WHF Ch 77 – Coaxing

Xiu Ma was not someone who could hide his feelings—he never had been. So when he heard the question clearly, he stopped dead in his tracks.

The person beside him walked a few steps forward before realizing Xiu Ma hadn’t followed. He stopped too, turning to look back.

“What do you mean?” Xiu Ma asked.

“Literally what I said,” Yu Tianbai answered patiently.

“Try what?” Xiu Ma asked again.

He genuinely didn’t understand.

Yu Tianbai stood where he was, hands in his pockets. After a moment of thought, he conceded. He walked back, stared into Xiu Ma’s eyes, and enunciated each word clearly:

“Try being in a relationship with me.”

But contrary to what one might expect, the Young Master’s expression wasn’t overjoyed. It was even a little melancholic. He seemed to be mulling something over. He asked Yu Tianbai:

“Why does being in a relationship have to be called ‘trying’?”

Now Yu Tianbai was stumped. It seemed like everyone said it that way, but no one ever explored the meaning behind it.

He answered Xiu Ma, “It’s like a low-cost investment. Maybe some people try it, find it’s not a good fit, and then they break up.”

The Young Master was even more dissatisfied with this answer and simply said nothing. This wasn’t the answer he was hoping for. He wanted to wait for Yu Tianbai to say something more complete.

Yu Tianbai stopped staring at him and turned to grab his arm. This was what he always did when he wanted to hurry the Young Master along. The gesture suited him, coming across as dominant, but unfortunately, Xiu Ma was half a head taller than him, and this time, he couldn’t be budged.

“Fine,” Yu Tianbai let go, nodded, and asked him, “What did you do on the first night of your first relationship?”

Yu Tianbai’s tone was a bit serious now, forcing the Young Master to start thinking as well. But first, he had to offer a rebuttal:

“It doesn’t count as a relationship. We just dated for a few days.”

What was the difference?

But Yu Tianbai couldn’t be bothered to care.

“Mm, okay,” he said again. 

“What did you do on the first night?”

Xiu Ma looked like he wanted to argue some more, but after thinking it over, he gave up. He chose to answer Yu Tianbai’s question honestly:

“In high school, I walked her back to her dorm. We held hands on a stretch of unlit road, and she hugged me at the dorm entrance.”

Yu Tianbai made a sound in response, his reaction neutral—neither approving nor disapproving. He then asked, “And then?”

“There was no ‘and then’,” Xiu Ma’s gaze wandered towards the street. 

“After she found out I’d learned martial arts as a kid, she thought it was boring and went for the guy in the next class who could play guitar—because she didn’t want the person she was dating to perform a sword dance at the sports meet. She thought it was stupid.”

“Martial arts aren’t stupid. Sounds pretty interesting,” Yu Tianbai said, not following his gaze. It was a bit cold in the wind, and he hunched his shoulders. 

“Speaking of which, I’ve never seen you perform.”

Xiu Ma glanced at him. 

“It’s nighttime, the sky is dark, and this is a crossroads.”

They were standing at a street corner right next to a residential complex. There was only a single streetlight overhead. Although there were no other pedestrians, it was hardly the place for an impromptu street martial arts performance.

“So, are you really flexible?” Yu Tianbai asked again.

Xiu Ma could no longer follow his train of thought.

But Yu Tianbai was still waiting expectantly, so Xiu Ma tossed the jacket he had draped over his shoulders to him.

Under the streetlight, the Young Master took a deep breath, then reached his hands down and effortlessly pressed his palms flat against the ground. He then shot back up, tugging down his shirt which had ridden up with the movement.

Yu Tianbai, holding the Young Master’s jacket, was dumbfounded. Then he began to applaud with genuine enthusiasm. Clapping wasn’t enough; he even opened his mouth and let out a cheer.

“Whoa—!”

The Young Master was a little baffled by Yu Tianbai. The encouragement was so sudden, as if he had actually performed some high-difficulty move. While Yu Tianbai was still savoring the moment, Xiu Ma asked:

“What about you?”

“Me?” Yu Tianbai unfolded the jacket in his hands and draped it back over Xiu Ma. 

“Terrible flexibility. But my stamina is decent. Back in the army, doing two hundred sit-ups in a row was no problem.”

Two hundred was indeed impressive, but that wasn’t what Xiu Ma was asking about.

“I’m not asking about that. I’m asking about—” He quirked one side of his mouth, trying to find the right tone for these words. 

“Your first love.”

Oh, right. That’s what they had been talking about. Yu Tianbai’s smile faded, and he started to gaze up at the sky.

“It was nothing special. When I was seventeen, I used to hang out with a guy from outside of school. For a while, I skipped class for him every day. Then we had an abrupt breakup. I heard he was wanted for a crime and had to run. Never heard from him again after that, he might be dead.”

