“Be a good boy. Don’t talk. When you see people, you have to smile, understand?”
Xu Ze was holding his grandmother’s hand as they walked through a completely unfamiliar residential neighborhood. Xu Ze looked back. He had already been searched twice just to get inside, and the guards’ stern expressions still made him uneasy.
“Did you hear me?” Ye Yunhua asked again when Xu Ze did not answer.
Xu Ze nodded. He did not even make an “mm” sound.
Because Ye Yunhua had told him not to speak, he could not make a sound from this moment onward.
When they reached the garden outside a villa, a housekeeper came over and opened the gate. Ye Yunhua led Xu Ze inside, through the garden and into the living room.
A seven- or eight-year-old alpha was sitting on the sofa watching cartoons. Xu Ze thought he looked a little like the chubby boy who lived downstairs from his grandmother’s apartment.
Remembering his grandmother’s words, Xu Ze smiled at the chubby boy.
The chubby boy, however, made a face at him.
Xu Ze followed Ye Yunhua into the kitchen. The kitchen was even a little larger than Xu Ze’s living room. He quietly stood to one side and watched his grandmother busy herself until the lady of the house came downstairs into the kitchen. Ye Yunhua brought Xu Ze over to greet her.
“This is your grandson? He’s so handsome.” The lady of the house handed Xu Ze a piece of candied fruit. “It must be boring for a child to stay in the kitchen. Go play in the backyard.”
Xu Ze looked at Ye Yunhua. After receiving his grandmother’s approval, he took the candied fruit and gave the lady of the house a well-behaved smile.
Ye Yunhua opened the kitchen’s back door and reminded Xu Ze not to wander off before going back to work.
The living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows faced the backyard. The chubby boy stood inside by the window, holding a toy gun and pretending to shoot Xu Ze.
Xu Ze watched him for a while before walking in the other direction.
The backyard gate was only half-closed. Beyond it, the road was quiet and clean, and Xu Ze found himself staring blankly.
Suddenly, the back of his head hurt.
Xu Ze turned around. At some point, the chubby boy had quietly come up behind him and shot a rubber toy bullet at his head.
“Hand over what you’re holding!”
Xu Ze looked at the candied fruit in his hand and held it out to him.
The chubby boy immediately snatched it and stuffed it into his mouth. When he opened his mouth, Xu Ze saw a row of decaying teeth—he had been forbidden from eating snacks for a long time because of his dental problems.
As soon as he finished eating, he turned hostile again. He raised the gun at Xu Ze and, imitating the lines he had heard on television, demanded, “Who are you?”
Xu Ze said nothing.
“Are you mute?!”
Xu Ze still said nothing.
“Mute! Get down on the ground and put your hands up! I’m arresting you!”
He probably did not even know what “arrest” meant.
Xu Ze stood completely still. When the chubby boy, completely absorbed in his role, angrily took another step toward him, Xu Ze opened the gate and walked out of the yard.
The chubby boy looked back at the living room and hesitated over whether he should chase after him. He did not dare wander off on his own.
While he was hesitating, Xu Ze simply walked away.
Xu Ze kept walking straight, because if he turned here and there, it would be easy to lose his way back.
After passing three houses, the gloomy sky suddenly brightened a little. The sun had come out.
Xu Ze saw a swing set in the backyard of the fourth house. A small alpha was sitting on it, staring straight ahead with a blank expression.
Xu Ze slowly walked over. He thought that alpha looked like a doll in a shop window. He did not seem alive at all—perhaps he really was a doll, placed here to bask in the sun.
When their eyes met, the alpha’s eyes moved.
A girl’s clear voice came from inside the house. “Lu Heyang, do you want some milk?”
“No.” The alpha turned his head to answer.
Seven-year-old Xu Ze’s knowledge was limited. He automatically converted this alpha’s name into the animal names he had just learned: the deer from sika deer, the crane from red-crowned crane, and the sheep from sheep.
Lu Heyang looked at Xu Ze again.
Xu Ze remembered his grandmother’s reminder: whenever he saw someone, he was supposed to smile. So he smiled at Lu Heyang.
After smiling, Xu Ze could feel Lu Heyang observing him. This did not make him uncomfortable, because he was observing Lu Heyang too.
Once he had finished observing Xu Ze, Lu Heyang climbed down from the swing set and walked over to the fence. He took a piece of candy from his pocket, reached his hand through the black bars, and held it out to Xu Ze.
It was the kind of candy Xu Ze loved, but he had not eaten one in a very long time.
Ever since his father was gone, everything at home had changed. In his confusion and bewilderment, Xu Ze had lost many of the simple joys he had once had and was forced to accept a completely different life that had been turned upside down.
“Don’t you want it?” Lu Heyang asked when Xu Ze stood there holding the candy without moving.
Xu Ze shook his head, unwrapped the candy, and put it into his mouth.
“Is it good?”
Xu Ze nodded.
“Really? But this candy is bad.”
Xu Ze’s eyes widened slightly, even though he had not tasted anything wrong with it.
Lu Heyang burst out laughing, a mischievous, delighted smile on his face.
“I was lying to you. It’s not bad.”
Whether the candy was bad or not, Xu Ze didn’t know. But this Deer-Crane-Sheep seemed pretty bad.
That was what Xu Ze thought.
