He now had some of the things he wanted.

 

 

The autumn air was crisp and refreshing.

Except that once it was dark, you couldn’t see the “high” part, and because it was too dry, you couldn’t feel the “refreshing” part either.

That was exactly how Cheng Boyan felt when he walked out of the hospital: it was simply too dry. His face was dry, his nose was dry, and even his throat felt dry.

When the chilly wind blew over him, it felt as though the wind itself were splitting into cracks.

He got into the car, took out a bottle of mist spray, and sprayed some over his face.

Xiang Xi had bought this stuff for him, telling him to spray it whenever he had the chance so that he wouldn’t suffer too much from the dryness.

He checked the time. It was past nine. If he drove to Yunshui, he would arrive just in time to pick Xiang Xi up and go have a late-night snack.

It was only about ten minutes after he had driven off that he remembered Xiang Xi wasn’t at Yunshui today.

Cheng Boyan clicked his tongue and turned the car around.

This sought-after little tea master now went to three different tea houses every week. If you opened a map of the city, they basically formed a perfect triangle; wherever he went from wherever he was, he had to make a huge circuit. If Xiang Xi didn’t have to leave time every week for photography, he even had plans to turn that perfect triangle into a five-pointed star. In any case, Cheng Boyan was now practically able to drive around the entire city with his eyes closed.

Today’s tea house was called Yunshang Renjia (NT: A Home Above the Clouds). The name actually sounded more like an upscale rural leisure farm, but this tea house, which had only opened the previous year, was currently the largest in the city.

Five years ago, Cheng Boyan had also imagined that one day Xiang Xi might become a sought-after little tea master, but he had never imagined it would happen so quickly.

A few days earlier, while drinking tea and chatting with Old Lu, who had already retired, the old man had said with a deeply moved expression, “I knew this child was different from the others. Sooner or later, he would find his own path.”

When Cheng Boyan entered Yunshang Renjia, Xiang Xi’s performance had not yet finished. A waiter led him to the table where he usually sat.

The tea-drinking area at Yunshang Renjia was arranged somewhat differently from those at other tea houses. Although it was indoors, the space was astonishingly large, and the owner had gone all out, bringing artificial mountains and flowing water into the interior.

Every table had a view of Xiang Xi, but there were small artificial rockeries or plants between the tables, so they neither disturbed one another nor made anyone feel completely alone. With the glass roof as well, on a clear night, you could look up and see the stars and moon. It had quite an atmosphere.

Xiang Xi was wearing a blue traditional-style jacket with black trousers, sitting behind the tea table. When he saw Cheng Boyan come in, he curled the corners of his mouth into a slight smile.

Cheng Boyan smiled back at him and took a sip of tea.

Xiang Xi only dressed like this here; it was the owner’s requirement. In other places, he normally dressed casually, in T-shirts, casual trousers, and the like.

Cheng Boyan felt that the owner had rather distinctive taste. On someone else, an outfit like this might perhaps give off the feeling of someone deeply involved in the art of tea, but when Xiang Xi wore it, it was not quite the same.

Cheng Boyan always felt that he looked like a martial-arts master, especially when he sometimes became particularly absorbed in making tea, bending one leg up onto the chair and resting an arm on his knee. It gave the impression that he could start a fight at any moment.

But quite a few customers were precisely into that style: a jianghu (NT: the martial-arts world of wandering fighters and martial artists) kind of aura, though not the heroic-wuxia sort. It leaned more toward the demonic-cult side.

Hu Hai was also exceptionally good at playing along, hiding behind an artificial rockery like some reclusive master and playing nothing but particularly jianghu-style pieces.

Cheng Boyan sat at the table and slowly drank his tea. Half an hour later, Xiang Xi gathered up his stance, straightened out the tea utensils on the table, stood up, turned around, and walked out of the room.

The sound of Hu Hai’s qin also lowered along with him, gradually fading away. It left behind a roomful of customers who seemed not to have had enough tea yet.

