Chapter 29

Mu Yicong didn’t respond to Qi Yang’s words. He offered no explanation or rebuttal to the man’s remarks, didn’t even change his expression. He simply watched in silence as Qi Yang downed that entire glass of baijiu in one go.

The last drop of liquor slid down the corner of his mouth as Qi Yang clunked the glass back onto the table and wiped his chin with the back of his hand, frowning.

He really hadn’t drunk in ages, and this one glass was far beyond his capacity. Once it hit his stomach, a burning sensation spread.

He was propping his forehead, trying to steady himself, when the owner came over carrying the Pig Trotter Rice. Spotting the open bottle of Erguotou and the empty glass on the table, the man gave a low whistle. “The dishes aren’t even out yet, and you’re already going dry?”

Qi Yang waved a hand. Mu Yicong, who had been observing him the whole time, finally spoke up, asking the owner to add a bowl of Vegetable Soup Noodles and bring a bottle of milk or some drink.

“Don’t need it.” Qi Yang snapped apart a pair of disposable chopsticks, pushed the Pig Trotter Rice over to Mu Yicong, and pulled a bowl toward himself. “Eat.”

The owner brought over a bottle of Peanut Milk. Mu Yicong twisted off the cap and set it next to Qi Yang’s bowl.

Qi Yang glanced at him, then picked it up and took a few gulps.

“Did you pick that up after dropping out too?” Mu Yicong asked.

“Yeah.” Qi Yang grunted in reply. The thick, smooth texture of the Peanut Milk slid into his stomach, instantly making him feel much better.

“At the class reunion, you said you quit.” Mu Yicong looked at the mouth of the cup. “You had a pretty heavy habit.”

Qi Yang had indeed been addicted to alcohol for a while.

In the first two or three years after Qi Dahai vanished, he still held onto hope that the man would come back. He thought that if Qi Dahai returned, maybe the family could go back to normal—Zou Meizhu wouldn’t be crying and threatening suicide all the time, and Qi Xing would have the chance to get treatment.

But as day after day of disappointment piled up, he started using cigarettes and liquor to relieve the pressure.

By the time the debt Qi Dahai left behind was finally paid off, Qi Yang was completely numb. He realized that life was never going back to how it was.

The night he cleared the last of the external debts, Qi Yang and Liu Dameng downed two and a half bottles of baijiu plus half a crate of beer, until he was so dizzy he could barely walk in a straight line.

When he got home, Qi Xing came over to take his hand. Listening to Zou Meizhu’s complaints, all the emotions he’d been suppressing for so long suddenly exploded. He swept the water cup she was holding to his lips right out of her hand.

The cup smashed against the floor. Shards of glass flew past Qi Xing’s chin, and the hot water left a red burn on her right wrist.

Zou Meizhu collapsed onto the floor, wailing at the top of her lungs.

Qi Yang was so startled the alcohol wore off in an instant. He rushed to treat Qi Xing’s wound. Qi Xing didn’t scream or cry—her perception of pain and injury was extremely low. She touched Qi Yang’s face with her scalded little hand.

That day, Qi Yang slapped himself across the face. After that, he quit drinking entirely.

He’d never told anyone about it. When Liu Dameng asked why he didn’t drink anymore, he just answered vaguely that it didn’t taste good.

Today, his emotions were a little weird. Maybe it was the long-lost alcohol messing with him, or maybe it was the relief of getting everything off his chest with Mu Yicong. Whatever the reason, he briefly described the incident.

Mu Yicong listened as Qi Yang recounted it in a flat, emotionless tone, his own face still completely blank.

The soup noodles arrived. He pushed the Pig Trotter Rice aside and slid the bowl of noodles over.

Qi Yang only picked at a couple of strands of noodles, sipped a little broth, then leaned back in his seat, staring blankly.

“Feeling sick?” Mu Yicong had been watching his condition the whole time.

“Lost my appetite.” Qi Yang rested his chopsticks across the noodle bowl and reached for his cigarettes again.

He’d really drunk too fast. His thoughts and movements were starting to slow down. He felt like he was still sober, but his consciousness was gradually derailing.

He put a cigarette between his lips and flicked the lighter twice, but the flame kept missing the tip.

Frowning, Qi Yang stared at the lighter, studying it.

A hand reached into his field of vision and plucked the cigarette from his mouth along with the lighter. Qi Yang looked up. Mu Yicong put his lips to the cigarette, lit it with a graceful flick, then handed it back.

The whole sequence was incredibly natural.

Qi Yang tilted his head, resting the back of his skull against the seat, and grinned at him.

It was a smile full of provocation and amusement.

“So you can do it, huh?” He held the cigarette up in front of him, deliberately spreading his fingers and wiggling them at Mu Yicong before clamping it between his teeth.

Mu Yicong’s gaze lingered on his mouth for a moment before shifting back to his eyes. He gave a simple “Mm.”

“What exactly are you getting at?”

Qi Yang squinted through the smoke and alcohol haze, his voice slurring as he asked.

“What are you really thinking, Mu Yicong?”

Mu Yicong still didn’t speak. He waited until Qi Yang finished his cigarette, then gestured to the owner. “Check, please.”

“I’ll pay.” Qi Yang remembered that this meal was supposed to be his treat, even though neither of them had really touched their food.

He pushed himself up from the table, asked the owner for two plastic bags, and packed the leftovers to take home for Zou Meizhu.

The restaurant’s heater was blasting. Qi Yang had almost dozed off, but the cold wind hit him as soon as he stepped out the door. He rubbed his temples and sobered up a bit.

“Go on back.” He said goodbye to Mu Yicong outside the Pig Trotter Restaurant. “Remember what I said. Don’t come bothering me again.”

“I’ll walk you.” Mu Yicong reached out and unlocked his car.

