The Eighth Fallen Leaf
Close to five o’clock, the two of them formally reached the summit.
Without the obstruction and cushioning of grass and trees, the wind at the mountaintop blew so hard that their bodies swayed unsteadily. The sky had only just begun to lighten, yet the masses of clouds were already surging and gathering on all sides, like gray-white seawater, dense and slow. They seemed almost motionless as they writhed, covering everything below. The several nearby peaks were black islands sunk within them, scattered here and there.
Ji Shiqiu lowered Wu Yu to sit on the ground, then gently set the backpack down within reach of her hands.
Wu Yu followed his movements and looked up. At this moment, Ji Shiqiu had taken off his hat and was fanning himself, looking around in all directions. Hours of continuous hiking should have left him utterly exhausted, yet there was not the slightest trace of fatigue on him. His complexion was ruddy, his eyes clear and bright, like a patient experiencing a final resurgence before death, or a traveler seeing a spectacular sight for the first time. A strange excitement seemed to envelop him, making him utterly different from the way he had been these past two days.
Wu Yu rummaged through the bag and pulled out a Snickers bar. She tore it open, took a bite, and asked Ji Shiqiu if he wanted some.
Ji Shiqiu shook his head.
Wu Yu asked, “Aren’t you hungry?”
Ji Shiqiu said, “I’m not hungry.”
Wu Yu bit into it with crisp, cracking sounds. The taste of white chocolate spread through her mouth, so sweet and cloying that it made her throat hurt.
She stared straight ahead, slightly lost in thought.
Ji Shiqiu’s voice interrupted her thoughts. He said, “I’m going over there to take a look.”
Wu Yu warily grabbed his wrist, holding him back.
Ji Shiqiu lowered his eyes and waited for a while, but the woman did not speak.
Perhaps because the wind was too bitterly cold, the tip of Wu Yu’s nose was faintly red. She tilted her head up to look at him, emotion surfacing in her eyes, becoming almost confrontational. Even as she tugged at his hand, she did not loosen her grip in the slightest.
Ji Shiqiu noticed that her knuckles were likewise frozen red. He pressed his lips together. “Once the sun comes up, I can take you to that big rock halfway up the mountain where we rested.”
His voice was unusually calm, without a trace of fluctuation. “Before we came, I told Lin-jie that if we hadn’t returned to the guesthouse by five in the evening, she should bring people up the mountain to look for you.”
Don’t worry.
He was not sure whether he should say those three words aloud.
Wu Yu curled her lips in a smile. “So the medicated oil was just a pretext.”
Ji Shiqiu’s tone was indifferent. “There are a lot of mosquitoes and insects in the mountains anyway.”
He peeled her hand away from his wrist. “Give me the photo.”
Almost as if sulking, Wu Yu did not hesitate. She pried open the soft phone case and dug out the photograph.
The instant he took it, she quietly spat out four words: “You’re really shameless.”
Ji Shiqiu froze for a moment, but did not argue.
When he looked up again, the surroundings had already brightened somewhat. The eastern sky had taken on color, a gradation of tangerine-red, like a paintbrush soaked in pigment sweeping from left to right, layer by layer. Pure, distant, ethereal, it formed a distinct boundary with the sea of clouds, dividing the sky into two.
Ji Shiqiu’s heart trembled.
Magnificent beyond words. A four-character idiom he had once learned from textbooks had finally acquired substance.
The round sun poked its head out from within. Even that small sliver of light was so searingly bright that it was difficult to look directly at it.
As it rose higher, the surrounding orange-red grew increasingly intense, gradually becoming vivid red, like diluted blood, born from the wound of dawn breaking.
The clouds drifted slowly, their edges rendered in highly saturated gold and crimson.
Ji Shiqiu gazed at it, entranced, not daring to blink for an instant.
The wind stirred the tips of his black hair. Almost involuntarily, he began walking toward the edge of the cliff.
The sky was so dazzling, yet so gentle. It seemed that if he only walked into it, all his sins would be washed clean and forgiven.
“Ji Shiqiu!”
Someone suddenly called his name.
Ji Shiqiu came back to himself and stopped. He turned toward the voice.
It was Wu Yu. At some point, she had already gotten up and come looking for him, still carrying that heavy backpack.
She stared fixedly at him, her face pale from the cold. “I’m right here. Do you dare jump down in front of me?”
The withered grass rippled and stretched beside her legs. She casually tossed the bag onto the ground, then dropped down onto it, pulled out the beer inside, and yanked the tab open with force.
“I’ve never seen anyone jump off a mountain. I want to drink while I watch.”
Perhaps from all the jostling, white foam kept swelling out of the opening, flowing over her knuckles and covering the back of her hand, yet she did not notice at all.
She took a large gulp, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then opened another can of beer and set it beside her. “Either let yourself become a joke, something for me to drink with; or come back to my side, and we’ll toast the sunrise together.”
...Toast the sunrise.
Such moving, beautiful words, so full of hope, yet they nearly shattered Ji Shiqiu.
His eyes grew sore and swollen, his lips beginning to tremble.
The boy stood against the light, the sky behind him burning. The wind wrapped around his figure, making him look even thinner.
Wu Yu’s voice became like a roar, like the sound of an argument, each cry louder than the last. “I used to go up the mountains all the time when I was little. Let me tell you, the sea of clouds is tempting, but if you jump from this mountain, chances are you won’t die. You’ll get caught by the trees we passed on the way here, end up disfigured with broken arms and legs, and then get sent to the hospital.”
