WHF Ch 24 – “Let go.”

Yu Tianbai opened his mouth. When should this kind of atmosphere occur? He seemed to have experienced it many times in his life, but each time was blurry, and he couldn’t recall them now. So, he directly gave the most certain answer in his heart.

“I don’t want to.”

He truly didn’t want to.

He felt that the current state was fine. He wasn’t sure if his comprehension and empathy were sufficient to understand someone else’s story, so he chose not to listen. Moreover, talking about the past wouldn’t solve problems, it would only make people feel worse, at least for Yu Tianbai.

As soon as he answered, Xiu Ma’s head immediately turned, so quickly that even the seatbelt buckle clicked twice.

After being stared at by Xiu Ma’s cat-like eyes for a few seconds, the innocence on Yu Tianbai’s face remained. He took the initiative to ask, “Do you really want to talk about it?”

More silent staring. Yu Tianbai belatedly realized he had been too blunt.

But would the young master mind these things? He didn’t believe it, and his disbelief showed on his face.

“If you want to talk, you can.” Yu Tianbai decided to compromise. It was still early for dinner, and talking to this person could be considered killing time.

“I don’t want to talk about it now,” Xiu Ma immediately replied.

After speaking, he lowered the backrest, propped up his legs, and lay down directly in the passenger seat. Yu Tianbai’s gaze followed downwards, from level to looking down, staring at the eyes of the person lying down.

Yes, even lying down, Xiu Ma’s eyes were still open, staring at a spot on the car roof, just not at Yu Tianbai.

Yu Tianbai was originally leaning sideways. Seeing Xiu Ma lie down, he was silent for a moment, then propped himself up on the seat and turned his body, resting his elbow on the steering wheel and his face in his hand, watching the person below.

The car was parked in the shade, and the beautiful blue sky and good weather couldn’t reach inside. A halo of fluffy reflected light surrounded Yu Tianbai’s face, making Xiu Ma’s hair stand on end.

So he turned over.

“What’s wrong with you?” Yu Tianbai complained. “Can’t I look at you for a bit longer since you’re good-looking?”

“That expression of yours is like you’re looking at an idiot.”

Xiu Ma’s face was resting on his arm, his voice muffled and indistinct in his sleeve. But there was no yielding in his tone. Those words weren’t directed at himself, they were directed at Yu Tianbai.

Rebuffed, Yu Tianbai felt exceptionally innocent. He withdrew the arm propping up the steering wheel and leaned back against the backrest again.

“Do you find your current life difficult?” he asked Xiu Ma.

But the young master lying on the seat clearly didn’t want to answer him. His arm cushioned his head, and after a long while, he spoke:

“Not difficult, too sweet.”

Obviously sarcastic. But Yu Tianbai was just perverse. When others were happy, he thought about how to annoy them, but when they were truly angry, he couldn’t stop talking.

“When I was your age, every time I argued with my dad, I felt like life was meaningless. He wanted me to go to school, but I didn’t want to. He wanted me to pull strings to find a job, but I didn’t want to do that either.”

This shouldn’t be considered talking about the past, right? It was reasoning.

“Now I’ve met you – luckily, it’s the current me who met you. If it were the me back then, I might not have survived. No Ferrari, no four million, no prestigious university, only the army as a possible path.”

Xiu Ma didn’t say a word, not even a hair moved.

The person in the driver’s seat stopped talking and glanced back at him. He really hadn’t moved.

“If you sleep while you’re angry, you’ll become an idiot,” Yu Tianbai kindly advised him.

As soon as he finished speaking, the person beside him abruptly sat up, straightened up in his seat, and turned to look at him, all in one smooth motion. Yu Tianbai looked at Xiu Ma’s unusual expression, bewildered.

Xiu Ma was definitely of the scowling type. When he wasn’t talking, he would furrow his brows, which suited his features. At these times, he looked angry, but if you actually spoke to him, he would immediately turn and listen.

But now it was different. His face was expressionless, which somehow seemed more intimidating than a scowl.

And not as good-looking.

Yu Tianbai blinked at Xiu Ma, the smile disappearing from his face. For a moment, he felt like he could hear a nonexistent timer ticking, recording the time of this meaningless staring contest, or perhaps the gradual rise of some emotion.

“Why do I always feel like you’re living your life so half-heartedly?” Xiu Ma spoke.

Thankfully, the young master had finally decided not to fall asleep at a time like this and turn himself into an idiot. Yu Tianbai nodded and replied:

“That’s how I see you too. You’re already living a good life, smile more.”

Having reached this point, Yu Tianbai understood why he didn’t want to hear Xiu Ma’s story. It wasn’t entirely that he didn’t want to listen, nor was it entirely because the problems couldn’t be solved. It was just that he envied what Xiu Ma had, including the bad parts.

Saying that out loud would be too malicious. But Yu Tianbai had never been afraid of becoming malicious.

After Xiu Ma briefly shifted his gaze to look at the front of the car, Yu Tianbai’s words pulled him back.

“You don’t have to think of life as so hopeless. There might have been in the past, but don’t let there be in the future, really.”

He looked directly into Yu Tianbai’s eyes. The sky after 4:30 was particularly blue, especially in this early spring season. Those occasionally gentle eyes were now cold, not just because of the blue of the sky.

The devil hadn’t said enough, the devil wanted to continue. Yu Tianbai adjusted his posture in the seat, falling into a brief silence.

Lost in thought, the person on the right suddenly laughed:

“You sound really heartless when you say these things.”

A laugh born of anger.

