Chapter 07
White snow stretched as far as the eye could see, while one winding trail of footprints after another emerged across the ground, broad and heavy.
The blue phantom on the steps raised his head. Sun Fusheng tilted his head slightly, his gaze falling in the direction of Chen Huai and Qin Yao. His eyes curved into a narrow slit, two wrinkles pulling up along either side of his nose, and he smiled.
Half of Chen Huai’s hand had gone cool and warm.
He suddenly remembered that on the night before he met Qin Yao, the night when he had gone to the hardware store to buy a length of thick rope, intending to hang himself, he had told Sun Fusheng that he planned to leave first thing the next morning.
Sun Fusheng had asked him where he was going.
He had answered carelessly that he was going to heaven.
At that time.
At that moment when the old man had lowered his head and said nothing.
What had he been thinking?
Four words surfaced in Chen Huai’s mind: love and being loved.
When he had said those words to Sun Fusheng, both of these things had already ceased to exist. Sun Fusheng no longer even had his grandson. There truly was nothing left for him to hold on to, nothing left to worry about.
So had he fallen from the building because of the headaches caused by his brain tumor, or had he climbed over the windowsill because he already knew there was no one left in this world for him to care about?
No one knew the answer. Qin Yao had told him from the very beginning, You won’t find the answer you’re looking for.
The furnishings in the room slowly began to turn transparent.
When he opened his eyes, it was morning again. The sun rose in the east. The old man had not eaten. Thin, wrinkled skin hung over his rigid face, and layers upon layers of brown-gray spots covered his hands. Step by step, he climbed up to the window, glanced at the sun, as though he had not been thinking about anything at all, and jumped.
It was only when he began frequently forgetting to bring his keys, forgetting to turn off the flame beneath the gas stove, forgetting to water the flowers on the balcony, forgetting to take his medicine, that he realized forgetting was a terrifying thing.
Sun Fusheng had forgotten everything, but he remembered Guoguo. He remembered Xiao Yao. He remembered how much he owed them, and how, in the end, he had never managed to repay it all.
All he left behind was the passbook he had kept tucked inside the pocket of his cotton-padded coat when he had taken the train to Lincheng, along with a hastily written note from before he had become completely senile.
【All my money, all my love, is to be left to my daughter Guoguo and my grandson Xiao Yao.
— Sun Fusheng】
Qin Yao said, “It’s almost time.”
With a clatter, the radio on top of the cabinet toppled over as well. Countless winds, countless chaotic human voices and memories, countless emotions being torn away, one sound after another, one scene after another, seemed to turn into tangible things, like a sea of light, like sunlight flowing, like clouds and mist dispersing. They surged endlessly through the room, converging into waves of heat and rivers, all rushing toward the window and pouring outside.
“……”
“……”
When he blinked again, Chen Huai was still standing by the wardrobe door, still holding that weightless photograph between his fingers, yet somehow it felt as though it had become a little heavier.
The light outside was warm-colored, golden and yellow, gathering into a vast sea of heat and flowing through the window, drowning their ankles. Chen Huai’s thin, slender shadow was cast upon the damaged photograph.
The cheap backdrop. The old-fashioned old man with the strange upward curl at the corners of his lips. And a large bottle of Coke that seemed to have been held by who knew how many people. A child with a scrunched-up expression.
“…Why? Why don’t I have the slightest memory of him? Why didn’t I recognize him at all…”
Chen Huai had thought he would cry. He should at least have shed a few tears. Yet his heart felt empty. His heart was as though it had been molded from stone and mud. Why was there no violent surge of emotion? All he knew was that the bottoms of his eyes were so dry they hurt.
Qin Yao had turned into blue flame again, as though she had little strength left. Even the speed at which she moved had slowed. She was very quiet. Her silence was like a cocoon about to break open, as though something was about to crawl out, but in the end it was still pressed back down.
Perhaps because she was overly exhausted, Qin Yao’s voice was hoarse, her words like a ribbon drifting in a gentle breeze, as she said, “…Do you remember what Sun Hongping looked like? You don’t, do you?”
Chen Huai’s fingertips tightened around the photograph. His mind went blank for a moment, and he truly had no memory of her.
But she was his mother. How could he possibly not even remember Sun Hongping’s face, and not recognize Guoguo either?
Qin Yao drifted very slowly to the windowsill from which Sun Fusheng had jumped. Her words were so light they seemed to lose all weight.
“Yes… why don’t I remember either? Why don’t I remember?”
The two of them fell silent. Chen Huai could not move his feet even a single step. His breathing grew heavy, then light, then heavier still, yet his eyes remained a vast, gray haze, like the snow that had fallen this year, covering every emotion until nothing remained but bewilderment.
“The sun’s out. Let’s go back. You should be satisfied with this deposit.”
Chen Huai ignored her. He walked to the window and suddenly reached out to grab her, but Qin Yao dodged him.
“What exactly do you know?”
“I don’t know anything. Didn’t I tell you that I don’t remember anything either? Otherwise, why would I ask you to help me recover my diary?”
Chen Huai was practically gritting his teeth. “You’re lying.”
“There’s nothing I can do if you don’t believe me. I told you before, I came to save you, and only you can save me.”
Compared with Chen Huai’s agitation, Qin Yao remained calm.
“Right now, you can only place your hope in me, and I can only rely on you to recover my memories. Other than that, neither you nor I have any other way.”
