C2 Part5

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P – Chapter 2.4

P – Chapter 2.5

Greatly disappointed, Cao Ye went back to the room. Liang Sizhe was kneeling on the ground with one knee, immersed in searching for something in his opened luggage.

“Which bed do you want?” Liang Sizhe asked, lifting his head and seeing him come back.

“Doesn’t matter,” Cao Ye said with no interest. “You can choose. I might not be living here.”

“I’m fine with either, too.” Liang Sizhe headed towards the bathroom with a towel and a change of clothes as he spoke. “You can choose. I’m going to take a shower.”

Beijing was warmer than Yan City by at least ten degrees. There hadn’t been any aircon while downstairs earlier, and the air was particularly muggy; he was covered in sweat. He needed to shower first before changing into a set of clean clothes — his mother had taught him that habit ever since he’d been a child. Even though he hadn’t had someone to nag him about it for a very long time, he’d flawlessly kept that habit until now.

Water started to gurgle inside the bathroom. Cao Ye stood in front of the bed next to the window and threw himself onto it. After lying on there like a corpse for a few minutes, he pulled out his phone from his pocket and started to work his way down his address book, calling his rabble of friends.

He dialled numbers in alphabetical order, starting from the ‘B’ at the very top. “Hey Xiao Bai, this is Cao Ye. Where are you right now? What are you doing with your dad? Wasn’t your dad going to bring back an annoying young stepmother for you… Ah? Uncle Bai, sorry, I was just joking with Xiao Bai… A group fight last week? I don’t know anything about it. I really wasn’t in it, I wasn’t even back in the country yet last week…”

It was a bad beginning, and he was even scolded by a friend’s dad for no reason at all. Cao Ye hung up that call and then gloomily dialled another. “Hey Mingyao, where you at? Painting? Which mountain are you at this time? Kilimanjaro? You’ve gone off to Africa? …All right then, you go paint. I don’t have anything serious anyway. Hanging up now.”

“Hey Dai-ge, are you at home… Wait, why are you panting so hard, what are you doing… Fuck, then why’d you pick up the phone?! Bye.”

By the time Liang Sizhe finished showering and came out of the bathroom, Cao Ye was dialling contacts starting with the letter ‘L’ and was calling Lin Yan. He was originally flopped on the bed, dispirited and discouraged, but the instant Liang Sizhe came out, he immediately shot up into a sitting position. “Where’s that? I want to go, too! Yeah, I’m not interested in men, but I really don’t have anywhere else to go… I’ll tell you when I see you. Oh yeah, I don’t have a single cent on me — you’ll need to come out and help me pay the taxi fee later.” Cao Ye jumped off the bed with his face cheerful and radiant as he spoke; he was a completely different person from when Liang Sizhe had gone into the bathroom. “Okay. Wait for me!”

He’d already opened the door and darted out before his voice even landed in the room.

With his upper body bare, Liang Sizhe crouched down next to his luggage and searched for a shirt. The shower head wasn’t easy to use — he’d accidentally soaked the t-shirt he brought in earlier.

He grabbed another white t-shirt and stood up. Just as he about to pull it up over his head, the door opened again; Cao Ye stormed inside and didn’t take himself for a stranger at all, coming in closely with two steps and then hooking his arm over Liang Sizhe’s shoulders. Easing close to his ears, Cao Ye said, “Bro1, if Uncle Yan or my dad comes, help me cover up.”

Liang Sizhe didn’t even turn his head around as he warned, “I’m wet.” He’d only roughly towelled himself down a few times before coming out of the bathroom; at this moment, residual water droplets that’d yet to completely evaporate were still hanging onto his body.

Cao Ye lowered his head to look at his own white t-shirt: as expected, the side that’d leaned closely into Liang Sizhe’s body was slightly dampened. But he didn’t mind at all, and neither did he dodge away; he kept his arm around Liang Sizhe’s shoulders. “It’s fine. Can you, ge?”

He actually went as far as to call Liang Sizhe ge now — he knew how to fake being docile quite well. There was some fawning in the youth’s voice, and it unexpectedly sounded somewhat like he was cutely whining.

Turning his face over, Liang Sizhe threw him a look. “How should I do that?”

The abacus in Cao Ye’s heart was snapping up and down2. “If they come by for a surprise attack, then you can just casually make something up to deal with them. Just say I… went to feed dogs nearby? Feeding cats is fine, too. And then you can sneakily give me a call to let me know — I’ll immediately take a taxi back. Is that okay?”

Compared to Cao Ye’s overly familiar friendliness, Liang Sizhe treated him rather lukewarmly. He only indifferently spat out one word: “Sure.”

“Good man.” Cao Ye used his other empty hand to grab out his cellphone from his butt pocket and pulled up his address book. He offered it to Liang Sizhe, saying, “What’s your number? Type it in for me?”

After entering his own number, Liang Sizhe typed in his own name as well before giving the phone back to Cao Ye.

Cao Ye only let go of Liang Sizhe after he took his phone back, calling the number and repeating Liang Sizhe’s name under his breath at the same time. He waited for Liang Sizhe’s phone, left on the desk, to start buzzing before lifting up his head; a wide and brilliant smile bloomed on his face. “I just gave you my number, remember to save it.”

