WC ⋆ Chapter 2

Qi Lin turned on the lights. The small one-bedroom rental apartment was clean and tidy, frozen forever in its December 31st state.

He stood in the living room for a while, then walked over to pull open the refrigerator door and check the ingredients inside, wandering aimlessly in circles before finally stopping by the window.

Twenty minutes had passed. Liar.

Qi Lin looked at his own reflection in the glass. The dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced than in the previous few loops, and his jaw had grown gaunt, tracing an arc along the jawbone, passing over the protrusion of his Adam's apple, ending at the clean lines of his collarbone.

He raised a finger and pressed it against his left eye in the glass. A ring of fog bloomed quickly around his fingertip.

Wiping away the white mist, he saw a figure pass through the dim yellow glow of a streetlamp in the background, taking long strides, broad-shouldered and long-legged, with a straight back. The streetlamp stretched his shadow far behind him.

Qi Lin stood without moving. A few minutes later, someone rang the doorbell.

He counted three seconds in his head before going to open the door. The motion-sensor light in the hallway had just gone out, and Jiang Yishen stood in the shadow of the doorway, looking down at him. The interplay of light and shadow traced the sharp, handsome contours of his face, and the cold air from outside slipped into the apartment ahead of him.

He was too tall, and Qi Lin had no choice but to lift his gaze to look at him. The two of them stood there in an awkward standoff.

After a moment, Jiang Yishen spoke first: "Not going to let me in?"

Qi Lin pressed his lips together, took a pair of cotton slippers from the shoe cabinet, said nothing, and turned to sit back down on the sofa.

The heating in the apartment was running high. Qi Lin was wearing a cashmere loungewear set, the wide sleeves rolled up several times to reveal his slender wrists.

Jiang Yishen was far more at ease than him. After changing into the slippers, he stepped up to the coffee table, unzipped his down jacket, and set the bag he had been carrying inside his coat down in front of Qi Lin. A portion of fragrant fried chicken strips was still steaming.

This was a city that went to sleep early. There was not much nightlife to speak of, and the night markets near the residential complex all closed at fixed hours. There was no telling where Jiang Yishen had managed to find late-night food.

Qi Lin asked, "How much? I'll transfer it to you."

"Oh, come on." Jiang Yishen sat down across from him with an easy sprawl, rolling up his sleeves and starting to tear open the packaging. "Just A me two-fifty, I'm eating too."

Qi Lin closed his eyes for a moment. He looked as though he very much did not want to be in Jiang Yishen's presence, and after holding back for a beat he said, "Are you going to wait until you've finished eating before we talk business?"

"Go ahead and talk," Jiang Yishen said. "I don't eat with my ears."

Qi Lin stared at him and said nothing.

After a few seconds of silence, Jiang Yishen gave an "oh": "Then I'll go first? I don't have much to say. I've been looking for you for a long time."

This time it was Qi Lin's turn to be caught off guard. He frowned very slightly and repeated, "Looking for me?"

"Yeah." Jiang Yishen shrugged. "I knew there were other people in the loop. In the second cycle I ran into someone at the subway station asking for directions. In the third cycle he was gone, probably because someone else changing something triggered a butterfly effect. That's when I knew there was someone else in the loop. I just didn't expect it to be you."

Qi Lin remembered now. That had happened to fall right in the blank stretch of his notebook, the part where his memories blurred together. The person asking for directions was the point of intersection between them. In the second cycle, he had not given that person directions, so the person had kept asking around and happened to run into Jiang Yishen. Then in the third cycle, Qi Lin had wanted to try changing things, so he gave the person directions right at the start.

"In the fourth cycle, I used the school's official account to put out a public post looking for someone, to see if this person was from our school. You didn't see it? I thought it was a stranger from outside the school, so just now I went to the New Year's Eve intersection to check things out."

