The Fifteenth Fallen Leaf
Wu Yu had grown disinclined to go outside. Over the past few days, whenever she found the chance, she had wandered everywhere, enveloped by the mountains and steeped in the wind. But these past two days, aside from eating, she spent most of her time curled up in bed, playing on her phone or sleeping. Only when her craving for cigarettes came did she go behind the window to smoke.
She had also found a reasonable and impeccable excuse: pretending to be sick, claiming that Ji Shiqiu had passed his cold on to her.
That was why she had begun suffering from headaches, becoming prone to laziness and weakness all over.
This also allowed them to avoid having Ji Shiqiu appear in public and be seen by more villagers or cameras.
The boy was easy enough to fool. He seemed to believe it completely, but he could not stay cooped up in the room from morning till night. Autumn was harvest season, and there was plenty of farm work to be done. Sister Lin had neither sons nor daughters. After her husband had gone away to work, he had disappeared without a trace, while her new beau, Old Zheng, had difficulty walking. This unidentified young man therefore became the best farmhand she could have asked for.
He was mysterious, but Sister Lin did not care about that.
All she knew was that Ji Shiqiu was handsome, polite, obedient, and capable. His efficiency at farm work in a single day was who knew how many times greater than in previous years.
Especially after she had secretly told him that helping her with the work could save Wu Yu the cost of her lodging, the boy became even more hardworking.
She could tell that he liked Wu Yu.
And she could not help regretting that it would have been wonderful if Wu Yu were her daughter.
She lived alone, and opening a homestay was partly because she wanted the place to be livelier. But Suixiu was a remote little village, its houses with their worn-out tiles, nothing like the other villages in southern Anhui. Hardly any tourists came throughout the year.
All she wanted was a pretty daughter she could bicker with, and then a dependable son-in-law who was tolerant of her, someone who spoke less and did more.
How happy she would be then, how complete this life of hers would be, just like the moon in the sky these past few days, so perfectly round.
Wu Yu had not left the house for two days, and Sister Lin found it strange. Looking at Ji Shiqiu, who was shucking corn beside the door, she asked, “Xiao Qiu, what’s wrong with Wu Yu?”
Ji Shiqiu said, “A cold. She isn’t feeling well.”
Sister Lin laughed. “How come you two young people have fallen ill one after another? I’m nearly fifty, and I’m still as strong as an ox.”
Ji Shiqiu’s lips curved at her description.
Sister Lin rubbed both hands on her apron, then walked closer to him. “You don’t have to keep helping me with the work all the time. Go upstairs and check on her.”
Ji Shiqiu said, “She told me to come down and help you whenever I had nothing to do.”
Sister Lin pushed his shoulder. “Go, go, upstairs. Staying cooped up in that room without any ventilation, how is she supposed to get better? Tell her to come out this afternoon and help pick osmanthus flowers.”
Ji Shiqiu nodded in agreement.
When he returned upstairs to the room, Wu Yu was indeed still lazing in bed. Perhaps she had heard the door open. The woman, lying on her side, turned her head and glanced at him before turning her face away again.
Ji Shiqiu walked to the bedside. “Feeling any better?”
Wu Yu looked as though she could not be bothered with him. “No.”
Ji Shiqiu asked, “Does your head still hurt?”
Wu Yu said, “Mm.”
She sat up, looking listless and distant. “What are you doing up here?”
Ji Shiqiu said, “Lin-jie called you downstairs to pick osmanthus flowers.”
Wu Yu asked, “Where?”
Ji Shiqiu replied, “I didn’t ask.”
Wu Yu said, “If it’s far, I’m not going. I don’t feel well. I can’t walk.”
Ji Shiqiu looked at her for several seconds, then bent down and pulled open the bedside table drawer, rummaging for the mercury thermometer he had used before.
Wu Yu realized what he was looking for. “You’re looking for the thermometer?”
Ji Shiqiu answered, “Mm.”
