On the night of the end of the tour at Guangzhou, Star Chart booked a famous local restaurant, where they held a grand congratulatory banquet, with all the staff members participating in it.
The concert that they had been preparing for over half a year had finally been experienced by the fans, and had achieved better results than expected. By the end, the many staff members who were watching it backstage even started crying. Even Cheng Qiang, who had always played the role of an old father, felt his nose sting when he heard their self-introduction, making him feel as if he had returned to the first day of their debut.
“First of all, congratulations to us for successfully completing the first stage of our Ego tour!” Cheng Qiang announced with a lot of emotion as he stood in the middle of the dining hall holding a microphone.
Fang Juexia was standing to the side and chatting with Jiang Miao, and when he turned, he saw a bottle of champagne on the table, so he picked it up and looked at its brand. Unexpectedly, Ling Yi saw this series of actions and piped up, “Juexia, show it to me!”
So, Fang Juexia handed the bottle of champagne over to Ling Yi, who was really excited by it. “I’ve never actually opened champagne before, no one ever let me open it.”
“I haven’t either,” Fang Juexia said truthfully.
Pei Tingsong brought a glass of lemon soda for Fang Juexia as he reminded, “Drink more water.” With a glance, he saw Ling Yi fiddling with the champagne. “What are you doing?”
“How can this just pop out ah?” Ling Yi was in doubt.
“It’ll be done in a few shakes,” said Pei Tingsong quite casually, but he hadn’t expected that Ling Yi would shake it to death, pretty much putting the strength of his whole body into this.
“Everyone has worked really hard! Today, we will just enjoy…”
Pop—
The cork got pushed out, and champagne burst out wildly, the bubbles and white foam streaming out and pouring all over Agent Cheng Qiang, who was still in the middle of his speech. On seeing this scene, Fang Juexia nearly spat out his lemonade.
Pei Tingsong was stunned for a second before he started laughing, laughing until he had to crouch down and even hug Fang Juexia’s leg.
Cheng Qiang, who had been sprayed into bewilderment, turned to face Ling Yi, who was steadying the bottom of the champagne bottle against his stomach at that moment. “What the hell are you doing?”
Ling Yi awkwardly put the bottle of champagne on the floor before trying to scuttle and escape the crime scene like a small crab, but he was seized by Lu Yuan and He Ziyan and carried back. “You even want to run ah?”
“You’re really quite good, you aimed directly at Qiang Ge.”
“Aiya, I didn’t expect to spray so much…”
“Hahahahaha!”
“Alright, alright, everyone have fun on their own ba.” Cheng Qiang himself also couldn’t help laughing.
Everyone chatted and ate. The whole restaurant’s first floor was full of Star Chart people, and it wasn’t so much a celebration banquet as a party. The lights were gorgeous, and everyone drank, chatted, and relaxed to the music. Although the atmosphere was very good, Fang Juexia already found it difficult to be at ease in such large gatherings, let alone when he had other plans. When the restaurant music started to play “Night Trip”, he drew close to Pei Tingsong’s ear.
“Let’s sneak away ba.”
Romantics certainly wouldn’t refuse a perfect elopement.
It was already 12:30 a.m. by the time they ran out of the restaurant, but Guangzhou nights usually didn’t die down until very late. The heat wave diffusing around the city was like the smoke and fire raging on a connecting road, unable to find an exit. Donning masks and hats, the two people got into a randomly hailed taxi as they broke away from the party and drove towards a bigger party, one which belonged to the whole city.
Their driver was a middle-aged man in his 40s and 50s, and he was very enthusiastic. As soon as they got in the car, he used Mandarin, coloured with an obvious Cantonese accent, to ask, “Came to Guangzhou to have fun?”
Fang Juexia smiled and answered in Cantonese, “No, I’m from Guangzhou.” Then he gave an address.
The driver was a little surprised. Looking at Pei Tingsong in the rearview mirror, he also changed from speaking awkward Mandarin to Cantonese. “Is this handsome guy the same?”
“He’s not, he’s keeping me company on this trip back home.”
“Ah, I was just saying ma, he’s so tall ah. At a glance, I saw you two standing on the side of the road, both handsome and tall.” The driver joked, “People who didn’t know better would think you’re celebrities.”
Actually, they really were celebrities.
Pei Tingsong didn’t understand what was being said, so he drew closer and asked Fang Juexia, who laughed before telling him, “He’s praising you for being both tall and handsome, and thinks you can be a star.”
“Driver Da Ge, you have great potential to be a star scout,” quipped Pei Tingsong.
“Hahahahahaha, right? Guangzhou is very fun, and there’s lots of delicious things…”
Fang Juexia felt very at ease as he listened to the two of them chat. He looked out of the car window, at the glass reflecting the city’s neon colors, flashing by like the kaleidoscope over the concert.
After passing through a bustling commercial street, the light outside gradually grew dimmer, and the darkness of the night gradually recovered. Only upon entering the old city did Fang Juexia really get the feeling that he had come home.
They said goodbye to the enthusiastic driver, opened the door, and soaked in the heat again.
The streets here were much quieter, with some doors already covered by a gray metal security shutter. The rest were all kinds of snack shops and nightclubs. They were all lit up in red and yellow lights, and their signs shone bright; they were the most vital cells in this sleeping city.
