“An Zi Yan, how many days off does the company give us for the holiday?”
“Tch.” An Zi Yan rolled over, turning his back on Mai Ding. Mai Ding stood beside the bed and wrinkled his nose at him. “I don’t want to disturb your sleep either.” He said that, but wasn’t he very obviously disturbing An Zi Yan’s sleep?
“You only have to tell me how many days off we get, so I can make precise plans. Hey, don’t go back to sleep!” Mai Ding wanted to push him, but restrained himself. Serving a ruler was like serving a tiger. He had to protect himself. He prowled around the bed like a restless ghost, glancing at An Zi Yan from time to time. Perhaps unable to bear the sight of someone constantly moving around him, An Zi Yan finally answered, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? What do you know, then? And you’re supposed to be my boss!”
“I know I can make sure you don’t get a holiday at all.”
“I was only joking! You really don’t have a sense of humor, do you?” Mai Ding promptly changed his expression, smiling sweetly. “What should we do for the holiday?” An Zi Yan had no interest in discussing it, but Mai Ding did. Enthusiastically, he went on, “What if we take a road trip and visit the cities nearby?”
“Drive you around?”
“What’s that tone supposed to mean? Is taking me along such a burden?”
“Mm.”
“Then who would you rather take?”
An Zi Yan shrugged. “An inflatable doll would give me much more peace and quiet.”
“I can’t believe you! You’re comparing me to an inflatable doll? There are huge differences between us!”
“You’ve just got the additional ability to talk.” Mai Ding felt an arrow shoot straight out of An Zi Yan and pierce his chest. He stumbled back, patting himself. “Can an inflatable doll clean your house? Can it cook for you? Can it wake you up every morning?” An Zi Yan was unmoved by the barrage of questions. Mai Ding reached the doorway, sounding a little aggrieved. “If you don’t admit I’m better than an inflatable doll, I’m leaving home!”
“You’re better than an inflatable doll.” An Zi Yan was clearly just trying to get rid of him.
“That’s more like it.” Thoroughly satisfied, Mai Ding entered the kitchen. As he washed vegetables, a terrible sadness suddenly came over him. Had he really just fought with an inflatable doll for An Zi Yan’s affections? Why on earth was there anything worth celebrating about An Zi Yan admitting he was better than one?
Forget An Zi Yan. Arguing with him was only making life harder for himself. After preparing breakfast, Mai Ding stood on the balcony doing stretches. He wasn’t waiting for An Zi Yan to wake up so they could eat together. It was just that he didn’t want to eat yet. That was all. Then he heard movement behind him and turned around smiling. “You’re up!”
“Don’t say such pointless things. If I weren’t up, how would I be standing here?”
“I’ll say whatever I want! You don’t have to correct me!”
“I’m trying to guide you toward a normal level of intelligence.”
“Thank you! But I don’t need your kindness. If I followed your guidance, I’d turn into a deranged person just like you.” Mai Ding brought breakfast to the table. An Zi Yan sat across from him, so Mai Ding changed seats and sat next to him instead. “I want to sit right beside you.”
“I’m a deranged person, remember? You’d better not sit near me.” An Zi Yan pushed at him. Mai Ding held tightly onto his chair. “I can sit beside whoever I want. That’s my personal freedom.”
“And it’s my personal freedom not to let you sit beside me.”
“If you don’t like me, that makes me want to sit even closer!” Mai Ding pulled his chair nearer still. An Zi Yan lightly tapped his nose with his chopsticks. “Idiot.”
That day, Mai Ding cooked, bought groceries, washed clothes, cleaned the house, and talked with An Zi Yan about little things. They each did their own chores and activities, then watched a film together. Nothing particularly special happened before evening came.
Sometimes An Zi Yan read a book before bed. Whenever Mai Ding saw him pick one up, he would pretend to be a great reader too. The books they chose were quite different. Mai Ding almost always selected books about how to be a better person, how to achieve success in life, or how to say no to particular social problems. He’d bought them mainly for moments like this, opening them now and then, so finishing any one book took him ages. After reading for ten minutes, he found himself wholeheartedly agreeing with what it said. “I should try some of these methods myself someday,” he murmured.
“If you’re that eager to learn, I recommend a book called One Hundred Ways to Commit Suicide.”
“There’s no such book!! I’m saying you should try reading the sort of thing I read. It would make you an even better person. I could lend it to you.”
“No need.”
“You haven’t even read it! It says we should write our character flaws on pieces of paper and bury them in the ground, leave the past behind, and start life anew. We should be confident, cut off feelings of inferiority, and never say ‘impossible.’ Don’t you think that makes sense?” Mai Ding was brimming with positive energy. An Zi Yan looked thoroughly disgusted. “If someone wants to start life over, the only option is reincarnation.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You ought to listen to other people’s advice sometimes.”
“That sort of advice? You bury your personality flaws in the ground and suddenly you’ve said goodbye to the past? Sounds like all you’ll accomplish is littering.”
“You have to believe in your heart that you’re leaving the past behind, or it won’t work.” Mai Ding stubbornly argued his case. “The book also says we should love everyone around us with all our hearts, and they’ll love us in return. We should learn to stay calm and never get upset about anything, and to get back up after failure.”
An Zi Yan looked even more disgusted. “The people who write this stuff have never really lived. They don’t understand reality; they just spout empty nonsense. Never get upset? Never feel inferior? Control your thoughts and emotions? That sounds even stupider than a fortune-teller’s predictions. Character flaws, all kinds of emotions, a dark side: those are what make people human. Trying to turn yourself into some perfect creature without a personality of your own is unbelievably boring.”
“Your ideas are the weird ones! The book gives plenty of positive examples. People who worked through hardship and became rich, others who recovered from cancer because of their positive attitudes, and others… Wait, let me flip back and find them. Then I’ll tell you.” Mai Ding turned back through the book, looking for more examples.
“Every time, they try to prove their theories with a handful of isolated cases. Today’s news reported someone miraculously surviving a fall from the twenty-first floor. Does that mean nobody needs to worry about dying from a fall anymore?” Mai Ding couldn’t think of a single reply. All he could do was glare. “You just want to stop me from becoming successful!”
“Nobody’s stopping you. Read whatever you like. Just don’t disturb me.” An Zi Yan turned another page. Mai Ding turned away, holding his book upright in front of his eyes. Suddenly An Zi Yan snatched it away. Mai Ding understood what he meant and turned back. “You read while lying down or leaning back all the time, don’t you?” An Zi Yan sounded perfectly reasonable. “Do you think your eyes compare with mine?”
“What? What about them? Are there diamonds in your eyes or something?”
“Too noisy. Go to sleep.”
An Zi Yan turned off the light. Mai Ding lay awake in the dark. The book had also said that before sleeping, a person should look back over the day and decide whether he was satisfied with his performance. Mai Ding considered what he’d done today. All of it had been the same everyday chores he repeated constantly. Beyond that, he’d accomplished nothing. He had become exactly the person the book mocked: someone drifting through life without achievement, without grand ambitions or convictions. Well, let it mock him. Let him be ordinary and unaccomplished. Let him live without lofty ideals or magnificent beliefs. This was simply who he was. Instead of sleeping on his own pillow, Mai Ding nestled his head onto An Zi Yan’s, breathed in the scent that always made him feel safe, and slowly closed his eyes.
I am satisfied with who I was today.
I think it’s because of you that so many little things that don’t matter have become important.