Chapter 13

Chapter 13

By the time we actually entered W Town, it was already one in the afternoon.

W Town in April is the rainy season.

The world was a haze of gray rain and mist.

Pearls of rain dripped from the eaves onto the bluestone pavement.

After getting off the car, Xu Ge, with his backpack slung over one shoulder, stopped in his tracks and turned back to me.

“Where to?”

I led him along the water’s edge, winding past countless houses, and finally stopped in front of a two-story house by the river.

Standing at the doorstep, I didn’t go in.

I just turned to look at him.

“I forgot to buy osmanthus rice cakes on the way. Can you go get them for me?”

The hand the young man was about to push the door with paused, then slowly retreated.

He lowered his eyes and looked at me.

The wind picked up.

It blew his black hair into disarray.

He said flatly, “Got it.”

I watched his thin figure retreat under a black umbrella one last time.

Then I pushed open the door.

The house hadn’t been lived in for a long time; as soon as I opened the door, a musty smell hit me.

I walked into the main hall and slowly set down my backpack.

I stood there for a long time, staring at the black-and-white portraits of my parents hanging in the center of the hall.

Then I suddenly knelt down.

Today is my parents’ death anniversary.

It’s also my birthday.

Last year on this day, I hadn’t had cake for a very long time. Junior high was exhausting, I craved something sweet, I really wanted cake.

So, using my birthday as an excuse, I threw a little tantrum and acted spoiled.

“Mom, Mom, I want cake so badly.”

My parents said okay. They rode their electric scooter to the city to buy it for me. On the way back, a big truck ran them over.

When the traffic police brought me to the scene, the creamy white cake was spilled and stuck on the asphalt, mixed with my parents’ blood.

In that moment, I wished I were blind.

After that, day and night I’d have nightmares, always regretting why I had to have that cake.

I closed my eyes, and warm tears slid down from the corners.

I bent my back and knocked my head against the prayer cushion.

Next door, Big Yellow seemed to know I was back and barked endlessly.

Listening to the barking growing louder and louder, my hand slowly tightened around the cushion.

The rain poured down, forming a thin curtain outside the eaves.

There, in the misty rain of Jiangnan, I knelt before my parents’ portraits, weeping until I could barely breathe.

A long creak-the sound of the door opening.

Instinctively, I straightened up and looked back with reddened eyes.

It was the young man I’d sent away to buy osmanthus cakes, back again.

In the dim, hazy rain, Xu Ge stood silently at the doorway with his black backpack slung over one shoulder, empty-handed.

The rain fell softly, and his gaze was distant and complex through the curtain of rain.

I vaguely saw his lips move.

“Your voice is hoarse from crying,” he said.