He still kept his eyes lowered as he said this, holding a mutton skewer motionless beside his lips.
Zhao Bin paused for a moment, then smiled. “Someone like your Brother Bin is a wanderer, you know?”
He filled his glass with beer. “Come on, let’s drink!”
“I don’t drink alcohol,” Xu Jiachen hesitated.
“I forgot you’re a good student,” Zhao Bin said, suddenly realizing. “Alright, I’ll drink alcohol, and you can drink Wangzai milk! That’s good for the brain.”
The two of them ate and chatted, each sharing some of their experiences over the past three years.
Song Huaiyan and Shen Yu chose an empty table sitting right beside them, propping up their chins to watch the show.
“How much longer do we have to watch?” Shen Yu asked.
“Hard to say. If our luck is bad, we might have to watch through his entire lifetime,” Song Huaiyan said. “Though his lifetime won’t be very long either.”
“Once we find the obsession, can we get out?” Shen Yu asked.
“Mm, pretty much,” Song Huaiyan answered vaguely, then turned his head back to look at him. “What, are you hungry?”
Shen Yu nodded.
Song Huaiyan suddenly felt as though his own illusory stomach had also started to rumble.
Before entering, they hadn’t even managed to eat the flower pastries.
“Once we get out, we’ll go to Xishui Street to eat barbecue. There’s a shop over there where the pork belly and lean pork are grilled exceptionally well, and we should also pack a portion from the fried chicken shop next door…” Song Huaiyan felt even hungrier as he spoke. “Ayu, you’ve never tasted fried…”
Half of his mind had already wandered off to the outer realms, thinking about how during all those years in Cangxuan Sect, he had eaten at the dining hall almost every single day, with almost no opportunity to go down the mountain or taste the local specialties there.
The only day Cangxuan Sect disciples were freely allowed to go down the mountain was the Lantern Festival. Unfortunately… on the Lantern Festival of that year, he broke his promise.
“I guess we probably won’t run into each other again in the future. Let’s leave a mobile phone number.”
Over there, Zhao Bin and the others looked like they were about to finish eating.
“I don’t have a mobile phone,” Xu Jiachen replied.
“Then what about a Xiaolingtong (PHS phone)?”
“There’s a public payphone downstairs at the dormitory building.”
“Then you should write down my number.”
Zhao Bin read out his number to him, took out his Nokia phone, held it up right in front of the two of them, and with a “click,” snapped a photo together.
“I haven’t really figured out how to use this camera function yet.”
Before Xu Jiachen could even react, Zhao Bin had already closed the flip phone, shoved it back into his trouser pocket, and called the proprietress over to settle the bill. Hesitating, Xu Jiachen was just about to speak when Zhao Bin guessed his intention and spoke up first: “Once you place as the top scholar in the imperial examinations, remember to come back and treat your brother to ten meals of barbecue!”
Xu Jiachen nodded, hoisted his heavy schoolbag onto his back, and picked up the bag of paper lilies placed nearby.
“Did you fold these flowers? I wouldn’t have guessed you were so deft with your hands!” Zhao Bin smiled and said. “They’ll definitely come in handy for chasing girls in the future.”
Xu Jiachen looked as though he wanted to explain something, but when the words reached his lips, he pressed them into a thin line instead.
“Alright, time to head back. It’s late at night, your brother will walk you a part of the way.” Zhao Bin patted him on the shoulder and walked ahead on his own. Xu Jiachen hesitated for a moment before quickly following after him.
The scene shifted rapidly. The surroundings were still somewhat dim, except now they were inside a room where only a single desk lamp was turned on. Zhao Bin was sitting at the head of the bed, his left hand pressing a mobile phone against his ear while his left hand, resting on his knee, held a half-smoked cigarette.
“I thought an honor student like you wouldn’t even be able to remember a mobile phone number. It’s been over half a year—what made you finally remember to call your Brother Bin?” He spoke with a smile, his right hand instinctively flicking away the cigarette ash before stubbing the cigarette out in an ashtray.
“High school coursework has been rather tight… I’ve been working part-time usually…” Coming from the other end of the line was Xu Jiachen’s somewhat nervous voice.
“I’m just joking with you! It’s New Year’s Eve—why aren’t you asleep so late? Staying up to see in the New Year?”
There was silence on the other end for a moment before a soft “Mm” was heard.
