TCOR CH33

Chapter 33: Let’s try it then

No, it’s not him!

Upon hearing this, Peng Dai’s face took on an even more subtle expression. ‘Not him? So there must be someone else, right? Who else do you know who is a foreigner?

I was still coughing and almost coughed up my tears: ‘Ahem, ahem, ahem, no, no! I… I just read about it on the internet and it seems that foreigners are more open about it. I coughed, coughed, coughed. I thought you had studied abroad and dated foreigners before, so I was just curious to ask, and nobody had.

It wasn’t really a lie, I looked it up online, secretly during class, and the results shocked me. Not to mention abroad, there are quite a few ‘brothers helping each other’ in China, and some are even real blood brothers.

This was really beyond my knowledge, and the shock was probably second only to seeing Bai Qixuan in Jin Huihuang.

Are these people just talking nonsense? Du Jingchuan and I had never tried this before, and in high school I had never heard anyone talk about such a hobby.

With these doubts, and eager to confirm the authenticity of this matter, I suddenly heard Peng Dai’s ‘Just ask if you have any questions’, and I turned to her for help.

But now I regret that moment of impulse.

I am really just curious about the differences between foreigners and us. Don’t think too much about it,’ I reassured her.

Peng Dai was doubtful: “You can be curious, but you must never try it with another man. Anyone who tells you that it’s normal to help each other and then tricks you into doing it for him is definitely just trying to take advantage of you.”

I hung my head, afraid to look at her, ‘Oh.

Before I lie to you, I might need to have a few drinks to get in the mood, and the next day I’ll say something like ‘I’m sorry about yesterday, it was all my fault, but we’re both adults, you shouldn’t hold it against me…’. I can’t say I know men very well, but I can say I know them pretty well. When they’re drunk, they can do anything, they dare to do anything, but the next day, when they’re sober, they’re like turtles, they shrink back into themselves and do nothing!

‘…’

The more she talked, the lower my head dropped until I was about to fall headlong into the bowl in front of me and drown in the wonton soup.

I must say, she really knows men.

But…

Sister, I’m a man too,’ I said, lifting my head slightly to make my voice heard.

You don’t count. Peng Dai was outraged one second, but the next she changed her tone and looked at me with a loving look, “You’re still a little boy, not like these dirty, smelly men.”

Hey, take that back, it seems she doesn’t know men well enough. If she knew what I’d done to Shen Wunian, she wouldn’t have such a filter on me.

After dinner, we left the canteen together. Maybe she misunderstood something, because she saw that I was in a listless state. At the crossroads where we parted, Peng Dai suddenly patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m very tolerant. Whether you like men or women, as long as they are good people, I will support you. Besides…’

She paused for a moment, looked at my face and sighed inexplicably: ‘Besides, a pretty little thing like you, who blushes and cries at the slightest thing, who looks so fragrant and soft, would be easily seduced by a heterosexual man. After all, it’s a lifetime of blood tests, so there’s no difference. She waved her hand and floated away, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Seduced by a heterosexual man? I know what it is to be seduced by a homosexual man, but what is seduced by a heterosexual man? Does it mean that I’m easily deceived? And ‘blood test’? What blood test? A blood test? A medical examination?

As I sat on the subway, I was still pondering Peng Dai’s words, trying to solve the mystery. Suddenly, I received a message from Shen Wunian saying that he had to go on a business trip for a week and that I didn’t have to go to the studio during that week, so I could just prepare my entry for the competition. At the end of the message he also reminded me to be safe and to lock the doors and windows.

Yesterday he didn’t say anything about going on a business trip, so why was he suddenly going away for a week today?

I looked up and saw at the top of the message that it was from yesterday when Shen Wunian came to pick me up from school and said he was already at the door.

Yesterday was fine, but today it’s like this. No matter how I look at it, he’s avoiding me.

It’s not the first time, it’s not the second time, it’s the third time – he’s lying. He still cares about last night, but he’s just pretending not to care so I won’t be embarrassed.

Every day for the next week was exceptionally long. It was OK during the day when I was out and about, with people and noise, but the evenings were different.

I never knew that the difference between two people in the same room could be so great.

It was clear that it was a lively neighbourhood outside, but the room was eerily quiet; the light that I had once found just right seemed dark and hurt my eyes; and the bed that had once been comfortable seemed no different from the single bed in the dormitory.

I even began to hate going back, not wanting to face the dark, silent, empty house as soon as I opened the door.

My contact with Shen Wunian never stopped, but I don’t know whether he was too busy or deliberately distant, he always took a long time to reply to me, and the content of his replies was very brief.

On the third day, I cooked some instant noodles for dinner, took a picture of it and sent it to Shen Wunian. But after waiting all night, he didn’t reply. So I fell asleep with the phone in my hand. I woke up many times in the middle of the night and couldn’t help but check my phone every time.

In the morning I still hadn’t received any messages and I began to wonder if there was something wrong with my phone. I turned it off and on and reconnected it to the wifi several times and then, as I had hoped, I received a group message from my tutor… proving that there was nothing wrong with my phone.

Then I began to wonder if something had happened to Shen Wunian. I imagined all sorts of terrible things and couldn’t stop fidgeting with my thoughts. I couldn’t help but want to call him, and that’s when my phone suddenly vibrated, indicating that I had new messages.

Shen Wunian sent a picture of breakfast, also a bowl of hand-pulled noodles, but it was made by the hotel chef and looked much better than the one I had the night before. It looked delicious.

Knowing that he was fine, I was relieved and hurriedly took a picture of my breakfast, a rice ball I had bought from the convenience store the night before, and sent it to him.

