The Long Night - Chapter 6

When Tang Shaocheng pushed open the door to his house, he felt a wave of low pressure. His mother was in a video conference, sternly scolding a subordinate. The door was open, and the person on the other end of the video seemed to hear the noise outside and the sounds of constant apologies abruptly stopped for a few seconds.

An uncomfortable and awkward silence lingered, but his mother didn’t seem to have a problem with it at all. The peach wood table was slammed with a deafening sound. “Is your mind even on your work? I told you to revise the plan, and I need it in ten minutes!”

The moment the video call ended, Tang Shaocheng felt a wave of relief. He hung his coat on the hanger and said softly, “I’m home.”

“It’s so late,” the words she was about to say stopped abruptly, and his mother tried her best to force a smile. “Have you had dinner? There’s some beef in the fridge.”

“I have.”

Tang Shaocheng walked towards his room, his footsteps on the floor like a rhythmic countdown. Finally, at the moment he turned the doorknob, the person who had only played the role of a kind mother for a few seconds still couldn’t suppress her anger and asked, “You’re in your last year of high school, and you still have time to go out and play?”

“Your teacher said your ranking has dropped.”

Her voice rose like steps on a piano keyboard. “What’s wrong with you?”

It was as if the end of the world was about to crash through their window, as if a problem so serious that the sky was about to fall had appeared, as if she would take two bottles of poison and drink one with him the next second.

“Are you deliberately trying to anger me?”

Tang Shaocheng was a little surprised by this question. He stood in the living room for a moment. His father’s portrait was on the wall behind him. From his perspective, they looked like they were standing side by side in punishment.

He didn’t talk back, pretending he hadn’t heard anything, and walked straight back to his room, locking the door.

In his previous life, his mock exam results were always stable in the top few of his grade. So until he left home to go to Pingcheng for college in September, his mother was always gentle and soft-spoken with him.

He had almost forgotten about moments like this. For a moment, it was as if he was back in the communal apartment building he lived in when he was seven or eight years old, and he could almost hear the sound of a laundry basin falling to the floor, splashing water everywhere.

The moment he closed the door, he heard her rapid, deep breaths behind it, a sign that a storm was coming. Then came the familiar furious banging on the door and the classic opening line, “I raised you all by myself, do you know how hard that was?!”

He knew. That’s why he was like a spinning top, never daring to stop, even after he became a completely independent adult.

Because he was so sensible, he had never had the rebellious thought, “It would have been better if you hadn’t given birth to me.”

All the anger that had no outlet was blocked in his veins.

Facing hysterical arguments, he always only wanted to escape through silence. That was probably how this habit was formed.

The noise outside the door didn’t last long. Soon, he heard the sound of high heels walking to the entrance and the earth-shattering sound of the front door closing. Her life was a simple straight line between home and work. Sometimes, she would even stay overnight at the office. The harshest person she was to was herself.

The goldfish in the tank on the cabinet swam back and forth. Next to it, a pot of a climbing vine, a Dioscorea elephantipes they bought before the Spring Festival, was winding its way up the bookshelf. Because of its name, which translates to “mountain tortoise,” it had triggered a long lecture, but that was just a memory from more than a decade ago.

Tang Shaocheng’s gaze fell on a book titled, Gold Medal Mock Exams, in the corner of the bookshelf. His eyebrows moved slightly, and his long fingers slowly slid down the spine, gently pulling the book out.

After he opened the book cover, he saw The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, which was still as good as new after all these years, as if it had just been bought from the bookstore.

This was just a kid’s trick. Since middle school, he was not allowed to read any books other than the ones required by the school. He hid it so meticulously, but every time he opened it, he felt a sense of guilt, as if he were being choked. So, he only ever read the first few pages over and over again.

He hated doing things that wasted time.

He was afraid of being useless.

In April, the education bureau suddenly ordered a halt to all self-study sessions on campus, and several paid study halls popped up overnight in the building across the street from the school.

After school, groups of students crossed the skybridge and entered the building. Soon, a few more street food stalls appeared on the first floor.

Yan Liao now spent almost all his non-class time with Tang Shaocheng. After school, he followed him closely and got into the elevator of the thirty-story building.

In the study hall, the endless city lights stretched outside the window.