“Where is this?” Pei Tingsong wanted to hold hands, but he held back and instead, chose the second best thing by throwing an arm around Fang Juexia’s shoulder.
“The back door of my high school.” Fang Juexia pointed to the shade behind a wall. “Do you see that over there? That’s my high school.”
“Really?” Pei Tingsong stopped and looked. “I want to go inside.”
Fang Juexia walked away from the hand on his shoulder with a smile, then turned to face him while taking two steps backwards. “Can’t do that, I’m a good student, and I don’t know how to flip over the wall.”
His smiling eyes were terribly attractive. Pei Tingsong grabbed his wrist. “You are already thinking of flipping over the wall, and you still say you are a good student?”
“That’s just because you’ve corrupted me.” Fang Juexia shook the wrist that had been grasped, escaped its grip, and then turned his back on him to continue walking in front.
Wearing a clean white T-shirt, he walked along the streets of the Lingnan styled old city, with square stone slabs embedded in the road, like a huge mosaic art covering the whole city. Banyan trees extended their crowns over the road above, colorful signs and neon lights wantonly spread their glow through the night, but none of it dyed Fang Juexia’s back. He was always clean, always snow-white.
This time, Pei Tingsong didn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with him like always. Instead, he fell back a few steps and walked slowly, looking at Fang Juexia’s lean back.
The appearance of the person in front of him gradually changed. He grew a bit shorter and thinner, like a willow tree; his clothes changed from a white T-shirt to a school uniform, but the walking posture remained unchanged, his every step still tall and straight.
At that time, he should have been the boy of many girls’ dreams.
Pei Tingsong unconsciously smiled, as if he had been like this before, accompanying Fang Juexia on his way home from studying late at night.
As they walked, the person in front of him turned his head back, and the illusion turned back to reality. “Come on ah,” he urged.
“En.” Pei Tingsong walked quickly to reach Fang Juexia’s side.
Fang Juexia led him around a street, before turning into another one, and then finally stopped in front of a small shop. On the bright sign were the words ‘Granny Cheng’s Steamed Rice Noodles Shop.’ The architecture of this row of buildings along the street was also very special; whether you went up and looked down or looked up from down below, the windows were open, and there were many flowers and plants blooming there. The fragrance of jasmine could be smelt just from standing below.
“I used to come here to eat after school.” There was no one else in the shop, so Fang Juexia took him by the arm and went in. “It’s so easy to get hungry while at school.”
The owner of the shop had already changed; she was no longer the kindly granny from Fang Juexia’s youth, but instead, a middle-aged woman. Perhaps she was that person’s daughter. “Come and have some tong sui ah.”
Fang Juexia answered her with a smile and ordered some food. Then he came back to sit beside Pei Tingsong.
Pei Tingsong looked up at him. “This building is very special.”
There was no air conditioning in the shop. The ceiling fan was whirring and rotating, dispersing the almost semi-solidified moist air and spinning out a transparent swirl of heat.
Fang Juexia was a bit surprised to hear him say this, but Pei Tingsong had always been someone good at observing the world.
“This is a Cantonese style tong lau,” explained Fang Juexia as he poured him a glass of water. “Its earliest history… It should all go back to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It was built by Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi at that time.”
Pei Tingsong nodded and looked at the tong lau across the street through the door. “I like this kind of building, it’s a living history book. There are also these trees, which are different from those in other cities…” He tried to find a suitable adjective. “They’re very free, they give a feeling that they are enjoying themselves as they stretch out and grow.”
“Those are banyan trees, and many of them are over 100 years old. There used to be more, but the more they cut down, the less there were, and they all became tall buildings instead.” Fang Juexia looked outside, a little distracted. “Guangzhou used to be a city growing in the midst of banyan trees.”
This sentence was very interesting. Through Fang Juexia’s words, the city was suddenly filled with green vitality.
The owner came over with two bowls of tong sui and put them on the table. When she smiled, she looked very kind. “Have two bowls of tong sui first.”
One was a bowl of sweet potato tong sui, and the other a bowl of sugarcane and water chestnut tong sui. Although Pei Tingsong didn’t like eating sweets, this kind of tong sui was unexpectedly very fresh and sweet. When he drank it cold, his hot and dry five internal organs all felt as if they were being moistened, and the summer heat was half-dispelled.
Fang Juexia loved this dish a lot, and every sip of it made him feel like he was back in his youth.
Pei Tingsong looked at him and thought that he looked very cute when he ate, so he absent-mindedly said, “You’re a child who grew up soaked in tong sui.”
Thinking about this carefully, there was nothing wrong with this statement, so Fang Juexia didn’t refute it.
The owner then brought out two portions of steamed rice noodles fresh from the oven, one with fresh shrimp and one with beef, and both had gooey eggs added to them. The translucent skin of the rice noodles was as thin as cicada wings, and the color of the beef, fresh shrimp, and golden yolks of the eggs shone through. After being placed on the table, the food was still trembling and jiggling slightly.
“Try it and see if it’s different from the ones in Beijing.”
