Chapter 04
If she weren’t untouchable, Chen Huai figured he would probably roll his eyes right now, then use a finger to push her head back and see whether water would pour out of it.
“My other self couldn’t possibly be as stupid as you.”
With no phone or television, and no form of entertainment whatsoever, Chen Huai let Qin Yao randomly pick out a book for him. As it happened, she chose the very book she had just mentioned, The Blue That Is Dying but Not Yet Dead, whose subject was school bullying.
He pulled out the armchair beside the desk and settled into it, lazily reading with his eyes half-closed, occasionally yawning.
The room was tucked away in a corner. The streetlamp’s light came in through the doorway, while the window was on the opposite side, without a trace of brightness. There was only the weak glow of the kerosene lamp, which made his eyes dry and sore. After reading a few lines, Chen Huai could no longer be bothered. He found it both helpless and boring.
He tossed the book aside and was just about to go outside to see what was happening when Qin Yao happened to come in through the door, a half-eaten slice of watermelon still in her hand. Judging by the look of her, she had already hit it off with the old ladies in the workers’ compound.
She spat the watermelon seeds into her hand. Chen Huai tugged at the corner of his lips, pulled several pieces of toilet paper from the pocket of his down jacket, laid them across his palm, and held his hand out for her to throw the seeds into it. The movement was unbelievably smooth.
Qin Yao didn’t realize there was anything wrong either, until all the watermelon seeds had fallen onto the floor. Only then did she remember that Chen Huai couldn’t touch things anymore.
She frowned slightly and could only bend down to pick them up herself, muttering as she did, “Seriously, why did you stick your hand out?”
Chen Huai was speechless. “Then why did you pour them into my hand?”
“I did it subconsciously.”
“Wasn’t I?”
Qin Yao went into the room, got the broom, swept the floor, and tossed out the watermelon rind. Then she ran over to the well and pumped up some water to wash the juice from the corners of her mouth. Pointing across the way, she said, “Guoguo got called inside. We can go back over and watch for a while.”
There wasn’t much wind outside, and it was fairly warm, but Chen Huai didn’t have much body heat anymore, so wearing a down jacket didn’t matter to him. Still, standing beside Qin Yao made them look like people from two different seasons.
He stared at the toilet paper in his palm, feeling somewhat strange himself. His lips pressed a little tighter, and soon he stuffed the paper back into his pocket. He followed Qin Yao out of the oil compound, one after the other.
No one could see Chen Huai, and he was more than happy to enjoy the peace and quiet. He folded his arms and leaned against Sun Fusheng’s window. It seemed the family had already gone to sleep. Turning his head, Chen Huai saw Qin Yao carrying a little stool and sitting among several grandmothers, laughing and chatting with them. Her pockets were stuffed full of fruit like apples and jujubes. He couldn’t help feeling a headache coming on, convinced that working with such an unreliable ghost was doing far more harm than good.
A rustling sound came from inside the house. Chen Huai’s attention returned, withdrawing from Qin Yao’s side and turning toward the house. He narrowed his eyes and looked into the main room.
A short little dumpling was stretching desperately onto her tiptoes to reach the latch on the front door. She carefully picked the lock open, then secretly peered into the house to make sure she hadn’t disturbed the adults.
Guoguo had secretly escaped from home. She tiptoed over to the flowerbed and picked up the bottle of bubble solution covered in dust. She rinsed it in the earthenware jar used for watering the flowers, then dug something sticky out of her pocket and got it all over her hand.
As she stuffed the small lump of soap she had dug out into the bottle, she said, “I’m done for, I’m done for. My pocket is full of soap. Mommy’s going to get angry again.”
The moment she finished speaking, Guoguo’s stomach growled.
She scrunched up her face, licked her lips, and forced the little craving back down into her stomach, stirring her bubble solution. There was simply too much soap in it, though, and it refused to dissolve even after a long while.
Then her stomach growled again.
Chen Huai suspected that Hu Juan hadn’t given her anything to eat tonight at all.
“Are you hungry?” Qin Yao stepped over the flowerbeds lined up in a row and came in. She glanced at Chen Huai, then shifted her gaze to Guoguo. The child only stared at her with wide eyes. Since she didn’t know her, she didn’t dare say anything.
Night birds chirped incessantly among the rubble.
Qin Yao hitched up her pants and sat down beside Guoguo on the steps at the entrance. Lowering her head, she took out all the fruit that people had just given her from her pockets.
“Big Sister has apples in her pocket. You like apples, right?”
Guoguo watched her warily and shifted an inch to the side.
Qin Yao understood immediately. She didn’t know where she got so much strength, but she tore an apple in half with her bare hands. She took a bite herself, then held the other half out to Guoguo.
