Chapter 9: So He Could Never Forget

He’d asked the same question twice, received the same answer twice, yet the feelings in his heart were worlds apart.

He fell silent. The hand braced against his bed’s edge clenched soundlessly, then slackened, powerless. In the end, he forced a small smile onto his face.

“I want to go back now, Uncle.”

Zhou Qi was sleeping like the dead in the hotel. When Tong Xilin woke him and informed him they were heading back to catch a flight, he didn’t ask further, just grabbed his room card and checked out.

While waiting at the airport, the two of them sat together drinking Starbucks, watching Kong Ji periodically step away to answer phone calls. He seemed very busy.

“What exactly does your uncle do,” Zhou Qi asked, leaning sideways over the table, swiveling back and forth on his bar stool.

“Photography,” Tong Xilin said.

“No wonder. He looks like some airport photo shoot, just standing there,” he nodded. “Pretty cool.”

Tong Xilin turned to look at him.

“You and your uncle don’t look alike,” Zhou Qi studied his face.

“We’re not actually related by blood,” he muttered.

Zhou Qi didn’t catch it. He leaned his ear closer, asking, “What?”

Tong Xilin didn’t feel like explaining. He pushed his coffee, barely touched, toward his hand. “You drink it. It’s too sweet.”

“This is too sweet?” Zhou Qi took a sip of his. His whole face puckered from the bitterness.

That sudden, impulse-driven trip back home ended just as hastily, bringing no change to his and Kong Ji’s interactions.

Throughout the entire process of checking in and boarding, Kong Ji stayed right behind him. Tong Xilin and Zhou Qi walked ahead, occasionally glancing back, and always happened to meet his gaze resting on him.

They’d booked three adjacent seats. Kong Ji sat on the outermost side, reached over as naturally as anything to fasten his seatbelt for him. He asked the flight attendant for two blankets, tossing one casually to Zhou Qi and draping the other over his legs.

Tong Xilin smoothed the edges of the blanket. This whole routine was exactly the same as when he’d first followed him home half a year ago.

“Now you’re getting cold?” Zhou Qi watched from the side, his eyes teasing. Using a hushed voice, he whispered to him, “Didn’t see you cover up on the flight here. The moment your uncle shows up, you’re all delicate.”

“This leg was fractured,” Tong Xilin pointed at his right leg.

Zhou Qi immediately raised a hand. “Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“What are you two chatting about,” Kong Ji raised his eyes from his phone, cutting through their whispered conversation.

“Nothing,” Head lowered, he continued smoothing the blanket.

The plane landed at three in the afternoon. He took the two kids out for a big meal, but before they’d even finished eating, Kong Ji was called away by a phone call from Jiang Lin. He still had unfinished work to deal with.

The New Year’s break meant no holidays for this industry. The day he’d just squeezed out for his impromptu trip was done with sheer difficulty.

“Order more if it’s not enough,” he transferred two thousand yuan to Tong Xilin’s phone before leaving. “After you’re done eating, head home on your own.”

“I have enough money,” he didn’t really want to take it.

“It’s for your friend’s round-trip airfare,” Kong Ji patted his head, and strode off while still on the phone.

Zhou Qi refused to accept Tong Xilin’s offered transfer, told him to just forget it.

“Take it,” he felt bad about it. “You got dragged on this whole trip with me, and we didn’t even do anything fun.”

“Makes no difference to me, wherever I am,” Zhou Qi gestured magnanimously, then proceeded to polish off the lobster on the table. “You doing any better?”

“Hm?” Tong Xilin blinked.

“Weren’t you missing your dad,” Zhou Qi said.

Was he doing any better?

Tong Xilin asked himself.

Did it even matter if he was or wasn’t?

It was an unsolvable question. So he could only answer Zhou Qi: “I’m fine.”

Life continued as before, marching on in its set rhythm.

