Old Wounds, New Growth - Chapter 4

Translator: Deyonna

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Before class ended, we gathered together. Li Chishu and I were separated by half a football field, and as soon as the PE teacher blew the whistle indicating that class had ended, I ran over to his side.

……but Jiang Chi pulled me.

"Let's play a bit more. We didn't have morning exercises and there's still half an hour before class."

"I won't play anymore. I have something to do."

Suddenly, I saw Jiang Chi's meal card in the pocket of his pants.

"Let me borrow your meal card." I pulled out mine. "You use mine."

As Jiang Chi exchanged meal cards with me, he muttered, "What for?"

"Don't ask." I put the card in my pocket, turned my head to the exit, and quickly looked for Li Chishu's figure in the crowd of students in Class 25.

Jiang Chi asked, "Will you still play ball?"

I shook my head, spotted Li Chishu, and lifted my feet to leave.

Jiang Chi shouted after me, "Then I'll ask someone else to play."

"Then you go ask them."

Li Chishu walked alone in the crowd as usual. The sun was too strong, and he lowered his head slightly, his ears turning red from the heat. He held a vocabulary book in his hand, glancing at it from time to time, and occasionally looked up to recite a word silently.

I walked up to him and picked up my jacket from the fence, slinging it over my shoulder before speaking up. "I told you to pay attention to your eyes."

He suddenly looked up, and I took the opportunity to take the vocabulary book from his hand.

"Have you eaten?"

Li Chishu was silent for a moment. "...... You already asked me that."

"Oh, right..." I pursed my lips for a moment. "But I'm hungry now. Can you accompany me to the third floor to eat?"

There were two school cafeterias in the First Middle High School. They have similar setups, with three floors. The first floor is the cheapest and most basic cafeteria. A meat dish would cost only 1.6 yuan, while vegetable dishes were only a few cents. Basically, you won't get much meat in a meal there. The second floor was slightly better, with more balanced meat and vegetable dishes that cost around 10 yuan per meal. Most students in the school eat there. The third floor was run by outside contractors and offered a wide variety of dishes, including stir-fries, hot pots, and occasionally even Western food. The prices were higher, ranging from 20 to 30 yuan to over 100 yuan per meal, and it was a place where most people would go occasionally if they wanted to treat themselves to better food.

During my three years of senior high school, from the third floor, I had never been to the lower floors to eat, while Li Chishu, as he recalled to me many years later, had never been to any cafeteria above the first floor.

However, it didn't seem to bother him much. There were too many things in his life that he never had the chance to try, things that only had meaning when experienced during one's youth, such as the popsicle ice cream that cost 1.5 yuan in his childhood, the unique dishes on the third floor of the cafeteria, and the fresh packaged fruits in the underground supermarket. If he didn't get to taste them when he was most eager and least able to, even if he could buy them a thousand times over ten years later, he still wouldn't be able to taste the flavor he had longed for in his youth.

At this time, he looked at me, slightly confused. "Me… accompany you?"

I know, the intimacy shown by Shen Baoshan towards him today, who barely had any interaction with him, is quite abrupt, but this is the lowest limit I can tolerate. If this current rebirth is nothing but a dream, I don’t know when I will wake up. And there are still a lot of things I want to do with him.

A person's life, no matter how short, spans several decades. I have squandered nearly thirty years in comfortable material conditions, and for the first time, I feel that time is such a difficult opponent to control.

But I still managed to come up with a half-hearted reason that he couldn't argue with. "Jiang Chi and the others are going to play basketball, and no one is willing to accompany me."

I suddenly said, "Just accompany me."

Showing weakness was a very effective strategy, and from then on, I became more and more adept at using various pitiful expressions to manipulate Li Chishu when I was in a difficult situation.

As expected, he hesitated for a second before lowering his head and saying, "Okay."

Since it wasn't mealtime yet, there were only a few people on the third floor of the cafeteria.

I bought two plates of curry chicken rice and pushed one towards Li Chishu.

He immediately said, "No need."

"I already bought it." I handed him a spoon. "Just eat with me."

Li Chishu didn't know what curry tasted like before he went to university.

That sounds exaggerated, doesn't it? The first time I heard him say that, I had the same reaction.

——"How is that possible?!"

But he just smiled quietly and said, "It's true."

His smile didn't make you feel like you had offended him, but it also didn't show any hint of joking. Li Chishu just calmly told you that he had really never eaten curry before.

During his school years, the most important thing for him was studying, followed by saving money. He studied hard and saved every penny. He would even split one yuan into two if he could. Unless he was starving or freezing to death, spending an extra dime on food was a waste.

I remember everything he told me, only forgetting that the curry on the third floor of the school cafeteria was really spicy.