Pei Tingsong grabbed a hold of it with his chopsticks, but the rice noodles were too slippery to hold onto, so he had to use a spoon to finally get a bite. The rice noodle skin was both smooth and durable, the beef was soft and tender, and the Cantonese soy sauce mixed in had a slightly sweet taste. It was fresh, tender, and smooth, and it really was delicious.
“So good. It’s much better than what I ate when I was a child.”
Fang Juexia laughed. “You, young master, are really easy to raise. You like an 11 yuan portion of rice noodles so much as this.”
Pei Tingsong said solemnly, “Value is relative. With you sitting here to eat with me, an 11 yuan portion of rice noodles can beat out a Michelin 3-star meal.”
Everything was relative.
Back then, the rice noodles were also very delicious, but it seemed that this time having come back to have them with Pei Tingsong, they had become even more delicious.
Two people were much better than one.
When they were full, they left the shop. Fang Juexia led Pei Tingsong around, even though clearly, he was the one who couldn’t see properly right now.
The street lights were dim in the early morning hours, and Pei Tingsong was afraid that Fang Juexia would fall over with his unclear vision. He wanted to help him, but was refused.
Only when they walked onto the old street, that Fang Juexia had trodden on countless times when he was young, would he show some habits, such as leaning against the wall while he was walking, supporting himself against the wall subconsciously with his hands, or making every step almost equidistant, and when striding forward and stepping down, the sole of his shoes would rub a bit against the ground.
As they kept walking, he suddenly stopped, touched the wall, and in a doubtful tone, said, “There was a gap here before, was it filled up?”
Pei Tingsong suddenly felt a bit sad.
So it turned out that the Fang Juexia of the past had used all senses besides sight to remember his way home. The smells on the road, the chirps of insects in the banyan trees, the gaps in the wall, the shape of the pavement stones, which ones were loose and which ones were crooked and stuck up — It was all these feelings that brought him home.
“May I lead you by the hand?” Pei Tingsong asked softly.
Fang Juexia turned his head to glance at him. Although he couldn’t really see him, he still laughed. “Yes, there’s no one around now.”
Pei Tingsong carefully took Fang Juexia’s hand. The humid air and the heat distorted everything, distorting even time and space itself. It seemed at that moment that Pei Tingsong was leading the 16 year-old Fang Juexia, who was afraid, back home in the dark.
“You’re really brave.” Pei Tingsong was a person who wasn’t stingy with praise, especially when it came to Fang Juexia.
Fang Juexia just laughed, not saying a word. Under the moonlight, they walked through the long street hand-in-hand, soaking in the rising and falling waves created by the calls of the cicadas. As their distance from home shortened, Fang Juexia suddenly said, “I feel like it’s going to rain.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“It’s just a hunch.” Fang Juexia said, “My premonitions are often very accurate though.”
So they quickened their pace and entered an old neighborhood filled with trees. There were few street lights here, but Fang Juexia possessed his memory. At last, he stopped under a huge banyan tree, whose shadow was darker than the night.
“You live in a tree?” Pei Tingsong joked.
Fang Juexia told him to shut up as usual. He raised his hand towards the bark, followed the rough texture upwards, and felt around for a big hole in the tree. His pale hand stretched out, seemingly looking for something.
“Do you need me to help?” Pei Tingsong asked.
“I found it.” Fang Juexia’s expression was very surprised. “It’s actually still there, it’s already been ten years.”
“What is it?” Pei Tingsong drew close to him. Under the moonlight, Fang Juexia’s palm opened, and in it was a round walnut.
“You’ve been hiding a walnut for ten years?”
Listening to Pei Tingsong’s disbelieving tone, Fang Juexia chuckled. He exerted some effort to open the walnut shell, took out a rolled-up note from within it, and handed it to Pei Tingsong.
“I remember that day I was…beaten by Fang Ping. I was very sad and afraid, so I wrote this down and hid it in the hole of the tree downstairs.” Fang Juexia laughed. “I was afraid it would be found, so I even hid it within a walnut shell and glued it shut. I didn’t expect no one to have found it even after this long.” His tone seemed to be conveying— ‘I’m very smart ba.’
He very carefully spread open the note, and only when he faced the moonlight did Pei Tingsong see the words written on it.
[I can’t become a bad person, I’m going to stand on the stage, and I can’t fall off.]
Through these words, Pei Tingsong suddenly saw the him of that time.
He also finally understood why Fang Juexia had proposed the idea of letting everyone write down what they would be like ten years later at the end of the concert.
Fang Juexia raised his face, a light in his eyes, and said, “The me from ten years ago, I’m giving him to you.”
Pei Tingsong held the note, pulled him into his arms, and kissed him on the forehead under the dark tree.
“Thank you.”
Thank you for growing up so strong that you were able to meet me who was so late.
The rain came, and while Fang Juexia’s hunch wasn’t wrong at all, he just hadn’t expected the rain to be so heavy. In a flash, it diluted the sticky humid air, allowing the smell of dirt to permeate their surroundings. Pei Tingsong’s first reaction was to store the note properly. They then got ready to run away, laughing tacitly as they ran in the dark.
Ever since he had gotten together with Pei Tingsong, Fang Juexia had imagined many kinds of emotions when bringing him back home with him, but plans couldn’t keep up with changes. He hadn’t imagined that they’d return home in such a mess.
