After Qing Ye took the jacket, the two men standing opposite Xing Wu finally realized he knew this beauty. They smiled at Qing Ye, who merely nodded slightly before entering Xuan Dao.
One of them said playfully, “Hey, Wu-zi, when did you meet such a stunning girl?”
The other chimed in, “Your girlfriend?” Xing Wu remained silent.
A moment later, Qing Ye heard loud exhaust sounds from outside Xuan Dao as the sports car drove away. When Xing Wu came in, Li Fanzhang called him to chop some ribs, and he walked straight to the backyard.
Qing Ye followed him. Xing Wu had just washed his hands and rolled up his sleeves when he glanced sideways at Qing Ye leaning against the doorframe. He picked up the cleaver as Qing Ye sipped milk and watched him, tentatively asking, “Your friends are from Shanghai?”
“Mm,” Xing Wu replied with a single syllable.
“They seem to be doing well.”
Xing Wu didn’t respond, the cleaver coming down with a “bang” on the cutting board.
Qing Ye asked directly, “Did they come specifically to see you?”
Another “bang” as Xing Wu chopped another piece. He turned to look at Qing Ye as she bit her straw and said, “They came to recruit you for esports?”
Xing Wu stared at her for a few seconds: “Asked me to play professionally.”
Qing Ye pressed her lips together as she looked at him: “What did you say?”
“Turned them down.”
Qing Ye immediately frowned: “Why?”
“No reason.”
As Xing Wu picked up the cleaver again, Qing Ye bit her lip and walked over to him: “I heard from Huang Mao that they came looking for you before, and you had a falling out with your family over it. Why didn’t you persist?”
Xing Wu continued chopping the ribs silently, head down. Qing Ye grew anxious, putting down her milk: “Xing Wu, are you content? Content to be stuck in this small place forever? I don’t believe you are. Everyone here knows you as the ‘Sniper King,’ able to defeat professional players at age ten. You were born for this, and shouldn’t be buried here, bowing to life’s circumstances. Why should you doubt yourself just because everyone around you doubts you? I don’t believe you don’t want to leave, don’t believe you don’t love that profession. If you could let it go, why do you follow all the news? Why haven’t you missed a single live match? Tell me!”
“Bang!” Xing Wu slammed the cleaver onto the cutting board. When he turned his head, there was a frightening light in his eyes as he coldly glanced at Qing Ye: “My business is none of your concern.”
Qing Ye suddenly lifted her chin, enunciating each word: “I’m making it my concern!”
Xing Wu’s sharp eyes darkened as he suddenly asked in a deep voice: “What about my grandmother if I leave? She won’t even eat for a week if she doesn’t see me. What about my mother? She’s forty years old and still makes a fuss about everything, falling apart at the slightest problem. She can barely take care of herself – how can I expect her to care for my grandmother?
Do you think I can count on my father? If our whole family had depended on him, we’d have starved long ago!
Sure, I could just leave, but tell me, what about them?”
Qing Ye’s eyes instantly welled up as she gazed deeply at him, her voice trembling: “Then what about me?”
At that moment, Xing Wu stared at her blankly, swallowing all his words as he took in her distressed expression. Qing Ye turned and left the kitchen, going straight upstairs to her room. She closed the door, sat quietly at her desk, took out a test paper, and held her pen – but didn’t write.
She kept spacing out as if suddenly understanding the certainty in Quan Ya’s eyes.
“If he had chosen success, he would have been at the peak of professional competition two years ago. Not everyone can choose success as freely as you can. You don’t know what price others must pay for choosing success. No one wants to expose their inadequacies to others.”
“We can bet – you won’t be able to take him away.”
These words suddenly echoed in Qing Ye’s mind again. She finally understood Xing Wu’s price: his family, the grandmother who raised him, his mother who had no one else to rely on, and perhaps even his difficult-to-speak-of-birth. All of these would become the price of his success. He had no way out.
Qing Ye suddenly burst into tears. She felt like she was standing in a cage with walls on all sides and no exit. In that instant, she seemed to understand Xing Wu’s always casual attitude and indifferent gaze. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but that life hadn’t given him the right to choose. So he would rather suppress all his sharp edges and merge into this place where he was rooted.