Cheng Boyan followed Xiang Xi out and entered the adjoining lounge.

“Let’s go have barbecue, grilled fish?” Xiang Xi had changed back into a T-shirt and jeans and slipped on his jacket. “Or we could go to my master’s place and have my ge make us something.”

“I have surgery tomorrow. If we go over there and start chatting, it’ll be the middle of the night again,” Cheng Boyan said.

“Then grilled fish,” Xiang Xi said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Grilled fish.”

“Grilled fish…” Cheng Boyan hesitated.

“Are you about to say that all grilled fish is made from stale dead fish?” Xiang Xi laughed. “We’ll go eat at Lao Liu’s. Don’t they use freshly killed live fish there?”

Cheng Boyan sighed and said nothing more. What he had actually wanted to say was that grilled fish was too unhealthy and they should eat less of it.

“How about I go home and make something to eat?” Xiang Xi turned around and looked at him.

“Grilled fish!” Cheng Boyan put an arm around his shoulders and pushed him toward the exit. “Grilled fish it is!”

Hu Hai was excellent at cooking and incredibly patient when teaching other people to cook. Sometimes Cheng Boyan felt that if he opened a cooking class, he could train quite a few master chefs.

But perhaps when Xiang Xi had been born, the option of cooking simply hadn’t existed on his skill tree; no matter how many skill points he had, there was nowhere to put them. In any case, all these years, whenever he had nothing else to do, he had clanged and clattered around the kitchen with Hu Hai, yet to this day he had still failed to produce a single dish whose quality matched the imposing manner with which he cooked.

“Your followers are outside,” Hu Hai said as the two of them came out of the lounge.

The “followers” were three young women, probably students. After coming to drink tea once two months earlier, they had begun following Xiang Xi on his journey between different tea houses. As long as it was in the evening, they never missed a single time.

Usually, they simply waited until he was leaving to greet him and say good night or something like that.

“They’re here again?” Cheng Boyan was startled. He gave Xiang Xi a tug. “Why don’t we wait a while before leaving?”

“If I don’t go out, do you think they’ll leave?” Xiang Xi said indifferently.

As soon as they turned into the corridor, sure enough, they saw the three young women beside an artificial rockery.

“We’re leaving,” one of the young women said with a smile, greeting Xiang Xi.

“Mm.” Xiang Xi smiled and nodded. “Hurry home. It’s late tonight.”

“Um…” The young woman stepped forward and blocked his path. “Can I take a photo with you?”

“Hmm?” Xiang Xi looked at her.

“Right here.” The young woman pointed at the artificial rockery. “Just one photo, is that okay?”

Xiang Xi glanced at Cheng Boyan, then stood in front of the rockery. “Sure.”

Cheng Boyan stepped aside and watched Xiang Xi.

The young woman stood beside him, lightly looping her arm around his, and tilted her head toward his shoulder. “Take it quickly!”

Another young woman raised her phone and took the picture, then ran over as well and asked to take a photo with him.

Xiang Xi agreed as well.

Cheng Boyan leaned against the tree behind him. The changes in Xiang Xi over these past few years could be described as great, yet also not particularly great. He was still very cute, and his innocence about certain things remained. When he was happy, he would still shout; when he was unhappy, he would still shout. He loved eating, loved cooking, loved showing off, was a money-grubber, and his handwriting was still pretty awful… But if one were to say that he had not changed much, then in another sense, he had changed quite a lot.

If it had been five years ago, faced with a scene like the one before him, he might have felt awkward, or perhaps impatient, and there was even a chance he would have given people the cold shoulder. Now, although there was still only the faintest smile at the corners of his mouth, he appeared much steadier and more composed.

That bandit-like air was still there, as was the cocky, swaggering stubbornness deep in his bones, but it was set off by a confidence that had slowly grown from within him, giving him a distinctive quality.

