When the student finished the test paper, Xie Chun ignored Xu Yanghe. He muted his phone and began explaining the problems to the student.
“Pick out these specific types of problems from this set and finish them before next week,” Xie Chun said.
“Do we have class next week too?” the student asked with a hint of dread.
Xie Chun didn’t quite follow. “…”
The student continued, “It’s almost New Year. Next week should be during the annual holiday, right?”
Xie Chun: “…”
The student pleaded, “Can we just skip it?”
“Fine,” Xie Chun agreed. “In that case, finish all of them.”
Student: “Huh?”
Xie Chun said, “Since there’s no class next week, your next official study time should be when school starts—less than half a month away.”
After nightfall, Xie Chun walked out of the family’s house.
New Year?
…
On New Year’s Eve, Xu Yanghe finally finished that pile of cakes.
He looked at the food in the fridge; there was still some left, but he didn’t want it. He wanted something good.
Hotpot would be best. When he had picked up Zhou Lan, he’d actually been quite craving the food at that restaurant. He considered making hotpot at home, even if the smell lingered for half a month.
He needed to be kind to himself.
The desire for good food was a great way to ignore the fact that he was spending New Year alone.
The supermarket downstairs no longer had any fresh ingredients, only battered vegetable leaves left behind by others. Xu Yanghe decided to risk going to a supermarket further away.
He wrapped himself up tightly, obscuring his facial features. Fortunately, everyone dressed this way in the bitter cold, so he didn’t look out of place. He had seen online that after several days of fermentation, the public’s attention on his scandal had dropped significantly.
Still, Xu Yanghe remained vigilant.
He picked out his ingredients and was about to head to the checkout when a man hurried past behind him.
Xu Yanghe whipped his head around. This was the third time he’d spotted this man in the supermarket. Originally, the man’s cart had a few items in it, but now it was empty. He was just circling the area.
There was a line at the checkout. Xu Yanghe didn’t head over immediately, instead walking a few more slow laps between the shelves.
The man was intermittently sending voice messages on his phone while keeping a distant eye on Xu Yanghe.
Probably a reporter, Xu Yanghe thought. He likely wasn’t calling colleagues to corner him; after all, it was New Year’s Eve.
Behind him, the man deliberately called out Xu Yanghe’s name in the local dialect. People nearby looked over.
Xu Yanghe took a jar of honey off the shelf, inspected it, and put it back. Seeing the line at the registers thinning, he walked over quickly.
The man followed urgently. “Sir, excuse me, is your last name Xu?”
Xu Yanghe shot him a glance.
“Xu Yanghe, you’re Lian Xin’s son, Xu Yanghe, aren’t you?” The man gripped his phone, which displayed Xu Yanghe’s photo.
Xu Yanghe turned back and replied in French, “Je ne comprends pas.” (I don’t understand.)
The cashier, while scanning Xu Yanghe’s items, gave the man an annoyed glare.
“I’m a reporter from XX News. We are an official media platform, not some independent social media workshop,” the man pressed. “Do you know the true cause of your mother’s death? Were you present when it happened?”
The people around them began to cast strange looks their way.
As the cashier bagged his items, Xu Yanghe asked her, “Is this how your security system usually works?”
The cashier immediately summoned security.
Xu Yanghe stepped past the gates. Behind him, the man claiming to be a reporter was blocked by a guard. “I’m a reporter! I have a press pass!”
The moment Xu Yanghe was out the door, he started sprinting. It was a mistake not to drive; security guards weren’t law enforcement, and they wouldn’t be able to hold the reporter for long.
Sure enough, a moment later, the man was tailing him on a shared bike. “Did you participate in Sun Bin’s parties in North America when you were racing together?”
What is this guy talking about?
Xu Yanghe rounded a corner and spotted a convenience store. In his panic, he ducked inside.
A transparent plastic curtain hung over the door, looking like a sheet of white mist. When Xu Yanghe entered, he was met with a blast of warm air.
The clerk, wearing an apron and a cap stitched with the store’s logo, stood behind the counter and looked over.
“…”
“Is there anywhere I can hide?” Xu Yanghe asked, charging straight for the storage room.
Xie Chun raised his hand. “Over there—”
Xu Yanghe took one look at the overflowing storage room and came back out, his eyes landing on the counter where Xie Chun was standing.
In a few strides, he was there, crouching down low right beside Xie Chun.
Xie Chun: “…”
At the door, the reporter had already rushed in.
Xie Chun’s legs took up Xu Yanghe’s entire field of vision. He was wearing gray sweatpants and sneakers. At his ankles, black cotton socks were layered over long johns.
“Hello, I’m a reporter from XX News. Did a man in a trench coat come in here?” the reporter asked, standing at the counter.
Xu Yanghe remembered what Yu Dashan had said—Xie Chun couldn’t lie and didn’t understand lies. In a panic, he reached out and gripped Xie Chun’s ankle.
Xie Chun: “…”
The reporter was impatient. “Did he come in? Or did he keep going down the street?”
“…” Xie Chun slowly lowered his head, his lips trembling. “No.”
The reporter’s eyes were filled with suspicion. He turned to scan the shelves, then walked further into the store.
Under the counter, Xu Yanghe breathed a sigh of relief and his mind began to wander. He stared at Xie Chun’s pants; the side seam looked a bit strange. He ran his finger along it and felt a black thread.
Xu Yanghe: “?”
The reporter circled a few times, then went to check the storage room.
“…” Xie Chun said in a voice bordering on a plea, “Hide-and-seek isn’t allowed in the store, and neither are interviews… just take some bubble gum and go.”
