like…”
“I’m hanging up now.” Qi Yang sat down on the toilet. “When you’re restocking, grab me some more sticker art.”
“For Xing’er, right?” Liu Dameng immediately noted it down, stopping his rambling. “Got it. I’ll drop it off at your place later and we’ll talk more.”
Qi Yang couldn’t spare another word—he was about to let loose.
Right before hanging up, Liu Dameng, still not satisfied, gave another “Hey!” and asked playfully, “So what do you think he was doing at the Andrology Hospital? You didn’t actually mess something up on him back then, did you?”
“Get lost.” Qi Yang clenched his cigarette and swore at him with a frown.
The call ended, and the sudden quiet left the name “Mu Yicong” spinning around in his head.
Qi Yang felt oddly deflated; nothing was coming out.
Trying to get back in the zone, he remembered Qi Xing was still squatting outside his bedroom door. The old, run-down two-bedroom apartment had poor soundproofing, so he opened his music player and randomly tapped a recommendation for old songs.
The nostalgic melody of “Big City Small Love” swirled through the cramped bathroom. Qi Yang squinted as cigarette smoke stung his eyes.
Memories—and the urge to shit—came crashing down.
The first time he saw Mu Yicong seemed to be when that song was playing.
Back in middle school, fourteen years ago: the sweltering summer, the cicadas on campus, the jingling bicycle bells on the way to school, the chattering students, the school uniforms smelling of grass and sweat, and the music.
Back then, the school radio station played songs every afternoon between the second and third periods, with the selection rights firmly held by a few senior girls from the student council.
It must have been an afternoon early in third year. He’d just finished playing basketball and was heading back to the classroom. The reddening sunset light streamed through the latticed window, shining right on an unfamiliar new student standing at the podium.
Qi Yang shoved the door open with a few other guys, barging in, and casually tossed the ball toward the corner.
Mu Yicong happened to turn his head and look their way. Qi Yang only had time to meet a pair of pitch-black pupils—couldn’t even make out his features clearly—before the ball smacked right into his face with a thump.
Thump!
The bathroom door got a fitting smack. “Ouch!” Qi Yang yelped, almost getting scared right mid-stream.
“Don’t hit the door.” Helplessly, he turned off the music and shouted out, “One, two, three, four… Count to fifty.”
Qi Xing quieted down. When Qi Yang finished washing his hands and stepped out of the bathroom, she was standing about a meter away from the door, silently mouthing to herself: Thirty-seven.
The mule stubbornness flared up again.
Qi Yang didn’t rush her. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, waiting until she finished mumbling to fifty before holding out his hand. “Alright, hand them over.”
Qi Xing had torn out a bunch of oddly shaped papers: illustrations from Qi Yang’s high school Chinese textbook, a few hundred-year-old issues of Yilin magazine, and even some half-assed homework he’d once done.
Qi Yang went to the locked box under the TV stand, pulled out a pair of scissors, casually turned on the TV to a show, and crouched down right there to start cutting paper.
Qi Xing crouched beside him, touching the paper, then tugging at her sock edges.
The soft sound of snow falling outside set off the TV noise and the snip-snip of the scissors, creating a strange kind of peace.
“Say thank you to your big brother.” Qi Yang tried to coax Qi Xing into talking.
The little girl acted like she couldn’t hear him, just reaching out to grab the finished sticker art.
Qi Yang didn’t push it. He patted Qi Xing on the head, the same way you’d treat a cat or a dog, and let her do her thing.
Liu Dameng had promised to come by another day to bring Qi Xing sticker art. But the next day, before Qi Yang even got off work, he showed up carrying a big bag of stationery.
“Yangzi!”
Qi Yang had just seen off some minor internet celebrity who’d rented a car when Liu Dameng’s car screeched to a halt in front of him. Dameng rolled down the window and waved.
“Park it in the back.” Qi Yang jerked his thumb over his shoulder and turned to head into the office first.
Liu Dameng had been his tight bud for over a decade. Back before he was married, he’d hang out with Qi Yang whenever. The guy knew how to schmooze, acted dumb and generous, and was familiar with a few of the employees at Qi Yang’s workplace.
Qi Yang had just taken a couple sips of water in the office when he heard Liu Dameng approaching, handing out cigarettes left and right and making a racket like he was on an inspection.
“‘Another day’ turned out to be today, huh?” Qi Yang leaned on his office desk, teasing him.
“Damn, I just couldn’t help it.” Liu Dameng pushed the door shut and tossed the whole freshly opened pack of cigarettes at Qi Yang. “Look what I brought you.”
Qi Yang twirled the pack between two fingers, glancing at the brand. Liu Dameng said, “Not that.”
He rummaged through the bag for a while, then pulled out a large drawing book and spread it on the desk. Tucked inside was a laminated long photo.
A class photo. The lamination was already curling at the edges, with a few big bubbles bulging in the middle.
“It’s the high school graduation photo from our class before we split.”
Liu Dameng, looking excited, slapped the photo down on the desk.
“I remember you don’t have this, right? You’d already…”
He paused there, checking Qi Yang’s expression.
Qi Yang didn’t seem bothered. He nodded. “Already dropped out.”
“Water under the bridge. Let’s not go there.” Liu Dameng waved his hand. “Back then I even went to Old Wu to try to get your copy. That bastard wouldn’t hand it over—kept our photos like some heirloom… Hey, what was Old Wu’s real name again?”
Liu Dameng bent over, looking for the head teacher’s real name in the list on the right side of the photo, his head blocking the whole thing.
Qi Yang stayed leaning against the desk edge, too lazy to move. One arm propped behind him on the desk, he lit a cigarette with his other hand and tilted his head slightly to look down.
