Xu Zhi was delivering a meal card to Xu Guangji, who had left it on the dining table when he went out in the morning. He called and asked Xu Zhi to bring it, but she didn’t expect to hear Old Xu rambling on and on as she approached the department’s corridor.
She couldn’t even remember saying those things herself. At most, she had later seen him drinking gloomily alone, so she took a couple of sips of his Wuliangye liquor. Unable to handle the aftereffect, she had said, “Dad, I think I might miss him a little.”
“It’s your first relationship, Dad understands. It’s bound to feel more intense,” Xu Guangji calmed down towards the end and even comforted her with a philosophical air, “Nanan, most people’s lives don’t experience great storms, let alone ride the waves. Instead, we grow slowly through small setbacks and hardships, through letting go and holding on.”
He also said that life was never about flowers blooming everywhere or birds singing in every corner. It’s just the fragrance of a cluster of flowers, the fresh scent of grass, the scorching heat of the sun, plus a little nourishment from the rain – that’s life. The rain will always come, and the sky will clear up.
…
So what was he going on about with Chen Luzhou now?
Xu Zhi pushed open the door, mercilessly exposing him, “Dad, what nonsense are you spouting?”
Xu Guangji was also stunned, not expecting his daughter to arrive so quickly. He could only try to save face by saying, “Patient, why didn’t you knock?”
Xu Zhi instinctively looked down at herself, “Do I look like your patient?”
Xu Guangji, probably unable to maintain his dignity, snapped at her, “You’re my father now? Even if you’re entering the men’s clinic, you need to knock!”
With that, he turned to prescribe Chen Luzhou, irritably slapping the medical card on the table, “Go to the bathroom yourself. Come back to see me when the results are out.”
Chen Luzhou: “…”
He didn’t turn around, just lazily leaned back in the chair, unmoved, and slowly picked up the medical card from the table. Not knowing if Xu Zhi had left, it was somewhat awkward to run into someone in such a place, especially since, in Zhu Yangqi’s words, they were still diamond-like high school boys. But unexpectedly, Xu Zhi closed the door and politely knocked twice, “Son, may I come in?”
Xu Guangji: “…”
Chen Luzhou: “…”
When Chen Luzhou came out, Xu Zhi was already leaning against the corridor wall, looking at him with boredom. The corridor was empty, so she appeared particularly brazen and irresistible. Chen Luzhou walked over and looked down at her, “Why are you here?”
“Bringing my dad his meal card. Let’s go get my ears pierced directly after this. Do you have anything else to do later?”
“No, just wait for me here.”
Xu Zhi crossed her arms, smiling mischievously, just like that afternoon, “Want me to help you?”
Chen Luzhou’s mind was full of thoughts like, I’m probably the cookie here, a cookie at everyone’s mercy. “Looking for trouble, aren’t you?”
“What are you thinking?” Xu Zhi couldn’t help but laugh, taking the medical record and a bag of promotional materials from the department from his hands. “I meant, I’ll help you carry these things.”
Chen Luzhou ignored her and turned to leave: “…Better be.”
The test results would take an hour, so Chen Luzhou and Xu Zhi went for a walk nearby. When they returned to get the report, it was almost 11:30. Xu Guangji, with a serious expression, was drinking tea and spitting out tea leaves while carefully examining the report. Suddenly, he said, “Why are you back so late?”
Xu Zhi felt her heart tighten, “What does that mean? Is it hopeless?”
Xu Guangji suddenly realized she was there too and impatiently glared at her: “Why are you in here again! Didn’t I tell you to wait outside?”
Chen Luzhou, tired and listless, leaned against the chair with a kind of post-coital laziness, his legs spread wide open. He pulled her aside and sighed, “Xu Zhi, go wait for me outside.”
Xu Zhi obediently went out. Xu Guangji glared at him, “Wait for you?”
Chen Luzhou sat up straight and smoothly corrected himself: “Wait for you to get off work, sir.”
“Come on,” Xu Guangji knew his daughter all too well, “Where are you two going to play later?”
