Fang Long liked taking hot showers.

She liked the feeling of hot water pouring straight down from the showerhead, her body temperature gradually rising.

She also liked the feeling of the skin on her fingertips wrinkling from soaking too long.

It let her feel, solidly and truly, that she was still alive.

And something as simple as “taking a hot shower” — six years ago, Fang Long wouldn’t have dared to even imagine it.

She wasn’t born in An Town. Her mother, Ma Yulian, was Ma Huimin’s biological younger sister, and had married into Shuishan City, twenty kilometers from An Town.

The man’s name was Fang Deming. He ran some shady business on the side. When Fang Long was little, she’d heard her mother — before she’d gone astray — say that theirs was the first household on the whole street to own a car.

When Fang Long grew up, she thought she must have had a decent life for a while.

Fang Deming was good-looking, but it was just a handsome shell — underneath, he was rotten through and through.

He loved to drink, loved to gamble. After his business failed following the ’98 financial crisis, the slightest displeasure would send him into beating both mother and daughter.

Later, the man became addicted to drugs, and passed the addiction on to Ma Yulian.

Having one addict in the house was already unbearable — let alone two.

Fang Long watched as the household’s belongings were emptied out bit by bit, watched Ma Yulian — not yet forty — grow sallow and gaunt, watched both the home and her mother become nothing but hollow shells.

The lights went dark. So did her mother’s eyes.

Fang Long was ten that year.

Ma Yulian cared less and less about the household, and the chores fell to Fang Long.

The washing machine got sold. The gas canister was often empty. In the bitter winter she’d soak her ten fingers in water to do laundry, and every crack that opened in her fingertips was a stabbing pain.

Meals were hit or miss too. If Ma Yulian brought back meat and vegetables, Fang Long could cook a simple bowl of noodles for the two of them, but often when she came home from school, the house would be dark and cold, not a light on.

At first some kind-hearted neighbors were willing to help her out, but perhaps finding her family’s situation too complicated, they gradually distanced themselves too.

When Fang Long had nothing to eat, when hunger drove her half-mad, she started stealing.

She was short and thin, and her school uniform hung loose — she could stuff plenty into the sleeves.

The convenience store’s Mimi biscuits and Wahaha drinks were, at times, an entire meal to her. The uncovered sponge cakes at the bakery were a rare delicacy.

Then one day, out of nowhere, Fang Deming and Ma Yulian came home again.

Fang Deming even bought his wife new lipstick and a new dress.

Fang Long was twelve that year, hadn’t even finished primary school, but she already understood what those men who kept coming and going from the house were there for.

She couldn’t even go home anymore. After school she’d stay at school until it was about to close, then go borrow a streetlamp outside the supermarket near home to do her homework, and only go home once the supermarket closed.

She’d rinse off quickly with cold water and go straight to her room, then push her desk against the door.

She’d tear tissue paper, roll it into balls, and stuff it in her ears — that way she could get a little bit of decent sleep.

She even hid a fruit knife against the wall behind her mattress.

She lived like this, nerves strung tight, for almost a year. Just as Fang Long was on the verge of breaking down, Fang Deming was arrested for drug trafficking and sentenced to seven years.

That same year, Ma Yulian died of a drug overdose.

It was her eldest aunt’s family who came to handle Ma Yulian’s funeral affairs.

By the graveside, her aunt asked if she’d be willing to move to An Town and live with them.

……

Knock—

A knock on the door pulled Fang Long out of her memories.

Outside the door came Zhou Ya’s low, hoarse voice: “Did you pass out in there?”

Fang Long rubbed her wrinkled fingertips and turned off the showerhead. “I’m done. Just wait a bit.”

This place, her aunt’s home, was housing allocated to her uncle by marriage back when he was young, from the factory he worked at. The building had some age to it — the old place had plenty of floor space, but only one bathroom.

The person outside didn’t respond; Fang Long only heard the sound of slippers gradually walking away.

She dried herself off, and while the bathroom was still thick with hot steam, she hand-washed her underwear in the sink.

She took a bucket for the sweatshirt with the stains on it, tossed it in, poured in a bit of bleach powder, planning to let it soak overnight and scrub it tomorrow.