Through the gaps in Liu Dameng’s hair, he spotted a few familiar faces.
“That idiot on the far right of the last row is you, right?” Qi Yang squinted and tapped the photo with a grin.
“Damn right it is.” Liu Dameng laughed too. “That dumbass photographer made me look like a total moron.”
Liu Dameng had always had that habit of cursing others while trashing himself even more—he never came out ahead in arguments since school.
Despite his cursing, as he looked at his own graduation photo, he still smiled with feeling. “Man, I was so young back then. Look completely different from now.”
In the photo, Liu Dameng sported a head of curly hair that was trendy at the time but actually looked dorky, his school uniform tied around his waist, one arm slung over the guy next to him, grinning ear to ear.
He really did look like a different person now.
It wasn’t that his facial features had changed much. He was still the same guy—just built bigger, and his style wasn’t so tacky anymore. But that youthful vibe, the kind that could only stay in the past, was nowhere to be seen on his nearly-thirty face.
“Is that Cui Wu you’re hugging?” Qi Yang pointed at the crew-cut, burly guy next to him who was intentionally keeping a straight face and acting tough.
“Yeah, it is.” Liu Dameng smacked his lips. “That bastard was rotten to the core. Now he’s landed himself a civil service job.”
Qi Yang didn’t comment. They’d all been notorious troublemakers back in school—he had no right to judge anyone like Liu Dameng was doing.
“You and Cui’er were the ones who bullied Mu Yicong the most back then.” Liu Dameng was fully lost in memory now, eagerly shoving the photo toward Qi Yang. “Don’t look at the names—see if you can spot Mu Yicong.”
As Liu Dameng’s head moved aside, Qi Yang’s gaze had already settled on the leftmost side of the photo, on the face of a boy in the second-to-last row, near the edge.
Coal-black eyes.
A school uniform that was always spotless. Slightly pressed lips. Skin so pale you’d suspect anemia.
That blurry face hit by the basketball merged with the clean-cut but slightly gloomy face in the photo, as if ten years of settled dust were suddenly swept away.
Qi Yang stared at Mu Yicong’s eyes, lightly tapping the photo with his finger.
“You recognize him?” Liu Dameng watched Qi Yang’s expression, raising his eyebrows mysteriously. “That kid’s completely changed now, you know.”
“Didn’t he go abroad?” Qi Yang picked up the photo for a closer look.
“Yeah. After I called you yesterday, I asked Cui Wu. He didn’t know Mu Yicong was back either.” Liu Dameng cupped his mouth and leaned in. “The more I thought about it, the more curious I got. I couldn’t help myself, so I sent a message to Ren…”
Qi Yang elbowed him away. “Talk properly.”
“So I messaged Ren Wei. He got along pretty well with Mu Yicong later, right?” Liu Dameng pointed at the guy with glasses to Mu Yicong’s right in the photo. “I wanted to ask if he’s still in touch with Mu Yicong, and why he was even at the Andrology Hospital in the first place…”
“You still have contact with Ren Wei?” Qi Yang asked.
“Long gone, just WeChat left.” Liu Dameng pursed his lips. “I stopped hanging out with him back in school. Can’t stand him.”
“You’re pretty nosy,” Qi Yang said. “Did he reply?”
“No.” Liu Dameng said.
Qi Yang looked at him.
“That son of a bitch,” Liu Dameng glared back indignantly. “Ren Wei’s been a snake ever since we were kids.”
“So why are you so set on finding out about Mu Yicong?” Qi Yang bit down on another cigarette.
“How should I put it? Maybe it’s because I’m getting older.” Liu Dameng rubbed his head awkwardly. “Looking back now, we were all little shits back then. We really did bully him a lot. I regret it. I was thinking, if I could get in touch with Mu Yicong, I’d properly apologize.”
Qi Yang didn’t know how to respond to that.
He glanced down at Liu Dameng’s crotch and raised an eyebrow, shifting the topic. “So what were you doing at the Andrology Hospital? Something wrong?”
“What are you thinking?” Liu Dameng looked a bit embarrassed. “My wife and I are planning to have a kid. I went for a checkup.”
“You sly dog.” Qi Yang laughed and punched him in the shoulder. “Good for you.”
Liu Dameng was all over the place, speaking whatever came to mind. But Qi Yang understood what he meant:
—He was planning to have a child himself, and he wanted to be a better person, to accumulate some good karma. Running into an old classmate he’d once bullied made him feel guilty.
As for the run-in at the Andrology Hospital, from what Liu Dameng described, he’d only seen the name Mu Yicong flash up on the outpatient call screen. He hadn’t even confirmed if it was actually Mu Yicong himself.
The Mu Yicong he’d seen at the Andrology Hospital was tall, handsome, model-like—completely different from the guy in the graduation photo.
Putting it all together, Qi Yang’s reaction to Liu Dameng’s whole thought process could be summed up in six words: Just blowing hot air.
Ten years. The Olympics had been held two and a half times by now. Where the hell was he all that time?
Qi Yang didn’t want to think about the past. It was pointless.
He brushed Liu Dameng off, picked up the stuff for Qi Xing, and clocked out. He skillfully opened his rideshare app.
Today he got lucky—the first ride request came from not far from the rental company.
Qi Yang drove to the pickup spot and saw a young man in a suit waiting by the roadside.
“8893,” he confirmed, matching the last four digits of the order.
The man outside the window asked instead, “Master Qi?”
“Yeah.” Qi Yang responded without looking up. A WeChat message from Zou Meizhu popped up—she wanted roasted sweet potatoes again.
The man in the suit hesitated for a moment, then chose the passenger seat over the back, opened the door, and sat down.
Qi Yang was about to set the route and drive off when the passenger spoke again: “You’re Qi Yang, right?”
