WC ⋆ Chapter 39

Qi Lin was rooted to the spot, unable to move a single step.

He rolled his eyes and looked into the jewelry store, where the “Qi Lin” who belonged to this time-space was selecting a ring. He opened his phone to show the sales clerk, and Qi Lin remembered it was the memo app with Jiang Yishen’s ring size written down.

His throat felt as though it were stuffed with a hot, round glutinous rice ball. Every word lodged deep in his chest, propping his heart open until it ached and swelled.

Qi Lin didn’t even know which leg to move first. Before he could sort out that trivial matter, Jiang Yishen had already come running toward him.

Jiang Yishen had long arms and long legs. He covered the distance in two strides where others would need three, and without a word he pulled Qi Lin into his arms. Qi Lin was pressed into that broad embrace, squeezed until he could barely breathe, yet it felt like relief.

He had wandered this world for so long, and now at last he could truly touch another person. The solid, grounded sense of security scattered the restless frustration that had been knotted in his heart.

Qi Lin instinctively hugged him back, but Jiang Yishen had his arms pinned so tightly that he could only manage to pat Jiang Yishen’s shoulder blades with his fingertips, saying quietly, “I’m here now. Stop crying.”

“I’m not crying,” Jiang Yishen said, then immediately and without any attempt to hide it sniffled loudly. “I only just started.”

Qi Lin’s heart ached at the sound. He tilted his head and rubbed his nose against Jiang Yishen’s neck, soothing him, “It’s okay. It’s all in the past now.”

“Why didn’t you ask me?” Jiang Yishen suddenly gripped his shoulders and pulled him back, bending down to stare into his eyes, letting Qi Lin see clearly the teardrops on his face. “That piece of clothing. When we met again, why didn’t you ask me?”

“What clothing?” Qi Lin was caught off guard by the question and instinctively raised a hand to wipe away the tear hanging at the side of Jiang Yishen’s face.

“The gray hoodie I left at your place. The one you asked me if I still wanted.”

The hand that had just wiped the tear froze in midair. Jiang Yishen pressed forward and wouldn’t let go, leaning in hard, then bowed his head with an expression of absolute grievance and burrowed forcefully into the hollow of Qi Lin’s shoulder.

“Don’t wipe your tears on my clothes,” Qi Lin said, and immediately realized his mistake. Jiang Yishen lifted his head and looked at him with predictable fury.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to ask.” Qi Lin’s ears went red under that stare. He wanted to explain, but he also knew explanation was useless. The fact that Jiang Yishen had asked the question at all meant he had truly seen it during the time reversal.

He’d already seen it. What was there left to explain?

Qi Lin felt his fingers go numb, and only after a long moment did he realize he had been unconsciously holding his breath the whole time. His head was dizzy from the lack of oxygen, yet the dull ache that came in waves through his chest was real.

“Why?” Jiang Yishen had to know the answer, repeating it with stubborn insistence. “Why weren’t you angry with me?”

Qi Lin’s heart gave one heavy thud. He seemed to freeze, and repeated softly, “Angry? I… I was angry.”

“You weren’t.” Jiang Yishen cupped his face in both hands, fingers pressing too hard, leaving red marks along his neck. “You weren’t angry. I saw it.”

Qi Lin looked at him in silence. Jiang Yishen’s few words carried him back to that rainy day in October, waking in the middle of the night, his whole body chilled through by the drop in temperature. He hadn’t changed his clothes, hadn’t washed up, just drifted in and out of sleep in a daze, tossing and turning, the gray hoodie in his arms cold as ice.

He didn’t know what his emotions had been then. Like the rain of early autumn, faint, cold, and numb. The rain passed and left no trace, only damp fallen leaves piling up on the ground, cluster after cluster.

He had truly never been angry. Their relationship had only fools in it, no villains. Jiang Yishen hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t wanted to be angry with him.

Why hadn’t he asked?

This was the first time Qi Lin had gone quiet and thought about it. So many times, silence and pretending nothing was wrong had been his instinct. He had never thought deeply about the logic behind his own behavior.

No one had ever asked him why he chose to act as though he didn’t care.

“Because I thought…” Qi Lin sensed instinctively that this answer would upset Jiang Yishen, but he gritted his teeth and said it anyway. “I thought that at that time, what you said was what you truly felt. When we met again later, we had both changed a lot, and there was no need to bring up the past anymore.”

“It wasn’t what I truly felt.”

Qi Lin looked up at him. Jiang Yishen’s eyes were bright and glimmering with a layer of unshed tears. He said, “At that time I was with my dad during his surgery. I thought you wouldn’t want to know what I was doing, so I kept it from you and didn’t say anything.”

The shopping mall was full of people coming and going. They stood right in the middle of it all, and not a single person could see them or hear them. Jiang Yishen watched Qi Lin standing there stunned, as though some long-held habit or conviction had been cracked open, and he was slowly, sluggishly working to take in the new information. Jiang Yishen suddenly felt the great stone that had been lodged in his own heart dissolve along with it.

In this unexpected, unplanned encounter, amid the tangled timelines, he had strangely fulfilled the wish he had made in the hospital a week ago: let everything stop. No loop, no moving forward, everything paused, giving them a space to think things through properly, to talk things through properly.

It was as though some force assembled from longing had reversed every unresolved grievance and every “just barely missed it,” weaving together the regrets of the past, the present, and the future, so that all those who had been left wanting could have their wishes come true.

No one knew how much time passed before Qi Lin said in a hoarse voice, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you saying sorry?” Jiang Yishen bent down and kissed his eyes. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I should have told you sooner.” Qi Lin closed his eyes. “There were so many things. I should have told you all of them.”