Yu Tianbai, on the other hand, showed no emotion, tilting his head back to look at him. After a moment, he asked Xiu Ma, “Aren’t you even more heartless about the things you’ve done?”

Xiu Ma’s smile faded, not as simply as putting a lid on a pot. The corners of his mouth twitched sideways, then dropped, falling completely silent.

At this moment, he vaguely guessed what Yu Tianbai wanted to say. This must also have been what he wanted to say earlier in the car, before they were stopped by the traffic police. At that time, his thumb was pressed against the scar on his left hand, not forcefully, but resolutely.

“Why did you do that kind of thing?” Yu Tianbai asked.

Why did you do that kind of thing? Why did you attempt suicide? Why did you choose that way? Why were you so desperate? Didn’t you think about your mother when you did those things?

The memories of being thirteen were blurry: blue sky, yellow sand, the still vibrant Northeast. But that day was clear. The doctor was by the bedside, the IV drip above, his mother in front. Xiu Ma wanted to answer every question she asked, but his mouth wouldn’t open, his chest felt blocked by a fish bladder, no sound could come out.

He wanted to eat small silverfish noodles from Chagan Lake. On the white sheets, thirteen-year-old Xiu Ma shook his head.

He didn’t answer, and the doctor didn’t say anything more, looking down and writing something on the medical chart. But this made the woman restless. She got up and moved to the doctor’s side, her high heels clicking. Xiu Ma saw the liquid in the IV drip shake with the sound.

“The child is usually a bit quiet, and I don’t always watch him. I didn’t expect this to happen.”

She could still walk then, still wear high heels and floral dresses. Her hair was styled like a woman in a magazine. She also had light-colored eyes. People at the factory called her Qinhua.

Qinhua’s tone was full of self-blame, but when she looked at her son, her gaze only reached his chest, covered by the blanket. Then she stood up and reached for the IV drip.

“Does it need to be slowed down?” the doctor looked up.

“Ah, no.” Qinhua was a little flustered, not expecting the doctor to notice her movements while writing. “Can it be faster?”

The doctor sighed, reminding her, “The patient hasn’t eaten anything for ten hours, it’s already at the fastest speed. Do you have something urgent?”

Even with his eyes closed, Xiu Ma knew the expression on her face.

“Nothing urgent.”

She did have something urgent.

She was eager to return to her card game. She was eager to spend the money she had found under the TV cabinet, the money she had yelled at her son to bring her as soon as school was over, the money that was the reason Xiu Ma was lying here now.

His consciousness blurred. He could hear the doctor lower his voice.

The wound is deep and there’s only one, it doesn’t look self-inflicted. Do you have any clues? Did you bring him to the hospital immediately? Do you know of anyone else who might have harmed the child?

The doctor’s words echoed in the cold light of the ward, interspersed with the sounds of the woman shifting her heels. She was wavering, but her demeanor was still composed.

“Who else could it be?” She must have tucked her hair behind her ear after saying this. “Himself, of course.”

His mother’s tone was so resolute, just like the way she held the utility knife blade, just like the way she grabbed Xiu Ma. The blade sliced his left hand, he only felt numbness and heat.

“Let’s just die together.” His mother’s voice trembled, but the corners of her mouth turned up, seemingly enjoying it, happier than when she killed fish. “You wouldn’t even bring me the money, what’s the use of raising you?”

Her son’s body hitting the floor was her answer. Qinhua stepped back, shaking the tip of her slipper, and saw the blood on the floor.

Whether she regretted it or not was hard to say, but she was definitely frightened. She screamed when she saw the blood, followed by the hurried sound of her slippers. She ran and shouted to the neighbors in the hallway of the tube-shaped building: “Oh my god, how frightening – my son committed suicide!”

The doctor didn’t ask any more questions. He left the ward, but his mother didn’t leave. Xiu Ma heard the clicking of her heels approaching the bedside, followed by the unique scent of her hair. She leaned close to the bed and whispered in her son’s ear:

“If you don’t wake up, I’ll cut off your ears.”

Xiu Ma didn’t answer Yu Tianbai’s question. He silently raised his gaze. The setting sun divided the residential building in front into two halves, the golden side reflected in his eyes.

He had a feeling Yu Tianbai was about to speak again.

Don’t say it.

“I want to ask you, but I know you won’t be happy.”

Yu Tianbai’s voice sounded like the doctor in the ward that day, distant and calm – and a bit like his mother, the heartless part.

Don’t ask.

But Yu Tianbai asked the question after all:

“Why did you attempt suicide?”

The reflection of the setting sun fell, falling into Xiu Ma’s ears, exploding with a buzzing sound. He closed his eyes for a long time before opening them and turning his head.

“Did you see it when you followed me into the bathhouse?” he asked.

After asking, he pulled down his sleeve, revealing the long-hidden scar. The relaxed expression on Yu Tianbai’s face disappeared.

“No,” Yu Tianbai replied, “I felt it the first time I grabbed the knife from you.”

Earlier than he thought.

So, in the eyes of this highly perceptive adult, the person in front of him must have been a happy boy who didn’t know how good he had it, happy, but unsatisfied.

Quite depressing.

Xiu Ma let out a quick sigh and opened the car door. As he leaned out, his arm was grabbed.

“I—” Yu Tianbai hadn’t even thought of a reason to grab him, so after one word, the conversation stopped completely.

“Let go,” Xiu Ma said.

Yu Tianbai didn’t let go. Xiu Ma silently pulled his left arm back, wrenching it free, adjusted his collar, and got out of the car, disappearing around the corner of the building, behind the flower bed.

Only after he was gone did Yu Tianbai realize he hadn’t even closed the car door.