The candy rolled around in his mouth, making his cheeks puff out. Lu Heyang looked at him, and he looked at Lu Heyang. Clouds drifted across the sky above them, while the wind stirred the leaves with a soft rustling sound.
After Xu Ze finished the candy, someone called for Lu Heyang to come inside.
Lu Heyang answered, and the gloomy expression from when he had been sitting on the swing returned to his face.
Then he asked Xu Ze, “Do you live here?”
Xu Ze shook his head.
“Will you come tomorrow?”
Another shake of the head.
“What about the day after tomorrow?”
Still a shake of the head.
So Lu Heyang asked, “What about some other day? Will you come?”
This time, Xu Ze nodded.
“Goodbye.” Lu Heyang waved his hand and said in the tone of someone making a promise, “We’ll see each other again, okay?”
After Lu Heyang left, Xu Ze stood outside the fence for a little while longer before turning back along the way he had come.
The chubby boy had already returned to the living room, and Grandma was still busy. Xu Ze crouched beside a small flower bed and continued staring blankly into space.
A few days later, Grandma took Xu Ze to that lady’s house again.
Xu Ze went to the backyard on his own this time. A few minutes later, the chubby boy came running out with a water gun. He planted his feet apart and stood in front of Xu Ze, aiming the gun at him.
“Mute! Don’t move!”
Xu Ze glanced at him and walked toward the fence gate.
The chubby boy thudded after him for several steps and blocked his way.
“Mute, why won’t you play with me!”
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He raised the water gun at Xu Ze and pulled the trigger.
Xu Ze did not dodge. He stood there and let the water splash all over his face, soaking his hair as well.
It was winter, and he began to shiver slightly. He silently looked at the chubby boy.
The chubby boy froze for several seconds, suddenly feeling a little guilty. He stubbornly shouted, “Serves you right!” before quickly running back into the living room.
Xu Ze wiped the water from his face, opened the gate, and walked out.
One, two, three…four.
When he reached the fourth house, Xu Ze stopped at the place where he had stood last time.
The swing set was empty, and there was no one in the yard either.
Xu Ze lowered his head and prepared to leave.
Suddenly, he heard a voice.
“Hi!”
He lifted his face and saw Lu Heyang standing on the small balcony on the second floor, smiling brightly at him.
Lu Heyang came downstairs and into the backyard. It was only when he got closer that he noticed Xu Ze’s hair was wet.
“Are you cold?”
“……” Xu Ze shook his head.
Lu Heyang thought for a moment, then ran back inside and returned with some tissues. He reached out and wiped Xu Ze’s hair.
Xu Ze obediently stood there as Lu Heyang rubbed his hair until it became a mess, little strands sticking up in every direction, bunching together into a fluffy mass under the sunlight.
Lu Heyang gently wiped his face as well, poking Xu Ze’s cheeks a few times in the process.
“It’s okay. I’ll stay here and dry off with you,” Lu Heyang said.
He put both hands into his jacket pockets, clenched them into fists, then pulled them out and held them in front of Xu Ze.
“Guess which hand has the candy.”
Xu Ze was familiar with this game. His father used to tease him this way too. He would even deliberately move the hand holding the candy to give him a hint. Once Xu Ze guessed correctly, his father would pick him up and hold him high in the air.
No one would hold him up like that anymore.
But when someone was willing to play this game with him, Xu Ze felt something strange and wonderful.
When Xu Ze did not react for a long time, Lu Heyang moved his right hand.
Xu Ze looked at him and pointed at his right hand.
“You got it right.”
Lu Heyang opened his hand. Two pieces of candy lay in his palm.
“Here. They’re for you.”
Xu Ze reached out to take them, but Lu Heyang suddenly pulled his hand back, leaving Xu Ze grasping at empty air.
Xu Ze thought Lu Heyang had changed his mind and no longer wanted to give them to him. He blankly lifted his head.
He found Lu Heyang tilting his head, those very dark eyes fixed on him.
“Why are you crying?”
He clearly wasn’t.
Xu Ze shook his head, indicating that he was not crying.
“Then smile,” Lu Heyang said.
Xu Ze rubbed his eyes and smiled at Lu Heyang—a proper, stiff, perfectly mannered smile just like before.
Lu Heyang smiled back at him.
Then he took all the candy from his pockets and stuffed every piece into Xu Ze’s hands.
“I’m going out now.” Seeing that Xu Ze’s hair seemed a little drier, Lu Heyang said, “Goodbye.”
He waved.
“We’ll see each other again, okay?”
Xu Ze nodded while clutching the candy. After Lu Heyang left, he put the candy into his pocket and returned to the backyard.
As soon as he entered, the chubby boy darted out and blocked his path.
“Don’t move!”
He spotted the candy wrapper sticking out of Xu Ze’s bulging pocket, and his eyes immediately lit up.
“Hand over the candy!”
Xu Ze covered his pocket and tried to walk around him. The chubby boy anxiously grabbed him, trying to snatch the candy, but Xu Ze suddenly lowered his head and bit down hard on the back of his hand.
The chubby boy immediately let go and took a frightened step backward. He had not expected this little mute to suddenly be so fierce. He had looked like the kind of child who would never fight back, small and skinny and easy to bully.
“You just wait!” the chubby boy shouted, trying to sound intimidating.
But the threat had no effect.
Xu Ze simply looked at him silently.