Shao Wu checked the map. From Leshan, he could take National Highway 213 and then turn onto Provincial Highway 307 to reach Leibo County. The high-speed rail line from Chengdu to Leshan was already open, and the journey took less than an hour. He bought a ticket for the eight-thirty train that evening. There were no seats left, so he bought a standing ticket.
What worried him more was how to continue after reaching Leshan. It would be nearly nine-thirty by then, and there probably wouldn’t be any buses leaving for Leibo County. He might have to hire a car, but with a landslide having just struck Leibo and the hour so late, it would be hard to find a driver willing to take him there… Shao Wu privately regretted not learning to drive and getting his license.
There were still more than twenty minutes before boarding began. Shao Wu went to 7-Eleven, bought a piece of bread and a carton of hot milk, and wolfed them down in a few bites. He had no appetite at all, but he forced himself to eat. Who knew how long the road ahead might be tonight?
Sitting in the waiting hall, staring blankly at his sneakers, Shao Wu found himself thinking: if Yang Shuyi really had… really had died, how was he supposed to break the news to Longlong and Grandma? Of course he knew Yang Shuyi might not have been anywhere near that landslide. In fact, the odds of his dying in it were vanishingly small… But there was still a chance. Yang Shuyi might be dead. Maybe human beings simply lived at the mercy of probabilities. Every year people got cancer or died in car accidents. Some were even killed by objects falling from buildings as they walked down the street. Shao Wu suddenly felt that misfortune was a handful of glass marbles scattered from ten thousand meters up. Everyone stood some chance of being struck, however tiny.
If Yang Shuyi really was dead, how could he tell Longlong and Grandma? The question sent wave after wave of cold through him, until he could scarcely breathe. Longlong was young; given enough time, she would be able to accept the terrible news and slowly recover. She still had her own life to lead… But what about Grandma? She had Alzheimer’s disease and probably didn’t have many years left. Were they supposed to tell her, in the little time she had left, that her grandson had died too? Her thoughts were already so muddled: one moment she remembered that the bracelet had come from her granddaughter-in-law, and the next she thought her grandson was still in high school. Yet even through that confusion, Yang Shuyi was always on her mind. Her greatest fear was that after she died, Yang Shuyi would be left alone in the world.
Then Shao Wu realized that if Yang Shuyi died, the first person he was thinking about wasn’t himself.
It was as though he’d taken for granted that he mattered less to Yang Shuyi than Yang Shuyi’s family did, so first he had to work out how to take care of Longlong and Grandma. Had Yang Shuyi made him this way? Yang Shuyi always considered himself last. Grandma wasn’t well, so he stayed in Chongqing for university. Longlong wanted to study art, so he gave up graduate school. He himself was always the least important person… If Yang Shuyi really died, what would Shao Wu do? There wasn’t much he could do. They’d never even been together. He scarcely had the standing to wail and grieve as though his world had ended.
In truth, he still couldn’t imagine Yang Shuyi dying.
Death had always been a distant, indistinct idea to Shao Wu. The death of his family, Yang Shuyi’s death, his own death: none of them was imaginable. Especially Yang Shuyi’s. He was as tenacious and resilient as a weed. How could he simply die? Surely he would keep himself alive for his family’s sake, if nothing else? But eight years earlier, when Yang Shuyi had hurried to Chengdu just as Shao Wu was doing now, hadn’t he also believed that his father, Yang Long, couldn’t possibly be dead?
But his father really had died in that earthquake. Yang Shuyi hadn’t even been able to find his remains.
Chengdu East Station was crowded with people of every age, some sitting and chatting, some playing games with their heads down, some arguing loudly… In a strange, detached daze, Shao Wu thought that if Yang Shuyi truly had died in the landslide, he would find his remains. He would. Whether the way ahead held a landslide or another Wenchuan earthquake, whether Yang Shuyi’s body was broken and unrecognizable, Shao Wu would see him with his own eyes. Otherwise he’d spend the rest of his life searching, searching without end. Misfortune was a handful of glass marbles: whoever got struck was unlucky. It was random. But he had to see Yang Shuyi again. He couldn’t accept that the last time he’d ever seen him would be that damp, cold night when Yang Shuyi, drunk, looked at him and said, Love.
If misfortune was random, then finding him would be inevitable.
Boarding began for the high-speed train to Leshan. Shao Wu joined the line in a daze and shuffled forward with the crowd. When he was about five or six meters from the ticket gate, his phone rang.
The number was from Chengdu. Not Yang Shuyi, not Wang Yujun: a number he didn’t recognize.
A young couple behind him were wrapped around each other. He couldn’t tell who kissed whom, but there was a loud smack.
