Chapter 12
Chapter 12
August 18 – Clear
[Shihuai: Anping, Anping, let’s go outside.]
[Liang: All right. Clear days are rare enough. We may as well go out.]
“Well, look who crawled out: the crippled pervert.”
“Oh, he’s not like us. He’s a professor! Look, he even carries a notebook everywhere. So diligent.”
“A pervert like that can be a professor? Then I could be a university president.”
“Keep dreaming.”
[Shihuai: Ah, fresh air at last. I was suffocating in there.]
[Shihuai: Hey, they’re insulting you! Aren’t you going to do anything?]
[Shihuai: No. I have to give it back to them!]
(From this point on, the narration follows Song Shihuai in the third person.)
Song Shihuai hurriedly scrawled one last line, his handwriting messy with anger, then shouted at the two men, “Who are you calling a pervert?”
“You! What, you have a problem with that?”
“You two snobs. Liang… someone like me is far beyond either of you.” Song Shihuai glanced disdainfully at the fat hanging from their bodies and sneered.
“Every day, all you do is fight, eat, and sleep. Simple minds, overgrown limbs, greasy bodies covered in blubber. You’re as fat as pigs and still think you’re something special.
“And you dream of becoming a university president? My God. That’s the stupidest joke I’ve heard all month!”
The two men froze. They probably had never imagined that someone as quiet as “Liang Anping” could insult people so bluntly.
Clearly, Song Shihuai was far more formidable than they had imagined.
“Do you know what it means to overestimate yourself? To have ambitions beyond your abilities? To indulge in wishful thinking? Do you know what people mean when they say not to bite off more than you can chew?”
Song Shihuai wore the benevolent expression of someone patiently caring for intellectually challenged children. “Please read a few more books and learn something about the world. At the very least, learn how to insult someone without dragging in their father, mother, grandparents, and eighteen generations of ancestors. Understood, my dear sons?”
Once he had finished, Song Shihuai realized that Liang Anping would certainly be angry if he learned how shamelessly Song Shihuai had used his body to tear into those men.
[Shihuai: How unbecoming of a scholar. How unbecoming.]
[Shihuai: Professor, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.]
[Shihuai: I truly didn’t mean to do it.]
[Shihuai: They were asking for it. Not my fault.]
[Liang: …I wondered why they suddenly picked a fight with me just now. So you insulted them.]
[Liang: Don’t do it again. There’s no need to fight for the last word.]
August 19 – Rain
[Shihuai: It’s raining again… Anping, do your legs hurt?]
Song Shihuai shouldn’t have come out at a time like this.
After so long together, I had come to understand his personality.
He was lively, optimistic, positive, and always eager to defend anyone treated unfairly.
I, on the other hand, was deathly still and hopeless, content to let myself fall apart. I met everything with an air of indifference, as though none of it mattered.
But I hadn’t always been this way.
I used to be free and unrestrained. I refused to admit defeat. I stood by my friends and loved to joke with them. I had once loved life and loved my work.
People say a broken heart can change a person. They aren’t wrong.
[Liang: They hurt, but I can bear it.]
The moment I wrote the final word, the door opened.
“Liang Anping, phone call.” The man tossed something at me. I caught it and discovered it was my phone.
Hadn’t that woman confiscated it?
How did it get here?
Apparently reading the confusion on my face, the man leaned lazily against the doorframe and answered in a tone that made clear he could barely be bothered. “Before she left, she tossed it to me and told me to keep an eye on it. Said not to let it die and to charge it once in a while.”
“It hasn’t rung once in over a month. Today was the first time.”
Oh. So if I didn’t call him, he would never call me.
Perhaps even then, he had already decided to break up.
“Don’t waste time. Answer it.”
The man’s voice broke through my thoughts. I pressed the button and raised the phone to my ear.
“Hello? Is this Mr. Liang?”
“Speaking.”
“Ah, yes. Your maternal grandmother passed away at four o’clock this morning.”
“You have my condolences.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I asked again, “Say that… one more time.”
“Your maternal grandmother passed away at four o’clock this morning…”
“No. That can’t be. She was always so healthy. How could she… What you’re saying isn’t true, is it? It’s a lie, isn’t it?”
The person on the other end remained silent for a long time. At last, they said slowly, “My condolences.”
“…All right. I understand. Is there… anything else?”
“Oh, that’s right.” As though my question had only just reminded them, the caller hurried to explain.
“She signed an organ donation form before her death. Donor hearts are extremely scarce, so her heart will be transplanted into a young girl tomorrow morning.”
“The girl’s parents would like to express their gratitude. Would you be able to come tomorrow?”
“…I’m sorry. I have something to do tomorrow. I can’t come.” I don’t know what I was feeling as I forced out those words. From the moment I heard the news, my mind had been completely blank.
“Please… tell them to take good care of her heart. Let it… keep beating in another chest… for as long as possible.” The words came haltingly. My usually nimble tongue had suddenly turned clumsy.
“Of course. I’ll pass that on to them.”
“…Thank you.”
Only the dial tone remained. I handed the phone back to the man in a daze. It was not until he had left the room that the truth finally struck me.
Grandma was gone.
The woman who had loved me, who was kind and always smiling no matter what happened. The woman who had raised me from childhood and insisted on doing every little thing for me herself.
She was dead.
No one in this world would ever treat me as well as Grandma had.
August 20 – Overcast
The wind chimes ring softly, the birds sing clear; who answers in the distance? I kissed the rainbow and startled the clouds; now I am a traveler returning home.
Little one, you will grow up. You will travel far, and you will grow tired. When you do, remember Grandma’s words. Remember what she said.
– Excerpt from the song “What Grandma Said”
When I was very young, my parents weren’t around. Grandma was the one who raised me.
In my memories, on summer evenings, Grandma always held my hand with one of hers and carried a little stool in the other, a palm-leaf fan tucked beneath her arm, as we went to the riverbank to enjoy the cool air.
She could sit on that stool and talk with the other old women for hours. I could never keep still. Before long, I would run off to play with the other children. Behind me, there were always a pair of eyes watching with love and helpless amusement.
In the end, Grandma would invariably find me asleep somewhere along the riverbank. Then she would carry me home on her back, one step at a time.
Sometimes she made all kinds of delicious things for me: steamed dumplings, pancakes, fried flatbread, steamed rolls, stuffed buns, lotus-root fritters, crisp fried dough, youtiao, and more. She spoiled my tongue and stomach until they became impossibly picky.
But now I will never taste any of it again.