TF01 63

That day, when Shi Yi left Ying Ming’s place, it was already close to noon.

The two of them had even thrown together a simple meal. Just some bread with cereal. That was all Ying Ming had left in his fridge, barely enough for the two of them.

“Let’s get in touch later,” Shi Yi said as he left.

Ying Ming was tidying up the table. He did not look up, just let out a noncommittal grunt, and only moved again once the warehouse door had closed.

After that, for a few minutes, he did not want to move at all.

The things in his hands were only half-put away. Putting them down felt awkward. Picking them up felt awkward too. Everything in his field of vision seemed to flicker like it was wired to some electronic regulator, flashing and shifting until it gave him a headache. He furrowed his brow slightly, then sat down slowly beside the dining table.

He set the dishes down carelessly, looked around, and finally spotted the cigarettes. But when he opened the box, it was already empty. He and Shi Yi had finished the last of them.

That feeling when you really want something but cannot have it always feels terrible.

Just like Ying Ming right now, desperate for a cigarette but not having one to smoke.

He threw the cigarette box aside, grabbed his hair, slumped over the table, and glared at the back of the smoke detector squatting on the arm of the sofa. His whole body felt wrong.

He swore he would never drink like that again in this lifetime.

Damn it. His head hurt. His eyes hurt. His throat hurt. His chest hurt.

There was not a single part of him that felt good.

—

After returning, Shi Yi stayed cooped up in the office for several days.

There actually was not that much work at the company, but he just did not want to go home. He had his assistant buy a folding bed, set it up in the office, and slept there at night. In the morning, he would go to a nearby hotel to shower.

Ou Yang could not understand what he was doing. He asked what was going on, but Shi Yi did not say a word. His mood was not as irritable as before, but he seemed completely stifled, like he was stuck fighting himself.

“I’m just saying, if you really don’t want to go home, then book a room at a hotel and sleep there. Isn’t it uncomfortable on a folding bed? There’s nothing in the office, and you still have to go to the hotel in the morning. What’s the point?”

Ou Yang frowned slightly as he looked at Shi Yi’s tired, worn-out face. “Or maybe you should just go on a trip, get out and clear your head. The company doesn’t have much going on anyway.”

Shi Yi shook his head. “I’m fine.” He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took a couple of drags, then leaned back in his office chair. “At least here in the office I can get something done. The hotel is what really feels empty to me.”

Lately, he could not stand having nothing to do.

The moment his hands were idle, he felt unsettled. That restlessness was enough to drive a person mad.

Ou Yang watched as he instinctively reached for his phone again. He kept flipping the cover open and shut, shut and open. Shi Yi had never had these kinds of habits before. Maybe because of the way he was raised, no matter where he went, he always gave off an air of discipline. Whether standing or sitting, there was a steadiness about him. Noisy little fidgeting behaviors like this used to be exactly the sort of thing he hated.

But now, it seemed like the moment he had nothing to do, he would pull out his phone.

It never looked like he was actually going to make a call. Most of the time, he would fiddle with it for a long while, then toss it aside. Once, he even nearly smashed it.

This kind of behavior tended to get worse when he was alone. During work hours, he did not show any signs of it at all.

But if Shi Yi did not want to talk, there was nothing Ou Yang could do. All he could do was walk around behind him and pat his friend on the shoulder. “If there’s anything I can help with, just say the word.”

Shi Yi gave a slight nod to show his thanks, though his eyes were still fixed on the phone in his hand. There was a bitter smile at the corner of his lips.

By now, it had been nearly a week since he last contacted Ying Ming.

Ever since he left that day, there had been no phone calls, no visits. The first two days were manageable, but now it was becoming harder and harder to bear.

Shi Yi was starting to regret it.

If he had not gone to Ying Ming’s place that day, the two of them might still be maintaining a relatively safe distance. Even if it felt awkward, life would have gone on just the same. It was like Ying Ming always said. This world keeps turning no matter who disappears from it. The earth does not stop for anyone. Shi Yi had agreed with that too. Life was never supposed to have anything so important that it could not be lost. Once enough time passed, nothing would be left behind anyway.

But now, sitting here with those words in front of him, they sounded like complete nonsense.

That urge to see someone, to hear their voice felt like hunger. Like thirst.

More than once, his finger had already dialed the number before he realized it and abruptly hung up, then sat there alone, chain-smoking in frustration.

Anyone who had never felt this would never understand it.

At the very least, the Shi Yi from before would never have believed that a person’s actions could be completely out of their brain’s control. These past few days had been pure mental torment. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see were the things that happened between him and Ying Ming that night on the sofa. He kept hearing Ying Ming’s voice in his ear, seeing his eyes, his expression, the sound of him speaking. Like a nightmare on loop, it kept replaying in his head, and no matter what he did, he could not block it out.

If he had never crossed that line, the most it would have left was regret.

But after having it, then forcing himself to cut it off, that feeling was beyond words.

“Fuck this.” A simple document, and he had mistyped seven or eight of the ten characters. Shi Yi finally lost it and slammed the keyboard down on the desk, grabbed his coat in frustration, and stormed out.

Now he could not even stay in the office.

Deliberately leaving his phone behind, Shi Yi lit a cigarette and drove aimlessly through the streets. The city always seemed louder at night than in the day. People of all kinds filled every corner, making it feel like there was not a single place left that could offer any peace.

