Chapter 27 – Do You Still Want Me to Win?

Jiang Lou took his seat just as the announcer on stage introduced the next performance—a dance piece titled “Song of the Lark,” choreographed by Su Qinhan from Class 2, Grade 2, with music played by Li Tang from Class 1, Grade 2.

As the curtain lifted, blinding lights illuminated the stage. Jiang Lou saw Li Tang seated at a piano on the side of the stage, dressed in an elegant tuxedo, his back straight, long slender fingers touching the black and white keys. With each gentle press, beautiful music floated into the auditorium, reaching every audience member equally.

In a daze, memories drifted back nine years to that winter.

Three years after his father’s passing, ten-year-old Jiang Lou boarded a train alone bound for the capital.

He hadn’t bought a ticket, he’d sneaked aboard. At that time, Xucheng Railway Station was still under renovation, and security wasn’t tight. After being refused a ticket at the window with the excuse of “have your parents buy it,” he watched for the entrance to the train bound for the capital and managed to slip through during the ticket check, following behind a man carrying a large suitcase.

Xucheng was about two thousand kilometers from the capital, and trains didn’t run frequently. Jiang Lou had boarded a K-series train, which would make twenty-eight stops before reaching the capital, taking a total of thirty-five hours.

Every seat on the train was taken, and many people stood in the aisles. Jiang Lou stood at the junction between two cars, near where luggage was stored. When the conductor came to check tickets, Jiang Lou would retreat into the restroom. If it was occupied, he would pretend to be walking down the aisle. When asked, “Where are your family members, little boy?” he would point behind him and say, “Over there. I’m going to buy them some instant noodles.”

The conductor didn’t suspect anything and merely marveled at how considerate the child was, already looking out for his family.

Once the conductor was out of sight, Jiang Lou returned to his spot and sat on the floor. A man squatting nearby struck up a conversation: “Little boy running away from home?”

Despite his young age, Jiang Lou was quick-witted and remembered his father’s advice about being cautious around strangers when traveling alone.

He pursed his lips and said solemnly, “I’m not running away from home. I’m going to find my mom. She’ll be waiting for me at the station; we made plans.”

End-of-year travel was busy, and the train stopped several times to let high-speed trains pass. Thankfully, they were only an hour late when they finally reached the capital.

When he got off the train, Jiang Lou’s legs were swollen, and he reeked of the confined space.

He washed his head and face with cold water in the public restroom at the train station. Following the signs to the exit, he stepped outside and was hit by a gust of wind that made him shiver violently.

The wind was bone-chilling, turning Jiang Lou’s wet hair into icicles within seconds.

This was Jiang Lou’s only miscalculation. Before leaving, he had made thorough preparations—breaking open a money jar he’d saved for years, exchanging the coins for bills at a convenience store, and hiding them in the innermost pocket of his backpack. He also packed a few packets of instant noodles and a bottle of water for sustenance during the day-and-a-half journey. And he brought along his student ID, so if he got lost in the capital, he could tell the police he was a student at Xucheng Third Primary School, not a homeless wanderer.

He hadn’t learned geography yet, unaware that the capital was much colder than Xucheng.

But he felt a strange anticipation, Jiang Lou pulled tighter on the collar of his cotton coat, dampened by the wash, wondering if the capital would have snowfall like on TV—flakes as big as goose feathers.

Near the train station, he found a payphone in a store, where three yuan gave him five minutes of talk time.

Dialing the number he knew by heart, Jiang Lou swallowed.

He was nervous, even though he was calling his birth mother.

After four long rings, the call was answered.

A soft, melodious female voice responded, “Hello, who am I speaking to?”

Jiang Lou paused before saying, “It’s Jiang Lou.”

He wanted to call her Mom, but it felt unfamiliar, the words stuck in his throat. Instead, he identified himself and told her, “I’ve arrived in the capital, at the train station.”

Approximately half an hour later, Zhang Zhaoyue arrived.

She stepped out of the backseat of a black car, wearing a long cashmere coat that looked warm and shiny leather boots.

She hadn’t changed much in three years. Perhaps due to her pampered life, time hadn’t left too many marks on her face.

