After the ladies have their turn, Zhou Xiwei slips in.
He’s only ten minutes into his own shower when the door opens and he hears Song Bai, Qian Li, Zhang Zhiping, and Ding Dongqi filing in, chatting about whether or not they can go rock climbing on the cliffs at the far side of the crater.
What a profoundly terrible idea.
Zhou Xiwei scrubs a little more quickly and turns his front towards the corner, just in case someone wants to be an asshole and rip open the curtain like he used to at school. And university. And once, on the yacht, even though the showers weren’t shared at all.
As their classmates in English class used to joke, Dongqi is a donkey.
“XiXi, you showering?” Song Bai’s pleasant voice rings out.
“En, but I can be done if you need-”
“No worries, there are five stalls, and we’re all men here.”
Ding Dongqi yelps, no doubt having been hit for making a rude gesture or comment or face. Really, the guy lives to disparage him. The correction silently passes, and the four of them start to strip down, still chatting.
“It’s volcanic, plenty of handgrips, definitely didn’t look too technical, so really if we could just find some leather gloves to account for cuts….” Zhang Zhiping has always been an adrenaline junkie, but Qian Li and Song Bai sound like they’ve been doing their best to talk him down from his death-seeking.
“You want to rockclimb. After surviving a shipwreck. On an island with no medical team and no supplies for when you break something? Amazingly foolish.”
This is why they leave Song Bai in charge, and Qian Li follows up by summing up his thoughts with a simple:
“This is why men die young. Aren’t you the only heir for your family?”
Ding Dongqi clicks his tongue, “Ai, you guys are so boring, honestly. No adrenaline, and now-” Sure enough, he opens the curtains, even starts opening Zhou Xiwei’s, before Song Bai stops him. Which earns another huff.
“What? We’re all men here, you just said! Who even put up these maidenly little things? Hey, XiXi, tell the truth, was it-?”
“You want to complain about my handiwork?” Song Bai’s voice drops several degrees as he claims credit for the stalls. “And stop always trying to catch him naked. Go to the opposite end, you perverted old goat.”
“I’m the pervert? Who was the one who- mmmphfff”
Zhou Xiwei relaxes, when he hears the sound of someone forcibly shutting up Ding Dongqi, and better still, peeks out and sees that Qian Li is the person in the ‘stall’ next to his. Qian Li isn’t bad. He won’t embarrass Zhou Xiwei, and he won’t cause him to embarrass himself by being someone he’s attracted to. He’s a blandly safe person.
Win-win.
And… probably intentional.
Probably Song Bai’s design, because he’s exactly the type of person to thoughtfully arrange them all so that no one is too put out. Though Ding Dongqi (when finally loosed of his gag) bitches endlessly about why his tap is the only one that’s freezing.
Qian Li laughs.
“Karma, like the dude said.”
“Oh, fuck off. Trade with me.”
Song Bai vetoes that idea with a dismissive snort and something that sounds like a towel snap. Not that anyone in the world likes Ding Dongqi enough to take a cold shower on his behalf.
“Take your punishment. Anyway, all the water is the same. Lukewarm at best, so stop whining. Honestly, and you talked about other people being maidens…”
Zhou Xiwei looks up at his still-toasty stream of water and his favorite shampoo and… thinks that it would be pretty cool, if karma really did work so straightforwardly. If he was really having a good time because he was being polite, and Dongqi was getting accosted by flies and cold because he was being rude and creepy.
Of course, Zhou Xiwei knows that he’s just being silly.
He just chose the right tap when he came this morning, and chose the same one this evening.
As for the soap? He just likes a fairly common set of scents, popular with young men who want to feel masculine. Like the undercut, it’s a piece of youthful vigor that he can cling to, even if his personality and his body are too delicate to be taken seriously.
He’s getting unexpectedly lucky, just like his sister, but that’s all. If he starts to think that there’s a heavenly design doling out shower products, he should really check himself in for observation.
Still, he’s sure to quickly rinse off and offer his tap to Qian Li as he heads out. It’s good to share! Though as luck would have it–
“Ah, damn. Seems the heater gave you the last it had. Thanks though. I’ll try this one first tomorrow.”
