AUS Chapter 23: Liu Jiang, I Want to Wake You Up

He finally shifted his gaze from the object in his hands and looked at me.

I continued, “I bought this with the reward money from my parents and my own savings, but my parents definitely won’t allow me to play with these things, so I can’t take it home.”

Liu Jiang blinked. “You’re saying to leave it with me? Sure, there’s space in my room anyway.”

“No, no, no,” I feigned a troubled expression. “You probably don’t understand, with cameras like this, there’s a risk of them malfunctioning if they’re not used for a few days.”

I discovered that the biggest benefit the Relive plan offered me was the further improvement of my lying skills. Starting from the initial “I kissed you only because I’m crazy,” I could now lie without blushing or a racing heart.

Looking at Liu Jiang’s earnest expression as he watched me, I knew he was starting to believe me.

I continued to fabricate, “But it doesn’t matter, because you can use it for me.”

He looked at the box, then at me, and asked, “Then do I need to pay you rent for it?”

I waved my hand magnanimously. “No need. If you don’t use it for me, I’d have to specifically find someone to maintain it, like storing luxury leather goods.”

This lie was a bit of a stretch. I could see a trace of suspicion in Liu Jiang’s eyes as he looked at me. I quickly changed the subject. “Open it up and take a look.”

Under my earnest and sincere gaze, Liu Jiang turned his attention back to the camera box. Soon, the packaging was open, the memory card installed, and after pressing the power button, the brand-new lens, gleaming blue-violet, extended.

Liu Jiang’s eyes sparkled, but he turned off the camera and turned to me. “Specifically, how do you want me to use it?”

I replied, “Take four or five pictures a day, no upper limit.”

He was shocked. “That’s a bit much! What if I happen to have no time that day?”

I scratched my head, calculating the time. “It’s fine to make them up the next day.”

He asked again, “Then what if…”

“Okay, no more ‘what ifs’,” I interrupted him. “Just around that frequency. You can take pictures of people or things, whatever you want. It’s up to you whether you get the photos printed yourself or upload them to your computer. I’ll come get the camera when we graduate.”

Seeing him still pondering my words, I added, “Preferably pictures of people.”

The subtext—of yourself. But I didn’t dare say it.

After listening to my rambling, his sparkling eyes were now tinged with joy. Clearly, my actions amounted to giving him a brand-new camera, but it was given in a very reasonable way, at least acceptable to him.

The mattress beside me dipped as he fell back, but his left hand was still holding the camera, a look of pure bliss on his face.

I had only slept for less than ten minutes. Outside, the sky hadn’t darkened yet. It was a bluish-purple, very much like the unique melancholic moments in teen dramas. But I was happy now, and I believed Liu Jiang was happy too.

I said, “Let me take the first picture for you.”

As I spoke, I took the camera from his hand and stepped in front of him. But when I raised the camera to my face, we both suddenly stopped.

He was lying down, I was kneeling, he was right in front of me, and our knees were almost touching. This posture was undeniably intimate. Realizing this, I suddenly found it a bit difficult to maintain my balance. I shifted my weight back, pretending that everything wasn’t as awkward as it was.

The window was open, the evening breeze was still blowing freely, and I heard the sounds of music and talking carried by the wind.

“Are they still at it?” I asked.

They were still at it, meaning someone could come to Liu Jiang’s bedroom at any moment, open the door, and see us like this.

The camera was held close to my face, but the shutter remained unpressed. Liu Jiang looked up at me; I couldn’t tell if his eyes were focused or unfocused. I saw his earring glinting in the lens.

He opened his mouth and said something, but my mind was blank; I didn’t hear anything.

“What did you say?” I moved the camera away from my face and asked him.

He didn’t repeat what he had just said. Instead, he suddenly reached out to my arm. After a moment of disorientation, I heard what he said.

He said, “Let’s take one together!”

I fell beside him. He rubbed the back of his head against the sheet, pushing it downwards to bring his face to the same level as mine. Then he picked up the camera I had dropped, extended his arm, and aimed the lens at us, lying in the evening breeze.

The moment I fell, I smelled the scent of his shower gel. He seemed to have switched brands; this one didn’t smell as good as the previous one.

He said, “Make a more rock-and-roll expression.”

“What’s rock-and-roll?” I laughed at him. “I only know how to be handsome.”

As I spoke, I tucked in my chin and stopped smiling. I looked more handsome when I wasn’t smiling; Liu Jiang himself had said so.

The camera, unlike a smartphone, only had the lens facing us. We couldn’t see what we looked like on the display screen. The shutter clicked a few times; I wasn’t satisfied with the angle at which Liu Jiang was holding the camera.

I said, “Let me do it,” and reached for the camera in Liu Jiang’s hand, but I couldn’t quite reach it.

Liu Jiang wasn’t even deliberately preventing me from taking it. He was just holding it like that, and my fingers could only touch the base of his palm.

I was extremely dissatisfied. “You’ve been secretly growing taller, haven’t you?”

Accusing him of being fat only emboldened him. Liu Jiang looked wronged and innocent. “It’s not my fault. I’m worried my school uniform pants have gotten too short recently.”

I slapped him on the chest and somehow hit a ticklish spot. He laughed and curled up, like a koi carp arching its back in a pond.

But he quickly stopped laughing and lowered his voice. “Yang Pingsheng, maybe I’ll be much taller than you in the future. Then you’ll have to look up at me, and I’ll look down at you.”

His smart-alecky remark earned him a few more slaps. He scrambled all over the bed to avoid me, but before he started his escape, he thoughtfully put down the camera, then engaged in parkour with me.

