SG 19

Each transparent plastic box held two starfish, two “Chocolate” and two “Maldives Red Finger.” Yan Anqing knew both kinds, but there were none for sale in the pet market in Jindu. They could be bought online, but starfish often died during long-distance shipping.

The four starfish in the boxes were not only big but also lively. He lifted the two tanks and observed the new members of his home from different angles. He felt so happy that he didn’t know how to express it.

“Did you catch them?” Yan Anqing raised his head and asked. His fingertips felt warm after rubbing them.

“I asked the caretaker at the Starfish Hall to buy them for me.” Before knowing about Yan Anqing’s condition, Chu Baiyan would’ve played along and taken it as a joke. But after hearing from Grandma that Yan Anqing had a cognitive disorder, Chu Baiyan explained everything clearly.

He didn’t care how much Yan Anqing could understand, and he didn’t mind if Yan Anqing saw him as a “merman,” but he still felt he should tell him that he was a person like him.

“Next to the performance hall, there’s a place called Starfish Hall. The starfish there come from a special supplier. When the supplier came to deliver, I asked him to bring four for me.”

Yan Anqing nodded. It wasn’t clear how much he understood. He opened the transparent boxes, scooped a cup of water from his own tank, and added a bit of it into each box.

“You’re not putting them in the big tank?” Chu Baiyan asked.

“They’ll die.” Yan Anqing looked serious.

“Why?” Chu Baiyan didn’t understand what he meant.

“The salinity and temperature of the water are different. They need to stay separate for a few days first.” Yan Anqing spoke and used a thermometer to check the temperature of the small tanks.

“You watch the shop for me. I’ll go upstairs and get the ice packs.” He said this and hurried upstairs. Soon he came back down, his footsteps fast and heavy.

He always kept ice packs in the freezer in case of a power outage, so he could cool the tanks if needed. He placed one ice pack under each of the small tanks.

“Starfish don’t like heat. They die if the water’s over twenty-five degrees. They like water below twenty-five but above five. They move more when the water’s colder.”

Yan Anqing took care of his starfish by following every step of the manual. He never acted carelessly. The salinity ratio of the seawater, the purified water used for mixing, the temperature control, every step was exact.

“I like them very much. I’ll take good care of them. I’ll send you photos every day so you can check.” After settling the new starfish, Yan Anqing looked up at him and promised.

A smile spread in Chu Baiyan’s eyes. “You should give them names.”

It seemed that Yan Anqing had already decided on names the moment he got them. He lifted the box with the two Chocolate starfish and pointed. “The one with more black is Black Chocolate. The one with less black is White Chocolate.”

He put it down and lifted the other box. “The big one is Big Red. The small one is Little Red.”

Chu Baiyan couldn’t hold back his laughter. “So the Blue Fingers from before, the big one was Big Blue, right? The small one Little Blue?”

“There’s also a medium one called Medium Blue.” Yan Anqing confirmed. He had three Blue Fingers.

Naming all the starfish in the tank like that wasn’t hard. Then Chu Baiyan’s stomach growled loudly. He had rushed over after work and hadn’t eaten dinner.

“You’re hungry?” Yan Anqing said it straightforwardly. “I haven’t eaten either. Let’s eat together.”

The shop was busy in the evenings, so he usually heated up his dinner and ate at the worktable so he could help any customer who came in. He left the shop to Chu Baiyan, went upstairs, reheated two scallion pancakes on the electric griddle, and brought the food down.

There were two bowls of plain porridge, a plate of scallion pancakes cut into pieces, and a dish of cold marinated lettuce stems. Each person also had a salted duck egg.

The sour-sweet lettuce was good with porridge. Cold side dishes didn’t need precise cooking, only exact seasoning. The taste never went wrong.

The shell of a salted duck egg wasn’t as easy to peel as a boiled egg. Yan Anqing cracked it at the wide end, peeled off a third of the shell, then used chopsticks to scoop the white and the oily yolk together and drop them onto his porridge.

When he looked up, he saw Chu Baiyan watching him. He picked up Chu Baiyan’s egg, cracked it the same way, peeled a third, scooped out the inside with chopsticks, and dropped it onto his bowl of porridge.

“Your grandma taught you that?” Chu Baiyan’s family always cut salted eggs into halves or quarters.

“Yes. That way hands don’t get dirty, and the yolk oil doesn’t spill.” Yan Anqing separated the white and yolk with his chopsticks, picked up the golden yolk, and bit into it.

When he was little, Grandma always told him to stay clean. She said clean kids were likable. Over time it became a habit.

The egg had the perfect saltiness. The white wasn’t too salty, and the yolk was soft and oily. Golden drops floated on the porridge, making it look appetizing.

Chu Baiyan couldn’t remember when he last had a dinner this homely. Simple porridge and side dishes, plus chewy scallion pancakes, felt comforting in the summer heat.

Since the start of summer vacation, tourists had increased, and the homestay business in the neighborhood had grown too. “Starfish Pottery” also had more customers than before. By nine-thirty at night, Yan Anqing was counting stock, though a few people still came in.

“Small ornaments sell well. Fruits, cute animals, Plants vs. Zombies figures, handmade starfish and shells. Tourists probably prefer small stuff that’s easy to carry and give as gifts. You could make more of these small ornaments for now.” Chu Baiyan checked which pieces sold the most that night and gave his advice.

“Okay.” Yan Anqing nodded and wrote it down in his phone notes.

Before closing, Chu Baiyan took a marine park annual pass from his pocket and handed it to him. “This is an annual pass for the ocean park. Take out your phone, scan this QR code in WeChat, and it’ll extend your old card.”

Yan Anqing went to the ocean park every day, so he obviously already had a card. That was why, besides the starfish, Chu Baiyan gave him this too, to make it easier for him to “see the sea.”

“You do it for me.” Yan Anqing unlocked his phone and handed it over. He’d always bought passes online before.

At the top of his WeChat chat list was the smiling face he’d sent that morning. Chu Baiyan scanned the code and linked it.

“You’re so nice.” Yan Anqing felt triple happiness that night. He liked that Chu Baiyan came to see him. He liked the starfish. He liked the annual pass too.

Chu Baiyan smiled. “You gave me such a beautiful plate. You’re nice too.”

“That plate was meant for you.” Yan Anqing corrected him.

“Who am I?” Chu Baiyan asked on purpose.

“You’re Chu Baiyan.”

“Am I human or merman?”

“Merman.” The question sounded strange to him. Chu Baiyan had become human, but he was still a merman.

“Go upstairs and sleep early. Good night.” Chu Baiyan looked at him gently and didn’t correct him. It didn’t matter who he was to Yan Anqing. The joy in Yan Anqing’s eyes was real.

After that day, Yan Anqing sent him not only morning and night messages but also photos of the starfish every day, telling him how each one was doing.

Once he even sent a video of them eating. The starfish pushed out their stomachs to wrap around food before digesting it. It was amazing. A moment later, their chat log became a long endless stream.

He’d been getting more commercial performance jobs lately, so he had less time to visit “Starfish Pottery” at night. He tried to go two or three mornings each week instead.

That night, after finishing a gig and showering at home, Chu Baiyan heard someone knocking. It was late, and no one usually came at this hour. He grabbed the clothes by his bed and put them on.

When he opened the door, it was his downstairs neighbor. The neighbor said his bathroom was leaking, and all the water had poured through from above. It was dripping so much it looked like rain, and they couldn’t even go in.

Chu Baiyan followed the neighbor downstairs right away. At the doorway of the downstairs bathroom, he saw water seeping through the ceiling and dripping down in thin streams.