Chen Luzhou reported honestly: “Accompanying her to get her ears pierced.”
Xu Guangji made a sound of acknowledgment, “She’s been talking about getting her ears pierced since she was little. I took her several times, but she always ran back halfway. You might not be able to tell, but she’s afraid of pain, especially when she was young. She used to be very coquettish. After her mother left, she became a different person. She never tells me about big things, only trivial matters. Maybe I didn’t give her enough sense of security.” He chuckled, his eyes filled with self-reproach, “I guess I’m quite a failure as a father.”
Chen Luzhou was about to say no, you’re quite good.
Xu Guangji’s eyes narrowed slightly, suddenly turning serious, “But even a failed father’s fists are hard. Don’t you dare bully my daughter, or I’ll beat you to death.” He added: “If you’re going to leave, leave early. Don’t drag it out.”
Chen Luzhou lowered his head and smiled, honestly feeling envious, “Alright.”
On the way, Xu Zhi kept asking about the results. Chen Luzhou had no choice but to show her the report. Xu Zhi looked at it with great interest, but couldn’t understand the mass of data, so she could only ask, “What’s this?”
Chen Luzhou: “This is a sperm test report of an excellent male high school student.”
Xu Zhi looked up at him lazily: “Narcissist.”
“I’m narcissistic?” he said with a smile, his smile truly blossoming, “I’ve never said anything like my handsomeness is unreserved.”
Xu Zhi was stunned, “My dad showed you the video?”
“He did. My favorite part was when you said, ‘If I’m elected, I hope everyone will cooperate with my work and not make things difficult for me,'” Chen Luzhou lowered his head and took back the report from her hand, putting one hand in his pocket, and smiled again, “Xu Zhi, you were really both annoying and adorable when you were little.”
They were standing by the roadside waiting for a taxi. Xu Zhi was also composed now, that video would probably be played on a loop at her wedding in the future. She looked at him frankly as he joked, “Right? If we had known each other when we were little, you would have fallen at my feet in my diapers.”
Chen Luzhou glanced at her sideways.
Xu Zhi raised her hand to hail a taxi, looking at him with raised eyebrows: “Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t dare,” When the car stopped, Chen Luzhou opened the door for her, one hand on the door frame to protect her head as she got in. He looked down at her as she climbed in and said leisurely, “I’m afraid you’d steal my diapers to wear.”
Hearing this, Xu Zhi burst into laughter as she sat down, “Chen Luzhou, you understand me.”
After getting in the car, neither of them spoke again. Two raindrops suddenly fell from the sky without warning, hitting the glass window and spreading like ink, creating ripples. In an instant, heavy rain poured down, the sparse and dense raindrops falling on the car roof. The car windows were tightly closed, blocking the sound of rain outside. Even though it was now pouring rain, bending trees, with billboards swaying in the gusts of wind, and towering buildings looking like giant beasts.
Chen Luzhou looked out, only able to see a window full of rain curtains. A thin layer of mist slowly rose on the side window. Chen Luzhou thought hazily, you understand me too, you haven’t asked me to stay, not even once. But you’ve been like this since you were little, just like when you ran for class monitor and said, if you became the monitor, please cooperate with your work and don’t make things difficult for you. So you haven’t made things difficult for me either.
When getting her ears pierced, Xu Zhi glanced around, and Chen Luzhou knew what she was thinking. So he lazily leaned against the doorway and asked, “Which ear are you piercing?”
She had originally planned to pierce both, but after thinking about it, she changed her mind and said, “I’ll pierce my right ear.”
Chen Luzhou made a sound of acknowledgment and walked over to the ear-piercing girl nearby, “Then I’ll pierce my left ear.”
A few high school girls were queuing in the store. Xu Zhi strongly suspected that the dog was leaning against the doorway to attract customers. If he couldn’t make money in the future, he could open such an obscure little shop. With the lights off, pitch black, no one would know what improper business was going on inside. People might even think it was some kind of host club. There would be people coming in, especially with Chen Luzhou standing there. In just that short while, the shop was as packed with young girls as a tin of sardines.