Confidence. Inner assurance.

Whatever Xiang Xi's past had been, whatever struggles and painful things he had gone through, he now possessed some of the things he had wanted.

“I often see you come to pick him up,” one of the young women said with a smile beside Cheng Boyan. “Are you his older brother or his friend?”

“Dad… friend,” Cheng Boyan said, then glanced at Xiang Xi. Only after confirming Xiang Xi’s expression did he add, “Boyfriend.”

“Ah? Oh…” The young woman looked at her two companions in surprise.

“Go home already,” Xiang Xi said, not waiting for the young women to say anything else before turning around and leaving.

Cheng Boyan followed behind him the whole way. Only after they had left the tea house did he say, “Hey, did you leave something behind?”

“What?” Xiang Xi turned around.

“You’re walking at such a brisk pace, why aren’t you running?” Cheng Boyan said. “You know your boyfriend has been left behind, right?”

Xiang Xi giggled. “I was going to run. I was afraid you’d get jealous and beat me up.”

“I’m not jealous of that,” Cheng Boyan put an arm around his shoulders and walked with him toward the car. “If I got jealous every time something like this happened, all my teeth would fall out before I even turned forty.”

“It’s fine. I’ll make you congee, mixed-bean paste… Oh, I just remembered. Didn’t Director Xu ask us to go over for dinner this week?” Xiang Xi frowned. “If I tell her I don’t want that braised beef with kidney beans anymore, do you think she’ll throw me out?”

“That’s all because of your ass-kissing,” Cheng Boyan also frowned. “You only needed to say it was good once. Did you really have to praise the whole meal? Now you’re enjoying the consequences, and every time it’s kidney beans. I’m almost developing a psychological aversion to them.”

“Give me a break. You don’t have any aversion to mixed-bean porridge, do you? You’ve been eating that your whole life.” Xiang Xi clicked his tongue.

Once they got into the car, Xiang Xi reclined the seat and lay back, ordering Cheng Boyan, “Xiao Cheng, open our panoramic sunroof. Panoramic. The sunroof.”

“It’s freezing, forget it, Boss Xiang.” Cheng Boyan laughed as he started the car.

“I want to look at the scenery,” Xiang Xi said. “It’s my car, so I say what goes.”

“You can see the scenery with it closed,” Cheng Boyan glanced at him. “I own a share of this car too.”

“It feels different.” Xiang Xi put his feet up against the front of the car. “Open it quickly. Good boy, Daddy.”

Cheng Boyan was somewhat helpless as he tugged at his collar and opened the sunroof.

Xiang Xi had chosen this car himself last year. Of course, he didn’t have enough money, so Cheng Boyan covered part of the cost for him.

Actually, if Cheng Boyan had had his way, there was no need to change cars at all. His old one had been perfectly fine, and Xiang Xi didn’t even like driving himself when he went out.

But Xiang Xi wanted to buy one, as though he needed to prove something. Whenever there was a car show, he would come home with a whole bag of brochures and study them. Cheng Boyan eventually stopped insisting otherwise.

“Ah, it’s freezing cold. Feels great.” Xiang Xi curled himself into a ball in the car seat. “Tell me, if it’s called a panoramic sunroof, why can it only open halfway?”

“One that opens all the way is a convertible,” Cheng Boyan said. “This is already pretty good. Didn’t you originally want to buy a CC? Its sunroof could only tilt open a crack.”

“When I’ve saved enough money, we’ll get a convertible.” Xiang Xi thought about it.

“Are you planning to build a whole car fleet?” Cheng Boyan sighed. “You really can’t flaunt your wealth like this.”

“It’s satisfying.” Xiang Xi rested his head on his arm and looked at the night sky. “You show off whatever you lacked. I figure that in this life, apart from you, money is probably the thing I have the best impression of. I’ve never seen anyone more obsessed with money than me.”

