Old Wounds, New Growth - Chapter 10

Translator: Deyonna

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At night, after I finished washing downstairs, I was afraid of disturbing Li Chishu, so I deliberately walked lightly when I went upstairs. However, he still heard me when I entered the room. Li Chishu didn't seem to be doing homework. I noticed that the first thing he did after I came in was to pack something hurriedly and stuff it into his backpack.

"What are you writing?" I asked him as I wiped my just-washed hair.

"Nothing." He closed the pen cap, then turned around. "You've finished washing?"

I nodded and sat on the edge of the bed. "Where did you put the hair dryer?"

Li Chishu said, "It's in the cabinet where you originally put it."

I slowly leaned back, with both hands propped on the bedsheet, and closed my eyes. "I'm so tired. Can you go get it for me?"

"Okay."

I heard the creaking sound of the old wooden cabinet, and Li Chishu walked in front of me with the hair dryer.

I opened my eyes slightly while still leaning back. "Can you help me blow dry my hair?"

Li Chishu maintained the motion of handing me the hair dryer, with his gaze lowered and not saying a word, stubbornly confronting me.

Tsk.

I said, "I fell down today and can't hold it."

He didn't believe me and argued with me. "Where did you fall?"

I didn't say anything and just smiled at him.

Li Chishu quickly fell silent.

After about three seconds, he walked over to the bedside table, plugged in the hair dryer, stood with his back to me for a while, and then turned his head to ask me, "Can you, can you come over here…"

I lowered my head and tugged at my hair. "What do you want me to come over for?"

"......" Li Chishu's tone was low and heavy. "To blow dry your hair."

Forget it, this is my wife. It would be too much to bully him.

I suppressed my smile and sat over very actively.

Li Chishu and I faced each other, one standing and one sitting. I spread my legs a bit, and he stood between my legs to blow dry my hair, just like he used to in our previous life.

"Is the heat okay?" His fingers ran through my hair and gently combed it back, his voice coming through the sound of the dryer. "Do you want me to lower the temperature?"

"That’s fine." My mind was wandering wildly[1], and my gaze was fixed on the button on the hem of his pajamas.

[1]Heart like a frisky monkey, mind like a cantering horse

At the age of seventeen, his frame was still somewhat thin compared to when he was older. The pajamas always had some extra space on him, especially around his waist and abdomen, which were so loose that it was hard to make out the contours of his body.

Want to hug.

Then I hugged him.

Li Chishu's waist was so thin that my two small arms could completely overlap and hug him. His hand holding the hair dryer shook, and he turned motionless.

"Li Chishu." I buried my face in his stomach. "It's very hot."

He immediately moved the hair dryer away and rubbed the spot on the back of my head where he had been blowing for a long time, apologizing as he did so. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"What do you want to eat tomorrow?" I asked him.

"Tomorrow?" Li Chishu's mind was really easy to divert. As long as I asked a question, he could forget that I was still hugging him.

"Tomorrow..." He was thinking very seriously. "Tomorrow, I'll cook."

"You'll cook?"

"En." He said, "You've cooked so many times, it's my turn now."

I was noncommittal. "What do you want to cook?"

Talking about this made him uneasy. "I... I can do a few dishes. Stir-fried shredded potatoes, some stir-fried meat... and I can also cook noodles."

I listened quietly, understanding that this was how the former Li Chishu had been taking care of himself during the years he had lived alone.

Poor children indeed mature at a young age. But he didn't know how to cook too many dishes.

From the age of seven to all those years later, they say every beginning is difficult—but countless things happened, and even the people who knocked on his door were few and far between. The skills he learned for survival were all like thorns, and just growing up was enough for him to be badly bruised.

"Okay," I said. "Then I want to eat the noodles you cooked, stir-fried shredded potatoes, and some meat."

-

The next morning, his phone alarm went off on time. After he turned it off, I thought Li Chishu would move away from me to prevent a repeat of the previous day's incident, but in the end, he completely showed no signs of moving away.

I didn't open my eyes, but I heard him lie still with his back to me for a while. Then, very slowly, he unexpectedly turned over to face me.

 Long after, Li Chishu reached out and touched the tip of my nose with his finger.

I pinched my thigh under the blanket to prevent myself from smiling and being discovered by Li Chishu.

—Li Chishu, be a little braver! Kiss me! Kiss me! Hurry and press your mouth on my face!

When his fingertip brushed my eyebrow, I couldn't help but move my eyeballs.

He was probably startled and afraid that I would suddenly wake up, so he quickly withdrew his hand and soon after got out of bed.

