Chapter 117
Chapter 117
Qin Song felt as if the world had warped out of shape.
It was like everyone was lying to him. But it was impossible for everyone to be lying to him, because the world did not revolve around him.
He remembered a line he had once read: I’m not the one who’s wrong. It’s the world.
Qin Song knew the world could not have suddenly gone wrong. That left only one possibility: he was wrong.
Where had he gone wrong? He did not know.
When had it started? He did not know that either.
What people did, Heaven watched. He felt certain this was Heaven’s punishment for him.
If everything had followed the world’s inherent rules, he would already be a death row inmate by now. Before long, a bullet would bore into his skull and end his young life.
But he had slipped through the cracks of the world, through the loopholes in the rules, and that was the only reason he was still clinging to life.
And if he was merely clinging to life, then being alive was all he could ask for. If that life came with a great deal of suffering out of nowhere, that was only to be expected, Qin Song thought.
Sitting on the bed, he called Hu Heng.
“Old Hu.”
Hu Heng said, “Yeah, I’m here!”
Qin Song said, “I want to go back.”
Hu Heng said, “Anytime! It’s safe now. That construction site is operating as usual, and I had dinner with my friend at the police station. Recently, there hasn’t been any sign of murder cases in our whole city. At most, just petty theft and small-time trouble.”
After a one-second pause, Hu Heng asked, “What’s wrong? Are you not doing well in Singapore?”
Qin Song said, “No. But I can’t say what’s bad about it. This whole place feels wrong… I want to go back.”
Hu Heng said, “I’ll book you a plane ticket right now.”
Qin Song said, “I’m not going back to City A.”
Hu Heng asked in surprise, “Not City A? Then where are you going?”
Qin Song said, “I don’t know. But I never want to go back to City A again. The memories hurt too much.”
Hu Heng said, “Then go back to your hometown?”
Qin Song shook his head. “I don’t want to go back there either. Qin Bao is there. I don’t want to see him. My parents are buried there. I don’t have the face to see them.”
Hu Heng said, “Let me think, let me think… How about I find you a livable city? Give me a little time to consider it.”
Qin Song said nothing and closed his eyes.
Hu Heng said, “Sanya? Dali? Chongqing? Qingdao? Do you have anywhere in mind?”
Qin Song said, “No. I’m not familiar with any of them.”
Hu Heng said, “Then why don’t you go to Mingdu? That’s my hometown!”
Qin Song said, “How come I’ve never heard that your hometown is Mingdu?”
Hu Heng said, “Oh, come on. When people normally talk about their hometown, they mean their father’s hometown. But I don’t have a dad, do I? Mingdu is my mother’s hometown, so it counts as mine too.”
Qin Song said, “I didn’t expect you to be half a Mingdu native.”
Hu Heng laughed. “The women in Mingdu are very pretty.”
Qin Song frowned. “Women have nothing to do with me.”
Realizing he had accidentally touched on Qin Song’s sore spot, Hu Heng quickly changed tack. “The scenery there is great, the environment is good for you, and there’s tons of good food. It’s perfect, Old Qin.”
Qin Song sighed. “Mm. Fine. Mingdu, then.”
Hu Heng said, “You sound a little weak. Get some rest. I’ll book your ticket and send it to you once it’s done. Don’t oversleep tomorrow!”
Qin Song said, “Okay,” then hung up and went limp on the bed.
The next day, Qin Song finally packed his luggage and left that eerie, ghost-ridden street.
Qin Song thought that whether it was a young girl or a little boy who had died on that street, it had absolutely nothing to do with him anymore.
That nightmarish hellhole could be left for the next unlucky traveler to experience.
Qin Song stormed out of the hotel, his face dark with anger.
After the plane took off, he chewed gum and let his thoughts wander.
He always had the feeling that he must have owed Hu Heng something in a past life. From the very first day Hu Heng met him, the guy had been inexplicably good to him.
And Hu Heng’s loyalty wasn’t limited to taking beatings for him or ending up with stitches in his head. There had been so many other things too.
Back during the PE entrance exam, Hu Heng had been running ahead of Qin Song.
With only fifty meters left to the finish line, Qin Song was so exhausted he was almost out of strength. His pace gradually slowed, and he gasped for air in ragged mouthfuls.
It felt as if his lungs had turned into heavy solid balls. Air couldn’t get in, and it couldn’t get out.
At that moment, Hu Heng didn’t just charge for the finish line on his own. He looked back, reached out, grabbed Qin Song by the arm, and practically dragged him all the way across the finish line.
This wasn’t an ordinary race, nor was it a casual run during break. This was an exam where even a single second could change your score bracket.
Qin Song still remembered how the track had been packed with parents that day. They stood all around with sun umbrellas raised, crowding the path until it was nearly impossible to get through.
Then there was another time, when Qin Song saw a bird that had just died during the break between classes. Without thinking much of it, he found some branches and stones, intending to dig a little hole and bury it. Hu Heng silently helped beside him.
The two of them ended up late. They had planned to slip quietly into the classroom with their heads down, but to their surprise, their homeroom teacher stopped them.
The homeroom teacher said, “I heard you two were late because you were playing with a dead bird?”
Qin Song understood immediately. Someone had maliciously snitched on them, and now the homeroom teacher was looking at the two of them like they were freaks.
Qin Song didn’t want to explain. Whenever he ran into something like this, his temper turned stubborn. The more he was misunderstood, the less he wanted to explain.
Besides, he was already a teenager by then. He felt that telling the homeroom teacher, “I was making a little grave for the bird,” would make him seem childish, softhearted, and embarrassingly sentimental.
He would rather be mistaken for a freak.
The homeroom teacher said, “If you’re not going to talk, then stand by the door for the whole period.”
Hu Heng spoke up. “I was the one playing with the dead bird. Qin Song kept telling me to hurry back for class.”
Qin Song turned his head in surprise to look at him.
The homeroom teacher looked at Qin Song, then at Hu Heng. He pointed into the classroom. “Qin Song, go in.”
Qin Song glanced at him and stood there without moving.
The homeroom teacher ignored him and walked over to Hu Heng. Hu Heng was a full head taller than the teacher, so the teacher had to crane his neck to look up at him.
“Hu Heng, think you’re something now, do you? Is it easy for your widowed mother to scrape together your tuition? You’re spending her money to come to school, and instead of going to class, you’re messing around with this kind of garbage?”
Hu Heng clenched his fists and said nothing.
The homeroom teacher turned to Qin Song. “And you. Feeling stubborn, are we? You like standing so much? Then stand with him.”
With that, the homeroom teacher went back into the classroom.
Qin Song said nothing. Hu Heng said nothing either. The two of them stood together for nearly forty minutes.
Hu Heng had once told Qin Song that when he was little, he had spent a long stretch of time with a stutter. Some words, for him, had been harder to say than climbing to heaven.
As a child, he was always losing his red scarf, so the next day he would have to go to the small shop to buy a new one.
Not once had he ever managed to say the words “red scarf” smoothly. Every time the word “red” left his mouth, his tongue seemed to go numb as if it had been injected with anesthetic. He would always stand there in front of the shop clerk, his face flushed bright red. “Hello, I’d like a re… re… reh… red… scarf!”
When Qin Song heard him say that, he laughed so hard he clutched his stomach and asked, “So how did you recover later? How did you get rid of it?”
Hu Heng scratched his head. “It disappeared just as suddenly as it came.”