This feeling made Qing Ye very uncomfortable. The scene appeared in her mind again – him sinking deeper and deeper into the swamp, countless hands pulling him down into the lightless abyss, and then… he chose to close his eyes and let his body sink continuously.
Qing Ye’s hands gradually clenched into fists. She suddenly wanted to break through this cage, wanted to rush over and pull him up, but she didn’t know what she could do now, in her current predicament, when she could barely protect herself.
About ten minutes later, there were two knocks on the door behind her. She lowered her head and wiped away her tears. Xing Wu entered and looked at her back, his voice softer as he called out: “Qing Ye.”
Qing Ye didn’t move or turn around, just made a small “mm” sound, her voice carrying traces of hoarse choking that tugged at Xing Wu’s heart.
He said to her: “Let’s go for a walk. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
Qing Ye sat for two more minutes, composing herself before going downstairs. Xing Wu’s motorcycle was parked at the entrance. When she came out, Xing Wu handed her a white ladies’ helmet that looked quite cool. Qing Ye took it with surprise: “Did you just buy this?”
Xing Wu straddled the motorcycle, took the helmet back from her hands, and helped her put it on, adjusting the position and looking down as he fastened it, replying: “Afraid you’d be cold.”
Throughout the process, Xing Wu’s gaze never met hers. He couldn’t bear to look at her red eyes that showed she’d been crying.
After getting on the motorcycle, Xing Wu took her around Zha Zha Ting and beyond. Qing Ye had never been down this road and didn’t know where Xing Wu was taking her. Anywhere would do, even to the ends of the earth.
After riding for a very long time, the motorcycle turned onto a narrow path. Xing Wu told her: “Hold tight.”
Just as Qing Ye wrapped her arms around his waist, Xing Wu made a nimble turn and the bike went up a dirt road. The ground was full of potholes, making for an extremely bumpy ride, kicking up clouds of dust. That dry feeling became increasingly apparent, even the air seemed filled with particles. Qing Ye held tightly to Xing Wu’s waist and asked: “Where are we going?”
Xing Wu told her: “Look to the right.”
The moment Qing Ye turned her head, she saw a sight she would never forget in her life. In the distance, the vast and boundless Gobi Desert stretched majestic, now set ablaze by the setting sun, like a raging fire burning across this great land.
Xing Wu stopped the bike, and Qing Ye dismounted and ran a few steps forward, her eyes brightening: “No wonder it’s so dry here – you’re right next to the Gobi Desert! It’s so beautiful!”
Xing Wu leaned against the motorcycle, watching Qing Ye’s back as he said to her: “I discovered this place when I was 13. I sometimes come here alone, but usually only when the sun is about to set. What do you see?”
“Defiance.”
Xing Wu’s pupils suddenly dilated. For so many years, he had been trying to find the right word to express this feeling, but his poor command of language left him unable to express it. Yet now Qing Ye had used such a precise word that struck straight to his heart. He stared at her, transfixed as if his whole being had caught fire.
Qing Ye turned back to meet his gaze, with countless rays of sunset glory behind her as she stood between heaven and earth, her gaze intense: “Originally a desolate wilderness without any signs of life, only at this moment of the day does it come alive again, shouting at heaven and earth. Is this why you come at this time?”
Xing Wu just smiled at her, his smile dazzling in the sunset’s reflection, but the light in his eyes was strong and vigorous. He had never met someone who could stand so close to his heart, understanding his feelings, his thoughts, his desires.
He gradually lowered his gaze to look at the shadow at his feet, falling into some memories as he said: “When I was five, I was playing with other kids outside my house. It was raining heavily, and I remember there was mud everywhere. Many frogs jumped out from the roadside, startling a big dog. That dog was fierce, and some kids would throw stones at it. We were all small then – who could have thought the dog would break its leash and charge at the kid who threw the stone? I was brave when I was little, and seeing something was wrong, I pushed that kid away. When I turned around, the dog bit my leg, dragged me into the mud, and wouldn’t let go, pulling me through the mud.
That day, my grandmother carried me through the heavy rain, walking more than twenty li to the county town for rabies vaccines.”
