Chapter 62 — His God Will Bless Him
Yu Fan stiffly turned his head and saw a whole crowd of familiar faces on the right. It took him a long moment to recover.
“You guys…” After a lot of mutual staring, he finally found his voice. “Why are you here?”
“That indoor amusement park had a group deal for twenty at forty percent off! Hahaha!” Wang Lu’an repeated, then added, “What are you and the top student doing here? Weren’t you two on a date?”
Twenty pairs of eyes swung over at once, many belonging to faces he recognized but did not know. Yu Fan went blank. He wanted nothing more than to grab Chen Jingshen and go back to watch that terrible movie again.
How was he supposed to spin this?
He churned on it for a while and finally chose to dodge. “Was the park fun?”
“Fun! They have live-action CS. It was sick!” Zuo Kuan looked around. “F***, Yu Fan, where is your girl? I have been dying to see her!”
Yu Fan: “Who won the CS?”
“Me,” said Zhang Xianjing. She glanced at the shopping mall sign nearby, arched a brow, and asked, “You and the top student went to a movie?”
Topic shift failed. Before Yu Fan could cough up a line, the person beside him said calmly, “Yeah. We went on a date and happened to run into them after.”
Yu Fan: “…”
The dozen guys, each dumber than the last, looked disappointed they would not be seeing his girlfriend. Only the one girl present caught the odd current between the two boys. A certain hard-to-believe question circled Zhang Xianjing’s lips. She swept the group with her eyes and swallowed it back.
“It is only three in the afternoon, and you are already done?” Wang Lu’an blinked. “Then, Top Student, what do you even do on a date with your girl?”
“Lunch,” Chen Jingshen said.
“… And after lunch?”
“Went back and did problems.”
“Is that not a weird kind of date…” Wang Lu’an ventured.
“Why are you so full of crap,” Yu Fan cut in, frowning.
“Hey, I am just curious.” Wang Lu’an turned to Yu Fan. “You are done with your date too?”
Yu Fan made a noncommittal sound through his nose, not pleased. “Mm.”
“Perfect then! Come with us to Cheng’an Temple. We are about to be third years. We are going to pray and pick up study charms.”
“Not me,” Zuo Kuan clarified at once. “Why the hell would I pray for grades. I am going to ask the gods to stop making me so handsome. Getting love letters every day is exhausting, okay.”
Wang Lu’an: “You are shameless as hell.”
Cheng’an Temple was the most famous temple in South City. Its blessings were said to be effective, so incense had flourished there for years. Tourists and business travelers all made a point to visit and pray.
Yu Fan did not even think about it. “Not going.”
“Why? You are done with the date, are you not?” Zhang Xianjing looked at him. “Or do you two have other plans?”
Thinking of what he and Chen Jingshen had originally planned to do, Yu Fan’s eyelids twitched. He reflexively denied it. “No.”
“Then come with us. Help me take a few photos and I will buy you a popsicle.” She did not wait for Yu Fan’s answer and looked to the other one instead. “Top Student, you coming too?”
Yu Fan was about to refuse again when Chen Jingshen tossed out an airy, “Okay.”
“…”
The twenty-person group deal had not included only their friends, so the ones leaving the park for the bus stop were a mix. In the end about a dozen went, just the familiar few, splitting between two taxis headed for Cheng’an Temple.
Outside the temple ran a slightly rough mountain road. Both sides were packed with stalls selling jade and incense, squeezing the already narrow way even tighter.
Chen Jingshen walked at the back of the group. He glanced at the temple in the distance, smoke curling white from within, then turned to the person beside him.
His boyfriend had both hands in his pockets, his face impatient, looking like the least devout worshipper on the entire road.
For a moment, Chen Jingshen was dazed.
The person in front of him overlapped with the image of a small figure in his memory. The prickly expression, the moles on his cheek, even the backdrop matched the picture in his head.
