It was late at night, and the temperature outside had already dropped. Lu Heyang rolled down the window to let some fresh air in.
As the car started moving, the wind blew in, stirring Xu Ze’s collar. The light and shadows from the streetlamps kept passing over his face and the backs of his hands.
The military off-road vehicle had a spacious interior, but Xu Ze still felt cramped. He took off his glasses and turned his head to look out the window. He was dizzy and sleepy, and everything looked blurry.
The capital’s lights rushed past his eyes like this, one after another, like a river. In his muddled state, Xu Ze thought that perhaps, when he reached the end of the river, he would become that seventeen-year-old boy from so many years ago again—the Number 17 who had put on a hat and been certain that Lu Heyang wouldn’t recognize him, the first time Lu Heyang had driven him home.
Or perhaps it would be the last time: Lu Heyang driving him out of the city at sunset. But whenever Xu Ze went over this memory, he always habitually deceived himself, stopping at the moment when they lay together in the tent watching fireflies. He never continued thinking about the separation after his birthday.
Lu Heyang had told him, “It might take a while.” He had told him, “It’s okay if you don’t wait.” And Xu Ze had answered, “I’ll wait for you.” He had answered, “I will wait.” He had been so stubborn back then, never realizing that the answer had actually been hidden in Lu Heyang’s words.
He would be leaving for a long time, for many years. Don’t wait. There would be no happy ending.
That year, he had watched Lu Heyang standing where he was through the rearview mirror, growing farther and farther away from him. But even now, Xu Ze understood that the one who had remained in the same place all along had actually been himself.
“Doctor Xu.”
Pulled back to reality, Xu Ze turned toward Lu Heyang’s profile.
Lu Heyang also turned to glance at him. Xu Ze’s gaze was somewhat bewildered, and he didn’t seem fully conscious. Lu Heyang turned back to the road, slid his hand upward from the bottom of the steering wheel, and gripped it again. Then he asked, “What shampoo do you use?”
Xu Ze’s fingertips twitched involuntarily, brushing against the plastic bag and making a faint rustling sound. He turned his head back and named a brand. After a moment, he added, “It’s very cheap.”
Because it was inexpensive, practical, and good value for money, it had remained on the market for many years without being discontinued.
A second or two later, he heard Lu Heyang say, “It smells nice.”
Xu Ze was slightly taken aback. Then he raised a hand and rubbed his left eye. He felt that the hangover soup He Wei had ordered for him didn’t seem to have worked at all.
“How did you get the scar on your hand?” Lu Heyang suddenly asked.
Xu Ze wasn’t sure when Lu Heyang had noticed it. He turned his wrist over, hiding the cigarette burn scar.
“When I was in high school.” He reluctantly chose the most common explanation. “I had a conflict with someone.”
Lu Heyang, however, said, “Doctor Xu doesn’t look like that kind of person.”
Doesn’t look like it? Xu Ze thought that it was probably because He Wei hadn’t told Lu Heyang that he used to fight in an underground boxing club. If Lu Heyang knew, he probably wouldn’t have described him that way.
Xu Ze realized that he was now even more afraid of Lu Heyang finding out about these things than he had been in high school. They wouldn’t have much contact with each other in the future. Perhaps before long, Lu Heyang would leave the capital again. So Xu Ze hoped that he would remain nothing more than Doctor Xu, someone Lu Heyang had happened to meet while back in the country—a plain, unimportant passerby whom he could forget as soon as he turned away. He didn’t want to attach any unpleasant memories of Number 17 to himself.
Xu Ze tried his best to think for a few seconds, attempting to change the subject. “Then what kind of person—”
“What kind of person do I look like?” he asked Lu Heyang.
He felt the car slow down a little. Then Lu Heyang glanced at him. The light inside the car flickered between brightness and darkness, and Xu Ze didn’t have time to examine the look in Lu Heyang’s eyes.
After a while, Lu Heyang pressed down on the accelerator again and answered, “I don’t know you well enough.”
It was the obvious answer. Perhaps even the question itself had been unnecessary, something he shouldn’t have asked. Xu Ze smiled absentmindedly. He wanted to say a few more words to Lu Heyang, but suddenly, even continuing the conversation became extremely difficult. In the end, he merely leaned back against the seat, tilted his head, and looked out the window with his eyes half closed.
