【002】
Blue Rain was a tourist attraction the small city had been developing over the past two years.
Every year from April to July, the luciferase enzymes inside bioluminescent algae cells in the sea react with oxygen. At night, they release vast swaths of light blue, cold light, a phenomenon known as the Blue Tears. When the Blue Tears outbreak coincides with rain, the sea’s surface looks like a blue rain is falling.
Jing City… male… around our age… came back to recuperate… takes a fistful of pills every day… be quiet, he’s still sleeping…
The words he’d overheard flooded Yu Ting’s mind all at once. He wiped his hands, picked up the other paper airplane, and said, “I’ve seen it once.”
The boy immediately leaned out the window, his upper body hanging precariously outside with no support. He tilted his chin up and asked, “What are you planting?”
“Endless Summer Hydrangeas,” Yu Ting replied. “A type of hydrangea.”
He looked at the boy’s suspended body and still couldn’t help but say, “Maybe you should pull back inside first?”
The boy immediately pulled back in, jumped off the windowsill, and vanished.
After waiting a moment, the boy didn’t reappear. Yu Ting looked down at the two paper airplanes, found a clean spot to set them down, and continued working.
Not long after, a faint wisp of warm air brushed past his ear. “Did you know you have a little red mole behind your left ear?”
Yu Ting’s heart involuntarily skipped a beat. He turned around, hands covered in mud. The tall, thin boy was bent over, looking down at him, his face incredibly close—
Narrow, elongated eyes; deep-set eye sockets; intensely dark, black pupils; two massive purplish-blue bruises of exhaustion under his lower eyelids. His crimson lips looked exceptionally morbid against his pallid face.
He really did look like a vampire from a movie.
“What’s your name?” Those lips, looking as if they’d just drained a goblet of blood, parted slightly.
Yu Ting came back to his senses. “Yu Ting. The ‘Yu’ from ‘Yuran,’ the ‘Ting’ from ‘water’ and ‘ding’.”
The boy squatted down opposite Yu Ting. His voice carried the lazy hoarseness of someone who had just woken up. “Lu Jue. The ‘Lu’ from ‘land,’ the ‘Jue’ as in ‘extinct.'”
He stretched out his hand. A finger, as cold and pale as frozen meat, hooked and sketched “Lu Jue” into the dirt.
Patches of dappled light squeezed through the leaves, falling upon that emaciated back of his hand. The crisscrossing, thick blue veins were clearly visible, his skin a sickly eggplant-blue, like an exquisitely carved piece of art.
It was the first time Yu Ting had ever heard the surname Jue. Did a name like that mean his mother’s surname was Jue? Yu Ting guessed, momentarily at a loss for words. He brushed the mud from his fingertips and said, “Oh.”
Lu Jue rubbed the mud between his own fingertips and asked that question again. “When will the Blue Rain come?”
The Blue Tears appeared less than once a year, and Blue Rain was even rarer.
Yu Ting shook his head. “The last time I saw it was five years ago.”
Lu Jue raised an eyebrow. Yu Ting added, “High tide brings rain. You can try your luck on high tide days.”
Lu Jue asked, “When is high tide?”
“I don’t know.” Catching a glimpse of Lu Jue’s sickly complexion, Yu Ting paused and said, “What’s your cell phone number? I’ll ask around when I get home and tell you.”
“No phone.”
Yu Ting was taken aback. Was it an illness that prevented him from getting near cell phone radiation? He pressed his lips together. “Can you go outside?”
“I can climb the wall.” Lu Jue lazily pointed to the left side of the Western-style mansion. “There’s a wall over there.”
This time, his hand passed before Yu Ting’s eyes. The capillaries were a faint, cold blue, and the knuckles bore deep and shallow marks.
Yu Ting was all too familiar with those kinds of marks. They were the traces left by obsessively biting one’s own knuckles, over and over again.
Yu Ting lowered his head, pressing down the soil. “Alright, tomorrow morning…” From the corner of his eye, he noticed the lawn, so parched it was practically smoking. He quietly changed his mind. “Tomorrow afternoon, after sunset. Wait for me by that wall.”
Back home, Zhao Rufei had already prepared a sumptuous feast. Zhang Minhua had arrived too.
As they ate, Zhang Minhua suddenly sighed with feeling. “Ah, after eating so many leftovers from rich people’s houses lately, even sea urchin and abalone don’t taste good anymore.”
Zhao Rufei blinked in confusion. Zhang Minhua cheerfully explained, “Didn’t a young master come to the place where I work? The chefs all followed him from Jing City, several of them, specializing in Chinese food, Western food, pastries… Even the ingredients are flown in. A commoner like me has really seen the world now. They even have tree-berry flavored kiwis, just this small.” Zhang Minhua picked up an egg from the braised pork dish. “About the size of this egg, and it costs over a hundred bucks!”
