Xin Hexue had sweat streaming down his back from the fish to gather corn, so he went to change into a fresh pullover T-shirt. By the time he finished changing and looked up, he saw two trails of blood meandering out from under Lu Yang’s nose.
“Lu Yang… you have a nosebleed?”
He hesitantly reminded his dumbstruck bamboo horse (childhood friend).
Lu Yang was still motionless until Xin Hexue walked up to him, then he raised his hand in a daze and subconsciously wiped the back of his hand across his nose…sure enough, it was all blood.
A cool hand touched his forehead.
Lu Yang’s gaze shifted. The scene in his mind was hard to shake off, and for a moment, he didn’t know where to look, so he could only stare at Xin Hexue’s eyelashes.
‘Wow..so long…’
‘Long and thick, soft and moist.’
Lu Yang remembered during nap time in kindergarten, he often moved his pillow to face Xin Hexue and secretly counted his eyelashes to fall asleep.
Xin Hexue stuffed tissues into Lu Yang’s hand. With one hand feeling Lu Yang’s forehead and the other touching his own, he said, “Did you get heatstroke? But it doesn’t feel hot…”
Lu Yang held the tissues to his nose. “I don’t know, maybe I just have too much internal heat.”
He subconsciously wanted to tilt his head back to stop the bleeding, but Xin Hexue pulled his head back down. “Don’t tilt your head back; the blood can flow backward and choke your windpipe.”
Fortunately the bleeding wasn’t heavy.
Once Lu Yang had held it long enough, he went to the yard to wash his face.
The sudden afternoon rain was hard to handle, but it was clear and cool, lowering the temperature of the whole land.
The sky after being washed by water was a startling blue. In the evening, a few rays of the sunset pierced out from behind the mountain.
Small Yellow plunged into the paddy field and rolled in a mud pond, getting so dirty it was unbearable to look at. Xin Hexue punished it by making it sit in the corner of the yard. It kept whining and whimpering, so Zhuang Tongguang had to carry a bucket of water and scoop water with a wooden ladle to give it a bath.
Xin Hexue moved a small stool and sat far on the other side, snapping beans, to avoid Small Yellow from splashing dirty water on him.
“Big Brother, don’t bother with it. It needs to sit there until dinner,” Xin Hexue said.
Xin Hexue was very good at disciplining dogs. He frowned at Small Yellow and said, “You went and rolled in the mud pond, so you don’t get a big bone tonight either.”
This made Small Yellow whine anxiously. But Big Yellow had a soft heart; at dinner time, it brought its own big bone to Small Yellow’s food bowl.
Perhaps the rain in the afternoon had washed the sky clean, inviting a sky full of stars to be guests at night.
The sky enveloping them was like sapphire blue velvet.
A bamboo mat was laid on the open ground in front of the house, and mugwort sticks were lit to repel mosquitoes. Everyone sat in the yard eating watermelon.
Xin Hexue didn’t expect Lin Oufei to be quite good at coaxing the elderly. Over the past few days, Grandma had been calling him ‘Xiao Fei, Xiao Fei.’ Moreover, with his skilled needle-threading technique and impressive academic grades, he had earned Grandma’s constant praise.
Lin Oufei took a bite of the red watermelon flesh and casually asked Grandma, “When Guaiguai was growing up here, did he have any particularly close playmates?”
Xin Hexue fell silent for a moment, then turned to Lin Oufei and said, “You’re not allowed to call me that.”
It was fine when elders called him that, but when a peer and good friend said it, Xin Hexue felt embarrassed and his ears felt hot.
Lin Oufei wasn’t the least bit intimidated by his threatening look.
The light bulb under the eaves was shaped like a pear. Grandma sewed the hem of an old garment as she thought back seriously. “To say close, definitely no one. Guaiguai never brought friends home to play when he was little. He would either go to his great-uncle’s house to learn characters and read books, or he would wait until other children begged and urged repeatedly before he was willing to play with them for an afternoon. He knew to come home on his own before dinner time.”
