At Shao Wu’s family reunions, mahjong was always the main event and cards the supporting act. On New Year’s Eve, the whole house stayed noisy until eleven at night. By the time even the Spring Festival Gala hosts seemed desperate to get off work and go home, the family finally left the tables, washed their hands, and started wrapping dumplings and cooking yuanxiao.
This year was even livelier than usual. During the twelfth lunar month, Eldest Aunt had become a grandmother, Shao Wu’s older female cousin had brought her boyfriend home for New Year, and Third Uncle had bought an entire trunk full of fireworks to set off after midnight. As twelve o’clock approached, the hosts began the countdown. Shao Wu held a steaming bowl of dumplings, but he could barely hear the television anymore. In those days, setting off fireworks and firecrackers had not yet been banned in the city, and as the New Year approached, the explosions rolled in like a landslide. It was almost as if Chinese people could not truly say goodbye to the old year until New Year’s Eve had passed. In the final seconds of the lunar year, Shao Wu saw his cousin quickly kiss her boyfriend, while he tightened his grip on his phone and kept staring at the number in his call history. Yang Shuyi had called him yesterday, wished him a Happy New Year, and invited him over for a meal. So there really was a kind of secret happiness in caring about someone even when they were not thinking about you. It felt as though a tiny clip had caught somewhere inside his chest, gently pinching, leaving him soft and achingly tender.
Back then, everything had only just begun. That tender ache was still only tenderness, not pain.
Though far apart beneath the same sky, they were both welcoming the New Year.
Elio’s Notes: “Though far apart beneath the same sky” echoes 天涯共此时 from Tang poet Zhang Jiuling’s Looking at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away (《望月怀远》), a line about people separated by distance sharing the same moment while thinking of someone far away.
The younger generation went outside to set off fireworks on a small hillside not far from the villa complex. The air was thick with the sharp smell of firecrackers, and scraps of red paper littered the ground. Shao Wu’s cousin jogged over to place the fireworks farther away, then turned and shouted, “I forgot a lighter!” His older female cousin called back with a laugh, “Leilei has one!” Leilei was her boyfriend. He hurried over to hand off the lighter, and she turned to Shao Wu. “Did you make a wish just now?”
“Huh? Are we supposed to make wishes?”
“Of course. It’s a new year, so make a New Year’s wish.” His cousin’s lashes curled upward, making her look lively and mischievous, and very cute.
“I forgot just now…”
“Then make one now. Wish to get into a top university or something.”
“We’re lighting it!” his cousin shouted from over there. “One! Two! Three!”
His cousin and Leilei ran back quickly. A dozen seconds later, there was a bang and the fireworks shot into the sky. One burst followed another, cool bright purple, soft red, spreading out in full blooms like a beautiful dream that would never wake.
Shao Wu opened his eyes wide and watched the fireworks intently. Silently, he made his wish: in 2008, he hoped Yang Shuyi would study hard, and that someday they could go to university in the same city.
This was the beginning of 2008, and everything seemed to be moving in a better and better direction. His family was healthy, life was flourishing, and the Summer Olympics were coming. The whole country, like the Olympics themselves, seemed filled with the blazing energy of summer. Everything was good. Everything would only get better.
And Shao Wu had someone he liked now. For the first time in his life, he knew what it felt like to like someone. He had become a handful of tiny iron filings, and Yang Shuyi was his magnet. He wanted to get close to him, yet did not dare get too close. Even his wish kept such careful boundaries that all he dared ask was for “Yang Shuyi to study hard.” He did not dare imagine himself… actually being with Yang Shuyi.
Like the young couples by the river after evening self-study, holding each other and kissing in the dark? He did not dare imagine it. His seventeenth birthday was still more than three months away, and even those thoughts were enough to leave him trembling.
By the time the fireworks ended, the night wind was chilly on the walk back to the villa, but Shao Wu’s face was burning hot.