“No need.” Qi Yang stood still by the door.

“Two blocks.” Mu Yicong turned to look back at him, his whole demeanor steady and unyielding. “If you trip and fall, are you going to freeze to death out here?”

People who got drunk and froze to death on winter nights happened every year. If Qi Yang had his way, he’d rather trip and fall with every step, crawling all the way back to his front door, than get in Mu Yicong’s car right now.

But Qi Xing and Zou Meizhu were waiting at home.

Feeling the unsteadiness beneath his feet, he didn’t stall any longer. He followed Mu Yicong into the car.

Normally, two blocks didn’t take long. But today, whether it was because there were too many cars on the road or because both intersections happened to have red lights, Qi Yang kept feeling like Mu Yicong was driving especially slowly.

The car’s heater stirred up the alcohol in his stomach. The enclosed space felt more solid than the restaurant. He glanced at Mu Yicong, who had been silent the whole time, and felt the urge to speak again.

“You said you used to like me. What did you like about me?”

In for a penny, in for a pound—he decided to just ask everything he couldn’t figure out.

The sky had long since darkened. Streetlights, headlights, and neon signs flickered into layers of halos, outlining the sharp profile of Mu Yicong’s face through the window.

Like a supermodel.

Qi Yang remembered Liu Dameng’s assessment of Mu Yicong.

“You’re actually not bad-looking,” he couldn’t help saying. “But you’re annoying.”

“I found you annoying the first time I saw you.”

“I can’t figure out how someone so annoying could exist in this world.”

Qi Yang rambled on, one sentence after another, as if talking to himself. Every word was an unfiltered confession straight from the gut.

Mu Yicong just glanced sideways at him. He could tell that the alcohol was hitting Qi Yang hard, that he was already pretty dizzy.

He slowed down even more.

By the time they reached the entrance of Qi Yang’s home community, Qi Yang’s eyes had that hollow look unique to drunks. He didn’t say he wanted to get out; he just stared out the window with his head tilted.

“Feel like throwing up?” Mu Yicong asked.

Qi Yang shook his head and answered in a single word: “Dizzy.”

“What did you ask me just now?” Mu Yicong reached over and turned Qi Yang’s head toward him. “Say it again.”

Qi Yang focused on his face for a moment, then slowly furrowed his brow.

“Did you really like me?”

Mu Yicong gave an “Mm.”

“When?” Qi Yang pressed.

“High school,” Mu Yicong said.

“Why?” Qi Yang’s eyes cleared a little, and he sat up slightly. “Because I’m handsome?”

He’d asked Mu Yicong this same question once before, in a teasing tone—that night he’d stayed over at Mu Yicong’s place.

Back then, he’d done it on purpose, driven by some indescribable emotion. He’d asked Mu Yicong if he was falling for him because he was too good-looking.

Now, asking again, Qi Yang was genuinely curious.

Mu Yicong hadn’t answered then. This time, he studied Qi Yang for a while before turning the question around: “That time you came to my rented place to copy homework—did you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Qi Yang’s brain wasn’t working very well at the moment. “Do I need to come to your place to feel whether I’m handsome or not?”

“The time I pinned you down.” Mu Yicong said it directly, without any buffer.

Qi Yang stared at him, stunned for a long moment.

“And then you ran off. A few days later, you came looking for me again and asked if I was gay.”

Mu Yicong paid no attention to his daze. His eyes roamed slowly over Qi Yang’s face as he recalled the memory with calm composure.

“After that, you kept coming over to my place.”

“One time I wasn’t home because I went out to eat, and you came to yell at me in the middle of the night.”

“You asked me if I liked you.”

Hearing the words “like” coming out of his own mouth and hearing Mu Yicong say them had always felt different.

Suddenly, a tingling sensation shot through the back of his skull, just like the day Mu Yicong had abruptly confessed to liking him. It sent goosebumps rippling down his spine.

“Why did you ask that back then?”

Mu Yicong didn’t give him a chance to react. He was practically staring Qi Yang down, his voice low and almost hoarse in the warm cabin of the car.

“What answer were you hoping to hear from me?”

A car drove by, horn blaring, snapping the stunned Qi Yang out of it.

“…What the hell are you saying?” He frowned. “I’m asking you something, and you’re going off on some tangent.”

“What do you want to hear me say?”

Mu Yicong had shed his silence from the Pig Trotter Restaurant. Now he was deflecting every one of Qi Yang’s words.

“You keep telling me not to bother you anymore, but you keep pressing this question.”

“Are you really curious, or are you hoping for something?”

That familiar, long-lost feeling of irritation began to seep out from deep inside Qi Yang with every word Mu Yicong spoke.

He suddenly dropped his eyelids and reached into his pocket for a cigarette.

He’d just popped one out of the pack and put it between his lips when Mu Yicong reached over and pulled it away again.

“I’m asking you a question.” Mu Yicong stuffed the cigarette back into the pack and then took the whole pack.

“What are you taking my cigarettes for?” Qi Yang looked up at him.

“Confiscated,” Mu Yicong said.

You’re out of your mind.

Qi Yang didn’t want to keep arguing with him. His head was a mess, and he didn’t want to ask Mu Yicong any more questions. He pulled the car door handle to get out.

Mu Yicong leaned over and yanked the door shut again.

“What’s your deal?” Qi Yang turned his head, a hint of aggression creeping onto his face.

“Asking half a question and running away,” Mu Yicong said. “Lost interest again?”

In the tug-of-war over the door, their distance had suddenly become far too close.

So close that Qi Yang could feel Mu Yicong’s faint breath, and Mu Yicong could smell the baijiu radiating from him.

“You don’t know yourself as well as you think you do, Qi Yang.” Mu Yicong’s pupils were pitch black. His voice was low. “How about we give it a try?”