As if she had found someone to confide in, Grandma said to Lin Oufei in a teasing tone, “Guaiguai wasn’t ordinary when he was little. He was so clean. All the other kids in the village were mud babies who grew up in the dirt and rolled in the ponds. He thought the other kids weren’t clean and didn’t like playing with children his own age.”
“One day he went out to play, and some miscellaneous kid smeared mud on his face. He came back to me with tears in his eyes, looking like a calico cat. I couldn’t help but laugh, and he said I was a bad Grandma.”
Grandma couldn’t help laughing again, almost sewing the stitch crooked.
Xin Hexue said helplessly, “Grandma…”
Lin Oufei’s gaze swept over Xin Hexue’s face, unable to imagine him with tears in his eyes. Searching through his memories, he said, “Is that so? I’ve never seen him cry.”
“That’s right,” Grandma revealed the truth. “He actually cried a lot when he was little, but he never let me or his grandpa know. Either he was afraid we’d worry, or he was afraid we’d laugh at him, so he always cried in secret.”
“Take that incident with Lu Yang for example. Xiao Lu?”
Grandma looked back and saw Lu Yang handing a piece of watermelon, with most of the black seeds picked off, to Xin Hexue. Hearing his name, he responded, “Yes, Grandma, I’m here.”
Grandma said that after Xin Hexue went to his aunt’s house in Lingzhou, he could only return to his hometown during summer or New Year vacations. The first summer he came back, they heard he had made a good friend named Lu Yang, and they had agreed to call each other at least once a week during the summer.
Back then, her house didn’t have a telephone installed. To make a call, you had to go to the village shop, and it cost fifty cents per call.
Xin Hexue didn’t want Lu Yang to know his house didn’t have a phone, so he very domineeringly laid down a tyrannical rule: only he could call Lu Yang, and Lu Yang was not allowed to call back.
To avoid missing Xin Hexue’s calls, Lu Yang moved the camp bed his dad bought next to the landline phone at home. He was willing to feed the mosquitoes in the living room and sleep guarding the phone at night.
During the first call, Grandma was worried and accompanied Xin Hexue to the village shop and also bought a pack of salt.
Just as the fifty-cent phone fee was about to run out, she saw Xin Hexue immediately put on a stern face and say goodbye, that he was going to hang up and play with other children.
Grandma heard the child on the other end crying so miserably, so heart-wrenchingly, crying for his dad and mom, and begging please, please don’t hang up.
Her own good grandson still calmly hung up the phone, took her hand, looked up and said, Grandma, I’m done with the call, let’s go home.
Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed, Grandma got up and saw Cin Hexue sleeping with his head buried in the blanket. Worried he would suffocate, she pulled down the blanket and then discovered that the child still had half-dried tear tracks on his face.
So it wasn’t that he didn’t miss his good friend that much; he was just hiding and crying in secret.
She discussed it with her husband, and Grandpa had someone come to install a telephone the very next day.
After hearing this, Lin Oufei stopped laughing, the reason being he didn’t like to laugh.
Lu Yang was shocked when he heard this. “I really thought you were annoyed with me and wanted to go play with other kids.”
He cried so hard he woke up Zhu Cuifeng, who had just come home from the night shift and gone straight to sleep. She almost kicked him all the way to Licheng.
“…” Xin Hexue couldn’t find a point to refute, so he could only say, “But there really were children who came to play back then.”
Children’s likes and dislikes are very direct; they just like pretty things. So even though Xin Hexue paid them little attention, the kids in the village still liked to crowd around him.
To prevent Grandma from continuing to reveal his embarrassing past, Xin Hexue said he was tired.
Everyone moved the stools, rolled up the bamboo mat, and went to brush their teeth, wash their faces, and go to their rooms to sleep.
The light switch for the bedroom was by the head of the bed. Xin Hexue said to them, “I’m turning off the light.”
“Mm.”
The bedroom fell into darkness.
