Chapter 23
The moment the car door closed, the noisy rain was shut out.
“Fasten your seatbelt,” Song Shuci inserted the car key.
“Don’t need to tell me,” Jian Wu fastened his seatbelt with a sullen face.
Song Shuci started the car and opened the navigation: “Address.”
Jian Wu remained silent.
Song Shuci looked at him: “If you don’t tell me, I’m taking you to my place.”
“…Jiahe Garden.”
Song Shuci entered the address into the navigation and confirmed with Jian Wu: “Is this the right address?”
Jian Wu glanced at the screen and looked out the window, tacitly agreeing.
Song Shuci stared at the back of his head for a while, sighed silently, shifted the car into drive, and turned on the car stereo. The stereo played popular songs from their middle school days, filling the car and somewhat masking the silent atmosphere.
The black car slowly drove away from the school. The sky outside was dark, the rain relentlessly hitting the windshield, blurring the view. The wipers worked tirelessly, only managing to clear the view for a brief moment.
After driving for a while, Jian Wu suddenly took out his phone and made a call.
The other side picked up quickly: “Hello, Jian Ge?”
Song Shuci discreetly freed one hand from the steering wheel and lowered the volume of the music.
Jian Wu wasn’t wearing earphones, and the sound from his phone inevitably leaked out. Although Song Shuci couldn’t hear the content clearly, he could tell the other person was male.
He glanced at Jian Wu, who was looking out the window at the rain, oblivious.
“Are you home?” Jian Wu asked.
“Not yet, Ge,” Lou Xi said, “I’m at my friend’s place for the weekend, in the neighboring city, I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
“What’s wrong, Jian Ge?”
“Nothing,” Jian Wu said, “I wanted to ask you to close the window, but it’s fine if you’re not home.”
Lou Xi was the university student renting his apartment. He had been hoping Lou Xi could help him close the windows, but that was clearly impossible now. So he said “Have fun” and hung up.
As soon as he put away his phone, Song Shuci’s sarcastic voice arrived right on cue: “Who was that?”
Jian Wu was still angry and didn’t want to talk to him: “None of your business.”
“You’re living with someone else now?” Song Shuci asked, then added, “A man?”
“It would be even more inappropriate if I lived with a woman,” Jian Wu said.
“Boyfriend?” Song Shuci’s voice was slightly stiff.
“I said it’s none of your business.”
Knowing Lou Xi wasn’t home, and seeing the long stretch of red warning signs for traffic jams on the navigation, Jian Wu was deeply saddened by the fate of his wooden floors and didn’t want to explain anything.
The drivers stuck in traffic were even more impatient than him. The incessant honking penetrated even the thick curtain of rain, reaching his ears.
Jian Wu, annoyed by the noise, leaned back heavily, his lower back hitting something hard.
He gasped in pain and realized there was something behind him, which he hadn’t noticed when he got in the car, too angry at the time. He took out the hard object; it was a bottle of light yellow perfume.
“What’s this?” he asked subconsciously, not noticing the momentary awkwardness on Song Shuci’s face.
“A gift,” Song Shuci said, “Put it in the compartment in front.” He freed a hand and opened the glove compartment.
Jian Wu put the perfume inside. As he was about to close the compartment, a sense of familiarity washed over him.
He realized the car looked familiar.
“What’s wrong?” Seeing him freeze, Song Shuci seemed to remember something and added, “There are mints inside, you can have some if you feel carsick.”
He remembered.
Jian Wu’s gaze fell on the large pack of mints in the corner of the glove compartment, and it all came back to him.
Many years ago, when he was eighteen. He had received his university acceptance letter, and his university was in the same city as Song Shuci’s.
Song Shuci said he wanted to take him for a drive. He thought it would be on a bicycle, or at most, Song Shuci’s dad’s old motorcycle.
But Song Shuci drove a four-wheeled car, rolling down the window downstairs.
He got so carsick that he almost threw up after just a few steps, so Song Shuci bought him those old-fashioned mints, a palm-sized block, white, divided into many small squares by lines, which could be broken off and eaten individually, or chewed on as a whole.
His tongue always felt sweet and cool.
He offered some to Song Shuci, who said he hated the taste of mint, but that didn’t seem to stop him from parking the car by the roadside and kissing him deeply.
He was squeezed into the passenger seat, his gaze falling on the glove compartment.
Song Shuci rented that car for ten days and took him on a long road trip, until he had spent all his first-year scholarship money.