“Chen Jingshen.” Even the first words out of that mouth were the same.
Only this time there was an extra line, quite fierce. “Quit f***ing staring at me.”
After a few seconds, Chen asked, “Why?”
Yu Fan: “It is annoying.”
It reminded him that today was supposed to be a date and somehow he had been dragged off to pray to deities. Unbelievable.
Chen drew back his gaze. He looked at their noisy friends in front, then asked, “Have you been here before?”
Yu Fan did not expect the question. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“Summer camp,” Yu Fan said after thinking.
The camp had been nearby. A teacher brought them around for a look. Small kids could not handle the incense smoke and they left within ten minutes.
“Summer camp? You went to that kind of thing?” Wang Lu’an, walking ahead, heard and looked back, curious. “When?”
“Primary school.”
“Was it fun?”
“It has been too long. Who remembers,” Yu Fan said lazily. “Probably boring.”
The further they went up, the fewer stalls there were. Only when the temple gate came into view did the surroundings finally quiet down.
Lush branches hugged the red walls. Wisps of smoke drifted past. Zhang Xianjing made them linger outside the gate for ages to take scenery shots, then shoved her phone into Yu Fan’s hand and told him to take a few full-body photos.
When he finished, she scrolled through the pictures and could not help inviting, “Yu Fan, we are going to a tropical island for vacation this summer. Want to come with us…”
“Do not talk crap.” Yu Fan’s patience was nearly gone. “Are you going in or not?”
They had barely stepped inside when all eyes were drawn to the long blessing corridor on both sides, and to the big banyan tree with its branches heavy with red wish plaques.
A staffer nearby was explaining to visitors. The red plaques were thirty yuan each. Career, love, family, and so on had to be bought separately. A full set of Great Auspiciousness was one hundred and fifty. You could hang them anywhere in the temple. There were lotus lamps, incense, and talismans too. Sincerity moves the spirits. Buy them and everything would go your way.
One hundred and fifty was not much. Since they were here already, the group in front discussed it and decided to buy the Great Auspiciousness set.
Zhu Xu scratched his head. “Can I buy on someone else’s behalf?”
“For who?” Wang Lu’an asked.
“His girlfriend,” Zuo Kuan answered, heading to the wish plaques to read the characters. “She bombed this monthly exam. After the scores came out she barely talked to him.”
“Wish plaques are for kin only, but you can buy other things to bring to her,” the staffer jumped in smoothly. “How about our study charms? Bring one back and she will definitely excel and climb step by step.”
The staffer was practiced, fitting three or four auspicious phrases into one sentence. The boys all blinked, half-convinced.
Even Zuo Kuan took out money. He glanced at Zhang Xianjing and whispered to the staffer, “Give me one of those, uh, peach blossom luck ones…”
When their hands were finally full of items, they noticed the two at the back had not moved or spoken.
“Yu Fan, Top Student, you are not buying?” Wang Lu’an held a spread of talismans for his whole family. “I heard these are really effective.”
Yu Fan: “Says who.”
“That staffer just now.”
“…”
Yu Fan gave the paper goods in his hand a look of pure disdain. “No.”
“Better to believe than not,” Wang Lu’an muttered.
Yu Fan did not bother answering. Watching Wang Lu’an fuss with the talismans reminded him that the last time he came here on summer camp, there had also been a superstitious little brat by his side.
He had joined a quality-development summer camp. Most activities were team games. Games or not, some kids were obsessed with winning. They wanted to win at even beanbag toss. So the teachers balanced the teams on purpose.
There had been a scrawny little dullard in Yu Fan’s group.
The dullard was a boy, the same age as Yu Fan, but only up to Yu Fan’s neck. He was always quiet, slow to speak, with a blank expression and half a beat behind the others.
Because of that, their team always came in last because of him. Once or twice was fine, but after he dragged them down for seven straight days, the other kids started to ostracize him.
