After paying and leaving the supermarket, they couldn’t find a taxi, so they had to walk back. Wang Yujun tactfully asked nothing, but Shao Wu almost wished he would ask something, like “What exactly is going on between you two?” Shao Wu himself couldn’t explain his relationship with Yang Shuyi anymore. That was precisely why he needed someone to press him, to make him think. Was it just a hopeless mess? If that were all, fine. But Yang Shuyi kept coming closer again, and Shao Wu simply couldn’t understand what he was thinking.
Nor could he understand what he himself was thinking.
Yang Shuyi was getting married.
They entered the inpatient building, went upstairs, passed a nurse eating KFC takeout at the nurses’ station, and continued down the hall. Twenty steps? He couldn’t count. His heart beat far faster than his feet moved. For years he’d known this was inevitable: whenever he approached Yang Shuyi, his heartbeat grew fast and heavy. It was instinct now. He was a scattering of iron filings, Yang Shuyi a magnet; even from a distance, those filings were already trembling and rustling.
Just before the room, Wang Yujun suddenly caught Shao Wu’s arm.
The door stood half open. Wang Yujun whispered, “Listen.”
The brothers exchanged a glance and pressed themselves against the wall together to eavesdrop.
It was Wu Yan’s voice:
“My Shao Wu has always been too introverted. High school was so busy that we adults didn’t pay enough attention… Then he went away to university and we had even less chance. All these years I’ve felt he had something on his mind, but he never told us.”
Yang Shuyi said, “Shao Wu really is rather introverted.”
“See, I didn’t even know he had a classmate like you! Such a nice young man.” Wu Yan laughed warmly. “Are you on annual leave? There’s still more than a month before Spring Festival.”
“Yes, annual leave,” Yang Shuyi said gently. “I’ll need to work a few more days before the holiday.”
Wu Yan sighed. “Young people work so hard these days. At least you’re in Chengdu, and now the high-speed rail makes traveling so convenient.”
“That’s right.” Yang Shuyi paused. “And after New Year, I’ll be transferring back to Chongqing.”
“Really?”
“I’ll be able to work in planning when I transfer back,” Yang Shuyi said with a smile. “And it’ll be closer to home.”
The more Shao Wu listened, the more tangled his thoughts became.
Why hadn’t Yang Shuyi mentioned his wedding?
He was transferring back to Chongqing?
And he had come alone. Shao Wu had already braced himself to meet his fiancée.
“Where have those two boys got to…” Wu Yan muttered. Shao Wu couldn’t quite hear.
But then Wang Yujun’s phone suddenly rang. The Super Mario tune blared through the corridor. Shao Wu was so startled he turned to run, but Wang Yujun grabbed him, hurriedly ended the call, and whispered fiercely, “What are you running for?”
“Bro! We’ve… we’ve been caught!” Shao Wu stammered.
“Tsk!” Wang Yujun gripped his arm. “Get in there.”
Wang Yujun pushed open the door first, Shao Wu following with his neck hunched into his newly bought down jacket, an awkward penguin. Yang Shuyi sat straight-backed on a stool, a carton of milk and a fruit basket beside his feet, clearly gifts he had brought. Shao Wu met his eyes for an instant and looked away.
“What are you two doing?” Wu Yan asked.
“We’d reached the door when Shao Wu decided these strawberries weren’t enough to entertain Xiao Yang and wanted to buy more fruit.” Wang Yujun spoke so loudly it sounded almost sarcastic. “I wouldn’t let him. They’ve been friends for years! Why be so formal?”
Shao Wu: “…”
Yang Shuyi: “…”
Wu Yan glanced at Shao Wu. “Xiao Yang’s too polite himself. It’s not often you’re both in Yongchuan. If you want to meet up, do it. You didn’t have to come to the hospital to see me.”
Yang Shuyi said, “Please don’t mention it. It’s only right that I came.”
“Exactly,” Wang Yujun chimed brightly. “Xiao Yang and our Shao Wu have been such old friends for years.”
Shao Wu felt that Wang Yujun was defending him and, at the same time, trying to get him killed.
“Shuyi,” Shao Wu forced himself to say, “thank you for coming.”
Yang Shuyi watched him quietly. “You’re welcome.”
Wang Yujun: “Heh, heh!”
“Go out and talk. Find a teahouse and sit for a while,” Wu Yan suggested kindly. “Junjun, give your brother the house key.”
“Mm.” Wang Yujun took out his keys and pressed them into Shao Wu’s hand. “Mom’s living at the Jinxiu Garden apartment now. You know the address?”
“I do…”
“Then you two have a nice reunion.” Whether intentionally or not, he put enormous emphasis on you two. “I’ll stay with Mom. Don’t worry.”
Shao Wu and Yang Shuyi sat in the garden below the inpatient building. It was almost nine, and apart from the occasional stray cat swaggering by, nobody else was there. They sat together on a bench at Yang Shuyi’s suggestion. He had first said, “Shao Wu, I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to apologize for?” Shao Wu asked. Only afterward did he realize how sharp his tone was. He’d sincerely wanted to know why Yang Shuyi was apologizing, but somehow it sounded like a fight.
“I wasn’t trying to force you to attend the wedding,” Yang Shuyi said. “Earlier, on the phone… I’m sorry. Could we sit and talk?” Only then did Shao Wu hear that his voice was hoarse, as if he had a cold.
So they sat. Fortunately the bench was long. They took opposite ends, leaving half an arm’s length between them.