There was still a month of classes after the New Year. The class’s monthly exam results had been disappointing. The Head Teacher moved the morning reading session half an hour earlier, and every day before class, she’d slap the College Entrance Exam countdown placard, making it ra-ta-tat loudly.

It was a heavy snow year this year. Snow fell every few days in thick layers. Quite a few students in the class caught colds. Tong Xilin was careful every day, but still didn’t dodge it.

“Got a cold?” He heard the nasal congestion in his voice and came over to test his forehead with the back of his hand.

Tong Xilin’s head felt heavy and fuzzy. He’d had barely any energy all through evening self-study, and now just nodded listlessly.

It might be true that people get more melodramatic when they’re sick. Instead of going to his room, he burrowed into the sofa, silently reciting vocabulary while watching him prepare cold medicine.

“I don’t want to drink that,” he sniffled.

“Be good,” Kong Ji tasted a sip himself to test the temperature, then held the cup out to him.

He sat up against the sofa, eyeing that small patch of the cup’s rim where his lips had just touched. He wanted to drink straight from it but, under his watch, felt too self-conscious, so he angled it away slightly.

“Anything you feel like eating,” he asked further. “I’ll order you some congee.”

“Can you cook noodles, Uncle,” he had no appetite, but suddenly wanted to test the waters. “When I was little and got sick, my dad always made me noodles.”

Kong Ji, who had just taken the empty cup and was turning around, paused at those words.

“What kind of noodles,” he turned his head back to ask.

“He made them himself,” he licked the slightly sweet medicinal residue from the corner of his lips. “A little wide, but very thin. Cooked a small bowl, and always added a fried egg.”

Kong Ji’s gaze became distant and far-reaching, whether at the mention of his father or some other thought. Again, that look he’d had when first seeing him in the hospital appeared.

“I can’t make those,” he tossed the empty cup lightly in his palm. “I can only do egg noodles. Want some?”

“Oh,” Tong Xilin buried half his face into a throw pillow, leaving only one eye visible as he looked at him. “It’s okay, I was just asking.”

Kong Ji still went and made him a bowl of noodles.

It wasn’t very good. The fried egg had scattered, the flavor too bland, yet too much sesame oil had been added.

Despite all that, Tong Xilin still sat at the dining table and ate it one mouthful at a time. Kong Ji sat across from him, a cigarette between his lips, watching him eat through the drifting curls of smoke.

Who knew who he was seeing again.

The next morning, getting ready for school, Tong Xilin took a black face mask from the entryway cabinet and put it on in front of the mirror.

Today, over his school uniform, he wore a short white down jacket, also bought by Kong Ji. The hood had a fluffy circle of fur trim, further narrowing the already slim contours of his face. All that remained visible—between the black fringe of hair and the black mask—were a pair of very striking eyes.

Kong Ji got up and was about to leave for the studio. Seeing him like this, he stood and watched for a long while.

“Uncle,” Tong Xilin’s voice was muffled by the mask. He stared at him unblinkingly. “I’m off to school.”

“Does your head hurt,” Kong Ji came over. His hand cupped the back of his head, and with a force deeper than usual, he pressed their foreheads together. “If you’re not feeling well, ask for leave. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“Doesn’t hurt,” He absorbed the scent of him, his eyelids drooping heavily. “My dad said a fever under 38 degrees doesn’t count as sick.”

Kong Ji smiled at that. He clasped the back of his neck with a squeeze, then ruffled his hair, saying, “Your dad told me that same line once, too.”

“I’ll drive you to school.” He helped wrap his scarf around him, then took his hand and led him downstairs toward the parking garage.

That day, Kong Ji was particularly attentive toward him.

Driving him all the way to the school gate, he packed the spare cold medicine for him, reminding him to remember to take it himself at noon. Tong Xilin had already gotten out of the car and was just about to close the door when he called out again: “Tong Xilin.”

He adjusted his mask, which had slipped down a little, and looked back. “Yes?”

