“This General has decided to face himself squarely and overcome his fears”
Translated by: DMlations/Zryuu
Edited by: Amelea, FistFullOfDollars and Juurensha
—
Yu Hao gasped for breath as he followed Zhou Sheng and rode a full 30 kilometres. Zhou Sheng would even stop to wait for him now and then. In the end, Yu Hao arrived at their college in second place.
Yu Hao, “I……can’t do it anymore.”
Zhou Sheng said, “Okay, the card’s yours.”
“I didn’t even win!” Yu Hao exploded.
“I said, ‘win’, which meant ‘if I win’, the card is yours!” Zhou Sheng said triumphantly, “I omitted an ‘I’.”
Yu Hao, “……”
“Then I’ll keep it for you ba.” Yu Hao had watched Zhou Sheng cycle in front of him the entire way, stopping to occasionally wait for him to catch up, then continue to ride again. He could only feel that this road vaguely resembled the relationship between them.
“Aren’t you gonna see how much money you have?” Zhou Sheng smiled.
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“I won’t! Yu Hao said, “I’m determined to never see it! Stifle you to death!”
The dormitory was thoroughly cleaned, even the black tiles were washed until they gleamed with a white lustre. The wooden cabinet doors and wooden tables had also been waxed and now looked as if they were brand new furniture. New cotton four-piece sets had replaced the old ones on their beds. The bookshelves and wardrobes were neatly arranged; their bathroom had new bathroom curtains, and their light bulbs were replaced with 60-watt ones. An extra mobile air conditioner had been added as well. On one side of the balcony, there was a small refrigerator filled with ice, drinks, and beer, and there were even two reclining chairs on the balcony. On the other side of the balcony was a flower rack and potted plants on the rack.
Now there was both cold drinks and air-conditioning. No wall-mounted air-conditioning was allowed in the dormitory, so the exhaust hose of the small mobile air-conditioner led outside the balcony. Although its cooling effect isn’t as strong as wall-mounted air-conditioning, it had resolved the problem of their stuffy dormitory.
Yu Hao held his forehead with one hand. He felt like he had entered someone else’s house.
“He got someone to renovate it ba.” Yu Hao said, “It must not have been easy to do all this in one afternoon.”
“Didn’t he know to buy a washing machine……” He hadn’t finished speaking when a “bang” sounded — Zhou Sheng had accidentally bumped into the balcony’s landing window. He said angrily, “Why did they make it this clean?! This is attempted murder!”
At night, Yu Hao and Zhou Sheng lay in bed and spent the first day of summer vacation with nothing better to do than to idle about. Zhou Sheng brought Yu Hao along to play games for awhile. Yu Hao recorded two songs, but he wasn’t satisfied with either, so he deleted them. He thought that the money from his translation was about to be completely depleted, so he had to find a part-time job. Fortunately, he would have the scholarship next semester, so he would be relatively more financially well-off.
It wasn’t easy to find good translation and writing work; there were too many fraudulent ones. Yu Hao spent a long time looking through the translation forum, and a lot of people on it were cursing about how they got cheated out of their scripts, which made him feel a little frightened. It was easy to move from a thrifty to an extravagant lifestyle, but difficult to do so vice versa; after his translation job, he wasn’t very willing to do manual work anymore. Sure enough, it was most productive to do skilled work, so having a specialised skill was particularly important.
Of course, both him and Chen Yekai were passing their days relying on their specialised skills, but in the face of a capitalist like Zhou Laichun, they would turn into slags within seconds.
Around 9pm, Zhou Sheng’s mother called the dormitory phone. Yu Hao answered. When she heard that Zhou Sheng was in the dormitory, Mama Zhou asked a lot of questions and also wished her son a happy birthday in passing, and Zhou Sheng just gave perfunctory answers like ‘I got it’.
“When will you come home?” Mama Zhou said, “Yu Hao, come back with him too!”
Yu Hao could only say as Zhou Sheng had taught him to, “There’s a competition.”
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“Ahh that’s good, that’s good! Where are you competing? We’ll go watch!”
“Don’t be annoying.” Zhou Sheng didn’t want to talk anymore. Yu Hao could only answer with soft “un” and “ok”s as he replied to Mama Zhou. Mama Zhou began to reminisce about the day she gave birth to Zhou Sheng, and the call lasted for more than an hour before she hung up.
“You’re going to sleep?” Zhou Sheng asked, “Have you thought about where you want to go on vacation?”
Yu Hao, “Not yet.”
“Then keep thinking ba.” Zhou Sheng took the laundry fork leaning against the bed and poked the light switch in their dormitory room, “Sleep.” The dormitory turned dark. It was Yu Hao’s first time to live so comfortably in a dormitory, and this was all thanks to Zhou Laichun’s money.
Chen Yekai:【You’re back? Is the air conditioner okay?】
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Yu Hao:【……】
Chen Yekai:【What’s wrong?】
Yu Hao:【You bought it?】
Chen Yekai:【Ordered it online last week. I got them to deliver it to your dorm today as Zhou Sheng’s birthday gift. I saw four aunts cleaning, and Zhou Sheng’s family chauffeur said that they would buy a refrigerator.】
“Kaikai bought the air conditioner.” Yu Hao said.
“Got it.” Zhou Sheng looked at his WeChat in a daze. The light from his phone screen illuminated both Yu Hao and Zhou Sheng’s faces. In the darkness, Zhou Sheng suddenly sighed and threw his phone aside.
“Did you add Jingya?” Yu Hao turned sideways and raised his head slightly to ask him.
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Zhou Sheng didn’t answer but just lay quietly, while Yu Hao continued to scroll through his phone. After a long silence, Zhou Sheng said, “Didn’t add, don’t want to bother. Irritated, wanna go bask in the moonlight.”
