One day after the holidays, Chen Xingze calls Lu Hao out to hang out. They schedule to meet at half past ten in front of a bookstore, but when the time comes and the clock ticks towards eleven, there’s still no sign of Lu Hao. Cben Xingze calls him and is informed that he overslept and is rushing over.
“Don’t be in such a hurry, safety comes first. You’re already so late anyways,” Chen Xingze says.
“Go wait for me inside, it’s too cold outside!” comes Lu Hao’s voice through the receiver, accompanied by the rushing sound of the wind.
“How long will you be?”
“I’m about to get a cab, I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Then let’s just meet outside.”
It takes Lu Hao only ten minutes after hanging up to arrive, probably because of how much he was harassing the driver to go faster. When he arrives, he immediately goes berserk: “Didn’t I tell you to wait inside?”
“I can’t believe you’re getting mad at me,” Chen Xingze says, prying open a freshly roasted yam he just bought off a street vendor. Hot steam rises out of the yellow pulp into the winter air.
Lu Hao sticks his head over. “I wanna eat too.”
“Fuck off, latecomers don’t have yam-eating privileges.”
“I was in such a rush to get here that I couldn’t even eat breakfast.”
“It’s your own fault for sleeping in.” Lu Hao blinks at him pitifully, and he adds, “You were out playing ball last night, weren’t you? Are you capable of doing anything besides playing and eating?”
“Going to bookstores with you.”
“…..” It’s really something to be so naturally air-headed, Chen Xingze thinks internally. It’s somehow more effective on people than being a manipulative gay like himself. He produces a second yam from his arms.
“Aiya, you’re the best!” Lu Hao’s eyes brighten in an instant as he reaches out to take the yam. “You bought two to begin with, didn’t you? You were just messing with me.”
“Eat slower, you’re gonna choke,” Chen Xingze says, shooting him a look. In fact, he hadn’t just bought two yams; he’d kept Lu Hao’s yam inside his coat so that it wouldn’t get cold. The freshly roasted yam had burned against his skin, making it itch. He knew Lu Hao had gone to play ball yesterday and hadn’t planned on calling him out. Lu Hao has absolutely zero interest in bookstores anyways. But he always comes.
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.
“Why would you buy paper books when there are ebooks? It’s such a hassle to hold.” As Chen Xingze stands calmly before a shelf, Lu Hao is always next to him, making a mess.
“A basketball is much heavier than a book,” he replies without looking up.
“But you’re not always holding a basketball in your hands.”
“No feeling comes of reading an ebook.”
“You have to have feelings when you read a book?” Chen Xingze shoves his palm towards Lu Hao’s face, the latter shrinks back. “What now, are you gonna smack me?”
“Sniff.”
Lu Hao stretches his neck and gives a dubious sniff. He gets a faint whiff of ink scent. “Ah… I don’t get you book lovers.”
“I only like reading for pleasure anyway, I can’t take in anything from a textbook.” Right then, Chen Xingze catches sight of the collection of Eileen Chang’s works he’d been obsessed with sitting on a literary fiction shelf. He pulls out a single book from the stack, then says, “Let’s go and sit in a cafe for awhile. I feel like you’re at the limits of boredom.”
The cafe in question is located on the second floor of this newly opened three-story book bar near his house. Chen Xingze orders a cup of coffee, Lu Hao gets a cup of milk. It’s a habit of his to order milk no matter what kind of beverage shop he’s at, and a great source of amusement to Chen Xingze.
“I see we still haven’t weaned off milk today.”
By now, Lu Hao is immune to his taunting. Not to mention, he never found drinking milk embarrassing to begin with; he spends a lot of time trying to convince Chen Xingze to drink it with him. “You can grow taller if you drink more milk. This is why you’re shorter than I am.”
“I’m happy with my height. You, on the other hand, are way too tall.” Then, thinking that the yam from earlier probably did nothing to assuage this tall idiot’s hunger, he buys a cake and salad, carrying the dishes on a tray towards a table in the seating area. On the way, he sneaks a sideways glance at Lu Hao. At 176 cm himself, he’s still growing rapidly. But Lu Hao had already been 179 cm when they entered school. Now a year later, he’s probably grown 4-5 cm.
Lu Hao latches onto the topic of height and as he’s following behind Chen Xingze, muses, “Say, if I were gay too and we were together, I’d be the ‘husband’, wouldn’t I?”
Chen Xingze’s hands jerk, nearly sending the tray clattering to the floor. He tightens his grasp swiftly and proceeds to defend his dignity as a top. “That’s not how it works, geez!”
“It’s based off aura and presence, no? Well, height gives a person natural presence.”
“Such shallow words could only come from you.” To which Lu Hao huffs indignantly. Chen Xingze chooses a sunny seat by the window, puts the tray on the table, and says, “Besides, you’re not even gay, so what’s the point of posturing all this.”
To which Lu Hao gives another indignant huff.
As Chen Xingze reads, Lu Hao naps beside him on the plush couch. At first, he can’t concentrate on his book at all, Lu Hao’s words from before running through his head. It isn’t the first time Lu Hao brought up such things; Chen Xingze has a hard time determining whether he was simply jesting each time, or serious.
Such is the innocence of feelings in youth. Rationality tells him that this is a dead-end road, yet he can’t control himself from grabbing onto the tendrils of Lu Hao’s random comments and letting them take him on flights of fantasies in his own head.