Shao Wu answered. “Hello?”
“Shao Wu, where are you?” The voice on the other end was anxious, slightly hoarse. “Did you go looking for me?”
At that moment, Shao Wu raised his head.
He looked up at the gray-white dome of Chengdu East Station and saw the glass marbles come raining down, skimming past him without touching him. He saw the blurred face of a god, if gods truly existed, silently surveying the human world. He saw the shadow of disaster flit past, leaving feathers and traces from the Wenchuan earthquake to this day, eight years later.
“Where are you?”
“I’m… Don’t cry, Shao Wu. Don’t cry,” Yang Shuyi said in a panic. “I’m in Shuimo.”
“Shuimo?”
“Shui as in water, mo as in millstone. Shuimo Town, under Wenchuan County.”
“…”
“Where are you?”
“Chengdu East Station.”
“Stop crying.” Yang Shuyi’s voice suddenly grew very gentle, as though he were comforting a child. “I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.”
“I’m coming to find you.”
After two seconds of silence, he said, “Come, then. Tomorrow morning, take the bus from Chadianzi Bus Station. There’s a direct service to Shuimo. I’ll meet you at the bus station.”
Shao Wu hung up. Behind him, he heard the young couple mutter, “Hey, could you move a little faster?”
He wiped his face and turned around. The boy had yellow hair and the girl had purple hair. “Sorry,” Shao Wu said. “I’m not going to Leshan anymore.”
The boy sounded annoyed. “If you’re not going, don’t stand there blocking everyone!”
“Sorry.”
Shao Wu looked at them and offered a heartfelt wish in his mind: May the two of you end up together.
On the morning of March twenty-fifth, Shao Wu bought a ticket at Chadianzi Bus Station and boarded a bus for Shuimo.
A fine, persistent drizzle was falling over Chengdu, beneath a pale-gray sky. From his window seat, Shao Wu watched the scenery change along the way: city towers and elevated roads giving way to swathes of fresh green washed clean by rain. Past Dujiangyan, the buildings grew fewer and the mountains taller. The rain stopped, and the sky cleared.
Clutching his phone, Shao Wu fell deeply asleep.
When he woke, the bus was already traveling along a road high in the mountains. All he could see was blue and green: the deep blue of the sky, the pale blue of the river, the brilliant green of the hills. They’d climbed in altitude and entered the western Sichuan highlands. The scenery along the road looked like an indigo sapphire refracting sunlight. Shao Wu asked the woman beside him, “Do you know how much farther it is to Shuimo?”
“Not long, another hour or so.” Her accent was crisper than the Chengdu dialect, so she was probably from Wenchuan. “I was going to say something earlier, but you were asleep. You’re not wearing nearly enough!”
Shao Wu was wearing a cotton jacket over a sweatshirt. In Chengdu, it hadn’t felt cold at all.
But up in the mountains, the temperature really did drop.
“Thank you,” Shao Wu said. “I’ll buy another jacket when I get off.”
The woman kept chatting. “Are you here on holiday?”
“Mm…”
“You’ve picked the right place.” She sounded proud. “They’ve rebuilt the old town here. It’s a great place to visit. When you’ve finished in Shuimo, you can go to Li County. Wolong’s nice too. You can see pandas…”
“Pandas…”
“Where are you from?”
“Chongqing.”
“Right, there’s no panda base in Chongqing, is there…”
They talked back and forth for quite a while. Shao Wu wasn’t sleepy anymore. As he watched the clear, luminous landscape outside, his mood gradually lifted.
At six minutes to eleven, the bus reached Shuimo Bus Station.
Neither Shao Wu nor Yang Shuyi had contacted the other during the journey. Shao Wu stood, retrieved his backpack from the overhead rack, and got off.
The woman climbed off behind him and called warmly, “Have a good time!”
“Thanks!” Shao Wu called back.
Shuimo really was much cooler than Chengdu. The sunlight felt slightly hot on his skin, but the air was full of chill. Shao Wu wrinkled his nose and sneezed.
He rounded the bus and stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Shao Wu.”
Someone called from behind. He turned and saw Yang Shuyi standing only a few paces away.
Yang Shuyi seemed to have gotten a little darker in the sun. His lips were dry and peeling, and the wind had left his hair a mess. But his gaze was extraordinarily bright, like the highland sunlight falling straight across Shao Wu’s face.
Then Yang Shuyi came toward him, and Shao Wu noticed a slight limp in his left leg.
He felt dazed all over again. The first words that came out of his mouth were, “You’re not dead.” He immediately wanted to smack himself on the head. What’s wrong with me?
Yang Shuyi raised his eyebrows and smiled. “That’s right. I’m not dead.”