Chapter 41

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 41

Lin Yan shook his head.

The old man smiled and said: “As soon as you stretched out your hand, I knew it wasn’t him when I smelled it. Hong Sheng’s hand, what did it smell like? It smelled of oil and mud, like someone who works hard. Your little hands are so clean, the soap smell almost made me sneeze, and the smell of oranges was overpowering. How could you fool me?”

Lin Yan couldn’t help but smile. He put his palm under his nose to smell it, but he was a little surprised that there was only a strong orange scent.

“You can’t smell yourself, but only those who like you can recognize it. Now that I think about it, Hong Sheng’s hand was a mess, like it had been carved up by a knife. I couldn’t even feel his lifeline. There was a big scar on the back of his right hand. He had gotten into a fight with some punks and his hand was slashed with a knife. A barefoot doctor sewed it up. His fingernails and toenails were also long, poking through his socks. Each finger showed a struggle. The nine loops in his fingerprints should his poor life. His index finger was a touch longer than his ring finger, and his pinky finger just reached the second knuckle of his ring finger. The palm of his hand was as rough as sandpaper…”

“I remember it so well.” Lin Yan carried the thermos bottle and poured water for the old man. The enamel jar gently knocked on the side of the thermos. He turned around and said with a smile, “Your relationship is so good that people are jealous of it.”

“If you like someone, you don’t need eyes to see them clearly. If you don’t like someone, even if you had four eyes, they’d be useless.” The old man said quietly: “Those hands have protected me all my life. I’ve never seen them with my own eyes, but they are as familiar as if they were right in front of me.”

“If you can say that one day, you will be inseparable from that person.” The old man picked up a glass of water and asked Lin Yan with interest, “You’re in your twenties, are you married?”

Lin Yan shook his head. A shadow flashed in his heart, and he forced it down and said, “No. We talked about it and almost got married, but the girl didn’t want to so we ended up breaking up.”

The old man sighed regretfully, “You kids, don’t think I don’t know. You scream every day that they don’t have a house or a car, your personalities clash. They love themselves like they were the sun. You want nothing more than to give the world to your partner, but is it love? We couldn’t even afford a bed at that time, but we loved each other. We made do with it and never regretted it until the day we died.”

“That’s not it.” Lin Yan took another orange and peeled it. He threw a piece into his mouth. He thought about Weiwei’s face. He was embarrassed to tell the old man that he didn’t like girls and almost got engaged to someone else. The old man was unrelenting and he continued to ask him: “Just describe it like I did, and I’ll see if you two can make it.”

Lin Yan chuckled and sat up straight. He was worried that the old man would get tired of talking too much, and he found this topic amusing, so he began to recount his memories with Weiwei: “She… she… well, she’s very beautiful. She has a sharp chin, likes to have fun, she’s got an independent personality. I like…”

He fumbled his words. Lin Yan tried hard to describe Weiwei to the old man, but found that he knew almost nothing about her. She was the one who had lived under the same roof as him for more than a year and gave him the most ordinary happiness and joy. He frowned and recalled a memory of her busy in the kitchen wearing an apron. The strange thing was that the image of Weiwei in his mind was only a slender back. There were fried eggs and milk cereal on the table, and bright sunlight fell on the ground. Lin Yan thought, Why is the scene so familiar?

The tall and slender young master held a frozen fish in his hand and said cautiously, “I wanted to make you breakfast.”

The jade-like skin and the bright smile on his face appeared at close range, thinking that Lin Yan had accepted him after that crazy night. Like a child who finally got his candy, he contentedly hugged his waist, chin on his shoulder, and tenderly said, I’ll be gentler next time.

There was no next time. It felt like a needle had stabbed Lin Yan’s heart so badly he was bleeding.

He forgot who said that if there was only love between two people, nothing but love will matter, but the reality is that countless people spend their whole lives without meeting that person who makes their heart tremble. Not everyone is lucky enough to see the purest form of love, the love that exists beyond physical attraction. More people, more and more people, nearly 50 years old, have lives full of treasure, painted pillars and carved beams, children around their knees; the appearance of unity, but divided at heart. Same bed, different dreams.*

*(T/N: 同床异梦 - an expression that describes a relationship between two people whose lives are intimately intertwined, but who do not fundamentally communicate with each other.)

Who said that you could hold hands and grow old together? The people who can grow old together do not necessarily have affection, and the people who have affection do not necessarily grow old together. Their fate is dreary and treacherous… Unfortunately, no matter how they live, they only have one life.