“…” Zhao Rufei was very surprised. She secretly glanced at Yu Ting, put down her chopsticks, and gestured, measuring. “There’s a kiwi that costs over a hundred bucks?”
“There is!” Zhang Minhua grew more and more animated. “The kiwi is nothing. That Young Master Lu even drinks water from some glacier thousands of meters above sea level! The shipping cost for one trip alone is enough for us to buy water for years! Just look at his life. Only 17, and he’s already surpassed us for this entire lifetime.”
Zhao Rufei fell silent. She poked listlessly at the braised pork in her bowl, feeling bad.
The last time she and Yu Ting had eaten braised pork was two months ago.
Yu Ting read Zhao Rufei’s thoughts. He picked up a piece of braised pork, took a satisfyingly big bite, and as he chewed, he gestured “more” to Zhao Rufei. Only then did Zhao Rufei smile again. She took the spoon and scooped a large helping of pork and sauce into his bowl, gesturing for him to eat more, to put on some weight.
Zhang Minhua watched the interaction between mother and son and said with a smile, “But I say, Little Ting here isn’t doing too badly either. What use is that Young Master Lu’s money? He’s just a walking medicine cabinet. He can’t even eat those fine dishes, and he never pays anyone any mind. Seems like he has a really bad temper…”
Yu Ting ate quietly. Only after finishing the meal and seeing Zhang Minhua out the door did he politely ask, “Aunt Min, will there be high tide soon?”
Zhang Minhua’s father was an old fisherman, more accurate than the tide predictions issued by the local observatory.
After making the call, Zhang Minhua mounted her bicycle. “Your grandpa says there’s a small spring tide next Wednesday.”
A section of the road at the entrance had had a broken streetlight for over three years without anyone coming to fix it. Yu Ting held a flashlight and escorted Zhang Minhua to a lit area before he jogged quickly home.
Once inside, he checked Wednesday’s weather.
Sunny. No rain again.
~
The next day, Yu Ting woke up at 6 AM. The bathroom light was already on; Zhao Rufei had gotten up as usual.
Yu Ting first ducked into the kitchen to steam the buns, congee, and a small plate of salted fish. By the time he finished preparing breakfast, Zhao Rufei had finished washing up too. She signed, “Not sleeping in on the weekend?”
Yu Ting stretched his limbs. “Got enough sleep.”
Zhao Rufei grinned. After breakfast, she told Yu Ting he didn’t need to bring her lunch and left for work.
It was still early. Yu Ting cleaned the house once. With nothing else to do, he started on his problem sets. The continuous scratching of the pen, the flowers outside almost scorched by the sun—it wasn’t until a relentless barrage of phone vibrations pulled Yu Ting out of his test bank that he looked up.
He glanced at the screen. It was 3 PM.
The call was from Li Chengxi. “Brother Ting, come out and play! They invited us to play ball at Planet No. 1.”
Planet No. 1 was a very lively entertainment spot in the small city, with all kinds of ball courts and the latest gaming consoles. It was a favorite hangout for young people.
“You guys go ahead.” Yu Ting continued calculating his problems.
“Working on problems again, huh?” Li Chengxi heard the sound of the pen and laughed. “Fine, I won’t go either. I’m coming to find you.”
Yu Ting put down his pen. “I’m about to go out.”
“Going to help at your family’s flower nursery again?”
Yu Ting paused. “Meeting a friend.”
At home, Yu Ting hurriedly ate a few crackers to pad his stomach, then went to the shed to get his bicycle.
The bike was a lady’s bicycle retired from Zhao Rufei. Yu Ting preferred to walk and memorize vocabulary. Coupled with Zhao Rufei’s constant worry about him getting into a traffic accident, he rarely rode it more than a few times a year.
Although it hadn’t been used for a long time, it was still clean and shining. Both Yu Ting and Zhao Rufei were clean freaks; even things they rarely used were wiped spotless.
The sun at 3 PM was scorching. Yu Ting found a cap and put it on, then got on the bike. Two wheels were much slower than four. By the time he reached Lu Jue’s house, it was almost 4:30. He stopped at the agreed spot. Just as his foot touched the ground, a figure vaulted over the wall.
The wall was especially high. Lu Jue jumped down, his skin looking cold even under the hottest afternoon sun. His chest heaved violently, as if he might faint at any moment. Yu Ting quickly got off the bike to support him—
“How did you get here early?”
“You really came.”
The two spoke at the same time.
