Chapter 35 – This Is What You Said

Spring arrived earlier in Xucheng than in the capital, accompanied by drizzling rain that brought with it the damp scent of earth. Ginkgo trees sprouted new leaves, and willows unfurled tender green shoots.

In the first monthly exam of the second semester of Grade 2, Li Tang advanced into the top hundred students of his grade, ranking eighty-eighth.

It was also the first time he had entered the honor roll, his name inscribed on conspicuous red paper and posted on the bulletin board.

Though still far from Jiang Lou’s third place in the grade, Li Tang was quite satisfied. With a grand gesture, he treated both classes to milk tea.

The reason it was two classes was that Li Tang included Class 1 of Science, where most of his classmates from the first semester of Grade 2 were. His improved performance was partly due to the good study habits he had developed in the elite class.

Li Zichu marveled, “It’s said that dating should affect your studies negatively, yet you’ve done the opposite… Did Jiang Lou help you with the test questions again?”

“I’m not that reliant on him, alright? I worked hard too,” Li Tang defended himself.

Of course, Li Tang knew deep down that Jiang Lou deserved the most credit. If it weren’t for Jiang Lou’s supervision and insistence on tackling those complex math problems, his laid-back nature would have led him to slack off once he was assigned to an ordinary class. There would have been no chance of improvement then.

Thus, Li Tang specially prepared a “teacher appreciation banquet,” treating Jiang Lou as the guest of honor, with Li Zichu and Huo Xichen accompanying. The four of them dined at a restaurant outside school.

As mutual confidants in each other’s relationships, they ate with ease and relaxation.

Huo Xichen maintained his subservient demeanor, serving tea and water to Jiang Lou, declaring with a face full of gratitude, “After knowing each other for so long, this is the first time we’re eating out together with Brother Jiang.”

Li Zichu rolled his eyes, “Yes, yes, it’s like a god descending to Earth. Why don’t you grab his hand and make a wish?”

Huo Xichen chuckled, “No need for that.”

During the meal, Li Zichu proposed a group date for the following weekend.

Li Tang was keen on the idea. Most of the time he spent with Jiang Lou was at Jiang Lou’s home; they hadn’t had many formal dates.

However, deciding on the form and content of the date proved challenging. Jiang Lou’s circumstances were special; he couldn’t tolerate noisy environments, whereas Huo Xichen thrived in crowds.

Li Zichu grumbled as he brainstormed, “Truly difficult to please.”

Only Li Tang agreed to anything suggested, saying “Okay, okay” and “Sure, sure.” Li Zichu joked, “Shouldn’t we just become a couple then?”

Li Tang quickly backtracked, “No, no, I still want to be with my brother.”

A slip of the tongue that would haunt him for eternity.

That evening, when Li Tang returned home, Li Zichu was still messaging him cat emojis with rolling eyes, as if everything needed no further explanation.

Li Tang tried to explain weakly, “Listen to me…”

Li Zichu sent an emoji of a cat covering its ears, saying, “I’m not listening, I’m not listening.”

Li Tang: …How do you have emojis for everything?

They exchanged thoughts on their experiences with “brother play.”

Li Zichu mentioned, “At first, Huo Xichen didn’t want to call me brother; his father forced him to do so.”

Li Tang was taken aback, “What a coincidence.”

“Now, he actually doesn’t like calling me that either, only in private, when it’s just the two of us…”

“I understand; calling someone brother in public is really embarrassing.”

“You called me that too.”

“I…that was a slip of the tongue.”

Li Zichu laughed, “Looks like you two enjoy playing around.”

Li Tang had a question he wanted to ask, “When…when I talk about Huo Xichen, does calling you brother get a reaction from you?”

“What kind of reaction?”

“The kind of reaction.”

“Which kind?”

“…Forget I asked.”

“Forget it, forget it, I won’t tease you.” Li Zichu couldn’t stop laughing, “Of course there’s a reaction, especially since we’re technically brothers. It’s more stimulating.”

Li Tang said, “But Jiang Lou and I don’t have that relationship, why is his reaction so…”

“So intense?”

“…Yeah.”

“How intense?”

Li Tang didn’t know how to describe it, “It’s just that he seems too absorbed, there’s a kind of conflict, or heaviness, in his eyes looking at me. It’s like he’s in pain, which makes me feel…”

“A sense of immoral guilt?”

“…Yeah.”

Li Zichu hissed, pondering for a while before speculating, “One possibility is that he’s playing a role and has really immersed himself as your real older brother.”

“And the other?”

“The other is that he indeed has a younger brother, and you resemble that brother.”

Li Tang found neither of these possibilities plausible.

Firstly, Jiang Lou was a man rooted in reality. He never indulged in fantasies and seemed to harbor little hope for the future. