WC ⋆ Chapter 41

Qi Lin was in a position of helplessness, watching with his own eyes as Jiang Yishen inflicted pain on himself with a manner that was almost detached, so shocked that he couldn’t find words.

This was the first time he had ever seen Jiang Yishen like this.

Qi Lin walked to his side, reached out wanting to touch him, but passed through just as before. He could clearly see the skin rising and falling with each breath, the water marks on the webbing of his hand, the strands of hair loosely gathered together.

A strange tremor was born from the bottom of his heart, subtly soaking through his entire being.

Jiang Yishen was very good at showing vulnerability in a relationship, liked to act coquettish with him, liked to cry, but Qi Lin knew that was only the surface of his dependence. Beneath it was a resilient core, self-sufficient, steadfast, sharp.

The Jiang Yishen before him was different from the Jiang Yishen who had cried countless times in the past. In this cramped little space, he laid bare his confusion and fragility without reservation, quietly digesting it all alone.

Many people had told Qi Lin that they needed to communicate more. Xu Baili had said it, Yin Yu had said it, even Xu Huaying had said it. But Qi Lin didn’t fully understand what communication meant. In his view, they had said enough.

Yet in this moment he suddenly understood the meaning of the loop. He had seen the side of Jiang Yishen hidden deepest within him, and this was the part they truly needed to communicate about.

Jiang Yishen lingered for another twenty-odd minutes before finishing. Before leaving, he pressed the flush button many times. Two of the roommates in the dormitory had already turned off the lights and gone to sleep. He climbed back onto his bunk and lay there with his eyes open for a long time.

“You can come find me,” Qi Lin said to him.

Jiang Yishen naturally couldn’t hear.

Qi Lin thought about it a moment more and added: “Anytime at all.”

He had no doubt that, given how deep in love he was, if Jiang Yishen suddenly came looking for him a week after the breakup just to have breakup sex, he would still go.

That night Jiang Yishen only slept five hours. Early the next morning he got up and headed straight to the shopping mall. Qi Lin followed behind him, arriving at the familiar ground floor of the shopping mall.

The events of the previous day were replaying. This time he didn’t want to trail after “Jiang Yishen” running up and down buying gifts, so he crouched early at the entrance of the first-floor jewelry store, waiting for his own ghost-accompanied self to appear to buy the ring.

After waiting ten-odd minutes, the one who appeared first, unexpectedly, was Jiang Yishen drifting over alone.

Jiang Yishen looked very anxious, hurrying toward the jewelry store at a quick pace, then suddenly stopping dead the moment he caught sight of Qi Lin, as if belatedly remembering they had been arguing yesterday. He deliberately scrunched his brow with a show of awkwardness and stood still at a not-too-close, not-too-far distance.

Qi Lin leaned against the counter watching him. The Jiang Yishen from last night, who had looked like he could destroy himself, still left a lingering unease in his heart. Just thinking that Jiang Yishen might have been enduring this for the better part of a year made him feel as if he were treading on thin ice.

They faced each other from a distance for a moment. Then Jiang Yishen relented and walked closer, fixed his gaze on Qi Lin’s eyes, and said in a low voice: “…The loop reset.”

Qi Lin looked at him for a moment. The person before him overlapped with the figure from the previous night, and he was suddenly very curious how much longer Jiang Yishen could keep up his composed act.

“Let’s go outside to talk.”

Beside the long corridor leading to the restrooms in the shopping mall, a quiet, open rest area had been carved out. The spot was secluded, and at this hour it was completely empty.

Jiang Yishen stopped at the entrance. Qi Lin turned his head and met a pair of eyes filled with complicated emotions.

“Come on then.”

Jiang Yishen looked at him and asked: “What do you want to say?”

Qi Lin pointed at himself: “Kiss.”

A single word, concise and to the point, earning an even longer silence in return.

“The last time I was pulled alone into a memory rewind, it was because I didn’t want to keep looping anymore at that point. Do you know why?”

This was a subject they had never discussed, buried in their hearts just like the gray hoodie and the annoying senior that had never been brought up, accepted wholesale through self-deception.

“I didn’t want to kiss you just because of the loop. It was painful,” Jiang Yishen said. “I want it to be only because I like you.”

Qi Lin was so exasperated he laughed. He now understood that many things had to be said plainly and clearly: “If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t kiss you even if the loop went on forever.”

Jiang Yishen had only gotten halfway through his heartfelt declaration when this answer startled him into a stumble, and he blanked for a moment: “…I didn’t say I don’t like you. I just wanted these things to be a little more pure.”

“Didn’t you?” Qi Lin’s brow arched up slightly. “Do you still remember what you were doing last night?”

Hearing this, Jiang Yishen gradually reined in the emotion in his eyes. His gaze grew heavy, the corner of his mouth pulled into a curve with no real smile in it, and after a long pause he said: “Then what were you doing last night? Do you remember?”

Qi Lin’s heart gave a heavy thud. His instincts told him this wouldn’t be anything good.

