The phone screen lit up in the darkness. A text message had arrived from an unfamiliar number.
[Have you made up your mind?]
Ke Bu wasn’t surprised. Getting hold of his phone number was hardly anything unusual.
[I can speak with you alone, but I have to tell Zhi Li where we’re meeting.] This was the only compromise Ke Bu could think of for now. It would reassure Zhi Li while still allowing him to speak with Liu Qing. But he was still thinking about the problem far too simply.
[You’re even afraid to have a simple conversation with me? You need Zhi Li standing guard beside you? It seems my guess was right. You really aren’t suited to the Zhi family. Our family has never raised cowards, much less parasites.]
The hand holding Ke Bu’s phone dropped to his side. He knew it was nothing more than provocation, yet he still couldn’t let it go. He finally understood why Liu Qing gave people such an oppressive feeling. Her mockery was always rooted in facts. No matter how you tried to dodge it, it would inevitably find somewhere to hurt.
[Fine. Tell me the place. I’ll go alone.]
[I said I won’t lay a hand on you, so I won’t. But I greatly dislike people playing tricks on me. If you don’t keep your promise, then we won’t need to communicate through conversation anymore.]
Ke Bu didn’t sleep very well that night, drifting between sleep and wakefulness. In the morning, he got up without even needing an alarm. Today, he was especially conscious of the time. He went to Zhi Li’s dorm room and pushed the door open without knocking. Zhi Li was asleep on the bed with his back toward him. Ke Bu sat down on the edge of the bed and scraped the toe of his shoe lightly against the floor. “I promise you, I won’t talk to your grandmother alone, so we…” Before he could finish, Zhi Li grabbed the back of his clothes and dragged him onto the bed. “Sleep. Don’t worry about anything.”
For an instant, Ke Bu felt that deceiving him like this was unbearably cruel. Zhi Li always believed what Ke Bu told him so easily. No suspicion. No questions. Ke Bu said it, and Zhi Li believed him. But that guilt lasted only for a brief instant. Another urgency inside him was far stronger, swallowing the feeling completely.
He wanted to become strong and independent like everyone in the Zhi family. He didn’t know which side he was supposed to belong to, his father’s or his mother’s. He only knew one thing. He wanted to become part of the Zhi family. He liked all of them. There was no pretending, no hurting people behind their backs. They were direct. They dragged their darkest sides into the sunlight and remained unmoved by the way other people looked at them. Zhi Li, the person Ke Bu loved most, had given him the image of a family he could love.
Ke Bu didn’t want to be someone Zhi Li brought into this family. He wanted to become someone who walked into this family on his own.
Su You Yan opened her eyes on the airplane. She looked around. Her father was sitting nearby, reading an in-flight magazine.
“Dad, what did you make me drink?”
“Don’t worry. It won’t harm your body. I just wanted you to get some proper sleep.”
There was no anger on Su You Yan’s face, but her voice was ice-cold. “How could you do something like this? She’s just someone high up in the school. Are you really that afraid of her?” When Su You Yan discovered that the master behind the puppet was Zhi Li’s grandmother, Liu Qing, she knew the situation would not be as simple as before. Just as she was about to tell Zhi Li about it, however…
“You don’t need to be this angry. I’m not afraid. I’m only thinking about your safety. I don’t want you getting involved in this. Maybe those friends of yours are very important to you, but the only person most important to me is you. The plane still has a long time before it lands. Even if you go back to your seat now, it’s already too late. Be good. You absolutely must not touch this matter. You still don’t understand her well enough.” Su You Yan’s father remained perfectly calm as he continued flipping through the magazine.
“Isn’t she just an elderly woman?”
“That’s why I say you’re still young, You Yan. Do you really think that student council president is her only puppet?”
Ke Bu stood at the place they had agreed upon, having completely concealed the meeting from Zhi Li and everyone else. As he waited, he kept asking himself whether he was really worthy of Zhi Li trusting him this much. He had sworn to Zhi Li, using his most sincere words and expression, that he wouldn’t go. And Zhi Li had believed him.
The scenery along the riverbank was blurred by the fading light. The color of the horizon was neither dark nor bright, the shades blending into one another. A raised wooden platform stretched out across the water, reaching only about a third of the way across the river. It looked strangely painful, as though it would forever be unable to reach the opposite shore. Ke Bu stood on it while the river breeze gently brushed against him. He stared at the far bank. The scenery there wasn’t particularly different from the scenery on this side. People had all sorts of descriptions and stories about the opposite shore, beautiful ones, frightening ones. Supposedly, it was the place people went after death. Ke Bu didn’t believe such fantastical ideas. He thought that when people died, they simply died. No consciousness, no soul. Just dead. They left behind pain and happiness, embarrassing diaries they had written as children, unfinished goals and dreams… They simply died. They couldn’t take anything with them. They were buried underground and became a pile of white bones, or were reduced to a pile of ashes.
Why am I thinking about such unlucky things at a time like this? Ke Bu heard faint footsteps behind him, drew his gaze back, and turned around. Liu Qing’s small figure looked somewhat eerie in the dim light.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” Ke Bu asked directly.
“You already know, so why bother asking? What will it take for you to leave Zhi Li?”
“That line’s a little old-fashioned. Just think of me as some shameless rogue. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then give the Zhi family a child.”
“I can’t! I can’t give birth! Can’t you see? I’m a man. A man! Please don’t make such an unreasonable demand of me.”
“I think asking me to agree to a man being with Zhi Li is the unreasonable demand! Asking an entire family to accept this is unreasonable! Turning Zhi Li gay in the name of love and making him carry the weight of society is unreasonable! Thinking it doesn’t matter whether he has biological children is unreasonable! If I hadn’t wanted children, there would be no Zuo Si, much less Zhi Li. You wouldn’t be standing here talking nonsense to me now!” Every word Liu Qing spoke was forceful and resounding, pressing Ke Bu down until he felt as though he had no strength left. He was usually so good at talking back. What was wrong with him now?
Lan Yin had been something Zhi Li faced. Zhi Zuo Si had been something Lan Yin and Zhi Li faced. This was the first time Ke Bu himself had faced the firm opposition of an elder in the Zhi family. He couldn’t fight back, because he knew that what he was insisting on was right, but where exactly was Liu Qing wrong in what she insisted on? Everything she did was for Zhi Li. Was there really anyone in this world who truly hoped their child or grandchild would fall in love with someone of the same sex? Maybe there were open-minded parents and elders who would support their child’s decision, but did they truly hope for it? People had all kinds of hopes. They hoped their children would become successful, hoped they would be healthy, hoped their careers would flourish, hoped they would live happy and fulfilling lives. But who would hope their child loved someone of the same sex? There were some things, some feelings, that people without children simply couldn’t understand.
Opposing love because of love sounded unreasonable, but it was reasonable.
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