With the holiday approaching — even though it was only three and a half days — the students grew a bit restless all the same.
Test papers for every subject had already been handed out, and judging by the workload, there was hardly any free time left for the students. Fang Zhuo squeezed in time to finish a few of them, worried she wouldn’t have time once she was at Ye Yuncheng’s place.
As Friday drew nearer, Fang Zhuo found herself growing a little anxious. Mainly because she and Ye Yuncheng weren’t really close — last time she’d left so abruptly, thinking they likely wouldn’t meet again, and now she had no idea what attitude to take with him this time.
On one hand, she felt she shouldn’t be spending so much mental energy on something like this, not with the college entrance exam coming up. Ye Yuncheng might be just like Fang Yiming, offering her nothing more than a perfunctory show of care. As for anything deeper — how could two people who’d never really spent time together have any deep bond? Especially when even their blood relation wasn’t the closest kind.
But on the other hand, she couldn’t help that small, persistent itch deep inside her, imagining Ye Yuncheng as a truly, truly good person. Lonely people who recognize something of themselves in each other can never help being drawn closer — like moths circling a lamp, even when they mistake a cold flame for a blazing sun.
Fang Zhuo took a worn-out mineral water bottle and watered the potted plants by the windowsill, quietly watching the glittering spray of water fall onto the leaves, gathering into round droplets that slid downward, her scattered thoughts drifting off somewhere a thousand miles away.
Yan Lie wandered over and stood there beside her like a rock for a while, then said, “So you’re the one who’s been watering these flowers.”
Fang Zhuo hadn’t noticed him; startled, she gave a small shiver and asked, straightening the bottle, “Who else would it be?”
Yan Lie reached out and brushed at a leaf. “Hadn’t really paid attention. Just noticed the potted plants in our classroom kept multiplying, one pot after another, and figured someone must’ve been bringing them in.”
Most of these potted plants were succulents, kept in discarded plastic bottles with holes punched in for drainage. They’d multiplied from a single one at the start to over a dozen now, set quietly in a corner to catch the sun by some anonymous gardener, and they’d grown sturdy and thriving by now.
Fang Zhuo said, “I picked them up.”
“You can pick up flowers too?” Yan Lie teased. “They were sitting there nicely planted in the soil and you came along and did a good deed, picking them up and bringing them home, is that it?”
Fang Zhuo said indignantly, “I really did pick them up!”
Yan Lie wasn’t quite sure what the difference was between “picking” roadside flowers and “gathering” them, but seeing how much she cared, he reached over and ruffled her hair once, pulling his hand back quickly before she could retaliate, and laughed, “Okay, okay, you picked them.”
Fang Zhuo shook her head a little.
That hand of his must really be itching for trouble.
“Where are you going for Mid-Autumn?” Yan Lie turned, leaning his back against the windowsill, peering at her from the corner of his eye. “There’s no one home at my place. I’m thinking about whether I should stay at the dorm.”
Fang Zhuo said, “I’m going home.”
Yan Lie pressed his lips together. “To your uncle’s place?”
Fang Zhuo: “Mm.”
Yan Lie let out a long, drawn-out “Oh…”
That sound prompted Fang Zhuo to shoot another glance at his face, wondering what odd mood had gotten into him today.
“Something the matter?”
“No.”
Even as he said this, though, Yan Lie shoved his hands into his pockets and walked off with a face that clearly wasn’t in a good mood.
·
On Friday, the students could head home once morning classes were over. Fang Zhuo had nothing much to bring along — just her homework and practice problems.
She slung her black backpack onto her back; Yan Lie was already waiting at the door, saying he’d see her there.
Fang Zhuo told him the decision she’d reached after much deliberation, “Thank you, but I need to go somewhere else to buy a few things first today.”
Yan Lie asked, “Where?”
Fang Zhuo: “The market.”
Thinking he must have misheard, Yan Lie said, “Huh?”
…In all his years of school, he’d never once met a classmate who went home for the holidays carrying groceries.
