It was midsummer, and the sunlight was brilliant. It had rained the night before, leaving the ground faintly damp.
A puddle had collected by the curb. Lin Yi shifted his feet and squatted somewhere else.
One arm rested on his knee, a dried blade of grass hanging from his mouth. At fifteen or sixteen, the buzz-cut youth had narrow eyes, and whenever his gaze swept outward, pedestrians on the road instinctively gave him a wide berth.
Across the street stood a large green dumpster. It was filthy inside and out, and the smell was beyond description.
“You guys still haven’t decided who’s going to get the backpack?” Lin Yi asked, chewing on the grass stem as he turned his head.
Several boys stood behind him, all around his age. Their hair was dyed in every imaginable color; put together, they could have formed a rainbow.
One of them came over and slung an arm around Lin Yi’s shoulders. “Boss, today’s your last day of school. From now on, you’re saying goodbye to that hellhole forever. What do you need a backpack for?”
Another squatted beside him. “Exactly. The day I dropped out, I sold all my textbooks as scrap and got nine yuan and eighty cents. Added another twenty cents and bought a pack of cigarettes.”
“So that’s why you threw my backpack into the dumpster?” Lin Yi shoved aside the yellow-haired boy beside him. “My wages from yesterday are in that bag. Go get the damn thing back for me.”
“Huh?” Several brightly colored heads crowded together. “How much is in there, Boss?”
“Two thousand.” Lin Yi named the amount. “I’ve already reserved a restaurant. Go get the backpack back.”
The dumpster on the outskirts of town was rectangular and half a man’s height. It was emptied every three days, and in the height of summer, the smell alone was enough to wake anyone right up.
No sooner had the backpack been thrown in than the restaurant next door dumped a pile of leftovers on top of it. After layer upon layer of trash accumulated, there was no telling what lay beneath. Standing on tiptoe from a distance, Yellow Hair could just make out a tiny corner of the black backpack that had cost fifteen yuan at the market.
The backpack had to be retrieved, but it was no easy task. The boys pushed and shoved one another for a long while before someone’s eyes suddenly lit up.
“I know someone we can call to get it.”
Lin Yi raised his eyelids. “Who?”
“That little swindler from the recycling station, Zhou Ruo An.”
＊
Fifteen minutes later, a young man turned the corner.
Sunlight fell over him, outlining his slender frame. His white T-shirt billowed slightly in the breeze, and his jeans hung loosely around his waist.
His skin was pale, and even his clothes were light-colored. Walking toward them, he seemed like a rare breeze in the stifling afternoon heat—refreshing, yet impossible to hold onto.
When he drew near, Zhou Ruo An stopped in front of Yellow Hair. His voice, still rough with adolescence, carried a trace of indifference.
“Where’s your boss?”
Yellow Hair looked up at the sun, then down at his own skin, finally confirming that it wasn’t the sunlight making the other boy look so pale. Zhou Ruo An was simply born that white.
He sniffed and pointed across the street at the dumpster. “Didn’t you want our boss to help you? Go pull the backpack out of the trash first.”
Zhou Ruo An turned to look at the dumpster but didn’t move. Tilting slightly, he cast his gaze toward the tall youth standing several meters away beneath the shade of an awning.
The indifference on his face immediately changed into an ingratiating smile. Ignoring Yellow Hair’s attempts to stop him, Zhou Ruo An walked toward the boy.
“Brother Lin.” He stopped before him and offered over a newly opened pack of cigarettes. “I’m Zhou Ruo An, one grade below you.”
Lin Yi leaned lazily against the wall and didn’t take the cigarettes. Instead, his gaze lingered briefly on the small mole at the end of Zhou Ruo An’s eyebrow.
“What did you call me?” he asked.
“…Brother Lin.” Unsure of Lin Yi’s preferences, Zhou Ruo An added, “Senior?”
Lin Yi suddenly laughed. “What do you want my help with?”
“I offended someone recently. He’s been following me around at night for days. I’m afraid he’ll make a dirty move against me.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Your name carries weight around here, Brother Lin. If you make it clear that you’re protecting me, he won’t dare touch me.”
“Why should he?” Yellow Hair interjected from the side. “Go get the backpack out of the dumpster first and let us see your sincerity.”
Hearing him, Zhou Ruo An kept looking directly at Lin Yi and softly asked, “Do you want me to go get it?”
It was almost noon, and only a narrow strip of shade remained beneath them. Lin Yi edged half a step closer to the wall and looked up.
“Why should I protect you?” he repeated, saying much the same thing as Yellow Hair.
“Because…” Zhou Ruo An thought for a moment. “I want to follow Brother Lin from now on and let you command me as you please.”