He stares down at the book in his hands—Eileen Chang’s novella, Red Rose, White Rose. According to literary critics, the work is Eileen Chang’s examination of women’s roles and identities in a patriarchal society, as well as her rebellion against and questioning of traditionally female societal roles. In fact, this is just a foil. The most important thing the story leaves readers with is a philosophical theory in the quote:
“Marry a red rose and eventually she’ll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one is ‘moonlight in front of my bed’. Marry a white rose, and before long she’ll be a grain of sticky rice that’s gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by then, is a scarlet beauty mark just over your heart.” ¹
The most base male concept of “the one that got away,” the romanticization of the idea of “eyeing the pot while eating what’s in the bowl,” had been delegated to such soft, elegant labels—rose, moonlight, scarlet beauty mark—making the terms so widespread and commonplace. ²
It’s not a long novella and before long, Chen Xingze finishes reading it. He concludes that his dear confidante Eileen Chang was a person who had little faith in human nature. She believed in love, but not in people. And indeed, what woman would not believe in love? Yet this belief is always riddled with doubt.
He places himself within the book and agrees that “every man has encountered two roses in his life.” The white rose and red rose in his head are respectively assigned to You Xiaolin and Lu Hao, the first a pure white moon, the second a passionate fire. One he gave away the most potent of feelings for, another he received the most potent of feelings from.
He raises his eyes towards Lu Hao, snoring away on the table. Reasons with himself that either way, he can’t marry either of them anyway. Both roses are meant to bloom, charmingly, seductively, forever out of reach in his life.
He flips the book shut and indulges himself one step further. Even if he were to marry one of the two, things wouldn’t end up how they do in the book. He wouldn’t be like Tong Zhenbao, he wouldn’t destroy everything in his life. Flowers are meant to be protected. No matter what happens, he would never hurt either boy. Just the thought of either of them in pain is unbearable to him.
Chen Xingze is finished reading, but Lu Hao is still deep in slumber, so he doesn’t have the heart to wake him and digs out his phone…
__
After an infinite amount of pondering, Mi Sheng decides to shrug off the expensive coat he has on before knocking on the door.
Inside, his father calls out “Who’s there?” and Mi Sheng says, “Your son,” which is how he ends up receiving a torrent of tea water to his face as soon as the door opens.
Good thing he took off his coat. It had been expensive, from the latest collection of some luxury brand or another. Money had been hard to come buy lately, but he’d purchased it by skipping meals and saving every last cent. Working in a snobbish, pompous industry where there are constant eyeballs appraising your materialistic worth, it’s easy to be looked down upon if you don’t own an expensive coat or two.
“You aren’t my son! I have no such son, get the hell ou—“ The shouting is broken up by a torrent of savage coughing.
Mi Sheng’s voice is monotonous as he replies, “Let’s give it a rest, yeah?”
Paying no mind, Mi Zhenguo finishes: “Get the hell out of here!”
Mi Jie appears from within the flat then, impatience written all over her face. “Are you done?!” She yanks Mi Zhenguo back into the room and pushes Mi Sheng out the door so they can speak at the entrance. “The money?”
“Asking for money straightaway, is that any way for siblings to speak?”
His sister stares at him without speaking. They share the same cold, dead stare and foxy eyes. “I don’t have the energy to fight with you today. Either give me the money or leave.”
Mi Sheng’s brows crease together. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” Mi Jie scoffs. “Mum had another episode today and I was called back by Dad in the middle of a date. It’s the fourth time this has happened, and my boyfriend decided to break up with me over the phone just now. So if you really want to know what’s wrong, well that’s that. Nothing special.”
He knows her boyfriend, an employee from the company she works at. A common-looking man with an even more average career; in truth he always thought the man wasn’t good enough for Mi Jie. But unfortunately, lots of things in life can’t be appraised so simply.
“Is there no chance for a reconciliation? What if you explained the situation to him?” he asks.
Mi Jie laughs bitterly. “What’s the point? He broke up over interrupted dates. Imagine if he found out about my terminally ill father, mentally ill mother, and gay brother. I’d be eviscerated like the plague.”
Her words stab him in the chest, but he doesn’t let it show on his face. Instead, he digs out a card and hands it to her. “Good thing you broke up, the guy was so ugly I could barely stomach my food.”
But his joke lands flat and doesn’t fix the atmosphere between them. Mi Jie takes the card and shuts the door, but Mi Sheng stops her. He stuffs another card in her hands. “Use this on yourself, buy yourself some clothes and bags. I’ll leave Mum and Dad to you.”
Mi Jie takes the card and shuts the door without another word.
After Mi Sheng leaves his family home, he stands out in the neighbourhood for a long time without moving. It’s not until the chilly winter wind pierces straight through his skin that he remembers to put on his coat again.
His phone vibrates then. It’s a text from Chen Xingze.
——What are you doing?
“Your mum,” he curses out loud crudely. Then scoffs. “No, should be your dad.” Too many bothersome thoughts are swirling around his mind; instead of replying to the text, he flicks down his contacts list.
He wants comfort, and if he can’t have that, then a romp in bed is fine too.
“Someone…” he murmurs, looking through his list of potentials, “someone come be with me. Anyone.”
Poor Mi Sheng cries
thanks for the chapter! <3
Thanks for the chapter! ❤
Why is everyone so pitiful? My heart aches for all of them.
I hope this story gets updated soon
Was such a nice story….
This…. is definitely dropped, isn’t it ? 🙁