Cheng Boyan laughed for quite a while. “Am I supposed to thank you for putting me ahead of money?”

“No need to thank me. You’re ahead of everything.” Xiang Xi sat up and closed the sunroof. “I’m freezing to death.”

The Lao Liu grilled-fish place Xiang Xi loved was on a small street behind their residential complex. Xiang Xi had discovered it by chance and made a point of going there about once a month, always dragging Cheng Boyan along.

Cheng Boyan, however, basically just watched—watched him eat.

“I really like watching you eat. Whether it’s good or not, you always eat like it’s delicious,” Cheng Boyan said.

“What kind of hobby is that?” Xiang Xi lowered his head and ate his fish. “But I have things I like watching too. I like watching you shower, and I like watching you pretend to read a book while actually not looking at the book at all.”

“…That’s when you’re sitting beside me chattering,” Cheng Boyan laughed. “When you’re asleep, I read very seriously.”

“I don’t chatter all the time anymore. We’re practically an old married couple; there isn’t that much to say.” Xiang Xi ate two more bites, then stopped and looked up at Cheng Boyan worriedly. “Do you think that after a few more years, the two of us won’t have anything to say to each other anymore?”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” Cheng Boyan looked at him seriously. “I feel like you held it all in for the first ten-odd years, and now you’re trying to make up for it. Besides, even if we run out of things to say, we can always argue.”

“Don’t mention arguing!” Xiang Xi glared at him. “You’re not allowed to mention it.”

“I won’t. We’ve only had one argument in total, and you still keep remembering it.” Cheng Boyan laughed.

“Hey, you really don’t know until you argue. You usually look so respectable and upright… Well, not exactly. You’re not that upright either. You’ve always been a shameless old rascal.” Xiang Xi thought about it. “You’re normally such a gentle person, but when you argue, you scare me half to death.”

“It was because you made me angry. It’s lucky I didn’t beat you up.” Cheng Boyan hesitated for a long time with his chopsticks before picking up a piece of green garlic beside the fish and eating it.

“What am I like when I argue?” Xiang Xi looked at him.

“Didn’t you say not to bring it up?” Cheng Boyan laughed.

“I’m just asking.”

“Especially… a punk,” Cheng Boyan thought about it. “It’s easy to imagine what you must have been like when you got into confrontations with people in Zhaojiayao.”

Xiang Xi leaned back in his chair and laughed for quite a while before sighing. “I’m beyond saving. That mark is stamped too deeply into me.”

“But it’s pretty handsome too,” Cheng Boyan said. “I’m cursing you while admiring you at the same time. Oh my, this is my son—he’s got some presence.”

“Get over yourself,” Xiang Xi laughed and lowered his head to continue eating his fish.

When they returned home, Xiang Xi went into the study and stayed in there for a long time without coming out. Even after Cheng Boyan had finished showering, he was still holed up in the study.

“What are you doing?” Cheng Boyan walked into the study.

“Playing with money.” Xiang Xi was standing beside the bookcase, facing the wall.

“Remember to wash and disinfect your hands when you’re done playing.” Cheng Boyan sighed helplessly.

“Mm.” Xiang Xi nodded, still staring at the wall.

Ever since Xiang Xi’s work had gotten onto a proper footing and his income had gradually become stable and increased day by day, he had taken over the study.

At first, he put a sheet of glass over the desk and began taking one or two hundred yuan from each month’s income and pressing the bills underneath the glass. Later, he started hanging framed pictures on the wall and even bought entire sets of photo-wall frames, filling them all with money and arranging them on the wall in a rather artistic fashion.

Cheng Boyan felt that sooner or later Xiang Xi was going to cover the floor with money too.

After they had admired the money in the study to their heart’s content, Xiang Xi took a shower and went into the bedroom. He flopped down onto the bed, then hugged Cheng Boyan, who was leaning against the headboard reading a book. “Hey, let me tell you something.”

“Mm.” Cheng Boyan put down his book and lay back against the pillow.

