Shao Wu and Yang Shuyi went to eat lianggao again. The translucent rice cake was served in a disposable paper box, drizzled with brown-sugar syrup and sprinkled with a few raisins. Its texture was denser than jelly, with a faint alkaline taste. By now dusk had settled in. Senior-year students trickled out of the school while plenty of parents waited by the gates, discussing the difficulty of this year’s gaokao. Math was pretty hard. Their kids had not said much about English, so it was probably fine… When Shao Wu swallowed his last bite of lianggao, the streetlamp overhead flickered on. Summer night arrived quietly just like that.
“Ready to go?” Shao Wu paid and saw Yang Shuyi sitting on a little stool, staring at the school gates as though lost in thought.
“Let’s go,” Yang Shuyi said.
On the way, Yang Shuyi bought two brown-sugar guokui flatbreads. Each of them held one as they walked along the sidewalk eating. The gaokao was over. High school was over too. On this summer night, for once they did not have to rush home to work through exam papers, and they could openly walk into an internet café in their school uniforms.
Usually they parted at the bus stop, Shao Wu riding his bicycle home while Yang Shuyi waited for the bus. This time they strolled past the stop, reached a T-junction, turned right, and headed toward the internet café.
Shao Wu felt as though it had been a very long time since he had walked so slowly through the streets of Yongchuan. Lianggao stalls, boiled fish, Chongqing hotpot, barbecue. Yongchuan’s summer nights were humid and stifling like those of many small southern cities, the roadside thick with the hot, spicy smells of food. The night sky hung low, moonlight blurred like mist. Yang Shuyi walked beside Shao Wu with his hands in the pockets of his school uniform, his long, narrow shadow moving with each step. Shao Wu thought again of Xiaoyaosheng from Fantasy Westward Journey.
“I only noticed today,” Shao Wu said. “You seem to have grown quite a bit taller this year.”
“Seven centimeters.”
“That much?”
“You got taller too.” Yang Shuyi smiled and reached out to pat the top of Shao Wu’s head.
At the internet café, they sat beside each other as usual. Yang Shuyi opened the Fantasy Westward Journey login screen while Shao Wu started up his own computer and leaned over to look at Yang Shuyi’s monitor.
“Want to play?” Yang Shuyi asked. “I can carry you.”
Shao Wu was not actually that interested in the game. What interested him most was watching Yang Shuyi play. But since Yang Shuyi had offered… Shao Wu suddenly thought, Does this mean I can ask him to take me along in the game all the time from now on?
“Sure.”
“Then make an account and add me,” Yang Shuyi said. “My username is ysy910117.”
“910117.” Shao Wu read the numbers aloud. “Your birthday is January seventeenth?”
“Mm. Solar calendar.”
“Mm.”
Shao Wu quietly memorized it: January seventeenth. Even if he could no longer celebrate his own birthday with Yang Shuyi, at least he could celebrate Yang Shuyi’s birthday with him, right?
After Shao Wu created his account, he almost chose Fox Beauty when selecting a character. In the game’s official setting, Fox Beauty and Xiaoyaosheng were a couple. But he was afraid Yang Shuyi might notice something, so after hesitating for two seconds, he chose Xiaoyaosheng too. The two young men in white standing together were rather pleasing to look at.
Shao Wu was a complete beginner and obediently followed Yang Shuyi around, his mouse clicking away as everything seemed new to him. Chang’an City was crowded and lively, full of players looking for parties. The sunken ship beneath the sea was pitch-black, with the lonely ghost of a merchant standing inside. In the Moon Palace, pink clouds gathered around branches heavy with immortal peaches while jade rabbits leaped high into the air… Dazzled by everything he saw, Shao Wu followed Yang Shuyi around running trade routes, joining groups, and clearing instances.
“How is it?” Yang Shuyi asked.
“Mm. Pretty interesting.”
