The day had been somewhat tiring.
In the morning, his mind had been distracted, fixated on the plane ticket. Late at night, he’d gone out twice more and had that long conversation with Kong Ji. Right now, the distraction was gone, but he only felt his energy completely drained—languid and weary.
Qin Ji still had laundry to do, so Tong Xilin went upstairs first to get ready for bed. The moment the bedroom door opened, the air faintly held traces of Kong Ji’s scent.
A folded piece of black fabric by the bed—Kong Ji had forgotten to take his scarf.
He picked it up and looked at it for a while, then put it to his nose and smelled it. He snapped a photo and sent it over.
Tong Xilin: Received the chilblain ointment.
Tong Xilin: You forgot your scarf, Uncle.
Kong Ji’s reply came almost simultaneously. He sent Tong Xilin a screenshot about how to treat chilblains.
Seeing the photo of the scarf, he replied: Keep it for yourself.
Tong Xilin sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly typed while changing clothes: You wore it all the way here just to leave it for me?
Kong Ji’s side showed “Typing…” for a moment, then shifted into a voice message sent over: “Not really. Honestly forgot it.”
His voice held a laugh. Very faint. Very natural.
Tong Xilin listened once, then played it again. The corner of his mouth unconsciously lifted into a smile. He replied to Kong Ji: Got it.
This feeling was actually rather strange.
Though they’d clearly known each other for quite a while, the two of them were only just now beginning to interact in the most normal way.
Tong Xilin threw himself onto the bed. Arms raised beside his ears, he clutched his phone, drifting in aimless thought, his eyes narrowing shut.
Following that conversation, this normal state had incrementally increased. The dynamic between Tong Xilin and Kong Ji seemed to have entered an entirely new phase.
—Kong Ji’s calls and messages now came through now and then. He no longer asked if Tong Xilin was coming home. He just asked what he’d eaten, how bad the chilblains were, reminded him to look after his leg.
These questions weren’t hard to answer. Tong Xilin had no need to resist like before.
During the day, though, he often couldn’t keep up. The coffee shop was so busy it was a madhouse.
In the evenings, after getting off work, he’d exchange a few words with Kong Ji now and then. Neither warm nor cold. Like a real uncle and nephew.
Two days before the New Year, the couple living on the first floor went home.
The coffee shop didn’t close until the 29th of the lunar year. Tong Xilin and Qin Ji worked right up to the final shift. Before closing, they helped the Shop Manager with a deep clean and even pasted fu characters on the shop doors and windows.
The Shop Manager settled their pre-New-Year wages, then gave each an extra two hundred yuan as a little red envelope. The New Year atmosphere made everything feel cheerful. He told them they’d worked hard lately.
Leaving the coffee shop in the afternoon, while the sky was still light, Tong Xilin and Qin Ji went to the supermarket and bought some New Year goods.
“New Year goods” was a generous term. With just the two of them, there was only so much they could consume. They couldn’t spend much.
They bought some ground pork and flour for making dumplings. Qin Ji went over to the fruit and vegetable section to buy produce. Tong Xilin picked out some snacks, and, on the way, grabbed a set of spring couplets.
Say what you will, it was still the New Year. A basic sense of ceremony was needed.
“You’re just like my little sister.” Seeing Tong Xilin return with half a cart of snacks, Qin Ji, carrying a bag of vegetables, laughed.
“Don’t tell me you don’t eat this stuff.” Tong Xilin took the groceries from his hand and put them in the cart too. They went to queue at the checkout.
After working part-time and renting together, the two of them were now familiar. Naturally, that meant many sensitive details could be smoothed over.
Tong Xilin took the initiative to pay. Qin Ji didn’t fight him for it.
Carrying their purchases back to the old building, Qin Ji pulled out his phone to transfer half the money to Tong Xilin. Tong Xilin just pressed his phone down.
“Tomorrow, the job of making dumplings and cooking dinner is all yours.” Tong Xilin declared righteously. “I can’t do any of it.”