Well, he tried…
He walks back to his spotless room and lays down on his nearly-plush bed, says goodnight to his sister, and has a wonderful sleep.
This time, he’s relaxed enough to dream. The flavor is… unexpected.
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.
—
Pc atf vgfjw, Itbe Wlkfl olcvr tlwrfio bc atf gbbo bo j mtegmt, ibbxlcu vbkc bc jc lrijcv atja ibbxr fzjmais ilxf atf bcf tf’r meggfcais riffqlcu bc. Ktbeut oeii bo ilof, jcv… atfgf’r cb mtegmt ralii rajcvlcu. Rba cbk. Lf’r regf bo atja, tf kbeiv tjnf rffc la lc qfgrbc, bg bc atf wjq. Hljc Ol’r abb vfajli-bglfcafv ab wlrr la, rb la wera cba fzlra.
But in the dream, it’s proudly standing there. It seems brand new, or at least newly roofed, and there’s even a bell chiming below him.
Interested in exploring, discount Jesus makes his way down from the cross and experiences the joy of gravity not existing in the dreaming world. He gets to float down like a leaf, spin like Peter Pan–
Heh. Pretty diverting.
When he finally stops playing around and lands, he’s surrounded by ruddy-faced little boys that are grimy in the best way– not because they’re uncared for, but because they’re free to do things like run wild in their free time, without worrying about messing up the good sofa or getting hit by cars.
A clean sort of filthiness, Zhou Xiwei supposes.
They line up like chickens pecking rice and wash up in the water trough outside the dormitory building that’s to the right of the single-gabled sanctuary. Most have to try two or three times, before they’re declared clean enough to enter.
One child, who is taller and cleaner than the others even before washing, jogs over to the church and lets himself in while the others are still trying to get cleared for their evening meal. There’s something familiar about the boy.
He reminds him of Shan Haoyu, a little.
Zhou Xiwei follows him in, floating like the world’s least impressive specter.
“Father? Father? Are you in?” The boy waits respectfully, letting his cracking voice echo through the obviously-empty building. Only when the last tremor fades does he square his shoulders and continue forward. “Okay then, Father. I’m going to get the candles ready– A-Tian has a stomach bug again.”
The boy starts diligently working, still chattering into the emptiness.
“Director Xi says that it must be an allergy. So now, he has to have a special diet, until we figure out what’s the bad thing. They’re starting with dairy, and I think he’s sadder about that than he is the sickness. You know him, he loveeees his ice cream. Say, does that count as gluttony? I don’t think it should, not really, but you’re the expert, so you can tell me!”
That’s it. That’s the whole dream.
Just watching a cute little boy work very hard to get all the candles set up just so for prayer and lighting. Just a slice of what life might have been like on the island, just a window into something completely random and remarkable in its unremarkableness.
Zhou Xiwei has never had such a non-event of a dream before.
Amazingly, when he wakes up, he clearly remembers all of it. Weird, but restful! Nothing to worry about, just a strange, innocent thing to add to the rapidly accumulating pile.
At least until he walks to the school building for breakfast and sees the stone corners of a ruin, overgrown by purplish weeds and oddly dark banana trees. At precisely the site of last night’s church. In what looks like the same footprint? Though it’s damn hard to tell, with the overgrowth and the distance.
Zou Xiwei stops, blinks– and goes to investigate, with a sense of curiosity that he normally wouldn’t indulge in. But it’s just too odd to ignore. Anyway, it’s not like anyone else is up yet. He has time to kill, and no one will know if he accidentally startles a snake or something and shows an unmasculine penchant for fleeing.
—
Zhou Xiwei circles the building cautiously, eyes widening when he uses his foot to move away some overgrown grass and finds a cornerstone dated more than fifty years ago. How on Earth?
Maybe… Maybe he saw it, subconsciously, and his sleeping mind filled in from a good guess?
He makes excuses for himself, as he sees dirt and grass-covered stones and old, mildew patterned candle stubs and even a burned husk that looks like it must have been a prayer book, once upon a time.
He’s never considered himself to be particularly observant, but maybe being in a simpler environment, or surviving a disaster, has finally unlocked his situational awareness?
