LA ⋆ Chapter 6: A Bowl of Wheat Rice

Saturday, Sheng Yi still went to Nanhaizi with Sheng Yao.

Tian Longrenxiao kid suddenly got the urge and signed up for an equestrian class, so the tutoring time had to be rescheduled.

The two of them took the bus. Sheng Yao refreshed his understanding of this city's surface once again—it turned out that amid the sparse lamplight there were still stretches of wild countryside interspersed. If it weren't for all the people on the bus and at the station, Sheng Yao would have thought this was a long-distance coach that had been running through a county town from twenty years ago, because along the way there was nothing but endless fields as far as the eye could see.

The old riverbed of the Yongding River had left behind vast expanses of lakes and marshes, where flocks of birds and beasts gathered.

Once they passed through the entrance, there was a lake. Along the lakeshore, many birds stood on a single leg. Sheng Yao exclaimed: "So many ducks!"

A security guard nearby, hands clasped behind his back, walked past: "Those are geese."

This place was rare in having few people. The flowers and grass were lush, and the scattered birds weren't particularly afraid of humans. Many people came here to photograph birds.

Sheng Yao and Sheng Yi strolled from south to north, and finally stopped on a pathway beside the deer park. The two of them sat on a bench to rest.

Sheng Yi said: "A place this close, and you're only just coming now. How busy must you be."

Sheng Yao said: "I guess I'm not particularly busy." It was just that he'd never thought about going out.

His field of vision had been confined to that office building. Most of his weekends were spent sleeping. Thoughts like "let's go to xxx, it's so close" had been plenty, yet they'd all surfaced years ago. He hadn't been to any of those xxx places.

Sheng Yi glanced at him lightly.

The phone suddenly rang.

"Hello?" Sheng Yao's pupils dilated for a moment, then quickly took on a look of indifference. "I understand. Mm, okay."

"Mm, okay." "Sure." "Mm."

Sheng Yao hung up the phone. Sheng Yi cast a questioning look his way.

"Master Langhang has passed away."

Sheng Yao didn't know which temple Sheng Yuanhang had gone to when he left to become a monk. After that, he'd had very little news of Sheng Yuanhang.

They'd only met once afterward, when Sheng Yi had just started elementary school. Sheng Yuanhang said he wanted to see him one last time. Sheng Yao said: "Sheng Yi, this is your dad." Sheng Yuanhang said: "No, no, no, call me Master Langhang."

The monastic name seemed casual—a generational character combined with his secular name. Sheng Yao didn't understand, but he was too lazy to ask or argue: "Master Langhang, have you seen enough? We need to go home." Sheng Yi wasn't close to Sheng Yuanhang, and wouldn't even call him Master Langhang.

At the time, he probably thought: what a weirdo.

The air seemed to have mixed in black smoke, and the world's brightness was turned down.

Sheng Yao looked up—it turned out to be dark clouds. Today, the weather changed in an instant.

Sheng Yi asked: "He's dead, so what?"

Sheng Yao: "He says he got sick before he died, borrowed some money, and wants me to pay it back."

"…" Sheng Yi gritted his teeth. "Damn ghost."

Sheng Yao pulled out a cigarette and lit it. The black clouds seemed to be pressing down hard, and the small spark at the cigarette's tip burned intensely.

Sheng Yi suddenly let out a very soft sigh: "Sheng Yao, I want to hug you."

Sheng Yao turned toward Sheng Yi somewhat bewildered. The youth before him, who had grown into someone healthy and strong, leaned over. The little child who in memory had always followed behind him had, in a flash, become an adult.

Sheng Yi wrapped both arms around Sheng Yao's neck and slowly leaned against his shoulder. Not saying a word, just leaning like that.

The person with the most complicated feelings toward Sheng Yi was probably Sheng Yao's mother.

When Sheng Yuanhang left, Sheng Yi was only two months old and then disappeared. This child shouldn't have been their responsibility, mother and son, but a woman who'd been a mother couldn't harden her heart against it.

Their treatment of him couldn't be called particularly good—every now and then a remark would slip out like "if we weren't a family, we wouldn't be in the same household, and you're the only one who isn't part of this family"—but it couldn't be called particularly bad either. If Sheng Yao had a bowl of rice, then Sheng Yi had a bowl of rice. For a middle-aged woman raising two children alone without many survival skills, that wasn't easy.

Although Sheng Yi was small, emotions are something that normal people easily pick up on.

When Sheng Yi was at his smallest, it was mostly Sheng Yao who held him.

But soon enough, Sheng Yi became a cool baby, a cool kid, a cool middle schooler, a cool high schooler, a cool older brother. He actively severed a string called tenderness, and it would never be possible again in this lifetime.

Sheng Yao's rigid body gave up resisting. He tilted his head and rested it on Sheng Yi's head.

That cigarette burned out. The tenderness lasted a minute.

Sheng Yi released Sheng Yao and returned to his cool older brother demeanor.

"Did you know he was going to come?"

"How could I? I really was just purely calling you out to photograph birds."

"You're a real jinx. I hate you."

"Would things be any different if I didn't come back?"

By the water's edge along the Xigu Spring Dawn path, Cheng Ai, dressed in outdoor gear, held a camera and looked down at the images he'd just captured—his assistant, or more precisely his former assistant, embracing another man.

Hearing Chen Siyu's words, Cheng Ai lifted his head: "If you hadn't insisted on making that scene, he at least wouldn't think I'm a very loose man."

Chen Siyu, whose mood had been quite good until then, frowned: "Loose? That sounds like you're cursing me."

"I am cursing you."

Cheng Ai first met Sheng Yao six years ago.

Cheng Ai had been working his way up from the grassroots level, handling business matters. At that time, he'd just gone to survey an urban construction project, and Cheng Ai spotted Sheng Yao at a glance, because he was so pale, so lean, completely different from the other workers on the site who were tanned year-round by wind and sun.

What surprised Cheng Ai was that although Sheng Yao looked thin, his strength was apparently no small matter. He carried stack after stack of bricks steadily and quickly.

At lunchtime, the workers gathered together to eat boxed meals from the site. Heavy oil, high carbs. Cheng Ai originally had little appetite for such food. But he was curious about Sheng Yao, so he also went and got a boxed meal and sat with them.

After chatting for a bit, he learned that Sheng Yao was a college student who'd come out during the holidays to earn tuition money.

But throughout this process, Sheng Yao never gave him a direct look. From beginning to end, Sheng Yao kept his head down eating—fist-sized steamed buns, he ate four of them, paired with greasy stir-fried lettuce and braised pork, eating with great relish, as if he were eating some delicacy found in heaven but not on earth.

Just watching made Cheng Ai feel hungry. He tried some—it really wasn't bad. The white flour bun, after chewing, had a sweet aftertaste, carrying a hint of wheat fragrance.

The workers didn't waste grain; everyone ate very cleanly, and Cheng Ai, breaking his usual habit, finished his boxed meal too.

For Cheng Ai, such a meal was truly rare.

He'd had a poor appetite since childhood, and seeing doctors hadn't yielded much result. He remembered one doctor saying: "Little one, actually the stomach is an emotional organ. Are you perhaps unhappy?"

When Cheng Ai was young, sitting at an empty long table, unable to recall when he'd last eaten with his parents, facing a table full of food and feeling it all tasteless, he deeply agreed with what the doctor said.

Later Cheng Ai went back to that construction site, but Sheng Yao had returned to school. Cheng Ai ate the same boxed meal, yet felt something was missing.

He'd tried many different kinds of steamed buns over the years, but never again had he tasted one so fragrant.