A distant streetlamp cast a dim white blur of light across them. Sheltered by the darkness, Shao Wu stole a look at Yang Shuyi. They hadn’t seen each other in a year and a half. Shao Wu knew only that he’d gone to Beijing to see Longlong start university and visited two restaurants on a trip to Xichang. He looked unchanged, except… what was it? Pre-wedding anxiety? He seemed exhausted.
“You can see for yourself,” Shao Wu said, trying to sound calm. “My mom’s having surgery. I really can’t come to your wedding…”
“Aren’t you going to ask who I’m marrying?”
“Does it matter?” Shao Wu even joked, “It isn’t going to be a man, is it?”
Yang Shuyi ignored the joke and said, “I’m marrying Zou Xin.”
“Oh.” Shao Wu thought, then said sincerely, “You got back together. That couldn’t have been easy. I suppose you’ve finally got your happy—”
“When she came back, I thought we’d finally got our happy ending too.” Yang Shuyi smiled slightly. “Then I learned she was only marrying me because it would make having an affair easier.”
“…” Shao Wu turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Zou Xin pursued me when we first dated. I didn’t know why she liked me, but she was good to me. Once, after we got together, she failed a final exam, and I went to plead with her teacher.”
He went to plead for her. She failed a class.
Shao Wu remembered that. Zhu Jingjing had once mentioned Yang Shuyi going to see a teacher on his girlfriend’s behalf.
“The teacher’s surname was Zhang. He’s seventeen years older than Zou Xin and has two children. He was always such an easygoing teacher, hardly ever failed students, so everyone wanted his classes. But in Zou Xin’s class, of fifty-odd people, he failed twenty. Know why?” Yang Shuyi sighed so quietly that his next words struck Shao Wu with the force of a hydrogen bomb. “They’d argued over something trivial. Zhang only wanted to fail Zou Xin; the other nineteen were cover for her.”
“Shuyi…”
“I was cover too,” Yang Shuyi continued. “Long-term cover.”
For an instant, Shao Wu almost suspected Yang Shuyi was lying.
How could Zou Xin, so beautiful, openhearted, and spoiled, have an affair with a married man seventeen years older? Shao Wu could barely bring himself to think the word. Images rushed through his head: Yang Shuyi carrying Zou Xin’s cafeteria tray as she watched him, Zou Xin taking his hand, the photographs of them at Chashan Zhuhai… How could it be?
“When I graduated, it was Teacher Zhang who recommended me to a manager at the Exploration Bureau, an old classmate of his. I was so grateful. At graduation my roommates and I even bought him flowers. He patted my shoulder, told me to work hard, and finally told me to treat Zou Xin well.”
Shao Wu seized Yang Shuyi’s wrist and discovered that the hands he’d been resting on his knees had been trembling all along.
“How could this happen?” Shao Wu asked in fright. “How did you find out?”
“Zou Xin and I went to Chengdu. Last year Zhang transferred there too, to teach at a second-tier university. We took him out to dinner and I even asked why he’d chosen a second-tier school. He said he liked Chengdu. But you know why, don’t you? It was for… for their affair. Zou Xin told me all this herself.”
Yang Shuyi finally lifted his head and met Shao Wu’s eyes. He wasn’t crying or even looking sad. He simply watched him and said slowly, “Zou Xin wants to move the wedding forward because she wants to spend Spring Festival in the Maldives with Teacher Zhang.”
Shao Wu clung tightly to his hand. He couldn’t explain why, but even as Yang Shuyi sat solidly before him, he kept feeling he might be swept away like a gust of wind.
“Yang Shuyi,” Shao Wu asked, bewildered, “then are you… still getting married? Why?”
“Because she once had an abortion for me. She said the child was mine, and then she terminated the pregnancy. She told Grandma she’d had an abortion for me. And…” Yang Shuyi smiled bitterly. “How am I supposed to explain it to Grandma? The hotel’s booked; Grandma chose the jewelry for Zou Xin herself. How can I explain? Grandma couldn’t understand something like this happening. She couldn’t.”
Shao Wu stared at him, then slowly released his hand.
Yang Shuyi was right. Grandma couldn’t understand. She was nearly eighty, unlike Wu Yan, who’d tried to learn about homosexuality after her son left. She was an old woman who’d lost her son in the Wenchuan earthquake, now nearing the end of her life, hoping to see her only grandson married and settled first.
“So you’ll still marry her?”
“…Yes.”
“…”
A cold wind brought Shao Wu abruptly back to himself. Whether Yang Shuyi and Zou Xin really loved each other didn’t change one fact: Yang Shuyi would be with a woman, at least while Grandma was alive. Whether they were in love or merely acting didn’t matter.
“Why tell me?” Shao Wu asked.
“I don’t know.”
Then Yang Shuyi went on, “Zou Xin said she was sorry and was willing to bear children for me. But she only loves Teacher Zhang. Lately I’ve been thinking about how what people give and get can never balance. Whatever you give, whatever you receive, they’re never equal. I loved her sincerely. But look, it did no good.”
Isn’t that normal? Shao Wu thought.
How much sincere love had he given Yang Shuyi? Yet Yang Shuyi still liked women and would marry one. Not every sacrifice earned a return. He’d accepted that long ago.
“Do you still love her?” Shao Wu asked.
“I suppose not.” Yang Shuyi closed his eyes gently in the dark. “I’m just a little sad. Imagine it: everyone congratulating us, everyone happy for us, and only I know it’s all fake. But I can’t say anything.”
He leaned back on the bench, eyes closed, shoulders slumped, like a bewildered boy who’d given up on himself yet still couldn’t understand why fate refused him even the smallest kindness.
Shao Wu was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I’ll go to your wedding.”