“Do you have money to pay for hospitalization?”
“You’ll need a family member to sign for the surgery. You have no father or mother, so don’t count on me to do it for you.”
“You’re still holding your mother’s photograph.”
“You only brought her here to see the sunrise, so why do you have to let her see your helplessness as well?”
…
Under her relentless and vicious barrage of words, the boy was gradually broken down, destroyed, melted away.
An overwhelming helplessness and despair completely filled him. His determination to die was washed away as well. Like a stalk of wheat grass rapidly withering under the scorching sun, he slowly curled in on himself and crouched down.
He pressed his hands hard over his face.
Painful tears and sobs spilled through the gaps between his fingers, no longer able to be restrained.
No one knew how long had passed before a pair of hands reached over, circling around his neck from both sides before pulling him into an embrace.
Ji Shiqiu was completely spent. He buried himself against the shoulder that had come close to him, sobbing and gasping violently.
They embraced down in the low ground. Dawn had broken, and the grand golden radiance seemed capable of dissolving them into itself.
The woman quietly smoothed the hair at the back of his head.
“Let’s go down the mountain.”
—
By the time they stepped back onto the horizontal bridge they had crossed on the way up, it was already noon.
The water shimmered brightly, the mountain wilderness lush and radiant. Wu Yu lay against Ji Shiqiu’s shoulder, her arms looped around his neck. She also tore the bread in her hand into small pieces, feeding them one by one into his mouth.
At first Ji Shiqiu was somewhat resistant, but he was truly starving, so he half-resisted and half-accepted the feeding.
On the opposite bank stood a tall tree, more than a hundred years old by the looks of it, yet still as luxuriant as ever. Its branches and leaves stretched outward, reflecting broad swaths of waterlight in a luminous green.
Several art-exam students sat in a row beneath the shade, boys and girls alike. They had set up their drawing boards and were all absorbed in sketching from life.
As Ji Shiqiu carried Wu Yu across the stone bridge, they were all drawn to the sight, watching as the two approached.
When they reached them, Wu Yu suddenly said, “Stop for a moment.”
Ji Shiqiu did not understand, but he did not ask further, simply stopping where he was.
Wu Yu fixed her gaze on the most handsome boy among them. “Hey, you.”
The boy raised his face. “Me?”
Wu Yu hummed in confirmation. “Can I pay you to commission a painting?”
The boy asked, “Now?”
Wu Yu nodded. “Now.”
The boy stood up. “Sure, but I don’t want money.” He skillfully took down the landscape painting he had just finished coloring, the paint not yet dry, and replaced it with a fresh sheet of paper, securing it in place. “Just give me the flowers on your head.”
There was indeed a cluster of flowers in Wu Yu’s hair, osmanthus flowers she had casually picked on the way down, bright yellow. While they were on their way, Ji Shiqiu had been carrying her, putting her at just the right height. Seeing the flowers’ delicate beauty and faint fragrance, she had casually broken off a small branch and used it as a hairpin, winding her hair into a low bun.
“It’s not for me,” Wu Yu said, pointing at Ji Shiqiu. “It’s for him.”
Upon hearing this, Ji Shiqiu immediately lifted his leg to leave.
Like pulling back on a horse’s reins, she forcibly stopped him. “Aren’t you tired from walking? You might as well sit down and rest for a while.”
The young men and women looked at them and laughed.
Wu Yu reached both hands behind her head and removed the flowers, handing them to the boy. “If you’re painting him, you only want the flowers from my head?”
The boy took them. “Mm, it’s all the same.”
Ji Shiqiu was powerless against Wu Yu’s sudden whim. He could only set her down and sit beside her on the riverbank.
A gentle breeze brushed past. Beams of light fell through the gaps between the leaves, like a rain of translucent golden light.
The boy painting adjusted the direction of his drawing board, pulled his folding chair into place, sat up straight, and began sketching.
The other students all left their seats to gather around, whispering among themselves, there to watch the spectacle and see something new.
It took only about ten minutes. The boy asked whether they minded if he signed his name. Wu Yu shook her head, so he wrote Waves in the lower right corner, then stepped away from the drawing board and handed the paper over.
The medium he had used was soft charcoal. With what appeared to be only a few hurried strokes, he had rendered the figures vividly and lifelike, capturing even their spirit with uncanny accuracy.
Wu Yu was somewhat surprised to receive a finished work far beyond what she had paid for.
She compared it with Ji Shiqiu beside her and praised it. “It looks just like him.”
The boy smiled with his lips pressed together and returned to his drawing.
Ji Shiqiu, meanwhile, had shown little interest from beginning to end, occasionally tossing the stones beside him into the water simply to pass the time.
Wu Yu placed the drawing on his lap. “Here, your newborn portrait.”
The moment she finished speaking, Ji Shiqiu turned his head in surprise, but the woman’s attention was already elsewhere.
She hugged her knees and gazed intently at the mountain scenery before her.
The sparkling river water flowed in her pupils, glittering brightly.
Ji Shiqiu said nothing. He lowered his head and stared intently at the image of himself on the paper.
A patch of sunlight dripped onto the simply colored paper, landing just so in his eyes. As if by magic, the person in the drawing suddenly acquired a soul.
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