Yet her expression lacked any joy, making it easy for Jiang Lou to sense that he wasn’t welcome.

Back in Xucheng, she had hugged him on their first meeting, saying she missed him.

Stopping in front of Jiang Lou, Zhang Zhaoyue reached out, but hesitated mid-air before retracting her hand.

After scrutinizing him, Zhang Zhaoyue deliberately averted her gaze and asked, “How did you get our home number?”

Jiang Lou caught onto the word “home.”

He found it odd—shouldn’t the house at the foot of the mountain west of Xucheng be their home? How could a number in the capital be considered the home phone of his mother?

Still, he answered her question: “That kid told me.”

Three years ago, when Jiang Lou was seven, a five-year-old boy had cried and run to his house, saying he was looking for his mom. The boy had given him his name and left his home’s landline number.

Later, Zhang Zhaoyue carried the boy away, and Jiang Lou heard him call her “Mom.”

Zhang Zhaoyue seemed to sigh. “Did something happen?”

Jiang Lou shook his head.

“So why are you here?”

Jiang Lou had initially wanted to show her his certificate for being an outstanding student, but reconsidered, feeling it wouldn’t sway her. Instead, he took something out of his backpack. “I found this at home.”

It was a thick plastic bag, its wear and tear revealing the age of its contents. As Zhang Zhaoyue pulled out several stamped letters and two green-bound divorce certificates, her eyes immediately welled up.

Finally, a metal ring fell out of the bag. Zhang Zhaoyue squatted down to pick it up—it was a simple silver wedding band, their marriage ring. This was hers; the other had remained on Jiang Lou’s father’s finger until death.

On a frigid winter evening, outside a small shop near the train station, thirty-four-year-old Zhang Zhaoyue buried her face in her arms, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

Ten-year-old Jiang Lou stood before her, at a loss for what to do. He wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how to start, lifting his hand but not daring to touch her.

This was only the second time they had met; they weren’t close.

So he didn’t speak his true feelings, like delivering things was an excuse—he just wanted to see his mom.

Or how he had always wanted to ask if the child named Li Tang was his younger brother.

Jiang Lou stood there, silently accompanying his mother.

After his father’s death, he had cried countless times, often falling asleep while crying, unable to open his eyes the next day.

He had lived with his aunt for a period. Initially, she pitied him and left a bowl of porridge for breakfast, but over time, seeing him only annoyed her: “I’ve told you a hundred times, once someone’s dead, they’re gone. Crying won’t bring them back. Why don’t you care more about the living, eat less, grow up faster, and repay me for raising you.”

Later, Jiang Lou left his aunt’s home because one day, standing outside, he overheard her talking on the phone: “When the brat’s parents divorced, his mother paid all the alimony upfront…it wasn’t much, you know kids are money pits. Raising him has cost quite a bit. What’s left in my hands isn’t enough for a mortgage, if not for the house under his dad’s name…once the brat finishes junior high, I’ll send him to Shen City to work in a factory. I hear they hire assembly line workers there, with room and board provided. He can send home two thousand yuan a month.”

His father had constantly warned him to study hard, to go to high school like his mom, then university, to leave Xucheng and see the wider world.

He couldn’t disappoint his father’s expectations, so he refused to drop out after junior high and go to work; he wanted to continue his education.

So Jiang Lou held back his tears. In the welfare home, there were plenty of children born with disabilities, cries echoing everywhere.

He feared being kicked out, eating sparingly and studying desperately. He thought that if he worked hard enough, outshining everyone, his mother would return to Xucheng and live with him again.

They had a “ten-year agreement.”

However, what Jiang Lou awaited wasn’t Zhang Zhaoyue taking his hand.

A chauffeur in a suit got out of the driver’s seat and told Zhang Zhaoyue, “Young Master’s piano lesson is over. We need to leave now or we’ll be late.”

Jiang Lou guessed whom he meant by “young master,” watching Zhang Zhaoyue warily, fearing she would just leave.

And when Zhang Zhaoyue dried her tears and stood up, Jiang Lou grabbed her hem.