His mother, who had already been resting for a long time, got up in the middle of the night to open the door for him. With sleepy eyes, she looked at the two children drenched in water and found it very funny. “How are you guys this good at picking a time?”
After calling them in, Mama Fang wasn’t sleepy anymore and urged them to go take a hot bath. Fang Juexia let Pei Tingsong go first, while he took a towel and went into the kitchen to stand beside his mama, who was brewing ginger tea.
“Is Grandfather asleep?”
“En, he was originally waiting for you to come back, not even going back to his room while dozing off as he watched the TV. After he got the call saying that you guys were having a celebration banquet, he went in by himself.” Mama Fang put the ginger slices into the soup pot and stirred them. “If he knew you guys were coming, he would have been very happy for tomorrow morning.”
Thinking of the scene that had happened on the stage, Fang Juexia asked, “Was it Xiao Pei who asked you guys to come? No one told me.”
“Yes ah, he made a special trip to the hospital to persuade your grandfather. At first, I was worried, but I didn’t expect them to have a good chat. Xiao Pei told him that you really missed him, and that you hoped very much that he could appear at the concert. In fact ah, your grandfather also very much wanted to go. But while neither of you could take off your masks, on the contrary, Xiao Pei dared to say anything. Later, after he left, your grandfather secretly told me that he was relieved to see that you had such a good bandmate.” Then Mama Fang added, “I think so, too.”
Fang Juexia wiped his wet hair, brought the towel down, and tightened his grip on it.
“Actually…” His Adam’s apple rolled. “Mom, he’s not just my bandmate.”
Mama Fang stopped stirring the ginger tea, but the spiralling liquid still kept spinning. She didn’t look at Fang Juexia as she asked, unexpectedly very calmly, “What do you mean?”
“I love him very much, and so does he.” Fang Juexia tried to describe their relationship in the most precise way. “We are lovers.”
His heart beat uneasily as the cicadas in his brain screamed, saying that he was being hasty, saying that he should not disclose his not-yet-steady relationship in front of his mother. Love was fragile, and his mama knew that best.
“Actually, I could see it.” Mama Fang reached out and put two yellow rock sugars into the pot, speaking in a calm voice, “I guessed about your relationship with each other. Xiao Pei is too devoted to you, and he doesn’t seem like an ordinary friend. And then there’s the way he looks at you, and the way you look at him, it can’t be hidden.”
That was true. There was no way to hide when you liked someone, especially in front of your mother.
“I don’t want to hide it from you.”
Mama Fang turned off the stove and looked at him. “Juexia, I didn’t think you were an impulsive child. After all, you’ve seen…” She choked. “You’ve seen Mama like this, it’s very unwise to devote yourself to a relationship so wholeheartedly.”
“This isn’t impulsive.” Fang Juexia argued for his love, “Yes, it’s because of everything I have seen since I was a child that I very much resisted the idea of love before him. I had even decided that I would not have any such true love my whole life.”
Hearing Fang Juexia say such words, Mama Fang’s heart was full of guilt. This was the last thing she wanted to see, but there was no other way; her failed love and marriage had subtly changed this child like this, turning him taciturn and somewhat disengaged.
“If it wasn’t for Pei Tingsong, I might not have been able to change for all my life.”
Mama Fang sighed silently. “I’m not against it, I’m just afraid you’ll get hurt.” With this sentence, she felt that she had become her father from back then, standing on the opposing side because she feared her child would get hurt. This feeling was too contradictory and complicated. Back then, how could she not have believed that she had met her true love, but she had failed, failed to the point that they were left bloody and mutilated, inside and out. So now, she couldn’t help saying, “Have you ever thought that this might be a wrong decision?”
Pei Tingsong came out of the bathroom and called out Fang Juexia’s name in a low voice. He then heard sounds of conversation coming from the kitchen, so he approached, getting ready to call out to him to take a bath.
“Then I want to be wrong once.”
Hearing this, he stopped in his steps.
Fang Juexia’s eyes were very stubborn, but every sentence he uttered was logical. “Because I have lived through a failed case, I always felt that I wouldn’t succeed either. But after meeting him, I didn’t want to live like that any more. Even if in the end, we don’t have a good result, I will try again. Ten years from now, 20 years from now, looking back on today, at least the Fang Juexia of back then followed his heart and made a choice without hesitating or turning back.”
There were tears in his eyes, which he refused to shed.
“Even if it’s wrong, it’s right.”
Mama Fang looked at her son standing in front of her as if she was seeing him for the first time. It was very strange, but this was no longer the Fang Juexia who had been so stubborn in his pursuit of correctness that he hadn’t seemed like an ordinary child.
In his face, she finally saw a shadow of herself from the past.
Mama Fang didn’t speak. She turned around and used a spoon to ladle the ginger tea into a bowl. It was glistening yellow as it rippled under the kitchen lights.
“Carry it out and let Xiao Pei drink it while it’s hot, so that he does not catch a cold. Summer colds feel really bad.”
“Mom…”
“Then, let’s try.” Mama Fang solemnly handed the ginger tea to him and laughed with tears flowing down her cheeks.
“You’re luckier than Mama, you definitely won’t be wrong.”