I slowly opened my eyes and rolled up my pajama pants to look at my thigh, which was almost pinched to the point of bleeding.

A dog's belly can't hold two ounces of sesame oil[2], and when my wife was about to kiss me, it was almost impossible to resist.

[2]It means that a dog's stomach cannot hold too much oil, as it may cause diarrhea. More often, it is used as a metaphor for people who cannot keep secrets and are afraid that others do not know what they know.

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The noodles cooked by Li Chishu taste very good. The seasoning is very simple, and the noodles are cooked very soft. Speaking of this, he explained to me with a smile. "Because my grandmother occasionally comes back, I will cook noodles for her. The old lady likes to eat them soft, so I am used to cooking them softer."

After slurping on his noodles, I asked him to go upstairs to do his homework. Li Chishu turned his head three times in one step and asked, "Do you want to go dig potatoes?"

I said yes, and he ran over to me. "I'll go with you."

I asked, "Not going to do your homework anymore?"

He replied, "I did a bit of today's homework yesterday, so there's not much left."

Usually, when Li Chishu says "a bit" it means he has almost finished it. There is no doubt about Li Chishu's rigor in studying, so I didn't refuse and took him with me to dig for potatoes.

The weather today was very nice, not too sunny, but not gloomy either. There was a gentle breeze blowing. I even put two small snacks in Li Chishu's pocket.

Halfway through digging the potatoes, an unexpected guest arrived.

At that moment, I was taking the two newly dug small potatoes to put them in a woven bag not far away. When I turned around, Li Chishu was already playing with a little yellow puppy that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

He even opened the small snacks that I had picked out for him and fed them to the dog.

It looked like the little yellow puppy had been lurking for a long time, watching me leave before jumping out and drilling next to Li Chishu's side. Its small and round eyes emitted a quick alertness. As soon as his eyes met mine, he barked at the top of his lungs as he kept rubbing himself against Li Chishu.

Li Chishu was petting his head when I grabbed his arm and said, "Don't touch it, it's so dirty. It might have fleas on its body."

He pursed his lips into a smile and withdrew his hand, then poured the small snacks onto the ground and watched as the little yellow puppy licked them clean, mouthful after mouthful.

I looked down at Li Chishu's dark hair and asked, "Do you want to take it back?"

"Take it back?" He looked up at me and then around at the surroundings before shaking his head. "Forget it. It's too well-behaved to be a stray dog. It might be someone's pet from around here."

"It's so dirty it must be a stray." I helped Li Chishu up and brushed off the dirt from the back of his pants. "And even if it belongs to someone nearby, it will find its way back home when it's time."

Li Chishu still smiled and said, "Let's just leave it be."

As a result, when I was boiling water in the kitchen, Li Chishu was peeking around the door.

I was about to ask him what he wanted to say when two dog ears popped up from the doorstep beside his feet.

We made a little extra for dinner, not just for ourselves to eat, but also for the dog.

I noticed that Li Chishu didn't eat much of his meal, as he was busy playing with the dog. So I shifted my gaze to the yellow dog at our feet.

Ugly or not, it had just rolled around in the mud quite a bit. Fortunately, it was well-behaved and made Li Chishu happy by spinning around in circles. Whenever Li Chishu patted its head, it would come over and rub against him. It didn't bark or make a fuss, and it seemed to know which of us had a better temper. It was quite clever.

I asked Li Chishu again, "Do you want to take it home and keep it as a pet?

He was playing with the dog, and when he heard my question, he paused for a moment and then asked me to confirm, "Take it home?"

"Take it home," I said.

After a brief moment of thought, he said, "Forget it. I usually live on campus, so even if I take it home…"

"Take it to my house," I interrupted him. "There's a housekeeper in our house. I also commute every day. If you miss it, you can come to my house and see it."

Anyway, my home will be your home sooner or later.

"But wouldn't that be quite troublesome?"

"I can't afford to raise a dog alone." I picked out a piece of meat from my plate and tossed it into the makeshift dog bowl. "But raising one more person wouldn't be a problem."

Li Chishu obviously didn't understand the second half of what I said, and just looked at me eagerly, confirming. "Can I really do that?"

I put down my chopsticks and told him seriously. "You can."

Li Chishu doesn't need casual promises or playful responses in anything he desires, instead, his strong sense of insecurity towards the entire world requires him to hear firm and affirmative responses before he is willing to believe that the things he hoped for will bear fruits.

