That night, Xie Huai sang six love songs.
Xia Xia sat in Starbucks chatting with a young man for a long while.
The world was peaceful and quiet, with neon lights flowing in brilliant colors, their glow mixing with the falling snow that drifted onto the verdant pine needles.
The young man finished his coffee and stood up to put on his coat.
Outside the window, Xie Huai removed his guitar and bent down to organize the money in his guitar case.
The crowd was noisy. A man holding a girl in his arms stood in the front row: “Handsome, sing one for my girlfriend too.”
Xie Huai had been sitting in the north wind for an hour, his nose red from the cold.
His fingers were slightly stiff as he counted the money: “That’s all for today, I need to go meet my girlfriend.”
Xia Xia squeezed through the crowd, and Xie Huai pulled her to his side: “She’s here.”
The young man followed behind Xia Xia and saw Xie Huai and the money in his hands: “Who are you?”
Xie Huai pocketed the money and smiled shamelessly: “Thanks, brother.”
He grabbed Xia Xia’s hand: “Run!”
The young man belatedly realized what happened and called out helplessly: “Don’t run! Wait!”
They ran until they reached the back of the mall before stopping.
Xia Xia was panting, her face flushed red. She looked back; the young man hadn’t followed them.
“He seemed nice, he probably won’t hold it against us.”
“I was afraid he’d want the money back,” Xie Huai pulled out a wad of bills from his pocket. “We can’t share this with him, I still need to buy you clothes.”
“That’s so much!” Xia Xia exclaimed in disbelief. “Street singing is profitable! If you did this every day, wouldn’t you get rich?”
“You’re dreaming,” Xie Huai chuckled. “Today was lucky to get this much. Usually, I don’t even make a tenth of this.”
Xia Xia counted the money. Xie Huai charged two hundred per song request, and with various tips from passersby, the total came to one thousand four hundred and seven.
Xia Xia found it incredible: “People spend two hundred yuan for street song requests.”
Xie Huai: “You think there are that many bored rich people? Making money requires luck and brains.”
Xia Xia didn’t understand.
“What day is today?” Xie Huai said, “Never underestimate men’s competitive spirit.”
“Sir, would you like to request a song for this beautiful lady beside you?” He smiled slightly, exuding the utmost politeness and gentleness.
His eyes were full of mirth: “With a handsome guy like Brother Huai praising their girlfriend, if you were them, could you just shake your head and walk away?”
Xie Huai explained: “Though they lost two hundred yuan, they gained priceless romantic moments and male pride. You understand?”
He went back to the curio shop to redeem his bracelet, then bought the black coat Xia Xia had liked.
Xia Xia stood before the full-length mirror. The girl in the reflection had neatly combed hair tucked behind her ears, clear eyes, and delicate features. The black coat wrapped around her knees and fell to her calves, making her look even more petite. She straightened her back and smiled at her reflection, sweet and gentle.
Xie Huai stood behind her, a head taller.
“Beautiful.”
Having just come in from the cold outside, the warmth of the air conditioning made his wind-chilled face even redder.
This was Xia Xia’s first time wearing such nice clothes, having only worn hand-me-downs and cheap Taobao items before. She felt so self-conscious she barely dared to move: “But it’s so expensive, why don’t we buy the cheaper one instead?”
Xie Huai studied her quietly: “Say that again and I’ll crack your head open. I spent an hour in the cold wind earning this money, and you dare to refuse it?”
“I’m not refusing, I just feel bad about the money,” Xia Xia said softly. “It’s because you worked so hard for it that I don’t want to spend it.”
Xie Huai suddenly smiled, and Xia Xia didn’t understand why.
Xie Huai said: “I wish I’d met you a few years earlier. Back then, Brother Huai had plenty of money and could have bought you anything.”
Hearing his words, Xia Xia felt a sweetness in her heart.
Holding back her smile, she deliberately said: “Even if you had money, there’d be no reason to buy things for me. You should buy things for your girlfriend instead.”
Xie Huai scoffed: “Brothers are like limbs, women are like clothes. You’re my little brother, buying things for you is only right. Next time, I’d rather donate the money to poor mountain areas or flush it down the drain than spend a penny on them.”
Xia Xia’s antennae perked up sensitively: “Them? Did you have many girlfriends before?”
Xie Huai: “…”
“Not too many,” he turned his face away.
“How many?” Xia Xia pressed.
She had never thought about this before, but now considering Xie Huai’s previous circumstances, she couldn’t believe he hadn’t had women around him.
Xie Huai: “Really not that many, I can’t remember clearly.”
“Ten? Fifteen? Not more than twenty.”
“Given the ratio of girls who pursued me back then, twenty shows a lot of restraint,” Xie Huai saw Xia Xia’s increasingly dark expression and felt inexplicably panicked. “In school, I’d go to the bathroom and come back to find my desk covered in milk tea, and cakes. If I didn’t clean out my desk for two days, it would overflow with love letters.”
