Chen Xunfeng actually knew many things about Zhou Ai.
He knew that every morning around 7:20, Zhou Ai would walk past the first intersection of Haowang Road, dressed in his school uniform and carrying his backpack. He knew that around 12:20 every afternoon, Zhou Ai would sit alone at a window seat in the cafeteria, eating only from the stir-fry station on the second floor. He even knew that Zhou Ai stayed up late every night, preferring to lean against the windowsill in the middle of the night, blowing in the cold wind while lost in thought after finishing his exercises.
He knew that Zhou Ai fed a total of three cats and two dogs in the hills behind the school; the cats were ordinary calicoes, and the dogs were nameless, yellow-and-white mutts. He knew that Zhou Ai only smoked “Shoubainian” brand menthol cigarettes in green packaging a brand sold at a 24-hour convenience store on his route home, priced at 30 yuan. He also knew that Zhou Ai originally had a crescent-shaped scar on his temple, but over time, that scar had completely faded away.
Zhou Ai was not a sensitive person; he was perhaps accustomed to sealing himself off and treating the outside world with indifference. Thus, he did not know that Chen Xunfeng followed him into the school every morning, nor did he know that on several nights this month, Chen Xunfeng had stayed outside his building until the middle of the night.
From the moment he enrolled, Chen Xunfeng had quietly followed in the shadows behind Zhou Ai. It wasn’t until that day at the rain-swept intersection, when they locked eyes across the street for the first time, that Chen Xunfeng was finally certain Zhou Ai remembered him. Only after that day did he tentatively push open that door, step out, and walk boldly into Zhou Ai’s view.
Yet, there were still too many things he did not know about Zhou Ai.
On Monday morning, Chen Xunfeng waited as usual at the inevitable route Zhou Ai would take, but even as class time approached, he did not see Zhou Ai’s shadow pass by on the other side of the street.
Zhou Ai was a punctual person; he almost always arrived at school half an hour before class started. In the past two months, the only exception was the week before the National Day holiday; that morning, Chen Xunfeng had also failed to wait for Zhou Ai.
That day, he had waited at the intersection until well past the start of class before leaving. When he arrived at school, he had just been pulled into the line at the school gate by the chronically late Jiang Chuan when he saw Zhou Ai stepping out of a black sedan parked on the opposite street.
At that time, Chen Xunfeng stood quietly in the crowd, watching Zhou Ai cross the road toward them with a calm face.
More often, he saw Zhou Ai’s back a refined, slender back, always dressed in the Sixth High school uniform. The uniform’s cut was slightly large, but on Zhou Ai, it appeared extremely neat and fitted.
Back then, as Zhou Ai walked over, even though he stopped at a distance, Chen Xunfeng felt a wave of morning chill carry off of him. When the duty teacher stood before Zhou Ai and was on the verge of anger after two sentences, Chen Xunfeng had stepped forward and kicked the dozing Jiang Chuan, who was standing nearby.
This Monday morning, Chen Xunfeng did not see Zhou Ai, and once inside the school, he did not see him in the ranks of the latecomers either.
He and Jiang Chuan, a regular late-comer, were dragged into the office by their homeroom teacher, who spent an entire period lecturing them earnestly. They were only able to leave the office once the flag-raising ceremony began.
Stepping out of the office, he went straight upstairs to the skywalk between the two buildings. Jiang Chuan chased closely behind him, asking repeatedly what was wrong.
Chen Xunfeng did not stop; he just looked back at him, his mood low, and said, “Don’t follow me.”
A large crowd of students had already surged to the playground, leaving the teaching building empty. Chen Xunfeng walked straight into the Class 1 classroom and headed toward Zhou Ai’s seat.
The only person in Class 1 was Jiang Wenyi, who was injured and had limited mobility. When Jiang Wenyi saw Chen Xunfeng walk in through the back door, he subconsciously tightened his grip on his crutches and prepared to stand up. “There are surveillance cameras in the classroom,” he said to Chen Xunfeng, as if it were a warning.
But Chen Xunfeng didn’t look at him. His footsteps didn’t falter as he pushed past him to reach Zhou Ai’s seat in the back.
Zhou Ai’s desk was neat and tidy, but his backpack was not there. His seat remained exactly as it had been when he left on Friday.
Chen Xunfeng turned his head to look at Jiang Wenyi. Jiang Wenyi’s face flushed with nervousness, and he wanted to retreat under his gaze. “…I—”
Chen Xunfeng’s expression was cold as he interrupted directly, “Where is Zhou Ai? He didn’t come this morning?”
A strange feeling crossed Jiang Wenyi’s heart. He hated and feared Chen Xunfeng, but he knew he could not provoke this person. So, he swallowed and answered quickly, “I didn’t see him.”
Chen Xunfeng seemed to frown. He rested one hand on Zhou Ai’s desk, stood before Jiang Wenyi, and asked again, “Did he ask for leave?”
The feeling of strangeness grew stronger, but Jiang Wenyi did not show it, merely shaking his head: “I don’t know.”
Chen Xunfeng was quite tall, and standing silently before Jiang Wenyi was an act of oppression. Jiang Wenyi’s heartbeat accelerated in the silence.
He could not fathom Chen Xunfeng’s style, but his impression of him was deep. During the English exam for the last monthly test, he had gone to the restroom before the exam. He was washing his hands and chatting with a boy from another class when Chen Xunfeng stepped out of a stall. He had just looked up in the mirror subconsciously, only to see Chen Xunfeng walking toward him.