Looking down, Zhang Zhaoyue saw Jiang Lou looking up at her, her face revealing a helpless sorrow.

“Go back,” she said. “Don’t come again, and don’t call me anymore.”

But Jiang Lou didn’t understand why she was sad. All he wanted was his mom, clinging to her hem unwilling to let go. “Dad said you wouldn’t abandon us. He said you would come back when I turned ten.”

Jiang Lou didn’t miss the fleeting struggle on Zhang Zhaoyue’s face, but still, his fingers were pried apart, forcing him to release the soft fabric.

Zhang Zhaoyue turned away, leaving him with a resolute back. “I never made that promise with him.”

“Go back, as if I’m not your mother.”

Their second meeting was also brief and hurried, too short for Jiang Lou to tell Zhang Zhaoyue that he had moved out of his aunt’s house, that the welfare home only offered temporary shelter.

But the journey back was still long.

Long enough for ten-year-old Jiang Lou to realize he had been abandoned.

Because his mother had another child, she no longer wanted him.

He wasn’t as important as that child. He couldn’t outshine that child.

Not long after returning to Xucheng from the capital, Jiang Lou got into a fight with a few junior high students and was hit on the head with a flower pot, causing his left ear to become deaf. At the time, he was in the early stages of learning English, and two failed surgeries left him disheartened, forcing him to take a leave of absence from school.

His next visit to the capital was a year later.

After his aunt gave him money for surgery and claimed the remaining support fees were spent, it was a welfare organization that raised funds to help him get a hearing aid, allowing him to return to school. Everything seemed to be improving.

And he went to the capital not with fantasies of bringing his mother back, but to know what she—the woman who gave birth to him—was doing when he was beaten bloody and nearly unconscious.

Jiang Lou remembered the child who visited his home mentioning that he was learning piano from a teacher at the Children’s Palace.

Upon arriving in the capital, Jiang Lou headed straight for the Children’s Palace.

He asked locals for directions, taking a detour after getting off the bus. Arriving at the entrance of the Children’s Palace at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, he found the place festively decorated for New Year’s Eve, with a bulletin board displaying the schedule for today’s arts performances.

As he entered, the elderly guard asked if he was participating in the arts festival. Jiang Lou said he was a spectator, and the guard pointed him in the right direction: “Follow the pedestrian path straight ahead, and you’ll see a building with a round dome—that’s the auditorium. You can go inside and watch.”

This time, Jiang Lou didn’t get lost. He smoothly entered the auditorium and found a step to sit on at the side. Coincidentally, one performance had just ended, and the next was a piano solo by nine-year-old Li Tang.

Jiang Lou stared intently at the person on stage, noticing how much taller he had grown since he was five, dressed in a well-fitting, elegant tuxedo, sitting at the piano like a radiant little prince.

And Jiang Lou sat in a corner of the audience, his hearing aid indiscriminately amplifying all sounds, making it impossible for him to distinguish the piano music, instead causing a headache from the surrounding noise.

The boy on stage was graceful and confident, seemingly born for the limelight. Jiang Lou, sitting below, was dark and resentful, like a rat in a gutter.

They came from two different worlds.

Jiang Lou didn’t attempt to find Zhang Zhaoyue among the audience.

There was no need to look; she was definitely there.

At seven years old, Jiang Lou already knew that Li Tang had piano lessons with a teacher at the Children’s Palace every weekend.

And when ten-year-old Jiang Lou was beaten to the point of bleeding and rushed to the hospital, the doctor asked where his guardian was. In his delirious state, Jiang Lou reported the number Zhang Zhaoyue forbade him from calling again, and the call went unanswered. It was Sunday afternoon, and Zhang Zhaoyue was accompanying Li Tang to his piano lesson.

Exiting the auditorium, snowflakes swirled down from the sky.

Jiang Lou tilted his head upward, realizing the expectation he had harbored during his previous visit to the capital had come true. Simultaneously, he realized how foolish he had been.

When those junior high students laughed at him for being an orphan, he refused to admit it, since his biological mother was still alive, and the welfare home couldn’t officially take him in.

Actually, he had already lost.

He was already an orphan.