He drove past a few bars, even parked in front of them, but in the end he turned around and left.

He had never been the type to drown his sorrows in alcohol. And right now, he was even more aware that indulging himself would only lead to a bad ending. He was not seventeen or eighteen anymore. Consequences mattered. The word restraint had always weighed heavily in his mind.

There were only so many roads a person could take. He kept driving in circles with no real destination. Frowning, Shi Yi turned on the radio. He did not switch it to CD mode, because there was only one CD in his car. The demo Ying Ming had given him.

They had not even known each other for that long, and yet it felt like his entire life had already been filled to the brim. No matter what he did, Ying Ming’s shadow kept surfacing in his thoughts, hazy and lingering.

In the end, Shi Yi drove the entire night.

By the time he showed up at the company the next day, Ou Yang actually thought he had finally come to his senses and gone home to sleep.

Looking at the relief on his friend’s face, Shi Yi opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say.

But starting from that day, he no longer spent his nights holed up in the office. At first, he drove around aimlessly. Then he started going to bars. He still did not drink much. Most of the time, he just picked a corner seat, watching other people laugh wildly, dance like lunatics, shout and curse, feeling like he was surrounded by people and yet had nothing to do with any of them. If anyone tried to strike up a conversation, he brushed them off coldly, letting them give up on their own.

Checking his phone had become a neurotic habit. At first it was because he could not stop himself from wanting to call. Later, it was because he kept hoping a call would come through.

A call from that number he knew so well.

Shi Yi felt like he was going out of his mind.

The days dragged on, one after another. The release he had hoped for never came. Instead, things kept getting worse.

It was not until one day, when a casual acquaintance who had met him a few times greeted him and suddenly brought up Ying Ming, saying he was surprised not to have seen him at the place he usually frequented, that Shi Yi finally realized something.

These bars he had been going to lately were the ones they used to go to together most often.

At that moment, Shi Yi honestly could not tell if he wanted to curse or laugh.

In the end, he had just been lying to himself. Like a complete idiot.

So after that, he stopped going to bars altogether.

When he really could not take it, he would drive to Ying Ming’s place and circle around. He would not get out or say anything. If he saw the lights still on in the warehouse, he would stop at the street corner, smoke a couple of cigarettes, then drive off again. He would go home, turn on the television until it made him drowsy, then close his eyes and let another day go by.

He had tracked down every single movie Ying Ming had ever acted in. On weekends when he did not have any pressing engagements, he would stay home and watch DVDs. Sometimes he laughed at them alone, thought he was completely out of his mind, then cursed at the air a few times and kept watching.

Every now and then, when Ying Ming’s name came up in the news or gossip columns, Shi Yi would pay close attention. But it was always the same old scandals being dragged up again. Nothing new. It seemed like no one had heard anything about Ying Ming recently, no one knew where he had gone. If it were not for the lights that kept staying on in that warehouse whenever he passed by, Shi Yi would have thought he had already left the city.

As for why Ying Ming had not left, Shi Yi had a faint sense of it deep down. But he did not want to think too hard about it.

He had two military tags custom-made and sent them to Ying Ming.

The courier confirmed that they had been signed for in person, although they had not been opened on the spot.

When Ying Ming opened the door and heard the person outside say it was something from Shi Yi, he froze for a moment.

It was such a ridiculous scene. Two grown men, close enough to know everything about each other, still sending things through other people.

He brought the box back inside and tossed it casually on the coffee table. It sat there until nighttime. Right before his shower, he finally gave in and opened it.

It was a necklace.

In one of the films he had acted in, his character wore something just like this around his neck. He would bite down on it while killing people. The director had made a point of zooming in on it in several scenes. It ended up becoming one of his more iconic shots.

Shi Yi had copied the exact design from the film. Or maybe, military tags just always looked like this, and there was no such thing as a custom design. The engraving was done by hand. One side said 2401. The other side had that sentence Ying Ming had said to him that day.

“Once it’s past midnight, it’s already tomorrow.”

Ying Ming stared at the two tags in his hand for a long, long time.

At first, he thought it was hilarious. He thought Shi Yi must have a screw loose, sending something so dramatic, and doing it at such a dramatic time. But as he laughed, something in him started to boil over.

He got angry.

He gripped the tags tighter and tighter until the veins on the back of his hand stood out. No matter what he did, he could not put out the fire burning in his chest.

He had done it on purpose.

Shi Yi had absolutely done it on purpose.

“Fuck! Shi Yi, you bastard!”

Gritting the words through his teeth, Ying Ming sprang to his feet and started throwing punches at the sandbag in a frenzy, almost like he had lost his mind. He was not even wearing gloves. The chain of the military tag he had been gripping swung with every movement, snapping hard against his arm and leaving red marks in its wake. A dull ache spread through the skin, stinging and numb.

He kept punching until he was completely exhausted. Then he collapsed against the sandbag and slowly slid down, lying flat on the floor in a sprawl. It was already winter, and the ground was freezing cold. The chill pierced right through his skin and sank into his bones.

But he barely felt it.

His head turned to the side, and stared at the number 2401 engraved on the military tag. In the end, he shut his eyes, too drained to keep them open, gritting his teeth as he cursed Shi Yi’s entire family in his heart.