From Linshan Park to Liang Ruixi’s place, it was only seven subway stops, with one transfer in between, taking about forty minutes, including walking time.
Liang Ruixi used his phone’s navigation to search the route and only then realized that Zhou Yan lived so close to him.
Indeed, in a city like Haicheng, this distance wasn’t considered far.
He swiped his card to enter the station, planning to go home and change his clothes first. Although it wasn’t raining today, wearing only a single layer in this season was still a bit chilly, especially since he was wearing Zhou Yan’s underwear…
Oh well, he’d just buy a new pair to return to him next time.
But speaking of next time, Liang Ruixi felt a bit uncertain about when they would meet again.
Because after he asked that question just now, Zhou Yan had only replied with a curt “en,” his attitude so indifferent that Liang Ruixi wondered if he was just imagining things.
While his mind was wandering, Zhou Yan sent him a message: “Your medicine is still here with me.”
Liang Ruixi rummaged through the bag containing his medical records and quickly got off the train to transfer, replying to Zhou Yan, “I’ll come back to get it now.”
Yesterday when he came, he had only carried a plastic bag from the hospital. He hadn’t thought much about it when leaving and just picked it up and left, forgetting that Zhou Yan must have taken out his medicine when preparing it for him in the morning.
Five minutes later, Liang Ruixi finally received a reply.
Zhou Yan: “I have to go to the law firm to work overtime. Just left. I’ve put the key for you under the doormat outside my apartment door. Open it yourself and come in.”
Liang Ruixi knew that Zhou Yan had been working since early morning and didn’t want to make him wait, so he replied with an “ok.”
On his way back, he took another look at the surroundings. It had been too dark last night to see clearly. Although the residential complex was old, it had a strong sense of everyday life. Outside the complex were several shops selling steamed buns, small dumplings, and cooked food, as well as groceries, fruits, and kitchenware.
A few local women were picking through vegetables at a stall, while a security guard stood lazily with his hands behind his back, surveying the entrance from the guardhouse.
The trees in the nearby flowerbeds had sprouted many new buds, radiating vibrant life under the afternoon sun.
Liang Ruixi found the building where Zhou Yan lived but was stopped by the tightly shut electronic gate at the entrance of the complex.
Just as he was about to message Zhou Yan, he saw an elderly woman come down, walking with a slight tremor. The old woman saw Liang Ruixi peering in and cautiously asked in the local dialect, “Nong Xun Sa Nin (Who are you looking for)?”
Having lived in Haicheng for three years, Liang Ruixi could understand some of the local language. He pointed upwards and said, “My friend lives on the second floor, in the apartment on the left.”
“Oh, you’re Xiao Zhou’s friend,” the old woman said, wrinkles forming around her smiling eyes as she made way for him. “Go on up, go on up.”
Liang Ruixi bounded up the stairs in a few steps and reached Zhou Yan’s apartment door. He lifted the mat on the floor and indeed found the front door key underneath. But when he picked it up, he paused, a familiar object catching his eye.
His memory was instantly pulled back to his university days, probably the first semester of his freshman year. He had participated in the school’s badminton competition and won third place. The sports club that organized the event had given all the third-place winners a keychain as a prize.
The keychain had a miniature racket and a shuttlecock attached to it, made of silver stainless steel. When he first got it, it was particularly shiny and dazzling. Liang Ruixi loved it so much that he would spin it around his index finger all day long, occasionally showing it off to Zhou Yan and asking, “Isn’t it cool?”
Zhou Yan had said it was nice and kept glancing at his hand. Liang Ruixi thought he was envious, so he generously offered, “Pick one, I’ll give it to you.”
Zhou Yan had been taken aback for a moment, then smiled and asked, “Are you sure you want to part with it?”
Liang Ruixi had replied, “What’s there to be unwilling about?”
Zhou Yan had chuckled, “I’ve seen you twirling that thing around your finger for days, like you’re spinning a prayer wheel.”
Liang Ruixi had laughed, “Haha, it’s fun! Do you want it or not?”
“I do,” Zhou Yan had said. “Give me the racket.”
Liang Ruixi detached the racket and gave it to him. In college, he often visited Zhou Yan’s dorm room. After getting his roommates’ consent, Zhou Yan had a separate key to room 326 made for him. Afraid of getting it mixed up, Liang Ruixi had tied his own shuttlecock to it. When they graduated, he returned the key and the shuttlecock to Zhou Yan.
Back then, he hadn’t thought of keeping it at all. After four years of use, the shuttlecock’s exterior had long lost its sheen. If he had been the one to handle it, he probably would have thrown it away long ago. Yet now, this very item was still hanging neatly on Zhou Yan’s house key.