—
On the night of the end of the tour at Guangzhou, Star Chart booked a famous local restaurant, where they held a grand congratulatory banquet, with all the staff members participating in it.
The concert that they had been preparing for over half a year had finally been experienced by the fans, and had achieved better results than expected. By the end, the many staff members who were watching it backstage even started crying. Even Cheng Qiang, who had always played the role of an old father, felt his nose sting when he heard their self-introduction, making him feel as if he had returned to the first day of their debut.
“First of all, congratulations to us for successfully completing the first stage of our Ego tour!” Cheng Qiang announced with a lot of emotion as he stood in the middle of the dining hall holding a microphone.
Fang Juexia was standing to the side and chatting with Jiang Miao, and when he turned, he saw a bottle of champagne on the table, so he picked it up and looked at its brand. Unexpectedly, Ling Yi saw this series of actions and piped up, “Juexia, show it to me!”
So, Fang Juexia handed the bottle of champagne over to Ling Yi, who was really excited by it. “I’ve never actually opened champagne before, no one ever let me open it.”
“I haven’t either,” Fang Juexia said truthfully.
Pei Tingsong brought a glass of lemon soda for Fang Juexia as he reminded, “Drink more water.” With a glance, he saw Ling Yi fiddling with the champagne. “What are you doing?”
“How can this just pop out ah?” Ling Yi was in doubt.
“It’ll be done in a few shakes,” said Pei Tingsong quite casually, but he hadn’t expected that Ling Yi would shake it to death, pretty much putting the strength of his whole body into this.
“Everyone has worked really hard! Today, we will just enjoy…”
Pop—
The cork got pushed out, and champagne burst out wildly, the bubbles and white foam streaming out and pouring all over Agent Cheng Qiang, who was still in the middle of his speech. On seeing this scene, Fang Juexia nearly spat out his lemonade.
Pei Tingsong was stunned for a second before he started laughing, laughing until he had to crouch down and even hug Fang Juexia’s leg.
Cheng Qiang, who had been sprayed into bewilderment, turned to face Ling Yi, who was steadying the bottom of the champagne bottle against his stomach at that moment. “What the hell are you doing?”
Ling Yi awkwardly put the bottle of champagne on the floor before trying to scuttle and escape the crime scene like a small crab, but he was seized by Lu Yuan and He Ziyan and carried back. “You even want to run ah?”
“You’re really quite good, you aimed directly at Qiang Ge.”
“Aiya, I didn’t expect to spray so much…”
“Hahahahaha!”
“Alright, alright, everyone have fun on their own ba.” Cheng Qiang himself also couldn’t help laughing.
Everyone chatted and ate. The whole restaurant’s first floor was full of Star Chart people, and it wasn’t so much a celebration banquet as a party. The lights were gorgeous, and everyone drank, chatted, and relaxed to the music. Although the atmosphere was very good, Fang Juexia already found it difficult to be at ease in such large gatherings, let alone when he had other plans. When the restaurant music started to play “Night Trip”, he drew close to Pei Tingsong’s ear.
“Let’s sneak away ba.”
Romantics certainly wouldn’t refuse a perfect elopement.
It was already 12:30 a.m. by the time they ran out of the restaurant, but Guangzhou nights usually didn’t die down until very late. The heat wave diffusing around the city was like the smoke and fire raging on a connecting road, unable to find an exit. Donning masks and hats, the two people got into a randomly hailed taxi as they broke away from the party and drove towards a bigger party, one which belonged to the whole city.
Their driver was a middle-aged man in his 40s and 50s, and he was very enthusiastic. As soon as they got in the car, he used Mandarin, coloured with an obvious Cantonese accent, to ask, “Came to Guangzhou to have fun?”
Fang Juexia smiled and answered in Cantonese, “No, I’m from Guangzhou.” Then he gave an address.
The driver was a little surprised. Looking at Pei Tingsong in the rearview mirror, he also changed from speaking awkward Mandarin to Cantonese. “Is this handsome guy the same?”
“He’s not, he’s keeping me company on this trip back home.”
“Ah, I was just saying ma, he’s so tall ah. At a glance, I saw you two standing on the side of the road, both handsome and tall.” The driver joked, “People who didn’t know better would think you’re celebrities.”
Actually, they really were celebrities.
Pei Tingsong didn’t understand what was being said, so he drew closer and asked Fang Juexia, who laughed before telling him, “He’s praising you for being both tall and handsome, and thinks you can be a star.”
“Driver Da Ge, you have great potential to be a star scout,” quipped Pei Tingsong.
“Hahahahahaha, right? Guangzhou is very fun, and there’s lots of delicious things…”
Fang Juexia felt very at ease as he listened to the two of them chat. He looked out of the car window, at the glass reflecting the city’s neon colors, flashing by like the kaleidoscope over the concert.
After passing through a bustling commercial street, the light outside gradually grew dimmer, and the darkness of the night gradually recovered. Only upon entering the old city did Fang Juexia really get the feeling that he had come home.
They said goodbye to the enthusiastic driver, opened the door, and soaked in the heat again.
The streets here were much quieter, with some doors already covered by a gray metal security shutter. The rest were all kinds of snack shops and nightclubs. They were all lit up in red and yellow lights, and their signs shone bright; they were the most vital cells in this sleeping city.
