Green Plum IslandCh10 - Against Norms

Grandpa asks me to take time off tomorrow because he wants me to take Tortoise King and escort Granny up into the mountains to pay respects to her fellow sisters. He doesn’t want her hiking up the slippery, wet mountainous trails on her own. It’s Granny, so I agree immediately, telling Grandpa to leave everything to me and reassure him that I’ll make sure the trip goes smoothly.

When eight p.m. comes around, I promptly go over to Yan Kongshan’s house to fluster my way around asking for leave yet again. OvMVCd

Previously, when he agreed to let me volunteer at the bookstore, he said he didn’t allow asking for time off, yet I seem to be consistently breaking that promise as of late and it makes me feel bad.

“…that’s the gist of it.”

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Yan Kongshan is brushing Yan Wanqiu’s hair. The little girl sits on a chair wearing a white cotton nightgown, fiddling with a Rubik’s cube. She’s quite fast with it–not to a startling degree, but still impressive for a preschool-aged kid. It’s clear she knows what she’s doing, trying to match the colours on all sides. Not that I interact with a lot of young children, but I do wonder whether all kids are like her. Sometimes it’s hard to believe she’s five years old; in many ways she seems almost too smart, too mature.

“Incense lighting for her sisters?” xTURIW

The way Yan Kongshan blowdries the girl’s hair resembles how he ruffled mine before. Watching him move Yan Wanqiu’s head from side to side almost gives me whiplash.

“My grandpa says that’s how the spinster ancestral tomb works. Since Comb Sisters never marry and don’t have husbands or children, when they pass away, the living Comb Sisters are the ones who arrange their funerals and light incense for them every year.” The blowdryer is loud, so I step in closer to him and continue, “Granny is the island’s last Comb Sister, so tomorrow she has a lot of things to carry up the mountain.”

Yan Kongshan turns the blowdryer off and starts brushing Yan Wanqiu’s frizzy hair with a comb from the side.

“Do you need any help?” he asks, looking up at me.

When Yan Kongshan isn’t smiling, his lips turn downwards and it gives him a mean look, but when he’s in a good mood, his eyes are especially beautiful, as if hidden within his gaze are little hooks that are constantly digging into the softest parts of your heart.

As nice as it would be to spend more time with him, to get to know him more, to get closer with him, it’s far too strange for him to come along to light incense, and I’m sure he only offered out of politeness. Not to mention, tomorrow is a holiday, meaning the bookstore is going to get busy. With already one employee gone, if Wen Ying is left all alone, he’ll be pissed.

I wave my hands at Yan Kongshan and say, “It’s alright, there’s no need. I’ll be fine on my own.”

He doesn’t press further, just continues brushing Yan Wanqiu’s hair. When he’s done, the Rubik’s cube in her hand is back to its original state. xYfdGg

“I did it!” she exclaims, raising the cube above her looking like the Statue of Liberty.

“Amazing!” I start clapping my hands for her.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

She turns around and looks at Yan Kongshan. “So can I play video games with Yu Mian then?”

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How could that possibly trouble me? It’s the perfect opportunity to show off my skills!

“It’s no trouble at all,” I say hurriedly. “I like gaming too.”

While Yan Kongshan bends down to pick the girl up, I rub hard at the burning spot on my ear where his breath landed on. I always feel as if he’s naturally seductive, but in front of women, he tends to act with reservation. Is it because I’m a boy that he’s much less inhibited and seemingly sexual?

Yan Wanqiu and I game until past nine. Since I have to be up early the next day, I get up to leave after we finish, but Yan Kongshan seems to want to talk to me because he asks me to wait for him downstairs. He carries Yan Wanqiu up to her bedroom, and a couple minutes later comes hurrying back down. MTA bo

“I’ll take you home,” he says, approaching me.

Our houses are less than twenty metres apart. In the past, he’s always just walked me to his front gate, but apparently today, he wants to walk me all the way to my house.

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It’s hard to tell what this is. Whenever we interact in close proximity, there’s a charged, ambiguous atmosphere between us… almost like we’re a couple, but not. But his mood index is pure white with not a hint of yellow or pink, leading me to question whether I’m just getting ahead of myself and letting bias cloud my judgement.

He walks me up to my door. I take my silver key out and hesitate, unsure whether to open the door or not, and if so, whether or not to invite him in, and if so, how I’d get him up to my room without Grandpa seeing. VdYrI8

“I know I said you couldn’t take time off, but after all, you aren’t being paid. If you ever feel like you need a break, asking for a couple days off is fine.” Yan Kongshan’s voice cuts in, putting a stop to my exceedingly perverted fantasies. “Every day that you work in the shop, you can borrow two books from my library. There’s still a lot left of summer holidays, plenty enough for you to borrow enough books to last you several months. So don’t be afraid to ask for time off.”

I sigh. Of course, I’m overthinking. He wanted to walk me home just to explain my work benefits to me. I do my best to squash my disappointment. “Okay, if I need a break, I’ll ask for time off.”

I bid him farewell, and walk inside the house. The door swings slowly shut, Yan Kongshan’s moonlit silhouette fading away in the crack between the doorframe.