Lu Yang closed his eyes, but all he could see was the scene from during the day, and he couldn’t fall asleep no matter what. The fan in the corner blew incessantly. One moment he felt the weather was too hot, the next he felt the fan blades were too noisy.
He tossed and turned, his movements never stopping.
He accidentally woke Xin Hexue, who had just fallen asleep. His voice, like a dreamy murmur, rang out, “Lu Yang, if you don’t sleep soon, I’ll call all the mosquitoes in the village to bite you.”
“I’ll sleep, I’ll sleep.”
Lu Yang remained stiff like a zombie, not moving.
He held out until the clouds blocked the stars’ eyes, and only then did Lu Yang fall asleep, like a thief.
The dream was bizarre and fantastical, filled with colorful bubbles floating in the air. Lu Yang looked closely and noticed that each one contained Xin Hexue.
Xin Hexue from kindergarten, Xin Hexue from second grade, Xin Hexue elected as the Young Pioneers brigade leader, Xin Hexue in middle school, Xin Hexue recording tapes for him…
So many Xin Hexues, different Xin Hexues, so blissful…
He wandered in an ocean of Xin Hexue, swimming and swimming.
Until a strand of blinding sunlight spilled into a crack in the dream. Lu Yang shielded his eyes and only looked after the holy light faded.
Xin Hexue had crossed his arms, gripping the edge of his pullover T-shirt and pulling it up.
As the hem rode up, a section of his supple waist was revealed, so white it seemed to glow.
The lines were surprisingly beautiful, the curves smooth and natural. It looked slender but not bony, instead covered by a layer of smooth, thin muscle.
For some reason, Lu Yang had a feeling that it would feel very comfortable to touch, like touching a soft cloud.
Xin Hexue seemed to notice him, turning his head in surprise.
“Lu Yang?”
Lu Yang suddenly opened his eyes. It was still early, and it was pitch black outside the window.
As his senses returned, he immediately discovered the dampness in his pants.
‘…Oh no.’
………
If he didn’t set an alarm, Xin Hexue would wake up later during summer vacation than during school, naturally waking up after 7 a.m.
Still half asleep, he threw aside the thin blanket, sat up, and his dangling legs found his slippers.
He stretched by the window where the sun came in, then went outside to fetch water and wash up.
The breakfast cart from town would drive into the village a little after 6 a.m. On days when they didn’t cook at home, Zhuang Tongguang would usually go buy breakfast for the family.
Xin Hexue saw the fried dough sticks, soy milk, and sponge cake on the table, but the next second he saw Zhuang Tongguang just coming out of his room. Clearly, Zhuang Tongguang had also overslept like him.
‘So who bought breakfast?’
Xin Hexue sought the truth.
He spat out toothpaste foam, rinsed noisily, then wet a towel with well water and carefully washed his face.
“Lin Oufei, did you go out to buy breakfast this morning?”
Lin Oufei shook his head.
Xin Hexue asked around; Grandma and Grandpa hadn’t gone either. That only left Lu Yang.
He looked around and finally found Lu Yang by the pond below.
To get to the pond, you had to follow the small path down.
Xin Hexue was halfway there when he heard Lu Yang’s mysteriously muttering.
“How could you do this? You’re already seventeen, you need to learn to control yourself.”
“Yes, yes, there’s also the influence of puberty hormones, but you still can’t be so beastly towards your good brother. The biggest difference between humans and beasts is that they’ve been to school. You’ve already completed compulsory education, do you understand what manners are?”
“I’ll let it slide this time, give myself another chance.”
“Alright, alright, it’s not allowed next time.”
The more he listened, the stranger it seemed.
“Lu Yang?”
“What are you muttering to yourself about?” Xin Hexue stared at his childhood friend suspiciously, crossing his arms. “Did you do something wrong?”
Lu Yang had just finished a thorough and hearty lecture to himself when he turned around and saw Xin Hexue. As a result, he almost slipped and fell into the pond.