The journey of more than twenty minutes passed quickly. They soon arrived beneath the graduate dormitory building. The car stopped, and Xu Ze opened his eyes. Without wasting a single second, he reached out to unfasten his seat belt. He was just about to say, “Thank you,” when he saw Lu Heyang frowning slightly, as though he were thinking about something. At the same time, the hand resting on the electronic parking brake moved backward, reaching into the round storage compartment where he kept his water bottle in a very habitual motion. But it was empty. There was no water bottle inside.
“There’s a vending machine in the apartment lobby,” Xu Ze said after a moment’s hesitation. “If you’re not in a hurry, I can go buy a bottle of water.”
Lu Heyang didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked at Xu Ze’s eyes, but the other man promptly turned his head away. Xu Ze put on his glasses somewhat awkwardly, then asked again, “Would you like some?” He noticed that Lu Heyang no longer seemed to be frowning.
“I’m not in a hurry,” Lu Heyang answered in the order of the questions. “I don’t drink bottled water.”
Xu Ze remembered that Lu Heyang hadn’t used to avoid drinking bottled water. He froze for a moment, thinking that this might be a tactful way of refusing. But if Lu Heyang wanted to refuse, he could have simply said that he was in a hurry. There was no need to use not drinking bottled water as an excuse.
“Would you like some boiled water?” Xu Ze glanced at the apartment building through the car window. He lived on the fourth floor, so going up and down wouldn’t take much time. Xu Ze said, “I have some in my dormitory. If you need it, I can bring down a cup. It’ll be quick.”
The word “bring” was overly vivid. Being able to say something like that meant Xu Ze still wasn’t sober. Lu Heyang smiled and asked him, “Can you really carry it steadily?”
Xu Ze picked up the plastic bag and tied a knot in it. He didn’t even know why he was tying the knot. He just felt that he shouldn’t answer, “Yes.”
“If you don’t mind, you can come to my dormitory,” Xu Ze said slowly and seriously. “To drink water.”
He thought there was a high chance this suggestion would be rejected, but after hearing it, Lu Heyang only asked, “Would that be convenient?”
“It’s convenient.” Xu Ze understood “convenient” in an entirely different sense. He nodded and said, “There’s an elevator.”
He wouldn’t have to grope his way up several flights of stairs in the dark every time, like when he had lived in the old town during high school.
“All right,” Lu Heyang said. “Sit still. I’ll park the car.”
He drove into a parking space downstairs, turned off the engine, and the two got out. After walking around the flower bed, they reached the few steps in front of the lobby entrance. Perhaps because Lu Heyang saw that Xu Ze was still a little dazed, he took hold of his upper arm. Xu Ze had been perfectly capable of walking properly, but now, all of a sudden, he didn’t know which leg to move first. He stood frozen in front of the steps.
“Doctor Xu, can you walk?” Seeing that he wasn’t moving, Lu Heyang asked. “Or do you want me to carry you on my back?”
Xu Ze looked at the ground. “I can walk.”
After they climbed the four steps, Lu Heyang released him. The area where Lu Heyang had held him had wrinkled his shirt a little. Xu Ze wanted to touch it, but not to smooth out the wrinkles in the fabric.
On the way from the lobby to the elevator, they had to pass through a security gate that required facial recognition. Xu Ze began to worry that Lu Heyang might be stopped if he didn’t keep close enough, so he said to him, “Colonel, come a little closer.”
Lu Heyang lowered his head slightly. “What?”
“Stay closer to me,” Xu Ze said. “This gate closes pretty quickly.”
“All right.” Lu Heyang stood behind Xu Ze. Their faces appeared on the display screen, and the recognition frame automatically locked onto Xu Ze’s face.
Through their thin shirts, Xu Ze’s back was very close to Lu Heyang’s chest. The lobby was air-conditioned, but Xu Ze still felt hot. On the display screen, Lu Heyang looked calm and composed. Xu Ze kept his gaze fixed ahead, avoiding eye contact with him.
The gate not only closed quickly, but opened quickly too. Before Xu Ze could react, it had already slid silently open to both sides, while he was still looking at the screen. Lu Heyang raised a hand and gently pressed against the lower right side of Xu Ze’s jaw, turning his head forward again.
“Doctor Xu, the gate is open.”
Xu Ze let out an “Oh” and walked forward. After passing through, he turned back, wanting to see whether Lu Heyang had followed him. But a hand immediately pressed down on his shoulder. Lu Heyang pushed him forward with just enough force and said, “I don’t think I’m as stupid as you imagine.”
