WC ⋆ Chapter 26

Qi Lin listened for several seconds before he could tell that the person on the other end of the phone was crying. His heart lurched with anxiety, and he walked quickly to the door. “What’s wrong? Where are you? I’ll come find you.”

No one answered. Qi Lin yanked the door open and was immediately startled by the person standing right outside, his heart nearly leaping out of his chest.

He stepped back half a pace and, focusing his eyes, saw that it was Jiang Yishen. The big guy, nearly 1.9 meters tall, was holding his phone and shedding tears, fat drops rolling down his face as he stared at Qi Lin.

Qi Lin’s eyes went wide. He had absolutely no idea what had happened, but Jiang Yishen looked so wretched that he hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward to wipe his tears.

“Why are you crying?” The more he wiped, the wetter it got, until Jiang Yishen’s entire face was damp. Qi Lin raised his arm and pulled him into a hug.

Jiang Yishen had been standing in the hallway long enough that even his clothes were cold, but the embrace was warm and toasty. Qi Lin turned his head and rubbed against his cheek, saying softly, “I won’t be harsh with you anymore, okay? Stop crying.”

The moment he was held, Jiang Yishen started sobbing all over again. Qi Lin felt something warm and wet fall against the side of his neck.

“Did someone bully you?” Qi Lin said it and didn’t even believe himself. He had to tilt his head back just to wrap his arms around Jiang Yishen now.

Jiang Yishen sniffled, then said in a hoarse, pitiful voice: “No.”

Qi Lin propped his hands on Jiang Yishen’s shoulders and stepped back a little to look at those red-rimmed eyes. He wanted to say something, but in the end he only let out a sigh. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have deceived you.”

For Qi Lin, it had happened less than ten hours ago. For Jiang Yishen, it felt like a lifetime had passed. Hearing those words, he didn’t even register them at first. He blinked, and another tear fell. “Deceived me about what?”

Qi Lin was thrown off by that. He frowned. “Then what are you crying about?”

It was a long story. After crying, Jiang Yishen’s mind had cleared up considerably, but he still couldn’t figure out where to begin. “Let’s go inside first.”

The small room was warm as always. Qi Lin went to pour some water. Jiang Yishen stood in front of the coffee table, and suddenly remembered something. “How is it January 5th today?”

Qi Lin had his back to him. He silently poured water into a cup, his shoulders seeming to sag a little. After a long pause he said, “I was going to ask you the same thing. I couldn’t find you, and the loop had disappeared. I thought it was because of my wish. I thought we were over.”

He picked up the cup. He hadn’t gotten the temperature right, and the heat stung his fingers. His heart was uncomfortable too. He was about to add some cooler water when he heard another round of soft sobbing from behind him.

Qi Lin forgot about the cup and turned around quickly. Jiang Yishen’s eyes were filling with tears again.

“I’m sorry.” Jiang Yishen said. “My messages wouldn’t send. My calls couldn’t get through either.”

There was nothing left to blame each other for. Qi Lin felt his heart beating fast tonight, and yet it was like a soft lump of cotton, hollow no matter how you kneaded it, but steadied now by Jiang Yishen’s tears.

“Stop crying. What happened? Was it the lo…”

“Let’s get back together.” Jiang Yishen cut him off.

Every word Qi Lin had been about to say was chopped clean away. He stood rooted to the spot, his mind going blank. The soft cotton that had been there a moment ago exploded into popcorn.

“Let’s get back together.” Jiang Yishen said, his eyes watery. “Whatever problems there are, we can fix them after we’re back together.”

Something was clouding Qi Lin’s judgment. He vaguely felt that Jiang Yishen had deployed some kind of strategy that left him with no way to win, because looking at Jiang Yishen like this, it was very hard to say no to him.

“Let me think, I…”

“I’m scared.” Jiang Yishen’s voice seemed to drip with something sticky and sweet, but the end of it had a sour edge. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to be together again.”

Qi Lin gritted his teeth and drew in a controlled breath. “All right.”

Jiang Yishen immediately moved to lean down and kiss him, and Qi Lin dodged away.

“Let’s agree on this first. This is only a couple in name. It doesn’t count as a real reconciliation.” Even as he said it, he found it absurd himself. How could there be such a strange relationship in the world, just as twisted as it had always been.

“Then can I wear the ring you gave me?” Jiang Yishen asked.

Hearing that question, Qi Lin caved just as easily. Fine, why couldn’t there be such a strange relationship in the world. The two of them had made it exist, so here it was. “Wear it. It was meant for you to wear in the first place.”

This was the second time they had directly spoken about that ring. Qi Lin watched as Jiang Yishen took the ring out of his pocket and, very seriously, slid it onto his ring finger.

Jiang Yishen’s hands were beautiful, long and strong from years of sports, the knuckles defined. The plain band ring fit snugly at the base of his finger.

It was exactly the image Qi Lin had imagined before.

“You have to wear one too.” Jiang Yishen said.

Qi Lin snapped out of it and stumbled over his words. “I have to wear one too?”

