A single sheet of contract paper scattered through the air. Pei Weixue stood rooted to the spot, his face blank and full of grief, letting the pages slide down from above his head, brush past his cheek like feathers, and drift to the floor by his feet. He took a trembling step forward, only to be sharply stopped. Swallowing down the pain, he tore his gaze away from the man standing at the turn of the stairs, watching like it was a show, and turned around.
“Pei Weixue. Do you have to go against me? I don’t love you! Did you hear me?”
“Then why did you marry me in the first place!”
Questioned like that, Su Yin blanked for a moment. Looking at the man in front of him, eyes full of disappointment, a thought flashed through his mind. He wanted to hold him, to comfort him, but it passed in an instant. “You think I wanted this?!” In truth, he didn’t know why either. It was as if this was simply what he was supposed to do.
After hearing that death sentence repeated countless times, Pei Weixue realized it still hurt, no matter what. His eyes brimmed with shining tears. He sniffed, wiped them away with both hands, then turned his face slightly aside. The tip of his straight, delicate nose still glistened wetly, a little red and swollen. Silent, he strode back to the bedroom, ignoring the shouting behind him.
As soon as he shut the door, he slid slowly down against it and sat on the floor. Nearly six years had passed, but those old sweetnesses still had not faded. At first, Su Yin had merely ignored him. Later, he only got worse, openly chasing after another man, making scene after scene, demanding a divorce.
There was nothing he could use to hold on to Su Yin, nothing except that marriage certificate. In fact, he didn’t even know what he’d done wrong. His mind was full of bits and pieces from their college days, when Su Yin had always hovered around him.
Back then, Su Yin had been a famous ‘somebody’ at the academy, handsome, exceptionally capable, the kind of top student who had won first prize in national fashion design competitions more than once.
And he had been nothing more than an ordinary science student, majoring in software, always carrying textbooks around, with hardly anyone paying him any attention.
Once, while entering a web design competition, he had his head down in the library working on it. He was agonizing over the color balance, checking color codes on his phone, when a voice came from behind him. “The color and layout design could be polished a little more. Don’t you think the text design in this box clashes with the whole page?”
Pei Weixue looked up and met a face with bold, uninhibited features. The figure reflected in his pupils smiled at him, and he heard himself say, “Clashes?”
The young man swung his long legs over and sat beside him. A faint, fresh soap scent drifted over. “Look, your page uses mostly dark blue, but the text is yellow-brown. Doesn’t that feel weird?” He reached out, took the mouse, and adjusted a beautiful pale shade on the color palette. “What do you think?”
“It looks good…” After hesitating for a few seconds, Pei Weixue said, “I’m a little color-blind.” To his surprise, the young man slapped him on the shoulder and said with hearty loyalty, “Then I’ll be your Color Palette from now on. What’s your name? I’m Su Yin, Su as in grass radical Su, Yin as in seduce.” That bright grin, all flashing white teeth, made Pei Weixue smile without realizing it. “Pei Weixue. Pei as in the character with clothes, Wei as in future, Xue as in snow.”
Su Yin thought that was their first meeting, but it wasn’t. They had crossed paths many, many times before. It was just that every time, Pei Weixue had only watched from afar, while around him he would hear roommates or classmates talking about Su Yin from Class 3, Year 15 of fashion design, who had rejected someone’s confession again, what prize he’d won, what event he’d organized and performed in perfectly.
After that, he started seeing Su Yin in the library often, carrying picture books and a drawing board, sitting quietly in a corner. Pei Weixue would choose a table nearby. Su Yin would also often bring him kiwis and carrots to eat. He knew why, they were part of the daily support for color blindness.
His color blindness wasn’t congenital. After a family crisis in high school, he developed a mental illness. During episodes he became restless and agitated, and the medications he took were chlorpromazine and thioridazine. In his final year of high school, under intense academic pressure, his mental state became extremely unstable, and he took more than prescribed against medical advice. That was what damaged the cone cells in his retina.
But because of his illness, he still had to keep taking medication, so he never chose surgical treatment.
Su Yin never wasted words, but he always did things that mattered. Pei Weixue saw all of it.
Once, after assigning homework, the professor required every student to go onstage, present their work, and explain their design concept. Pei Weixue went up with his flash drive. The moment his webpage layout appeared on screen, laughter broke out. The colors were all over the place, with no sense of beauty at all. He knew his classmates were only amused, not malicious, but the truth was, even he didn’t know what the color scheme actually looked like. Still, he forced himself through the PowerPoint presentation.
Because the layout design itself was good, the professor gave him a favorable evaluation.
That was a lecture class with several different classes attending together. After he sat down, a few punks from the neighboring class mocked him. His color blindness wasn’t really a secret, everyone who took classes with him knew, and naturally some prank-loving students from other classes would bring it up and laugh.
“If you’re color-blind, just make everything one color. Why insist on using other colors?”
Actually, every time Pei Weixue chose colors by using color codes. It was just that the final effect always came out poor. He had been color-blind for so long that he had long since lost the most basic instinct for judging color. All he could do was learn color names from books or descriptions, then try to imagine whether they matched.
As soon as he stepped out of the teaching building, he heard that sentence. It made him a little angry. Even if he was color-blind, he still had the right to use color, didn’t he? But those people weren’t entirely wrong either. If he couldn’t tell them apart, maybe it really would be better to just use one color.