Stepping out of the bathroom, the living room was empty. Zhou Ya’s bedroom door was half shut, with rustling sounds coming from inside.

Fang Long walked to the balcony, hung up her underwear to dry, and tossed her pants and socks into the washing machine.

Her room was next to Zhou Ya’s. Considering he’d paid her cab fare tonight, Fang Long walked over and knocked on his door: “Bathroom’s free.”

A few seconds later, the person inside answered: “Mm. Take the stuff on the dining table into your room.”

On the dining table was a clean towel and a small stainless steel pot.

Inside the pot were two eggs, boiled.

Fang Long was quite familiar with this combination. She carried it into her room.

She wrapped the eggs in the towel and rolled them gently over her slightly swollen cheek — the warmth soothed the throbbing ache.

While rolling the egg over her face, Fang Long deleted Jiang Yao’s and Wu Danchun’s phone numbers from her phone.

The moment she logged into QQ, a flurry of “ding-ding-ding-ding” sounds went off. Fang Long ignored the messages from friends, thumbed the direction keys, and found those two people’s QQ accounts.

Wu Danchun’s QQ signature was a lyric from this year’s hit song Wall of the Heart: even if you build a wall, my love will climb up and bloom on your windowsill.*

Fang Long rolled her eyes.

She actually loved that song herself — always requested it at KTV, even used it as her QQ Zone background music and phone ringtone.

Who knew — turns out she was the wall. Wasn’t that just infuriating?

After clearing out her QQ too, Fang Long powered off her phone, took off the back cover, and pulled out the battery to charge it.

She glanced at the calendar on the dresser, marked up with her work schedule.

Ah — tomorrow was the last day of 2009.

Time to change the calendar.

Once Zhou Ya heard no more sound from outside the door, he took his phone and went out to the balcony.

He lit a cigarette and called A’Feng at the food stall.

Maybe because the new year was approaching, there’d been a lot more people out on the streets at night the past few evenings; even at this hour the stall was still packed, and a lot of ingredients had run out.

Tomorrow was the last day of the year — the number of people going out to celebrate the new year would only increase. By the time Zhou Ya finished his cigarette, he’d already calculated how much more stock he’d need to bring in tomorrow.

He hung up the phone and stubbed the cigarette butt out in an eight-treasure porridge can.

That’s when he noticed a small wet patch on the right shoulder of his t-shirt.

He didn’t think much of it, glanced up.

But one glance was all it took — he couldn’t look away.

Her underwear had grown more mature in style over the years — from pink or white lace bows, to now black or red sheer lace.

Just like her, really — from a wilted little bean sprout to now a graceful, upright magnolia blossom.

The night gave cover to some thoughts better left unspoken.

Zhou Ya couldn’t help himself — he lit another cigarette.

This time the ember flared and died fast, urgently.

He went back inside for a change of clothes and went into the bathroom.

The lingering steam was full of her scent, a sweet, cloying fruity fragrance.

Zhou Ya frowned, his thick brows knitting, stripped off his clothes, and turned on the water bare.

That part of him was slightly stirred; he had to press it down — relieving himself wasn’t comfortable.

The shower dial was turned to the right, the temperature she liked.

Zhou Ya had tried it before — too hot for him.

He flipped the dial to the left, and cold water poured out immediately.

He stood under it like that for a while, until the heat in him pressed back down.

Zhou Ya grabbed the soap to wash his hair, already cursing himself with plenty of foul words in his head.

He washed quickly — the whole thing took no more than five minutes.

While drying off, he spotted the bucket on the floor.

Fang Long’s clothes from tonight were soaking in it.

Zhou Ya pulled on shorts, bare-chested, bent down and fished the clothes out of the bucket.

He opened a new bar of crystal soap, found a brush, and scrubbed the stains out of the clothes in the sink, one stroke at a time.

He thought to himself: this was the last time he’d wash clothes for this little troublemaker.

Once the new year was over, he was moving out.

Something Ren Jianbai said tonight was actually right.

Fang Long was nearly twenty now. She hadn’t been a little kid for a long time.

————Author’s Ramblings————

Wall of the Heart @Guo Jing

Hi everyone, updates have been a bit irregular these past few days, depends on how I’m feeling.