BSS - Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Arriving with the true autumn was the National Day holiday, which followed the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Over the past week, the changing of the leaves had coated the exterior walls of the town's buildings with a glaze that looked as if it had been baked by wildfire. It gilded the distant mountains, seeming to burn all the way to the clear blue sky. The wisteria downstairs had long since withered. Walking on the streets, pedestrians in twos and threes had donned woolen coats. The lower halves of their faces were wrapped in dark black or gray scarves, their footsteps tapping against the small stone paths. Such silent leisure, such burning clarity- just looking at it, one could almost hear the prelude to an English folk song.

On the weekend that kicked off the National Day week, Deng Chuan's friends organized a small get-together to go punting.

And so, on the first weekend of October, the weather was obligingly clear. Deng Chuan sat at the bow of the boat, watching Lao Lin stand up to pole the punt. His movements were far more skilled than those of the clumsy students in the next boat. With a push of the long pole, the slender vessel glided slowly toward the center of the clear, turquoise river. Also in the boat was that red-haired Spanish girl. She clutched the wooden hull, a little nervous, while curiously gazing at the surrounding scenery.

Looking up from the river's surface was a completely different experience from viewing the scenery from the bank. Her body swayed along with the river, and she was completely enveloped by the vegetation and damp water vapor. Deng Chuan reached out to trail her hand in the water, feeling its coolness.

"Is the water cold?" Lao Lin asked her.

"It's just right," Deng Chuan said.

Punting on the river, the group of them kept their boats a moderate distance from each other as they chatted loudly. Ducks raised by the college swam past the boat, wagging their tails. Deng Chuan tried tossing a few breadcrumbs and successfully fed these little natives.

The weather in England is notoriously fickle. Just as the atmosphere was getting good and everyone had started discussing whether to have hot pot or stir-fry for dinner, it suddenly started to rain.

Lao Lin was prepared. He unhurriedly pulled an umbrella from the bag at his feet and handed it to Deng Chuan. "You two share it. I have a raincoat, and we'll be ashore soon."

"Okay." Deng Chuan took it and sheltered the red-haired girl who had huddled over. The fine, dense patter of rain instantly sounded on the umbrella. The rain grew heavier, and the people on the few boats fleeing in disarray were soaked to a sorry state, their hair dripping down their cheeks.

Soon, everyone was ashore. Lao Lin looked at his friends, who were soaked like drowned rats, and laughed with schadenfreude. "So? Are you going back to the dorm to change first, or what?"

His friends replied through gritted teeth, "You three wait for us here. We'll be right back after we change." One of them, a staunch hot pot advocate from the earlier conversation, added, "Eating hot pot after getting rained on isn't too much to ask, right?"

"Fine. Go on, then," Lao Lin said. "We'll take a car to the supermarket later."

Muttering "OK," his friends ran off, not even taking the raincoat and umbrella Lao Lin offered them as they charged back into the curtain of rain.

The rain fell densely, washing over the vegetation by the river. The huge canopies of the trees standing by the river dripped water along the veins of their leaves.

The sound of the rain changed from a pitter-patter to a downpour. In high school, Deng Chuan had done a reading comprehension on Yu Kwang-chung's "Listen to That Cold Rain." She couldn't remember if it was in her second or third year. In those days, the number of exercises she'd done was as vast as a sea of smoke, but some things were left behind, like gold sifted from sand, shining in her memory.

Just like at this moment, as she stood in the outer corridor of an Oxford building, staring out at the rain in a bit of a daze.

She remembered a sentence from that essay: "To think that all of China, the entire history of China, is nothing more than a black-and-white film, with rain falling like this from beginning to end." At the time, this sentence had been underlined, with a comprehension question about it below.

But how she had answered, and what the result was, she had completely forgotten.

Deng Chuan then thought of the many black-and-white films she had watched later, both domestic and foreign. She would be curled up on Xu Wei's warm sofa, perhaps with a cat named Zhou Liu in her arms. Those black-and-white lights and shadows flickered across her face, reflected in her calm eyes.

In those moments, she never thought of that sentence. Just as warmth and dampness are two completely different experiences.

But there must have been something in common that made her think of both Yu Kwang-chung and those times at this moment.

Often, many feelings are just the experience of a single moment, but that sentence now replayed in Deng Chuan's mind, like some of the chaotic shots in the black-and-white films she had seen. But at this moment, there was no cat in her arms, and before her was a rainy England.

And because of this, those common emotions could resonate now: that land separated by mountains and rivers, her distant hometown and a future shrouded in mist, the heroines with their deep-set eyes in the black-and-white films, and to a more distant place, a slender, murmuring river with reeds growing thick on both banks, where the water vapor rose to dampen an ancient ballad.

The water vapor from the drenched vegetation rushed towards them. Deng Chuan felt the hem of her coat was already slightly damp. She didn't mind, but Lao Lin pulled her further inside.

"This rain is pretty heavy," he said.

"Yeah," Deng Chuan replied.

The students who had gone to the dorm to change came running back with splashing footsteps, droplets of water on their shoes. This time, each of them held a black umbrella. They smiled at the three of them through the rain and said, "Shall we go?"

