Chapter 71: Why, he wondered
There was only one employee in the café. The kitchen was walled with clear glass; she could not hear what was being said outside, but she could see everything.
The place had been booked out today, so the rest of the staff were off. She had sat out front with the boy for half an hour before she could not hold back anymore and walked over with a hot towel.
“Hi, do you need—”
He suddenly stood up. She jumped, instinctively taking a step back.
His face was blank, and the coffee on his clothes had already dried. He turned to leave, then turned back as if remembering something. “How much?”
She blinked and hurried to say, “No need. The lady already paid for everything…”
Yu Fan glanced up at the menu, pulled the thirty yuan cash he had brought for lunch from his pocket, set it on the table, and walked out of the café.
August was the most comfortable time of year in Nancheng, but as Yu Fan walked down the street he felt like he had been thrown into an ice cellar. Even his stride was stiff.
He could smell the coffee on himself. His mind was empty. When he came back to himself, he was standing in the cookware aisle of a supermarket.
His gaze passed over several items, one by one. He made his choices and brought them to the register. His fingers were so numb that he mistyped the payment password twice, almost locking himself out.
The owner reached for a bag to pack his purchases, but the boy simply lifted everything with one hand, pushed the door open, and left.
Back in the shabby old complex, neighbors took one look at the stains on him, another at what he was carrying, and scuttled far away. Only one person still had the nerve to speak.
“Big brother, you just got out of school too?” A little girl sat on the steps. “We had a fall field trip today. Did your school go too?”
Yu Fan’s hand paused on the key. He turned and looked at her in silence.
“But my mom and dad won’t be home for a long time.” The girl propped her chin in her hands. She saw what he was holding. “Big brother, are you cooking today?”
“No,” Yu Fan said, his voice hoarse.
She drew out a long “Ohhh,” then suddenly remembered something. She hopped down, patted the skirt of her dress, and came toward him. “Then big brother, will you take me to eat something? I can pay. I have… seven yuan left from the trip.”
Yu Fan looked at her fingers tugging his pant leg and reached into his pocket, only then remembering he had handed over all his cash at the café.
“No.”
The little girl let go, aggrieved. “Oh… okay. Big brother, your clothes are dirty.”
Yu Fan did not answer. He opened the door and went in, then thought of something and pulled it back open.
“If you hear anything today, don’t come downstairs. If you do, I am cutting off your little pigtails.”
The girl clapped both hands over the two little braids at once and stared, baby-voiced. “Why would you—”
The door closed.
No one was home. Yu Fan tossed the items onto the table and went to the bathroom to wash his face.
His cheeks, neck, and ears were all sticky, skin stained the color of coffee. He lifted his head to the mirror and scrubbed at the yellowish patches. When rubbing did not work, he started to scrape.
A few minutes later he looked at the bloody marks he had gouged into his neck and let his hands drop.
He had always thought that once he turned eighteen, once he graduated and left this place, he could finally get rid of Yu Kaiming.
He forgot that someone had already escaped, had been gone for years, and was still tormented by Yu Kaiming.
Shameless, Yu Kaiming always used mutually assured destruction to threaten people, always stabbed at the softest spot. He had said it himself. Barefoot men are not afraid of those in shoes. Beat him and he would recover. Throw him in prison and he would still get out. Everyone else cared about too many things, which was exactly why he always got his way.
He had made himself a human bomb. No one knew what to do with him.
But Yu Fan was different. If someone stabbed at his softest spot, he would pull the knife out of his own body and drive it back into theirs.
He was more willing to go all the way than most.
When Yu Fan came out, his clothes and hair were damp. He took the last half pack of cigarettes he had not yet smoked and sat on the balcony, smoking without expression. He slumped against the security bars and tipped his head back to the sky. Out of nowhere, the problem Chen Jingshen had gone over at noon flashed through his head.
How did it go again… Why could he not remember?
He stared straight at the sun until his eyes hurt. Only when his phone buzzed did he blink hard.
[Wang Lu’an: You fell in the toilet or what?!]
[Wang Lu’an: Why are you not back in class yet.]
[Wang Lu’an: Fangqin came through on patrol. I told her you went to the nurse’s office. She did not question it, hahaha!]
[Wang Lu’an: Where are you?]
Yu Fan stared at the screen for a while, then lifted his fingers and typed.
[-: There are still candies in my desk.]
[Wang Lu’an: Huh?]
