After hearing only two songs, Shao Wu left the bar with Tang Heng and went to a nearby hotpot restaurant.
On New Year’s Eve, the hotpot restaurant was full of families having reunion dinner, entire clans crowded around tables amid constant laughter and noise. The two of them were seated in a corner where the light was dim, which was fine.
The beef-brisket broth was brought over and set to heat. Countless tiny bubbles rose from the bottom. Shao Wu stared at those bubbles vanishing almost as soon as they appeared for several minutes before finally saying to Tang Heng, “I’m sorry.”
He thought Tang Heng was smart enough to understand what he meant.
But Tang Heng was not only smart, he was direct. “So you don’t want to try with me anymore?”
“I…” Shao Wu felt terribly guilty for standing him up in all but name. “I still think this isn’t really right.”
“What isn’t right?”
“…” How was he supposed to answer? I don’t think it’s right to go on a date with you while thinking about another man?
“Is it because of that call?” Tang Heng ladled himself a bowl of beef-brisket soup. “That man in black?”
He was far too perceptive.
Shao Wu simply told the truth. “Yes. I like him… I’ve liked him for a long time.” They were both adults, but saying something like this still felt a little embarrassing.
“How long?”
“Seven or eight years.”
Tang Heng nodded. “That is a long time. He doesn’t like you?”
“He’s straight.”
“Oh.”
“He has to start a family.” Maybe precisely because Tang Heng was a stranger with no overlap with his life, all the things Shao Wu normally kept buried suddenly wanted to come out. “His father and stepmother died in the Wenchuan earthquake. The only family he has left is his grandmother and younger sister. His grandmother is getting old now, and what worries her most is him. She wants to see him settle down.”
Tang Heng suddenly smiled as though he had heard something interesting. “So this person lives completely for his family?”
Shao Wu did not know why he was asking that. He thought about it and realized it really was true. Yang Shuyi had stayed in Chongqing for university to care for Grandma and Longlong, and later gave up his guaranteed graduate-school place so he could support Longlong’s art studies. In all the years since the earthquake, Yang Shuyi had held that family up by himself.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Shao Wu said.
“How can someone be like that?” Tang Heng said lightly. “I can’t understand it. One person living for several other people, or one person living for a single other person. How do they do that?”
“…Because they’re all he has left.”
“That friend of mine, the one from Guizhou who died, was a little like the person you’re talking about, except he was even more extreme. When we were in university, every winter the school would run those ‘sending warmth’ programs, you know? Give out padded coats, quilts, things like that.”
Shao Wu said, “I know.”
“One year he signed up and got a quilt. The school-issued quilts were good quality.” Tang Heng’s speech gradually slowed. He lowered his head, staring at something Shao Wu could not see, and continued, “He mailed it back home and used a thin summer quilt himself. Wuhan winters are freezing, and his dorm was on the ground floor… Then one day I happened to see that both his feet were covered in chilblains. I asked him if he was a fucking idiot. He laughed and explained that it was fine, his older sister had just given birth and was in postpartum confinement, so she couldn’t catch cold…”
“Uh…” Shao Wu asked carefully, “Was he your boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend.” Tang Heng paused for a second, then added, “And he’s dead.”
“…” Shao Wu thought, You don’t look like someone whose ex-boyfriend is dead.
“But while I was calling him a fucking idiot, I was moved by him too.” The server brought over the freshly sliced beef they had ordered. Tang Heng deftly picked up the plate and swept the meat into the pot. “Really moved. Before I met him, I never understood what could possibly be attractive about the quality of ‘enduring hardship and working hard.’ Then I saw it in him and understood. After we got together, I thought if I treated him well, then he would treat me well too, the way he treated his family.”
Shao Wu gripped his chopsticks, completely forgetting about the hotpot. “And then?”
“Then I realized it didn’t work like that.” Tang Heng shrugged. “He just treated me like an idiot and took my money.”
“…”
“Later I thought maybe people like him have their own internal order. If you’re inside that order, say, if you’re family, then he’ll do everything he can for you. But if you’re outside that order, it doesn’t matter how much you give. It’s useless.”
Shao Wu was getting a little lost, so he followed Tang Heng’s line of thought. “Then how do you get into their order?”
“We can’t get into their order.” Tang Heng smiled. “Because we’re gay.”
The hotpot restaurant was not very large. A few seconds later, a family having reunion dinner at the far end of the room unexpectedly began singing a Cantonese song that Shao Wu could not understand. The atmosphere seemed to surge toward a sudden peak. Voices roared, glasses clinked, and even the bright white lights seemed to shine harder. Shao Wu and Tang Heng sat facing one another, silently cooking beef and eating it without speaking.