Actually, Shao Wu was a little dizzy. The game seemed complicated. Yang Shuyi led him here and there, and Shao Wu had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. In the gaps between talking to NPCs, Shao Wu secretly glanced at Yang Shuyi’s arm. Maybe because it was summer, his skin had deepened to a light wheat color, and the lines of his muscles were longer and firmer than last year. His wrist bone stood out, and his fingers tapped lightly on the mouse, click, then click again, almost like the clatter of hooves striking against Shao Wu’s chest.
Shao Wu felt his ears growing warm and raised a hand to take off his headphones.
Seeing that, Yang Shuyi asked, “Tired of playing?”
“Ah, a little…”
“Then let’s stop here.” Yang Shuyi took off his headphones too. “Let’s go outside for a walk. It’s too stuffy in here.”
Shao Wu glanced at the lower-right corner of the screen. “It’s only eight-thirty. You’re done already?”
“I should get home early.” Yang Shuyi smiled. “Longlong goes to bed early, and she still has school tomorrow.”
“…Oh. Okay.”
The internet café was crowded, mostly with young men, and even with the air-conditioning running it honestly did not smell very good. The moment they pushed through the door, Shao Wu drew in a deep breath. Apparently it had rained lightly while they were playing. The rain had already stopped, but the ground was still wet. The temperature had dropped a little, and Shao Wu and Yang Shuyi sat down on a bench by the street.
Shao Wu suddenly remembered the end of last April. Yang Shuyi’s father had caused a scene at school, and after Yang Shuyi got home the two of them fought. Then Yang Shuyi ran out to get online… It had been raining that night. Shao Wu had nearly searched every internet café in the city before finally finding him at Yinhe Internet Café. They ate hot-and-sour sweet potato noodles together. The spring night had felt like a hazy, gentle dream, and then Shao Wu leaned against Yang Shuyi’s shoulder and cried because everything felt so unfair. He really had felt horribly wronged back then. He could not understand why, apart from him, nobody in the world seemed to care how Yang Shuyi felt. Yang Shuyi had awkwardly reached over to touch his face and said, Don’t cry.
Back then, they thought the entire world was against them, that the whole world owed them something. Sitting in the “reserved seat” was humiliating, and a father making a scene was an unbearable disgrace. How could life contain so many awful things? They had not known that the truly awful things were still waiting ahead.
Then the Wenchuan earthquake happened.
Shao Wu turned and studied Yang Shuyi. A year had passed. Yang Shuyi had grown taller. Not only had he not dropped out, he had worked hard and sat the gaokao. He had become an older brother who left the internet café early because he remembered his little sister had to wake up for school the next morning. So much could change in 365 days.
That slightly lazy, slightly dispirited boy had already faded into the past like one particular rainstorm.
Shao Wu reached over and tugged Yang Shuyi’s school-uniform sleeve. “Can I ask you something, Yang Shuyi?”
“Mm?”
“Where do you want to go to university?”
“…”
“Didn’t you say before that you wanted to go north?” Shao Wu leaned back against the bench and looked up at the layers of fresh green leaves overhead and the dark green moss on the tree trunks. “What about Beijing? Any farther north would be too cold, right? And Beijing is the best city in the north anyway…”
Yang Shuyi smiled and nodded. “Are you planning to apply to schools in Beijing?”
“Mm… if my score is high enough?” Shao Wu’s heart thudded. “What about you?”
“I’m planning to apply to schools in Chongqing,” Yang Shuyi answered gently. “Grandma and Grandpa are getting old, and Longlong is still so young. I can’t leave.”
Shao Wu hoped he had misheard, but Yang Shuyi had spoken the sentence slowly and it was far too long for there to be any chance of misunderstanding.
“I did want to apply to schools in the north before, but you saw what happened… Longlong was bullied at school. Honestly, those two days scared me to death. What if something like that happens again? That was when I thought, I still have to stay in Chongqing.”
Yang Shuyi looked at Shao Wu, his gaze gentle and sincere, perhaps carrying a trace of envy. “I think Beijing is great too. With your grades, you’ll definitely be fine.”