He still remembered one evening, after the rain, when it wasn’t so hot, they sat side by side on the trunk, watching the fleeting rainbow.
Perhaps because they had finally ended their year-long separation, with Jian Wu in his senior year of high school and Song Shuci at university in City A, Song Shuci put his arm around him from behind, rested his chin on his shoulder, and said: “We’ll never be apart again.”
He hummed in agreement, and Song Shuci turned his face and kissed him.
Song Shuci was someone who valued efficiency in everything he did, except for intimacy with him. That was the only thing Song Shuci did that wasn’t very meaningful, simply to pass the time.
Song Shuci always loved to kiss him, kissing his lips, cheeks, eyes, hair, and every part of his body.
During these times, Song Shuci would become very relaxed. Perhaps it was a way for him to relieve stress, or perhaps this animalistic marking and possession filled him with a strong sense of satisfaction.
Jian Wu still remembered that day, when they were kissing passionately, Song Shuci put a bottle of perfume in his hand.
The main scent of the perfume was a realistic wintersweet fragrance, with a subtle hint of sweet roasted sweet potato.
Song Shuci said he had made it himself while working part-time during university and told him to treasure it.
Jian Wu wasn’t in the habit of using perfume, but he still carefully kept it for six years, until one night, he smashed it on the floor without hesitation.
He had never smelled such a strong fragrance, so intense it was as if the wintersweet blossoms in a whole courtyard had fallen at once, their final, decaying scent filling the air.
Song Shuci’s lips moved, repeatedly saying “I don’t agree with you leaving City A,” and “If you insist on leaving, I’ll drop out of school and go with you.” So he smashed the perfume and pointed at the shattered glass on the floor, looking at the shocked Song Shuci.
“Who are you threatening?”
That night, the last thing Song Shuci said to him was: “As long as we’re still together, I won’t do long distance with you again.”
And he said: “Then let’s break up.”
Like the ending of a movie, Jian Wu closed his eyes and suddenly sniffed his fingers.
The faint scent of perfume lingered on his fingers. It was wintersweet.
He took out the mint candy, closed the glove compartment, looked at the traffic outside, and asked Song Shuci: “That perfume, is it a gift?”
Song Shuci’s answer was: “Mm.”
This time, Jian Wu was the one asking: “For whom?”
Song Shuci was the one being evasive: “A friend.”
Jian Wu looked down at the mint candy, a few small pieces broken off, and continued to ask: “When did you start eating mints? Didn’t you say you didn’t like them?”
Song Shuci denied: “I didn’t eat them.”
Jian Wu glanced at him. Song Shuci looked unusually flustered. Perhaps because the car was completely stuck in traffic, he couldn’t even pretend to be busy by shifting gears or turning the steering wheel to hide his momentary unease.
Jian Wu interpreted this unease in his own way and discreetly looked away.
Seeing him toss the mint candy back into the compartment, Song Shuci asked: “Not eating it?”
“I don’t get carsick easily anymore,” Jian Wu said.
“That’s good.”
Jian Wu hummed in agreement and asked him again: “Did you buy a new car?”
“Rented it,” Song Shuci explained, “I have to return it in a few days.”
Jian Wu recalled the conversation between Song Shuci and He Yong in the locker room: He Yong had asked Song Shuci, “Aren’t you back for good?”, and Song Shuci had replied, “It depends.”
“So you’re going back to America?” he asked.
“Mm,” Song Shuci said, “My flight is next Wednesday.”
Jian Wu quickly deduced: “You haven’t decided to join B Medical University yet.” After he said this, Song Shuci fell silent.
After a while, he asked Jian Wu: “Do you want me to come back?”
Jian Wu paused slightly, “Does my opinion matter?”
“What do you think?”
He looked at Jian Wu, and Jian Wu met his gaze.
It was dark inside the car, despite it being daytime. The heavy rain outside blocked the light, so the clearest thing Jian Wu saw wasn’t the emotion in Song Shuci’s eyes, but the water droplets still clinging to his glasses and his damp hair.
For some reason, he turned his head away: “The traffic is moving.”
The long traffic jam finally started to ease, and Song Shuci turned back to follow the car in front. They fell silent again.
Jian Wu’s home wasn’t far. Once the traffic cleared, they moved quickly, and soon, they arrived at his apartment building.
“You can stop here,” Jian Wu said.
“I’ll walk you in,” Song Shuci drove into the complex before he could refuse, “Which building?”
“Building 3.”
