On May 1, Shao Wu got up early and packed in the dorm. There were four people in their room; the other two had gone out to have fun. Ning Xiao sat up in bed, bleary-eyed, and asked, “Where are you going?”
“Home.” Shao Wu folded a shirt and put it into his backpack.
“Home? Weren’t you not going back?”
“Mm… I thought about it and decided I might as well,” Shao Wu said. “There’s nothing to do at school anyway.”
“Hey!” Ning Xiao flopped back onto the bed with a thud. “How is there nothing to do? I was going to take you out. I already made plans with people, and now you…”
“Where to?”
“You forgot? I told you last time. Shengshengman. My friend from Sichuan Fine Arts wants to go too, so come with us.”
Shao Wu stood there blankly for a few seconds before remembering. “Oh. Next time.”
“You promised, okay? Seriously, everyone says it’s pretty fun.”
“Mm, fine.” Shao Wu zipped up his backpack. “Next time.”
Shengshengman was a gay bar, said to be quite famous in Chongqing’s gay scene, over in the Guanyinqiao area.
It was only after starting university that Shao Wu learned the two majors with the most gay students were apparently foreign languages and art. By coincidence, he studied foreign languages, while Sichuan Fine Arts Institute sat right beside Chongqing University. Shao Wu remembered clearly that only a week into freshman year, while they were still doing military training, Ning Xiao had secretly texted him: “You are too, right?”
At the time, Shao Wu had replied blankly: “Am what?”
Ning Xiao thought he was pretending not to understand: “Come on. I could tell at a glance… Lu Junhao is too.”
Lu Junhao was their class study representative and lived in the dorm room across from theirs.
Later, Ning Xiao introduced Shao Wu to more “people of the same persuasion,” most of them boys from Sichuan Fine Arts next door, studying sculpture, printmaking, animation, and so on. Maybe it was because they studied art, but most of them were delicate-looking and attractive, and they dressed fashionably too. One animation student left the deepest impression on Shao Wu: over 175 centimeters tall, with a narrow waist and long legs, wine-red hair tied into a ponytail behind his head. His face was so cold it nearly looked disdainful of the whole world, his lips thin as blades while his skin was fine and pale as porcelain.
Ning Xiao said disdainfully, “Don’t let that cocky act fool you. He’s been famous for ages. Someone keeps him… I’ve never seen the guy, but I heard he’s already in his fifties.”
Shao Wu’s eyes widened in surprise. After a long while, he asked, “Really?”
“Mm. Everyone in his department knows. He’s been kept since high school. The money for learning to paint, and now for university, all comes from that old guy. Fuck, did you see that T-shirt he was wearing? New GUCCI summer release. You can’t even buy it in Chongqing. Only Shanghai has it.”
“Oh… is that so.”
Shao Wu suddenly thought of Wang Yujun. They had not seen each other since Wang Yujun went to Chengdu, but Shao Wu still remembered Wang Yujun warning him not to fall for straight men. He also remembered Wang Yujun’s flamboyant clothes and the way he had openly kissed a man in a restaurant… Back then, Shao Wu had thought Wang Yujun was impossible to understand, practically an alien. Now, though, he was gradually realizing that maybe Wang Yujun was the “normal” gay man. Within this circle, Shao Wu himself was the “abnormal” one. He did not go clubbing, he did not date, and he had no interest in hanging around with other gay men. His life consisted of only two things: studying and going to Southwest University.
Ning Xiao poked Shao Wu in the cheek, looking utterly exasperated. “Can’t you make yourself look nice for once? Get a perm, maybe. Hey, do your eyebrows too… I’m telling you, Shao Wu, if you actually dressed yourself up, men would definitely chase you.”
Shao Wu answered listlessly, “I still haven’t finished the homework Hanry assigned.”
In 2011, the high-speed rail from central Chongqing to Yongchuan had not opened yet, so they had to go to the coach station. Shao Wu brought two books and a shirt. The books were English originals he had just borrowed from the library, and he did not even know what stories they told yet. He would only be home for three days and did not really want to read, but he understood that his parents were already disappointed in him. He might as well make it look as though he were studying hard and give them a little comfort.
Yang Shuyi carried a bulging canvas bag. Shao Wu asked in confusion, “Why do you have so much stuff?”
“Medicine for Grandma and Grandpa, and snacks… for Longlong.”
“Oh…”
“Have you eaten breakfast?” Yang Shuyi opened the canvas bag. “Eat something first. I bought a lot.”
“No need, I bought some too.” In the coach-station waiting hall, Shao Wu pulled a plastic bag from his backpack. Inside were several pieces of bread, two bottles of yogurt, a bag of dried meat, a packet of seaweed, and two bags of Copico potato chips.
Yang Shuyi raised his eyebrows. “That much?”
Shao Wu felt a little embarrassed by the comment. It was true, they were only going home, so why had he made it look like they were going on a picnic? But if he was being truthful, he really had been ridiculously excited. He had walked around the supermarket the night before with a grin on his face the whole time… Shao Wu tore open the bag of chips and held it out to Yang Shuyi.
