Night cruises on the lake were a very popular activity in the city, particularly among couples still in the passionate stage of love who needed a romantic atmosphere to deepen their feelings, as well as old married couples who genuinely could not think of anywhere else to kill time.
In any case, the boatmen moored along the shore had been doing fairly good business so far.
When Yan Su Ang took Xiao Bai onto the boat, he had even specially found two baseball caps to hide their faces.
“Why aren’t we wearing sunglasses?” Xiao Bai asked curiously. He remembered seeing in magazines that celebrities who got secretly photographed always wore sunglasses.
Yan Su Ang looked up at the boundless night sky and smiled bitterly. “Because then we’d also need white canes.” Otherwise, they would attract even more attention. Of course, two blind men going on a lake cruise together would also attract quite a lot of attention.
Xiao Bai looked confused.
Yan Su Ang paid the fare and hurriedly pulled him aboard.
The boat had no canopy. Looking up, they could see a sky filled with stars.
The sound of water splashing softly filled their ears. As they drifted farther from shore, the thousands of lights from the city seemed to become scenery belonging to another world in the blink of an eye.
Xiao Bai noticed that all the boats around them were traditional black-awning boats and asked curiously, “Why doesn’t ours have a roof?”
Yan Su Ang was about to explain that all the black-awning boats had already been rented when the boatman beat him to it with a cheerful smile. “Because ours is more luxurious.”
“……” Yan Su Ang was forced to reassess the seemingly honest-looking boatman.
Elio’s Notes: 乌篷船, “black-awning boats,” are traditional wooden boats with dark covered canopies, especially associated with the waterways of the Jiangnan region.
Xiao Bai asked curiously, “Why?”
“Because ours is a convertible! Look at all those expensive sports cars. Aren’t they convertibles too?” Having delivered the joke, the boatman began laughing proudly. He had told it countless times, yet somehow still found it hilarious every single time.
Xiao Bai frowned and thought for a very long time before finally saying, “Actually, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask for ages. What do those convertible sports cars do when it rains? Don’t they get wet?”
Yan Su Ang was just about to answer when the boatman jumped in again. “They use umbrellas or wear raincoats.”
Yan Su Ang was rendered completely speechless.
Xiao Bai asked, “Does your boat have those too?”
“Of course.” The boatman proudly dug out two umbrellas and several raincoats. “See? So you can ride my boat without worrying.”
“Um…” Yan Su Ang finally could not resist speaking. “Could I trouble you to turn the volume all the way down?”
The boatman looked completely baffled. “I didn’t turn on the radio.”
“……”
His sense of humor was clearly working perfectly a moment ago. Why can’t he understand me now? Is his humor one-way? Can transmit but not receive?
Yan Su Ang sighed. “What I mean is, could you let the two of us talk alone for a while?”
The boatman said, “I don’t mind, but are you sure that after I jump into the lake, you two can get the boat back by yourselves?”
“……”
Yan Su Ang covered his face.
Is there something wrong with the way I talk, or is there something horribly wrong with the way he understands things?
Xiao Bai said, “He means, can you stop talking?”
The boatman suddenly understood. He smiled. “Of course. Customers ask me that all the time. I’ve always been very good at following instructions. Don’t worry. For the rest of the trip, you’ll only be able to feel that the boat is moving—you absolutely won’t feel how it’s moving. I’ll make you feel as though you two are the only people on the boat.”
After saying all that, he genuinely shut his mouth and stopped talking.
“……”
Since when did the things I say become harder to understand than the things Xiao Bai says? I actually need Xiao Bai to translate for me now.
Defeated, Yan Su Ang rubbed his forehead.
Xiao Bai suddenly leaned closer and whispered, “Do you think he might be an invisible man in disguise?”
Yan Su Ang whispered back, “Would an invisible man need to work as a boatman?”
“Maybe he came out to find a job.”
Yan Su Ang considered this. “Well, at least it’s much safer than robbing banks.”
Xiao Bai nodded in agreement.
“All right, enough about him. Let’s go back to your character.” Yan Su Ang had no choice but to steer the subject back before holding himself back from interfering with Lian Jue Xiu tomorrow gave him internal injuries. He knew standing aside was ultimately best for Xiao Bai, but knowing that in theory and watching it happen in front of him were completely different matters.
Xiao Bai hurriedly took out the script.
There was only one extremely dim lamp on the boat, there to show other boats their position and prevent collisions. It was clearly nowhere near bright enough for reading a script.
“Have you memorized the lines?” Yan Su Ang asked.
Xiao Bai nodded. “But you won’t be able to see your lines.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve already read them.” Yan Su Ang smiled confidently. “Let’s start from the beginning.”
“Okay.”
“Xiaoxiao, weren’t you meeting some friends to go to an art exhibition today? Why are you here?” Xiao Bai said woodenly.
Yan Su Ang sighed inwardly before smiling. “Do you remember the agreement we made before dinner?”
“Mm. You’re my fiancé and I’m your fiancée.”
The boat rocked lightly.
Yan Su Ang and Xiao Bai simultaneously turned toward the boatman.
The boatman immediately lifted his head toward the sky and began humming to himself, looking thoroughly immersed in his own world.
Yan Su Ang ignored him and smiled at Xiao Bai. “Then do you know what keeps a relationship between an engaged couple together?”