By the time they were halfway there, the rain gradually subsided. Some people had already closed their umbrellas. Deng Chuan looked at them and thought they looked as if they were leaning on their black umbrellas like canes.

The group took a car to the nearest large supermarket. Lao Lin walked at the back of the group and quietly discussed with Deng Chuan buying some communal supplies for the apartment, like trash bags, paper towels, and so on.

Deng Chuan nodded without objection.

Lao Lin pushed the shopping cart. After a moment of silence, he suddenly spoke hesitantly in Chinese, "I'm sorry."

Deng Chuan glanced at him, confused.

Lao Lin said, "I've been thinking about it for a few days… What I said before, gossiping about you, was completely out of line. I'm really sorry. Ugh, it's a bad habit of mine, I tend to gossip too much. Don't take it to heart. And about your girlfriend… I really didn't know that was your girlfriend… Um, anyway, sorry, I hope you can forgive me."

Deng Chuan listened and nodded.

The mention of that incident still put her in a bad mood. Anyone would be in a bad mood if they were the subject of such distasteful speculation. Although Deng Chuan had silently drawn a line between herself and Lao Lin, him taking the initiative to clear the air made her heart soften a little.

Therefore, Deng Chuan thought for a moment and said, "It's okay."

Lao Lin looked at her earnestly. "So, can we go back to how we were before? Before you return to China? Be our friendly roommates?"

"Yeah," Deng Chuan said, a small smile appearing. "Of course."

Although Lao Lin was a good student who had seen a lot on his journey- an undergraduate from P University, now a master's student in economics at Oxford- his personality in this matter was quite childish. Hearing Deng Chuan's words, he excitedly pumped his fist and, as if embarrassed, darted to the front of their group. Deng Chuan could hear his voice from far away: "Buy steak! I want to eat steak! Filet!"

The red-haired girl smiled and asked Deng Chuan, "What's wrong with Lin?"

Deng Chuan took a can of frozen peas from a nearby shelf and shrugged. "Who knows."

The group, laden with bags, made their way back to the apartment Lao Lin and Deng Chuan shared.

On the way back, the rain had stopped. The sky, with its clouds and rain dispersed, once again revealed its flawless azure blue. A few scattered white clouds dotted the edge of the skyline like scattered cotton candy.

The fresh, post-rain air cleared one's mind. Walking down the street, breathing in the crisp air, Deng Chuan could feel the dampness clinging to her being slowly stripped away.

Thankfully, she had closed the window when she left that morning, so the documents and laptop she had left on the bay window weren't wet. After checking the windows and doors, she took off her coat and walked out of her room. The living room and kitchen were already quite lively.

After a few rounds of drinks, someone suggested connecting the living room speakers to a tablet for karaoke. While muttering, "That's not a good idea, it'll bother the neighbors," Lao Lin quickly connected the tablet to the TV's Bluetooth.

Everyone was trying to nominate the first person to sing. Someone even disregarded the foreign friends present and used a Chinese idiom, "It's okay if you don't sing well. You're just casting a brick to attract jade. You get it, casting a brick to attract jade?"

For a moment, Deng Chuan couldn't tell if the speaker was trying to encourage someone or crush their confidence. The red-haired girl asked her, "What does that mean?" She could only smile and say, "It means to be confident."

Seeing that no one was stepping up, Deng Chuan said, "I'll go, then."

She walked forward and searched through Lao Lin's tablet for a while before finally finding the song she was looking for.

"The Body In Rainfall," she said. "Thank you."

Many people present had heard the song and applauded her.

The song itself had a rock vibe, which didn't seem to match Deng Chuan's image. Everyone thought she seemed like someone who would sing something light and gentle like "Young and Promising" or "When We Are Young." But when Deng Chuan said "thank you" with a placid expression, the people present were strangely convinced, feeling that she might have a surprise in store for them.

So their applause grew even more enthusiastic.

As the electric guitar intro began, Deng Chuan started to sing:

Dreaming two hours, left in the day,

I can hardly watch straight, all on my own,

As we're passing the park, the street lamps go dark,

Tell me what you think of me, of me!

Perhaps filled with emotion, her voice had a metallic quality, as if a mouthful of beer had rolled down her throat. She was singing, yet it was as if she wanted to say something. As the final line of lyrics scrolled across the screen, Deng Chuan sang the last sentence, then repeated it in a tone lower than her usual speaking voice:

And I can't say no, the body in rainfall.

As the last note of the accompaniment faded, the song stopped automatically. Deng Chuan returned to her usual calm and beautiful demeanor. She didn't look at anyone present, only gazed into the empty space before her, and said once more:

"Thank you."

Applause rose from the sofa.

Thank you.

Deng Chuan repeated it solemnly in her heart. For everything, past and present, she had to say thank you.

All this time, there had always been someone holding an umbrella for her, but now, she had decided to cast off all the care and protection that sheltered her and place herself in the rain.

She would pierce through the rain and mist, and return to the other side of another continent.

The rivers are eternal, the sound of the rain unceasing, just like something timeless.

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