When Qi Lin was thinking, he would unconsciously rub the sofa fabric with the pad of his finger. He shook his head. "I already graduated. I don't check the public account normally. I didn't know there was anyone else. These past two days I've been trying to find the cause of the loop. I went to the observatory, the geological institute, and…"

Jiang Yishen paused in the act of poking at a fried chicken strip. He glanced at Qi Lin, as if he wanted to say something, his gaze dropping to that hand with its curled knuckles. In the end he held the words back, only softening his tone slightly compared to before, so that it came out a little awkward: "You must have had a rough couple of days."

There was a world of difference between fighting alone and knowing there was a companion out there somewhere but being unable to find them. Loss of control and loneliness could swallow a person whole.

Qi Lin paid no attention to the unspoken emotion in his words and simply asked, "What are you planning to do next?"

"Tomorrow I'll take you to see what I've found these past two days. It's not much, but it's at least something." As Jiang Yishen spoke, he did not look up at Qi Lin, focused entirely on poking at the fried chicken strips with a wooden skewer. "Let's rest for today. You look like you just got out of a stint in a detention cell."

Qi Lin thought there ought to be an organization in this world dedicated specifically to managing lunatics, one that would catch Jiang Yishen and shoot him.

The two of them talked in a half-silence, half-conversation way until one-thirty in the morning. Everything edible had been eaten, and there was no longer any excuse to linger in the living room. They were forced to confront the question of where to spend the rest of the night.

Qi Lin actually did not particularly want to send Jiang Yishen away.

He found it very hard to convince himself to endure another cold and lonely night. Multiple single-day loops had left his mind utterly exhausted, and having someone by his side was naturally more reassuring.

The situation carried a certain mutually understood awkwardness. Qi Lin knew Jiang Yishen well enough. He knew that the other person had rushed over in the middle of the night, and most likely also wanted to stay together.

But Jiang Yishen would not say it, and he would not say it either. Genuine feelings and good intentions were both buried under a stubborn need to save face, and neither of them was willing to be the first to give in.

Expressing their feelings had always been difficult for both of them. Too embarrassed to speak, they would not say love, would not say longing. They sustained the relationship on guesswork about what the other was thinking, and love and longing would grow weary and faint. In the end all that was left was self-doubt and disappointment, and a breakup.

In the middle of the standoff, Qi Lin noticed Jiang Yishen's scarf folded to one side.

They had broken up in autumn. Back then Jiang Yishen still did not like wearing too many layers, and every time it rained Qi Lin would always remind him to add clothing. Except that what actually came out of his mouth was always, "Wear what you want, it's not like I'm the one who'll catch a cold."

He stood up, trying to work out how to phrase an invitation to stay without it sounding too abrupt. But Jiang Yishen seemed to misread his intention, stood up as well, and said, "I'll head out?"

Now Qi Lin had no idea how to respond.

There was no room for playing hard to get in Jiang Yishen's world. He stopped looking at Qi Lin's eyes, turned to put on his outer clothes, and a fleeting unhappiness passed across his expression. But he did not say it out loud, just as he had not on countless occasions in the past.

But Qi Lin saw it.

Qi Lin admitted to himself that he had gone soft again over his insufferable ex. Just as Jiang Yishen was about to open the door, he called out, "It's so late."

What he meant was "it's so late, you might as well not go," but given the awkward state of their current relationship he truly could not get those words out. So he said only half the sentence, hoping Jiang Yishen would intuitively understand the second half.

Jiang Yishen's interpretation galloped off in entirely the wrong direction, his tone perfectly innocent: "So what if it's late? Didn't you agree to let me come?"

Qi Lin's embarrassment evaporated entirely. He could not help arguing back: "I meant it's very late for you to be leaving now."

"It was already midnight when I got here, so that wasn't late?"

Qi Lin stared at him wide-eyed, struck with admiration for his logic, and gritted his teeth: "What I'm saying is you can stay here until morning."

Jiang Yishen finally understood. He had already changed one slipper halfway, and for no clear reason became flustered: "Ah, is that appropriate, this late at night?"