Song Shuci nodded, drove around the complex, and stopped in front of an old but clean building: “Is this it?”
“Yes.”
Song Shuci unbuckled his seatbelt, reached for the umbrella he had placed on the back seat, and handed it to Jian Wu: “Don’t get drenched, do you have any Banlangen at home? Have some when you get back.”
Jian Wu didn’t take the umbrella.
Water droplets from the still-damp umbrella fell onto his leg. Jian Wu was startled by the cold, but Song Shuci didn’t notice.
He raised the umbrella again: “Take it. If you catch a cold or feel unwell, you can call me, I’ll take you to the hospital. I haven’t changed my number.”
The faint scent of wintersweet drifted over again, lingering around Jian Wu’s nose.
It was strange. He used to think this scent was sweet, but now it inexplicably carried a lingering bitterness.
He looked down at the umbrella in front of him.
“No need, you won’t be able to reach me anyway.” He chuckled, trying to make it sound like a joke.
But when he actually said it, his nose couldn’t help but tingle. It was as if the grievances from four years ago had traveled through time to this moment.
He had thought he no longer cared about the calls he made that night, calls that went unanswered. But when he said it, he realized his emotions weren’t as calm as he had imagined.
He decided to follow this impulse and say everything he wanted to say, such as: “Actually, I don’t like sweet milk tea. I used to like it because life was too bitter, but it’s not bitter anymore.”
And: “I once really hoped you could watch a whole movie with me.”
Song Shuci’s eyes widened slightly. He quickly realized Jian Wu was answering his question about whether he wanted him to come back. But Jian Wu was faster—he put down the unopened milk tea, grabbed his bag, pushed open the car door, and left.
Song Shuci chased after him with the umbrella, but Jian Wu had already rushed into the building in the rain.
The elevator was quick, its doors opening and closing efficiently, so Song Shuci didn’t catch it, only seeing the red numbers ascend.
He wanted to see which floor Jian Wu lived on, but there must have been more than one person in the elevator, as it stopped several times, making it impossible to tell.
For a moment, he thought about going to the floors where the elevator had stopped and knocking on every door, but he quickly calmed down.
What would he say if he found Jian Wu?
Apologize for not watching a whole movie together? He had already apologized countless times for that.
Or explain to Jian Wu that he had a reason for not answering his calls back then?
Song Shuci chuckled bitterly and self-deprecatingly.
Actually, Jian Wu was right.
He always had an excuse.
The rain was too heavy.
Even after just a short run, Jian Wu was drenched.
His black sports jacket became heavy with water, even the Squidward on his chest seemed particularly resentful.
He pushed open the door to his apartment, his heart still pounding.
The parrot looked at his pale face and wet hair, probably thinking he had jumped into a river, and squawked in fright: “Ghost!”
Jian Wu didn’t have time to comfort it and rushed straight to his bedroom.
However, the half-hour traffic jam had been too long. Even though he closed the windows as soon as he got back, he couldn’t hide the fact that a large puddle of water had already accumulated on his floor. His heart sank as he found a few rarely used towels and rags to soak up the water. He knelt on the floor, wiping and mopping for a while, finally cleaning up the surface water.
He tried to stand up, but stumbled and couldn’t. He simply wiped his face and leaned against the bed.
He faced the large floor-to-ceiling window in his bedroom, looking at the rain outside. The bullet-like raindrops could no longer penetrate the warm bedroom, only hitting the glass angrily, letting out sighs.
His face was covered in water, seemingly impossible to wipe clean.
Perhaps there was too much water trapped in his hair, or perhaps he had sweat too much while mopping the floor.
He sat there for a long time, until a knock came from the door.
His heart leaped into his throat, as if clenched tightly in a giant hand.
After about ten seconds, the blood flowed back, and he briefly regained the strength that had been drained from his legs, walking to the living room to open the door.
Outside, a ten-year-old boy with a crew cut looked at him with a smile: “Teacher Jian, my grandma asked you to come over and have dumplings!”
Jian Wu stared blankly for a long time, then finally managed to smile as his memory returned.
The boy was the grandson of the old lady living across from him. They had a good neighborly relationship and often shared food with each other.
Perhaps sensing his unusual state, the boy stared at him for a while, then suddenly said: “Teacher Jian, why are your eyes so red?”
Jian Wu took a deep breath, ruffled the boy’s hair, and smiled.
“I really wanted to eat your grandma’s dumplings, I cried from craving them.”