By the time the singing at the other end stopped, the two of them had finished the entire plate of beef. Shao Wu set down his chopsticks, took a sip of buckwheat tea, and said, “But have you ever considered another possibility?”
Tang Heng said, “What?”
“Someone treats everyone else well and hurts only you… because you’re special.”
“Did you take one of those ‘women’s virtue’ classes?”
Elio’s Notes: “Women’s virtue classes” (女德班) were controversial programs that promoted highly traditional, submissive expectations for women. Tang Heng is using the phrase sarcastically to mock Shao Wu’s self-sacrificing logic.
“I really have thought that way… at least before.” Shao Wu gave a bitter smile. “He isn’t the kind of person who deliberately hurts others, but with me… I’ve even had some extreme thoughts. I’ve thought that if his father and stepmother hadn’t died in the earthquake, if he hadn’t been so unlucky, maybe I wouldn’t like him this much. But the truth is I can’t stop feeling sorry for him. I don’t know why. If we temporarily believe in something called ‘fate,’ then why was he the one who had to be that unlucky? ‘Fate’ is too unfair. And then I think, he’s already been treated so unfairly. Demanding that he be good to everyone and demanding that he be perfect is unreasonable in itself.”
Tang Heng said thoughtfully, “But his ‘bad luck’ wasn’t caused by you. Like you said, if you absolutely have to give it a cause, the only answer is ‘fate.’”
“I didn’t cause it, but… but he’s obviously the person who should be compensated. Why is he the one who keeps having to give things up and sacrifice?”
“That has nothing to do with you.”
“It does.” Shao Wu’s cheeks grew warm. “If I’m the only person in the world he can hurt, then that counts as me compensating him on behalf of ‘fate,’ right?”
“Why should it be you?”
“Because I’m special to him too.”
“Your logic is extremely self-deceptive,” Tang Heng said calmly. “But we can follow your logic for now. Fine. Your way of compensating him is to love him and let him hurt you. You do it willingly. But what about him? Have you ever thought that the compensation he gets from you… that sounds strange. The love he gets from you will eventually reach some critical point, and then he won’t need it anymore. Using your logic, he might even stop hurting you.”
“…That day already came.”
“Then what?” Tang Heng pressed. “Once he doesn’t need you anymore, what do you do?”
“I… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll fall in love with someone else. I’m waiting.”
“All right, let’s imagine that he accepts you and the two of you get together. Would you refuse to let him treat you well? You can’t say that even after you’re together, he’s still allowed to keep hurting you.”
“…” Shao Wu shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine him being with me.”
“It’s not that you can’t imagine it. It’s that if you two got together, your logic would stop working.” Tang Heng analyzed it slowly and methodically. “This whole explanation is just a way to justify giving to him without expecting anything back. So if you get together and start needing something from him in return, your logic falls apart. And the problem is that you’re following this logic and giving to him, but the end point of that logic is not him returning your love.”
Shao Wu went completely still. He had not expected Tang Heng to take those few foolish, dreamlike sentences of his and reason through them layer by layer. But then what? So… “You mean I shouldn’t think this way?”
“There’s no should or shouldn’t.” Tang Heng’s tone softened. “No one can control the way you think. You just have to be mentally prepared. Though maybe you’ve been prepared for a long time. You give to him and get nothing back.”
He gave to him and got nothing back. Shao Wu loved Yang Shuyi. The feeling of love came from Shao Wu, the impulse to love came from Shao Wu. It had nothing to do with Yang Shuyi, nor was it something that could be settled like a transaction where money and goods changed hands. Shao Wu had understood that long ago. Yet hearing Tang Heng say it aloud still made his heart feel as though it had cracked open one more time.
Tang Heng said nothing more and only called him back to the food. “Eat. It’ll get tough if you keep cooking it.”
After that they talked about other things. It turned out Tang Heng did sociology research. He had studied at Wuhan University as an undergraduate, completed both his master’s and doctorate overseas, and after graduating became a lecturer at Macau University of Science and Technology. Shao Wu asked whether he had already taken Macau residency. Tang Heng shook his head and said he had no plans to.
They finished eating soon after. After everything they had talked about, it felt as though they had already become close friends, while both also understood clearly that they were only friends and there would be nothing else between them. Before parting, they agreed that Shao Wu would visit Macau sometime and Tang Heng would show him around.
At the end, Shao Wu still could not help asking, “How do you think I can change that kind of… logic?”
But Tang Heng said, “That’s just your excuse.”