His momentum was capped by Jiang Yishen. The two of them stood at a standoff at the entrance for a moment. Then Jiang Yishen suddenly raised his hand and pushed Qi Lin inside. Qi Lin stumbled, and was pressed straight up against the wall.

“You don’t remember.” Jiang Yishen’s tone was full of dissatisfaction. He lowered his head, letting Qi Lin see his face clearly.

Qi Lin quickly ran through the dates in his mind. August 2nd, one month before their breakup. By this time he had already graduated and was working at a local internet company.

This was a truly unremarkable date, and he had chosen today to buy the ring simply because he happened to have free time.

“Want me to remind you?” Jiang Yishen drew out his tone. “I wasn’t originally going to bring this up, but you’re the one who started it.”

Qi Lin grew nervous under his questioning. His mind was full of all manner of improper, indecent images, but the next second he heard Jiang Yishen say: “You told your coworkers you were engaged. Since when? How come I didn’t know?”

It hit him like a blow to the head. Qi Lin turned red at a visible speed. He remembered.

There was indeed such a thing. After he graduated from university, a whole group of people had been enthusiastically trying to set him up. They used the same script in endless variations, and he had grown tired of refusing. After the umpteenth time he dragged himself home exhausted from work and received an invitation to a weekend party, he had in a fit of anger announced to everyone that he and his university boyfriend were already engaged, their relationship stable, and that they were about to enter the halls of matrimony.

After that, no one ever again mentioned taking him to one of those so-called singles parties, not until he really was single again, truly on his own.

“I…” Qi Lin was speechless. He couldn’t even think of another reason to use as an excuse. Jiang Yishen was leaning too close, filling his entire field of vision.

He rarely had moments like this where he didn’t know what to do with himself, but after everything they had been through, Jiang Yishen could already read his helplessness.

He didn’t make things harder for Qi Lin. He simply lowered his head and rubbed his cheek against his, then hooked his fingers under Qi Lin’s chin, tilted his head up, and kissed him with considerable force.

But he quickly noticed that Qi Lin’s breathing was very unsteady and his body was trembling. Jiang Yishen let him go, wiped away the marks at the corner of his lips with his thumb, and looked at him with a furrowed brow.

“Jiang Yishen.” Qi Lin gripped his wrist, saying his name with great seriousness. “When you miss me, what do you listen to?”

Jiang Yishen traced his fingers carefully over his brow, the corner of his eye, and finally came to rest at the edge of his lips, pressing down with a weight that was neither light nor heavy.

Qi Lin parted his mouth slightly and bit down on the tip of his finger. Jiang Yishen escalated in kind, pushing his finger deeper inside.

“You saw,” Jiang Yishen said.

Qi Lin held that finger in his mouth, responding with the brush of his tongue.

“That was a phone recording,” Jiang Yishen said. “When we were long-distance, you kept me company through all-nighters while I did homework. Even when you were very sleepy you wouldn’t hang up. Your voice was very nice.”

Qi Lin hadn’t expected an answer like this, as innocent as a child just awakening to love giving gold-coin chocolates to a secret crush. He was stunned for a moment, not knowing what expression to put on.

Jiang Yishen watched his expression, and after quite a while finally caught on to something. He was so furious it turned into a laugh. He pried open Qi Lin’s mouth and pushed in another finger, pressing toward the back of his throat: “What are you thinking? What did you think it was?”

“Mmph!” The ring pressed against his lips, grinding them red and swollen. Qi Lin caught it lightly between his teeth.

“You think I’m that kind of person?” Jiang Yishen said, then looked at Qi Lin’s expression and added: “Or are you saying you’d find that acceptable too?”

Qi Lin’s tongue was pinned down and he could only murmur a laugh and say: “No wonder… you couldn’t finish.”

Like pouring oil on fire, Jiang Yishen pulled out his wet fingers and wiped them casually on Qi Lin’s chin and throat, gripped his hip bones, and reached out to undo his clothes.

Qi Lin didn’t move, just looked down with interest: “If you want to hear it, you can actually just call me. Listening to a phone recording alone in the bathroom, poor thing.”

“Then I want to hear it right now,” Jiang Yishen said.

Qi Lin let him do as he pleased. This time Jiang Yishen also lost control of his grip and squeezed hard enough to hurt a little, but Qi Lin didn’t push him away.

Only in the hazy, scattered drift of his consciousness did he vaguely string together some clues, sorting out a thread of understanding out of nowhere. He remembered that in the first few days after the loop had just begun, after one of their kisses, Jiang Yishen had said “I’m sorry” to him.

Qi Lin finally understood. As for the matter of borrowing money that they had argued about the day before, it also became less difficult to comprehend. Jiang Yishen wasn’t good at receiving other people’s love, so he had interpreted Qi Lin’s concern as distrust.

One wrong thought and every step after goes wrong. If he had been willing to speak more openly back then, if Jiang Yishen had been willing to be a little more steadfast, perhaps they would both have received each other’s Qixi gifts on time.

—

#