The wording was rather literary, and Yellow Hair didn’t care for it.
“You could just say, ‘We don’t ask to be born on the same year, month, and day, only to die on the same year, month, and day.’ Right, Boss?”
Lin Yi laughed and gave an affirmative hum. He lifted his chin at the boy before him.
“Say it again.”
Then he added, “Properly this time. Make it official.”
Zhou Ruo An was extraordinarily obedient. Clearing his throat, he said, “Though Brother Lin and I may not have been born in the same year, month, and day, I hope we may die in the same year, month, and day. Heaven and earth bear witness to my heart. Should I betray my loyalty or forget kindness, may Heaven and man strike me down together.”
As soon as he finished, Yellow Hair wrinkled his nose.
“We know you’re good at studying, but did you really have to add all that at the end? Now go get the backpack.”
The next moment, however, Lin Yi took the cigarettes from Zhou Ruo An’s hand and tossed them to Yellow Hair.
“Consider this me accepting your gift.”
He stepped out from that narrow strip of shade. As he passed Zhou Ruo An, he said softly:
“Remember what you said today.”
The tall youth walked across the street and, under the stunned gazes of all his underlings, bent over and pulled the backpack out of the dumpster. He unzipped it and took out the clean books and cash inside.
“Let’s go.” He beckoned to the others on this side of the street. “Time to eat.”
＊
The days of midsummer were long, and after evening self-study, the sunset could still be seen staining the horizon.
When Zhou Ruo An walked out through the school gates, he saw Lin Yi leaning against an old locust tree.
He wore a faded dark-blue T-shirt, and the hems of his black cargo pants were tucked into a pair of high-top canvas shoes. Though he was only a year older than Zhou Ruo An, distinct lines of muscle had already formed along his arms. When he looked up, his gaze was calm, yet it locked unerringly onto its target amid the crowd.
He beckoned.
“Brother Lin.” Zhou Ruo An greeted him respectfully. “Sorry to trouble you over my matter.”
Lin Yi pushed himself away from the tree and walked forward with the flow of people.
“Do you talk to everyone like this?”
“What?” The surroundings were too noisy, and Zhou Ruo An didn’t catch what he had said.
The person walking ahead changed the subject outright and pointed at a roadside stall.
“Buy me a popsicle.”
Zhou Ruo An hurriedly paid for it, tore open the wrapper, and attentively handed the popsicle to Lin Yi.
Even though the sun had set, the summer heat remained fierce. The popsicle melted quickly and made Lin Yi’s fingers sticky. Zhou Ruo An immediately took out a tissue and handed it over.
But Lin Yi bit down on the popsicle stick and gave Zhou Ruo An a long look. Then, without saying a word, he held out his hand.
Zhou Ruo An froze for a moment before understanding what he meant. He quickly took the outstretched hand and carefully wiped the stickiness from Lin Yi’s fingertips with the tissue.
When he looked up again, Lin Yi was still gazing down at him. Zhou Ruo An wiped all five fingers once more before asking:
“Still sticky?”
Lin Yi withdrew his hand and slowly rubbed his fingers together at his side.
“You’re being so attentive. Just how much trouble did you get yourself into?”
The crowd gradually dispersed, and the noise slowly faded. Zhou Ruo An clenched the tissue in his hand and sighed.
“You know Hou San’er who lives upstairs from me? I swindled him out of five thousand yuan.”
Elio’s Notes: Hou San’er’s nickname literally means “Monkey Third.”
“Did he see your face?” Lin Yi asked.
Zhou Ruo An tossed away the crumpled tissue.
“Yeah. I accidentally exposed my identity, and now he’s saying he’s going to kill me.”
Lin Yi gave a derisive laugh.
“Hou San’er? He doesn’t have the ability, and he doesn’t have the guts.”
“I know the only thing he’s capable of is beating his wife. But now his wife has run away, and he has no one left to take it out on. He gets blind drunk every day. Who knows what he might do? I’m also afraid he’ll go after my family.”
“How did you swindle him?” Lin Yi walked to a stall and took two bottles of cola from the ice bucket. Just as he was about to pay, Zhou Ruo An beat him to it.
After opening the bottle, Zhou Ruo An tipped his head back and took a drink, finally easing some of the heat.
“He’s lustful, so I… pretended to be a woman and chatted with him on WeChat. Little by little, I swindled several thousand yuan from him.”
Lin Yi frowned slightly.
“You really will make money any way you can.”
After a moment of silence, he asked again, “Then how did Hou San’er find out?”
Zhou Ruo An turned his face away. Lin Yi saw a faint blush creeping up the other boy’s ears. He looked at the sunset on the horizon and somehow felt that the sight before him was even prettier.