Sometimes, a person’s actions can’t simply be described as “itchy fingers.”
It’s just that when a simple switch is in your hand and you understand the likely consequences, you might carry out the experiment as if possessed. There is a scientific behavioral explanation for this.
But Xu Yanghe still felt his hand was too meddlesome.
Why did Xie Chun’s pants fall apart the moment I pulled the thread?
Xie Chun looked down. “…”
Xu Yanghe met his gaze.
Xie Chun said, “You can come out now.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Xu Yanghe whispered.
Xie Chun looked up, and Xu Yanghe realized the reporter was gone.
As Xu Yanghe climbed out from under the counter, Xie Chun inspected the front and back flaps of his pants.
Xu Yanghe was still holding the end of the thread. “I really didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” Xie Chun said. “Because I sewed them myself.”
Inside the gray sweatpants, the long johns Xie Chun wore were skin-tight. He shook the two flaps of fabric. “It’s fine. It’s actually quite fashionable.”
“Get a grip,” Xu Yanghe said. Then, guiltily, “How about we swap pants?”
“Are you wearing long johns too?” Xie Chun asked.
Xu Yanghe: “No.”
Xie Chun looked down. “Then forget it.”
Xu Yanghe clearly couldn’t leave yet. He watched as Xie Chun tucked his curls under his hat, leaving only a few strands poking out.
“You work here?”
Xie Chun nodded. “Mhm.”
“All the time?” Xu Yanghe asked.
Xie Chun shook his head. “The rice noodle shop is on holiday, so I came here.”
“Working on New Year’s Eve,” Xu Yanghe noted. “Is there no one at home?”
“Dad and Mom,” Xie Chun said. “They’re asleep.”
“Huh?” Xu Yanghe said. “Sleeping this early? They’re really healthy, aren’t they?”
Xie Chun: “…”
Xie Chun poured a hot latte and silently placed it in front of Xu Yanghe.
Xu Yanghe said, “Thanks.”
Xie Chun ignored him, picked up a disposable bowl, and started serving Oden.
The latte smelled wonderful and was at the perfect temperature. A moment later, Xie Chun pushed a bowl of Oden toward Xu Yanghe. He sat on the other side of the table and began eating as well.
“Last time… was it you helping me with the lights?” He was referring to the night they left Zhou Lan’s house.
Xu Yanghe watched him without answering.
“So, this is on me.” Xie Chun paused, slowly biting into a piece of radish. “But you tore my pants today… so you should still pay. Twenty-one yuan and fifty cents.”
“Okay,” Xu Yanghe said, looking down.
It was so warm in the convenience store that Xu Yanghe didn’t want to leave. On New Year’s Eve, ordinary people stayed at home; the store had zero customers.
Xu Yanghe sat nearby. “Who bought that laundry powder? It really doesn’t work well.”
Xie Chun said, “Mom.”
Xu Yanghe felt a sense of oddness. He took out his phone and opened the photo Xie Chun had sent him once more. The production date on the bucket was from two years ago—of course, it was possible Xie Chun’s mother bought a lot at once. The label was nearly rotted away by water, and the limescale had settled in the threads of the cap. It looked like it had been in constant use.
Xu Yanghe zoomed in. The background was ordinary, multi-colored tiles. It was bone dry without a single drop of water—even though Xie Chun usually lived in the K-University dorms. Most importantly, on the sink in the background, there was only one toothbrush.
Xu Yanghe asked him again, “When do you get off work?”
“In another fifty minutes.” Xie Chun checked the clock.
Xu Yanghe looked too; fifty minutes from now wasn’t even an hour.
“Can’t you ditch?” Xu Yanghe said. “Your boss isn’t even here.”
“He checks the store’s electricity usage to calculate my workload during the holiday,” Xie Chun said.
Xu Yanghe swiped his screen a few times with one hand, while the other picked up his hotpot ingredients and walked to the counter. “Check your phone.”
Xie Chun looked.
Xu Yanghe: Send you 10,000 Yuan.
“Can you ditch now?” Xu Yanghe asked.
Xie Chun was incredibly sincere. “Yes.”
Xu Yanghe: “I’m going to your house for New Year.”
Xie Chun: “Okay.”
Xu Yanghe lifted the groceries. “We’re making a hotpot.”
Xie Chun: “Alright.”
Xu Yanghe: “Are your parents eating?”
Xie Chun smiled. “They won’t be eating.”
“?” Xu Yanghe was determined to meet this bizarre set of parents.
The sunlight was beautiful today. As the two walked down the road, it was exactly sunset.
Xu Yanghe knew that Xie Chun lived very close to him and Zhou Lan. It was all within the commercial district of the university town, around the same intersection. On the left side of the ring road were newly built high-rise apartments, where Xu Yanghe and Zhou Lan each lived in different complexes. On the right side were old buildings used for group rentals—they were practically condemned.
An alleyway led inside. The old rental buildings looked like pieces of honeycomb under the setting sun. That day, Xu Yanghe had dropped Xie Chun off right here; a car couldn’t go any further.
The front and back of the buildings were piled with broken furniture and construction waste. Weeds grew thick, and the pedestrian paths were extremely narrow. The exterior walls of the buildings were weather-beaten and fragile, blackened at the top and peeling at the bottom. Even the wooden window frames were rotting.
Xu Yanghe took part in the decay. “Is the old spinning mill right behind here?”
Xie Chun said, “Yes.”
Xu Yanghe vaguely recalled someone mentioning that the buildings next to the old spinning mill were slated for demolition.