“You’re not helping at all?” Qin Ji joked along.
“Nope. Just waiting to eat.” The corners of Tong Xilin’s eyes curved into a small arc. He went to wash his hands and apply chilblain ointment. “So hurry up and don’t settle accounts with me. Once we settle, I’ll have to help you with the work.”
Tong Xilin said he wouldn’t help, and he truly didn’t.
On Lunar New Year’s Eve, he slept until he woke naturally. When he came out of the bedroom, Qin Ji was already in the downstairs kitchen, washing vegetables and preparing the New Year meal.
With his toothbrush in his mouth, he wandered into the kitchen for a look. He gave Qin Ji a big thumbs-up. After washing up, he went and pasted the spring couplets.
In the afternoon, while they sat together making dumplings, Qin Ji’s mother called.
Qin Ji went upstairs to take it. His voice drifted down now and then. The call was very long. Starting from the second half, Qin Ji’s voice carried a slight catch, like he was holding back tears.
Tong Xilin listened quietly. Following the method Qin Ji had just taught him, he shaped small cat’s-ear boiled dumplings one by one in his palm, arranging them neatly on the plate.
Kong Ji had probably also gone to his parents’ home for dinner by now. He wondered if he’d drink that much again this year.
He thought.
Memory was like a small chest. He called up last year’s embrace, carried by wind and snow and the scent of alcohol, then pushed the chest shut in his mind. He lowered his head and kept wrapping dumplings.
The sound of Qin Ji’s phone call had stopped. It was another moment before he came downstairs. He didn’t sit back down at the dining table directly, instead going to the bathroom to wash his face.
“Homesick?” Tong Xilin observed him and asked quietly.
“Didn’t feel much at first.” Qin Ji looked a bit embarrassed. “But when my mom’s voice started cracking into tears, it got to me a little.”
This was a feeling Tong Xilin had never experienced. He didn’t understand.
He rotated the plate of dumplings to show Qin Ji what he’d made. Changing the subject, he asked: “How’d I do?”
“Ugly.” Qin Ji looked and laughed.
Tong Xilin laughed too, pushing more than half the remaining dumpling wrappers toward Qin Ji: “Yours look good. The capable should do more work.”
Qin Ji’s call had just ended. Midway through wrapping dumplings, Zhou Qi’s call came through, shouting at Tong Xilin to log in and play Honor of Kings with him.
“Can’t. Busy.” Tong Xilin sent him a photo of the dumplings he was making.
“Won’t even come home, but you’re over there wrapping dumplings.” Zhou Qi asked him, “Where exactly are you?”
“Rented a place.” Tong Xilin’s hands were covered in flour. He couldn’t hold the phone, so he just put the call on speakerphone and set it on the table.
In Zhou Qi’s impression, his good friend had never had a single good New Year.
Last year, he’d braved the snow and sat on that swing for ages. This year was even worse—renting a place to wrap dumplings.
“I seriously don’t get what’s going through your head.” He clicked his tongue on the other end of the phone. “Renting a place yourself? Send me the address. In a couple days, once New Year’s is over, I’ll come keep you company.”
“There’s two of us.” Tong Xilin said. “Me and Qin Ji.”
“Ah.” Zhou Qi reacted for a moment. “He’s next to you?”
“He’s next to me.” Tong Xilin hinted for him not to talk smack. “Wrapping dumplings together.”
“As long as you’re not alone.” Zhou Qi hadn’t planned on badmouthing anyone over the phone anyway. “Wrap your dumplings. I’m gonna find Qi Yuan and team up.”
He talked himself into hanging up the phone. Qin Ji looked up, glancing at Tong Xilin’s phone: “He and Qi Yuan really do get along well.”
“Those two could live in the King’s Canyon.” Tong Xilin formed another ugly dumpling.