Like those internet videos of someone in a gorilla costume walking in the background, and your mind filters it out until it’s called to your attention. Maybe this ruin is just that, maybe he’s a little more perceptive than he gives himself credit for.
Or hell, maybe he’s just got the world’s most useless psychic abilities, and instead of being able to run the stock market or make good real estate buys or know who likes him, maybe he can just discover the banal history of old, torn down buildings.
Power like that, could have a good career in archeology, or something.
He snorts and finds himself using his feet and hands to tidy up a little, even though it’s a ruin, even though no one cares, even though it’s a completely pointless start to the morning. He can’t explain it.
It just feels like bad juju, to stomp around and then leave without at least making a token effort. But a token effort is all it is, and he soon leaves this place laced with anxiety and oddness. And finds himself washing his hands and forearms in the same trough that the children in his dream had used.
Zhou Xiwei scrubs, and scrubs, and– it’s only when he finishes up, that he realizes that he had a little bit of expectation. It’s not logical, but a small part of him… expected Shan Haoyu to show up? Expected him to appear behind him, expected to hear a story that somehow matches his dream.
Why did he expect Shan Haoyu to stand next to him and wash his own hands and be present, in that way that Zhou Xiwei has already started to get used to, even though he hasn’t been here nearly long enough to have anything like a routine? Or any expectations of someone that was effectively a stranger, no matter how familiar he feels?
Is this delayed trauma from the wreck? Is this the weirdest crush presentation of all time?
He shakes his head at his own fickleness and decides to finally do some of that island exploring that everyone else had engaged in. Who knows, maybe he’ll stumble upon something else mysterious?
—
Sun still rising, Zhou Xiwei picks his way down to the black sand beach that they’d started at.
His borrowed sandals sink just barely against the sands, like he’s walking on a water balloon that’s just on the edge of popping. When they left the mainland, the water was a dusky teal, but here, with the sun just starting to come up, it’s almost the color of wine. If it weren’t for the streaks of orange and rose and blue starting to spill into the side, it would almost look like the entire place had a gothic filter over it.
Even the foliage seems darker and more romantic than the typical tropical fare, with blue and maroon undertones shot through everything from banana leaves to monstera to the prickly ferns, swaying in the early morning breeze coming off the sea.
Must be a subspecies.
If he and his sister hadn’t been lucky enough to be taken in by the Songs, he doesn’t think it would be so bad to end up at a place like this. Assuming they’d make an exception and let a girl in. Sure, they wouldn’t be as cosmopolitan, and probably would struggle on their entrance exams, but…
It’s a pretty place.
Tranquil.
Which is why it’s so jarring, when the clank of cans and the smell of rust invades his senses.
Zhou Xiwei turns, and discovers a new face in this small space: Scurrying across the sand like a junkyard hermit crab, is a… man? Must be a man, because what else walks on two feet? But that’s about where the expected features end. He’s very… Different looking.
He’s wearing something tattered and black, with wild hair and an unkempt beard covering what little of his face should be visible at this distance. He’s certainly not a member of their party, but it doesn’t make sense for him to be a resident either. Shan Haoyu, Shan Yutian, Director Xi– none of them seem like the type of people to let someone suffer and scrape, so he can’t be a neighbor of theirs.
But what then? He came over on a raft? This isn’t a movie, random strangers can’t just constantly wash up.
His presence here doesn’t make sense, but Zhou Xiwei’s not bold enough to go stick his nose in.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have to– the moment the strange trash-man sees him he freezes, squints– and then hurries over, like a hunchbacked rat that’s just caught the scent of a fresh meal in its alley.
Alarming, but Zhou Xiwei’s too well-bred to flee.
Silly man.
—
It’s no mirage.
Up close, the man is filthy, so unwashed that there’s almost a miasma hovering around him. The kind of dirty where it flakes off of him, dirt and grime and oil creating cracks against what should be normal human skin. Skin that’s red and inflamed, where it’s not hidden.
Zhou Xiwei can’t imagine how overwhelming the stench would be, if he was trapped indoors with him. Even on a beach with a breeze pushing the stench downwind, he can taste the filth in the back of his throat–
Rotten seafood, rancid fruit, and… shit. Piss and shit and the gangrene of untreated wounds, all wrapped in one sackcloth package. Zhou Xiwei is mortified, but he can’t control it– He gags.