Letting out a ‘mn’, Liang Sizhe held onto the bottom of his t-shirt and gave it a shake. Both of his arms slipped through the sleeves, and just as he was about to lift the shirt over his head, Cao Ye reached out to pat his shoulders. He said, “Your body’s not bad.”

And then, he moved his legs and walked towards the entrance, not forgetting to keep up his pretence at being docile. When he reached the door, he turned back to Liang Sizhe and said sweetly, “I’m going now. Thanks, Sizhe-ge.”

Once Liang Sizhe finished putting on his shirt, he started to unpack his luggage. Since Cao Ye had been lying on the bed next to the window, he naturally chose the other one.

He actually didn’t have much to unpack — pushing his two hands under, he lifted up his pile of summer clothes and moved the stack into the wardrobe without changing a single thing. That was about all of it.

Music with poor sound quality came from downstairs; they were playing the prelude of a song everyone knew, one that had been heard anywhere and everywhere, in the high streets and back lanes. The floor under his feet seemed to follow along, quaking. A shrieking and wailing human voice then spiralled up, and even though not a single bellowed lyric landed on the right key, the person holding the microphone sounded like they were revelling in the song.

The sound insulation was honestly terrible enough — if they sang until the middle of the night, then how were people meant to sleep? Fishing out a pair of in-ear earphones from his luggage, Liang Sizhe threw them onto his bed, closed his luggage and then placed it in the corner. He grabbed the keys sitting on the desk and pulled open the door, heading outside.

The third floor corridor still looked exactly the same as when they’d come in earlier, the lighting dim. The two rows of old-fashioned doors were tightly shut, making it difficult for people to determine whether people lived in those rooms or not.

Separated by one floor, the second floor looked completely different: the cold white lights were bright enough to dazzle, and they flickered along with the beats of the dance music playing in the corridor. They lit up the oily shine on the faces and heads of the guests who came by.

The wooden staircase was slightly narrow, just enough for two people; three would be somewhat cramped. As he went down, Liang Sizhe came face to face with a man and woman snuggled together — the heavy, big-bellied man had an arm wrapped around the woman’s slender waist. Her face was covered by an ingratiating, eager to please smile.

Liang Sizhe turned sideways to let the two of them pass, but the stairs were truly crowded and that man was also truly somewhat fat. It took some effort to give them space.

It wasn’t easy to squeeze out of that noisy environment; once he did, Liang Sizhe stood at Lan Yan’s door and took in a deep breath.

Darkness had fallen. The alley busily bustled and clamoured with life at night, entirely different from the dull and mundane atmosphere just one hour ago — even the smells of it had turned vivid and aplenty. The monotonous scent of cooking oil from dusk was now mixed with the charcoal smell of barbecued meat, the stewed, sweet scent of soy sauce and the aromatic stir-fry fragrance of fried rice.

Liang Sizhe slowly walked out along the alley. The further behind he left Lan Yan, the more distinct the sizzling sounds of frying and stir-frying became.

Liang Sizhe thought he truly was hungry. When he had been standing at Lan Yan’s door earlier at dusk, he’d thought he wouldn’t have an appetite at facing those oily shopfronts. But now, as he strolled past every stall, he actually found all of them tempting.

The weather was quite hot. He found a restaurant with empty seats and casually pulled out a bamboo chair to sit in; he ordered a bowl of cold noodles, adding an extra hard boiled egg and half a serving of spiced beef.

The food arrived very quickly, and when Liang Sizhe picked up a pair of chopsticks and gave it a try, he found it fairly tasty. It was much better than the takeout he’d ordered last night.

With his thoughts having arrived at that point, he only then realised he was currently sitting in Beijing. He remembered the words Cao Xiuyuan had said while sitting in his home last night, and remembered the meeting he’d had with Cao Xiuyuan’s son today; everything became more and more inconceivable.

As he stuffed bite after bite of cold noodles into his mouth with his head lowered, Liang Sizhe thought: all right then. This could be his starting point — let’s start over.

He could do something else even if he couldn’t play violin anymore. Cao Xiuyuan was right: when it came to being an actor, it wasn’t important if he could play violin or not.

Bite after bite of cold noodles entered his belly, filling it up bit by bit. Liang Sizhe lifted up the porcelain bowl and took a sip of the soup, and the moment he placed it back down, he felt full — and at the same time, something that had long been numb in his body seemed to awaken, eagerly wriggling.

After paying, he took a walk around the alley. There was a bar at the corner closest to the main road, called the Meridian Bar, and the thin strip lights that made up the characters for the bar’s name were glowing a deep blue. Compared to Lan Yan’s gaudy style of decoration, this place actually held a chic solitude; it stood out from the entire alley’s noisy atmosphere.

The music that came out from inside was also very lovely. The band’s singer was performing Cui Jian’s A Piece of Red Cloth, and his husky voice was quite emotive — the feelings behind his singing were also well-controlled, landing exactly where they needed to land.

Liang Sizhe listened for a while, and he softly hummed along without realising:

This feeling really made me comfortable

Made me forget I had no place to live

You asked me where I wanted to go

I said, “I want to walk on your road”

……

Translator has something to say:

I used ‘bro’ here because he used 哥们 (literally translated to ‘older brothers’ but is actually used to.. mean… ‘bro’ LOL). ↩AKA his mind was whirling with ideas. ↩

P – Chapter 2.6

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