“If I said I never had a girlfriend, wouldn’t you question my sexual orientation?”
Xia Xia remained silent.
Twenty girlfriends meant that before meeting her, Xie Huai had hugged and kissed twenty beautiful girls, he had been this nice to twenty other girls. He had stood up for other girls, raced cars on the street for other girls, and sang in heavy snow for other girls.
Thinking of this, Xia Xia felt devastated, her face turning ashen.
Seeing her increasingly grim expression, Xie Huai hurriedly explained: “Though the number is high, my previous girlfriends were all weekly disposables. The shortest lasted three days, the longest just a month. I can’t even remember their names now.”
Xia Xia’s mood improved slightly, but then immediately worsened: “Are you that much of a player?”
Xie Huai: “…”
“Xia Xia.” Seeing the girl stuck on this point, he finally became serious. “I was different back then.”
“The circle I ran in was full of rich second-generation wastrels, everyone was the same. Those girlfriends didn’t count, they were just arm candy to show off. I never touched pure girls who genuinely wanted to date.”
“Those girls who dated me weren’t stupid. Who’d believe they liked me? They spent my money while we were together, and even after breaking up, they’d gained enough attention. Who knew them before? After dating a young master for a few days, they suddenly became campus celebrities, each living the high life.”
“Were they at a loss? I was the one who lost out.”
Xia Xia’s expression brightened somewhat. She asked softly: “Did you kiss them?”
Xie Huai flicked her forehead: “Exchanging saliva after knowing someone for a week, probably with cavities, tongue coating, and food residue – isn’t that disgusting? Would you kiss a guy you’ve only known for a week?”
Xia Xia asked again: “Did you sing for them?”
Xie Huai smiled: “No, never.”
On Valentine’s night, Xie Huai searched but couldn’t find a hotel room to stay in.
He found a 24-hour KFC and used the remaining money from singing to order two meal sets for dinner.
Xia Xia sat in the leather chair by the window, leaning forward to watch the snow outside.
Xie Huai brought the food over: “What are you planning to do?”
Xia Xia, munching on chicken wings from the family bucket, mumbled: “My dad works during the day tomorrow. Once he leaves, I’ll go home to get my luggage and head straight back to school. The dorms should be open in a couple of days.”
She put down her half-eaten wing and asked hopefully: “Will you come with me?”
She wanted Xie Huai to return with her, partly to spend more time together, but also because she worried about debt collectors finding him if he stayed at home.
Xie Huai shook his head: “I’ll leave after the New Year. I can’t leave my mother alone at home.”
Xia Xia made a sound of acknowledgment, then added: “I could stay with you too.”
“Stay with me?”
Xia Xia said seriously: “Don’t think I’m fragile, I can be quite fierce in a fight.”
Xie Huai: “Girls are meant to be cherished, not to stand as shields in front of me.”
“I’m a man. I’ll fight my own battles, and if I can’t win, I’ll take the beating. It’s not a big deal.”
Xia Xia wiped her greasy fingertips on a napkin: “Isn’t there another way? Earning money like this is too slow, when will you ever pay it all back?”
Xie Huai: “There was once a chance to make quick money right in front of me.”
“A chance?” Xia Xia asked.
“Back then, I thought I was decent at gaming and planned to become a streamer to make money,” Xie Huai said. “But my confidence wasn’t because I was good – it was because they used to let me win, gave me good equipment, let me have the kills. When I was on my own, I was terrible.”
Xie Huai said casually: “After streaming for a month, I hadn’t made much money but had plenty of haters. They would come to my stream in groups to insult me every day.”
“That’s too much!” Xia Xia said angrily. “So what if you’re bad at games? It’s not like you ate their food, what right do they have to insult you?”
“I did,” Xie Huai said. “A woman would send me gifts every day, and her boyfriend got jealous. Combined with not being able to stand my noob gameplay, he harassed me for a month.”
“Outrageous!” Xia Xia said. “How could someone like that even have a girlfriend? If I ever meet him, I’ll teach him how to be a decent person.”
“You’ve already met him,” Xie Huai said. “That person was Zhao Yilei.”
Xia Xia: “…”
“That day when I was wandering around the university town, Zhao Yilei saw me from his shop and invited me in for milk tea.”
“He had just been cheated on by his girlfriend and was in a bad mood. After milk tea, he invited me for drinks,” Xie Huai said. “I asked him why he was treating a stranger to food. He didn’t answer, but when he got drunk, he hugged me and cried by the roadside, crying and vomiting, getting vomit all over me.”
“Brother Lei had it rough too.” Xia Xia’s righteous indignation subsided a bit, but noticing Xie Huai’s strange look, she quickly corrected herself, “I mean, poor Little Lei, maybe I shouldn’t teach him a lesson after all.”
Xie Huai: “Then I tried being a looks-based streamer, singing songs and chatting, streaming myself doing homework at night. After years of not working or learning practical skills, I had no talents or specialties. I couldn’t think of any other ways to make money.”