Just as Zhao Bin was about to say something, the sound of an old-fashioned pendulum clock striking “Clang Clang” came from the outer room, chiming twelve times in total.
When the bell chimes stopped, Xu Jiachen’s slow, gentle voice came through from the other end of the phone. He said, “Happy New Year.”
Zhao Bin paused for a second before bursting into loud laughter. “Happy New Year, Xu Jiachen. You’re another year closer to placing as the top scholar.”
“Brother Bin,” Xu Jiachen said, “I did pretty well on my exams this semester. My teachers say there’s hope for a 985 or 211 university.”
“What 985 or 211? Are the scores that different?” Zhao Bin frowned.
“They’re universities—key undergraduate schools. There are only about 100 of them in the whole country,” Xu Jiachen explained.
“One hundred? There are so many universities? I thought there was only one university, and everyone was breaking their heads trying to get into it.” Zhao Bin kept the corners of his mouth lifted upward, the dim, yellowish light of the desk lamp shining upon him so that half of his face carried a smile while the other half was buried in darkness.
“Mm, but they aren’t easy to test into. I…” Fireworks suddenly began to crackle on the other end of the line, one explosion after another, drowning out Xu Jiachen’s voice.
Zhao Bin couldn’t hear clearly what he was saying, yet he still listened with intense concentration.
The phone call lasted for more than ten minutes, with Xu Jiachen doing most of the talking. He had always been a man of few words in the past, but this time it seemed as though he had spoken an entire year’s worth of words.
“Are these all part of the obsession?”
Shen Yu and Song Huaiyan stood right beside them, their figures hidden within the shadow of the desk lamp.
“It has a lot to do with his obsession,” Song Huaiyan said. “We have to find the person or thing that Zhao Bin cared about from these events.”
“Is it that bean sprout?” Shen Yu asked expressionlessly.
Song Huaiyan was almost amused enough by this nickname to laugh out loud, managing to suppress it with sheer force of will so that he didn’t scoff out loud.
He knew that Shen Yu suffered from prosopagnosia and had always struggled to remember people’s faces and names, so being able to remember “Bean Sprout” was already quite an achievement.
“Not necessarily. Although what we’ve seen so far are all fragments of him and Xu Jiachen together, perhaps Xu Jiachen is merely the key figure, while his obsession is something related to him.”
Hearing this, Shen Yu tilted his head slightly to look at Zhao Bin’s profile under the lamplight. Xu Jiachen had already hung up the phone, yet the hand with which Zhao Bin held his mobile phone still did not come down.
The surroundings swayed slightly. After a blur, things cleared up once more. Zhao Bin was still sitting at the head of the bed answering a phone call, except he was wearing an autumn undershirt, and the sound of pattering rain drifted in from outside the window.
“So late, why did an honor student like you sneak out to make a phone call?” Zhao Bin teased.
A hoarse voice came from the other end of the line: “…He died.”
“Who?!” Zhao Bin, who had been leaning back lazily against the head of the bed, sat up straight with a jolt upon hearing those words. He quickly collected himself. “Your dad?”
After uttering those words, the person on the opposite end fell into silence, leaving only the unceasing sound of heavy rain falling between heaven and earth.
After a while, suppressed, extremely low sobbing sounds came through.
Zhao Bin had never been this quiet before, listening without making a single sound, the figure holding the phone not moving even an inch.
For a full twenty-plus minutes, the crying stopped, though the rain continued to fall.
Zhao Bin took a soft breath and said in a steady voice, “Take good care of yourself. Don’t try to tough it out all by yourself.”
He paused for a moment before adding, “From now on, nothing can trap you anymore.”
Xu Jiachen finally spoke up, saying only, “Thank you…”
He didn’t say anything further. The phone call hung up shortly after, and the room plunged into a brief silence. Then, the scene shifted once again—this time, it was inside a hospital.
Zhao Bin was sitting on a long bench in the corridor, his left hand wrapped in thick layers of gauze while his right hand answered a phone call.
“There are still several months before the New Year. Why are you coming to send your blessings so early?” Zhao Bin’s tone remained jocular, yet his gaze stayed lowered.
“Brother Bin.” Xu Jiachen paused for a long while on the other end of the line before continuing, “I recently received a sum of money.”
“Oh? What money?”
