Cheng Boyan felt that he had behaved somewhat inappropriately. After leaving the hospital, the cold wind hit his face and slapped his head, which helped him slowly pull himself out of his earlier emotions.

The pain in his leg didn't necessarily indicate a problem. It could just be muscle soreness, from a bump or a knock... there were many reasons.

He reacted this way just because of a single comment from Xiang Xi. If others didn’t know, they might think he had some serious illness.

However, if only Cheng Boyu had shown even a fraction of the concern he now had when he first told him about his leg pain, maybe...

Forget it. What "maybe"?

Cheng Boyan adjusted his mood before heading to the parking lot to pick up his car.

When he arrived home, his mother had already prepared the meal, and his father was sitting at the computer, looking at documents.

"Going to a meeting tomorrow?" Cheng Boyan took off his jacket and placed it on the cabinet by the door. He then squeezed a bit of disinfectant from a bottle on the shoe rack, rubbed his hands together, and walked over to the computer.

There was another computer in the study, but that one belonged to his mother. She often had lectures or other things to prepare, so to avoid disturbing each other, his father's computer had to be uncomfortably placed in the corner of the living room.

"Yeah, a forum on minimally invasive cardiac surgery," his father stood up, looking at him, "Your department’s been pretty busy lately, huh? You don’t look too good."

"I’m okay," Cheng Boyan smiled, "Just been doing a lot of physical work lately."

"Make sure to get enough rest," his father stretched his back, "Your mother must be worried about you."

"Boyan," his mother came out of the kitchen with a bowl of soup, "Has Hu Xin contacted you lately?"

"Hu Xin? No," Cheng Boyan washed his hands, then came out to serve soup for his parents, "He called around the New Year, why?"

Hu Xin was Cheng Boyan’s cousin, the son of his father’s elder sister. They were very close when they were little, but after Cheng Boyan went to college, Hu Xin started working and changed jobs several times, constantly switching between relationships, which caused their bond to weaken.

"He asked your Aunt Yi for money, said he was opening some kind of anime store. He’s always unreliable, and your Aunt Yi didn’t give him any money," his mother frowned, "She’s afraid he’ll ask you for a loan."

"I don’t have money to lend him, I still have two years of mortgage payments left," Cheng Boyan smiled. Hu Xin really wasn’t cut out for business. He’d even lost money selling beef jerky at a small factory for one of his classmates. "And I just got robbed..."

Xiang Xi! He had completely forgotten to ask about the money!

"By the way, I didn’t ask you earlier, do you have enough money?" his mother took a sip of the soup.

"Yeah, it’s enough," Cheng Boyan said, "I don’t spend much, I sleep whenever I have free time, where would I spend money?"

After dinner, they rested for a while. Then his parents went out for a walk, and Cheng Boyan followed them out, preparing to head back to his own place.

Walking had been a habit for his parents for decades, a routine that never changed. Every week, his father also had to go swimming.

Cheng Boyan wasn’t much of a match for them in this regard. He just used the treadmill at home. Other than that, he mostly sat around and could fall asleep anytime.

When he got home today, he didn’t even feel like using the treadmill. After taking a shower, he sat down at the computer, opened a folder named "as|mr" (NT: for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), casually opened a file, put on headphones, and leaned back in his chair, putting his legs on the desk and closing his eyes.

The next day, as usual, he woke up to the loud cries of the neighbors, and Cheng Boyan realized that over the past two or three months, he had become accustomed to their constant shouting.

Some things are unbearable at first, but slowly, without realizing it, one adapts.

Just like losing someone.

For example, painful memories that come to mind.

For example, being single.

For example, the busy days from the moment you open your eyes every morning.

For example… mixed bean porridge.

Xiang Xi hadn’t come back to the hospital, nor had he appeared in front of him again.

Cheng Boyan also hadn’t run into any scammers on the street, and there hadn’t been any scammers in the hospital either.

Occasionally, he would still think about his four thousand yuan, and the little bear Band-Aid on the corner of Xiang Xi’s eye… and the leg pain that caused him to lose control.

*

Mantou had gone missing.

If he counted the time, it was clear that on the day he went to the hospital for a physical check-up with Xiang Xi, there must have been a plan. That day, he left before Xiang Xi, returning to Dawa street late at night.

After that, he never went out with Xiang Xi again, always going alone.

A month later, he disappeared.

Along with Mantou, 30,000 yuan from Erpan had also disappeared.

The weather had been good these days, very warm with the sun shining. Xiang Xi would sit at the entrance of gate 17 at noon every day, basking in the sun while watching cats.

