What can you do when you suffer from insomnia?
Jiang Youlan likes to drink; once she is dizzy from alcohol, she falls asleep.
However, considering that Qingyi is still young (though she stubbornly insists she is turning nineteen soon), Jiang Youlan bought a few cans of soda from the vending machine at the corner of the street and then took her to the secret base she often goes to when she suffers from insomnia.
How did you find this place? Qingyi followed closely behind her, squeezed into an old residential building, bypassed a pile of sundries, and climbed up to the rooftop.
The rooftop was unexpectedly spacious.
It was probably a building from the turn of the millennium, with decorative concrete frames poured on the top floor and half-meter-high concrete beams on the ground that served perfectly as long benches.
Jiang Youlan spread out some newspapers, and after the two of them sat down, they looked up at the sky.
When I have nothing to do, I like to wander around. When I’m bored, I wander, and when I can’t sleep, I wander too. Walking around everywhere, it seems that as long as I keep walking, I can make the chaotic thoughts in my head stop.
Perhaps as long as you keep walking, you can find where you ought to go.
Jiang Youlan opened a can of soda, took two sips, turned to Qingyi, and asked her:
What about you? Why can’t you sleep? You’re so young, what troubles could you possibly have?
For Qingyi, sleep was far too scarce.
Starting a year ago, she often stared wide-eyed until dawn.
What had happened?
She tried to retrieve the language she had lost for too long, piecing those words and sentences together to feed to the person beside her.
Even though this was the very first day they met.
For some reason, she wanted to let the other person see her. The other person didn’t know her; perhaps someone like this could truly see her for who she was.
Qingyi held a skewer of roasted meat, concentrated on gnawing on it for a long time, and then looked out into the distance.
The sky was gray and overcast; this city rarely had clear days, and the stars were faint and blurry, branded onto the curtain of the night. It was hardly good weather.
Last year, my dad cheated.
Actually, this wasn’t the first time he cheated.
Ever since I can remember, my dad always came home very late, and my mom always argued with my dad, but they never got a divorce.
One summer vacation, I was at home doing my homework by myself. At that time, our family still used a landline telephone. Suddenly, a strange call came in. I answered it, and at the other end of the receiver was an unfamiliar female voice.
After the call connected, she let out a light laugh. I asked her who she was.
She said she was my new mom.
Hearing this, Jiang Youlan frowned slightly, but she didn’t interrupt. She took a bite of roasted potato skin; the soft and chewy potato skin wrapped around radish, pickled mustard green cubes, and chopped green onions, salty, fragrant, and numbing-spicy, which slightly smoothed out the furrows in her brow.
Qingyi continued, speaking almost as if to herself.
I hung up the phone and went back to my homework.
When my mom came back, I secretly told her about this. She took a pair of scissors and cut the landline telephone cord. When my dad found out, he thought I was the one who cut it. He wouldn’t listen to my explanation either, and beat me with the broken telephone cord.
The telephone cord was quite long, and my arms swelled up so much I couldn’t sleep.
At that time, my mom didn’t stand up to speak for me either. I thought she had hidden hardships.
Jiang Youlan’s eyebrows tied themselves into a knot once more. She wanted to say something, but she only opened her mouth and let the words go unsaid.
She took a sip of soda. And now?
Now I feel like she only loves her husband.
Qingyi lowered her eyes, staring at her own knees.
Jiang Youlan sighed inwardly and handed her another meat skewer.
You’re still growing; eat more meat.
After Qingyi took it, Youlan asked: Let me guess, it was because they made a scene over a divorce last year and it affected your exams, which is why you had to retake the year?
Qingyi remained silent for a long while. Just when Youlan thought she wouldn’t speak, she said: On the first day of the college entrance examination last year, my mom stabbed my dad with a knife. I was busy calling the police and summoning an ambulance, and when I arrived at the exam hall, the time limit had already passed; I couldn’t get in.
So did they get a divorce now? When Jiang Youlan asked, she already knew the answer.
No. A month later, they made up again, and even blamed me for meddling by calling the police back then.
That’s right, resentful couples don’t part easily. They have already grown accustomed to such days; whether it is resentment, infidelity, or violence, once it transforms into a familiar daily cycle, it gradually becomes difficult to cut away.
Even knowing that staying means returning to that same cycle once more, they do not know how to live any other kind of life besides that one.
Sometimes, familiarity means safety.
Jiang Youlan understood all of this.
However, she didn’t want to act like a boring adult in front of a kid six years younger than herself.
Are you losing sleep just because of these damn trifles?
It’s not all of it.
There are still a lot of other damn trifles?
Yeah, there are still a lot.
Then tell me about all of them. Just like dumping trash, pour it all out. Maybe you’ll be able to sleep then.
But if I dump trash on Sister, you’ll need to digest all of it too, Qingyi paused. That’s not very fair.
It’s fine, didn’t you treat me to barbecue? Receiving trash requires a fee too.
As soon as Jiang Youlan finished speaking, she laughed. She had never imagined that one day she would say words like fee to a kid who hadn’t even graduated from high school.
Qingyi also revealed a smile, though it was unclear what she was smiling at: Sister, what are you laughing at?
Nothing. I just never expected that one day I’d be sitting on a rooftop in the middle of the night, listening to a kid like you talk about your little, tiny worries.
Qingyi glared at her, dissatisfied: I’m not a kid. I’m already eighteen.
Fine, it was her fault for forgetting; kids never like being called kids.
