WC ⋆ Chapter 3

Since the start of winter, Qi Lin had rarely gone out in the mornings. Most of the time he would wake up and lie in bed for ten-odd minutes, get up and eat a few bites of breakfast without much care, then drag himself to the desk and listen to the political news highlights in a state of collapse.

Five days into the loop, he still listened to the news every day. Unsurprisingly, nothing in the world had changed. If anything, he was close to memorizing the news scripts by heart. If only that kind of perseverance could hold out until before the provincial exam, what would there be to worry about regarding the acceptance ratio.

Qi Lin bundled himself into his down jacket, pulled up his hat and put it on. The moment he stepped out of the building entrance, a gust of cold wind hit him, making him squeeze his eyes shut. He rubbed his forehead, then slowly turned his head to look at Jiang Yishen.

“What is there to eat around here?” Jiang Yishen had wound his scarf around himself several times with no particular method, looking like he was about to strangle himself. “Or should we go eat at school? I haven’t graduated yet, I can get you in.”

“You never get tired, do you.” Qi Lin walked straight ahead, took two steps, then retreated. Without making it obvious, he circled around to stand behind Jiang Yishen, using him as a windbreak.

The building where their small place was located was far from the main gate of the residential complex. The two of them strolled to a small side gate and slipped out, which opened directly onto a wide road. The bicycle traffic through the small gate had reached the morning rush peak. Old men and women returning from the morning market pedaled their bikes in and out at a leisurely pace, accompanied by the creaking noise of chains. Cloth bags of every color hung from their handlebars, with a few green vegetable leaves poking out from the tops of the bags.

Along the sidewalk beside the road, several reclining chairs had been set up. An old man lay on one sunning himself. A street barber with a cigarette dangling from his lips stood behind him holding a clipper, two small scissors tucked at his waist. With each pass of the clipper, a few tufts of hair fluttered down.

The street trees had been stripped down to bare trunks, their grasping branches swaying in the wind. Up ahead, white steam billowed from the doorway of a small shop. Another batch of steamed buns had just come fresh out of the pot.

The shop had only a single shopfront. The interior was shallow but bright. Tables and chairs were scattered sparsely from inside out to the doorway. The few plastic stools at the entrance were all occupied. From the back kitchen came the constant sizzling of deep-frying. The warmth and smoke of cooking chased away the cold, everything lively and bustling.

Qi Lin only ordered a rolled crepe. Jiang Yishen, on the other hand, held a bowl of wonton in one hand and a metal tray in the other, the tray holding a sesame flatbread and a tea egg.

The wonton was steaming hot. Jiang Yishen nudged it toward Qi Lin.

Qi Lin looked up at him. Jiang Yishen was only focused on peeling the tea egg. When he lowered his head, his brow bone hid the expression in his eyes, leaving only his eyelashes visible, blinking now and then.

The chairs were very low, so Jiang Yishen had to sit with his legs spread apart, both arms propped on his knees. His brows and features were too sharp-edged, making him look a little fierce.

Qi Lin scooped up one wonton with a spoon, then pushed the bowl back. “You eat it. I don’t have an appetite in the morning.”

It had been far too long since they had eaten together. Perhaps they were not quite used to it yet. Neither of them said anything more, and they looked out of place sitting there in the lively breakfast stall.

Only at this moment did Qi Lin feel the reality of being bound by fate to his ex-boyfriend.

Yesterday’s reunion had come too suddenly. Everything had happened without any warning, and it had all unfolded in an atmosphere of extreme excitement. The urgency of time, the panic that was the opposite of everyone else’s mood around him, had flooded his mind. The comfort of having a companion in the loop had followed close behind, and all of it had diluted Qi Lin’s most original feelings.

Now the torrent had settled into calm. They sat in the breakfast stall eating. Qi Lin did not know whether it was the suspension bridge effect at work, but for the first time he felt a grounded, tangible sense of reality.

This city’s winter only showed blue sky after the wind picked up, yet the sunlight always shone with a blinding glare. Across all the loops it was always the same wind, the same clouds, like an old VHS tape that had gotten stuck. Qi Lin was an alien visitor who had wandered in by mistake.

But now he was cradling fragrant hot breakfast, watching the person sitting across from him bent over a bowl of wonton. The world seemed to come alive again. The people he had been treating as NPCs throughout the loop recovered their original appearance as ordinary passersby, no longer mechanical and numb.

“Young Master, how much longer do I have to hold this up? Want me to wipe it for you?”

Qi Lin pulled back his unfocused gaze and turned around. Jiang Yishen was holding out a few sheets of paper toward him.

The rolled crepe was already finished. He took the napkins and carefully wiped the oil from the tips of his fingers. Jiang Yishen drank the last mouthful of soup and, with great effort, hauled himself up from the low chair. “Let’s go.”

After eating and drinking their fill, their bodies were warm, and the cold wind was not as cold as it had been at first. Next to the residential complex was a large park. In the park in the early morning, someone was cracking a whip. The two of them passed by a group of people walking birds, doing tai chi, and hanging from a horizontal bar. Then they wound their way back into the small alley.

The alley went very deep. Just as even the small carts selling chestnuts and sweet potatoes had disappeared, right when Qi Lin was about to start suspecting that Jiang Yishen’s motives were not pure, Jiang Yishen finally stopped.

The old alleyway was very narrow. Water pipes from the residential buildings hung down along the brick walls on both sides. A few electrical wires crossed overhead. Bicycles and miscellaneous items were piled along the walls all the way through. It was quiet and peaceful.

Qi Lin heard a very soft meow.

Only then did he notice a small black cat jumping down from an electric tricycle parked to the side and walking toward them. Its black fur was glossy. It was probably kept by one of the households in the alleyway.