Qi Lin was so irritated he could have spit fire. He waved a hand, turned, and walked into the bedroom, not sparing him another glance: "Do whatever you want."

"Hey!" Jiang Yishen scrambled to change back into the slippers. "Then I'll sleep… I'll sleep on the sofa?"

Qi Lin's voice drifted out from the bedroom: "Sleep wherever you want. You can sleep in the refrigerator for all I care!"

Jiang Yishen hesitated for one second between sleeping in the refrigerator and pushing his luck, then asked, muffled: "Can I sleep in the bed?"

Qi Lin said, "Haven't you slept enough?"

The apartment filled with the rustling sound of someone burrowing under the covers. Jiang Yishen walked to the bedroom doorway and leaned against the frame.

The bed was large, the duvet thick and warm. Qi Lin was curled up under the covers with his back to Jiang Yishen, a small bundled shape, his head buried in the pillow, his slightly long hair falling over his eyes.

Jiang Yishen felt that even if he did nothing at all, just lying down on the bed would take up more than half of it.

The person under the covers said in a muffled voice, "If you want to sleep standing up, turn off the lights."

"Do I need to change clothes?" Jiang Yishen asked.

Qi Lin's voice was perfectly calm, carrying a faint note of mortal resignation: "You want to sleep naked?"

"Didn't you always say no wearing outer clothes in bed?" Jiang Yishen said.

He always spoke with an unconscious stickiness to his voice. Qi Lin had not heard Jiang Yishen talk to him like this in a very long time, and he had never been able to do anything about that particular tone.

"Forget it. Everything resets tomorrow anyway."

He finished speaking and felt the bed dip slightly. Jiang Yishen used a sofa cushion as a pillow and tried to stay as far away as possible, but the bed was only so big, and even at the farthest distance they were no more than half an arm's length apart. One turn and they would brush against each other.

Still that familiar laundry detergent smell. Qi Lin let out a very soft sigh.

After they broke up, his first purchase had been the laundry detergent and shampoo they used to share. Scent was something that got into everything. When you could not see, hear, or touch something, sluggish emotions could trick you into believing you had moved on from a relationship. But every time he finished doing laundry, Qi Lin would always stand in front of the washing machine for a long time.

In the early hours of the sixth cycle, he finally went to sleep without needing a sleeping pill. No dreams. He slept straight through until morning.

—

Qi Lin was woken by a series of disturbances. As his consciousness returned, the first thing his eyes landed on was that handsomely angular face. Except they were far too close together. Jiang Yishen's short hair was poking him on the chin and lips.

Their eyes met for two seconds. Qi Lin closed his eyes again, hoping it was all a hallucination.

"Good morning." Jiang Yishen's voice was a little hoarse, still carrying the drowsy laziness of someone just woken up.

They had fallen asleep back to back and woken up face to face. Their right hands were only a few millimeters from touching. Jiang Yishen's palm was a size larger, and it looked like it could wrap around him completely.

Qi Lin held back and held back, and when the upturned short hair poked him for the third time, he said through gritted teeth, "Why are you in my arms?"

"I don't know." Jiang Yishen rolled over, rubbing his eyes. "I was already like this when I woke up."

Qi Lin found the scene deeply indecent. He also rolled over, faced the curtains, and spent a moment composing himself before saying, "I can't be bothered to argue with you. In a bit, take me to see that great discovery you mentioned."

The moment the great discovery was brought up, Jiang Yishen's morning grumpiness vanished completely. He sat up cleanly and decisively. Since he did not even need to change clothes, he stood straight up and yanked Qi Lin's duvet, his tone sincere and direct: "Right, almost forgot. Come on, hurry up. The great discovery appears at nine-fifteen. Any later and we'll miss it."

Qi Lin's face went ashen. He gripped his corner of the duvet tightly, stared at the morning light filtering through the curtains onto the floor, and contemplated in his heart whether, if he killed Jiang Yishen today, the loop would bring him back to life.

—

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