“Nannan.”
When Shen Qian heard the “breakup” notification, he thought it was an illusion. It wasn’t until Xuan Congnan left the private room and his figure appeared downstairs that he snapped back to his senses and gave chase.
“Nannan”
A figure suddenly rushed over and bumped into Shen Qian, cutting off his words. She ran forward happily, excitedly saying to her companion, “I definitely didn’t see wrong! It’s really him!”
“Why did he come here? Are you really sure?”
“Hold on, let me check his schedule. The fansite posted it yesterday… I see it! He has an endorsement here!”
“Damn, there are so many people!!!”
Out of nowhere, a multitude of people suddenly appeared, comprising both men and women.
They all chased after a vehicle, looking as if bandits were about to lay siege to it. Yet once they truly reached the side of the car, everyone orderly and disciplinedly came to a halt, standing at an appropriate distance away.
Shen Qian was blocked behind them while Xuan Congnan walked further and further away.
The car windows in the back seat of the Cayenne rolled all the way down, and the man wearing a hat and mask gave a brief wave to the outside.
Excited screams rang out one after another. Hearing the commotion, curiosity drove Xuan Congnan to turn his head and see what was happening.
Through the crowd, he saw Shen Qian gazing at him from afar, before shifting his gaze away to look at the person in the car.
There were simply too many people, so Xuan Congnan couldn’t see who the protagonist triggering this uproar was, but it had nothing to do with him anyway.
He had just broken up with Shen Qian. He was feeling heartbroken.
The art studios at the university were open all day long, weekends being no exception.
Xuan Congnan shouldered his bag and walked around more than half the campus. The leaves of the camphor trees fell and cast shadows on the ground, turning into shadow butterflies in the breeze. He stepped on these shadows, reached the art studio, and pushed the door open to go inside.
On the two long tables at the podium sat various Western sculpture pieces. When thinking of drawing still life, Xuan Congnan always feared the teacher randomly tossing a water bottle there and telling them to draw what they saw. He feared even more the teacher grabbing a handful of irregular broken diamonds and scattering them across the table that was simply a nightmare. Yet right now, he wasn’t afraid of this.
To him, sculpture sketching was the easiest to draw.
The art studio had stood for many years and frequently undergone repairs, leaving paint pigments still visible across the floor in scattered splotches, possessing a remarkably prominent individuality.
The interior wasn’t tidy at all; one could even call it messy. After all, art students required inspiration the most, and the positions of objects intended for drawing could not be altered, otherwise they would go frantic.
Every step Xuan Congnan took upon entering was executed with considerable poise. Spotting a palm-sized patch of empty floor space, he immediately stepped onto it, successfully navigating all obstacles all the way to the window.
The window remained closed, and students occasionally passed by on the street below the art studio building, traveling in twos and threes with companions, none of them walking alone.
Unfurling the fixed easel kept in the studio and setting it up properly, Xuan Congnan pulled out his sketchpad and placed it on top, casually setting his backpack on the floor. He wanted to refine the artwork that had been interrupted earlier back at the restaurant.
His charcoal pencil hovered over the area meant for the dark clouds, yet failed to land definitively.
Quietly staring at the charcoal pencil and his own hand, Xuan Congnan felt his mind go empty and chaotic as everything blurred into fuzziness.
He rarely looked like this.
The past year felt like a mere dream. He had thought Shen Qian liked him, but in truth, Shen Qian liked someone else entirely, and Xuan Congnan was certain he must bear a certain degree of resemblance to that person.
Only in this way could Shen Qian’s repeated anomalies and oddities be adequately explained.
Xuan Congnan was very foolish—so foolish that he had realized the truth far too late. How foolish and ridiculous his idea of wanting to build a family with Shen Qian had been.
…He was terribly sad.
He wouldn’t date anyone anymore from now on.
“Congnan, you’re in the studio?” The door of the art studio was pushed open by someone. A male classmate in his class walked toward the window, following the exact walking path Xuan Congnan had just taken. “The spots where you can actually plant your feet in here are getting fewer and fewer. Why aren’t you out on a date for 520, what kind of drawing are you doing in the studio?”
Xuan Congnan said, “You didn’t go either.”
Zhang Que gave a contemptuous little laugh and said, “I’m single, who would I go on a date with?”
Xuan Congnan said, “Same here.”