Because it was a personal item he had used for a long time, Liang Ruixi recognized it at a glance and leaned in closer, filled with surprise, to take a careful look.
…It really was his shuttlecock!
Just then, Zhou Yan called him back. “Did you get in?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m in. Someone happened to be coming down.”
“Did you find the key?”
“Found it…” Liang Ruixi successfully opened the door and said to Zhou Yan, “Should I put this key back under the mat for you later?”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line before Zhou Yan said, “I have my own. You can keep that set. There’s also a round blue tag on it; that’s the electronic gate access for downstairs…” He paused and then added, “In the future, come over whenever you want.”
Liang Ruixi was stunned. The doubts he had on the subway vanished instantly with Zhou Yan’s words.
“Fine, then I’ll keep it.” He didn’t bother to be polite anymore, nor did he ask in a pretentious manner why Zhou Yan still kept his shuttlecock.
It felt like a keepsake, a tacit understanding between the two of them.
“The medicine is on the shoe cabinet. There’s also a scarf; remember to wear it.” Zhou Yan instructed in one breath, and without waiting for Liang Ruixi’s reply, he said he had to get back to work and hung up the phone.
Liang Ruixi put away his phone and saw that Zhou Yan had already packed his medicine on the coffee table. Sure enough, there was also a men’s scarf beside it, grey plaid, with a striking note on top, Zhou Yan’s strong handwriting saying, “Wearing so little, don’t catch a cold.”
A warmth spread through Liang Ruixi’s chest. He picked up the scarf and wrapped it around his neck, touching it — it was cashmere.
After locking the door, he took the set of keys out of his pocket again and looked at them. It felt like some lost emotion had been recovered, and his mood was inexplicably good.
He skipped down the stairs, feeling light all over. After a few steps, he playfully leaped up in a mock badminton swing at the overhead branches, almost bumping into an old man walking towards him.
“Hey…” Liang Ruixi landed nimbly, quickly sidestepping, and gave the old man a bright smile before skipping away.
–
Liang Ruixi lived a bit further from the city center. The rented apartment was in good condition, a modern apartment complex that came with built-in furnishings. However, this kind of self-contained apartment felt much more desolate compared to Zhou Yan’s older, more lively neighborhood.
The feeling of desolation intensified when Liang Ruixi entered his own home.
The apartment still looked messy from his frantic search for clothes and his medical record book before going out last night. Before that, Xie Wenmu had also come to tidy up, taking away most of the things she deemed important.
But there were still many things left behind, such as the clothes she didn’t want and the black tea and drip coffee she had bought online, scattered in bits and pieces in every corner of the house, making Liang Ruixi dizzy to look at and giving him a stomachache to think about.
Liang Ruixi gritted his teeth and gathered all the things related to her.
There was a writing desk in the bedroom that Xie Wenmu had used as a dressing table. Liang Ruixi pulled open the drawer and saw several lipsticks that hadn’t been taken away. Liang Ruixi had bought them for her as a gift, either on Valentine’s Day or Christmas, and she hadn’t even opened them.
Liang Ruixi hesitated for a moment, took a photo, and sent it to her, asking, “Do you still want these?”
Xie Wenmu replied, “No, you can get rid of them.”
Liang Ruixi sighed, unsure for a moment whether he felt more heartache for the relationship or for the money he had spent on the gifts.
On Monday, when he arrived at the office, Liang Ruixi still looked a bit listless.
“Xiao Liang,” a well-maintained middle-aged woman placed a stack of contracts on his desk and said, “Here, the top few are quite urgent, and the ones below just need to be reviewed by the end of the week.”
“Okay, Becca-jie[mfn]Jie means older sister[/mfn].”
This person was the head of the legal department and Liang Ruixi’s direct superior, named Rebecca. She preferred her colleagues to call her by her English name or “Becca.”
Seeing Liang Ruixi’s sickly appearance, Becca asked him, “What’s wrong?”
“I had a bad stomachache last Friday…” Liang Ruixi was too embarrassed to go into detail.
“I saw you used to go clubbing quite often. You young people just ruin your health like that. You should be more careful in the future.” Becca chided him.
“Got it…” Liang Ruixi sighed and buried himself in the contracts.
Having worked for three years, he was already very familiar with the various types of contracts he might handle. The daily tasks had become completely unchallenging, and although the work was easy, it was also very tedious, day after day, making him feel weary.
In the blink of an eye, the weekend arrived again. The weather was still a bit gloomy, and it looked like it might rain when Liang Ruixi went out. At six o’clock in the evening, he arrived at the bar on time.