“That’s fine,” Xia Xia said. “Being a streamer is honest work. What happened next?”
“Later, an old creep took an interest in me,” Xie Huai said flatly. “He was over fifty, balding with a beer belly. Supposedly a wealthy businessman from Zhejiang, with assets comparable to my father’s peak. His original wife had been dead for over ten years, and he never remarried. He had two sons, seven mistresses, and four illegitimate children. He wanted to keep me as his eighth mistress.”
“If I stayed with him for a year, he would not only help pay off my eight million debt but also clear all the money my father owed to relatives and friends.”
Xia Xia’s eyes grew round: “Then… did you agree?”
Instead of answering, Xie Huai asked her: “If it were you, would you agree to someone buying a year of your life for eight million?”
Xia Xia thought for a moment and shook her head.
Though she was poor, she wasn’t desperate enough to sell herself for money.
“What if you owed eight million in high-interest loans? Gangsters were blocking your school and home entrance every day demanding repayment, and if you couldn’t pay, they’d drown you and your family in cement and throw you into the river,” Xie Huai said. “At that point, if someone offered to buy you for a year for eight million, would you agree?”
Xia Xia remained silent.
Pay or die – Xie Huai had no third option. If it were just him, with his temperament, he would certainly rather die.
But Xie Huai had his mother.
“So I agreed.”
Xia Xia suddenly remembered what Jiang Jingzhou had told her – Xie Huai had originally been in the same grade as him but had taken a year off during high school. What had he done during that year?
She felt an indescribable pain in her heart. While others were studying carefree at that age, Xie Huai had to sell himself to a greasy old man in his fifties.
The thought of that scene made her feel dizzy.
“He booked my flight ticket, and I packed my suitcase and went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep that night, my mind kept turning over how I would spend the next year. My mom got up three times that night, not knowing I was planning to leave.”
“Stop talking,” Xia Xia said gloomily. “I understand.”
“What do you understand?” Xie Huai said carelessly. “Do you know I got constipated the next morning?”
Xia Xia: “?”
“I hadn’t been resting well those days, and wasn’t drinking enough water.”
“It was my first time being constipated, I never knew it could be so uncomfortable,” Xie Huai said. “Sitting on the toilet, I thought, if constipation hurts this much, what about a perverted old man who could still keep seven mistresses at fifty? Who knows what he’d do to me?”
Xie Huai raised his sharp eyebrows: “So I flushed the ticket down the toilet.”
He smiled: “Brother Huai almost went down the wrong path. No one told me what to do, and no one could help me. Paying back the debt myself might be hard, but if I had gone that day, even if the debt was cleared, my life would have been pretty much ruined. Maybe my dad’s spirit was watching over me, warning me with a bout of constipation when I was losing my way.”
Xia Xia had been holding her breath, and finally let it out: “Then when you stood him up, did he retaliate?”
Xie Huai lowered his eyes to look at the chicken wings in the bucket: “I want that one.”
Xia Xia quickly picked it up and held it to Xie Huai’s mouth.
Xie Huai took a bite, smiling brightly: “Delicious. As expected from my little brother, even the taste is different from others.”
Xia Xia pressed: “He didn’t do anything to you, right?”
Xie Huai smiled carelessly: “No.”
The snow stopped in the middle of the night.
Xia Xia lay sleeping on the KFC bench.
Seeing few customers in the store, the staff turned down the air conditioning and retreated to the employee room to keep warm.
Xie Huai hadn’t slept. He sat across from Xia Xia, head tilted, watching the snow-covered landscape outside the window.
Xia Xia turned restlessly, and Xie Huai went over to ask softly: “Are you cold?”
Xia Xia mumbled sleepily: “A little cold.”
Xie Huai took off his coat and draped it over her, walking outside wearing just a sweater.
The street at midnight was quiet, with no pedestrians and only a few cars speeding past on the main road.
The nearby convenience store was about to close. Xie Huai went over and took out some money: “A pack of cigarettes.”
The owner asked: “How much?”
Xie Huai thought for a moment, and fished out a coin from his pocket: “Actually, give me a lollipop instead.”
He didn’t go far, chewing on the lollipop while stomping in the snow in the space in front of KFC.
The night’s snow had covered the holly leaves nearby, the pine tree branches in the distance, and laid a white haze over the roadside billboards.
Xie Huai childishly covered the pristine snow with footprints until he finished his lollipop.
His phone buzzed twice in his pocket. He took it out – messages from Qi Da.
[Xie Huai, are you coming or not? We’ve been waiting all night, almost finished all the drinks.]
Xie Huai looked back.
The streetlight shone directly onto KFC’s glass windows, illuminating the sleeping girl’s face. She was curled up on the sofa, covered with two coats, her hair tousled from moving around. She slept deeply, completely unguarded, and peacefully despite being outside.
Xie Huai smiled.
He replied to Qi Da: [Told you I’m not coming. I’m busy.]