The next day, Shao Wu bought a huge bag of potato chips for Zhou Lei. Zhou Lei froze, and his face even reddened a little. “You… what’s this for?”
It was Shao Wu’s first time doing something like this, so he felt a little guilty too. “I want you to help me with something. Will you?”
Zhou Lei looked stunned. “What? What could I possibly help you with? I can’t explain schoolwork to you.”
Shao Wu said, “Come on. Let’s talk over there…”
Two days later, Longlong’s deskmate Liu Chenyang was cornered in an alley beside the school by a tall, long-haired woman and verbally threatened, though exactly what was said was unknown. Apparently his knees went weak from fright and he dropped to the ground, unable even to get up until a passerby helped him. For a while, a rumor spread among the parents: Keep a close eye on your children! They must be escorted to and from school! There’s a pervert targeting elementary school students lately. The pervert is a large, powerfully built woman dressed in black, and she may be mentally unstable…
At Monday’s flag-raising ceremony, Zhou Lei and Shao Wu stood together. On the stage, the principal spoke with heartfelt conviction: “…In recent years, our school has achieved outstanding results in the college entrance examination year after year. Teachers, students, the gaokao countdown has begun. This is the critical final push… Ahem. Right, there’s also something important I need to tell everyone…”
Below the stage, the students who had been absentmindedly staring into space, whispering to one another, or dozing against their friends all raised their heads at once and looked toward the principal.
“These past few days, a child from Experimental Elementary School was followed and threatened. Apparently the person was mentally ill, a woman, tall and strongly built… You’re all high school students, so theoretically you should know how to protect yourselves. But the gaokao is almost here. We cannot afford a single accident! So I still need to remind everyone: travel to and from school in groups. Especially after evening self-study, don’t linger in the classroom. Go straight home…”
The students erupted into an uproar.
Shao Wu: “…”
Zhou Lei: “…”
On the way back to the classroom, Zhou Lei lowered his voice and said furiously, “My reputation is completely ruined!”
Shao Wu hurried to reassure him. “No, no, how could it be? Nobody knows it was you… But, uh, what were you thinking? Why did you wear a wig?”
Zhou Lei heaved a long sigh. “It was all Han Huiyuan’s stupid idea! She said she was afraid someone would recognize me! So I… I wore my mom’s wig. It cost more than eight hundred yuan, damn it.”
Shao Wu wanted to laugh but did not dare. “Looks like it worked really well. Your exploits are famous now.”
Zhou Lei covered his forehead in despair. “Shut up.”
Zhou Lei’s intimidation had indeed been extremely effective. Longlong was never bullied by her classmates again. After a while, the scab on her cheek fell off, leaving the newly grown skin a little red. Some time later, even that disappeared, and no one could tell the spot had ever been injured.
Yang Shuyi learned that Zhou Lei had helped scare the elementary school student and thanked him solemnly. He even wanted to treat him to a meal. Zhou Lei waved it off casually. “Come on, between us, there’s no need to be so polite. If that little brat ever dares bully your sister again, just tell me. I’ll scare the piss out of him next time.”
Han Huiyuan laughed so hard beside them that tears squeezed from her eyes. Yang Shuyi laughed too. “That one time was already enough for him.”
Watching Yang Shuyi smile, Shao Wu finally felt a little lighter. But the words Yang Shuyi had spoken that day in his room, crouched in front of Longlong, seemed carved into Shao Wu’s mind. He could not forget them no matter what he did.
He had said, It was my fault. It was all Brother’s fault.
…Did he truly believe that?
It had been almost a year since the earthquake. Those painful, brutal memories seemed to be slowly losing their sharpness. There were many moments when Shao Wu watched Yang Shuyi bent over his desk doing problems, when the two of them walked out of school with their backpacks just as they used to, when Yang Shuyi smiled at him, and Shao Wu would almost have the illusion that nothing had happened.
Nothing had happened. There had been no earthquake, no deaths. They were simply ordinary senior-year students about to sit what might be the most important examination of their lives.
Shao Wu did not know whether Yang Shuyi had taken the blame onto himself merely to comfort Longlong, or whether he genuinely believed it. But even if he had only said it to comfort her, the fact that he could say those words meant that at some point… he really had thought that way, hadn’t he? It was all his fault. His father’s and Auntie Xiaojuan’s deaths were both his fault.