So that was the first love of the has-been king of the kids, Yu Tianbai. It was nothing close to the three words “nothing special.”

While every other student in class was studying until they were gray with exhaustion, he could recklessly climb over the wall and run out—in the winter, in the evening glow, after the morning self-study session. The person who could make Yu Tianbai wait must have been dazzling back then.

“Did you like him at the time?” Xiu Ma asked again.

Yu Tianbai brought his upturned chin back down, the smile returning to his face.

“That’s a boring question. Does anyone date someone they don’t like?”

It was Yu Tianbai’s signature, watertight answer, which to Xiu Ma was completely uninteresting. He twisted his lips, showing no reaction.

After a while, Xiu Ma was about to ask something else but was interrupted by the sound of a diesel engine.

A three-wheeled vehicle drove past them at the intersection. It was the third one in ten minutes. They had been standing under the streetlight for a while now, like a pair of students lingering after evening self-study, reluctant to part.

As the vehicle passed, Xiu Ma shut his mouth completely—he didn’t even want to use the phrase “a student couple” to describe himself.

But at this moment, Yu Tianbai could of course see the young master’s unhappiness. This time, he chose to be a proper adult.

“You have to know, that kind of relationship is very boring,” Yu Tianbai shrugged, explaining to him. 

“You go into it just for the sake of dating. Besides dating, there’s nothing else you can do together. When you break up, you might as well be enemies—it’s very boring.”

This explanation was too profound, only earning him a resentful glare from Xiu Ma.

Seeing his expression, Yu Tianbai couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What I’m trying to say is,” he cleared his throat, stopping his inappropriate laughter, “you’re different from them. I got to know you as a ‘person,’ and I developed our relationship with you as a ‘person.’ I’ve spent the most time getting to know you, and it was worth it.”

After he finished speaking, Xiu Ma stared at Yu Tianbai. In fact, from the moment he had said, “you’re different from them,” his eyes had lit up.

“Satisfied?” Yu Tianbai asked.

He received no reply.

Yu Tianbai decided to end the conversation himself. 

“Alright, let’s go home.”

Perhaps it was the way Yu Tianbai said those words, his tone so much like he was coaxing a lover, that Xiu Ma found himself unconsciously taking a couple of steps with him. This time, Yu Tianbai walked on his right, not on his usual left.

The silence came too suddenly, and Xiu Ma’s mind hadn’t stopped racing. He glanced at the shoulder of the person on his right, wanting to say something more, until a hand took his.

It turned out Yu Tianbai had walked on his right so he could take the hand that wasn’t wrapped in a sling.

The hand-holding was completely natural. Yu Tianbai’s hand slid down the inside of his arm, moving down naturally until their palms met. Only then did Xiu Ma remember that the path home ahead of them had no streetlights.

The air was quiet again, yet it felt deafeningly loud. The wind roared in Xiu Ma’s mind, threatening to whip up a storm.

He could feel the hand holding Yu Tianbai’s growing warm, even trembling slightly. But the harder he tried to stay calm, the more it felt like he was fighting against the person leading him.

A real wind had started to blow now, slightly dispersing his nervousness.

Walking down this path, Xiu Ma vaguely recalled walking with that girl after evening self-study in high school. But he didn’t seem this nervous back then; he even had the presence of mind to eavesdrop on the conversations of passing students. Maybe people’s minds get busier as they get older.

They arrived.

The residential complex was as deserted as ever. Only the faint sound of wind could be heard at the building entrance. Yu Tianbai let go of his hand first and used his key to open the main door. But after the lock clicked, he paused. He didn’t pull the handle or say anything, just lifted his face towards the door as if preparing for something.

“What’s wrong?” Xiu Ma leaned in to ask. His first thought was that some kid had jammed chewing gum in the keyhole.

But unexpectedly, Yu Tianbai spun around.

Xiu Ma had been leaning in close to Yu Tianbai’s back to ask his question. Now, with Yu Tianbai’s back against the door, they were face to face.

Then Yu Tianbai opened his arms and placed both hands on his shoulders. It was an extremely simple hug. Yu Tianbai’s chin rested on his shoulder for barely a second, then he let go.

He said, “Okay, we can go home now.”

Xiu Ma finally understood why Yu Tianbai had asked him about the first day of his first relationship. It was to replicate it.

To replicate it, to surpass it—perfectly matching the evaluation Xiu Ma had made of him twenty minutes ago in front of the new shop: childish.

And this kind of childishness was a bullseye for Xiu Ma every single time. It even made him forget the question he had wanted to ask after Yu Tianbai told him about his first love.

He had wanted to ask Yu Tianbai: “Will you like me just as much?”

Now, he didn’t particularly want to ask anymore.

Yu Tianbai’s scent still lingered around his nose, and he could almost feel the warmth of him on his shoulder. The atmosphere was perfect. He wanted to keep his mouth shut and secretly enjoy it for a while.