The dirty crab man doesn’t seem to notice, much less take offense. He’s too busy circling Zhou Xiwei, head tilted and nostrils flaring, like he smells something delicious. Which, fair enough. There are probably toilets that would smell wonderful to the guy. But being looked at so intently (and at such close range) by someone so obviously unwell does nothing to improve Zhou Xiwei’s nausea. He gags three more times.
On the last, he actually has to hunch over, as the little bile left in his stomach from the night before comes up and becomes a splatter of foam against the black sand.
“I’m- sorry-” He stays hunched, and dry heaves now that the mask has slipped so completely. “Sorry, just a sensitive nose, and this sir-” Oh look, a tiny bit more acid managed to make it up! “Apologies, I should go shower…”
Actually, the man should go shower. Or maybe just jump in the ocean and soak for a few hours?
But Zhou Xiwei also now feels unclean. Unclean and uncouth and–
Fuck, this must be mental illness, right?
This man is insane, and this island doesn’t have psychiatric care, so he’s been left in a near-feral state. When they get picked up, he’ll have to remember to have someone bring this man to somewhere with services. For the offense of throwing up in front of him, Zhou Xiwei will even pay his bills, at whatever inpatient center can get him clean and human again.
He waves his hand in apology, which proves to be a mistake.
The tower of grime sees his weak appearance and his open hand and– takes the opportunity to lick his palm.
Zhou Xiwei can’t process–
How–
No matter how unwashed you are, no matter how mentally ill, shouldn’t a tongue feel like a tongue? Wet? Slippery? Horrid?
But no. This man’s tongue– is so dry and cracked that Zhou Xiwei actually looks up, just to make sure he’s not being nosed or handed a dried up sea cucumber or something? It’s like– like when he was seven, and he got to meet his friend’s parrot, and the thing clicked its dry, black tongue against him while hunting for cashews and mango.
Humans shouldn’t have tongues like that.
They certainly shouldn’t use them on other humans, nor look orgasmically euphoric at whatever soap and clean skin tastes like. He can’t. He tried. He-
Runs away, as fast as he can.
Mercifully, after a few eager steps, the fly-ringed man doesn’t follow.
He never takes a single step off of the sand.
—
Showering doesn’t seem like such a great prospect, once he’s safely away from the beach.
Something about the idea of being naked, even to get clean, after such a strange assault, is too much for Zhou Xiwei. He wants to be clean, but he doesn’t want to be exposed. Not after something so bizarrely exposing.
The conflicting impulses run riot, and he ends up once more at the trough in front of the schoolhouse, pumping fresh water and rubbing himself in the iciness until his hands are red and puffy. But even with all the scrubbing, he feels the lingering scratch against his palm. It seems to be growing.
He wishes there was soap, wishes–
In his peripheral vision, a mercifully clean and fine-boned hand holds out a pump bottle of lemon-scented salvation. He gratefully lets Shan Haoyu squirt some into his palms and gives them a good (re)scrub before accepting the clean hand towel that Shan Haoyu has pulled from who-knows-where. Finally, the offputting sensation has stopped.
He’s never been happier for someone to witness his neurosis.
Zhou Xiwei always assumed that Song Bai’s ability to anticipate needs was a unique character trait. Or even his own rose-colored glasses. It’s strange to meet a second person with the same gift. Someone who might even be better at it, though it’s hard to notice through the silence and the newness of their acquaintance.
He’s damn grateful, regardless.
He pats his hands dry while Shan Haoyu supervises, silently looking over at him with a small furrow between his brows. When he’s finished– sonofabitch, but Shan Haoyu has moisturizer. Same clean lemon scent. No explanation for why, exactly, an island that seems to house three (four?) men would have something like French hand cream.
Zhou Xiwei’s delighted (and surprised) enough to be temporarily dumbstruck. Like a careful child, Shan Haoyu deposits two small dollops of the cream onto his cupped palms, and presses them together with a disapproving sigh.
“You’ve been touching unclean things.”
Zhou Xiwei finds himself apologizing for what feels like the hundredth time.
