Old Wounds, New Growth - Chapter 8
Translator: Deyonna
Li Chishu’s alarm clock rang for the first time at 5:50 in the morning. He pressed it off right away. I was sleeping so greedily that I reflexively hugged him into my arms like I had done countless mornings in the past. “Sleep a little longer.”
At first, he stiffened and tried to struggle in my arms. I was still not fully awake. Following my habit in the past, I tightened my arms around him and precisely buried my face on his nape. “Sleep a little longer, Li Chishu.”
He completely stopped moving.
After two seconds, I suddenly opened my eyes and fully realized what time it was. My heart skipped a beat.
But Li Chishu didn't resist anymore. He lay quietly on the pillow. I didn't know if he had fallen asleep again. I could only maintain a steady breath and didn't dare to move a finger.
I opened my mouth and my lips touched the skin of Li Chishu's neck. My nose was filled with the scent of the shower gel I brought, which was Li Chishu's favorite brand when he was still alive. Now I was holding him, who was only seventeen years old, as nervous as a little kid. It’s so sad like it was a lifetime ago, but fortunately, it was indeed a lifetime ago.
I shamelessly closed my eyes, snuggled up to him, and went back to sleep.
But Li Chishu was a naturally self-disciplined person. He didn't sleep for long and quietly took my hand off his waist and went downstairs to wash up. I listened upstairs, but there was no sound for a long time, and Li Chishu didn't come back up. I was about to get out of bed and go down to check on him, but as soon as I sat up, I froze.
...An eighteen-year-old body was indeed full of energy.
...Of course, my thirty-year-old body was also full of energy, but at that time, Li Chishu's physical condition didn't allow me to be as energetic as I wanted to be.
I sat on the bed for a while to calm down before going downstairs to look. Li Chishu was squatting in front of the stove, holding a piece of firewood in his hand, hesitating whether to put it in or not. He looked like he was facing a formidable enemy.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and walked over. “What are you doing?”
He looked up at me. "I wanted to make breakfast, but…"
"But you don't know how to light the wood." I took over the conversation and pulled Li Chishu up. "Let me do it. You can go upstairs and do your homework. I'll call you when it's ready.”
He took a few steps outside, but then turned back and stopped. "Let me learn from you.”
"Okay.”
Actually, I was clueless about this thing when I first arrived. After all, in my previous life, Li Chishu never mentioned the idea of eating firewood rice. I had no way to learn. So the day before yesterday, it was a situation of although I only see it now, I will learn it now. I was still unfamiliar with it when I tried it for the first time last night, so I had to call my dad for advice while I was doing it—he's familiar with this matter. When he was young, he and my mom started a business together and spent a few months in the countryside.
Congee is not very friendly to the stomach, although I don't know if Li Chishu has these problems now. But it's always better to be safe than sorry, so I chose to cook the dumplings that were left in the fridge yesterday that I hadn't cooked yet.
Li Chishu still enjoyed the dumplings as much as he did the first time he tasted them. He ate them while thinking about something. After taking a few bites, he asked me, "Are there any permanent residents here?”
"Yes," I replied with a straight face. "We usually have someone here to help us look after the house, clean up, and do other things.”
He made a sound of acknowledgment and then asked, "What about that motorcycle...?”
"I asked Jiang Chi to borrow it for me, just in case there's an emergency or something in the next few days.” I quickly put the remaining dumplings in his bowl and asked, "What do you want to eat for lunch?”
Li Chishu buried his head and stuffed another dumpling into his mouth. He looked up from his bowl and asked me, trying to probe. "......Dumplings.”
After washing the dishes, we went back to the second floor to do our homework together—though my mind was that of a thirty-year-old, I still had to carry the burden of my eighteen-year-old self.