“This is your big discovery?” Qi Lin looked at the cat warily, his thoughts spinning in all directions for a moment. He even wondered if the cat would leap up and turn into a person.

Jiang Yishen said, “Look, it came over. The first couple of days it ran away the moment it saw me.”

Qi Lin froze for a moment, struck by a bizarre feeling of not knowing where to look.

Fortunately, Jiang Yishen did not keep him in suspense and continued to explain. “In the first cycle, I walked to the intersection and it ran off, wouldn’t come over no matter how I called. In the second cycle I came back again, wearing the same clothes, eating the same breakfast. It didn’t run, it just stood at a distance watching me. By the third cycle it would come and rub against me on its own.”

Qi Lin finally grasped what he was implying. When he looked at the little cat again, he only felt his head go numb. “What… does that mean?”

“Besides this little cat, I also observed two stray dogs at school, and it was the same with them. I think it might be scent,” Jiang Yishen crouched down and patted the little cat on the head, “or maybe a magnetic field. Anyway, something is changing. Do you understand what I mean? The loop is not a reset. We haven’t stopped at the starting point. There is one dimension that keeps moving forward, so the loop should be something that can be broken.”

Qi Lin’s throat went dry. Countless thoughts flashed through his mind like lightning. He watched in silence as Jiang Yishen stroked the cat. One hand was large enough to cover the little cat’s whole head, the black cat’s ears sticking up between his fingers.

“Hm?” Getting no answer, Jiang Yishen tilted his head up to look at him.

Qi Lin crouched down as well, meeting his gaze at eye level. “If you think the magnetic field is not affected by the loop, then I thought of a point that could supplement the argument.”

He said that and then got a little stuck, furrowing his brow and thinking for a moment before continuing. “Yesterday I said I went to the observatory and the geological institute over the past couple of days. Actually I also went to Dabeiyuan. Coming out and going further ahead is the Ferris Wheel. That day I felt something. Looking up from the bottom of the Ferris Wheel, the speed at which the clouds drifted was different every time, but from farther away there was no difference. So I didn’t pay much attention to it, thinking it was an illusion. We could go investigate along the river.”

Jiang Yishen’s hand, still stroking the cat, went stiff for a moment.

The Ferris Wheel was built over the river. A few hundred meters downstream was Sanchakou, where the cruise ships had a docking terminal. That was the place where they had made their relationship official.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. It was unclear whether it was because the topic had suddenly drifted toward a tacitly understood, difficult place, or simply because neither of them had much of a clue about the loop.

Qi Lin’s phone ringtone broke the silence first. All three of them, two people and one cat, were startled. Then each quietly let out a breath of relief.

When he took out his phone it showed nine nineteen. Qi Lin remembered now. This was Xu Baili’s call, asking him what he planned to do for New Year’s Eve and saying he was thinking of putting together a New Year’s party. Xu Baili was worried it was too last-minute to get enough people together.

The New Year’s party had of course ended up happening. At 11:56 p.m. that night, Xu Baili had even called to invite him to come.

Qi Lin pressed answer. “Hello?”

“Xiao Qi, are you free today?” Xu Baili asked with the incredibly familiar opening line.

Qi Lin’s response had already become muscle memory. He was just about to say “I haven’t sorted out my plans yet” when he heard Jiang Yishen suddenly speak up. “How about we…”

Qi Lin’s heart lurched. Almost by reflex he raised his hand and clapped it firmly over Jiang Yishen’s mouth.

On the other end of the phone, Xu Baili also went silent for a moment, then asked hesitantly, “Xiao Qi?”

“It’s nothing.” Qi Lin answered quickly and rattled off all of Xu Baili’s next lines in one breath. “My plans for today are still uncertain. You’re thinking of putting together a New Year’s party, right? That bar we always used to go to is pretty good. I think drinks are twenty percent off today. Once you’ve got everyone together let me know. I’ll come if I’m free.”

Xu Baili was caught off guard. “Ah…”

“The signal here is really bad. Let’s talk on WeChat later.” Qi Lin finished speaking, pressed the end button with a click, and only then withdrew the hand covering Jiang Yishen’s mouth.

Jiang Yishen stared at him in disbelief, furious. “Why wouldn’t you let me talk? It’s not like I’m a homewrecker!”

“You…” Qi Lin scratched his face and said earnestly, “When we broke up we fought really badly. Xu Baili told me not to have any more contact with you, otherwise that friendship of ours would be done for.”

The truth was that after the breakup he had genuinely been in pain for a while. He had lost a lot of weight in those few days, and the life had gone out of him entirely. Xu Baili couldn’t stand to see him like that and had put in a lot of effort to help him move on.

Qi Lin did not want to continue with this topic, so he changed the subject. “What were you about to say just now?”

Jiang Yishen did not press further either. He pursed his lips. “I was going to say, I know Xu Baili is throwing a party tonight. He invited Fan Zi, and I’ve known about it all along. But I only started paying attention to this gathering from the third cycle onward. In the later cycles, you never went. Since you weren’t there, Fan Zi invited me instead.”

They had dated for a year and had quite a few mutual friends, most of whom knew about the two of them. But after the breakup, there were rarely any large gatherings with everyone present. It was mostly small dinners in twos and threes, with deliberate care taken to avoid having the two of them in the same frame.

What a tremendous misguided fate. Aside from the fifth cycle when the two of them recognized each other, in the first four cycles Qi Lin had only attended the first two drinking sessions, while Jiang Yishen had happened to go to the later two.

“We’ve never attended one at the same time. Should we try it this time? Maybe there’s something that needs both of us together to trigger.”

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