His heart was in a mess and he didn’t say anything else. The old man was a little disappointed, muttering something about the youth of today. He put his hand under the covers and covered them. He couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

Seemingly encouraged by the slightly contemptuous expression on the old man’s face, Lin Yan dropped his smile. He took a deep breath and turned his eyes to the window. In the gray rain, in the gray city, there was a person walking in an invisible far away place…

He whispered softly in a dreamy voice: “He’s tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He likes to frown. When he frowns, there’s always a line between his eyebrows. He’s always squinting at me. The bridge of his nose is very straight. It has a small bump, and it’s said that people with a bump in their nose have bad tempers. He’s more stubborn than me. When he’s angry, he always holds back and doesn’t speak. It really annoys me and then he gets all soft… He’s very jealous, jealous of everything. His fingers are long and slender, and the bones stand out. His whole body is cold. His hair grows to a little below his waist. His appearance won’t change, but his nails and hair can grow longer. Like they say in rural areas, before he left, I wanted to help him cut his nails, but I didn’t have time…”

Every part of his heart ached. Lin Yan held his breath and continued: “When he walks, his back is very straight, he stands out. He always smells like honey locust soap. Not a body wash, but soap. He can play the piano and is good at calligraphy and painting, but he doesn’t even want to comb his hair by himself. He wants me to help him put on his clothes. He doesn’t know how to cut vegetables, and he insists on making fish for me. He stays in my bed and refuses to move. I could never get rid of him…”

He thought that something was wrong with him. Why did it feel like there was something stuck in his throat? Why did it feel like there was a stone in his chest?…

“He is sometimes very aggressive, but it’s all for my own good. He follows me wherever I go. He has to wait at the door when I go to the bathroom. He is so proud that I want to slap him, but he can put up with waiting for me in the most humbling of places… He looks good in everything… I’m willing to buy him anything he wants… I… I…”

With his face buried in his hands, his voice was hoarse and almost inaudible: “I miss him, I really miss him…”

Lin Yan pinched his forehead with his fingers, his thumb resting on his chin. His chest hurt as if it was split open. His eyes were red, and he could no longer control the emotions that he had repressed for the past several days. He didn’t want to lose his composure, so covered his mouth and covered his eyes. He fought to keep his expression neutral a couple more times before he finally burst into tears in front of the old man. He buried his face in his lap and sobbed: “What should I do? He doesn’t want me anymore. He’s not coming back… What should I do…”

The old man slowly patted Lin Yan’s head. His dry hands gently stroked the back of his head and said softly: “It’s alright, it’s alright. Don’t overthink things. How can you be so fond of him and still let him go? This is a mistake a child would make.”

Lin Yan shook his head and said hoarsely, “We can’t be together.”

“Hong Sheng and I have suffered a lifetime of glares, and it’s not over yet. There is no can or can’t, it just depends on whether you want it or not.” The old man slowly comforted.

“We’re different from you and Hong Sheng. We simply can’t live together. We’re always arguing, and we’re both too stubborn for our own good. We both think that the other needs to be more considerate. I can’t stand it anymore…” Lin Yan struggled to see through his red eyes. He thought of the ghost’s cold eyes in the hospital and his unwillingness to compromise, even in the face of death, and he felt another stab in his heart.

He thought that the old man would question their conflicting personalities, but the old man burst out laughing as if he had been listening to the troubles of a three-year-old child: “What a silly boy. How can you live without arguing? The more you like them, the more you pick at them. You didn’t see me and Hong Sheng. When I was young and impatient, I was in a hurry and I ran into problems. But if I made trouble, who would really take it seriously.”

Lin Yan bit his lower lip stubbornly and did not speak.

The old man laughed even harder. He touched Lin Yan’s chin with a rough hand and asked, “Do you argue with others?”

“No.”

“What about him?”

“No.” Lin Yan said indignantly. “He doesn’t pay attention to others at all. He’s always stuck to me.”

“There you have it. Who would spend all their energy endlessly fighting with someone who doesn’t matter? The more they like them, the more they care. I think it’s interesting to think about. Two children fighting each other every day at home. It’s so lively.” Hearing the defiance in Lin Yan’s tone, the old man trembled and sighed, “A couple is only a couple if they are willing to fight. Your feelings are worth this fight, isn’t that enough? At my age, there’s no one left to argue with.”

The old man was a little emotional. Lin Yan was silent as he thought back on the old man’s words and feelings. He and Xiao Yu, who he had always thought of as a host and parasite in disguise, everything was a premeditated coincidence. The internship, encountering ghosts, the conspiracy and killings were all mysterious and bizarre. The man behind the crime was still missing. Lin Yan bit his lip. What could he trust? Only that person, only his protection and longing, was real.

