WC ⋆ Chapter 19

One year ago, in August, on the Qixi Festival, the city was saturated with pink, rosy sweetness, but unfortunately it was a rainy day. Little couples on the street huddled under the same umbrella, and the soft patter of rain made every shoulder-to-shoulder touch twice as charged with ambiguity.

Jiang Yishen and Fan Zi had absolutely no way to squeeze under a single umbrella, but unfortunately that was all they had. The two of them had no choice but to go into the convenience store and each buy another one, then push their way out from between the rain-sheltering couples.

It was nearly dusk. Lights came on along the riverbank. The cruise boats were decked out in all kinds of colors, the water surface shimmering with reflected light. The line at the Ferris Wheel was still shorter than the one at the dock waiting for the cruise boats.

This was a widely circulated urban legend: couples who kissed at the top of the Ferris Wheel would break up. Better safe than sorry, and nobody wanted to tempt bad luck on such a good day.

The light rain put people in a nameless irritable mood. Fan Zi would take two steps and then look down to check the soles of his shoes: "I'm definitely going to slip today, I swear. The soles on these shoes are completely worn smooth. After rain, even an acupressure board would be slippery."

Jiang Yishen was just as annoyed riding the boat with him, and looked at him with disdain: "What is this, an idol drama? If you fall in the water we'd have to call 119 to fish you out."

"Can you not wish the worst on me?" Fan Zi clutched him tightly with one hand, gave up on his umbrella altogether, pressed himself against Jiang Yishen's side, and shuffled forward one laborious step at a time.

Jiang Yishen wanted to put some distance between them: "Isn't it enough that I agreed to come out on this day? Doesn't that count for anything?"

"I didn't have a choice either! All my other roommates went home for summer break. You're the only local I could get to come out." Fan Zi tensed up and slid a little at the end of the dock's queuing area, nearly going down.

Jiang Yishen was yanked off balance along with him and was immediately scared out of his wits: "Let me just buy you a pair of spiked shoes, I'm begging you!"

"Calm down! Calm down!" Fan Zi struggled to steady himself. By this point neither of them had any attention left for the people around them. Right as Fan Zi was putting every last bit of effort into regaining his balance, Jiang Yishen suddenly stood on his toes and looked back.

"Hm?"

"Hey hey hey?" Fan Zi panicked and grabbed at whatever was nearest, which was Jiang Yishen. Both arms wrapped around Jiang Yishen's neck in a tenderly clinging fashion, and the two of them turned their heads to look at the same time.

Through a few people waiting in line between them, they locked eyes with a young man.

Jiang Yishen squinted and looked more carefully, then raised a hand in greeting: "Senior?"

"What senior? Which one? You mean that good-looking guy?" Fan Zi was pressed so close to him that turning his head would have brought their faces within kissing distance.

Jiang Yishen shoved him off: "Stop hugging me!"

Fan Zi ignored him completely, clinging stubbornly to Jiang Yishen's neck and still craning to spot the senior he was talking about.

The scene was a bit difficult to explain. Jiang Yishen forcibly dragged Fan Zi over, while Fan Zi kept chattering the whole way: "Oh I get it, is it that guy in the black short-sleeved shirt? How come he's not responding to you, are you sure you've got the right person? He looked at you. He's so thin. His eyes are so pretty…"

Jiang Yishen could not stand his machine-gun-fire commentary on someone's appearance and peeled him off with a slap: "Can you walk on your own!"

Fan Zi greeted Qi Lin with his usual instant familiarity: "Hi, Senior."

Qi Lin tilted up the brim of his umbrella and smiled at them warmly and politely: "Long time no see."

"Oh, you still remember me." Jiang Yishen smiled too, trying to hide the embarrassing Fan Zi behind his back. "Senior, are you here alone?"

"Yeah." Qi Lin nodded, but his gaze followed Fan Zi, as though he found him quite curious.

Fan Zi suddenly seemed to remember something and lurched forward a step, apparently about to say something. But his footing gave way, and what he had been dreading all along finally came to pass.

He went down with a crash in a spectacular faceplant, and to make things worse the ground there was a slope, so he slid a short distance before grabbing his ankle and starting to wail.

Nobody present had ever seen someone manage to fall on flat ground and end up in quite this state. Everyone crowded around at once. Jiang Yishen was the first to run over, but he hadn't counted on the ground being genuinely that slippery, and nearly went down himself.

He had no time to bother with his umbrella. He crouched down next to Fan Zi: "What are you doing, ice skating?"

"No good, no good, 120, call 120 fast, I think it might be broken." Beads of sweat the size of soybeans broke out at Fan Zi's temple, though it might have been rain.

Jiang Yishen swore under his breath: "Seriously? Stop being dramatic!"

"I'm serious!" This time Fan Zi stopped shouting. He clenched his back teeth and bore the pain with everything he had, and it was clearly no longer an exaggerated performance.

"It's a sprain." A calm, steady voice came from above. It was Qi Lin, holding his umbrella over them, eyes cast downward at the ankle Fan Zi was clutching. "Let's go to the hospital."