“Where is this?” Pei Tingsong wanted to hold hands, but he held back and instead, chose the second best thing by throwing an arm around Fang Juexia’s shoulder.
“The back door of my high school.” Fang Juexia pointed to the shade behind a wall. “Do you see that over there? That’s my high school.”
“Really?” Pei Tingsong stopped and looked. “I want to go inside.”
Fang Juexia walked away from the hand on his shoulder with a smile, then turned to face him while taking two steps backwards. “Can’t do that, I’m a good student, and I don’t know how to flip over the wall.”
His smiling eyes were terribly attractive. Pei Tingsong grabbed his wrist. “You are already thinking of flipping over the wall, and you still say you are a good student?”
“That’s just because you’ve corrupted me.” Fang Juexia shook the wrist that had been grasped, escaped its grip, and then turned his back on him to continue walking in front.
Wearing a clean white T-shirt, he walked along the streets of the Lingnan styled old city, with square stone slabs embedded in the road, like a huge mosaic art covering the whole city. Banyan trees extended their crowns over the road above, colorful signs and neon lights wantonly spread their glow through the night, but none of it dyed Fang Juexia’s back. He was always clean, always snow-white.
This time, Pei Tingsong didn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with him like always. Instead, he fell back a few steps and walked slowly, looking at Fang Juexia’s lean back.
The appearance of the person in front of him gradually changed. He grew a bit shorter and thinner, like a willow tree; his clothes changed from a white T-shirt to a school uniform, but the walking posture remained unchanged, his every step still tall and straight.
At that time, he should have been the boy of many girls’ dreams.
Pei Tingsong unconsciously smiled, as if he had been like this before, accompanying Fang Juexia on his way home from studying late at night.
As they walked, the person in front of him turned his head back, and the illusion turned back to reality. “Come on ah,” he urged.
“En.” Pei Tingsong walked quickly to reach Fang Juexia’s side.
Fang Juexia led him around a street, before turning into another one, and then finally stopped in front of a small shop. On the bright sign were the words ‘Granny Cheng’s Steamed Rice Noodles Shop.’ The architecture of this row of buildings along the street was also very special; whether you went up and looked down or looked up from down below, the windows were open, and there were many flowers and plants blooming there. The fragrance of jasmine could be smelt just from standing below.
“I used to come here to eat after school.” There was no one else in the shop, so Fang Juexia took him by the arm and went in. “It’s so easy to get hungry while at school.”
The owner of the shop had already changed; she was no longer the kindly granny from Fang Juexia’s youth, but instead, a middle-aged woman. Perhaps she was that person’s daughter. “Come and have some tong sui ah.”
Fang Juexia answered her with a smile and ordered some food. Then he came back to sit beside Pei Tingsong.
Pei Tingsong looked up at him. “This building is very special.”
There was no air conditioning in the shop. The ceiling fan was whirring and rotating, dispersing the almost semi-solidified moist air and spinning out a transparent swirl of heat.
Fang Juexia was a bit surprised to hear him say this, but Pei Tingsong had always been someone good at observing the world.
“This is a Cantonese style tong lau,” explained Fang Juexia as he poured him a glass of water. “Its earliest history… It should all go back to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It was built by Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi at that time.”
Pei Tingsong nodded and looked at the tong lau across the street through the door. “I like this kind of building, it’s a living history book. There are also these trees, which are different from those in other cities…” He tried to find a suitable adjective. “They’re very free, they give a feeling that they are enjoying themselves as they stretch out and grow.”
“Those are banyan trees, and many of them are over 100 years old. There used to be more, but the more they cut down, the less there were, and they all became tall buildings instead.” Fang Juexia looked outside, a little distracted. “Guangzhou used to be a city growing in the midst of banyan trees.”
This sentence was very interesting. Through Fang Juexia’s words, the city was suddenly filled with green vitality.
The owner came over with two bowls of tong sui and put them on the table. When she smiled, she looked very kind. “Have two bowls of tong sui first.”
One was a bowl of sweet potato tong sui, and the other a bowl of sugarcane and water chestnut tong sui. Although Pei Tingsong didn’t like eating sweets, this kind of tong sui was unexpectedly very fresh and sweet. When he drank it cold, his hot and dry five internal organs all felt as if they were being moistened, and the summer heat was half-dispelled.
Fang Juexia loved this dish a lot, and every sip of it made him feel like he was back in his youth.
Pei Tingsong looked at him and thought that he looked very cute when he ate, so he absent-mindedly said, “You’re a child who grew up soaked in tong sui.”
Thinking about this carefully, there was nothing wrong with this statement, so Fang Juexia didn’t refute it.
The owner then brought out two portions of steamed rice noodles fresh from the oven, one with fresh shrimp and one with beef, and both had gooey eggs added to them. The translucent skin of the rice noodles was as thin as cicada wings, and the color of the beef, fresh shrimp, and golden yolks of the eggs shone through. After being placed on the table, the food was still trembling and jiggling slightly.
“Try it and see if it’s different from the ones in Beijing.”