There are tens of thousands of people in the world. It was his bad luck that he was the one picked for this. How are his stubbornness and unyieldingness not Xiao Yu’s misfortune?

Lin Yan turned his face and said softly, “It’s no use. He’s gone and he’s not coming back.”

The old man was silent. His wrinkled face slowly shifted to show a special determined expression. He said as if he were speaking to himself: “You can’t be separated that easily. So he’s gone, won’t you go looking for him? Who can guarantee that you won’t have a moment when you fall off the wagon? If he fainted on the way to an appointment, would you still wait and leave him alone like that?”

Lin Yan wiped his nose. In front of this unhesitating old man, he suddenly felt embarrassed by his outburst. He cleaned up his messy face, and asked rhetorically, “What about you? If you and Hong Sheng argue and he gets angry and leaves, do you look for him?”

“I’d look for him. I’d definitely look for him. I can’t see so he didn’t dare leave whenever he was angry. If he did leave, I would have to find him.” The old man said calmly. That unexplained determination spread from his expression to his words, like making a solemn promise in the face of emptiness, “Peel another orange. You won’t be able to eat it even if you want to later.”

Lin Yan thought that the old man was saddened by his lover’s death, so he took out a bigger one from the plastic bag. While picking out the strings, he promised, “I’ll visit you often from now on, and you can tell me if you want something to eat.”

The old man smiled noncommittally and stopped talking.

When the next day came, the weather was still cloudy and rainy, and the vendors who had set up the stall were gone. Lin Yan went to several supermarkets to find the old man’s favourite sugar candy oranges. The elevator in the hospital was still not repaired. He climbed all the way up to the sixth floor. When he opened the door, Lin Yan suddenly found that the old man’s bed was empty. Two nurses were changing the sheets, and the whole room was filled with the pungent smell of disinfectant.

“Where’s Mr. Liang?” Lin Yan asked while standing at the door, holding a plastic bag.

“He’s gone. He had sudden heart failure at four o'clock this morning.” The nurse expressionlessly threw both the enamel jar and the thermos into a basket and kicked it out with her foot. “Are you a family member? Just in time, pack up his things. ”

Lin Yan was anxious: “Yesterday, he was talking and eating well. Why did he go so suddenly?”

Another nurse chimed in: “He was old, which is something young people still seem to have trouble understanding. It was only a matter of time.” After saying that, they sighed, “Actually, he was resuscitated this morning, and he woke up not long after the doctor left. He took off the oxygen mask by himself… When I came to do rounds this morning, his whole body was stiff. I heard he was a lonely old man. He had probably lived long enough, poor thing.”

The plastic bag slipped from his hand, and the oranges rolled across the floor. Lin Yan stared blankly at the vacated hospital bed and suddenly understood what the old man said yesterday.

He didn’t miss his time to go. Liang Qing went to his Hong Sheng as if it was the simplest and most natural thing. He was in heaven, on his way to the Yellow Springs. He used death to fulfill a promise. From now on, they will hold each other’s hands and never leave each other, never be alone.

Lin Yan walked far away from the morgue but he was still in a trance. The expression of the old man in the morgue was peaceful. It was even like he was smiling, as if he was immersed in a beautiful dream and forgot to wake up. The rain fell a little less. Lin Yan walked forward dazedly. His face was cold. He raised his head and fine raindrops fell into his eyes, and they were wet.

All of Liang Qing and Zhang Hong Sheng’s savings were just enough to buy a grave in this expensive city. The old man had no children and no relatives. Only Lin Yan and a little yellow cat he took out from the old man’s house came to see him off. It was hungry and was skin and bones. When it saw Lin Yan bringing the locksmith through the door, it let out a soft meow. Lin Yan gave it a few pieces of ham and a carton of milk. He touched its head and said your master is gone, I can’t make up for it.

The sky was covered with heavy gray rain clouds, but the air was warm. A man and a cat stood silently in front of the grave. Two names are engraved side by side on the black marble headstone, a “forever” home.

Some promises can transcend life and death. Live together, die together, and even become ghosts and continue on together after that… Lin Yan hugged the kitten. He opened a black umbrella and walked back, his eyes aimlessly looking around the cemetery. He said to himself: “I’m also going to find someone. That person has a terrible temper. It’s said that cats can see ghosts. If you see him, you must scratch him a few times for me.”

Life is short and fate is unpredictable. Who dares to hope for perfection? How about just being with someone you fall in love with, seize every day with, and dream with together for a better tomorrow.