He knew it wasn’t very appropriate to go traipsing around in someone else’s burned-out church, yet he did so anyway, just on a whim. Probaby, Shan Haoyu had seen him out his window and attributed the scrubdown to that.
“Oh, right, sorry. I just– I saw the trees, and was a little curious. I’m sorry if I disturbed anything.”
“You can go wherever you want. But don’t–” Shan Haoyu looks in the distance, at some point Zhou Xiwei can’t see. “Being a good person is good. But you should be a little bit careful about who you’re good to. In my opinion.”
Oh.
Not the church then. The man.
Zhou Xiwei finds himself gagging again, and hides his face from Shan Haoyu. Who just… pats his back, like that’s a totally normal reaction to another human being, and not something shameful and weak. Like it’s not something that requires explanation.
Which means it’s down to Zhou Xiwei to ask.
“Yeah, that guy was… Um… who is he? Has he always been that sick?”
“En. It’s best not to go near him.”
“But, shouldn’t we help…?”
“The last time someone tried to help him, there were injuries.”
“Well, maybe, from the mainland, we can get some help and-” Zhou Xiwei smartly cuts his own words short, at the look on Shan Haoyu’s face. He also learns something– Shan Haoyu looks handsome when he smiles, and… Also handsome when he’s cold and withdrawn. But Zhou Xiwei doesn’t like it. So he decides to mind his own business, especially when rescue is still weeks away.
Burn that bridge when they get to it, or whatever’s the saying…
“Sorry. I’m not trying to be nosy.”
Shan Haoyu morphs back to the self that Zhou Xiwei is quickly growing familiar with, in these small moments that they keep sharing. Soft, and uncertain, and melancholic, but not malicious. How he should look, maybe without the melancholy.
“No. You’re trying to help. But- He might hurt you. He’s… perverted, in addition to being unclean.”
With that revelation, despite the towel and the lotion, Zhou Xiwei finds himself scrubbing his palms again, with special focus on where that tongue-that-isn’t had mapped his palm. Unclean, unclean– He doesn’t want to be unclean, his own desires are unclean enough without the addition of others’ perversions.
Shan Haoyu quietly stands to the side and provides soap and toweling and lotion, like it’s natural, like it’s fine, like Zhou Xiwei isn’t strange at all, for his own bad decisions or his silly responses to them.
Despite the circumstances, it makes Zhou Xiwei feel better. Protected. Even a little… sweet?
Bah. He must be losing his mind, ‘sweet’ shouldn’t have any quarter with a morning as upsettingly strange as this one is shaping up to be.
Author’s Corner:
Certain people, in certain situations, can be blind to even the most obvious interruptions.
In the invisible gorilla test, the participants were so busy trying to complete the task (count the passes of the white-shirted students), that over half missed the interloper. In Zhou Xiwei’s personal life, he’s so busy trying to catalogue and return any little kindness given, that he makes himself blind to all the hurts that make it through.
He might know he’s blind, just like we do when we’re set up for an optical illusion, or a sleight of hand. But just like us, he keeps going, maybe even being willful in his inattention. After all, imagine the unpleasant joylessness of living your own life looking out for inivisible gorillas, looking for the trick instead of enjoying the treat, being aware of the hidden slings of your ‘friends.’
Unfortunately, once you get into the habit of discounting your own awareness, you can miss all kinds of clues and warnings. 
Thanks for the chapter.
Come on! Place your bets; who will be the first to have something horrible happen to themselves? The perverted old goat or the adrenaline junkie?!
this last comment from the author makes it look as though you already missed a few hints 😂
I am very concern about the fact that Qian LI has also cold water. Donkey guy has it but everyone and their mothers knows he is a jackass. Qian Li ? Seemed fine…
And the weird sand guy… i would have run QwQ Baby Zhou you’re awareness of possible danger is sh*t
Thank you for the chapter, made my day !
Thanks for the chapter ! ^^
Being too polite has gotten so many people into bad situations! The first time I heard my kid say “I don’t want to do that,” I felt like I could relax for the first time since he was born. I don’t think that beach garbage thing is human, but I bet Ding Dongqi will think it’s just a normal person 😆.
God what was that strange man? Now I’m curious!!
So disgusting
I hope Zhou xiwei do as ML as says and be careful with whom to be good with