“He kept asking to meet me. I turned him down many times, until…” Zhou Ruo An sat on the curb with his soda. “Until I couldn’t avoid it anymore.”
Lin Yi squatted in front of him.
“You were that stupid? You actually went to meet him?”
Zhou Ruo An irritably kicked at the pebbles on the ground.
“I really was that stupid. I went, and he discovered I was a guy and saw my face.”
He suddenly became annoyed.
“So are you helping me or not?”
The words had already left his mouth before he realized his mistake. Zhou Ruo An’s expression changed instantly, and he anxiously placed a hand over the one Lin Yi had resting on his knee.
“Brother Lin, only you can help me.”
＊
That very night, Hou San’er was cornered in a dark alley.
The man was bleary-eyed with drink, yet the moment he saw Lin Yi, he was so frightened that he started trembling.
When Lin Yi’s father was younger, he had been the sort of man who would pull a knife at the slightest disagreement. The son of a rat could hardly learn refined manners. From childhood, Lin Yi had been the local troublemaker—quiet, ruthless, and said to have started taking paid revenge jobs at fifteen or sixteen. The urban village was a mixed place full of all kinds of people, yet very few dared provoke him.
Now he leaned against the alley wall, half his face hidden in shadow, the cigarette between his fingers glowing and dimming.
“Hou San’er, do you know why I came looking for you?”
Hou San’er glanced toward the mouth of the alley. The night wasn’t very late yet, and people were still coming and going there.
Yet not a single person dared enter this alley. Those who happened to pass by sensed trouble and turned around halfway.
Hou San’er edged closer to the wall.
“Your dad was my friend. By rights, I ought to call you my nephew. If your uncle here did something wrong, then for your father’s sake, don’t hold it against me.”
“Fine.” Lin Yi nodded. “Then your grudge with Zhou Ruo An ends here.”
“Zhou Ruo An?!” Hou San’er shouted. “You came because of him?”
“Mm.” Lin Yi’s voice was neither loud nor soft, yet it made the cowardly Hou San’er jump as though a temple had exploded.
“I definitely won’t let that Zhou brat off! If he doesn’t find my wife and bring her back, I’m not done with him!”
“Your wife?” Lin Yi took the cigarette from his mouth. “What does Zhou Ruo An have to do with her?”
“What does he have to do with her? Everything!” The man’s face flushed red with anger. “That Zhou brat set up a trap and tricked me, pretended to be a woman and chatted with me. Not only did he cheat me out of money, he even tricked me into going to the neighboring city and locked me up for three whole days. My wife used those three days to run away, and I still fucking haven’t caught her!”
Hou San’er stomped hard. “Tell me, can I let him off? I’ll never let that Zhou brat off for the rest of my life!”
Lin Yi thought it over for a moment, then asked, “How did you know the person who tricked you was Zhou Ruo An?”
“He tricked me into going to the neighboring city but kept refusing to show up. Later, I told him, ‘If you still won’t show your face, I’m going home,’ and only then did he agree to meet. Fuck, he wore a skirt and a wig and tricked me into the room, but then he turned around, went outside, and locked the door. If I hadn’t yanked off his wig at the last second, I still wouldn’t have known it was him!”
“He… wore a skirt?” Cigarette ash dropped onto Lin Yi’s hand.
“He did! Fuck, he even sent me photos where his legs showed. How the hell was I supposed to know he was a guy!”
Lin Yi took a hard drag from his cigarette and fell silent for a moment before asking, “He locked you in a room for three days, and your wife used those three days to run away?”
“Exactly.” Hou San’er poured out his grievances. “Nephew, tell me, shouldn’t I kill that Zhou brat?”
Lin Yi did not even raise his head. He merely exhaled a mouthful of smoke, then crushed the cigarette butt against the wall. The motion was very light, yet somehow made people nervous.
“Hou San’er, my dad isn’t your friend, and I’m not your nephew either.” Lin Yi straightened and took one oppressive step forward. “Zhou Ruo An is mine. Whoever touches him is making an enemy of me.”
“But he let my wife run away!”
“If you can’t even keep watch over your own wife, Hou San’er, I don’t think you need that face of yours either.”
Lin Yi suddenly threw a punch, striking the man squarely in the face. Amid a shriek-like cry of pain, he wiped the blood from his knuckles and slowly walked toward the shadow collapsed on the ground…
Only when Hou San’er had curled up on the ground, able to do nothing but groan, did Lin Yi finally stop. He stepped on Hou San’er’s fingers with the sole of his shoe.
Slowly, he crouched and asked, “Are you still going to make trouble for Zhou Ruo An?”
The sole of his shoe twisted. A wail pierced the air. “I won’t, I won’t! I won’t make trouble for him anymore!”