The whole thing was absurdly strange, and looking back on it later it was probably just fate being impossible to stop. But at the time Jiang Yishen only found it ridiculous. How could someone take a fall and end up with a ligament sprain?

After that ordeal, the three of them formed a solid bond of comrades-in-arms. Qi Lin was efficient and decisive. Jiang Yishen followed him around the hospital running back and forth, calling him Senior this and Senior that until Qi Lin was thoroughly worn out.

Fortunately the X-rays showed no serious bone damage, but the sprain was fairly bad. Fan Zi couldn't stay at school anymore. A call was made to his parents, who were too busy to stop moving, and his out-of-town parents sent the family driver across half the city to bring him home.

The driver came in on a video call. When he saw Fan Zi, his expression grew a little awkward. He said Fan Zi's parents wanted to see who Fan Zi had been secretly out on a date with when he ended up in the hospital.

The screen flipped around to show two guys standing by the hospital bed.

By the time Fan Zi was sent off, it was already eleven at night on Qixi. With only the last hour left, Jiang Yishen and Qi Lin hurried back to school and were let through the gate with a special pass from their instructor.

Not many students stayed on campus over summer break, and the night was especially quiet. The rain had stopped by then. Jiang Yishen went to the 24-hour convenience store, bought some snacks, and handed them to Qi Lin: "Senior, where do you live?"

"I'm in the North District." Qi Lin looked at the large pile of snacks and stared for a moment, not sure what to say, but after thinking it over he took them anyway.

"Oh, we're not in the same area. No wonder I've never run into you." Jiang Yishen said, "Let me walk you back?"

"No need." Qi Lin smiled, eyes curving. "We're not going the same direction anyway."

"Oh." Jiang Yishen was back to just saying "oh" again. He tried to find the right words, but Qi Lin was already about to leave, and he couldn't hold back: "Senior!"

Having called out, he had no idea what he actually wanted to say. After a long pause he squeezed out: "Happy Qixi."

Qi Lin was smiling again. He held an armful of colorful chip bags, like a big bouquet of flowers. Those bright eyes looked at him, as if they had read through everything he hadn't yet managed to sort out in his own head.

"I'm heading off then." Jiang Yishen suddenly felt a little nervous. He stood at the door of the convenience store. The warm-toned lights inside lit up that small patch of ground. A cicada or two called out in the night, loud enough to make a person's heart restless.

Qi Lin said to him: "See you next time."

Qi Lin was, in fact, someone who did not believe in feelings that grew slowly over time.

From childhood on, the words relatives and friends used to describe him were always "steady" and "mature for his age." Those labels stuck to him like they defined his life as something that should flow along as calm and smooth as a little stream. But Qi Lin knew he wasn't that kind of person. For instance, in the this-or-that games that were popular in middle and high school, when given the choice between feelings that grew over time and love at first sight, he always chose the latter.

He rarely developed enthusiasm for people or things that required a long period of adjustment. Rather than digging bit by bit and gradually coming to like something, he trusted the feeling he got at first glance. It had nothing to do with looks. Chemistry, aura, magnetism, whatever you wanted to call it, it all came down to a vague yet certain sixth sense.

The first time he saw Jiang Yishen on the basketball court, he knew: "I like this person." Not with any particular desire, just a pure, natural kind of liking.

He had stayed on campus that summer to prepare for a provincial exam. It rained on Qixi, and he wanted to go out for a walk and get some air. He happened to open his social feed and saw something Jiang Yishen had just posted: a photo of a corner inside a convenience store, several clear umbrellas lined up in a row, waiting for rain-soaked little couples to take them home.

The location tag was at the Cruise Terminal by Sanchakou.

Qi Lin decided to go take a boat ride. When he made that decision, he had not yet come to any understanding of his own sexual orientation, and it had not occurred to him at all that he would end up in a relationship with this person.

A year passed. They fell in love, separated, and met again. To this day Jiang Yishen still did not know that their encounter that day had not been a coincidence. He remained firmly convinced that his pursuit had been a great success, that he was a romantic who had scored full marks.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a relationship that requires no adjustment at all. Qi Lin now realized that love at first sight and feelings that grow over time were never opposing propositions.

Xu Huaying had said very little to them, but what she said was full of substance. Qi Lin didn't know whether Jiang Yishen had understood, but he himself had.

The conflicts between them were not something that could be resolved by a heart full of love alone. Today he would be accommodating, tomorrow Jiang Yishen would endure, and for now things were still sweet. But a lasting relationship could not be built on one person's concessions. That was exhausting, and it wasn't fair.

The hospital was noisy with voices. Walking out of the outpatient building, Qi Lin turned to look at Jiang Yishen, who was following behind him. He saw him walking with his head down, lost in thought, and couldn't help but let out a quiet sigh.

So Jiang Yishen had understood too.

That night, standing before the floor-to-ceiling window in the hotel, he had known that Jiang Yishen wanted to bring up getting back together. It was a moment that wouldn't come again. Miss that step, let both of them calm down, and they would find that the road back to being together was still very, very long.

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