A few days ago, while basking in the sun, he heard Erpan’s furious shouting from the room next door.

Xiang Xi’s first reaction was that Mantou, that idiot, was done for.

But Mantou had been gone for several days, yet there was still no news of his demise.

Xiang Xi stared at the cat on the opposite wall. Where could that guy hide?

All the places like train stations and bus stations were full of people who knew each other. Not only would they know if someone wanted to leave, but even if someone passed by, Ping Shu and Erpan would find out.

Unless… they left the city.

Xiang Xi found it strangely amusing and laughed at the cat. The cat, sitting on the wall, licked its tail for a while, then turned and left.

Now that Mantou had gone, the most miserable one might not be Mantou, but Li Hui.

Once a day, getting beaten. This morning, when Erpan kicked her out of the house, she couldn’t get up for a long time in the corner of the wall.

Xiang Xi spent a long time pulling her up. She clung to his hand, not letting go, her nails digging into his skin.

“Help me,” Li Hui’s eyes were full of tears, and her voice trembled as she whispered, “Xiao Zhan, help me… I’m going to die…”

The sun was warm, and Xiang Xi stretched, leaning back in his chair, lifting his hand toward the light.

The wounds from her nails were quite painful, but in the strong sunlight, nothing could be seen.

Everyone knew what the outcome would be if Li Hui stayed here. The little aunt wasn’t particularly pretty, and she was stubborn, but she could still be put to use.

Doing what she could, as Ping Shu had said.

While smiling.

Xiang Xi looked at Ping Shu's smile and felt that sooner or later, he would one day leave behind this life, which others saw as different, within Ping Shu's smile.

Quietly.

In the afternoon, Ping Shu bought a live duck and tossed it to Xiang Xi to cook.

Xiang Xi didn’t know cook. In the past, Ping Shu didn’t allow him to, as there were plenty of people around to do errands and work. Cooking was easy, but in the past two years, Ping Shu had started asking Xiang Xi to cook more often.

Xiang Xi stood in the kitchen, contemplating the duck for a while, but in the end, he took it to the nearby market, spent ten yuan, and had someone clean it.

When he returned, he hacked it up in a rush, then stuffed it all into a pressure cooker.

At mealtime, Erpan came over, bringing two bottles of Maotai for Ping Shu. Ping Shu didn’t drink much; compared to holding a wine glass, he probably felt more refined holding a teapot.

Erpan drank most of the bottle himself, then poured the rest into a glass and slammed it down in front of Xiang Xi.

“Drink up!” Erpan stared at him.

“Stomach hurts,” Xiang Xi said.

“Stop bullshitting,” Erpan nearly poked his nose with his chopsticks, “You were drinking three liang of liquor at ten!”

“That was when my stomach didn’t hurt,” Xiang Xi picked up a piece of chopped duck and placed it in front of Erpan’s chopsticks.

Erpan froze for a moment, instinctively balancing it carefully before putting the duck in his mouth.

Ping Shu suddenly laughed from the side, laughing so hard he couldn’t stop while drinking his soup.

“Damn it!” Erpan snapped back, pulling his chopsticks away and jabbing them into Xiang Xi’s hand. “Dare you mess with me!”

Xiang Xi jumped in pain, almost knocking the bowl onto the table. He glanced at Erpan but stayed silent.

“Damn, now you’re really getting more arrogant,” Erpan slammed his cup down and stood up, kicking the chair aside. Grabbing Xiang Xi by the collar, he yanked him up. “If I don’t teach you a lesson today, you’ll really think you’re Ping Shu’s own son!”

“What are you doing!” Ping Shu slammed the table.

Erpan froze, his raised fist hovering in mid-air. He turned to Ping Shu, “Ping Shu! You can’t keep spoiling him like this! You have a good heart, but this kid is no angel! Mantou’s departure must have something to do with him…”

“This is my child, the one I raised,” Ping Shu interrupted Erpan, locking eyes with him. “If he’s to be beaten or scolded, if it’s life or death, it’s my business.”

Once Ping Shu said this, Erpan didn’t dare to touch Xiang Xi in front of him. Filled with anger, he could only push Xiang Xi harshly back into his chair, cursing, “No one will want you! Ping Shu, you should’ve let him freeze to death out in the wilderness!”

Xiang Xi’s hand trembled. His eyes narrowed, and just as Erpan opened the door to leave, he suddenly jumped up from his chair.

“Xiao Zhan!” Ping Shu shouted.

Xiang Xi stopped. His whole body seemed to burn with blood, but it had nowhere to go. He felt as though he might bleed from every orifice without even needing poison.