This sense of insecurity comes from the promises made by his parents before the age of seven to come home but always being absent during summer and winter breaks, or the delayed compensation payment after the age of seven, or the hard work during the summer at eighteen, being under the scorching sun, only to have the majority of his wages withheld by the boss for various reasons. More importantly, the everyday occurrence for countless peers they take for granted, but something that he has never experienced in over a decade, such as the appreciation and encouragement on the path to growing up, the courage to step back, the love of kin that one could never betray.

Therefore, whenever Li Chishu asks a question, Shen Baoshan remembers to put down everything he is doing, focus his gaze on Li Chishu's face, and answer him with an unquestionable tone, telling him that he will remember and fulfill all of his requests.

I said, "The moment I saw this dog, I knew it had to come home with me."

Li Chishu asked, "Why?"

"Because you like it." I picked up the chopsticks again, casually picking up the food, and I said to him with a very dramatic tone, "Your eyes were particularly screaming, 'Shen Baoshan, I really like it. Please let me take it home. I beg you, Shen Baoshan!’"

Li Chishu laughed until his eyes bent. "I'm not like that at all."

"You're not, you're not." I glanced at the puppy, confirming that I and it were still on the stage of finding each other unpleasant to the eye. "It is me who likes it so much—stop playing with it, eat properly."

In fact, 27-year-old Li Chishu had once wanted to adopt a puppy.

He mentioned it to me twice. "I kind of want to get a dog."

After falling ill, he would often bring up things on a whim, but when I asked him seriously, he would suddenly change his mind. However, this thing that Li Chishu mentioned wanting a dog twice caught my attention.

So at the time, I stopped what I was doing and asked him, "What kind of dog do you want? I can ask someone to help us pick one."

"Hmm..." He sat on the sofa, covered with a blanket, holding a nearly untouched cup of coffee. The living room was dark, with only the dim light of the movie screen on the opposite side flickering on his face - he didn't like turning on the lights, and this habit became even more severe after he got sick.

He said, "Maybe a Shiba Inu, or a Corgi. A Samoyed is also okay - but they might be a bit dumb. But if there are any stray dogs that we can adopt, let's choose them first."

Later, I took him to a dog shelter specifically for stray dogs waiting to be adopted. He walked up to the door, but then suddenly shrunk back. "Forget it."

"Why change your mind?" I asked him.

"I... don't want to adopt anymore. It feels like taking care of a small animal would be too much trouble." He changed his tone and used that smile that had a hint of apology.

In the days after he left, I was thinking if Li Chishu had known from that time on that he would one day give up this world he had lived in for twenty or thirty years. He chose not to raise a puppy because he didn't want to add another life that he would be connected to. After all, saying goodbye forever was already exhausting enough. Saying goodbye to Shen Baoshan already made him feel enough reluctance and headache. And a wordless cry from a puppy would only make him feel more helpless.

Or perhaps at that time, he was trying to save himself, trying to save himself by raising a puppy - Li Chishu might have thought that having someone he worried about at home would make him more willing to stay around for a little longer.

But wasn't I his biggest worry?

He was willing to leave, even me, behind, so how could he possibly stay for anything else?

He had already realized this truth before entering the dog shelter, so he didn't give any of the puppies inside a chance.

And what about me now? I am trying every possible means in this desperate situation[3]. I don't want to miss any connection to Li Chishu in this world. Whether it's a dog, food, even a comfortable soft pajama, or a bowl of dumplings, the more things that make him have a little attachment to this world, the stronger my power will be to pull him back when he wants to leave.

[3]to turn to any doctor one can find when critically ill (idiom); fig. to try anyone or anything in a crisis

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October 3rd, Sunny

Today, I was late to the cafeteria and the only dish was sold out. So, I went to the supermarket and bought a pack of instant noodles, which cost at least 1.5 yuan.

If I had gone to the cafeteria earlier, I would have only spent eighty cents.

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October 3rd, Sunny

Today I cooked noodles for Shen Baoshan and also made some shredded potatoes and meat. He said it was very delicious.

Also, I found a puppy. Shen Baoshan said he would take it home to raise, I don't know if it's true. But he asked me to give the puppy a name, saying that I was its owner.

I actually have a puppy now.

I named it Potato because I found it while digging potatoes. Shen Baoshan seems to be very satisfied with this name. I wonder if Potato likes its new name.

Shen Baoshan also said he would take it back to get vaccinated, find someone to groom it and buy it special dog food. I don't know if he will forget when he goes back.

But is there really someone who can groom dogs? How much would it cost? Also, I don't know if Shen Baoshan will tell me the truth. Every time I ask him about the price, he doesn't seem to be telling the truth.

He seems to think that he's not obvious when he lies.

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