Zhou Qi looked for Qi Yuan. Qi Yuan dragged in Pang Xiaoda. In the dorm group chat, they begged and pleaded, even resorting to a group voice call, forcibly coercing Tong Xilin and Qin Ji to log in for a five-man team.
With all the racket and chaos in the group, they eventually roped Qin Ji into the team.
“This bro’s word doesn’t carry weight anymore,” Zhou Qi said sarcastically in the game room. “Now it takes my Brother Qi to move you.”
“Too outrageous, this little Tong Xilin.” Qi Yuan joined the clamor. “Simply no face for my Brother Qi.”
“Hurry up, you two Qi-bros.” Pang Xiaoda urged them. “Start a few rounds quick so I can go eat.”
Spring Festival was about the atmosphere of the season. Making dumplings a little earlier or later didn’t really matter.
Playing games with friends on a day like this, as the sky gradually darkened, listening to the occasional distant firecrackers—Tong Xilin got a bit swept up in it. He played more animatedly than before, dying in all sorts of creative ways.
One by one, the people in his phone were called away by their families for dinner. Tong Xilin and Qin Ji put their phones down and went to boil their dumplings.
Two fillings: celery-pork and shrimp-egg. They brought them steaming to the table. Tong Xilin brought the laptop down and played the Spring Festival Gala as background noise. Even a New Year’s with just two people was made warm and lively by their efforts.
“Happy New Year.” Qin Ji raised his drink to clink with Tong Xilin. His tone was very sincere. “Getting to know you really has been a very happy thing.”
“Getting all sentimental now.” Tong Xilin clinked his water glass against his, then snapped a photo of their two-person dumpling spread.
He posted it on WeChat Moments. The caption was simple: Happy New Year. This year’s Spring Festival was very joyful.
Probably because the Spring Gala was truly awful, everyone in his WeChat contacts was on their phones. His Moments post had barely gone up when he received a few likes.
The very first person to like it was, unexpectedly, Jiang Lin.
Tong Xilin agonized over whether he should send Jiang Lin a New Year’s greeting. Before he could type anything, Jiang Lin sent him a message first.
Jiang Lin: Didn’t go home, Xiao Lin?
Tong Xilin first replied with Happy New Year, Uncle Jiang, then answered: Didn’t go back. At school.
Jiang Lin sent another voice message, laughing heartily: “Didn’t your uncle even buy you a plane ticket? Was looking forward to it like crazy. Wasted his time adjusting the schedule.”
A dumpling halfway to his mouth, Tong Xilin listened to this voice message. Several seconds passed before he put it in his mouth.
Jiang Lin, being the same age as Kong Ji and getting called “Uncle” by Tong Xilin, also sent him a red envelope. Called it New Year’s money.
Tong Xilin screenshot it and sent it to Kong Ji.
Kong Ji’s call came through a little over ten minutes later.
“If he gives you money, just take it.” His voice carried that particular lazy drawl that came after drinking. He was joking, but his tone wasn’t high.
Through the phone, it sounded to Tong Xilin like he was inside an enclosed car.
“Aren’t you at home, Uncle?” Tong Xilin asked.
“In the parking garage.” Kong Ji’s end had the “click” of a lighter—that crisp flick. “What filling are the dumplings?”
Tong Xilin told him the fillings. Kong Ji hummed, said eat more.
Qin Ji had gone to the kitchen to mix the vinegar dipping sauce. Tong Xilin held his phone, not knowing what else to say, and offered to hang up.
“Don’t hang up.” Kong Ji didn’t let him. “Keep me company for a bit.”
Tong Xilin’s curled finger scraped the edge of his phone. The more he listened, the more Kong Ji’s current state seemed just like last year, after the New Year’s Eve dinner, heading home.
“My voice doesn’t sound like Tong Yuzhi’s.” He spoke quietly, reminding Kong Ji.
Kong Ji laughed, exhaling a stream of smoke.
“Tong Xilin.” He said Tong Xilin’s name. “I’m talking about you. Not your father.”