Pei Tingsong grabbed a hold of it with his chopsticks, but the rice noodles were too slippery to hold onto, so he had to use a spoon to finally get a bite. The rice noodle skin was both smooth and durable, the beef was soft and tender, and the Cantonese soy sauce mixed in had a slightly sweet taste. It was fresh, tender, and smooth, and it really was delicious.
“So good. It’s much better than what I ate when I was a child.”
Fang Juexia laughed. “You, young master, are really easy to raise. You like an 11 yuan portion of rice noodles so much as this.”
Pei Tingsong said solemnly, “Value is relative. With you sitting here to eat with me, an 11 yuan portion of rice noodles can beat out a Michelin 3-star meal.”
Everything was relative.
Back then, the rice noodles were also very delicious, but it seemed that this time having come back to have them with Pei Tingsong, they had become even more delicious.
Two people were much better than one.
When they were full, they left the shop. Fang Juexia led Pei Tingsong around, even though clearly, he was the one who couldn’t see properly right now.
The street lights were dim in the early morning hours, and Pei Tingsong was afraid that Fang Juexia would fall over with his unclear vision. He wanted to help him, but was refused.
Only when they walked onto the old street, that Fang Juexia had trodden on countless times when he was young, would he show some habits, such as leaning against the wall while he was walking, supporting himself against the wall subconsciously with his hands, or making every step almost equidistant, and when striding forward and stepping down, the sole of his shoes would rub a bit against the ground.
As they kept walking, he suddenly stopped, touched the wall, and in a doubtful tone, said, “There was a gap here before, was it filled up?”
Pei Tingsong suddenly felt a bit sad.
So it turned out that the Fang Juexia of the past had used all senses besides sight to remember his way home. The smells on the road, the chirps of insects in the banyan trees, the gaps in the wall, the shape of the pavement stones, which ones were loose and which ones were crooked and stuck up — It was all these feelings that brought him home.
“May I lead you by the hand?” Pei Tingsong asked softly.
Fang Juexia turned his head to glance at him. Although he couldn’t really see him, he still laughed. “Yes, there’s no one around now.”
Pei Tingsong carefully took Fang Juexia’s hand. The humid air and the heat distorted everything, distorting even time and space itself. It seemed at that moment that Pei Tingsong was leading the 16 year-old Fang Juexia, who was afraid, back home in the dark.
“You’re really brave.” Pei Tingsong was a person who wasn’t stingy with praise, especially when it came to Fang Juexia.
Fang Juexia just laughed, not saying a word. Under the moonlight, they walked through the long street hand-in-hand, soaking in the rising and falling waves created by the calls of the cicadas. As their distance from home shortened, Fang Juexia suddenly said, “I feel like it’s going to rain.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“It’s just a hunch.” Fang Juexia said, “My premonitions are often very accurate though.”
So they quickened their pace and entered an old neighborhood filled with trees. There were few street lights here, but Fang Juexia possessed his memory. At last, he stopped under a huge banyan tree, whose shadow was darker than the night.
“You live in a tree?” Pei Tingsong joked.
Fang Juexia told him to shut up as usual. He raised his hand towards the bark, followed the rough texture upwards, and felt around for a big hole in the tree. His pale hand stretched out, seemingly looking for something.
“Do you need me to help?” Pei Tingsong asked.
“I found it.” Fang Juexia’s expression was very surprised. “It’s actually still there, it’s already been ten years.”
“What is it?” Pei Tingsong drew close to him. Under the moonlight, Fang Juexia’s palm opened, and in it was a round walnut.
“You’ve been hiding a walnut for ten years?”
Listening to Pei Tingsong’s disbelieving tone, Fang Juexia chuckled. He exerted some effort to open the walnut shell, took out a rolled-up note from within it, and handed it to Pei Tingsong.
“I remember that day I was…beaten by Fang Ping. I was very sad and afraid, so I wrote this down and hid it in the hole of the tree downstairs.” Fang Juexia laughed. “I was afraid it would be found, so I even hid it within a walnut shell and glued it shut. I didn’t expect no one to have found it even after this long.” His tone seemed to be conveying— ‘I’m very smart ba.’
He very carefully spread open the note, and only when he faced the moonlight did Pei Tingsong see the words written on it.
[I can’t become a bad person, I’m going to stand on the stage, and I can’t fall off.]
Through these words, Pei Tingsong suddenly saw the him of that time.
He also finally understood why Fang Juexia had proposed the idea of letting everyone write down what they would be like ten years later at the end of the concert.
Fang Juexia raised his face, a light in his eyes, and said, “The me from ten years ago, I’m giving him to you.”
Pei Tingsong held the note, pulled him into his arms, and kissed him on the forehead under the dark tree.
“Thank you.”
Thank you for growing up so strong that you were able to meet me who was so late.
The rain came, and while Fang Juexia’s hunch wasn’t wrong at all, he just hadn’t expected the rain to be so heavy. In a flash, it diluted the sticky humid air, allowing the smell of dirt to permeate their surroundings. Pei Tingsong’s first reaction was to store the note properly. They then got ready to run away, laughing tacitly as they ran in the dark.
Ever since he had gotten together with Pei Tingsong, Fang Juexia had imagined many kinds of emotions when bringing him back home with him, but plans couldn’t keep up with changes. He hadn’t imagined that they’d return home in such a mess.
