WHF Ch 26 – Stealing Clothes

What was life like as a child?

Xiu Ma couldn’t quite remember. It seemed happy at first. His earliest memories were from elementary school. Back then, Qinhua would still pick him up from school. When they passed by vendors selling ice cream from foam boxes, she would buy him a fifty-cent cone, wrapped in a tissue, handing the thin, brittle plastic cup to her son, then turning to look at the workers getting off work across the street.

Fresh milk was expensive back then, and the ice cream was mostly water and flavoring. It tasted a bit like crushed ice from the refrigerator, but he couldn’t have it anymore. What a pity.

The reason he couldn’t have it anymore wasn’t just because the vendors were chased away by urban management officers. It was also because his mother had changed. When Xiu Ma passed by the no-fee mahjong parlor at the intersection after school, he would hear the owner’s wife cursing.

Cursing Qinhua, cursing the woman who wore a trench coat and a floral dress to the mahjong parlor, cursing her as a slut. In reality, it was just because she didn’t have any money, and she had nowhere to get any because the factory she worked at had closed down.

Once, she took Xiu Ma with her, pushing her son inside before entering herself.

“My son is here today, save me some face, I’ll definitely pay you back next week.”

The woman went inside grumbling to pour water, and Xiu Ma did his homework on the old swivel chair by the door. Qinhua disappeared. A week later, she did the same thing, but the owner’s wife wasn’t having it. Glass was smashed, bricks were thrown, the police came, and Xiu Ma went back to school.

What happened next? He was about to go to high school. He didn’t see his mother at all that summer. One day she came back, her arm bandaged, her face swollen. Seeing her son, she started cursing:

“Go to school? What school are you going to! Come back to the countryside with me and help your grandmother!”

Xiu Ma had never met his mother’s mother, had never even heard her mention her, so he was quite happy, thinking he could see his family. But he never heard another word about it.

Qinhua seemed to be trying to cook something. The stove was clogged with grease, and she tried several times before lighting it. She took an egg out of the refrigerator, and it rolled out of her hand and smashed on the floor. She squatted down and started crying. After crying, she lay in bed and pulled at Xiu Ma.

“My life is so hard, so hard. Why did I give birth to such a cursed child? Other people’s children, other people’s children…”

She sobbed, looking at the ceiling. When she had tears in her eyes, she looked like her younger self. Then she left again.

Xiu Ma packed his clothes, preparing to take the bus to the factory in the countryside. He had heard from neighbors that Qinhua came from there, so his grandmother must be there too. He could find a place to stay – he could start working as a child laborer at fifteen.

But as soon as the bus reached the dirt road in the fields, it was stopped. A tall man got on, pushing aside the chickens, ducks, geese, and dogs standing in the aisle, and grabbed Xiu Ma. Xiu Ma struggled against the man’s hand gripping his school uniform collar, shouting and asking who he was.

“Who am I?” The man’s voice was just as loud. “I’m your father!”

The man was followed by his driver. Outside the bus was his Mercedes-Benz. Xiu Ma sat in a leather seat he had never sat in before and went to Changchun for high school.

If he hadn’t gone back to Changchun, hadn’t gone to the factory, he probably would have attended high school here. Xiu Ma sat in front of a storefront near the high school entrance. It wasn’t even dismissal time yet, but there were students wandering outside. Within an hour, at least eight out of ten students passing by in uniform looked at him.

He must look too intimidating.

Thinking of this, Xiu Ma tightened the drawstring of his hoodie.

The wind picked up. He felt someone stop beside him.

“Do you know how conspicuous you look sitting here?” Yu Tianbai asked. The sizzling of the fryer in the skewer shop behind them continued. He deliberately raised his voice slightly.

Xiu Ma didn’t speak. Yu Tianbai pulled up his pant leg and sat down next to him.

“If you sit down too, we’ll be even more conspicuous,” Xiu Ma looked away, not at him, and added, “And even stranger.”

As expected, the girls buying skewers were staring at them, all without exception, all at Xiu Ma. Yu Tianbai slapped Xiu Ma’s arm.

“Look, they’re all looking at you.”

Xiu Ma nudged the unscrupulous boss’s hand aside with his elbow. Yu Tianbai didn’t seem to care about his reaction and waved at the female students:

“Hey! Want his WeChat?”

After a silence broken only by a gust of wind, the owner of the skewer shop started yelling, “What the hell are you doing? You’re scaring away my customers!”

On the deserted street, only the two men remained on the steps, one on the left, one on the right. The one on the right was silent and slightly innocent-looking, the one on the left particularly like a hoodlum.