“Hey.”
Just then, a familiar voice rang out.
He looked over. Su Yin came out from the back door rubbing his eyes, hands in his pockets as he stopped in front of those two students and lifted his chin slightly. “Apologize.” What he hated most in his life was people mocking others for being sick. No matter what the illness was, it was never a reason to laugh at someone.
The two of them turned and looked up at him. “Su Yin, what are you doing in our class?” Fashion design and computer science were two different departments, and they didn’t even share the same lecture courses.
“I said, apologize to Pei Weixue.” Su Yin grabbed their wrists and twisted them around a little. “There.” He nodded toward Pei Weixue. “Apologize to him.”
The two of them, realizing the person in question had heard them, felt a bit embarrassed. On top of that, Su Yin’s presence had drawn a lot of people to look their way, so they could only apologize to Pei Weixue before hurrying off.
Pei Weixue smiled and nodded at Su Yin. “Thank you.”
Su Yin walked over, slung an arm around his neck, and said, “If you’re going to thank me, how about something practical?”
“I can treat you to a meal.”
“No no no, not that.” Su Yin produced a bottle of freshly squeezed carrot juice from who knew where. “Drink this today.”
Pei Weixue’s face fell at once. He really didn’t like carrots, but he also knew why Su Yin insisted on making him drink it. Taking it, he asked, “Why did you come here for class today?”
“Mm, I don’t have class today.” The two of them headed downstairs together. Seeing that he was drinking, Su Yin took his arm back and tucked his hands into his pockets. “I came specifically to find you.”
“To find me?” Pei Weixue was surprised.
Su Yin nodded. “My uncle grew a ton of corn, more than anyone can finish, so he gave us a lot. My mom made a whole corn banquet today, and she’s trying to make me sick of it. Will you help me out?” He pressed his palms together, his eyes full of pleading.
Looking at the empty plastic bottle in his hand, Pei Weixue nodded gently. “Okay.”
Su Yin’s mother had a very lively personality. At least, it was the first time Pei Weixue had ever met such a lively elder. The moment he stepped through the door, she took his backpack from him, ushered him to the dining table, and proudly introduced every dish in the corn banquet, sweet corn kernels, corn and pork rib soup, corn pancakes, shrimp stir-fried with corn, creamy corn soup, butter-roasted corn, corn sponge cake, and so on.
The table was packed full. It really did look like two people couldn’t possibly finish it all.
“Auntie can call you Xiao Pei, right?” Su Qingyue hospitably slid every dish closer to Pei Weixue. Startled by the warmth, he said, “Yes. Auntie.”
Su Yin sat beside Pei Weixue eating corn kernels with his chopsticks, looking rather pleased with his mom. Not bad, old lady, you’re moving fast.
“Xiao Pei, does our little rascal Su Yin make trouble at school?”
“Little rascal Su Yin?”
“Mom!”
Pei Weixue’s puzzled voice and Su Yin’s flustered protest sounded at the same time. Su Yin tapped his bowl. “Don’t call me that!”
Su Qingyue mercilessly exposed him. “You were the one who insisted on changing it when you were little.” She looked at Pei Weixue. “Xiao Pei, you don’t know this, in third grade the teacher assigned homework to make a phrase using your own name, and he made one for himself with ‘seduce’. And that wasn’t even all, he kept making a fuss about changing his name. At the time he was losing baby teeth and couldn’t pronounce things clearly, so he went around telling everyone his name was Su Doggyin.”
“Really?” Pei Weixue couldn’t help laughing. He looked teasingly at Su Yin. Su Yin glared at him in exasperation. Pei Weixue tried to rein in his smile a little, but he still couldn’t stop it from spilling out through his eyes. This was obviously his first time at Su Yin’s home, yet it didn’t feel unfamiliar at all, as if he’d come here many, many times before.
“Why are you glaring at Xiao Pei? Weren’t you the one who came up with it?” Su Qingyue had short hair and a sharp, capable air. Her clothes suited her figure and temperament perfectly, making her look spirited and young. As she spoke, she ladled a bowl of corn soup for Pei Weixue. “Try this, it’s delicious.”
Su Yin let out a cold huff and focused on eating.
Pei Weixue, meanwhile, looked at the growing pile of food in his bowl, his eyes turning a little sore. It had already been a very, very long time since he’d had a meal like this.
Afterward, Su Yin walked back to the dorm with him. Though they were in different majors, they lived in the same building. As they passed the sports field, they went in for a stroll. Every now and then when Pei Weixue looked over at Su Yin, someone Su Yin knew would greet him and chat a bit, so Pei Weixue simply walked quietly beside him.
“Weixue.”
Pei Weixue turned his head. “Hm?” Moonlight fell over Su Yin’s profile, making him look as pure and immaculate as a deity from ancient legend. Pei Weixue stared without blinking.
Su Yin said, “From now on, come home with me for dinner every weekend.” His tone was easy and casual, as if he were saying something trivial, but the hand on the other side was pressed tightly against his thigh, and even his walk had gone a little stiff.
“Mm.” Before Su Yin could look over, Pei Weixue pulled back his gaze and turned his head, pretending to watch other people playing basketball. “Thank you.” He didn’t want to expose what Su Yin was thinking, and he understood his meaning too. Su Yin thought he was a little lonely. Or perhaps, that he was pitiful.