Xing Wu lowered his head and lit a cigarette, took a drag, then slowly exhaled the smoke as he looked toward the distant horizon: “During that time, every time we went for vaccines, my grandmother had to walk very far with me. When I couldn’t walk anymore, she would carry me on her back. When she couldn’t carry me anymore, we’d sit by the roadside while she told me stories, then continue carrying me after we’d rested enough. Once, when we came out of the hospital, we saw a bakery. It smelled so good, and I kept staring inside. She bought me a loaf of bread – that might have been my first time eating bread. I sat by the road eating it while she watched me. I wanted to share with her, but she said she wasn’t hungry.”
Xing Wu took another deep drag of his cigarette, his brows furrowing tightly: “Looking back now, I realize – how could she not have been hungry? She had carried me to the county town early in the morning and wouldn’t return home until afternoon, without even a sip of water. She just couldn’t afford to eat.
Not long after that, she developed rheumatism. Her joints would always ache, sometimes she couldn’t move, and then later…”
Xing Wu stubbed out his cigarette and raised his head to look at Qing Ye with a distant gaze. Qing Ye quietly returned his look, standing by the far-off Gobi Desert. Xing Wu’s words reminded her of her mother. She even imagined if her mother were still alive and in poor health, could she have gone abroad so easily?
The answer was no. Her father’s mistresses would cause trouble for her mother every few days. She couldn’t have left her most beloved relative when her mother had no one else to rely on.
She seemed to see the responsibility and pressure Xing Wu carried. This was his price – using his family as the cost. But the Xing Wu she knew valued relationships deeply, so how could he selfishly abandon everything in Zha Zha Ting? Even though he argued with Li Fanzhang every day, Qing Ye knew he couldn’t let go of even his unreliable mother.
So at this moment, she suddenly regretted what she had said to him at home earlier. She shouldn’t have made him feel troubled, conflicted, or distressed. She shouldn’t have used her own choices to measure Xing Wu. She had nothing, but he still had family. He was unfortunate, yet also fortunate.
Qing Ye suddenly smiled with understanding, then raised her hand to Xing Wu with five fingers up, brought it to her forehead in a salute, and then tapped her chest with her pinky several times. This was a universal gesture of apology. She didn’t know if Xing Wu would understand, but when she saw the bright light in his eyes and his slightly curved lips the next second, Qing Ye knew he had understood.
She stretched her arms straight up over her head, clasped her hands together in a stretch, and looked at where earth met sky as she said dreamily: “Some say the person you like in high school is someone you’ll remember for life. Do you believe that?”
She turned her head to look at him. He smiled at her, so light and breezy, yet his eyes were so complex. His voice carried faintly through the wind: “You’re too excellent to be ruined by romance.”
In that instant, Qing Ye seemed to radiate a dazzling, confident light as she turned around against the light, lifting her chin: “A lifetime is very long. There are many things to do, but I won’t use it to remember just one person. I, Qing Ye, won’t be ruined by anything. Xing Wu, I’m not a coward. If I dare to bet my future, would you let me lose?”
Qing Ye picked up the choice again and solemnly returned it to Xing Wu’s hands. She knew his worries and evasions, his concerns and hesitations. Whether it was his family, his birth, or his background that made him afraid to think about the future, Qing Ye laid her determination bare on this Gobi Desert, letting him feel it.
Xing Wu looked at her with a serious expression, his silhouette elongated by the sunset. At that moment, he only felt a powerful force crash into his heart, as if beams of overwhelming light were surging toward him, so intense, so determined.
Never before in his life had he met such a person – a girl who feared neither heaven nor earth, who wasn’t afraid of worldly constraints, a girl full of light who showed him the future, a brave and wise girl who held her destiny firmly in her hands.
He suddenly became very afraid of losing the girl before him, feeling that if he missed her, he would never meet anyone like her again in his lifetime.
If she dared to take the gamble, what reason did he have to retreat?
Just when Qing Ye thought she wouldn’t get an answer, he said: “Let’s be together.”
She smiled, in the silent space between heaven and earth, witnessed by the last rays of the setting sun.
Xing Wu strode toward her, lifted her off the ground, and pulled her into his embrace. They said nothing, just held each other until darkness fell over the land.
Qing Ye buried her face in the crook of his neck and said: “People say first love is bitter, but I don’t like bitter things, so no matter what happens, you’re not allowed to break up with me.”
Xing Wu tightened his arms around her, stroking her hair: “Alright.”