“It’s him my dad’s compensation payout,” Xu Jiachen said. “He fell to his death at a construction site, but the construction company kept withholding the compensation. A few days ago, they suddenly became willing to pay up.”
“Your scumbag dad finally did a good deed for once, it seems,” Zhao Bin said with a tone of mild surprise.
It seemed as though Xu Jiachen hesitated for a moment before asking, “Brother Bin, do you know anything about this?”
“What?” Zhao Bin acted as though he didn’t understand the question, then immediately realized. “You mean that business with your dad? I know. In a small place like ours, if someone dies in an accident, it’s bound to spread across every village for miles around. Besides, your Brother Bin here has more resourceful information channels than ordinary people.”
“Then…” The person on the other end trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
It seemed that Zhao Bin’s matter-of-fact frankness left him even more at a loss as to how to ask his question.
“With this money, you won’t have to work as many part-time jobs during winter and summer vacations anymore. Focus on your studies isn’t the college entrance examination coming up soon?” Zhao Bin smoothly steered the conversation elsewhere.
“Mm…” Xu Jiachen acknowledged. “I will get into university.”
At this, Zhao Bin fell unusually silent for a moment before the corners of his mouth twitched upward. “Is this university thing really that great? Worth all these years of your bitter studying.”
“You said it yourself: only by studying hard can one leave this place,” Xu Jiachen said.
“Ah, right. Gotta leave this place.” Zhao Bin lowered his head, his gaze falling upon his own left hand wrapped in gauze. “There will be a new life waiting.”
Song Huaiyan stepped closer and saw the medical case history and X-ray inspection report lying on the bench: left arm pierced by steel reinforcement bars, damage to surrounding tissues including tendons, nerves, and blood vessels…
Before he could take a few more glances, the scene shifted once more.
It was still Zhao Bin’s room. The curtains were drawn, with a sliver of light filtering through the gap, revealing that it was a clear, sunny day outside. The room was very dark, save for the unextinguished embers of cigarette butts in the bedside ashtray there were as many as a dozen of them.
“Are you… doing well right now?” Xu Jiachen’s tone over the phone carried a sense of cautious gingerliness.
“Your big brother here is thriving like a fish in water,” Zhao Bin said, his tone carrying its habitual amusement.
On the other end, Xu Jiachen took a breath and said softly, “Brother Bin, could you… stop doing these things anymore?”
“Why are you suddenly bringing this up?” Zhao Bin’s tone remained unchanged. “Does an honor student like you feel it’s a loss of face to have a punk friend like me?”
“No, you know that’s not what I mean…” Xu Jiachen’s tone turned unusually urgent. “I think it’s too dangerous…”
He paused before adding, “If you still want to study, I can help you tutor… you could test into a technical school or vocational high school, and in the future…”
“Xu Jiachen,” Zhao Bin interrupted him. “You’re nearly eighteen years old, don’t be so childish. Your Brother Bin has his own path to walk. You study hard, and you don’t need to call me frequently when you have nothing to do save some phone bills.”
This time, it was Zhao Bin who hung up the phone first.
In the darkness, his expression could not be seen clearly. Only the burning spark of the cigarette moved from bottom to top, coming to a halt beside his lips, remaining unextinguished for a long time.
Shen Yu finally couldn’t help asking, “Do they always communicate like this, using thousands-of-miles sound transmission?”
“This is called a mobile phone. Everyone around here uses them; it’s similar to a sound transmission talisman, but it has other functions as well…”
Song Huaiyan wanted to explain what a mobile phone was, but at that moment, the scenery shifted slightly, and the desk lamp inside the room flickered on.
Zhao Bin sat before the desk, a fountain pen placed in front of him—it was the very same pen he had previously returned to Xu Jiachen.
This time, nobody was calling him on the phone. He simply sat there quietly, looking just like a wooden puppet.
“Why won’t they meet face-to-face?” Shen Yu asked the second half of the question.
“Yeah… after that barbecue session, they never met again.” Song Huaiyan sighed with lingering emotion.
As for the reason, both of them held some vague guesses in their hearts.
The surrounding scenery gradually dissipated, turning into a vast, blank white expanse, yet no new scenes appeared, and the smoke from the soul-summoning incense stopped extending further.
The memories related to Zhao Bin’s obsession ended right here.
Song Huaiyan frowned. “How come there are no memories regarding his death?”