After getting their ears pierced, when they were paying, the shop owner smiled and said they indeed benefited from her boyfriend’s presence.
Xu Zhi paid, smiling insincerely. Benefiting was one thing, but she had taken advantage too, who told her to touch his ear?
It was raining heavily that day. After getting their ears pierced, Xu Zhi looked at the shimmering wet surface and suddenly had an idea, “Hey, Chen Luzhou, shall we go watch the sunrise tomorrow?”
“Can you get up that early?” Chen Luzhou bought a box of Häagen-Dazs and handed it to her.
“Oh, never mind. I still have to work tomorrow. But I’m sure I could get up. Throughout my entire third year of high school, I slept at 11 PM and woke up at 4 AM,” Xu Zhi stood by the roadside, reaching out to catch some rain, and casually asked, “Hey, what was your science composite score?”
Chen Luzhou thought for a moment, “292?”
Xu Zhi: “What about math?”
“142.”
Xu Zhi scooped a spoonful of Häagen-Dazs into her mouth: “Then guess how much I scored in math?”
Chen Luzhou had his hands in his pockets, watching her eat ice cream, and laughed helplessly: “I checked your scores, how could I not know? I know you’re good at math, 147. I remember.”
Xu Zhi smiled, “Then your science composite is impressive, Chen Luzhou. I probably won’t meet another guy who can score above 290 in science composite again, right?” She looked at him curiously, “What about you? What time did you sleep and wake up in your third year?”
They always had endless topics to discuss. For instance, now, Xu Zhi didn’t know why, but the more she knew he was leaving, the more she wanted to know about him.
They didn’t bring umbrellas, so they stood at the entrance waiting for the rain to stop. Chen Luzhou was leaning against a coin-operated rocking horse at the store entrance, idly spinning his phone in his hand. He looked down at her, lost in thought, his eyes a bit distracted, but he still answered: “The opposite of you, I slept at 3 or 4 AM and woke up at 8 AM, going straight to morning self-study.”
That third year was casual. He’d just wash his face when he woke up and go to morning self-study with bed hair.
“You stayed up late? Aren’t you usually very disciplined?”
“Just for that one year in high school.”
“Oh, but your morning self-study starts so late?”
“Our class was quite free because it was a competition class. Our competition schedules were quite irregular.”
So people with talent are often also very hardworking. Xu Zhi had always thought he was naturally gifted, but she didn’t expect him to study so diligently. Xu Zhi was already tired of standing and was now squatting on the ground looking up at him. She asked another question that had puzzled her for a long time: “No wonder your No.1 High School is so competitive. Are there more hardworking students or naturally gifted ones in your class?”
Right above where Xu Zhi was squatting was a flower pot. Chen Luzhou, afraid it might fall on her, sighed and pulled her up. Xu Zhi thought he wanted some ice cream, so she scooped a spoonful and naturally fed it into his mouth. Chen Luzhou naturally lowered his head to take a bite. The awning above the store entrance was too small, and quite a few people were sheltering from the rain, so he could only let her stand inside while half of his body was in the rain.
He swallowed and said: “It’s hard to say. Many times, students who seem naturally gifted also work very hard in private. The more talented people are, the more they want to pursue their limits, so they work even harder. For example, Li Ke never had a full night’s sleep in his third year. He would sleep at 3 AM and wake up at 6 or 7 AM, only sleeping three to four hours a day.”
Xu Zhi thought about it and agreed. Indeed, for excellent people, working hard might also be a habit, and perhaps their ultimate pursuit is to find their limits. Chen Luzhou really could hit the nail on the head with every sentence. Even if it wasn’t correct, in that naive age when it was easy to develop admiration, Xu Zhi wanted to applaud him, to applaud him openly.
“Anything else you want to ask?” Chen Luzhou said.
Xu Zhi: “Not for now.”
Chen Luzhou didn’t know what he was waiting for. Seeing she had nothing more to say, he finally just made a sound of acknowledgment, “I’ll go buy an umbrella and take you home.”