Xiao Bai thought about it. “Shared interests?”
“……” Yan Su Ang froze. “Why?”
“Zhi Qing said a lot of wealthy families…”
“That’s enough.” Yan Su Ang became serious. “You need to remember that I’m your fiancé.”
“I remember.”
“So you only need to remember what I tell you.” Yan Su Ang cut him off before Xiao Bai could argue. “What keeps a relationship between an engaged couple together is love.”
Xiao Bai looked at him as though he half understood.
“You need to believe that we’ll be partners who depend on one another for the rest of our lives. We’ll trust each other, care about each other, and help each other.” He slowly took Xiao Bai’s hand. “We’ll hold each other’s hands and walk side by side into the future.”
“……Oh.”
“And apart from me, you can’t get too close to any other men. Especially anybody whose name just happens to contain something like Jia, something like Zhi, and something like Qing.”
Xiao Bai said, “I only know one person with a name like that.”
“That’s already one too many.”
“……”
“All right. Forget all of that for now.” Yan Su Ang moved closer. “I’m your fiancé. You really want to be with me. Recently you’ve been trying to make plans with me, but I’ve been busy every time. Then right when you’re feeling disappointed, I suddenly appear in front of you. What do you think you should feel at that moment?”
Xiao Bai frowned.
“Or what would your very first thought be?”
“Ah. You came.”
“Yes, I came. Then?”
“……Xiaoxiao, weren’t you meeting some friends to go to an art exhibition today? Why are you here?”
Yan Su Ang said, “Your expression should be a little more excited. Like… like someone who hasn’t eaten for three days suddenly seeing a roast duck—no, a roast suckling pig. Make your eyes light up.”
Xiao Bai said, “I’ve never gone three days without eating, but I missed two meals once. It felt awful.”
“……” Yan Su Ang stroked his head tenderly. “How did you end up missing two meals? Jia Zhi Qing didn’t feed you?”
“I’m the one who cooks, so it could only be me refusing to feed him.”
Yan Su Ang had nearly forgotten that Jia Zhi Qing was the textbook kind of person who opened his mouth for food and stretched out his arms to be dressed. He forced down his dissatisfaction. “Then why?”
“Because the butcher shop was too busy, so there wasn’t time to eat.” Xiao Bai slowly raised his head. The faint orange light, weak as a spark, fell into his eyes and scattered into tiny points of brilliance. He seemed immersed in a beautiful memory from the past. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, his expression carrying both yearning and nostalgia.
Yan Su Ang could not help feeling envious.
It was a part of Xiao Bai’s history he had been too late to share, yet it was engraved firmly in Xiao Bai’s mind—and perhaps even deeper, in his heart.
Yan Su Ang set aside his jealousy and asked gently, “What did you eat afterward?”
“Brother Xiong made pork-rib noodles. Why?”
Yan Su Ang smiled faintly. “Then think of Deng Xiaoxiao as that bowl of pork-rib noodles.”
Xiao Bai stared. “How?”
“You don’t actually have to eat her. When you see her, just try to remember how you felt when you saw those noodles back then, and show that feeling through your expression. Let’s try again.”
“Xiaoxiao…” Xiao Bai paused and tried hard to remember how he had felt. A faint smile appeared. “Weren’t you meeting some friends to go to an art exhibition today? Why are you here?”
“That’s it.” Seizing the opportunity, Yan Su Ang pulled him firmly into his arms.
The boat rocked again.
Yan Su Ang gave the boatman a sidelong look.
The boatman was staring at the lake with extraordinary, extraordinary concentration.
The rest of the rehearsal went much more smoothly. Xiao Bai was still some distance from meeting Lian Jue Xiu’s standards, but compared with before, his progress was already astonishing. At the very least, Yan Su Ang felt that when Xiao Bai looked at him now, he was no longer staring motionlessly at the tip of his nose.
“All right. We’ll stop here for today.” Yan Su Ang checked his watch.
Xiao Bai asked uneasily, “Am I really okay like this?”
“To be honest, I wouldn’t call it okay. But you’ve improved.” Yan Su Ang said, “I guarantee Lian Jue Xiu won’t yell at you nearly as badly tomorrow as he did today.”
Xiao Bai looked dejected. “So he’ll still yell at me?”
Yan Su Ang stroked his head and smiled. “Isn’t that perfectly normal? Back when I first worked with him, he yelled at me from the beginning of an entire movie to the end. By the time he finished, even listening to music made my ears ring. Before bed, I’d constantly hear his roaring echoing in my ears. I had to see a therapist for an entire week before I could sleep normally again.”
Xiao Bai clicked his tongue in shock. “Was it really that serious?”
Looking at Xiao Bai’s earnest expression, Yan Su Ang secretly reflected that perhaps he had exaggerated the story a little too much. But now that he had started, he could only bite the bullet and keep making things up. “All I know is that among everyone he’s ever yelled at, my symptoms were considered relatively mild.”
“What happened to the ones who were worse?” They didn’t end up directly inside a psychiatric hospital, did they? Xiao Bai thought with extreme concern.
“The worse cases…” Yan Su Ang fought back his laughter. “Ran to his house in the middle of the night, smashed his windows with rocks, then sat outside his front door and bawled their eyes out.”
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