AUS Chapter 76: “Yang Pingsheng, I still have something to tell you.”

Objectively speaking, that was not a good year of my life.

But subjectively, it was probably the happiest year of my limited memory.

The interview opportunity was precious, and I put all my effort into preparing. Although I might have come across as trying too hard, the interviewer still gave me a chance. I was soon officially hired, earning a slightly higher salary than other internship positions in the city, and began to save myself.

As for my parents—returning to the workplace in their forties and fifties was a challenge. As long as they didn’t report bad news, it was good news.

During this time, Liu Jiang was always by my side. I was like a novice who had suddenly stepped out of an ivory tower and into the real world. He took me to hole-in-the-wall restaurants and taught me how to use social media apps to buy discount coupons.

He could easily tell you which restaurants were delicious within a five-kilometer radius of my school, where there were low-cost or even free live shows, and could also find some cheap screening rooms to show me musicals from the last century, as well as some niche sci-fi films.

Some of the movies were interesting, but most were incomprehensible. However, by watching them patiently, I gradually began to understand his way of appreciation.

In short, during that time, I suddenly understood the meaning of life. The result of my fall from a high place wasn’t being shattered to pieces, but landing back in the human world, starting a life I had never lived before.

It felt pretty good.

I also began to seriously consider my relationship with Liu Jiang for the first time.

One day, Liu Jiang came to pick me up from work. We were walking between the buildings of the CBD, chatting about nothing in particular, when we ran into a classmate from my major. I saw him first.

After we greeted each other, his gaze drifted to Liu Jiang, who was standing beside me.

White hair, a bass case, and a black leather jacket in the harsh winter—it was hard not to notice him.

Liu Jiang’s personality was a stark contrast to his appearance. The moment my classmate’s eyes met his, he immediately smiled and said hello.

My classmate hesitated. 

“Who is this? Care to introduce?”

Liu Jiang’s smile froze, and his eyes turned to me.

I said to him casually, “My boyfriend.”

In those years, being gay wasn’t such a rare thing anymore. My classmate had a moment of realization, and after a few pleasantries, we went our separate ways.

Liu Jiang’s face was buried in his scarf. It was a while before he looked up and said to me, “You’ve never called me that before.”

“Really?” I was in a hurry to get on the subway and warm up. 

“Then I’ll call you that more often from now on.”

I don’t have any special feelings about that day. I only remember the fierce wind between the buildings making my face itch. It was only many years later, looking back, that I realized it was the closest I had ever been to a tangible form of happiness.

A year passed. Liu Jiang was still traveling between Liancheng and Beijing. The main reason was that he was performing at music venues; seeing me was secondary.

Or rather, he no longer needed to see me repeatedly to confirm our feelings for each other.

One night, a year later, I suddenly received a call from him.

Three months ago, Liu Jiang had stopped all his activities because his grandmother had fallen. When she went to the hospital for a check-up, the doctor informed them that her health was poor and she needed to be hospitalized.

Over the three months, her condition deteriorated. Liu Jiang always wore a smile when he was with her, playing the guitar for her in the hospital room. But after leaving the hospital, he would stand dazed at the bus stop.

The reason I knew this was because I had gone back once, uninvited.

At the bus stop outside the hospital, he sat on the bench with his head down, not even noticing me standing three meters away.

When he suddenly saw me, he was stunned at first, then the corners of his mouth turned down.

He was completely helpless.

Even for someone who seemed so self-sufficient in life, he was utterly bewildered in the face of life and death.

He had once said to me, “If Grandma is gone, then you’ll be the only most important person I have left.”

So before I received that call, I had been preparing. I had researched a lot of information on how to help a friend get over the loss of a loved one, and I had asked people around me.

But faced with the sobs coming through the phone late at night, I couldn’t say a single word.

Looking back, I feel that I didn’t need any words of comfort. It was enough for Liu Jiang to know that I was there.

He just needed me to be there.

So I also knew that if I could be by his side, he would feel more at ease.

By then, my family’s financial situation had started to improve. My parents were even planning to buy another second-hand villa for me.

My subjective preference was that it wasn’t necessary. After all, I wouldn’t get married, and how much space would Liu Jiang and I need?

But I had never had the courage to tell them about Liu Jiang. I just listened to them discuss it excitedly, my head bowed as I ate.

At that time, I had been with my current company for almost a year. My immediate supervisor was notoriously strict, especially with interns. There was a rumor that he never granted leave except for sick leave.

When I went to ask for leave in person, he wasn’t as fierce as the rumors suggested. He just stared at my face motionlessly and asked for my name and employee ID three times in a row—but thankfully, he approved the leave in the end.