While Tang Shaocheng was doing his problems, Yan Liao was pretending to read a cram book for the exam. From time to time, he would secretly look up and glance at the person sitting across from him, his black pen moving quickly on a blank page.

It was quiet all around. The only sound was the soft scratching of the pen tip on the paper. Tang Shaocheng was focused and serious while doing his problems. His long eyelashes cast small shadows under his eyes. His eyebrows would furrow slightly when he was thinking and would relax again when he was writing the answer.

Just as Yan Liao finished his masterpiece, the person across from him also happened to put down his pen.

Tang Shaocheng glanced at the English paper he had under his notebook. He had only done two reading passages all night.

His habit of doing problems was good, he knew to show his work. However, on one problem, he had crossed out all four options, and the final choice, A, looked like a sign of self-abandonment.

Seeing Tang Shaocheng’s pursed lips, Yan Liao quickly defended himself. “I didn’t copy it. I did it all myself.”

“I know,” Tang Shaocheng sighed. “If you had copied it, you wouldn’t have gotten so many wrong.” He paused, thinking that given Yan Liao’s personal abilities, there was another possibility, so he added cautiously, “Unless you copied it wrong.”

Yan Liao squeezed his fingers hard, trying to hold back but failing. “…Do you want to fight?”

Tang Shaocheng raised his hand in a gesture of surrender. Yan Liao was magnanimous, putting his hand back and saying, “That’s better,” forgiving his insolent remark.

He didn’t write much on the English paper, but he was fast at drawing. Yan Liao blew off the eraser shavings from the paper and handed it over, asking, “How is it?”

Logically, he shouldn’t have been able to recognize his own profile at a glance, but Tang Shaocheng could tell that the drawing was of him. The shadows cast by the brow bone were vivid and real, as if he could feel the eyelashes trembling. The lines followed the direction of the muscles and blended naturally, and even the lips had a slightly moist texture.

Tang Shaocheng’s tone was sincere. “It’s very good.”

After he said it, he felt like he was praising himself. He rested his hand on the side of his face, covering it and coughing lightly.

Yan Liao raised his eyebrows proudly. He was also very satisfied with the sketch. “Of course. It gets better the more you look at it.”

When their eyes met in the air again, the atmosphere suddenly became subtle.

Yan Liao’s ears, hidden by his hair, once again turned slightly red. The feeling was like a small snake crawling from his earlobes to his scalp. He trembled a little when he averted his gaze, knocking over the can of Coke on the table. The dark brown liquid, with its fizzing bubbles, generously spilled all over him.

“Ah… this is so annoying.”

A large, dark brown stain appeared on the white part of his chest. After a month, Tang Shaocheng knew his personality by heart. He knew that even though it was dark outside, Yan Liao would still feel it was damaging to his image and wouldn’t be willing to wear this stain-filled shirt home.

The early spring evening was still a little chilly. Tang Shaocheng didn’t hesitate to take off his school jacket. “Wear mine.”

“But…” He wanted to say never mind, but when he smelled the light scent of laundry detergent, Yan Liao swallowed. “I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.”

Tang Shaocheng smiled as if he understood everything. “Okay.”

When they left the study hall, it was almost midnight. The dim yellow streetlights filtered through the leaves, casting mottled, bright circles on the ground.

Most of the shops on both sides of the street were closed, but a few small restaurants were still packing up. The two of them walked side by side. Yan Liao looked at his widened shadow on the ground and felt like laughing.

The school uniform was already a loose fit, and wearing Tang Shao-cheng’s made it even bigger on him. He had to roll up the sleeves twice to get his hands out.

He glanced at Tang Shaocheng’s profile from time to time, suddenly remembering something he had wanted to ask for a long time. He stammered, “What university are you going to?”

Tang Shaocheng didn’t answer but instead asked, “What do you want to get into?”

“…It’s not about what I want anymore. It’s about what I can get into. It’s not like you, you have so many options,” Yan Liao was rarely as dejected as a withered plant. “The results of the school’s exams have already come out. There are only a few I can get into. If my ancestors’ graves produce some green smoke, maybe I can get into C University.” He turned his face and asked, “So what about you? Are you going to go to a city far away… and never come back?”

That’s what happened in his previous life.