Then came the unprovoked violence. He had fought back with all his might, of course, but the result was that he ended up in the hospital, while Chen Xunfeng only suffered minor surface wounds.
Jiang Wenyi waited in the silence. Sitting at his desk, he stared at the hem of Chen Xunfeng’s school uniform. This also struck him as strange: Chen Xunfeng, who walked on the edge of school rules every day, was actually wearing the uniform properly.
Chen Xunfeng straightened the chair he had nudged earlier. The sudden movement made Jiang Wenyi flinch, but Chen Xunfeng did not look at him again, walking directly out of the classroom.
He did not go to the playground for the flag-raising ceremony. Instead, he detoured to the cafeteria, bought some food, and took the familiar path to the back hill to feed the cats.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. Chen Xunfeng idly stroked the head of a small dog, using his other hand to pull out the phone. There were many messages in his messaging app. Several people had sent the same thing, asking where he was, saying the homeroom teacher was furious and looking for him.
Chen Xunfeng put the phone on silent and shoved it back into his pocket.
Chen Xunfeng had thought Zhou Ai’s disappearance would only last for a day, or perhaps half a day, but he had not expected that a week would pass in the blink of an eye without him receiving any news.
He asked students from Class 1 for information, only to be told that Zhou Ai had taken leave for personal reasons. He could not reach Zhou Ai, nor had he seen him since. The villa where Zhou Ai lived remained with its doors and windows tightly shut, the lights never lit again.
He even went to ask his uncle, Chen Zhen, about the thugs who had followed Zhou Ai previously. He wanted to see them, but his uncle’s efficiency was too high; those people had long been in the police station and were nearly being released after a fifteen-day detention.
After that departure in his childhood, it had taken Chen Xunfeng a long time to get the chance to return. He never imagined that the moment he finally saw Zhou Ai again, there would be a possibility of Zhou Ai disappearing from his sight entirely.
Waking up from a dream in the middle of the night, Chen Xunfeng even wondered in a daze if this were all a dream that he was actually still living with Chen Zhen in far-off England, that he had never returned, and that he had never seen the grown-up Zhou Ai at the Sixth High.
But on the honor board framed in gold under the teaching building, Zhou Ai’s photo looked exceptionally good in the sunlight. In the first row beneath the photo was his class and name: Class 1, Grade 1, Zhou Ai.
…
The marble floor of the villa was hard; the dining room and the stairwell were not areas where Zhou Youbao usually played, so they were not carpeted.
Holding Zhou Youbao, Zhou Ai had tumbled down stairs nearly two meters high. The skin on his calves had been almost entirely scraped off by the steps, and blood had soaked his pant legs, but this was not his most serious injury.
Zhou Youbao weighed over twenty kilos and had landed directly on top of him. Zhou Ai’s ribs, lumbar vertebrae, and skull had all suffered varying degrees of impact or crushing during the fall. Upon entering the hospital that night, he was immediately rushed into the operating room.
On the second day of his hospitalization, after Zhou Youbao finished his full-body check-up, he refused to leave. He clamored to stay and accompany Zhou Ai. The hospital was not a good place, and his parents certainly wouldn’t allow him to stay for long, so the nanny forcibly took him away. Since his parents were away on business, and Zhou Youbao was being difficult, he was sent directly to his grandparents’ house.
Zhou Ai stayed in the hospital for three full weeks. He had only two quiet, taciturn caregivers. Because it was a private room, it was exceptionally quiet; aside from the doctors’ morning rounds, the only sound all day was the faint hum of the wall-mounted television.
Throughout the long stay, Zhou Ai didn’t think much. The persistent pain and the rigid, immobile posture made him grow increasingly pale and thin. His only worry was the cats and dogs on the back hill. He didn’t know if they had grown any bigger, if they would find food on their own, and he was certain the food supplies he had left behind were not enough.
Therefore, when Chen Siliu came to visit him for the third time, he initiated a conversation with him for the first time.
He used his phone to type in the memo app for Chen Siliu: If you have time, could you help me deliver something to the Sixth High?
Chen Siliu was somewhat surprised and pleasantly delighted. He pulled over a chair and sat down, raising an eyebrow: “Deliver what?”
Zhou Ai continued to type.
Chen Siliu sat nearby and watched. Having been hospitalized for a while, Zhou Ai seemed to have grown paler. His fingers holding the phone were long, slender, and clean, with prominent knuckles. There were medical tape and bruises on the back of his hand. He typed quickly, and soon Chen Siliu saw the phone screen held out in front of him.
The memo page was clean and tidy. Zhou Ai had left a blank line between two paragraphs, so Chen Siliu easily read the next part: Cat food and dog food. There are some stray cats and dogs on the back hill of the Sixth High. If you deliver them there and add up the time for the trip, I will pay you at the hourly rate we agreed upon when you were tutoring me.
The arch in Chen Siliu’s eyebrows slowly faded. He laughed, somewhat helplessly: “Zhou Ai, that’s not asking me for a favor; that’s purchasing my services.”
Zhou Ai stopped typing. He leaned against the head of the bed, turned his head, withdrew his gaze, and put his phone away, reverting to his previous state the same distant, quiet state he had been in during Chen Siliu’s two previous visits.
Chen Siliu looked at Zhou Ai’s side profile and said with a touch of resignation: “But I didn’t refuse. Are there any requirements for the cat and dog food?”