Smoke rose from the oil pot behind them again. The one who looked like a hoodlum cleared his throat. The stiffness in Xiu Ma’s face lessened, and he turned his head to the right.

“How did you find me?”

Seeing him finally speak, Yu Tianbai was delighted, putting his hands in his pockets and looking at him. “What? You’re allowed to ask about me, but I’m not allowed to ask about you?”

After being met with silence, Yu Tianbai finally became serious.

“Songyuan is so small, I found you just by walking along the road.”

Xiu Ma remained silent. He sniffed, his blond hair peeking out from the gaps in his hoodie, sticking up on his forehead, just like the tenacious foxtail grass growing at the base of a wall in autumn. He himself looked like a high school student who had run away from home after an argument with his family, and a very good-looking one at that. No wonder everyone was looking at him.

After enduring the stares for a while, Yu Tianbai couldn’t help but speak again:

“Is this the high school you attended?”

“No,” Xiu Ma’s voice was slightly nasal. “My mom stopped supporting me, I went to high school somewhere else.”

Yu Tianbai shifted his hands in his pockets, continuing to make conversation:

“Then what about your dad? Didn’t he say anything?”

“I hadn’t met my dad at that time. Later, when I ran away to the factory in the countryside, he caught me and brought me back.”

After he finished speaking, even the sizzling of the oil pot behind them quieted down. Yu Tianbai sat open-mouthed, letting the wind blow in his face for a while. Xiu Ma suggested, “Why don’t we stop talking for now.”

Yu Tianbai closed his mouth and nodded in slight agreement.

The weather hadn’t warmed up yet, and the wind at the school intersection was chilly, mixed with the sound of the dismissal bell. It wasn’t far away, but separated by the teaching building and the road, the sound seemed to come from the past, from everyone’s significant high school days.

But Yu Tianbai didn’t like this feeling. He turned his face to Xiu Ma again:

“Shall we go?”

Xiu Ma looked at him. “Where to?”

The person in front of him grinned. “I’ll take you somewhere fun.”

He really didn’t seem like a thirty-year-old man.

“I’m not going, and I don’t do anything illegal,” so Xiu Ma immediately refused this thirty-year-old unscrupulous boss whose age and mentality didn’t match.

“So you’re going to sit here and wait for the students to get out of school?” Yu Tianbai gestured with his chin towards the school gate. “Then it won’t just be a few people staring at you, the school security might even invite you in.”

Not only because he was conspicuous, but also because he was blocking the school gate. At first glance, he looked like a delinquent teenager causing trouble – Yu Tianbai was so familiar with these things because he had experienced them all.

Xiu Ma looked utterly disenchanted. “Were you often invited to the security office?”

Yu Tianbai’s face showed no admission. “Not often, just occasionally when I went back to school.”

Affirmation followed by doubt, Yu Tianbai thought carefully, “But it seems like I didn’t go to school that much either.”

Before Xiu Ma could come up with a response, the owner of the skewer shop couldn’t stand it anymore:

“Just go with him! Stop affecting my business!”

Yu Tianbai immediately retorted, “Hey – what do you mean by that?”

Xiu Ma, who had been silent, stood up and half-pulled, half-pushed Yu Tianbai two blocks away before stopping. After passing the school area, the street quieted down, and Xiu Ma also fell silent. Yu Tianbai straightened his collar, which had been pulled askew, tilted his head, and looked at him, asking:

“Decided to have some fun with me?”

“If I get bored, I’ll leave,” the young man being questioned by Yu Tianbai looked away, his hand on the back of his neck.

Xiu Ma’s answer made him raise an eyebrow.

“No one has ever told me they’re bored when I offer to take them somewhere.”

Hearing this provocation, Xiu Ma turned his head and stared into his eyes. Yu Tianbai stood in the wind, laughing unrestrainedly. Xiu Ma could imagine what this person was like when he was young, most likely a popular figure on campus, the kind who would greet everyone.

“If you were really picking me up from school, you should at least have a motorcycle,” Xiu Ma looked him up and down. “And hand me a helmet, whistle for me to get on.”

Yu Tianbai crossed his arms and nodded seriously, “I could do all of those things, but only for my lover at the time.”

The corners of Xiu Ma’s mouth turned down.

“Stop dawdling,” Yu Tianbai urged, “It’ll be dark soon.”

The air carried the scent of early spring evenings. Xiu Ma pursed his lips, took a deep breath, and raised his gaze. “Fine, but first, you have to promise me we won’t go to any shady places.”

Yu Tianbai swore, “Absolutely not.”

At Yu Tianbai’s somewhat believable smile, Xiu Ma decided to trust him this once. But ten minutes later, Yu Tianbai stole his last piece of clothing.