“Mantou called me today,” Xiang Xi said, resting his head on his arm. “He’s coming over next week.”

“Didn’t he say he was going to start working?” Cheng Boyan asked.

“Starting next month,” Xiang Xi said with a smile. “He said once he starts working, he’ll be busy, so he’s coming over to see me while he still can.”

Mantou had spent three years in prison. After getting out, he returned home. Compared with Xiang Xi, finding his parents had been incredibly easy for him, with practically no twists and turns, because his parents had never stopped looking for him.

When Xiang Xi saw the photo Mantou had sent him, showing the whole family embracing each other and weeping bitterly, he was filled with emotion.

Afterward, Mantou went to some kind of technical school to learn auto repair. Apparently, he was doing quite well, and now he was about to officially start working.

“How long is he staying?” Cheng Boyan asked. “Is he staying here?”

“Three days or so. He’s not staying here.” Xiang Xi burst out laughing. “Is this what you’re worried about? Hey, once the guest leaves, I’ll have to wash the sheets, change the sofa covers, mop the floor, disinfect the dishes and chopsticks…”

“It’s not that bad.” Cheng Boyan laughed at this. “You’ve already driven me to the point where I don’t care anymore. Yesterday you spilled juice on the sofa, and I didn’t even change the sofa cover.”

“Four drops. I counted them.” Xiang Xi stretched lazily. “Mantou said he’s booked a hotel. All I have to do is provide the person, the money, and accompany him around for fun.”

“A one-day tour of Zhaojiayao?” Cheng Boyan asked.

“Hey, there really is such a plan. Actually, part of the reason he’s coming back is because he wants to go take a look. They’re going to demolish it, aren’t they? Go take a walk around, look back on the past, things and people no longer the same, the jianghu gone, then and now, looking back and smiling at what once was… those dark things that are about to be buried…”

“Good grief, my son is extraordinary.” Cheng Boyan stared for a moment. ““Since when can you just come out with a whole string of things like that?”

“I don’t even know what I’m saying,” Xiang Xi said with a laugh. “It just came out.”

*

Every year, Cheng Boyan felt that autumn was a little too short. Before long, it would start getting cold, and every morning when he stepped outside, he could see his breath in front of him, making him want to shiver.

Once the weather turned cold, business at the tea houses would become quieter, so Xiang Xi had more free time. Whenever he had nothing else to do, he would basically spend his time at Fang Yin’s studio or go out taking photographs with him.

Sunrises, sunsets, clouds and mist, blue skies, overcast skies, smog—he photographed them all.

But Xiang Xi regarded photography merely as a hobby. He had no ambition to become some great master of photography or anything of the sort. Whenever he occasionally came across one of his own photographs in a magazine, he would treat it as a pleasant surprise and carefully keep that issue of the magazine.

When Cheng Boyan came home today, Xiang Xi was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, fiddling with his camera.

It was the camera Cheng Boyan had given Xiang Xi for his birthday the previous year. He had secretly asked Fang Yin to help him choose it, and had bought three lenses as well, all as a surprise for Xiang Xi.

Every time Xiang Xi took it out, he looked as nervous as if he had just robbed a bank of a million yuan. He would wrap it up in three layers inside and out. Sometimes, when Cheng Boyan had a day off and accompanied him to take photographs, just watching him take the camera out was enough to make Cheng Boyan feel he could take a nap.

“Darling,” Cheng Boyan said as he changed his shoes, “I’ve got a big job for your camera.”

“Hm?” Xiang Xi immediately looked up. “You found me a job? How much?”

“…No pay. It’s a free shoot.” Cheng Boyan said.

“No time.” Xiang Xi immediately lowered his head and went back to fiddling with the camera. “I’m busy. I’m so busy every day that I don’t even know what I’m busy with anymore.”

Cheng Boyan laughed, went inside to change his clothes, then came back and sat beside him. “Really no time?”