Lu Jue braced his hands on his knees. The sun glaring off his sickly face was especially harsh. Yu Ting was silent for a second, then took off his cap and put it on Lu Jue’s head.
Lu Jue looked up. Yu Ting said, “I don’t tell lies.”
Lu Jue smirked and straightened up.
A large shadow blocked the sunlight. Only then did Yu Ting realize Lu Jue was over half a head taller than him, close to 1.9 meters. His shoulders were also much broader. Physically, he looked healthier than Yu Ting, except for his complexion.
Yu Ting also had pale, cool-toned skin, but Lu Jue’s pale skin carried an eggplant-blue undertone, like a vampire’s. Even under the blazing sun, he radiated no heat.
“Next Wednesday is a small spring tide.” Yu Ting withdrew his gaze. “But no rain.”
Lu Jue looked at Yu Ting’s bicycle. It was a black lady’s bicycle. His eyebrow arched slightly. “Your girlfriend’s car?”
Yu Ting shook his head. “My mom’s.”
He looked down at his watch. Zhao Rufei would be off work soon. “I have to go home. You climb back over…” He suddenly remembered that despite Lu Jue’s tall frame, he was a sickly person. He changed his approach. “Stand on my bike to get back over.”
“Can you take me to see it on Wednesday?” Lu Jue showed no sign of moving. With the two huge purplish-blue bruises under his eyes, he leaned against the wall and lazily flicked the brim of the cap. “I don’t know the way.”
It wouldn’t rain on Wednesday. Even if the Blue Tears appeared, they wouldn’t see Blue Rain. Yu Ting was silent for two seconds, but still nodded. “I’ll pick you up after school. Same meeting spot here, around six.” He added, “My family has a curfew. I can only stay until nine.”
Lu Jue’s lips curved silently. He pulled a bank card from his trouser pocket, took off the cap, and handed both to Yu Ting. He recited six numbers. “Do me another favor. Bring me a cell phone and a SIM card next time you come.”
Yu Ting didn’t take them. “Aren’t you afraid of cell phone radiation?”
Lu Jue was slightly taken aback. A moment later, he burst out laughing, clutching his stomach with both hands, the corners of his eyes glistening. He was actually laughing until tears came out.
Yu Ting, “…Did I say something wrong?”
Lu Jue’s laughter stopped just as abruptly. He said nonchalantly, “Oh, so you’ve also heard that I’m sick.”
Yu Ting opened his mouth to speak, but Lu Jue was quicker. He put the cap back onto Yu Ting’s head, tapping the brim with his knuckle. “Don’t worry. My illness isn’t afraid of radiation.”
…
On the way home, Yu Ting made a detour to the vegetable market.
The street in front of the vegetable market was lined with shops selling all sorts of things. Yu Ting came out carrying his groceries and caught sight of a few cell phone stores.
The bank card in his pants pocket suddenly felt extremely conspicuous.
In the end, he had still taken Lu Jue’s bank card.
Yu Ting observed the customer flow and chose a phone store to enter.
Inside the phone store, the display cases held the latest models. Yu Ting carefully looked at the prices; most were four digits. He used Zhao Rufei’s old phone and had never paid attention to phone prices.
The boss came over with a smile and asked, “Student, what brand are you looking for? What price range?”
Lu Jue had told him to buy any one. Yu Ting replied, “Full features, reasonable price.”
The boss took out a dark gray phone from the display case. “The latest iPhone 4! This phone is super popular right now! There are only five units in the entire city. My store has two. A student picked one up just this noon.”
Yu Ting glanced at the price tag. 16GB, priced at 4999.
Shockingly expensive.
He shook his head. “Something cheaper.”
The boss recommended a few models around two thousand. In the end, Yu Ting chose a 2100-yuan smartphone, also got a SIM card, and loaded it with 100 yuan of credit. The total was 2200.
He pulled out the bank card. The boss was packaging the phone and said, “The POS machine is broken. There’s an ATM next door. Go withdraw some cash, and I’ll wrap it up for you.”
Yu Ting went to the ATM and withdrew 2200. The balance popped up—a long string of zeros trailing behind. Yu Ting averted his gaze, removed the card, and tucked it deep into his pants pocket.
By the time he finished the purchase, the sky was getting dark. Yu Ting pedaled his bike home.
Nearing his house, he could faintly make out someone sitting on the front steps through the courtyard fence.
Yu Ting got off his bike and pushed the door open. Li Chengxi immediately picked up a paper bag and ran a few steps to the front of his bike, grinning as he held the bag out. “Brother Ting, my flight’s tomorrow morning. This is a farewell gift for you. The other friends got some too. Call me on video whenever you’re free.”