He kicked the door behind Erpan with force, and the door slammed shut.

“Sit down.” Ping Shu pointed to the chair, picked up the teapot, and leisurely took a sip before continuing with his meal.

Xiang Xi felt all his joints stiffen. It took a long time for him to sit back down with a creak.

Ping Shu ate a few more bites slowly, savoring each one. After a long while, he put down his chopsticks and looked at Xiang Xi. “Do you know about Mantou?”

“I know he ran away,” Xiang Xi muttered.

“Do you know where he went?” Ping Shu asked. “You two were like brothers; you should know.”

 

“I don’t know,” Xiang Xi felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He had forgotten to take his medicine today. No, it wasn’t that he forgot; the medicine he had placed on his bedside table in the morning was nowhere to be found. “Uncle, where are my medicines?”

“Medicines? What medicines?” Ping Shu thought for a moment. “Oh, the pill boxes by the bedside? There were still medicines in there? I didn’t know, I threw them away as empty boxes.”

Xiang Xi didn’t say anything. His hand trembled violently, unsure whether it was from pain or anger.

“Remember to wash the dishes later, with hot water, don’t get a chill,” Ping Shu stood up, grabbed the teapot, and walked upstairs. “You know, your good friend disappeared, and you’re still taking medicine? What a miserable thing...”

Xiang Xi clenched his fist and pressed it against his stomach, standing up slowly after a long while.

He cleared the dishes and went into the kitchen. While washing the dishes, he kept staring at his hand. The wound from where Li Hui had pinched him and the red mark left by Erpan’s slap had started swelling up.

Mantou wasn’t his good friend, not even a friend at all.

He had always categorized things like this, drawing clear lines, with everyone. It was all for self-preservation.

But still, he couldn’t escape.

He bit his lip and cursed Mantou silently, calling him a fool.

He couldn’t go on living like this; this kind of life was unbearable. It was truly pathetic.

He really wanted to go to the small house in Tongkui Alley, find that business card, and call that life photographer. Would you like to see a different life?

*

Cheng Boyan wasn’t supposed to be on duty today, but Dr. Liu from next door had a fever all afternoon, so Cheng Boyan replaced him in the evening.

Cheng Boyan was in decent health; it was rare for him to get a headache or fever. However, during his shift, a patient with a fracture sneezed three times in his face. He wasn’t sure if he might catch a cold from it.

This person was feeling unwell, took some medicine, and then, dizzy, crashed his motorcycle into a roadside trash can. After sneezing a few more times, he finally explained the situation.

After taking an X-ray and another round of sneezing, Cheng Boyan felt like he was going crazy.

He held his composure, wiped his face with a tissue, and then began writing the medical report.

The patient claimed to have injured his left calf more than an hour ago, feeling pain in the area with no ability to move the limb, but no active bleeding or bone exposure...

“Doctor, I need to be admitted...?” The patient frowned and sneezed again. “In the hospital?”

The lower part of the left calf showed mild swelling, no skin damage, no active bleeding...

“Advised hospitalization.” Cheng Boyan glanced at him.

“Can I avoid being admitted?” The patient rubbed his nose. “My mother is sick at home, I can’t stay in the hospital.”

The lower tibia had a spiral fracture.

Recommended hospitalization and treatment (patient refused)...

The reason for the refusal reminded Cheng Boyan of Xiang Xi. He wasn’t sure if the kid even had a father, or if he had a mother he had never seen, or if he was truly 18...

Plaster fixation, dehydration, swelling reduction, and hemostasis treatment...

After dealing with this patient, Cheng Boyan went to the restroom and washed his face for five minutes. On his way back, he heard a nurse say, “It’s snowing again!”

He walked to the corridor window, looked outside, and sure enough, it was snowing again. He had thought there wouldn’t be snow this year.

Cheng Boyan lowered his head  and sneezed.

*

In the dim darkness of Zhao Jiayao, Xiang Xi watched the snowflakes drifting down, occasionally glinting in a light he didn’t know where it came from.

Everything around him was quiet; even the late-night shouting had stopped.

Xiang Xi opened the door to the back alley and walked out, heading to Erpan’s house downstairs.

He picked up a small stone from the snow and flicked it with his finger. The stone flew up to the second floor and lightly tapped against the glass.

The sound wasn’t loud, but it was enough for the people inside the room to hear.

The window wasn’t open, but the curtains fluttered for a moment before closing. Two minutes later, Li Hui quietly walked out through the back door, dressed warmly and holding a small bag.

Xiang Xi grabbed her arm and quickly pulled her along the alley wall toward the street corner. Li Hui silently followed him, trembling all over.