“No,” the soft light of the street lamp enveloped Tang Shaocheng, his profile was covered in a blurry halo. “I’m going to apply to C University.”

“Oh… huh?” Yan Liao stopped abruptly, his eyes wide in disbelief. “You’re lying to me!”

The faint light of the street lamp suddenly turned into a sea of colorful lights. His shocked expression was like that of a person from the tropics seeing snow for the first time.

“How is that possible? Why would you want to go to C University? You… You’re joking, aren’t you?”

Tang Shaocheng was silent for a moment, thinking that telling Yan Liao, “Because I want to go to the same university as you,” based on just this one month of friendship, seemed too unbelievable and would scare him. So, he speculated and changed to a more acceptable reason. “It’s closer.”

Yan Liao’s scattered consciousness returned a little. He seemed to believe it, drawing out his words, “Ohhh.” But after walking two more steps, he suddenly became indignant. “Damn it, but why… why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”

Tang Shaocheng deliberately gave him a look of confusion.

“…It would be great if we could go to the same university,” Yan Liao turned his face and looked at the sky and the ground, glancing around. He pursed his lips and said carelessly, “…We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Tang Shaocheng wanted to laugh. This person had been walking in his clothes all along, and he still had to ask if they were friends. “Very good friends.”

Yan Liao tightened his grip on the strap of his backpack.

He lowered his head and walked a few more steps, suddenly realizing a bigger problem. “You’ll definitely get in, but what about me? No, I’ll repeat a year…”

Tang Shaocheng couldn’t help but chuckle. “You can get in,” he looked at him slightly, his voice as gentle as a warm autumn breeze. “You can do it.”

On the day of the pep rally, Yan Liao’s oath was louder than anyone else’s, even startling the principal, who was sitting right in front of him.

The principal shakily raised both hands, hesitating for a moment between covering his ears and applauding him, and in the end, he chose the latter with tears in his eyes.

Last month, Yan Liao needed a strong will just to get up at six o’clock to go to school with Tang Shaocheng, but a month later, he had changed completely. One night in early April, Yan Liao gritted his teeth before going to bed and set his alarm half an hour earlier.

He was half-asleep while washing up in the bathroom. He was so groggy that he stumbled and almost knocked over the coffee table. While brushing his teeth with his eyes closed, he heard his mother’s angry roar from his parents’ bedroom. “If you hadn’t lost your job, you would have had money to send him abroad! He wouldn’t have to suffer like this…”

His father’s voice was weak and listless as he retorted, “This is the age for him to endure hardship and be trained…”

Then his mother’s crisp and loud slap rang out. “I’m the one who’s suffering!”

For three days in a row, Yan Liao saw his dad’s loving breakfast on the dining table: a bowl of black sesame paste that was too hot to swallow, a bowl of black sesame paste that was mixed with cold water and had clumped together, and a bowl with an entire, unopened bag of black sesame paste.

After Yan Liao protested, his father subtly suggested, “Maybe I’m getting old and need more sleep.” Yan Liao confidently replied, “You don’t need it,” but was eventually kicked out by his father, who gave him ten yuan.

When Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a person, it will first drive them out of their own home.

So, he was pleasantly surprised to find a breakfast shop downstairs. The first time he ate there, he was so impressed that he devoured his food like a hungry tiger.

The owner of the breakfast shop looked at Yan Liao’s heavy backpack and handsome face with affection. The lean meat and preserved egg porridge she served him had almost all the lean meat from the pot and not a single piece of preserved egg.

At Yan Liao’s enthusiastic recommendation, Tang Shaocheng also started having breakfast there every day. The two of them sat on a long bench. Yan Liao even held a vocabulary card while eating shaomai, a spirit of self-forgetful learning that made Tang Shaocheng feel that the story of the Foolish Old Man who moved the mountains was not a myth.

The aunt wearing an apron served two bowls of steaming millet porridge and looked at Yan Liao, her face beaming. She praised him from head to toe.

Tang Shaocheng listened, and for some reason, he felt a sense of pride and comfort, as if his own child had been praised. Even his gaze towards Yan Liao was very loving. He took a tea egg from his bowl, cracked it open, peeled the shell, and handed it to the person next to him.

Yan Liao very generously stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. It tasted delicious, but it was so big that he almost choked and wanted to roll his eyes.