“Come on. Repeat after me. Zhou Ruo An belongs to Lin Yi. From now on, whenever I see him, I’ll take a detour.”
Hou San’er’s breaths came in broken bursts. His eyes rolled back as his lips trembled, and he slowly repeated, “Zhou Ruo An belongs to you. From now on, whenever I see him, I’ll take a detour.”
Lin Yi was fairly satisfied, but he did not ease the pressure beneath his foot. “Do you still have the photos he sent you?”
“Yes, yes.” Hou San’er tremblingly offered up his phone with his other hand. “That Shuangshuang on WeChat is him.”
His finger slowly scrolled through the chat history, and Lin Yi read the messages aloud in a low voice. “Good morning, Brother. Brother, you’re amazing. Brother, I miss you. Good night, Brother.”
Hou San’er hated him so much his teeth ached. “That’s how he tricked me into spending money on him.”
Lin Yi then saw the photo.
His gaze lingered for a moment. Then he cleared the chat history, tossed the phone back to Hou San’er, and stood, looking down at him coldly.
“Remember what you said. Don’t provoke Zhou Ruo An again.”
＊
Hou San’er’s problem was resolved, and Lin Yi did not seem as difficult to get along with as the rumors claimed. Zhou Ruo An finally breathed a little easier.
A few days later, on an unbearably muggy evening, the WeChat account Zhou Ruo An had not used in a long time received a friend request. The note read: Sister, want to chat?
Zhou Ruo An looked at his phone and thought for a while, guessing that perhaps he had missed removing one of the little advertisements pasted to the utility poles near Hou San’er’s home.
He accepted the request and sent a message: Brother, I don’t really like chatting much.
The other person immediately sent a red packet. Zhou Ruo An tapped it once. Five hundred yuan.
Zhou Ruo An lowered his eyelids, concealing the coldness in his gaze. He put the popsicle in his mouth and tapped the screen a few times: Brother, I’ve made a little time now. What do you want to chat about?
But the person on the other end remained silent for a long time. Only after Zhou Ruo An threw the popsicle stick into the trash did his phone sound with another notification.
Let’s talk about your dreams.
His fingers paused. Zhou Ruo An stared at the short line of text on the screen, and the expression on his face slowly disappeared.
I don’t have dreams.
I’m not worthy of having dreams.
＊
On a garish floral bedsheet, Lin Yi was putting a dress on Zhou Ruo An.
Zhou Ruo An refused to cooperate. “Lin Yi, are you fucking perverted?”
“You once wore one for Hou San’er to see.”
“That was fucking to help…”
Lin Yi stopped moving and looked at Zhou Ruo An gently. “To help Hou San’er’s wife escape?”
Zhou Ruo An choked and actually flushed faintly. He looked away, tugging the dress off himself as he said, “She lived upstairs from me and got beaten every day, screaming and wailing like a ghost. I was fucking annoyed to death.”
“So the two of you set Hou San’er up together?”
Zhou Ruo An threw the dress into the corner of the bed, reached out, and picked up a cigarette. “That woman didn’t dare. When I lured Hou San’er to the neighboring city, I told her this was the last chance she’d ever have in her life. If she didn’t run, then she could just wait to be beaten to death.”
Lin Yi took the cigarette from Zhou Ruo An’s mouth and unhurriedly continued putting the dress on him. “The five thousand yuan you swindled from Hou San’er…”
“I gave it to that woman.” Zhou Ruo An looked down at the dress on his body and cursed under his breath. “If I hadn’t helped her back then, I wouldn’t have gotten acquainted with you, wouldn’t have been targeted by a pervert like you, and wouldn’t be getting tormented by you in all these different ways now.”
“This isn’t torment.” Lin Yi slowly pulled up the zipper at the back of the dress. “An An, no matter how it happened, you would have been mine. Before you walked toward me that day, I had already been watching you for many years.”
Zhou Ruo An tugged at the skirt hem that barely covered him. “Oh. So?”
Lin Yi leaned in and kissed him, speaking softly against Zhou Ruo An’s lips. “I was waiting for you to turn eighteen. Waiting every minute, every second. I never expected… that you would walk toward me first.”
Soft silk covered Lin Yi’s hand. He pushed Zhou Ruo An down and coaxed in a low voice, “An An, call me Brother.”
The movement beneath the silk was unbearable. A thin sheen of sweat appeared at Zhou Ruo An’s temples. Panting lightly, he sounded half as though he were cursing and half as though he were complaining. “Back then, I called you Brother for three whole months before I found out it was you. Lin Yi, you’ve been fucking perverted since you were little.”
“Call me Brother, An An.”
“Lin…”
“Be good.”
“…Brother.”
“What else?”
“…Come in.”