Chapter 132: Good Night
It was already dark when they finished their journey. They were holding a flashlight and had turned a few times in the old and quiet alley. They were stepping on the bumpy and gravelly path. With the light from the streetlight next to them, they could barely see the blurry and almost-illegible sign of the neighborhood.
The noisy and cold wind was mixed with a not-so-pleasant smell of decay. Su Yu covered his mouth and nose and followed behind Xia Qiange with some awkwardness.
Besides a few flickering streetlights, the neighborhood was dark and he couldn’t see any light. He could vaguely see a few houses with their lights on on the upper floors, and the first floor was almost empty.
Xia Qiange stopped and turned around in the darkness to grab Su Yu’s hand. She pulled him into the first building on the left. This building was very old, and the white surface of the outer wall was weathered and cracked, revealing a large patch of black underneath. The voice-activated lights in the building were almost all broken. They went up the stairs with a flashlight.
The north wind was surging in the narrow corridor, and the desolate whimper of an animal was echoing in his ear. A crisp sound attracted Su Yu’s attention. Xia Qiange pulled him and stopped in front of a house. In the blurry and dim night, a few large characters painted in white on the red wooden door were particularly eye-catching.
“Debt… pay back?”
Perhaps it was because he was too nervous, but he subconsciously read the few characters out loud.
“My dad broke the law in his business. After he went in, a few of his business friends came to make trouble. It was a long time ago.”
But Xia Qiange was surprisingly calm. She looked down and counted the keys that she hadn’t used for a long time. It was a little difficult to insert them into the rusty lock. The two of them had used a lot of effort, and the rustling dust was constantly falling from the doorframe. They had finally and almost violently pushed open the door.
In the night, where only the sound of the wind was howling, the creaking of the door hinge turning was particularly harsh.
“Be careful.”
Xia Qiange pulled Su Yu back a few steps and handed him a few wet tissues to cover his mouth and nose. The door opened inwards, and a large patch of dust rushed to their faces. Fortunately, they had been prepared in advance, so they were not blinded by the wind and sand.
The two of them stood on the side for a while. It was not until the damp and musty smell of the rotting wood in the house had slowly dissipated that they carefully pushed open the door and walked in.
The house was a mess. The porcelain tiles under their feet were shattered like a spider’s web, and the broken glass from the window was scattered all over the floor. A large piece of a not-so-big sofa was broken in the middle, and the yellow sponge was all squeezed out by the springs inside. The house was still cold, and the two of them were breathing out a white mist. “Let’s stay in the inner room tonight. It’s not safe in the living room.”
Xia Qiange pulled Su Yu into the inner room. Su Yu still remembered that it used to be her bedroom and study. It was a very, very small room. There was a bed in the middle, and in the corner by the window, there was a long bench that was used as a desk. But now, two of the legs of the bench were broken, and it was leaning crookedly against the wall, barely surviving.
She took the suitcase from Su Yu’s hand and placed it in a corner behind the door. She didn’t know where she had found a key, and she had opened the lock on the wardrobe, which was the only large piece of furniture in the house. She pulled open the wardrobe door, and inside were a few cardboard boxes that had been sealed with tape.
Su Yu walked over and helped her to move the top cardboard box down. He tore open the tape, and inside were a few neatly folded blankets. He could smell a not-so-heavy damp smell, but they looked quite clean.
“Let’s just make do on this bed tonight. We can use these blankets as a mattress. Anyway, these things will be thrown away with the demolition.”
Xia Qiange patted the dust from her hands and looked up at him, who had been in a bad mood since he had entered the house. “I want to go to the cemetery tomorrow to see my mother. Do you want to go?”
“To the cemetery?”
Su Yu looked up, and a shadow was swaying in the depths of his eyes. He asked a question that sounded very comical. “Is my grave there too?”
“Yeah, Uncle Su and the others still brought you back from Qingchuan to be buried here. After all, you grew up here. They were really sad back then.”
Xia Qiange seemed to have seen through his hesitation. “It’s fine if you want to go back and see. But Uncle Su and the others don’t seem to live here anymore. As for your childhood friend now… I’m not very clear about that either.”
“Then I’ll go to the cemetery with you first. I don’t know if they’re still there. There’s no hurry.” Su Yu looked as if he had already accepted the reality and smiled very plainly. He looked down at the time. “It’s not early. Let’s eat something first.”
There was no fire in the house, and neither of them looked as if they had an appetite. Fortunately, they had bought some dry food downstairs before they had come up. They had made do with a meal with mineral water.
It was late at night. They had simply washed up. A few thin pieces of cardboard and old newspapers were not enough to block the cold wind that was seeping in from the cracks in the broken window. The temperature in the house was still a little low. They turned off the lights and quickly went to bed. The two of them were curled up in a blanket with their clothes on, and they were warming each other with their body heat.
The bed was narrow, and the two of them could only curl up and be very close. The other party’s intermittent breathing was clearly audible in their ears. Su Yu suddenly turned over and turned his back to Xia Qiange. He stared at the old newspaper, which was penetrated by the streetlight, in a daze. His gaze was without any focus as he scanned the blurry lead print on the newspaper.
The place he had been thinking about day and night was now so close. He longed for every breath of air here. But why was he hesitating now that he was really standing here? He couldn’t think of a reasonable way to stand in front of them. If the fantasy was beautiful enough, what could he use to accept the gap in reality?
For some reason, he hoped that everyone had been forced to leave by time. It would be good for him to continue to return to his original and stable life.
Suddenly, there was a rustling sound of cloth rubbing behind him. A wave of heat was on the back of his neck, and it was wet and itchy. The girl, as if she were afraid of the cold, suddenly held him tightly.
“Are you asleep?”, her voice was soft, and her hoarse voice had a half-asleep and half-awake laziness.
“No. What’s wrong?”
He opened his eyes again in the darkness.
“Are you still thinking about those things?”
“No…”
“You’re lying. You’ve been absent-minded since you got off the train.”
She mercilessly exposed him. “Are they that important?”
“What’s the difference between a person without relatives and friends and a dead person?”
“But you have me. Isn’t that enough? It’s hard to find those people again. But I’m always here. And you only have me…”
“I know. I was overthinking it.”
“No… you don’t know. You have your back to me. How can you see me?”
Su Yu quickly turned around, and the two of them were suddenly closer. Their noses were touching, and their scents were warm and sweet. They were poured into his lungs through his nose, and his restless heart seemed to have suddenly calmed down.
He said in a hoarse voice, “Good night…”
“Good night.”
She suddenly got closer and rubbed against his cheek with satisfaction, and she kissed his eyes.