I fled from his office area, jogging to the elevator. My luggage was already packed; I just had to grab it and go.

Because asking for leave had taken so long, I didn’t have time to tell Liu Jiang I was coming back on short notice. When I suddenly remembered, I decided not to tell him after all.

After all, he had shown up uninvited so many times himself.

I turned off my phone, no longer looking at the heated discussions about the new project in the work group chat. I dragged my suitcase into the subway alone. Even the hurried passers-by around me seemed kind and friendly.

The high-speed train from the capital to Liancheng had gotten faster, taking less than four hours. This time, I deliberately paid extra not to take the bullet train, just to see him sooner.

There weren’t many people on the subway, but there were no empty seats by the side. I simply stood by the car door, placing my suitcase between myself and the barrier.

It was dark outside the subway, with occasional flashes of light. I didn’t look down at my phone. Staring at my own reflection in the car window, I mentally rehearsed how I would start the conversation with Liu Jiang.

But before I could decide, the lights in the car above my head suddenly flickered, then the car went dark for a second before returning to normal.

I turned my head and looked deeper into the car.

Most of the passengers were still looking down at their phone screens. Only a few people, like me, looked up and around. But after finding nothing unusual, their gazes quickly returned to the screens in their hands.

Only I was still looking into the distance.

I don’t know why, but a strange sense of unease crept up my spine, as if someone was quietly approaching me from behind.

I whipped my head around. I saw nothing.

Why was I so jumpy? I said to myself, trying to focus my thoughts on something more important, like how to comfort Liu Jiang.

But the very next second after I turned back, I suddenly felt a chill on the right side of my body, followed by the most piercingly loud noise I had ever heard in my life.

Then my body toppled to the right like a rag doll, and the chill completely enveloped me.

My world turned to darkness.

I felt like I had suddenly fallen asleep, but it wasn’t a peaceful sleep. It was like being curled up in some strange, cold motel room, or in the cabin of a cruise ship. I could feel my limbs twitch every few minutes, and I could hear people talking around me.

“Have you searched ahead—wait, there’s someone here!”

“He’s seriously injured. Is there a heartbeat?”

“It’s very weak…”

“Can you hear me? Can you hear me! We’re taking you to the hospital now. Just hold on a little longer!”

I could hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t understand it. I felt like I was just being shaken back and forth while sleeping soundly. I was annoyed, wanting only to push their arms away and continue sleeping.

Until I heard a familiar voice in my ear.

“Yang Pingsheng, I still have something to tell you.”

“It’s something very, very important. You have to wake up and listen to me.”

“…You have to wait for me.”

Liu Jiang’s voice calmed me down. I was no longer afraid. I could feel my furrowed brow relax, and then I fell into a deep sleep.

But the sounds around me started to become less pleasant.

I heard some alarming beeping sounds, and the clash of metal scissors. I smelled the pungent scent of disinfectant, followed by a heavy pumping sound.

Then, crying.

Liu Jiang?

Why are you crying?

Wait, no, where am I standing?

I tried to open my eyes, but all my senses had retreated to a very distant place, leaving me with no control at all.

For the first time, I learned that the world seen with closed eyes isn’t complete darkness, but a void where nothing exists.

Nothing at all, nothing important.

I remember reading a book in Liu Jiang’s room once. The protagonist was a blue bear, and its memory of its own birth was lying in a nutshell, floating on talking waves.

I felt like that bear right now, except I was still before birth. I could hear voices and feel the waves, but I couldn’t perceive my own existence.

I don’t know how long passed before a faint line of light suddenly appeared before my eyes. I began to feel my own existence. I walked towards that light, without reason or consciousness, just a feeling that it was what I should do.

The next second, I came to my senses. I was standing in my office, my mom’s messages jumping on my phone.

My memory was still stuck in the time when I lived in an ivory tower. I only thought that Liu Jiang hadn’t contacted me for a long time. Just when everything in my life was going smoothly, the world inexplicably ended.

This was the beginning of everything.

Of course, I didn’t know that before I found this light, countless other lights had flickered in my consciousness. The process of me drifting and then searching for the light had been repeated countless times.

In other words, I had died. Although the ending was regrettable, everything should have ended there.

The world would go on without me, and Liu Jiang—he could find another love.

Perhaps a more perfect one, someone who wouldn’t throw his affection into the dirt for many years, only to pick it up when needed.

But he didn’t.

From that day on, the beginning of the entire story was born—in order to find me, he began to devote himself to the research of a technology.

A research that could make me a real existence again.