Li Chishu's face turned red after taking the first bite because it was so spicy. I quickly got up to buy water, but the third floor only had soft drinks. So I asked, "Do you want Sprite or Fanta?"

Even though he was choking and couldn't speak, he was still able to look back and forth between the two cooler doors.

As soon as Li Chishu's eyes flickered, I knew what he was thinking: he was trying to guess which one was cheaper.

I went straight to the cooler doors and, coincidentally, the kitchen brought out a sweet orange juice. I walked over and handed it to Li Chishu. He raised his head and drank most of it.

I bought a non-spicy beef and potato stew and put some white rice on his plate, mixing the dish into the rice for him.

"Thank you." He obediently waited for me to mix the food, staring blankly. "How much did all of this cost… next time you wipe my card…"

"What swipe?" I asked, "This is a treat from Jiang Chi. He promised to treat me after losing a basketball game. I won't let it go to waste. Don't tell me you want to return it to him?"

After I finished speaking, I showed him the card. On the campus card is Jiang Chi's head-to-shoulder photo, showing a big smiling face, revealing a clear and innocent foolishness.

Li Chishu didn't say anything else.

I asked again, "Do you have any plans for the upcoming long weekend?"

"Plans?" He hesitated for a moment and shook his head. "I'll probably just study in the classroom."

Li Chishu's home was not far from the school, but he lived in the campus dormitory all year round and rarely went home except during summer and winter vacations. There was no one at home, and his only grandmother's mental and physical health had deteriorated after his parents' accident. She lived in a nursing home with other elderly people. It's difficult for her to take care of herself, let alone take care of Li Chishu.

I buried my head in my food. "Then can you go somewhere with me?"

Thinking about how strict he is on his studies, I quickly added, "It won't delay your homework or studying. Just come with me to that place, and you can do whatever you need to do without any interruptions."

He didn't say a word.

After a while, he asked me, "Is it your home?"

"No."

Actually, I hadn't decided where to go yet.

He asked tentatively, "Will any of your other friends be there?"

"No, it's just me from start to finish."

Li Chishu seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

At this age, he wasn't very good at dealing with unfamiliar peers, especially my group of friends who came from overly privileged families. They all carried a naïve innocence that made Li Chishu feel the need to take care of them, who knew nothing about poverty.

For example, at a gathering one year, Li Chishu talked about how he was five or six years old when he followed his parents to their workplace to watch them make honeycomb coal. Jiang Chi asked with a grin, "What is honeycomb coal?"

I showed him a picture, and he pointed at it with wide eyes. "People still use this thing?"

At that time, Li Chishu lowered his eyes and smiled, and after a long time, he answered. "When I was a child, I relied on this to keep warm in winter."

Jiang Chi immediately apologized repeatedly, full of guilt and sincerity. But Li Chishu was least willing to see such guilt. Clearly, it was the suffering he had experienced, but he always made his friends feel sorry for him when they found out. It was as if that kind of past was a scar that couldn't be touched, but in fact, he wasn't so unwilling to face it.

"How about it?" After all his unease and hesitation had settled, I finally looked up at him and asked. "How about it? Will you come?"

"Is it far?" he asked.

"Not far. It's a two-hour drive," I said. "The conditions aren't great, and the place is not so good. It might be in the countryside. We'll be back after the long weekend."

He thought for a moment and nodded. "Okay."

Li Chishu wasn't really hungry. He ate less than half of the beef and potato stew. If it weren't for the fact that the school didn't have a microwave room to heat up leftovers, I wouldn't have ignored the intention in his eyes to take the leftovers with him.

After returning to class, I leaned over to Jiang Chi and asked, "Doesn't your brother deal with rural planning in our urban district and county?"

Jiang Chi was confused. "Yeah, why?"

"Can you ask him to help me find a place to rent in the countryside? It should be dilapidated and in poor condition. It's best to have a cement floor, but at least it should have access to water and electricity... Well, it's okay if it doesn't. Anyway, I'll take whatever I can get. Please ask him for me. I want to rent one."

"Why do you want to rent it?" Jiang Chi exclaimed. "Hey, why are you acting so strange today?"

"I have my reasons." My brain was fixated on the idea of finding a house. "Remember to ask him for me. The sooner, the better. I need it by next week at the latest."

Jiang Chi lost his temper. "How am I supposed to ask if you don't tell me why?"

I looked him straight in the eyes. "Do you really want to know?"

Jiang Chi said, "I want to hear it."

I said, "I'm chasing someone."

"Chasing someone?" Jiang Chi's eyes lit up. He leaned towards me, propping up the chair's legs only to one side. "Is it the kind of chasing I understand?"

"Yes."

He grinned. "Who do you have your eyes on?"

I said, "Li Chishu."

Jiang Chi fell off his chair.

His reaction was exactly the same as when he heard about this in the previous life.

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