‘Expecting Possibilities’ opened at five o’clock. Jiang Cheng was already there and looked quite surprised to see him. “Is your stomach better? Why not rest for a couple more days?”
“Almost there.” He used to sing in different bars and had gotten to know a few loyal customers. Knowing that he had opened his own bar, they would come specifically to support him, especially on Saturdays when there were the most regulars, so he definitely had to come and work.
“Have you eaten?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“I had some noodles around four in the afternoon. I’m not too hungry yet. Just get me a soda water.”
Eight o’clock in the evening was the peak time for customers. Liang Ruixi wasn’t going on stage yet, so he leaned against the bar, scrolling through the song list on his phone, choosing the songs he wanted to sing later.
Lost in his song and humming along, he suddenly felt something approach his lips. He looked down to see Jiang Cheng holding a small piece of bread, trying to feed it to him.
Liang Ruixi frowned and slapped his hand away, disgusted. “What are you doing?”
Jiang Cheng: “……”
He lowered his head and took a sip of water. Not long after, Jiang Cheng’s hand reached out again, this time with an ingratiating look on his face, enticing him with amusement. “Eat.”
Liang Ruixi slammed his ledger shut and grabbed Jiang Cheng, unleashing a barrage of playful punches. “Eat your sister! Are you nuts?!”
“Damn it!” Jiang Cheng wailed, covering his head. “I’m worried about your health! Don’t you even consider me your brother?”
“Do I not have hands of my own that I need you to feed me?” Liang Ruixi was furious. “And what was that look on your face just now? Do you think I’m stupid? Are you messing with me?!”
Jiang Cheng retorted angrily, “But that guy surnamed Zhou fed you even the skin of the steamed bun, and you ate it!”
Liang Ruixi was bewildered. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Jiang Cheng turned his head and shouted, “Just last weekend in the hospital, don’t you remember anymore?”
After returning home last weekend, that scene kept replaying in Jiang Cheng’s mind, no matter how hard he tried to shake it off. He ran his fingers through his hair, pondering it for a long time.
Back when Liang Ruixi reigned supreme at Changshui No. 4 Middle School, which of his brothers didn’t respectfully address him as “Rui Ge[mfn]Brother Rui[/mfn]”?
Jiang Cheng’s subservience to Liang Ruixi stemmed from being captivated by the latter’s resilience and wildness back then. Despite his slender build, he was incredibly cool and fierce in a fight.
Although this guy later mellowed out, became a good student, and got into a prestigious university, appearing much more refined on the surface, Jiang Cheng believed that a person’s core temperament wouldn’t change.
However, the scene in the hospital completely overturned Jiang Cheng’s perception. The Liang Ruixi he remembered as being full of untamed spirit was as docile as a tamed cat in front of that man named Zhou Yan.
It was… just incredibly strange.
Jiang Cheng’s sudden impulse was simply to conduct an experiment to confirm whether it was his Rui Ge who had changed or if his understanding of Liang Ruixi was fundamentally incomplete.
Now that the experiment had failed, he felt utterly aggrieved. “I can see it now! You’re just biased! You eat what he feeds you, but you hit me when I try to feed you! And I was even feeding you cream bread! Tell me, am I still your best brother or not?”
Liang Ruixi was left between laughter and tears by his friend’s unreasonable entanglement, but he also subconsciously began to reflect.
Indeed, why hadn’t he been so resistant when Zhou Yan fed him? Why was that?
“…Zhou Yan is different from you.”
“Different how?!” Jiang Cheng was as indignant as a concubine vying for favor, determined to outdo Zhou Yan in the matter of feeding.
“He’s the kind of person who’s particularly upright and really good. If you spent time with him, you’d know. He gives people a very strong sense of security,” Liang Ruixi said slowly, thinking as he spoke, both evaluating Zhou Yan and trying to find a rational explanation for his own reaction in the hospital. “You will instinctively trust anything he hands you. Yeah, you feel like he would never harm you.”
Jiang Cheng’s eyes widened. “Do you think I would harm you?”
Liang Ruixi glanced sideways at him. “Who knows if you washed your hands or not after going to the bathroom?”
Jiang Cheng: “……” I’ll be damned!
The author has something to say:
[Little Interlude]
Liang Ruixi: With your memory, why didn’t you remind me I hadn’t brought my medicine when I left?
Zhou Yan: Even a judge needs time to process a retrial.
Liang Ruixi: ……
————
Liang Ruixi: Why did you want the racket?
Zhou Yan: Seeing you bouncing around all day like a shuttlecock, I just wanted to grab a racket and smack you down from the sky.
Liang Ruixi: ……