“Oh…”
“You’re one of the crazy ones too.” Tang Heng smiled. “But who can control this kind of thing?”
Then he got into a taxi and waved to Shao Wu. He was heading for Gongbei Port to cross back into Macau.
Shao Wu stood in the night wind and watched the taxi drive away. He thought about what Tang Heng had just said: You’re one of the crazy ones too. He had said too.
After Spring Festival, the postgraduate-entrance-exam results for graduating seniors were settled. Many students who had failed chose to study abroad, and Shao Wu’s workload suddenly became much heavier. His boss was a Northeastern woman with a brisk, straightforward personality who praised him several times. By mid-July, she promoted him.
Work was so busy that even on holidays Shao Wu had no interest in going to Macau for fun. He only wanted to lie in bed and sleep for an entire day. Tang Heng was even busier. They occasionally chatted on WeChat, and Tang Heng said he had two undergraduate courses to teach that semester, while his faculty had also started a joint project with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, so he was constantly traveling among Macau, Hong Kong, and Beijing.
May 12 was Shao Wu’s twenty-fourth birthday. He worked up the courage to call his parents, but both of their phones were switched off. Shao Wu thought his number had probably been blacklisted. Not long afterward, he transferred two thousand yuan to Zhu Jingjing and asked her to buy some gifts, anything would do, and visit his family as a friend to see how his parents were doing.
Zhu Jingjing naturally went. Shao Wu remembered clearly that it was a Sunday morning. He told her there should be someone home on Sunday morning. His father often traveled or attended meetings, but his mother should be there. He did not have work that day. After waking at five in the morning, he could not fall asleep again and lay clutching his phone, waiting for Zhu Jingjing’s WeChat messages. At exactly eight, Zhu Jingjing said she was leaving. He replied, Okay. His palms began to sweat. He imagined Zhu Jingjing meeting his parents and mentioning him. Would his mother cry? Would she say she missed him? He even prepared himself: if, if his parents softened, he would immediately quit his job and return to Yongchuan. Yang Shuyi was never going to be with him anyway. He could promise his parents he would remain single his whole life. Then whether he was gay or not would no longer matter.
At 8:47, Zhu Jingjing unexpectedly called him.
“Shao Wu, I’m outside your apartment…” she said carefully. “No one answered. The neighbor said your parents moved away.”
“…”
Shao Wu thought, So… so they really don’t intend to acknowledge me as their son anymore?
Then again, he had brought it on himself. He could not call it unjust.
But was he really going to stay in Zhuhai now, at least for many years? Quite a few of his coworkers were Cantonese, and he was gradually beginning to understand some Cantonese. He had gotten used to mild Cantonese food and had even come to think it was pretty good. His life seemed to have fallen onto another track, one extraordinarily far from both the past and his hometown. He could no longer even distinguish his own emotions. Was he happy? Disappointed? Or had he already gone numb?
He had developed new habits too. Playing badminton with several coworkers every Saturday night. Going alone to Yangming Plaza to watch movies. And… and using Yang Shuyi’s WeChat ID to search for his Weibo and Dianping accounts: shuyiy1991. Unfortunately, Yang Shuyi’s Weibo was practically a zombie account. Every few days he reposted something related to geology or urban planning, but he never posted anything himself. His Dianping account was rarely updated either. Shao Wu had counted: he had marked eight restaurants in total, leaving no written reviews, only ratings. Six were in Chengdu and two in Xichang, so Shao Wu guessed that Yang Shuyi must have gone to Xichang on a business trip that May.
He could only learn what Yang Shuyi had seen and where he had gone within such a tiny window. Even that was better than repeatedly opening his almost blank Moments page.
After that phone call on New Year’s Eve, they did not contact each other again. Shao Wu thought that was good. He could still watch him silently from afar, like watching an old friend. That was enough.
A year passed quickly. By the end of 2015, Shao Wu had risen to a mid-level management position. The company itself was not very large, but his income had increased considerably from when he first arrived in Zhuhai. A young couple who worked under him registered their marriage and moved into a new apartment, and Shao Wu was invited to their housewarming dinner. It even made him start thinking about establishing local residency and buying a home, and he began looking into the relevant policies. He was alone, after all, with few expenses. He could afford a mortgage.
By early December, the temperature in Zhuhai was still above ten degrees Celsius, perfect for an overcoat. Tang Heng said his classes for the semester had finally ended. Taking advantage of the clear, pleasant weather, he invited Shao Wu to come visit Macau. Shao Wu’s coworkers urged him too: You’ve been in Zhuhai this long and still haven’t gone to Macau? That’s ridiculous. Bring us back some cosmetics while you’re at it.