A familiar tune popped into his head.
“A chicken in your left hand, a duck in your right?”
“Mm.” Fang Zhuo nodded seriously. “That’s what I’m thinking. Could I borrow your phone to check the directions again?”
Yan Lie thought she was joking, but when she really did stop at the entrance to the market, he realized he just hadn’t seen enough of the world yet.
The stall was selling baby chicks — bright yellow little chicks packed together in a big basket, chirping noisily, full of life and looking absolutely adorable.
Fang Zhuo asked the price, then crouched down to start picking through them.
“You’re helping out at home, huh?” Having never seen such a sight before, Yan Lie asked with great interest, “Chicks this small, can they really survive being raised?”
Fang Zhuo picked one up to look it over and replied, “They can.”
“What are you looking for? You judge chickens by appearance too?” Yan Lie’s gaze drifted over the many fluffy little heads, then he suddenly spotted his dream chick, snatching it up and holding it right in front of Fang Zhuo. “I think this one’s good. Look, it’s got so little fluff on its head, going bald at such a young age — how distinctive!”
Fang Zhuo: “…”
She glanced up flatly at her desk-mate, very much wanting to pretend she didn’t know him. The stall owner had already given up trying to hold back a laugh, “That one just had its head plucked bare by an earlier customer. Don’t worry, nothing wrong with this chick.”
Fang Zhuo took it for a look but simply couldn’t connect with this homely little chick at all, and handed it back. “I want hens.”
The stall owner said, regretfully, “All sold out. Only three or four free-range ones left.”
Yan Lie asked, “What’s wrong with roosters?”
Fang Zhuo: “Hens can lay eggs.”
Yan Lie said, “Roosters can crow.”
“As if anyone these days needs a rooster instead of an alarm clock,” Fang Zhuo said, irritated. “Hey, bro, stop messing around!”
Yan Lie froze at being addressed like that and actually crouched down obediently beside her, falling silent.
He stroked the chick’s head gently with his fingertip, watching it flap its wings desperately, trying to escape his palm. Yet even its cries and strength were so feeble — only its pair of bean-black eyes shone bright, as if straining to prove a will to live that refused to bend.
Yan Lie nudged Fang Zhuo again, gently negotiating, “I’ll pay for it — can we keep this one?”
Seeing how genuinely set on it he was, Fang Zhuo helplessly told him the harsh truth, “This is a meat chicken. I’m raising it to butcher and eat once it’s grown.”
Yan Lie gave a small shudder.
The stall owner fanned the flames from the side, “Whoever else buys it is going to eat it too, you know.”
Yan Lie asked, “Couldn’t it be a chicken mascot instead?”
Fang Zhuo: “??”
Fang Zhuo felt like her mind had turned into a ball of yarn clawed at by a cat. And that cat, fully aware he was being unreasonable, still tucked his hands together obediently, gazing at her with such transparently innocent, pleading eyes.
After wrestling with herself silently for a moment, Fang Zhuo picked up her small cardboard box and put the bald-headed chick Yan Lie had picked out inside.
The boy lit up, laughing, “Thanks, Zhuozhuo.”
In the end, Fang Zhuo picked out eight chicks total, thinking she’d buy more free-range ones next time they had stock. After choosing the chicks, she went next door to buy a bag of the cheapest rice, to bring back and feed them with.
The two of them carried their things out of the market. Yan Lie tied the rice to the back seat of his bicycle and walked it on foot toward the bus stop.
At the stop, he locked the bike to a nearby railing and helped carry the rice onto the bus for Fang Zhuo.
Even after the doors closed, Yan Lie was still standing across from Fang Zhuo, the ten-kilogram bag of rice set at his feet.
Fang Zhuo stared at him, the two of them gawking at each other.
Yan Lie said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “How’s a girl supposed to carry something this heavy on foot? I’ve got nothing else to do anyway — might as well see it through and drag it all the way to the bridge where you switch buses.”