Time passed, and now nineteen-year-old Jiang Lou sat in the audience, watching the grown-up little prince on stage. The cacophony faded, replaced by a vast emptiness.

The performance ended, the music paused, and the curtains slowly closed, taking away the last sliver of light in Jiang Lou’s eyes.

From the depths of silence came a voice, calling him from a brief moment of light back into eternal darkness.

After changing back into his own clothes backstage, Li Tang hurriedly bid farewell to Su Qinhan and ran toward the audience area.

But by the time he arrived, Jiang Lou had already left.

On his phone was a message from Jiang Lou: Left early, have another match to play.

Li Tang wanted to join Jiang Lou, but Li Zichu pulled him down by the arm. “We’re all going to Tree House for New Year’s Eve. No skipping out.”

Considering how lately he’d been so focused on dating that he hadn’t kept in touch with his friends, Li Tang sat down guiltily.

He sent a WeChat message to Jiang Lou: Come to Tree House when you’re done. Let’s celebrate New Year’s together.

This message went unanswered.

Tree House Café was located in the heart of the old city district, one of the liveliest areas in Xucheng. But the reason everyone gathered there today was because a New Year’s fireworks display would be held at the nearby city square. Tree House faced the square, separated by only two streets, providing a prime viewing spot.

With fifteen minutes until midnight, classmates had already gathered on the rooftop of the café. Li Tang wasn’t in a hurry, ascending only when he heard cheers. Luckily, Zhou Dongze had reserved a spot for him, saving him from having to stand at the back.

Zhou Dongze also brought him a drink. When he took the cup, their hands made a “pop” sound from static electricity.

Li Tang skillfully applied hand cream from his pocket. Zhou Dongze laughed, “This is too troublesome. Isn’t there another solution?”

Of course there was: desensitization.

Tonight, he had thought of Jiang Lou countless times. After applying the hand cream, Li Tang took out his phone, but the screen showed no unread messages.

Seeing him distracted, Zhou Dongze went to find other friends. Before leaving, he pointed to the sky, urging Li Tang not to miss the scenery.

So Li Tang looked up, his dark pupils reflecting a kaleidoscope of colors as the fireworks exploded in their most magnificent moment, etching themselves deeply into his eyes.

He had heard a saying once—life is composed of countless moments.

These moments now were an essential part of memory.

But beautiful things were fleeting, easily making Li Tang feel overwhelmed, afraid that Jiang Lou was just a brief and dazzling flash in his life.

Amidst the synchronized countdown of those around him, Li Tang dialed Jiang Lou’s number.

He hadn’t held much hope, but when the count reached “7,” the call was picked up.

Li Tang suddenly drew a breath. “…Finished?”

“Yeah, just finished.”

Cheers continued in the background: “4…3…2…1…”

Li Tang rushed to catch the last digit, shouting loudly, “Happy New Year!”

Cheers erupted, voices booming.

Perhaps muffled by the noise, the response came after a long pause. “Happy New Year.”

Li Tang turned his back to the crowd, covering his other ear. “Did you win?”

“Do you want me to win?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then I won.”

Li Tang laughed. “I’ve decided. From now on, I’ll always watch you win.”

It was a response to Jiang Lou’s retort on Christmas Eve, “you decide,” also declaring his earnestness and determination.

Such bold and decisive words didn’t fit Li Tang’s personality, so Jiang Lou paused. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” Li Tang’s tone rose. “Are you afraid you can’t guarantee victory in every match?”

Jiang Lou laughed. “Idiot.”

Being called an “idiot” again, Li Tang was confused. “…What’s wrong with me?”

“Hmm, nothing’s wrong with you.”

“Tell me, stop brushing me off.”

On the other end of the phone, Jiang Lou’s lips slowly drooped as he removed his boxing gloves.

For his instinctive reaction—faced with such pure trust, he actually hesitated for a moment.

As if he couldn’t continue lying.

However, it didn’t matter to occasionally tell the truth.

It might make things more interesting.

Laughter escaped his throat again, and Jiang Lou spoke into the phone’s microphone, “If I win, it means you lose.”

“Even so, do you still want me to win?”