There was no way to explain himself, so Xu Ze could only nod and say, “Right.”
It sounded as though he had already confirmed that Lu Heyang really wasn’t that stupid.
Before the elevator doors opened, Xu Ze saw Lu Heyang smiling in their reflection.
Xu Ze lived in Room 4010. The lock was a keypad lock. The fingerprint function had been broken for some time, but he had never called to have it repaired. In front of Lu Heyang, Xu Ze entered the six-digit code and pushed the door open.
“Do you do this when other people come over too?” Lu Heyang asked.
“What?” Xu Ze looked confused.
“Don’t you cover the keypad when entering the code?”
Xu Ze’s hand was still resting on the doorknob. Few people usually came to his dormitory, so he almost never encountered this situation. He hadn’t even thought about hiding the code from Lu Heyang, just as he had been willing to give Lu Heyang the key to his home without hesitation back in high school, even though the other man hadn’t taken it.
“It’s fine.” Xu Ze still made a small effort to demonstrate that he had some awareness of security. He asked Lu Heyang for confirmation, “You didn’t memorize it, did you?”
“I’ve already memorized it. What are you going to do about that?” Lu Heyang answered bluntly, showing little consideration for his feelings. Then he asked Xu Ze, “Doctor Xu, do you want to change the code?”
Xu Ze looked at the darkness visible through the half-open door and shook his head. “I won’t change it.”
After saying that, he reached out to feel for the light switch. Because he was dizzy, he couldn’t find it immediately. After watching Xu Ze fumble around for a few seconds, Lu Heyang raised one hand, reached from behind, and pinched the tip of Xu Ze’s index finger. He moved it five centimeters upward and guided him to press the switch, turning on the light. His chin was almost resting against Xu Ze’s shoulder, and Xu Ze could clearly hear Lu Heyang breathing, right beside his ear.
Xu Ze squinted against the sudden light, which his eyes weren’t quite accustomed to.
The apartment was a one-bedroom unit, with only basic furniture and appliances. There were no unnecessary odds and ends or decorations in sight. A partition bookshelf separated the living room from the bedroom. The bedroom was very bare. The bed was small and placed against the wall. A desk stood against the opposite wall, and between the bed and the desk was the floor-to-ceiling door leading to the balcony. White curtains hung in front of it. In fact, the furniture arrangement was somewhat strange, especially the direction the bed faced.
Lu Heyang’s gaze slowly swept from the bed to the curtains and then to the desk. Xu Ze had already changed into his slippers, and only belatedly remembered to say, “Please come in.”
“Don’t I need to change my shoes?” Lu Heyang asked.
“It’s fine,” Xu Ze said. “I can mop the floor again.”
“You could also avoid having to mop it one more time,” Lu Heyang said. “Do you have another pair of slippers?”
“I do.” Xu Ze opened the shoe cabinet beside him and took out a pair of slippers.
He placed the slippers in front of Lu Heyang. Normally, he would only have needed to bend down, but he was so dizzy that he could barely stand steadily. Afraid he might topple straight onto the floor, Xu Ze simply squatted down to keep his center of gravity stable.
To Lu Heyang, this posture looked almost as though Xu Ze intended to personally help him change his shoes. He called out, “Doctor Xu,” and immediately reached out to pull him up. But Xu Ze had squatted down too quickly, and Lu Heyang only managed to touch his hair.
When his fingertips brushed Xu Ze’s hair, Lu Heyang’s hand paused and did not move away. Xu Ze’s hair was very soft, smooth and cool, with the texture of hair that had been carefully maintained. It was hard to imagine that he used the cheapest shampoo.
Hearing Lu Heyang call him, Xu Ze raised his head. As he did so, Lu Heyang’s fingers slipped into his hair. Xu Ze’s face was positioned just below Lu Heyang’s lower abdomen. His lips parted slightly as he tilted his head up, and through the lenses of his glasses, his gaze looked a little confused.
“What is it?”
From Lu Heyang’s angle, he could clearly see Xu Ze’s collarbones, most of which were exposed beneath his shirt, which had two buttons undone. Perhaps because he had been drinking, that area of skin was tinged a faint red. The sensation of Xu Ze’s strands of hair slipping between his fingers was rather peculiar. Looking down at Xu Ze’s face, Lu Heyang’s fingers suddenly tightened around his hair for an instant, then immediately stopped. In the end, he merely ruffled Xu Ze’s hair.
“You should still try not to drink so much in the future.” He withdrew his hand and said this.