BSS - Chapter 105
Chapter 105
Deng Chuan was awakened by the sound of rain.
She opened her eyes to see Xu Wei standing by the window. Having just closed it, she was returning to the bed. She walked to the bedside, lifted a corner of the quilt, and saw that the little friend was already awake, staring at her blankly. She couldn't help but pinch her cheek. "Why are you awake?"
Deng Chuan opened her mouth and let out a small, involuntary yawn, her voice tinged with a hoarse sleepiness. "Is it raining outside?"
"Mhm." Xu Wei lay back down on the bed and naturally reached out to hold her. "It seemed to be coming down hard just now, the ground is all wet. Did you hear it?"
Deng Chuan turned on her side and wrapped her arms around her, closing the distance between them once more. Xu Wei's scent enveloped Deng Chuan. She tightened her arms, feeling Xu Wei settle into her embrace as strands of her hair brushed lightly against the tip of her nose. Deng Chuan let out a dependent sigh, and sleepiness crept up on her again. "Mhm..." she murmured vaguely. "Let's sleep a little longer."
The fine rain drifted in the wind, pattering against the windowpane in gentle bursts, creating a subtle tapping sound that was the perfect lullaby.
The two of them slept straight through the afternoon and into the evening. Perhaps it was difficult to wake up after sleeping for so long, but as Xu Wei got up to change, she thought strangely to herself that she had never been a particularly heavy sleeper before, let alone one who slept for more than twelve hours a day. Yet, when she was with Deng Chuan, they always seemed to enjoy sinking into the chaos of slumber. Waking up felt like the first time they had ever met.
They didn't have much time to waste, yet they always wasted it in the alternating cycles of night and day, afternoon and dusk, wasting entire mornings and entire afternoons, only to burn away the night.
They were profligate paupers.
Deng Chuan was slower to get up than Xu Wei; she had a habit of washing up before changing her clothes. She came up from behind, pushed aside Xu Wei's long hair, and her lips gently touched her fair neck. The contact was almost imperceptible, more like a light sniff than a kiss. It tickled Xu Wei, and just as she was about to pull away, Deng Chuan had already thrown off the covers, gotten out of bed, and slipped into the bathroom in her slippers.
They both washed up again. The temperature dropped in the evening, so Xu Wei didn't brave wearing just a dress under her coat. She tied up her hair, put on a pair of jeans and a black hoodie, and pulled a baseball cap down low, revealing only half of her delicate face. The cap was Deng Chuan's; Xu Wei had just grabbed it on a whim, not expecting it to look so good.
Although the weather was cold, the streets were still bustling with people. With her cap stolen by Xu Wei, Deng Chuan could only pull up the hood of her sweatshirt. The two of them walked slowly along the street, hand in hand. Tall banyan trees lined the road, their branches and leaves lush and verdant even in winter. The dim yellow streetlights cast a vast, silent, and flourishing shadow upon them, as if summer had never left.
A small shop on the roadside had a cat, a common calico, that was very well-groomed. Its litter box and food bowl were inside an iron cage, but the cat itself was perched on top of the cage, lazily watching the passersby.
Xu Wei led Deng Chuan by the hand into the shop.
It was a shop that sold sliced fish congee in a clay pot. There was no menu, nor were there any dishes displayed on the wall. The owner stood by the stove in the back room. Seeing them enter, he called out a loud greeting in the Chaoshan dialect.
Xu Wei gestured for Deng Chuan to sit down while she went over to order.
The shop was small and the incandescent lights were a bit dim, but the place was kept quite clean, and the tables weren't very greasy. Deng Chuan pulled out a tissue to wipe the table while listening to Xu Wei talk to the owner. It was the first time she had heard Xu Wei speak a long, fluent string of the Chaoshan dialect. She couldn't understand a single word, and this display of eloquence left her feeling a little dizzy. By the time Deng Chuan had more or less finished wiping the table, Xu Wei had finished ordering and was walking back, noticing the little friend's gaze following her.
She raised a hand and waved it gently in front of her eyes. "Do you want a drink?"
Deng Chuan snapped back to her senses. "No, I don't."
So Xu Wei sat down across from her. She took the tissue Deng Chuan had used and wiped the table again. By the time she threw the tissue into the trash can, the little friend opposite her had already taken out her phone to play with. Her hood was down, and her uncovered features were lowered, carrying a hazy, timeless quality under the dim incandescent light.
It wasn't the first time Xu Wei had looked at her like this, but it seemed that Deng Chuan gave her a different feeling every time. She was braver and smarter than she had been a year ago, had seen a wider world, yet she had also grown more silent.
In every sense, she was gradually approaching the standard of an adult.
Xu Wei couldn't help but think, and what about me? After getting together with Deng Chuan, she could clearly feel that she had changed too. She had started to become greedy, to have selfish desires, to care about certain things. Xu Wei couldn't deny her own changes, just as she couldn't control her gaze on Deng Chuan. It was true then, and it was true now.
Whether their respective changes were for the better or for the worse, and what kind of ending they would ultimately lead to, Xu Wei couldn't make such a prediction. Her logic had failed her.
She just wanted to keep looking at Deng Chuan like this, for a long, long time.
Until the distant future.
Meanwhile, there was a banquet to attend at Third Great-Uncle's house that evening. The whole family had been lounging at home since the afternoon, drinking tea and chatting. When it was time to leave, their father went in Third Great-Uncle's car, and everyone else had their own arrangements. Xu Cheng was happy for the peace and quiet and drove off on his own.