However, I am someone who has gone through a complete senior high school education and university entrance examination. My memory was also good. After I graduated from university, I even did some of the math and physics questions from the year’s entrance examination with my roommate on a whim. It just took me a few extra minutes compared to when I took the actual entrance exam. It had been about ten years since I last touched senior high school textbooks, but learning was something ingrained in me. Last week, after doing a few sets of practice papers, I checked the answers and reviewed explanations. I could remember about 80-90% of the material, especially for subjects like English that were used frequently even outside of school. As for chemistry and biology, I can just memorize them. Even if I haven't studied them, I can learn those two subjects just by looking at the books.
Overall, the current Shen Baoshan found it much easier to learn these things now compared to both Li Chishu and his past self from the previous life.
As the sun rose higher in the sky and lunchtime approached, I asked Li Chishu in a leisurely manner while continuing to write. "Do you want to eat ice cream?”
"Ice cream?" Li Chishu didn't outright refuse me, but he suggested that I give up on the idea. "They don't sell it here.”
I chuckled, but didn't say anything.
Li Chishu probably doesn't even remember his own wish to eat ice cream.
That was the summer when I had just started dating him. One weekend, I went to the city center to meet with a partner for the next project in an office building. Li Chishu was waiting for me downstairs in a coffee shop. He waited there for the whole afternoon. After finishing up, when I came out of the building, he was sitting alone outside the coffee shop, staring blankly at a single-story standalone building not far away. I stood behind him for a while, and he just kept staring, unmoving.
That building is not new in this business district. It is a national chain store of Haagen-Dazs. It is hot during the holiday season[1]. The glass door at the entrance of the store opens and closes, and there's a constant stream of people.
[1]the first month of the lunar year
I tapped his shoulder from behind and asked him if he wanted to eat ice cream.
He said he was just reminded of the days when he worked part-time after finishing the entrance exam.
After finishing the university entrance examination, Li Chishu was only half a year into adulthood. With his studies over, he suddenly found himself without a goal or a group to belong to. The only thing he knew he couldn't stop doing was making money. However, he had very few friends and had been a loner in senior high school, so he had no connections or contacts. For a good student like him, it would have been easy to find work as a private tutor for middle and senior high school students in a non-conventional cram school if he had an elder relative who could help him inquire about such opportunities.
However, Li Chishu was not smooth-tongued and was rather introverted. Moreover, the entrance exam results would not be released for another half month. So during that time, he became the cheapest urban labor force. He went to distribute flyers.
That year was very hot, with temperatures reaching nearly 39 degrees. Therefore, the highest hourly wage was during the period from noon to a little after 4 pm.
Li Chishu chose this time period and sat in the public square where the coffee shop was located. He endured the scorching sun every day until 6 pm, with sweat pouring down his back, only carrying the cheapest tissues and an insulated flask with him.
I thought he wanted to tell me how much he longed for Haagen-Dazs under those conditions, but he only made fun of himself. "Standing at the door of Haagen-Dazs for so many days, I didn't even know they were selling ice cream. So many people came out carrying boxes. I thought they were all cakes.”
He didn't mention Haagen-Dazs again, but on the way home, he talked about another equally hot summer day.
The sunlight on that summer day was equally piercing, making it impossible for Li Chishu, who was younger and weaker, to open his eyes. It was an ordeal he never wanted to experience again in his lifetime.
Seven-year-old Li Chishu was confused and disoriented by the sudden news of his father's death. Before he could recover, his mother dragged him to the square in front of the city government hall, demanding an explanation from the relevant authorities. They wanted to know why they, a widow and orphan, like countless other poor families, were left in a situation where they could see the end even at the beginning[2].
[2]See no hope even at the beginning
Whether it was the city government hall or the city regulatory bureau, Li Chishu couldn't remember anymore. Those aluminum alloy characters were just strange symbols that made his eyes more uncomfortable every time he looked at them.
He couldn't remember how long his mother had led him to kneel. The only thing he remembered was the sweat dripping from his face to the ground. Every drop that fell, he counted dozens of times, and the sweat stains evaporated between the scorching sunlight and the hot ground beneath his knees.