“Auntie Wang from the compound gave it to me. It’s okay. If it’s poisoned, I’ll die before you.”
Guoguo really was hungry. She wanted to take it, but she was holding the bubble solution in her hands. Qin Yao took it from her and helped her stir.
She quickly ate the half apple, while Guoguo continued to nibble at hers, taking a bite and then wiping her mouth each time.
Chen Huai came over and sat beside Qin Yao, stretching his two legs out long. The tips of his shoes touched the lily-of-the-valley planted in front of them, then passed right through it.
No one was watching the courtyard gate, and it stood wide open. When the wind rose at night, it blew straight inside.
Seeing that the soap had finally dissolved, Qin Yao dipped her hand into the solution a few times, wanting to see whether she could blow bubbles with it. Instead, a gust of wind blew the entire bowlful of bubble solution straight into her face, making Qin Yao choke.
Chen Huai let out a soft breath and said she was really stupid.
Qin Yao shot him a sideways glance. Guoguo, sitting beside her, also giggled a few times.
Qin Yao put the lid back on. “No, this won’t work. You can’t make bubbles with just soap. Tomorrow I’ll buy you some new bubble solution. Take it to school and secretly blow bubbles there.”
The little girl held the half apple in both hands. Her eyes were still bright and shining. Carefully, cautiously, she asked, “Are you giving it to me?”
“Of course.”
Qin Yao looked at her, but Guoguo couldn’t understand the emotion in her eyes. She could only ask, with a child’s simple confusion, why.
Qin Yao sighed. She rested both hands on her thighs and, after a brief silence, answered, “There’s no why. It’s because you’re good and very cute. If you want to repay me...”
“Guoguo, you have to keep studying,” Qin Yao said. “Even if your mother won’t let you go to school, you have to find a way to study.”
She tilted her head and stared intently at Guoguo. Chen Huai could only see a few strands of her hair being lifted by the wind. He thought for a second, then silently apologized in his heart for thinking just now that this person was unreliable.
The air carried a scent that he couldn’t tell was from apples, watermelon, or perhaps the lily-of-the-valley by their feet. Gradually, it soothed the mind into tranquility.
Guoguo chewed the apple in her mouth a few times before swallowing. “What if there’s no way? My family is too poor. Mommy wants my little brother to go to kindergarten. She says he’ll definitely be able to go to university in Beijing.”
Qin Yao’s voice grew softer and slower. “Then you stay here. And whatever money you make in the future, don’t give any of it to your family. Not a single cent.”
“Guoguo, don’t go to Beijing.”
“They say Beijing is really nice, really beautiful. There’s the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen. And you can make lots and lots of money.”
“No matter how good it is, don’t go.”
Qin Yao made herself very clear.
A five-year-old child couldn’t understand any of this. She only blinked a few times, neither refusing nor agreeing. Qin Yao took everything in her pockets out and gave it to her to fill her stomach. She told her that if she ever had nothing to eat again, she should go to the room at the very end on the left in the courtyard across the way and find her. She would give Guoguo something to eat.
It was too late at night. After Guoguo finished eating, she threw the apple cores into the large trash bin outside Auntie Wang’s door next door. She threw the soapy water that couldn’t make bubbles in there too. She still couldn’t bear to throw away the bottle, though. After rinsing it clean in the earthenware jar, she hid it beneath Auntie Wang’s window again.
She waved goodbye to Qin Yao, washed the juice from around her mouth, rubbed her two wet little hands against her very tight-fitting shirt, and then secretly tiptoed back inside.
Qin Yao stood at the doorway the whole time, watching until Guoguo locked the door before finally breathing a sigh of relief.
With both hands tucked into his pockets, Chen Huai asked her blandly, “Why can’t she go to Beijing?”
“If she goes to Beijing, she’ll live a very hard, very difficult life for the rest of it.”
“You know her?”
Qin Yao was silent for a long time. “I saw a little when I entered the photograph.”
At the end of the first scene, Guoguo was five years old. There were still several decades to go before “Xiao Yao” appeared.
The two of them went home together. Qin Yao carried a basin of toiletries and said she was going to take a shower.
“What am I supposed to do, then?” Chen Huai asked.
She smiled brightly and mocked him, “What does a ghost need a shower for? Just float around.”
“…”
Outside the compound, all kinds of bright red banners hung everywhere. The road at the mouth of the alley had been repaired, filled in with fresh cement, and looked considerably smoother.
He very naturally lay down on the bed, the back of his head pressing into the pillow. Darkness surrounded him. In the boundless silence, only the croaking of frogs from the pond behind the hill and the sound of the wind came drifting over, disturbing his sleepiness again and again.