“They’re a matching pair. Why wouldn’t you wear it?” Jiang Yishen complained in that wheedling way of his, and Qi Lin’s ears went red listening to it. He fled to the cabinet by the entryway to dig out his own ring.

And just like that, in a muddled, haphazard way, they got back together. It was nothing like the series of pain, transformation, and smoothing of rough edges that Qi Lin had imagined a reconciliation would involve. Having the title first and working things out afterward made everything feel softer.

Jiang Yishen began to follow Qi Lin around everywhere. Making the bed, he followed. Tidying things up, he followed. When Qi Lin brushed his teeth and washed his face, Jiang Yishen called for him to keep him company. When he showered, he wanted Qi Lin to join him.

Qi Lin reached the end of his patience and shoved Jiang Yishen into the bathroom alone, slamming the shower door shut with a bang. “Can we take things one step at a time?”

Jiang Yishen pressed himself against the glass, looking at him pitifully.

“Staring at me won’t do you any good.” Qi Lin made his position clear, walked out of the bathroom, then after a few seconds walked back in, lowered the toilet lid, and sat down on it. He glanced at Jiang Yishen, who was still plastered against the glass. “I’m waiting here for you. Tell me what happened today.”

“I know why you couldn’t find the old man who sold prayer beads at the temple.” Jiang Yishen’s voice was muffled through the glass.

Qi Lin’s first instinct was that Yin Yu had gone to find Jiang Yishen, but then he heard him say: “Because that old man was someone I brought.”

Jiang Yishen recounted the memory rewind from start to finish, and telling it made even him feel shaken. Every so often he would glance at Qi Lin sitting outside, wiping the fog off the glass with his hand, and he could meet Qi Lin’s eyes, which were full of a thousand thoughts.

When he finished, the bathroom fell silent. Only the water flowed on, indifferent. They were each processing their emotions. Qi Lin asked, “So you know what my wish was.”

“Yeah.” Jiang Yishen answered quietly.

“And the loop? Will it come back?”

“I don’t know.” Jiang Yishen said. “We can try and see whether tonight resets.”

After that, neither of them spoke. In truth there were still many questions they wanted to ask. Jiang Yishen wanted to ask why Qi Lin had agreed to break up with him back then, and why Qi Lin hadn’t told him about not going home for the New Year. And Qi Lin wanted to ask why Jiang Yishen had wanted to stop the loop from continuing.

But the answers to these questions were things they both already knew in their hearts. They were all the same old deeply entangled problems.

At one in the morning, neither of them had the energy to pursue those old wounds anymore. They tacitly chose to avoid the subject, silently setting it aside for now. Getting a good night’s sleep was the most important thing.

It was the first time after the New Year that they squeezed into bed together. No more lying far apart fighting over the blanket. Jiang Yishen locked Qi Lin in his arms, and it was even more reassuring than he had imagined.

This was by no means a perfect reconciliation. They still had a long way to go before they could truly understand each other, but he unexpectedly found that even though the road was long and difficult, there was no uncomfortable barrier standing between them. Qi Lin lay right there in his arms, no different from the scenes of their passionate early days that he had seen during the memory rewind.

He slept soundly that night. Jiang Yishen had expected to lie awake, but he slept straight through until morning. The only problem was that waking up was a terrible experience. He was dragged and pulled out of bed by Qi Lin, who was calling his name at the top of his voice.

The curtains were yanked open. Blinding sunlight poured in. Jiang Yishen raised his hand to cover his eyes, and through the haze heard Qi Lin say urgently, “You still have an exam today! It’s the last day of finals week. Jiang Yishen, Jiang Yishen! We don’t know if the loop will come back, and if it doesn’t, you’re finished!”

Jiang Yishen’s brain processed those words at full speed and only then remembered the final exams he had long since flung to the back of his mind. It hit him like a blow to the head.

The two of them scrambled out of bed and got dressed in a panic. The clock told them it was eight-thirty in the morning. There was half an hour until the exam started, and Jiang Yishen needed to get from Qi Lin’s rental apartment back to school.

Day one of getting back together. A momentous morning. The ex-boyfriend whose status had just been restored was about to be late for his exam.

Jiang Yishen gave himself a hasty wash, grabbed his down jacket, and was about to bolt. Qi Lin shoved his student ID and a pen into his hands. “Okay, okay, as long as you’re there in person, go, go!”

In the middle of all the chaos, Jiang Yishen stuffed everything into his pocket. “I want to drop out.”

Qi Lin was busy pushing him out the door and startled at that. “You… I’ll come to school to have lunch with you, all right?!”

After seeing him off, Qi Lin went to the window and watched Jiang Yishen run to the taxi he had called, and only then let out a breath of relief. He leaned against the sofa and sat down, raising his hand to rub his brow. The back of his head throbbed with pain.

He hadn’t slept well the night before. The reason he had woken up and noticed Jiang Yishen still had an exam was precisely because he had been sleeping fitfully, his mind full of things, always unsettled.

He noticed that the cactus on the balcony had lost its flower bud again.

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