Wu Yu said, “I gave it back to Lin-jie.”
Ji Shiqiu turned to leave the room, but Wu Yu called him to a stop. She crooked a finger at him, leaning sideways against the edge of the bed. “You take my temperature.”
Ji Shiqiu paused. He walked around from the foot of the bed to her side, bending down to test her forehead with the back of his hand.
Wu Yu raised one finger and held him off.
“Use your forehead to take my temperature.”
She looked at him quietly, teasing yet alluring.
Ji Shiqiu fell silent. His Adam’s apple moved once. With one hand pressed against the bedboard, he lifted her face with the other and brought his forehead against hers.
Their breaths mingled, their gazes tangled. He had no intention of flirting. He pressed against her forehead again and again, very seriously, making certain each time.
Their temperatures were almost exactly the same.
At such close distance, the woman suddenly began to giggle, as though a prank had succeeded, her breath spraying across the tip of his nose.
Their foreheads parted, but his lips covered hers, catching the unrestrained blossoms of her laughter between them before sending them back.
Wu Yu’s breathing grew disordered. Her arms curled around him, entwining him, and she no longer let go.
Ji Shiqiu guessed that she was pretending to be sick, but he had his own understanding of it. Wu Yu had always been someone who did whatever she pleased. It was hardly surprising for her to have a different idea from one second to the next.
As for him, all he needed to do was fulfill his promise, using every present moment to accompany her on her adventures.
As for everything else, he did not dare think about it. Or perhaps the coaxing and reassuring he used on himself was that it should not come so quickly.
Every household in Suixiu Village had an osmanthus tree, some Golden Osmanthus and some Sweet Osmanthus.
The flowers of the Sweet Osmanthus tended toward orange-red, while the Golden Osmanthus was lemon-yellow. The ones planted behind Sister Lin’s house were the most common Golden Osmanthus, two trees growing side by side. Clusters of blossoms gathered among their dark-green branches and leaves, appearing shy and bashful, yet upon drawing closer, one found the flowers almost too generous. Their fragrance was so rich it seemed unreasonable, flowing out like honey and, without giving anyone a choice, enveloping everyone beneath the trees in a deep golden luxuriance.
“I loved osmanthus the most when I was in school.” Wu Yu kept both hands in her trouser pockets, tilting her head up at the hazy halos of light appearing and disappearing between the flowers and leaves. “Other flowers never have such a strong presence.”
Sister Lin was spreading some unused bedsheets over the grassy earth to catch the falling flowers. “Aren’t peach blossoms flowers? Aren’t roses flowers? Which flower isn’t more eye-catching than osmanthus?”
Wu Yu did not agree.
In her eyes, no flower could be like osmanthus, needing no sight of its blossoms, relying on scent alone to tell her so clearly and unmistakably that autumn had arrived.
Sister Lin found Wu Yu in the way and told her to stand off to the side. She then raised the bamboo pole and taught Ji Shiqiu how to knock the flower branches.
Ji Shiqiu shook his head. “No need. I used to do this at home.”
Wu Yu said, “Did you climb trees and shake them when you were little?”
Ji Shiqiu gave her a speechless look.
He said nothing, simply rolled up his sleeves and took the bamboo pole, concentrating as he swung it against the flower branches. A rain of osmanthus flowers rustled down, soon covering the bedsheets in a thin layer of pale-golden, fragrant snow.
Sister Lin watched for a while, satisfied, then left. She had to go to the chicken coop to feed the chickens and collect the eggs, so she let them keep knocking the flowers for the time being.
When she came back, she did not expect to find Wu Yu already sprawled brazenly across the bedsheet, contentedly squinting her eyes as she let the bright flower flakes and specks of light scatter all over her body and face.
And the person knocking down the flowers acted as though he had not seen her at all, continuing to knock the osmanthus flowers on his own.
Sister Lin stared in astonishment and hurried over. “Get up. Don’t get my flowers dirty.”