After saying that, she weakly drifted over to Chen Huai’s shoulder and settled there, her voice lowering. “You… you used up my energy just to see Mom and Grandpa, yet you don’t have the slightest gratitude for what I did for you, and you still have the nerve to question me.”
“You only ever hurt my feelings.”
Chen Huai felt a nerve in his temple throbbing violently. He had no idea how she could be so shameless, saying things with such ambiguous implications and yet not feeling embarrassed in the slightest.
But Qin Yao was not wrong. Right now, the two of them could only depend on each other. Each had something the other wanted.
“Are you being reasonable? Isn’t your energy something you absorbed from me?”
Qin Yao fell silent. She lay against his shoulder, breathing weakly, nestling beside his neck to draw in a little warmth. Chen Huai sighed and let her rest properly.
He leaned against the windowsill, narrowing his eyes as the wind blew over him. He stayed there for a long time, calming himself down. Looking out the window, he saw that the red traces of blood on the ground had already been cleaned away completely, without leaving even the slightest trace.
Chen Huai slowly lifted his eyelids and looked up at the sky again. He let out a breath and said twice, “I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you.”
One apology for Grandpa, and one for Mom.
Though he himself did not know why he could not remember what either of them looked like.
Chen Huai locked the door with the key. He had intended to casually tuck the key Old Man Sun had given him beneath the flowerpot, considering it returned to him, but in the next second he discovered that the lily-of-the-valley in the pot had already withered and died.
He did not know whether the flower could still survive, but he brought it home anyway and placed it on his own windowsill.
A few afternoons ago, the sun had suddenly appeared, like the final burst of light before death. It had shone for only that one afternoon. The next day, the sun had died, and the world once again entered a long, cold winter.
There were street vendors everywhere, selling New Year goods and firecrackers. Qin Yao was rather excited and asked whether they should buy some too, so they could set them off during the New Year.
Chen Huai was listless. “If you’re paying, then whatever. If you want me to pay, heh.”
He gave the corner of his mouth a cold tug, completely uninterested in the New Year or in turning another year older. It was all just something used to fool children. The older people grew, the less importance they placed on these things. Every day was exactly the same. They simply kept living the same way.
The flame above Qin Yao’s head burned a little brighter, as though she were unhappy. “Didn’t Sun Fusheng leave you a lot of money? Why are you still so stingy?”
Chen Huai drawled in reply, “Because I don’t feel at ease using that kind of money.”
And so, the amount of money the two of them actually had available to spend remained that same 1,523.50 yuan.
Fortunately, Qin Yao did not need to eat. Because she was small, she did not need to squeeze onto the bed to sleep either. She could lie down on the desk, and even if he covered her with several layers of toilet paper, she could still sleep soundly. She was incredibly easy to keep, like some tiny pet that required absolutely no effort.
She was also constantly chattering away. Everything she saw was a novelty to her. What she liked most was trading a few barbs back and forth with Chen Huai, after which she would fly into the roly-poly toy shell on the desk and hide there, sulking by herself.
Before long, it was January 28.
It was New Year’s Eve.
By then, no one in the low-rent housing complex remembered Sun Fusheng, the old man who had jumped from the building. Chen Huai planned to find some work and make a living. After all, he had temporarily decided not to die, so he still had to run around every day just to make a living.
Qin Yao said she knew that a nearby 24-hour convenience store was hiring. It just meant the night shift would be a little harder, but that was fine. She could help Chen Huai watch the store at night.
On one condition: Chen Huai had to buy her fireworks to set off during the New Year.
Chen Huai had no idea where she got all this information. Sometimes he felt as though she knew everything, yet Qin Yao always flatly denied it.
The building materials used for the apartment were of terrible quality. The voices of people in any household could travel chaotically in all directions. On New Year’s Eve, Qin Yao had originally been looking through some of Chen Huai’s old books to pass the time.
When the first cluster of fireworks rose from the grass outside the window, she suddenly began shouting, “It’s here! It’s here!”
Chen Huai was looking at the messages in his classmates’ group chat on his phone. He had been on leave from school for so long, yet no one had asked about him. He was like a wisp of smoke. Once he dispersed, he dispersed. No one cared anyway.
His gaze pulled away from the glowing screen. He glanced toward the window and said indifferently, “What’s so interesting about fireworks? They set them off every year.”
“No.” Qin Yao bounced on the desk. “There are words in the diary now!”
Chen Huai froze for a second, then got off the bed and put on his shoes. He walked over to the desk and looked down.
Sure enough, several pages of writing had appeared in the open notebook:
【The old man surnamed Sun who lived upstairs jumped to his death in winter.
When he died, Chen Huai was squatting outside brushing his teeth. When the old man fell, Chen Huai still had a mouthful of foam, and then he heard a heavy thud, like the sound of internal organs smashing apart. The old man’s wrinkled white undershirt, washed so many times it had lost its shape, lay soaking in a pool of blood. Warm blood melted the icy snow, red spreading over white.】
His hand instantly recoiled. He frowned as though he had seen a ghost.
The dazzling, multicolored light of the fireworks flickered across the paper and the ink. The blue glow of Qin Yao’s body was reflected in his pitch-black eyes, like some kind of blue glass.
“Have you gone crazy…” Chen Huai’s voice was almost a murmur. “These are all things that already happened. And this is your diary. Why is it written from my perspective?”
The instant his voice fell, a final line of writing appeared in the notebook, repeating what Chen Huai had just said.
Then, a string of tiny words written in red ballpoint pen appeared at the very end of the diary:
【Sun Fusheng, end.】
No new words appeared in the diary anymore.
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