Qingyi spoke at great length, telling how her parents always argued hysterically, how her mother occasionally chased and hacked at her father with a knife, and how every single time they threatened to get a divorce.
They had even gone to the civil affairs bureau a few times, but they had never genuinely carried through with a divorce.
Her father always dropped to his knees to apologize, his attitude of repentance sincere, but the next time there would still be this or that woman. Inside her father’s official leather briefcase, someone else’s earrings or lipstick would occasionally appear, and at the most outrageous times, there were even silk stockings and condoms.
With her parents arguing so much, she was forced to learn about the sordid details. Sometimes, she would wonder if her father was simply too careless and incapable of concealing the evidence of his infidelity, or if he did it on purpose.
She didn’t want to pay attention to these things, but staying at home, she had no choice but to notice all kinds of evidence related to infidelity.
Once, she borrowed her dad’s mobile phone to look up a word, and a new message came in: a multimedia message. Driven by curiosity, she clicked on it, and the picture inside was a photograph of a woman.
Exposed, lingering with unspoken words, filled with desire.
Perhaps it was also sexy, but landing in Qingyi’s eyes, she could not use such positive words to describe those women.
Following closely behind was a text message, saying nothing at all except for a four-digit number. Qingyi didn’t know what that signified, but she subconsciously felt disgusted. The food in her stomach seemed to have turned into gravel, weighing heavily down in her stomach bag; she wanted to vomit it out, dry-heaved a few times, but didn’t succeed.
Hearing this, Jiang Youlan said, It was a room number, right?
What? Qingyi hadn’t kept up with her train of thought, but she reacted right after blurting out the question.
She didn’t know what to say.
A four-digit number was a brief invitation. It was a fissure within her parents’ marriage.
A betrayal that had nothing to do with her, yet because she was too young to leave her parents, she was forced to become embroiled in the lies. At first she would tell her mother, but after a few times, she sensitively realized that her mother perhaps didn’t want to see these things.
Her mother was implicitly blaming the one who tore open the truth, herself.
Yet, she couldn’t figure it out.
After rambling on for a while, having temporarily cleared out some of the trash in her heart, Qingyi took a deep breath and asked Jiang Youlan:
Sister, tell me, when will life become a little easier?
I don’t know, but if you live a little longer, you might encounter better things. Jiang Youlan’s gaze landed on the edge of the sky, even though there was nothing there except pale stars.
Suddenly, she also wanted to talk about her own affairs.
Qingyi, do you have any sisters or brothers?
Qingyi shook her head.
Jiang Youlan wanted to light a cigarette, but realizing someone was beside her, her hand reaching into her bag stopped midway. I have a younger brother.
Is your relationship bad? Qingyi noticed her hand; her fingers were slender, with faint calluses on the fingertips. Her skin was very white, her knuckles were not prominent, and her hands were very soft.
Jiang Youlan didn’t see her gaze, bit hard into a piece of roasted meat, and chewed it through gritted teeth. I can’t exactly say it’s bad. It’s just that when I was little, there weren’t many things at home that could be divided among the children.
After the extra younger brother arrived, what was divided for me became even less.
It’s strange, growing up, all you remember are some small matters. Some matters are very, very small, so small that even I don’t understand why I’ve kept them in my heart all this time. Occasionally, I feel like, am I just being too petty, am I too narrow-minded?
When I was little, the milk tea in the milk tea shops on the street was all made by mixing milk powder. Slightly more fashionable shops would sell yogurt with purple rice. I really liked drinking that, but our family didn’t have much money, so we could only buy a cup occasionally.
They would buy just one cup and let my younger brother and me share it. I liked eating the purple rice inside, but whenever I drank, my younger brother would always pinch the straw so I couldn’t suck up any purple rice. When I complained to my mom, she said I was being unreasonable and didn’t know how to yield to my younger brother.
Now I can afford milk tea, but I don’t really love drinking it anymore.
Jiang Youlan closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, the emotion in her eyes had faded.
Qingyi desperately wanted to speak up and say, let’s go buy a cup of milk tea right now; let’s buy many cups. But this was the middle of the night, dawn hadn’t broken yet, and there were no shops open in the small town.
She looked at the sky; it was still gray, though it was a bit brighter than before. Dawn was not far off.
She stood up. It’s almost dawn; let’s go buy breakfast.
The breakfast shop didn’t have milk tea, so they bought buns and soybean milk.
If nothing’s the matter, don’t come looking for me again. Hurry up and go to school. Jiang Youlan took a perilla sugar bun and a cup of soybean milk, handing the rest to her.
Before the two of them parted ways, Jiang Youlan hesitated for a long time, but still reached out and ruffled Qingyi’s hair.
It looked very nice to ruffle, and she had wanted to do it earlier.
It was rough and bristly, not as soft as she imagined; the texture felt a bit like a puppy.
Qingyi’s ears turned slightly red again.
Jiang Youlan was in a great mood, waved at her, and didn’t say goodbye.
Hanging out with someone like me does you no good, kid.
Whether Qingyi listened or not, she walked away with brisk, skipping steps.
Biting into her bun, Jiang Youlan dragged her feet and walked alone back to her rented room. The weather was gloomy, and the moisture in the air was very heavy; it might rain soon.
She suddenly felt that her soul was as rusted as that rolling shutter door, unable to withstand another glance from anyone. If someone were to look at her, she wouldn’t have the strength to look back.
Yet she had a feeling that Qingyi would appear again.
And yet she didn’t want to see Qingyi again.