Li Chishu's mouth was dry and his tongue was parched. Passersby gradually gathered around him and his mother, discussing in a flurry. His gaze climbed up from the countless pairs of shoes on the ground and finally found the faces of several classmates in the bustling crowd.
Some of them were led by their parents, while others walked in groups, wearing the same red scarf as Li Chishu around their necks. From the crowd, they looked at him with either curiosity or sympathy. They were all seven-year-old children. What did they know?
Li Chishu didn't understand either. He was only staring at the ice cream in their hands.
The base of those ice cream bars always melted into liquid before it even had a chance to be put in the mouth, flowing down the wooden sticks and onto their hands. In the end, they dripped onto the ground like Li Chishu's sweat and his mother's tears. Evaporated by the suffering this summer breeds.
He kept licking his dry and cracked lips, tasting only the salty sweat that flowed down from his chin. What flavor was the ice cream that day? Li Chishu would never know.
"What happened later?" I asked him while driving.
"What happened later?" Li Chishu reminisced in almost a silent manner, as if he was back on that dry summer day, absentmindedly picking up the warm water that I usually prepared for him in the car. "Later, the contracting company that my father worked for went bankrupt, and my mother left. She left the money for me and told me to study hard. She said that was my only way out.”
For lunch, we didn't have dumplings. I made a dish of wood-fired black truffle and porcini mushroom bibimbap for Li Chishu. He found it very novel and asked me what it was.
I said, "Black truffle.”
He looked at the bowl and repeated, "Black truffle…”
I asked him, "Is it delicious?”
He thought for a moment and honestly replied. "I haven't tried it.”
"Right, I haven't tried it either," I said as I stirred the rice in the bowl with a spoon. "It was also given to me by my parents' business friends. I heard it's quite expensive, but I think no matter how expensive it is, the taste is just so-so.”
He smiled at me while holding the bowl and then lowered his head to study the bibimbap in the bowl.
After finishing the meal, Li Chishu insisted on washing the dishes. I thought to myself. "There's a grape trellis in the backyard. Go and see if any grapes can be picked. If there are, pick some. If not, it's okay.”
Li Chishu obediently went to check it out.
I quickly washed the dishes and opened the door to the small, dark room next to the kitchen. I had to exert some effort to get the freezer across the threshold. After everything was ready, I waited in the same spot for a long time but still didn't see any sign of Li Chishu.
Does it take so long to pick grapes?
"Li Chishu?" I shouted as I walked, making my way straight to the backyard.
There was a small table under the grape trellis, probably used by the homeowner to drink tea in the afternoon. Li Chishu stood in front of the table with his back facing me, slowly waving something that looked like a small flag in his hand. His back blocked my view, and I could only see a few corners.
"Li Chishu," I called out again.
“En?”
He seemed to have just come to his senses and turned his head towards me under the sparse sunlight and shade.
The sunlight filtered through, and on top of the grape trellis are green leaves that are new and tender. Their new branches covered the yellow leaves as if his desolate past was quietly growing anew.
I waved to signal him to come over. "What are you doing?”
He put down what he was holding and turned to walk towards me, saying, "Nothing... it seems like there are no grapes here.”
"If there are none, then forget it." I pushed him out. "Come on, let's go eat ice cream.”
Li Chishu was confused. "Ice cream?”
"Ice cream," I repeated, then suddenly stopped and turned to face him. I took out a red scarf that I had bought earlier from my pocket and put it around his neck with a serious expression. Then I quickly pulled him along and ran out.
The countryside was quiet in the afternoon, which made people feel peaceful and serene. I asked him to stand in front of the freezer and I went around to the back of the freezer alone. I leaned one hand on the freezer and used the other hand to open the top of the freezer. A refreshing cool air rushed out.
Li Chishu stood still, as if surprised by some kind of magic I possessed.
I asked him with a smile, "Little Li Chishu, what flavor of ice cream would you like to eat?”
So sad..........
ReplyDeleteThank you for the chapter!