Wu Yu lazily raised her lips, remaining utterly unmoved.
With no other choice, Sister Lin went to Ji Shiqiu. “Stop, stop! Can’t you see a whole living person lying there!?”
Ji Shiqiu lowered the pole and leaned on it. “Let her lie there.”
Sister Lin shouted, “If she lies all over them, can I still use these flowers to make pastries?”
As she spoke, she reached out to take the bamboo pole back from Ji Shiqiu. He dodged slightly and refused to give it back. She could only pretend to be angry, planting her hands on her hips. “Oh, so the two of you have joined forces to bully me now, huh?”
Ji Shiqiu bargained with her. “One minute.”
The smile on the boy’s face made him difficult to refuse. Sister Lin could only put on a tough front, shooting a glance at the osmanthus Sleeping Beauty lying there as though she had every right to be. “Fine, fine, fine. I’ll deduct the cost of the osmanthus from your room fee.”
With that, she left, giving the two of them some space.
Watching her lift the door curtain and return inside, Ji Shiqiu raised the bamboo pole once more.
When he had read Dream of the Red Chamber in middle school, he could never have imagined Xiangyun drunkenly reclining on a peony mat. But the woman beneath the osmanthus tree helped him achieve a certain kind of resonance and communion across time and space.
So he would rather anger Sister Lin than let this scene disappear too quickly.
The fragrance of the osmanthus was almost chokingly strong. Wu Yu sniffed, then shifted from the middle of the bedsheet toward the side. She patted the empty spot beside her. “Ji Shiqiu, come here.”
Ji Shiqiu was slightly taken aback.
Seeing that he made no move, Wu Yu’s tone became somewhat more impatient and commanding. “Come here. Lie down.”
She also asked him for the bamboo pole.
Ji Shiqiu approached, his long shadow falling over her. “Lin-jie will be even angrier, won’t she?”
Wu Yu looked at his face against the light, the flower branches swaying behind him. “Why do you care about her?”
Ji Shiqiu did as she said.
The person holding the pole beneath the rain of osmanthus flowers, and the creator of the scene, had become Wu Yu, while he became the person simply enjoying the curtain of rain.
When he was little, Ji Shiqiu had been caught in many rains. His father had dragged him outside and refused to let him back into the house. He had pounded on the door again and again to no avail, able only to stand there in despair with his back against the wall, using the cramped eaves above his head for shelter. Thunderstorms had been close at hand, the whole world shrouded in smoke, lightning capable of destroying him at any moment, while his mother’s shrill cries and tears inside the house were like a damp, overcast rainy season, stretching endlessly into the distance.
The wind was gentle, and there was the fragrance of flowers in the light.
They had all become tangible things, sheets of pure golden foil, scattered little stars, lightly dripping down onto his cheeks.
This was a kind of rain he had never even dared dream of.
It possessed a poetic holiness, capable of washing away the mold and withered duckweed that had gathered in his heart.
Ji Shiqiu comfortably closed his eyes.
Seeing how effortlessly Ji Shiqiu handled it, Wu Yu had underestimated how difficult knocking the osmanthus flowers would be. She sat there, holding the slender pole and poking at the branches for a while. Her arms soon began to ache slightly, so she lowered it and rubbed and kneaded her shoulders.
When she turned her head, she found the boy lying there with his arm beneath his head, seemingly already asleep.
Loose osmanthus flowers clustered around him. One had happened to land right on the tip of his nose, looking somewhat comical. She leaned over, intending to blow it away for him, but after thinking about it, stopped.
She could not bear to blow it away.
She felt that it belonged there.
She had just been about to lie back down and bask in the sun while breathing in the floral fragrance when a hand closed around her upper arm, pulling her down and, without giving her a chance to resist, drawing her tightly into his embrace.
From beginning to end, Ji Shiqiu never opened his eyes.
As long as he did not open his eyes, the dream would not wake, and the golden rain would never stop.
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