So on December 7, Shao Wu crossed through Gongbei Port into Macau.
It was a brilliant sunny day, warmer than the previous few days. Shao Wu wore a denim jacket and even felt a little hot. Tang Heng said, since this was his first time in Macau, they should probably see the Ruins of St. Paul. It was a historic site, after all. Shao Wu looked around at the European-style buildings and said cheerfully, “I’ll follow your lead.”
Just as Tang Heng had said, there were no raggedly dressed people on Macau’s streets. When they took a bus to Praça Ferreira Amaral, there were even more tourists around, men and women everywhere carrying Louis Vuitton bags. The two followed the navigation on Shao Wu’s phone toward the Ruins of St. Paul. The narrow streets were packed with people, and Tang Heng said helplessly, “This is why I’ve only been there once.”
Shao Wu was in a good mood and joked, “Then have you been to a gay bar in Macau?”
Tang Heng answered flatly, “I suspect Macau doesn’t have any gay bars at all.”
By the time they finished touring the Ruins of St. Paul, it was noon. Tang Heng took Shao Wu to Rua do Cunha. “My students told me about this place,” he said. “The Portuguese egg tarts and beef offal are good, and there are some pretty authentic Portuguese restaurants nearby.”
Shao Wu asked curiously, “Do you really never go out normally?”
The temperature rose at noon and the sun was strong. Tang Heng narrowed his eyes. “I don’t like places where everyone seems to want for nothing. They feel like a fictional utopia.”
After he said it, he and Shao Wu looked at each other for a moment and both laughed. Shao Wu said, “As expected of a former rocker.”
“The Venetian isn’t far from Rua do Cunha either,” Tang Heng continued. “Didn’t you need to buy cosmetics for your coworkers? You can get them there.”
“Mm.”
“There’s a casino inside too, if you want… Is that your phone?”
“Huh?” Only when Tang Heng said it did Shao Wu notice that his phone was ringing in his pocket.
The instant he saw the name “Yang Shuyi” on the screen, Shao Wu nearly threw the phone away.
Am I dreaming? No. No, wait. He probably hit my number by accident.
Shao Wu held the phone without answering, waiting for Yang Shuyi to hang up on his own. But it kept ringing stubbornly, the chiming sounding almost like a death knell.
Tang Heng asked, “Is that your ‘friend’?”
“…Yes.”
“Does he call you often?”
“No. The last time was… New Year’s Eve.”
The phone was still ringing.
Tang Heng was silent for a second. “Then I’m lucky. A whole year later and I still managed to be here for it again.”
Shao Wu: “…”
It seemed Yang Shuyi had not dialed by mistake. Shao Wu had no choice but to answer. He bit down on his lip and forced himself to calm down.
“Hello, Shuyi?” Good. That tone is perfect. Exactly how you should sound with an old friend.
“Shao Wu.” Maybe because it had been so long since they had spoken, Yang Shuyi sounded unusually hesitant. “Is now a good time?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine. What’s wrong?”
The other end was silent for several seconds.
“I’m getting married,” Yang Shuyi said. “February fifth next year.”
Oh. He’s getting married.
…He’s getting married?
It was like a bolt of lightning cracking down from a clear blue sky. Shao Wu swayed, caught himself, and said, “I probably can’t get away then. Ah, that’s a busy time for me. Postgraduate entrance-exam results will be out and a lot of students will be going abroad.” Sorry, Yang Shuyi. I have to take it back. I’m not going to your wedding. I changed my mind.
“Mm, I see,” Yang Shuyi said calmly. “It’s fine. Your work is important.”
“My work? It’s nothing, just something to make a living.” Am I talking too fast? Does it sound weird? Shao Wu gritted his teeth and held himself together. “Don’t worry. Even if I can’t be there in person, I’ll definitely send something… Oh, right, I’m visiting Macau right now. I’ll mail you two a card first. Give me an address.”
“No need to go to the trouble. You keep enjoying yourself. I’ll hang up?”
He won’t even give me an address? Is he afraid I’ll show up and make a scene at the wedding? No. I really, really won’t go.
“All right.” Shao Wu smiled. “Then I wish you a successful wedding in advance. Yeah.”
Shao Wu hung up and raised his head. Directly in front of him was a small statue set into a pale-yellow wall. He stared for a moment and asked Tang Heng, “What’s that?”
“A statue of the Virgin Mary. There are a lot of churches around here.”
Years of wind and sun had left the statue heavily weathered. Shao Wu looked at it, unable to make out her features. From the general posture he could only guess that her head was bowed and her eyes lowered, as though she could not bear to look upon everything in the human world.