He thought of the “Jiang Yishen” who had just walked away looking dejected, and in that moment he couldn’t hold back, and a single tear slipped out, “Those gifts you picked out, I saw all of them. I loved every single one.”

Jiang Yishen had only just been comforted, and now it was Qi Lin’s turn to cry. Half a year’s worth of pain and regret dissolved into tears and rolled down his cheeks.

“You also didn’t ask me.” Qi Lin wiped his own face clean and said haltingly, “You’re criticizing me. You never asked me either.”

He couldn’t go on. Ask what? Ask why he never took the initiative to message him, why he carried everything alone, why he never talked to him about the problems he ran into at work. But Jiang Yishen knew all those answers now.

Qi Lin felt he ought to explain to Jiang Yishen about the “senior colleague” during his internship, but before he could open his mouth, Jiang Yishen interrupted his train of thought.

“Isn’t that just dredging up old grievances? When we first met again, neither of us was thinking about getting back together. What’s the point of bringing up all that unpleasantness.” Jiang Yishen looked at him steadily, and after a long moment asked, “Can I kiss you?”

“I don’t know,” Qi Lin said, shaking his head.

Jiang Yishen was struggling to hold back, but still restrained himself enough to ask, “If we don’t kiss here, will it loop anyway?”

A sound came from the entrance of the jewelry store nearby. Both of them looked over at the same time. It was “Qi Lin,” who had finished buying the ring, with the sales clerk seeing him out.

The ring was nestled snugly in its jewelry box, tucked inside a small bag. “Qi Lin” put the bag into his backpack and walked toward the main entrance of the shopping mall.

Jiang Yishen and Qi Lin exchanged a glance.

“Should we follow?”

“What’s the point of following me.” Qi Lin suddenly remembered something. “Wait, I think I lost track of you.”

In the scene from the previous April 20th, Qi Lin had been unable to move beyond a certain range from “Jiang Yishen.” But right now, “Jiang Yishen” had long since left, and yet Qi Lin had not been forcibly pulled along as he had been before.

Unable to find any pattern in the mechanics, Jiang Yishen made the call, took Qi Lin’s hand, and led him to follow behind “Qi Lin” together, “Let’s not separate. Follow one of them first and see.”

The two of them, sneaky as could be, drifted along at a careful distance behind. They watched “Qi Lin” get into a car heading in the direction of the rental apartment. It seemed he was planning to take the things home first.

The two ghosts sat in the back seat of “Qi Lin’s” car, whispering to each other.

“Why didn’t you give it to him in the end?” Jiang Yishen asked.

Qi Lin couldn’t quite remember either. So much had happened during that period of time, and he couldn’t even match each argument to its occasion, “I think we had a fight.”

The next second, “Qi Lin’s” phone rang, presenting them with the definitive answer to that question.

The call was from Fan Zi, asking if Jiang Yishen was with him, and inviting him and someone whose name Qi Lin couldn’t quite catch to meet up.

“Qi Lin” was puzzled and asked why they needed to meet.

Fan Zi was thrown by the question too, and said, wasn’t it that his friend had borrowed money from the two of them? Since there happened to be a chance to meet in person, it would be reassuring to at least see the person.

Qi Lin, eavesdropping in the back seat, heard this and suddenly remembered the whole incident. Even half a year later the anger hadn’t faded one bit. He immediately slapped Jiang Yishen, “This is all your doing!”

Jiang Yishen remembered it too, and even now still felt he hadn’t done anything wrong, “All I did was lend some money to his friend!”

“Was that a small amount? You just lent out several thousand without a second thought!” Qi Lin’s vision still went dark just thinking about it. He grabbed Jiang Yishen’s clothes and wouldn’t let go. “You’d never even met this person. You could’ve been taken for a ride and not even known it!”

Jiang Yishen counted on his fingers carefully, “I’d known about this person for a long time. He’s just a rich-kid friend of Fan Zi’s. I also looked at his surgical documents. He genuinely needed the money urgently. Otherwise how could I have lent it so casually?”

“A rich kid is short a few tens of thousands for surgery?” Qi Lin wanted to grab him by the ear. “You still don’t know his background even now? Do you even remember his name?”

“Didn’t he pay it back? Principal and interest both!” Jiang Yishen was getting worked up too. “That car accident came out of nowhere. I saw the photos, his head was smashed up and bloody, his eye got a retinal detachment from the impact. If you’d seen it you’d have believed it too!”

This exchange had already happened half a year ago. It was nothing more than one side sticking to their own judgment and the other side finding that naivety terrifying. Qi Lin couldn’t be bothered to reenact the argument, so he crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat without saying another word.

The “Qi Lin” in the front seat said it for him, “What did you say? How much did Jiang Yishen lend? Has he lost his mind?!”

Only then did Jiang Yishen learn that this was what Qi Lin had said about him at the time. He was so agitated his eyes were practically shooting sparks.

Fan Zi’s voice on the other end was loud enough that even the back seat could hear it through the phone, “I thought you knew about this! He said it counted for both of you together… I called him and he won’t pick up, the surgery is coming up and today’s the only afternoon we can meet, it’s urgent so I came to you, don’t be angry just hear me out.”

“I’m not angry!” “Qi Lin” said in the most furious and disbelieving tone imaginable.

“Are you really not angry?” Jiang Yishen leaned toward Qi Lin, who was sitting in the back seat fuming with his eyes closed.

Qi Lin shoved him away, “I’m furious. Don’t touch me today.”

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