Thus began our daily routine of photographing each other’s food without any verbal communication. It was also from that day that I came up with some ideas for the competition, always leaving the house early and returning late.

I had no advantage in terms of equipment, so I could only find locations in the city. If I wanted to stand out, I had to choose more unique and novel subjects.

I chose several wastelands.

There are quite a few of them in the city. Old buildings are being demolished, but new construction is delayed, and over time the land becomes deserted.

The wastelands are surrounded by walls, with skyscrapers and shops all around, while inside there are piles of bricks and stones and lush vegetation. It’s all the same land, but two very different scenes.

I found three such wastelands, some I sneaked into through dog holes, others I climbed over walls to get into. I took thousands of pictures and filled up the memory card in just three days.

When I pressed the shutter, the ruins, the dead trees, the bright moon and the lights of thousands of households in the distant tower blocks were instantly frozen in time. Then the screen went dark and the camera ran out of power.

I climbed out of the dog hole with my rucksack. My body and hands were covered in dust, and I knew without looking in the mirror that my face must be covered in dust as well. The last few days had been like this. In this wasteland, if I wasn’t careful, I could trip over stones and roots.

Today is the day of Shen Wunian’s return.

I have tried not to think about him and to keep myself busy, but I still remember clearly how long he has been gone and how few days there are before he returns.

[I have something to tell you face to face.]

I left a message for Shen Wunian and then, because I was so worried, I never looked at my phone again.

The night bus was unusually deserted. There was only a young couple and me in the whole carriage. They whispered and giggled to each other and got off two stops before me, holding hands.

Back at the flat, even before I entered, I knew Shen Wunian had returned – through the gauze-covered glass of the door I could see the hazy lights in the room.

It was amazing. It was clearly the same house and the same lights, but just because there was an extra person, it had gone from ‘gloomy’ to ‘warm’.

I put the key in the lock, turned it slowly, and the moment the door opened, the disgust I’d felt over the past few days, which I didn’t want to face, disappeared completely, replaced by a sense of joy at having something back.

It feels good to be able to rely on other people, but a friendship that only asks things of you will not last. Just as fish should live in water, and snow turns to water when it meets fire, this is a simple truth.

Leaving my rucksack by the door, I almost held my breath as I took each step into the house.

The living room was lit by a dim floor lamp and it was very quiet, but not the kind of quiet that makes your ears ring.

Sometimes the simpler the truth, the harder it is to grasp. Now, even my ‘quiet’ was marked by the presence of another person. How can I convince myself that the relationship between Shen Wunian and me is purely ‘friendship’?

Perhaps I have waited too long. Shen Wunian sleeps on the sofa. I haven’t seen him for a few days, and he’s wearing glasses again, a pair with silver-rimmed frames similar to the previous ones.

Under the warm light, his sleeping face was calm and had lost all its sharpness, giving it a strange sense of unreality. He looked so good, like a doll.

I moved as quietly as I could, but I still woke him. As I walked over to the sofa, he slowly opened his eyes.

‘Zhong Ai…’ His speech was a little slurred, as if he hadn’t woken up yet, and he reached out his hand to me quite naturally.

I looked at it for a moment, shook it, and was led over to him.

Why is your face so dirty? He sat up and smiled when he saw my face clearly.

‘It’s from the photo shoot,’ I said, touching my face and feeling very embarrassed.

There was a moment of silence as we looked at each other, and before I could think of what to say, Shen Wunian broke the silence.

What were you going to tell me? Do you want to tell me now, or do you want to wait until after your shower and we can talk about it?

My eyes lingered on his face for a moment before quickly moving away.

‘Tell me now,’ I said, clearing my throat and resting my eyes on his shoulders. ‘The other day, I… I was drunk and I kissed you. Did you… did you hate it?

I desperately wanted something to cover my face, or at least give me a gap to slip into. Saying those words was much harder than I had imagined.

And it was even harder to wait for Shen Wunian’s answer.

As it happened, he took an unusually long time to think, so long that I couldn’t help but look at him again. Then he gave a small smile and spat out his answer: ‘No’.

My heart skipped a beat and then, as if to make up for it, it started to beat twice as fast.

I lowered my eyes to his shoulders again and continued: ‘Where you come from, do people of the same sex… apart from helping each other, also… kiss each other?

This time he didn’t keep me waiting.

“No.

His whole face, even his eyes, were on fire. I forced myself to ask the last question: ‘In that case… can I, can I…’ I bit my tongue and frowned in pain. According to human instinct, I should have stopped there, but I was unwilling to give up halfway through, so I finished my sentence despite the pain: ‘Can I court you?

Perhaps it was too painful and distracting, so I spoke more fluently.

Shen Wunian seemed surprised for a moment and his tone was unexpected, ‘You want to pursue me?

I followed his shoulders with my eyes, all the way to his face, and this time I did not avoid it, I looked straight into his eyes.

‘Isn’t that allowed?’ I asked him in a quiet voice.

He was speechless for a long time, then he opened his lips and said, ‘Yes, of course. Have you thought about it?

‘Yes!’ I nodded without hesitation.

Hearing this, he took off his glasses, folded them and put them on the coffee table beside him.

‘So this is the trial period, right?

‘I suppose so.’ I stared at the glasses, wondering why he had suddenly taken them off.

Until my face was turned away and Shen Wunian’s face grew larger in front of me.

Let’s try it then,’ he said, before the kiss came.

Our lips met, the faint smell of blood filled my mouth, my eyes widened slightly and I grabbed Shen Wunian’s arm, my fingers tightening as the kiss deepened.

I’ve already given you your chance, you can’t go back on your word. After a long kiss, he pulled away a little, his eyes with a slightly intimidating paranoia, and when I was still gasping for breath in a tremor, he came closer again.