They hurried, half-running, until they reached the main street. Xiang Xi hesitated for a moment before leading her down another narrow street, walking through back alleys.

Li Hui had been in the Dawa area for years and had never left this place. She didn’t know any of the roads, only silently letting Xiang Xi pull her along as they jogged together.

Eventually, Xiang Xi led her back to the main street. He took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Li Hui, then pushed her into a taxi waiting by the roadside.

After telling the driver the address, he turned and left.

He didn’t even know why he told the driver to go there. It was just an address he clearly remembered—the place where Ping Shu had found him, a dirt road leading out of town.

If Li Hui was lucky, maybe she could start a different life, just like Mantou, by walking through the snow.

After doing this, Xiang Xi didn’t go back to No. 17 in the dark.

Instead, he went to Tongkui Alley, packed up his belongings from there, and wrapped them in a small bundle, ready to leave at any time.

He couldn’t return to Ping Shu’s place.

No matter whether Li Hui managed to escape, he couldn’t go back.

The reason he had ignored Li Hui’s pleas for help was because he had no idea how to help her, and neither did she.

Ping Shu didn’t have much power, but it was enough to pin them down here, and no matter what they did, it would tear their hearts apart.

Xiang Xi didn’t know why he had suddenly decided to do this.

He only knew that this way of cutting off all escape routes would indeed rewrite his “life.”

*

It was late at night, and there was still a long time until dawn. From the window of the inpatient department, Cheng Boyan could see the street not far away, lit up with neon lights and occasionally passing car headlights.

This seemingly bustling scene made Cheng Boyan feel a bit lonely.

When he was a child, he liked to lie on the window ledge with binoculars, looking out at the distant high-rises, the nearby school’s playground, the people coming and going on the road... and sometimes, the figure standing under a tree in the middle of the night.

Cheng Boyan squinted his eyes. Under the tree outside the hospital, there was a figure. He wasn’t sure if it was just his tiredness playing tricks on him, but he thought he saw a small fluorescent mark on the sleeve of that person’s down jacket.

Every time he saw Xiang Xi, he was wearing the same old down jacket with a small fluorescent yellow triangle on the sleeve.

He yawned as a van pulled up by the side of the road. Two people got out, stood facing the figure under the tree for a moment, and then the person got into the van.

Cheng Boyan rubbed his eyes, turned, and left the window. He still had two inpatient medical records to finish.

He was a bit hungry but didn’t have anything to eat.

What should he eat tomorrow morning? Maybe cook some dumplings. He still had some that his mother had made and brought over in the fridge...

“Xiao Zhan, why do you have to do this?” Ping Shu said slowly from the passenger seat, “You’re causing everyone to lose sleep.”

The van belonged to Erpan. The back seat was cleared out, and Xiang Xi was sitting on a cardboard box. He tilted his head to the right, wanting to look out the window, but Erpan’s face blocked the view. He didn’t try to look left, where Erpan was sitting.

“I’ve been watching you for days, you know?” Erpan whispered in his ear, his voice filled with malicious excitement. He took out Xiang Xi’s phone, stomped on it underfoot. “Sending one after another, huh? You even called a taxi after taking the back roads.”

“Xiao Zhan, all these years, I haven’t been unkind to you...” Ping Shu spoke from the front, sounding rather melancholic, “You’ve always been a troublemaker, and these past few years, you’ve only become harder to handle.”

Xiang Xi stayed silent. The phone was a cheap one, only worth 200 yuan with 1 yuan for extra credit, but he had used it for three years. He had developed an attachment to it. Hearing it crack under Erpan’s foot, he felt a pang of heartache.

The car drove west, and the people inside didn't say anything more. Xiang Xi sat cross-legged in silence, not uttering a word. Erpan probably expected him to beg and cry for mercy, but Xiang Xi remained silent, which irritated Erpan. He snuffed out a cigarette on Xiang Xi's arm.

After a bumpy ride, the car finally stopped. Erpan opened the door and jumped out.

Xiang Xi didn't move. When he saw Li Hui outside, curled up in a ball with her tears frozen on her face, he let out a soft sigh.

"You see, in order not to wrong you, I even kept the scene for you," Erpan patted his shoulder, jumped out of the car, and slapped Li Hui across the face. "You want to run, huh? You really thought you could get far!"

Li Hui stopped crying, biting her lip without making a sound.

"Not crying, huh? You're so tough!" Erpan slapped her again, then turned back and pointed at Xiang Xi in the car. "Now wait and watch the show, and be ready to applaud!"

 

Translator : DarNan