Exactly fifty days remained until the gaokao. It was late spring edging into early summer again. Yongchuan often had rain, which also meant frequent stretches of clear weather. Sometimes, after the rain, a cloud would drift across the bright sky and cast a faint shadow over the ground. Shao Wu would look down and suddenly feel that the earthquake was like that cloud, casting a faint shadow over them too. Perhaps they could not feel it for a while. Perhaps they felt it but could not describe it. Either way, that cloud and its shadow followed them at all times and had never gone away.
Shao Wu remembered now. One question on Beijing Normal University’s autonomous-admissions exam had asked them to choose an academic idea from the pre-Qin philosophers and, using “life” as the theme, discuss their thoughts in no more than five hundred Chinese characters.
The first sentence he had written was: The Wenchuan earthquake happened. I do not believe hardship makes a nation flourish. I only believe Heaven and Earth are without benevolence.
Elio’s Notes: “Heaven and Earth are without benevolence” (天地不仁) echoes Chapter 5 of the Dao De Jing. Shao Wu sets that stark Daoist phrase against the consoling idea that national hardship can produce renewal.
On May 12, 2009, the first anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, memorial events were held throughout society. First- and second-year students took part in evacuation drills, while the seniors attended classes as usual.
It was Shao Wu’s eighteenth birthday. Perhaps everyone was too busy preparing for the gaokao. The classroom was quiet, no one remembered his birthday, and Shao Wu himself never mentioned it.
That day, Yang Shuyi did not attend evening self-study. He took Longlong to the cemetery to sweep the graves.
After evening self-study, Shao Wu left the classroom alone and rode home. When he arrived, his mother had already cooked him a bowl of longevity noodles and set it on the table. “Son, I didn’t buy you a cake. I was thinking the cream might make you feel overheated, and this is the critical period. Your health is your capital… Once the gaokao is over and we have your celebration banquet, we’ll order a big cake then, okay?”
Shao Wu smiled. “Okay. I don’t really want cake anyway.”
He lowered his head and began eating the longevity noodles. They were only simple greens, egg, and noodles, but they tasted wonderfully savory, perhaps because his mother had used some special broth. Shao Wu picked up a chopstickful of noodles, stuffed them into his mouth, and chewed ravenously. He still had an entire comprehensive humanities practice paper left to finish.
But as he chewed, his eyes suddenly began to sting uncontrollably. Shao Wu quickly lowered his head, but his mother still noticed something was wrong.
“Son, son, what’s wrong?!” She hurriedly put an arm around him. “What happened? If something’s upsetting you, tell Mom, okay?”
“Mom…” Shao Wu wiped his eyes and said quietly, “The autonomous-admissions results came out. I didn’t pass Beijing Normal University’s exam.”
His mother froze for a second. “Hey! So what? You didn’t pass, then you didn’t pass! Just think of it as a trip to Beijing. It’s fine, sweetheart, it’s fine!”
Shao Wu nodded and forced out a smile. “But I passed Beijing Foreign Studies. They’ll admit me with a twenty-point reduction.”
“Isn’t that great? That’s already wonderful! Our son is the best… Listen to Mom. Don’t demand too much of yourself. Your dad and I only want you to grow up happy. That’s enough.” She gently patted Shao Wu’s shoulder. “Originally, since today is your birthday, I shouldn’t bring up anything else… But, son, today is also the first anniversary of the earthquake. I keep thinking that so many kids your age should have been taking the gaokao this year too, but because of the earthquake, they’ll never get that chance… It makes me feel that as long as you’re alive and well, nothing else matters.”
“Mm, Mom.” Shao Wu hugged her back. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
“I’m not worried.” His mother smiled. “My son is the best. I know that.”
Shao Wu finished his noodles, showered, and returned to his room to work on problems. His mother brought him a glass of hot milk, stroked his head, then turned and left.
Shao Wu watched her retreating figure and fell silent for a few seconds. A hundred tangled feelings filled his chest, but there was no way to put any of them into words.
He had not cried because of the autonomous-admissions results, nor because the pressure had become too much.
He had simply felt a little wronged, and for one moment he could not hold it in. Yang Shuyi would never celebrate his birthday for him again, because Shao Wu’s birthday was the anniversary of Yang Long’s and Auntie Xiaojuan’s deaths. It was the darkest day of Yang Shuyi’s life. Shao Wu did not even have the right to mourn Yang Shuyi’s lost family with him, did not have the right to share his pain, because just as his mother had said, some people were gone forever while others were still alive and well. He was one of the lucky ones, and therefore he had no right.
Yang Shuyi would never celebrate his birthday for him again. Never again.