After that, they didn’t see each other for about two days. Chen Luzhou was leaving next Thursday. All in all, they only had four or five days left together. Xu Zhi didn’t look for him again, and they chatted less on WeChat, except for when Chen Luzhou sent her the final draft of the speech script. He had revised it completely from beginning to end, all written by him. Xu Zhi politely said thank you. Chen Luzhou only replied with a period.
But sometimes when he didn’t know how to respond, he would just use a period. Anyway, as long as he was the one to end the conversation, it was fine. Otherwise, Xu Zhi would say, “Chen Luzhou, you’re colder on WeChat than in person.” He was used to it. Some girls would confess to him on WeChat, so if he replied too much or used too many emojis, others might think he was interested, leading to misunderstandings. So he always kept his WeChat replies very concise.
But Zhu Yangqi said that Xu Zhi was already adapting to life without him in advance. Only he was still stupidly waiting for her to contact him. She wouldn’t contact him anymore. This girl was too smart.
During those days, apart from watching movies day and night, Chen Luzhou would eat cicadas with Zhu Yangqi and Jiang Cheng in the evenings. He didn’t know if it was because they had eaten too many late-night snacks those days, but he felt that the cicada sounds around the alley had weakened a lot. The nights became completely silent, exceptionally quiet. Even the slightest sound from upstairs could wake him up.
Tan Xu was still jumping rope and exercising upstairs in the middle of the night. Chen Luzhou couldn’t be bothered to go upstairs to find him, so he directly called Jiang Cheng. After Jiang Cheng spoke to him, Tan Xu switched to lifting dumbbells, but it was still noisy. Chen Luzhou didn’t know if he had become more sensitive or what, but anyway, it was quite difficult to fall asleep those nights, and even when he did sleep, he would easily wake up. So he spent his daytime catching up on sleep.
On Tuesday afternoon, Chen Luzhou returned to the rented apartment from the villa. He had just had lunch, and the atmosphere wasn’t very pleasant. He had just entered the door and hadn’t even had time to change his shoes when his aunt’s phone call came relentlessly, reminding him here and there not to be ungrateful.
“Lu Zhou, you’ve always been sensible and obedient since you were little. You can’t be so stubborn this time. Your parents have raised you for so many years, when have they ever mistreated you? They treat you even better than Chen Xingqi, and of course, you’ve also made them proud. We all know you have good grades, but Lu Zhou, for families like ours, the diploma itself isn’t the most important thing, but what you can do for this family. You silly boy, you still think he won’t leave anything for you? But the premise is that you have to be obedient. Your aunt is getting old these years, so I speak more bluntly. Don’t take it to heart. To put it, even if they were raising a dog for over a decade, they would have developed feelings.”
At that moment, Chen Luzhou wanted to say, “Aunt, age isn’t the problem. Uncle won’t give you less living expenses just because you have one more crow’s foot on your face. But using age as leverage is the problem.”
But he still didn’t say anything and just hung up.
At that time, Chen Luzhou was sitting on the sofa, legs spread, arms hanging limply between his legs. The veins on those thin arms were still bulging, his features cold. He lowered his head numbly, but the hand holding the phone was like a senseless machine, “loosening and tightening” as if playing with the muscles on his arm, the clear and distinct muscle lines jumping with each movement.
It was a habitual action. When he encountered problems or had something he couldn’t figure out, he would do this, aimlessly looking at the protruding veins on his hand. Probably because of this habit, his veins were particularly prominent. After a while, Chen Luzhou seemed to have tired of this game. He turned his gaze to the window, wearily looking at the sparse and dense curtain of rain outside, as if it was filling the entire world, long rain screens connecting to the sky, like a cage.
He spent almost the entire afternoon in a daze on the sofa. The rain outside stopped and started, the sun came out for a short while but didn’t shine on him. He always felt empty inside. Around four o’clock, Zhu Yangqi came, shaking off raindrops as he entered.