[-: Take them.]
He checked the time. Lately Yu Kaiming was a creature of habit. He would be back to watch the game before ten. A few hours left.
Yu Fan sat up, folding his legs to think carefully. The windows and door needed to be locked tight. His voice was too loud, he would need something to gag him. And…
He suddenly remembered and jumped down from the balcony to his room.
He took a key from his backpack, opened the lock beneath the desk, pulled out the drawer, and dumped its contents onto the floor. A hodgepodge of small things spilled together. A pink envelope lay on top, the most conspicuous.
Yu Fan barely glanced at it. He grabbed a black bag and shoved everything relating to Chen Jingshen inside.
The love letter. Draft paper from an exam. A copybook nearly filled with cramped practice. The Doberman plush…
None of these belonged in this room. Nothing about Chen Jingshen belonged here.
It was like clearing a crime scene. He stuffed everything he could remember, then still did not trust himself. He tore the room apart, afraid he might have missed something. In the end he even flipped the bedsheets, knocked over the wardrobe, ripped the award certificates from the wall and, like a madman, checked the wall behind each one.
By the time he finished, the room was wrecked.
Yu Fan sprawled with his legs stretched out, sitting on the floor beside the black bag. He suddenly wanted a cigarette, but he had smoked the last half pack already.
So he raked his hair and kept searching in the mess. Until today he had not realized his room held so much. His mom’s old hair clip. His elementary school uniform. An eraser from who knows when… and a dusty old photo album.
He had tossed things around so violently the album had fallen open.
He walked past it and reached to close it, his eye catching on the topmost photo.
A dozen kids stood in a row. At the top it said “Summer Camp Group Photo.” The red temple wall in the background was the same one he had just visited at Cheng’an Temple, so his gaze lingered.
The photo had been taken after he got into that fight with those boys. The teachers and the other kids had then iced him out, so he stood on the far left, separated from the line.
The other outcast stood on the step just above him.
Yu Fan had just won a fight back then, chest out and chin high, which only made the crybaby behind him, lip quivering and still teary-eyed, look even dumber.
He glanced once and shut the album, tossed it into a drawer, and went back to searching the floor.
A few seconds later, he felt something was off.
Expressionless, he turned back and stared at the album for a while, then reached for it.
His fingers were stiff as he turned the pages, like a man using hands for the first time. One after another. He saw his grandpa. He saw Yu Kaiming. He saw his mom. It felt like forever before he found the photo again.
The summer camp in his memory was veiled in gauze. He only remembered that the crybaby had tiny eyes, was skinny, and cried until you could not see his eyes at all.
He looked at the teary kid for a long time, then tried to take the photo out. The plastic film had fused to the paper over time. The more he picked, the more frantic he got, and the worse it went. Cool autumn air flowed in through the window while Yu Fan sat there sweating.
He finally pulled it free and stared at those familiar brows and eyes for a long, long time. Then, hands shaking, he flipped it over.
Names were written on the back. He glanced at “Yu Fan” first, then lifted his tired eyes upward.
“Chen Jingshen.”
A few tears splashed onto the photo without warning. In that instant something cracked open in his head. The stickiness on his skin, the sting in his neck, the crushing pressure in his chest, all of it surged through every nerve at once. It hurt so much he could not make a sound.
He finally lost control. His fingers trembled. Tears fell messily and would not stop. Chen Jingshen’s name was a smear. He tried to wipe the water off the photo and could not get it clear.
A wave of nausea rose in his throat. Yu Fan dropped the picture and bolted for the bathroom.
He knelt and retched, nothing to bring up. Each heave felt like ripping out his stomach. Tears streaked his face. All he could taste was bitterness.
Why? he wondered.
He did not often think like this, but right now he could not stop. Why? Out of everyone in the world, why him? Why bring him into this world? Why not take him out of it? Why had nothing ever gone right?
Probably Ji Lianyi wondered the same. Why? Why did her son have to run into someone like him?
Why did Chen Jingshen have to run into him?
When Yu Kaiming got home, the apartment was dim. He muttered, “Why is the light off,” then went to his room, grabbed two changes of clothes, and headed into the bathroom.
When he came out, the sight in front of him made him freeze.
The door had been locked from the inside, and the shoe cabinet dragged over as a barricade. Yu Fan stood before it without a trace of expression, pale and cold.
“Yu Kaiming,” Yu Fan said. “You can come with me, or you can die with me.”
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