Since he was already on board, there wasn’t much Fang Zhuo could say. Besides, she had no doubt that if she said “no need” right now, he’d immediately fire back with something like “kicking away the ladder” or some other strange accusation.
She gripped the handrail above her and said quietly, “Thank you.”
By the time Fang Zhuo arrived at the bridge with her little unpaid laborer in tow, it was already evening.
The sunset clouds today weren’t vivid at all — after the sun sank away, all that was left along the horizon was a hazy layer of gray-white mist. Dark clouds drifted above the faint ink-wash mountains in the distance, like an artist’s careless, drunken brushstroke flung across the sky.
“By the time you get home it’ll probably be dark already — here, take the flashlight.” Yan Lie turned to dig through his bag. “You’ve got so much stuff with you, you should really call your uncle and have him come pick you up.”
Fang Zhuo shook her head and said quickly, “I can manage on my own, don’t trouble him.”
Yan Lie frowned slightly but didn’t push the issue, just tucked the flashlight into a small pocket of her backpack, saying, “I’ll put it here. Stay safe. You…”
He’d wanted to say to call him once she got home, but for one thing, Fang Zhuo had no phone, and for another, their relationship hadn’t reached that point yet, so the sentence trailed off. He lifted his eyes, and seeing Fang Zhuo still listening intently, was about to finish the thought when a minibus came rolling up from ahead, breaking off his train of thought.
Yan Lie quickly reached out to flag it down, reminding her, “The bus is here.”
Fang Zhuo got on and took a seat by the window, looking out through the dusty glass at the person standing by the road.
Noticing her gaze, the young man raised his hand and waved at her through the gloomy light.
That smiling, handsome face grew steadily more blurred and distant as the bus pulled away. Fang Zhuo pressed close to the window, straining to look out. The words “get home safe” sat on the tip of her tongue for a long while, but by the time his figure had vanished entirely, she still hadn’t found the chance to say them.
As the bus jolted along, the very last trace of sunlight was swallowed by the night.
Scattered lights flickered past the window, and the city’s clamor was washed away entirely by the countryside’s quiet.
The driver called out and stopped the bus at the village entrance.
Fang Zhuo hugged the cardboard box with one arm, picked up the rice bag with her other hand, and clumsily got everything off the bus.
She’d only been to this village once before, but she remembered the route was simple enough: straight ahead, turn right at the end of a stretch of paddy fields, then straight again for a bit, and she’d be almost there.
For such a simple route, the night and the daytime turned out to be two completely different worlds.
On that seemingly endless road, the farther Fang Zhuo walked, the more unfamiliar it felt, until she finally had to admit she was lost.
A heavy darkness pressed in around her, like a vast black cloth thrown over her sight. That familiar suffocating feeling began coiling in her chest, impossible to suppress even with deep breaths, and for a moment she wanted to turn back.
She wasn’t particularly afraid of the dark, but she was deeply afraid of getting lost at night. Nighttime turned any map into a labyrinth; she hated the endlessly repeating wrong turns, which reminded her of being trapped in the mountains as a child, unable to find a way out, as if abandoned by the whole world, not finding her way home until dawn, following the light at last.
She turned in place a couple of times, trying to get her bearings. The chicks in her arms, jostled by the tilting box, began craning their necks and chirping, their tender little cries piercing the silence — the most human-feeling sound in all that night, and it was enough to bring Fang Zhuo’s racing mind back to calm in an instant.
She crouched down, set the box on the ground, fished the flashlight out of the back of her bag, and shone it along both sides of the road and ahead of her.
She hadn’t yet seen the paddy fields, which meant she likely hadn’t gone the wrong way.
As the light swept across the road, amid the chorus of cicadas she caught the faint, indistinct sound of wheels rolling, and then, from somewhere in the distance, someone called out, “Fang Zhuo!”
Fang Zhuo slowed her breathing and waited a moment, until at last she saw a figure up ahead, stumbling unevenly through the dark, drawing closer toward her.