His mother, who had already been resting for a long time, got up in the middle of the night to open the door for him. With sleepy eyes, she looked at the two children drenched in water and found it very funny. “How are you guys this good at picking a time?”
After calling them in, Mama Fang wasn’t sleepy anymore and urged them to go take a hot bath. Fang Juexia let Pei Tingsong go first, while he took a towel and went into the kitchen to stand beside his mama, who was brewing ginger tea.
“Is Grandfather asleep?”
“En, he was originally waiting for you to come back, not even going back to his room while dozing off as he watched the TV. After he got the call saying that you guys were having a celebration banquet, he went in by himself.” Mama Fang put the ginger slices into the soup pot and stirred them. “If he knew you guys were coming, he would have been very happy for tomorrow morning.”
Thinking of the scene that had happened on the stage, Fang Juexia asked, “Was it Xiao Pei who asked you guys to come? No one told me.”
“Yes ah, he made a special trip to the hospital to persuade your grandfather. At first, I was worried, but I didn’t expect them to have a good chat. Xiao Pei told him that you really missed him, and that you hoped very much that he could appear at the concert. In fact ah, your grandfather also very much wanted to go. But while neither of you could take off your masks, on the contrary, Xiao Pei dared to say anything. Later, after he left, your grandfather secretly told me that he was relieved to see that you had such a good bandmate.” Then Mama Fang added, “I think so, too.”
Fang Juexia wiped his wet hair, brought the towel down, and tightened his grip on it.
“Actually…” His Adam’s apple rolled. “Mom, he’s not just my bandmate.”
Mama Fang stopped stirring the ginger tea, but the spiralling liquid still kept spinning. She didn’t look at Fang Juexia as she asked, unexpectedly very calmly, “What do you mean?”
“I love him very much, and so does he.” Fang Juexia tried to describe their relationship in the most precise way. “We are lovers.”
His heart beat uneasily as the cicadas in his brain screamed, saying that he was being hasty, saying that he should not disclose his not-yet-steady relationship in front of his mother. Love was fragile, and his mama knew that best.
“Actually, I could see it.” Mama Fang reached out and put two yellow rock sugars into the pot, speaking in a calm voice, “I guessed about your relationship with each other. Xiao Pei is too devoted to you, and he doesn’t seem like an ordinary friend. And then there’s the way he looks at you, and the way you look at him, it can’t be hidden.”
That was true. There was no way to hide when you liked someone, especially in front of your mother.
“I don’t want to hide it from you.”
Mama Fang turned off the stove and looked at him. “Juexia, I didn’t think you were an impulsive child. After all, you’ve seen…” She choked. “You’ve seen Mama like this, it’s very unwise to devote yourself to a relationship so wholeheartedly.”
“This isn’t impulsive.” Fang Juexia argued for his love, “Yes, it’s because of everything I have seen since I was a child that I very much resisted the idea of love before him. I had even decided that I would not have any such true love my whole life.”
Hearing Fang Juexia say such words, Mama Fang’s heart was full of guilt. This was the last thing she wanted to see, but there was no other way; her failed love and marriage had subtly changed this child like this, turning him taciturn and somewhat disengaged.
“If it wasn’t for Pei Tingsong, I might not have been able to change for all my life.”
Mama Fang sighed silently. “I’m not against it, I’m just afraid you’ll get hurt.” With this sentence, she felt that she had become her father from back then, standing on the opposing side because she feared her child would get hurt. This feeling was too contradictory and complicated. Back then, how could she not have believed that she had met her true love, but she had failed, failed to the point that they were left bloody and mutilated, inside and out. So now, she couldn’t help saying, “Have you ever thought that this might be a wrong decision?”
Pei Tingsong came out of the bathroom and called out Fang Juexia’s name in a low voice. He then heard sounds of conversation coming from the kitchen, so he approached, getting ready to call out to him to take a bath.
“Then I want to be wrong once.”
Hearing this, he stopped in his steps.
Fang Juexia’s eyes were very stubborn, but every sentence he uttered was logical. “Because I have lived through a failed case, I always felt that I wouldn’t succeed either. But after meeting him, I didn’t want to live like that any more. Even if in the end, we don’t have a good result, I will try again. Ten years from now, 20 years from now, looking back on today, at least the Fang Juexia of back then followed his heart and made a choice without hesitating or turning back.”
There were tears in his eyes, which he refused to shed.
“Even if it’s wrong, it’s right.”
Mama Fang looked at her son standing in front of her as if she was seeing him for the first time. It was very strange, but this was no longer the Fang Juexia who had been so stubborn in his pursuit of correctness that he hadn’t seemed like an ordinary child.
In his face, she finally saw a shadow of herself from the past.
Mama Fang didn’t speak. She turned around and used a spoon to ladle the ginger tea into a bowl. It was glistening yellow as it rippled under the kitchen lights.
“Carry it out and let Xiao Pei drink it while it’s hot, so that he does not catch a cold. Summer colds feel really bad.”
“Mom…”
“Then, let’s try.” Mama Fang solemnly handed the ginger tea to him and laughed with tears flowing down her cheeks.
“You’re luckier than Mama, you definitely won’t be wrong.”
—