Zhang Que uttered a very surprised single-syllable sound: “Ah…”
Looking at the landscape sketchpad on the easel, he remarked, “It suddenly turned overcast with dark clouds a little while ago. Is that what you’re drawing?”
Xuan Congnan replied, “Mn.”
Zhang Que said, “Why did you stop drawing? The sunlight over there clearly looks like it’s about to pierce right through the dark clouds.”
Though the entire scene was right before his eyes, Xuan Congnan’s inspiration ran shallow, and he didn’t want to finish it hastily.
He remained silent and offered no response.
After setting up his drawing board, Zhang Que hauled over his paint bucket, intending to paint in oils: “If you don’t kick off the old, the new won’t come long live being single, right?”
Selecting his paintbrushes, he advised, “You should go out for a walk; right now, the outside world suits you better.”
The food eaten at noon was quickly consumed by the sorrowful emotions. Shouldering his bag, Xuan Congnan headed to the supermarket and bought a fifty-cent lollipop wrapped in blue packaging with a yogurt flavor.
The candy flavor was absorbed by his body via saliva and entered his bloodstream. As his blood sugar rose, it stimulated his brain to produce a certain amount of serotonin and dopamine, making Xuan Congnan feel much better in spirits. He took out the sandalwood Guanyin pendant that he had put back around his neck just today, looking at it over and over. The Guanyin’s brows and eyes were merciful and divine as it accompanied him by his side.
After admiring it, he tucked it back inside his clothes with care.
It was already 5:30 PM, and the setting sun was turning red and beginning to sink westward. Xuan Congnan went for a run along the park outside the school.
A single lap around the lake measured 1.6 kilometers, and he jogged slowly for nearly six laps. More than an hour later, once he finished running, his dopamine secretion was plentiful.
Gripping the lakeside railing with his hand, Xuan Congnan tilted his face up to feel the tail end of the setting sun, letting the cool breeze tousle his long hair.
Having felt depressed all afternoon, he finally felt like smiling.
The rented apartment was located not far from here—just a few hundred meters away. It was a rundown residential complex that had already fallen within the government’s demolition zone. Because the demolition documents kept getting delayed and property management was unwilling to spend money on repairs, the environmental security here was barely passing, with wall plaster peeling off like an unfinished building.
Precisely because of this, the rent was cheap.
It was a one-living-room, one-bedroom layout measuring over 20 square meters, with the kitchen situated in a corner of the living room in a semi-open design.
Bathing took place in the bedroom; it only featured a showerhead without a bathtub because there simply wasn’t room to fit one. Though the space was small, the interior was kept very clean.
His phone had been turned off for nearly a full day without being switched on, and having received no charge last night, it now sat at 22% battery.
The residential complex’s electrical wiring was old, causing power outages several times a month. Xuan Congnan searched for a charging cable in anticipation of a blackout.
The phone, which had been in use for several years, sluggishly vibrated a few times to deliver notifications: three missed calls and two messages from Shen Qian.
[Nannan, the company is busy. I’ll come find you tomorrow, come out to see me.] [I might have said something wrong, but I didn’t mean it.]
Xuan Congnan deleted and blocked Shen Qian’s contact number and WeChat. Once he plugged the phone in to charge, he went to take a shower, stripping off all his sweat-drenched clothes to wash them.
After hanging up the laundry, he felt extremely hungry. He opened the mini refrigerator, wanting to cook himself some dried noodles.
To his dismay, the dried noodles were all gone; he had to go out and buy more.
Checking his phone for his remaining balance—coincidentally matching today’s date—he had exactly 520 yuan left to spend for the month.
Xuan Congnan counted on his fingers and calculated that he could spend 50 yuan a day—how wealthy!
Long hair was rather difficult to air-dry naturally without a hair dryer, but since the weather wasn’t cold right now, leaving it un-blown was fine and conveniently saved electricity.
He changed his shoes, shouldered his bag, and headed out to the supermarket to buy ingredients for the next two days. He’d buy a couple of extra packs of dried noodles; that was the dish he cooked best.
It was past 8:00 PM, and the streetlights downstairs emitted a dim, yellowish glow. As Xuan Congnan walked past, his shadow shortened and lengthened on the ground.
A drunkard staggered into the rundown residential complex and, catching sight of Xuan Congnan from afar, let out a whistle toward him.
“Little Xuan, you smell so good. Did you take a bath and wash your hair?”
Xuan Congnan quickened his pace and ignored him.