“You eat them.” Yang Shuyi shook his head. “I don’t like these.”
Shao Wu froze. “You don’t like them?”
“Mm,” Yang Shuyi said. “Too salty.”
So Shao Wu held the bag of Copico chips himself and crunched away. Before long, the whole bag was gone. Shao Wu took a sip of yogurt and thought, They really are too salty. No wonder Yang Shuyi doesn’t like them.
Once on the coach, Yang Shuyi tipped his head against the window and fell asleep. Several times, Shao Wu wanted to wake him so they could talk, but whenever he saw the dark circles beneath Yang Shuyi’s eyes, he could not bring himself to do it. It was not until noon, when warm sunlight streamed through the window, that Yang Shuyi finally woke.
“Where are we?” His voice was still a little muffled.
“About half an hour left, I think.”
“Mm.”
Yang Shuyi sat up and pinched the spot between his brows, still looking exhausted. Shao Wu could not help asking, “What did you do? Why are you so tired?”
“Worked on a group project yesterday. We stayed up all night.”
“What kind of assignment takes all night…”
“It’s actually a competition. Something related to urban planning. We have to build a model.”
“Is it hard?”
“Yeah, but this competition carries a lot of weight. If we win an award, it’ll earn me points toward a postgraduate recommendation.”
Elio’s Notes: Baoyan (保研) is recommendation-based admission to graduate school that allows selected students to bypass the national postgraduate entrance exam.
Shao Wu had been a little drowsy himself, but now he snapped fully awake. “You’re planning to get into graduate school through recommendation? Where?” Yang Shuyi studied geography. If he wanted to continue graduate school in Chongqing, Chongqing University would definitely be the best choice… This semester was nearly over. In September, they would enter junior year, and they had already finished most of their major courses. Shao Wu knew quite a few classmates had started looking for internships.
“I don’t know.” Yang Shuyi smiled. “We’ll see when the time comes.”
Shao Wu pressed him. “Do you want to stay in Chongqing for graduate school?”
“Maybe, but…”
“Mm?”
“There’s a professor at East China Normal University who works in urban planning. He came to our university for a lecture before and saw a proposal I made… He said I’d be welcome to study under him for graduate school.”
“Oh. That… that’s really good.” Shao Wu suddenly remembered that Yang Shuyi studied physical geography. “So you’d basically be changing fields?”
“Mm. Actually, I’m pretty interested in urban planning too.”
“Then… then that’s really good.”
Yang Shuyi smiled again.
Shao Wu began thinking it over privately. A postgraduate recommendation. His own major naturally had recommendation slots too, though not many, maybe four or five. Shao Wu did not know whether his credit-weighted GPA was high enough to qualify. Maybe he could fight for one, but where would he go? English major, Shanghai. Fudan was too much to hope for, but East China Normal University and Shanghai International Studies University might be possible…
When the coach reached Yongchuan Bus Station, Shao Wu and Yang Shuyi each went home.
His dad had gone to work, while kindergarten was closed for the May Day holiday, so his mom was home. It was only a little after three when Shao Wu arrived, but she had already prepared a table full of food. The house looked the same as always. His parents were usually busy with work, so there was not much to tidy. Shao Wu washed his hands and first carried his backpack into his bedroom. Just as he was about to turn around and go eat, he suddenly noticed a new stack of books in the corner of his desk.
After his acceptance letter arrived, his dad had nearly forced him to repeat senior year. In his father’s words, it was humiliating. They had already held the banquet, accepted red envelopes from relatives and friends, and Yongchuan was a small place. Almost everyone knew the Shao family’s boy had scored 631, enough to attend Renmin University.
But the acceptance letter was from Chongqing University.
In the end, his mom had stopped his father. With tears in her eyes, she sighed and said, “Forget it. If the child doesn’t want to leave home, then forget it. Chongqing University is a Project 985 university too… it’s still fine.”
Elio’s Notes: Project 985 was a Chinese government initiative that designated and funded a group of leading universities. Chongqing University was one of them.
His dad was so angry he smashed a drinking glass. “You’re the one who spoils him! Go on, keep spoiling him! Look what you’ve spoiled him into! A grown man and he doesn’t dare leave home for university! Aren’t you ashamed to tell people?!”
Later, Shao Wu sold all his textbooks and notebooks. The photograph of Peking University’s Weiming Lake that his older cousin had mailed him before the gaokao had been tucked inside a copy of Five-Year Gaokao, Three-Year Simulation, and he sold that too.
That was why his desk had become so empty. A new stack of books stood out immediately.
His mom called from the dining room, “Son, come eat! We’ll start without your dad.”
Shao Wu answered, “Coming, coming.”
He did not have time to look closely, but he still remembered the title of the thickest book in the stack, printed in bold red letters against a white background along the spine:
Guide to Majors at U.S. Ivy League Universities (CD Included)