Some kids were born mean. It started with isolation and harsh words. A few days later they were tripping and shoving him on purpose. In the end they used their hands, tore up the safety charm he had gotten at Cheng’an Temple, and stomped on it.
The teacher had gone to the bathroom and the nearby adults did not step in. Only Yu Fan bit his lollipop in half with a crack, clenched his little fists, and charged.
At first only the dullard cried. Ten minutes later those boys were bawling along with him. In the end their entire group was thrown out of the temple.
The teacher was furious, scolded Yu Fan, and deliberately ignored him while they waited for the bus.
After a while the other boys fell quiet. Only the loudest crier was still there, cupping that tattered safety charm in both hands, big teardrops plopping down by Yu Fan’s side.
“What are you thinking?” the person beside him suddenly asked.
“Nothing,” Yu Fan said, snapping out of it. After a pause he added, “… I remembered the last time I came, there was a crybaby with me.”
Chen Jingshen paused. “Crybaby?”
“Yeah. Drove me crazy. I have never seen anyone cry that much.”
Chen was quiet for two seconds. “Why was he crying?”
“Got in a fight, lost, and his charm got wrecked. Then he sat here and cried for ages,” Yu Fan said, tipping his chin at the ground ahead. “I coaxed him forever before he shut up.”
“How did you coax him?”
Absentminded, Yu Fan said, “We had to write weekly journals then. I used the paper and drew more than ten charms for him, and told him…” He stopped mid-memory.
Chen waited a moment. “Told him what?”
“…”
Something like, stop crying, from now on I will keep you safe. Yu Fan could not remember exactly.
Way too pretentious and juvenile. He could not say it now.
So he cooled his voice. “Told him to quit f***ing crying, or I would toss him down the mountain.”
“…” Chen glanced sideways at him.
“Then he stopped.”
“…”
“Holding it in too hard, he hiccupped the whole way back. Every time he hiccupped he would look at me. So dumb.” Feeling Chen’s gaze, Yu Fan looked up and met his eyes. He was about to snap, “What are you looking at,” when he stalled.
Yu Fan raised his hand and measured over Chen’s eyes. “Oh, that crybaby had single eyelids like you. Ugly. I could not even find his eyes back then. All I saw were tears.”
He had meant to poke at Chen for fun, but Chen caught his hand and laced their fingers, turning his face away with a short, muffled laugh.
Yu Fan blanked, tried to pull free, and failed. Chen held his hand and asked in a low amused voice, “What else was similar.”
“That punchable vibe,” Yu Fan said. “He probably cried the same too. Chen Jingshen, cry one for me to see.”
“Hard to do.”
“Let go. I will make you cry right now.”
Chen released him. Yu Fan hooked an arm around his neck and started to reach up to knead his face.
“Yu Fan, Top Student, we are done!”
The voice arrived before the people did. Hearing Wang Lu’an, Yu Fan immediately let go of Chen Jingshen’s neck.
The group came back from setting river lamps. The staffer walking ahead of them was grinning ear to ear.
They rounded a moon gate and spotted their two brothers. “We are going to the main hall to pray. Coming?” said Wang Lu’an.
“No.” Yu Fan leaned carelessly on the stone rail. “I do not believe in that stuff.”
Wang Lu’an had expected that, so he asked the other one, “Top Student, you are not going either?”
“I have prayed before. I am not going,” Chen said mildly.
“Tsk. So many people pray every day. How could the gods remember you,” Zhu Xu said. “Since you are here, go scan your face again so they do not forget.”
They had dawdled half an hour and the trip up had taken time. Now it was dusk.
Cheng’an Temple sat halfway up the mountain. From the outside you could see the orange sun sinking into the hills, painting the forest red.
Yu Fan tilted his head back a little to stare off, looking like he was admiring the view. The afterglow traced a bright curving line across his face.
“No,” said Chen Jingshen.
Gods did not need to remember him.
His god would bless him.
0 Comments