In the dead of night, many worries and melancholy will always be magnified. There’s a saying that goes ‘he who gives no thought to far-flung problems soon finds suffering nearby’. Before their finals, Yu Hao often heard Fu Liqun lie in his bed and sigh as he worried about what he should do if he failed, as he would be scolded to death when he got home.
Male dormitories always seem to be like this: everyone would play to their hearts’ content in the day, then the gloominess that has always relentlessly pursued them would show itself before they went to bed. When the teacher droned endlessly during mental health class, they would specifically mention that this was due to the guilt people felt towards wasting time on worthless activities — once one feels that they haven’t done much in the day and have no goals in life, then they would get agitated, upset, and regretful before going to bed at night; they would always feel useless and staying up late would further strengthen and magnify these negative emotions.
But Yu Hao seldom suffered from this torment. He was already doing his utmost just to survive, so he couldn’t imagine problems at the higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
“There’s no moon today.” Yu Hao said.
“Yu Hao.” Zhou Sheng said.
“Un?”
After nearly three minutes of silence, Zhou Sheng finally said in the dark, “What do you think we would be like in ten years’ time?”
Yu Hao didn’t answer, but Zhou Sheng’s question had triggered a train of thought. His line of sight shifted from his phone screen to the void and darkness around him. There was an expression of bewilderment on his face.
“Would we part ways?” Zhou Sheng asked.
“Maybe.” Yu Hao answered. He was suddenly suffocated with an unfathomable sadness. He couldn’t bear to think too much about it —— he only needed to study in college for four years. After four years, he would part from Zhou Sheng and Fu Liqun — whether it be in terms of friendship or love.
Zhou Sheng said, “Let me imagine it for awhile.”
Yu Hao said, “Could you not be so cruel?”
After four years of college, many friends and lovers would go their separate ways — some would stay in the city, some would go north to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, some would go abroad, and some would go to graduate school. Perhaps they would still keep in touch, but there would no longer be a situation where they could live under the same roof again.
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Even the finest feast must come to an end sometime; everyone would settle down and start their careers, they wouldn’t contact one another as often anymore, get differentiated by their places in the social hierarchy, and their circumstances would be as different as night and day. When students gathered, they would toast time and again, but they would still be strangers in the end. The only thing that would be mentioned over and over again would be the vague memories of their past.
Sometimes, life really is like a dream, Yu Hao thought, many will gradually fade from memory, including this cool summer night.
“So.” Zhou Sheng said, “I wanted to discuss it with you seriously……what are you looking at?”
Yu Hao was still scrolling through his phone, but towards the end, his thoughts weren’t on his phone anymore, and neither was it on Zhou Sheng’s words.
“Nothing much.” Yu Hao was in a rather bad mood today, especially after he made that decision. It was almost past 12 and Zhou Sheng’s birthday was coming to an end.
Zhou Sheng looked at Yu Hao’s phone. Yu Hao said to Zhou Sheng, “I’m making friends in a Q&A site.”
Zhou Sheng, “What Q&A?”
Yu Hao, “Q&A regarding men finding boyfriends.”
Zhou Sheng, “……”
Yu Hao showed Zhou Sheng, there were a few private messages on his phone. Zhou Sheng immediately sat up and asked, “You uploaded your photos? Delete them!”
Yu Hao said, “I didn’t, I just messaged a few who had pictures. They all replied to me.”
Zhou Sheng opened the private messages one by one, all of which were filled with greetings. Yu Hao said, “There’s nothing much to see, give it back ba.”
Yu Hao observed Zhou Sheng’s expression. Zhou Sheng flipped the phone over and pressed it down, his expression hidden in the darkness, “Why are you suddenly looking for a boyfriend again?”
Yu Hao answered, “I already planned to before.”
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Zhou Sheng was sitting while Yu Hao lay down. In this darkness, neither of them spoke. Yu Hao said, “Zhou Sheng?”
“Okay then.” Zhou Sheng said at last, “Do as you like.”
Yu Hao recalled the conversation he had with Zhou Sheng that day at Chichén Itzá,
“You said before at Mt. Tianqing in the dream……”
“I remember.” Zhou Sheng’s voice was extremely cold and detached, “I don’t need you to remind me. That’s why I said ‘do as you like’.”
“Give me back my phone.” Yu Hao said.
Zhou Sheng handed his phone over, laid down, and the two of them stopped talking for a moment. Yu Hao knew that Zhou Sheng would definitely be jealous, but this matter had to be settled eventually. In the past, Yu Hao had never been willing to take this step: firstly, he liked Zhou Sheng too much and couldn’t deceive himself; secondly, he couldn’t let go, so it would be unfair for the partner he would be searching for.
But today, after he heard Zhou Laichun’s words, Yu Hao realised that he couldn’t go on like this anymore. Tormenting himself alone would be fine, but he would hurt Zhou Sheng. No matter how Zhou Sheng considers these kinds of feelings, it was impossible for it to bear fruit for them both.
“I’m going to sleep.” Zhou Sheng said.
“Good night, General.” Yu Hao said.
Yu Hao put his phone down and sighed very softly. At this moment, he experienced a great sadness, as if mountains had collapsed on his heart. If the Golden Crow Wheel wasn’t sealed away, he suspected that his dream would definitely be overcast now with thunderstorms and torrential downpours abound.
This feeling was even worse than the punch he received from Liu Pengxuan when he had confessed. Liu Pengxuan’s fist had landed on his face, but this time, Yu Hao had taken a dagger himself and after considering it time and time again, decided to turn it around and stab it into his own soul.