The car door shut with a thud. After fastening his seatbelt, Xu Cheng actually felt a sense of relief. He started the car, and the engine trembled slightly, but he was in no hurry to pull away. A thought suddenly occurred to him:
Should I call my sister?
He and his sister hadn't finished a complete phone call in a very, very long time. The kind of heart-to-heart, warm, truly familial conversation.
Xu Cheng knew it was all his own doing.
That year, after his sister left, she still called him from time to time. She would ask how his job search was going, if he had enough money, and occasionally about their family. His sister had always been a soft-hearted person, Xu Cheng knew that. But at the time, he was trapped in a strange way of thinking, unconsciously following the family's line of thought and starting to blame his sister in his words.
His sister must have put up with it for a while. Even though the calls with her brother were unpleasant, she still sent Xu Cheng money, told him to look after the family, and sent him things from time to time. She seemed to be traveling back then, sending him local specialties and postcards from every place she visited.
His sister's seemingly carefree life and her yielding attitude made Xu Cheng push his luck even further. He had found a good job through family connections at the time and was brimming with confidence. He even thought that he was clearly the smartest one in the family; although his sister was clever, she was too stubborn, harming others and herself. In the end, the family would have to rely on him.
Their mother's health was already getting weaker and weaker back then. Xu Cheng didn't hide her condition, but his motive for revealing it wasn't entirely pure. He even asked, "Sister, Mom's like this now. Do you feel guilty?"
His sister was silent for a long time before hanging up on him for the first time.
People change. They become worse when indulged, forgetting the truth they once saw. Xu Cheng forgot his sister's silence, her unshed tears, her pale face. He truly took his father's side, becoming the second person to hurt his sister.
Their mother's medical treatment wasn't cheap. Her illness was born from worry, and once she fell ill, she couldn't get up. All the ailments her body had accumulated over the years erupted at once. Xu Cheng had just started working and hadn't earned much money. His father knew his situation and never asked him for any. Feeling guilty towards his mother, Xu Cheng turned around and repeatedly urged his sister to send money. When he used the money his sister gave him to pay the hospital bills, he even felt a sliver of satisfaction: this was the consequence of his sister's actions, and he was the one atoning for her sins on her behalf.
His mother was hospitalized for a long time, growing thinner by the day, and the surgery wasn't very successful. The family was miserable. After seeing off a batch of visiting relatives, his father fell silent. Xu Cheng felt particularly awful, so he often called his sister back then, regardless of what she was doing, and just cried about their mother's condition and the pressure he was under. He only had his sister left; only his sister understood his suffering and pain.
His sister didn't say much in response at the time. She would just answer the phone and listen quietly. Xu Cheng had been dissatisfied with this, had questioned her. But his sister remained silent. Finally, when Xu Cheng said, "How can there be a daughter like you in this world?" his sister hung up on him once again.
Xu Cheng was infuriated by his sister's attitude.
He didn't call her for several days, partly out of anger, and partly because he was busy. His mother's condition was not looking good, and he cared for her tirelessly, persuading his father, who was also keeping vigil, to go home and rest. The more exhausted a person is, the more their emotions tend to go to extremes. He began to hate his sister's silence. He couldn't understand how, after causing such a situation, his sister could still be so at ease.
In the end, their mother passed away. Xu Cheng's grief didn't last long. He had to help his father with the funeral arrangements. A relative who didn't know the family situation asked, "Isn't Weiwei coming back?" Before his father could speak, Xu Cheng said first, "My sister's busy, she's not coming back."
After saying it, he felt a little nervous and defensively picked up a teacup from the table to drink. The relative asked again, "So busy she can't even come back when her own family member passes away?" His father silently nodded.
The funeral was underway when his sister found out the news from somewhere. She called Xu Cheng, asking where they were, whether in their old hometown or the county town. Over the phone, her voice rose, her emotions uncharacteristically losing control. "Mom passed away, why didn't you tell me?"
A sliver of satisfaction rose in Xu Cheng's heart. "You don't need to come back. Mom didn't want to see you. Dad said before, you have nothing to do with this family anymore."
"Xu Cheng..." his sister called his name, her voice trembling. "Are you even human..."
"In any case, don't come back." Xu Cheng was taken aback by his sister's questioning. Before he could finish, she had already hung up.
In the end, his sister did come back.
But she found out too late. By the time she returned, the funeral proceedings were over. Everyone had said their final goodbyes to their mother.
Everyone but his sister.
When his father saw his sister, he was surprisingly calm. "Come in." The house was full of relatives. Seeing her, they chattered amongst themselves, asking why she had only just arrived. When Xu Cheng saw his sister, he lost the courage he'd had to question her over the phone.
His sister didn't look at him. She only knelt by their mother's portrait, closed her eyes, and silently murmured for a long time before kowtowing three times.
After doing all this, his sister left without even staying for a meal.
His father lost some of his spirit after their mother's passing. A few years after he retired, he became a completely silent old man. He was no longer so resentful towards his sister. Time gradually weathered away everyone's pain.
Only his sister truly never contacted the family again. She never took the initiative to call Xu Cheng again. During holidays, it was always his father who would instruct Xu Cheng, "Give your sister a call. Ask her to come back for the New Year."
When calling his sister, Xu Cheng would always remember the cruel things he had said to her in their past calls. And so, because of his shame and avoidance, the calls were never long. After his sister answered, she would just respond faintly, "Got it."
Xu Cheng didn't know how his sister's job was, how her life was, or how she was doing. He didn't know then, and he didn't know now. Xu Cheng often thought later that their family had never really changed from the very beginning.
Xu Cheng's phone rang, jolting him from his memories.
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