Although I was stronger, I couldn’t compete with Liu Jiang’s long limbs. Not only did he look like a fish when he curled up, he also looked like one when he ran. I couldn’t catch him at all.

But Liu Jiang was indeed right. He really did become taller than me in the future. The last time I asked him about his height was one day during my junior year of college.

Why do I remember it so clearly? Because that was the last time I went out with him before I got a girlfriend.

He invited me to a concert. It was a group of foreigners who were very good at singing. There were a lot of introductions on the brochure, which I didn’t understand. He wanted to go, so I went with him.

Thinking about it now, forget it. That ticket was probably given to him by Gu Tongyu, two tickets thoughtfully provided. He probably knew about my existence.

Anyway, he was smoking outside before we entered the venue. Several times, scalpers approached him. Scalpers are clever; outside theaters, they specifically target good-looking people, tall with small faces, because they assume that those who look like this are in the performing arts industry, with many connections, and might be able to get extra tickets at a low price.

After a few scalpers were sent away, I turned to look at him and realized he seemed to be taller than the last time I saw him.

I asked him, “How tall are you now?”

He took the cigarette out of his mouth, looked up from his phone, and replied, “1.87 meters.”

The good student who got into a top university on Zhongguancun South Street stopped growing after 1.8 meters. The bad student who never worried about studies or the future happily continued towards 1.9 meters.

Yang Pingsheng at that time felt it was unfair. Yang Pingsheng now still thinks so.

So, I in the Relive plan started trying to drink milk, which I didn’t like before, hoping to surpass the height predetermined by my genes.

Back to the present.

Liu Jiang, who was struggling to escape on the bed, suddenly stopped. He raised his hand to signal me to wait, then grabbed the camera, pulled out the memory card, and told me to wait for him for a few minutes.

Everything happened so suddenly that I was still standing on the bed in a daze when Haozi and the others opened the door to look for me. Haozi looked at the messy room and asked me where Liu Jiang had gone. I shook my head and said I didn’t know.

Haozi thought I was being silly and went downstairs to help set the table with the others. About ten minutes later, I saw Liu Jiang running back through the bedroom window.

He was holding something in his hand and headed straight for the second-floor bedroom.

He went to get the photo printed—to be precise, it wasn’t developed. He went to a print shop to have it printed on photo paper and then laminated. The final result was similar to a developed photo, just with higher color saturation, looking very much like an Instax picture.

Unlike with an Instax, with a digital camera we had many chances to choose, but only one photo was printed. I leaned in to see which one he had chosen.

How should I put it? It was a photo where I was captured very successfully.

He was on the left side of the photo, his expression still rock-and-roll, the hand holding the camera slightly out of focus. I was on the right. At that moment, he was probably talking to me. I tilted my head, my chin pointing to the left, my gaze focused.

The photo itself looked more intimate than the actual atmosphere at the time.

I asked, “You chose this one?”

He didn’t seem to hear me, just hummed in agreement, then suddenly looked up, grabbed a pen from the pen holder beside him, and leaned over the table, writing something.

Grandma Liu’s voice calling us for dinner came from the half-open doorway. Liu Jiang replied loudly and quickly, then stopped writing.

I didn’t understand why he was in such a hurry to print it when he had the memory card, but I knew how he would explain it. He would probably tell me that this was his current mood, something worth holding in his hand.

He straightened up and showed me the back of the photo. On the white background, he had vertically written today’s date.

He said, “You write something too.”

I asked, “Right here on this?”

He nodded. I was speechless, but after a moment, I took the photo and the pen.

Getting a photo printed on the spot was already a very sentimental act, and signing the date on the back even more so. I didn’t have that much emotional need.

But as I turned the pen in my hand, I felt willing to play along.

Today was June 12th. On the left side was the date Liu Jiang had written vertically. My eyes scanned up and down, then stopped after the “2.”

A moment later, I held up the photo to show him. I had added two characters after the “2,” turning “2” into “2 idiots.”

“Damn,” Liu Jiang exclaimed sincerely. “You look like a normal person, but your taste is actually so cheesy?”

I thought he was going to dislike me, but unexpectedly, he snatched the photo from me, picked a character, and continued our nonsensical acrostic poem.

Soon, a perfectly good date record turned into a self-created piece of nonsense. Because the content included some vulgarity exclusive to high school students, I won’t show it here.

Anyway, we were still laughing at the dinner table, shoveling food into our mouths while exchanging strange words that only we understood, laughing uncontrollably.

Liu Sisi couldn’t be bothered with us, silently switching places with Haozi. She refused to endure our chattering laughter.

After dinner, the group was about to separate again. I was the last to leave, and Liu Jiang walked me to the alley entrance again.

After I walked a few steps forward, he suddenly called out to me.

He said, “Today is June 12th. I’m very happy.”

It was getting dark. He looked a bit like he did the first time he walked me out. But teenagers change every day. He looked much better now than he did back then, without that annoying little boy vibe. Now, he was starting to look like his future self.

He looked good, but what he said sounded like nonsense.

I said, “Alright, I know you’re happy.”

But I was also quite happy, so I might as well indulge in some nonsense with him.

The smile didn’t fade from my lips as I turned and continued on my way home. After a few steps, my pace slowed. Some information that shouldn’t have been connected suddenly started to link together.

Poem, acrostic poem. Photo paper, letter paper.

The letter Liu Jiang gave me was an acrostic poem!

Under the night sky, I started to run.