The next morning, I’m up and out of the house before seven to go pick up Granny. She lives not too far from Grandpa, just about a ten-minute walk away. Sometimes, she walks her dog over and watches a few episodes of TV with Grandpa before walking back home. v5NEfo

“Mian Mian, thanks so much for today.” Granny is waiting at the side of the road. Today, she’s not wearing a qipao but a black dress, her silvery white hair clipped back with a hair pin. At her feet are a bunch of bags filled with offerings and candles.

“No problem, why be so formal with me?” I help her place her bags into the large basket installed in front of Tortoise King, then wait until she’s settled in behind me and has her arms steady around my waist before hitting the pedals and setting off for the top of the hills.

Green Plum Island is surrounded by mountains and the sea. More than half the island is covered in mountains. They say that those who live by mountains are blessed with mountain bounties and those who live by water are blessed with water bounties–Green Plum Island experiences the best of both worlds.

Originally, there was no public cemetery on the island. Locals were simply buried in the mountain soil; they believed in leaving the world as they came. Ten years prior, the government built a special new cemetery on the island to promote a new burial method: cremation. In order to encourage locals to accept cremation as a burial practise, loud radios blared for twelve hours a day all over the island with one message: Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, cremation brings wealth and fortune to the masses. 4qLd9b

Sun Rui told me all this in bits and pieces during our times lounging around. She said that during those two months, the slogan seeped so deeply into her mind that she even dreamed about it–a great trauma for a young child.

I asked her who came up with the slogan because it sounded so familiar, and she told me that the island locals were allowed to send in ideas to the government by mail. They chose the best one, which she proudly informed me was her father’s poetic contribution. Everyone voted unanimously for his idea.

And thus, that was the reason it sounded so familiar.

After half an hour on Tortoise King, Granny and I arrive at the bottom of a hill towards the south of the island. The small mountain used to have a formal name–“Phoenix Hill,” but because there were so many round burial domes on it, everyone ended up just calling it the “Baobao Hill.” They basically turned the cool guy into a cutesy little thing. nfWmFw

I park the bike and carry the bags while Granny walks ahead with lithe, graceful steps.

“It’s so much nicer in the mountains! My lungs feel so much better.”

The hill isn’t high, but I’m holding a lot of things and the climb is quickly rendering me out of breath. “The air on the island… on the island is really a lot better. The city is so dusty, you even feel like the leaves on the trees have a layer of dust on them.”

Granny sprints up to the top of the hill with a few steps. Turning around, she shouts down at me, “Mian Mian, your stamina is lacking! What kind of boy starts panting over just this tiny hike?” lAJbMv

I grit my teeth and charge up the hill, clambering up three steps in one. When I finally reach the top, my knees feel like they’re about to give out.

Granny slaps a palm down on me, nearly causing me to stagger. “You need to be like that neighbour of yours, look at his build, it’s obvious he exercises habitually.”

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It’s not hard to guess she’s talking about Yan Kongshan.

Placing the bags on the floor, I collapse on a nearby boulder to catch my breath. “I doubt I’ll ever reach his height,” I say, self-aware. qNSt2X

“It’s okay, you can use your fantasies to overcome the reality that you’re just skin and bones,” Granny consoles me.

“…”

I don’t find her words particularly comforting.

The Comb Sisters’ tombs are scattered throughout the hills, but Granny remembers the way to each of them. She even remembers their names, when they were born, and when they died. She considers it her duty–the duty of the still living, to do all this. QG9aj0

As we pay respects to tomb after tomb, Granny’s mood index glows with a faint blue. I stay silent, understanding that she’s cherishing the memories of old friends.

I catch up to her quickly and can’t help asking, “Granny, do some people have regrets?”

“Regrets? You mean the Comb Sisters?” Granny asks as she walks.

“Hmm.” Xa5Qy0

“I don’t know about the others, but I don’t regret a thing.” There’s a smile at the corners of her lips. All her previous feelings of sorrow are behind us, in the mountains.

Back in Granny’s era, deciding not to marry was something that required a lot of courage. Never mind that, even now, women who choose not to marry aren’t necessarily understood by those around them. It occurs to me that my situation is quite similar, perhaps even worse.

Fu Wei was just a single obstacle in my life as a gay man, and I know that the future holds countless more to come.

It scares me and puts me at a loss. “Is it hard to stand against the world’s norms?” J97Qmt

Will my life be extremely tough?

Naturally, Granny is unaware of my struggles, so all she can offer me is her own experience. “Sometimes you get angry over people who stick their nose in your business. But hard?” A huff of laughter escapes her nostrils. “My life isn’t hard. Living in poverty is hard. With money, life isn’t too tough. You can even be happy.”

“…”

Somehow, her words are meaningful to me. EyeWbD

Before we left, Grandpa told me to bring Granny over to eat lunch, so when we start heading back, I bring us straight home. I’ve just parked the bike at the entrance to the yard when sounds of fighting erupt from inside.

A somewhat familiar-sounding male voice is speaking: “Listen, I’m her dad, her biological father. I’m really not a creep, just let me see her. I promise I’ll just look, I won’t do anything else–”

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“And I already said, I’m taking care of someone else’s child, I’m not just going to let you do whatever you want.” Grandpa’s voice is resolute. “You’re trespassing, if you keep this up, I’m calling the police!”