Chen Huai stared into the darkness. A sense of familiarity gradually spread from his fingertips to the depths of his heart. He felt that many, many years ago, perhaps he had also heard a frog croak like this, but he couldn’t remember.
He saw the keys Qin Yao had tossed onto the desk catching the light. A thumb-sized pendant dangled from the edge of the desk, swaying back and forth. He narrowed his eyes and looked closely, only to discover that it was a fish with its tail broken off.
Just like that inexplicable entry in her diary, “Broken-Tailed Fish.” To this day, they still hadn’t understood what those words meant.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, the wooden door gave a creak. Qin Yao hung up all the towels. Her knee first brushed against the bed, but she didn’t lie down. She merely knelt sitting at the foot of the bed.
Chen Huai caught the dampness clinging to her, like someone who had been caught in the rain, humid and cool-warm, like summer rain.
He heard her mumbling in a tiny voice that he really was quite self-conscious, that he could sleep just fine hanging from the ceiling, yet he still insisted on taking up half her bed.
The window was the only outlet in the room through which air could pass, as if it were a passage for exchanging breaths with the outside world. A person’s breath, a fish’s gills.
The biting winter night wind slipped inside. Qin Yao wanted to borrow the wind to dry her hair, so she simply sat there. Whether her eyes were open or closed, whether her mind was empty or her thoughts were in turmoil, Chen Huai didn’t know, because he was already nearly asleep.
Only, with every breath, there remained the faint scent of shampoo, as though it had become entangled with the wind.
Chen Huai’s sleep had never been very good. He dreamed frequently at night and never slept soundly. He also woke early in the morning. Whenever he opened his eyes, he would find himself breathing heavily, yet every time he sat up, he could remember nothing at all. He only knew that he had broken out in a cold sweat.
Qin Yao had not yet woken. She slept with her back turned at the other end, her long hair spread out, a few strands hanging over her ear.
Chen Huai suddenly remembered yesterday in the courtyard, when she had spoken gently to Guoguo. Her hair had lifted in the breeze, and a faint scent of fruit had lingered in the air.
As if possessed by some inexplicable impulse, he reached out and touched the ends of her hair. They were already completely dry, though the wind had made them slightly cool.
Perhaps she heard the movement. Qin Yao moved her neck, and the few strands of hair he was holding slipped through his fingers, finally escaping them completely.
She struggled to climb out of bed, her eyes barely open, rubbing her neck. She looked as though she hadn’t slept well. Yet even though she was the one who had only just woken up, she hurriedly urged Chen Huai on.
“Get up and go downstairs already. Time doesn’t flow normally here. If you sleep through one night, Sun Fusheng will be so old by morning that all his teeth will have fallen out.”
Chen Huai stared blankly at his own hand for several seconds. Then, unhurriedly, he slipped on the black down jacket hanging over the back of the chair, pulled the zipper all the way up, and stood facing the wide-open window, letting the wind blow over him for several seconds.
The loose strands of hair over his forehead flew up like butterflies. Chen Huai narrowed his eyes slightly. The trace of cold sweat that had risen was blown dry, and he struggled to remember exactly what he had dreamed about.
Seeing him sitting there as immovable as the Buddha, Qin Yao said in a low, lingering voice, “Don’t tell me you have to say a prayer to Heaven every morning after you wake up?”
“Yeah.” He sounded lazy. “When you’ve reached the end of the road, all you can do is pray for the gods and Buddhas to protect you.”
Qin Yao gave him another look but didn’t respond. She turned her head and changed the subject. “Hurry up and wash up. Let’s get out as soon as possible. What, are you planning to stay here for the rest of your life?”
The pace of time really was a complete mess. After one night, even the street outside looked different. A layer of withered yellow leaves had fallen across the road, probably blown down by the strong wind.
Wrinkled banners hung everywhere from the gray brick-and-tile buildings. They read, “Good wishes for the Millennium,” and “The Whole Nation Celebrates the New Century.” But the banners looked as though they had been hanging for quite some time already, their edges torn and frayed. Chen Huai guessed it must already be the early 2000s.
Sun Fusheng still lived in the same workers’ compound at this time. He was still bringing a child home, only last time he had been holding his daughter Guoguo’s hand, while this time it was his younger son, who was already in high school.
Chen Huai’s gaze followed him. The scene gradually overlapped with the memory in his mind. When Old Man Sun had taken him home that day, when he was starving, it had looked exactly like this too. His left leg had been slightly lame as he walked, his back bent, two cold steamed buns dangling from his hand.
The old man had said that once it got dark, you had to go home.
At that time, only Chen Huai himself knew that some people couldn’t make it home even when daylight came.
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