“You want to hug me?” Xiang Xi looked at him. “If you’re going to hug me, be gentle. If you drop the camera, I’ll pour soy sauce all over the sofa.”

Cheng Boyan very gently pulled him into his arms and touched the beauty mark beneath his eye. “Really no time?”

“Depends what it is.” Xiang Xi carefully put the camera back into its bag, then took the lens cases and slowly put the lenses away one by one. “Just tell me. If one of your friends wants some photos taken, I’ll reluctantly, extremely unwillingly, and very unhappily take a few for free.”

“Not a friend.” Cheng Boyan smiled. “Didn’t you say before that you wanted to see the grasslands?”

Xiang Xi said nothing. He carefully made sure the camera and lenses were stable on the sofa, then suddenly turned around and glared at him, asking loudly, “Can you take vacation this year? Is that it?!”

“If we go to the grasslands now, there’s no grass left.” Cheng Boyan did not answer him and simply continued smiling. “The horses, cows, and sheep are all hibernating…”

“Not one of those animals hibernates. If you’re going to make something up, can you at least make it believable?” Xiang Xi said. The smile in his eyes gradually spread. “You can take vacation, can’t you? You really kept your mouth shut. You never mentioned it to me.”

“I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to take it. If I told you and you looked forward to it for ages, only to end up disappointed…” Cheng Boyan pinched his chin. “They’re all hibernating, so how about we don’t go to the grasslands and go see some mountains instead?”

“Where? Where?” Xiang Xi bounced once on the sofa, then hurriedly touched the camera before turning around and shouting again, “Where?!”

Cheng Boyan said unhurriedly, “Lin He and the other one just got back from Aershan…”

(NT: Aershan is a city and scenic area in Inner Mongolia, China, famous for its forests, volcanic landscapes, lakes, hot springs, and snowy mountain scenery.)

“They went abroad?” Xiang Xi stared. “What mountain is Aershan? The Alps? Is this place just called ‘Alps’ for short?”

“Aershan is in Inner Mongolia.” Cheng Boyan took out his phone and scrolled through it. “Look at the photos they sent me. I wanted to make sure they were actually possible first, so I never showed them to you…”

“You really can keep things bottled up. No wonder you’re an old man. If it were me, I couldn’t keep it in for ten minutes. Holy crap, it’s beautiful!” Xiang Xi leaned over, took one look, and shouted, “This sky! These mountains! This lake! Is this what they call a paozi (NT: a local term for a small lake or pond)? Holy crap, it’s like a mirror… Song Yi took this?”

“Mm, with the camera you used to use.” Cheng Boyan nodded. “Watch your language.”

“Song Yi can take pictures like this?” Xiang Xi asked in amazement.

Cheng Boyan laughed. “Exactly. If even that amateur photographer Song Yi can take pictures like this, then my son, a master like you, is definitely going to produce some masterpieces.”

“Of course! Just point it anywhere and you’ve got a masterpiece!” Xiang Xi stared at the photos for a long while before looking up. “Really going?”

“Really going.” Cheng Boyan picked up the calendar from the small coffee table, took a pen, and circled a date. “Starting from this day, I’m off for ten days. Train, plane, or self-drive—you choose.”

“Self-drive. We can take turns driving and play along the way.” Xiang Xi said. “How about it?”

“Sure. Even if you wanted to run there, I’d go with you.”

“Running wouldn’t give us enough time,” Xiang Xi said. “With the leg I’ve got a steel pin in, I might not even make it halfway.”

“You make it sound so serious.” Cheng Boyan laughed and kissed him.

Xiang Xi waved an arm. “Then let’s go to the Alps… no, Algeria… what was it called again?”

“The mountain.”

“So simple. Fine.” He waved his arm again. “Aershan! Let’s go!”

 

End

 

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Note from the translator :

Thank you for reading this heart-warming story!

 

Translator : DarNan