Kong Ji’s hand rested on the steering wheel. He looked at him, his fingertips tapping a soft, slow rhythm.

“This weekend, I’ll take you out to buy a few more outfits,” he said to him. “White really suits you.”

Suits me?

Or suits my dad.

Tong Xilin didn’t refuse, curving his eyes. “Sure.”

In the winter, the classroom windows stayed tightly shut. A flu could sweep through half the class in no time.

Zhou Qi had mocked him yesterday for being half-dead, and today he’d caught it too, sneezing one after another.

Tong Xilin tossed him the cold medicine Kong Ji had sent with him: “Drink up.”

“You’re the one who infected me,” Zhou Qi tore the packet open with his teeth, poured the powder into his mouth like Pop Rocks, then chased the mouthful of bitter medicine with ice-cold mineral water.

“You’re like a wild man,” Tong Xilin remarked.

“Might as well be,” Zhou Qi exhaled with relief. “My parents left again. They won’t have time to come back and beat me until after the New Year.”

Sometimes, Tong Xilin thought Zhou Qi deserved those beatings. Other times, he thought he had it quite rough.

He’d lived that life alone for two years. That kind of loneliness seeped into your very bones. No matter how much Zhou Qi yelled that he wished nobody was around to control him, returning every day to an empty, hollow house—there had to be moments where it stung.

Hardship was an emotion that couldn’t really be compared. Judging another’s experience by your own, Tong Xilin wasn’t sure what was harder to bear: living alone, or being treated as a stand-in.

“Zhou Qi,” he called out.

“What,” He was chatting with someone on his phone, probably another girl—the profile picture was pink and soft.

“If you’d raised a dog, or a cat, doesn’t matter,” Tong Xilin slowly pieced together his thoughts, “and it died. Then later, you ran into another one that looked exactly the same… what would that feel like?”

Zhou Qi’s ability to grasp the main point rivaled his exam scores. He looked up and asked, “You got a dog?”

“No,” Tong Xilin, even with his cold, lacked the energy to feel exasperated. “Just suddenly wondered.”

“I did raise one,” Zhou Qi spun his phone, actually connecting with this topic. “Found it in a park in sixth grade. A little black dog. Snuck it back home and hid it for two days. My dad found it and threw it out.”

“It was this big.” He held up two fingers to show the size. “Couldn’t even walk steady yet. After my dad threw it out, I’d take it ham sausages every day to feed it. By the third day, it was dead by the roadside.”

Tong Xilin was suddenly at a loss for words, just looking at him.

“After that, I didn’t want to keep pets anymore,” he pulled his phone back out to continue his chat, his tone very flat. “But every time I see a black dog, it comes to mind. Not that I get all sentimental or anything. It just… appears there in my head.”

“I’d think, if only it hadn’t died back then, whether it would have grown up to look just like that.”

So he could never forget.

Tong Xilin fixed a dazed stare at some corner of his textbook, his mind entirely filled with Tong Yuzhi’s photo, and with the way Kong Ji’s eyes would always deepen whenever his dad was brought up.

“What if you really did get the chance to run into that same little black dog again,” he pressed on, his voice a bit hoarse from wanting to cough.

“Dead is dead. You think its dog-ghost is gonna haunt me?” Zhou Qi laughed. Then he added: “But if I really could run into it again, I definitely wouldn’t be able to help myself. I’d take it back home.”

That’s still pretty unfair.

Tong Xilin thought to himself, silently.

The dog taken back home wouldn’t know it was just a stand-in for another dog.

But if it wasn’t taken back, its life would surely be a hard one.

Maybe he should just be a dog in his next life.

He folded his arms on his desk and rested his heavy head there. The thought was absurd and full of sorrow.

At least a dog doesn’t understand so much. A pure, uncomplicated mind can’t conceive of complexities and twists. As long as someone is good to it, it’s content and happy.