“I’ve called some people over for a gathering,” he said, closing his umbrella and still standing at the doorway, casually stepping on the doormat a couple of times. “I’m also planning to go a month early. Anyway, I’ll be bored once you’re gone. I’ll leave with you the day after tomorrow. Oh, and I bought two karaoke machines. We’ll sing a couple of songs later. Tonight is our graduation rhapsody.”
Chen Luzhou was a level 10 violinist, and he also sang very well. When he was in elementary school, he liked to show off quite a bit. Whenever there was a cultural performance, he was always the first to sign up, performing at least two acts. Later, when he entered high school, he no longer liked to participate in such activities and even directly wrote “none” in the special talents column.
He just didn’t like showing off anymore. Zhu Yangqi thought he probably knew he was attractive and learned to be more low-key. To be honest, Chen Luzhou was the type who became more handsome as he grew older. When he was little, his face was as thin as a monkey’s, unlike Zhu Yangqi who was round-faced and likable. At that time, Zhu Yangqi was worried for him, thinking this guy would have trouble finding a partner in the future. Later, he found out that things didn’t develop as he had imagined.
Children might look better when they’re chubby, but that’s not necessarily true for boys. Chen Luzhou was a normal boy in elementary school, but by middle school, he and Zhu Yangqi were worlds apart. They hung out together every day, so at first, they didn’t notice.
Later, when Chen Luzhou went to study in another province and only came back occasionally for the New Year, Zhu Yangqi realized something was off. There were a lot of girls watching him play basketball, people would come up to ask for his contact information when he was walking, and even some aunties who looked old enough to be his mother would come to join in the fun.
By the time they reached high school, the title of school heartthrob was impossible to shake off. You should know that there were many art students like Gu Yan in No.1 High School, and they had produced quite a few celebrity alumni. In a place full of handsome guys and beautiful girls, with new batches of juniors coming in year after year, it seemed that cold and aloof troublemakers like Chen Luzhou were still the most appealing.
Zhu Yangqi sighed. Otherwise, how could Gu Yan be so obsessed with him?
“Who’s coming?” he asked.
“Just Jiang Cheng and the others. And there’s a mystery guest. You’ll know later. Don’t worry about it.”
Chen Luzhou couldn’t be bothered to care. He cast a meaningful glance at Zhu Yangqi and then curled up on the sofa to rest his eyes. Zhu Yangqi was on the phone with someone, speaking in a mosquito-like voice. It made Chen Luzhou drowsy, and he eventually fell asleep. In his hazy state, he felt the light above was too bright, so he randomly picked up a hat and covered his face with it, leaning back on the sofa and continuing to sleep.
When Xu Zhi first entered the door, she saw this scene: a black fisherman’s hat was folded in half and loosely covering his eyes, revealing only the lower half of his clear and handsome face, mouth, and chin. The lines were smooth and clean, his Adam’s apple protruding coldly, and on his ear was the piercing they had gotten together the other day. He couldn’t wear earrings yet, just a black tube. The jawline looked very strong from this angle. She thought, kissing would probably feel even more distinctly strong.
Chen Luzhou was awakened by a kiss. He was a light sleeper and had actually heard the door open, but at the time he thought it was Zhu Yangqi bringing in takeout or something, so he didn’t pay attention and continued to sleep hazily. It wasn’t until the sofa sank beside him that he realized it might not be Zhu Yangqi.
Xu Zhi was half-kneeling on the sofa, one hand propped on top of the sofa backrest, supporting her head, and then she lowered her head to kiss him. She kissed from his eyebrows, along the bridge of his nose, inexperienced yet lingering down. The sound of those dense, light kisses made one’s heart tremble. Xu Zhi was also trembling as she kissed. If he had opened his eyes at that moment, he would have seen the fluttering butterflies in her eyes, suppressed yet excited.
The room was quiet, and the muddled sound of kissing gradually became bolder. Both of their mouths opened wide, from the initial carefulness to now seeming to devour each other. They were like two equally matched generals, both trying to make the other submit to their tactics. However, their heartbeats were tumbling in the air, their breaths filling the sky. He still asked her in a low, panting voice—
“Did you miss me, or did you miss kissing?”