Living alone outside, one must not entangle themselves with ruthless, heavy-drinking, impoverished individuals; one shouldn’t indulge in momentary verbal retaliation.
The gatekeeper old man spat and scolded, “Get lost! You spent 15 days locked up in the police station last time, and you haven’t learned a single lesson.”
The drunken man let out a hiccup and muttered, “What’s wrong with me praising him for smelling good? Hiccup… ha, I was praising him.”
“That’s called harassment! Hurry up and scram, scram, scram! Go back to your home!” the gatekeeper old man chased him off.
The drunkard retorted, “Hah, since you put it that way, I specifically won’t go back. I’m going to go drink a couple more cups.”
Surrounded by towering high-rises, the residential complex behind him was made to look like a rural product. The supermarket wasn’t far it shared the same road as the park. Although this place was run-down, its geographical location was great; once demolition truly happened, it would definitely fetch a considerable amount of money.
The moon was moving southward at a pace invisible to the naked eye when Xuan Congnan abruptly slowed his footsteps.
A man was sitting by the flower bed, tilting his head slightly upward to gaze at the night sky in total silence.
His entire body was shrouded in desolation, as if something deeply unhappy had happened to him, or as though he were simply basking in the moonlight.
The few scattered pedestrians walking past him from the front or back couldn’t disturb him in the slightest.
The streetlight was behind him, and the moon was before him.
The man wore a black face mask, his nose bridge was high, and his brow ridge was sharp. Xuan Congnan felt this made for a compositional subject worthy of painting.
When the charcoal pencil landed on the blank sketchpad while his backpack hung open loosely at his side, even he himself froze for a second.
Drawing was more important. Xuan Congnan propped his sketchpad on his left forearm and never raised his head again. The exact image he wanted was entirely within his mind.
After roughly a dozen minutes, Xuan Congnan closed his sketchpad, pulled the zipper of his backpack tight to leave, and the moment he lifted his gaze, he locked eyes dead-on with the man.
Xuan Congnan: “.”
Exuding a strong sense of sneakiness, he softened his movements and inexplicably recalled what Shen Qian had said: “Eyes without warmth.”
This person was indeed very quiet, didn’t smile, and wasn’t rowdy at all.
“You’re done drawing.” The man spoke up abruptly.
Xuan Congnan abruptly pulled back the foot he had just lifted to take half a step forward and said, “I was drawing the moon and the streetlight.”
The man said, “Mn.”
Xuan Congnan stated, “You knew I was drawing… the streetlight behind you?”
The man said, “Mn.”
He had truly been caught red-handed. Xuan Congnan said awkwardly, “You could have reminded me to make me leave.”
The man said, “You were drawing.”
Xuan Congnan asked in confusion, “Mn?”
“It needed quiet.”
Xuan Congnan’s mind stirred slightly, and he earnestly began to size up the man.
The streetlight was yellowish and the moonlight was pale. Wearing a three-dimensional face mask that rose high enough to reach right beneath his eyes, the man perfectly concealed his entire face within the ambiguous twilight of the night.
“Thank you,” Xuan Congnan said sincerely.
In no rush to buy dried noodles anymore, he took the initiative to ask, “What are you doing here?”
“My name is Gu Shi.”
“Huh?” Xuan Congnan hadn’t asked for the man’s name, and responded with dazed confusion, “…Oh.”
Gu Shi looked at him: “Waiting for the moon.”
Xuan Congnan’s confusion doubled: “Huh?”
Gu Shi’s eyes darker than the pitch-night by several fold remained fixed on Xuan Congnan as he repeated, “I am waiting for the moon.”
He had run into a lunatic. Xuan Congnan wanted to leave in a hurry. His hair was still quite damp, feeling heavy as it hung down his back, and the back of his T-shirt had a damp patch that felt extremely uncomfortable clinging against his skin.
As a evening breeze swept past, bringing a refreshing coolness, Xuan Congnan said, “Keep waiting, then.”
With that, he lifted his foot to leave, but Gu Shi suddenly stood up. He was very tall taller than Xuan Congnan by more than half a head. Casting a looming shadow, Xuan Congnan was startled and vigilantly rooted himself to the spot.
“Apologies.” Gu Shi took two steps backward to widen the distance so as not to make Xuan Congnan nervous.
Xuan Congnan maintained his composure: “It’s fine.”
Gu Shi’s voice was low and calm, yet the words he uttered were extremely discourteous.
He said: “Take me home with you.”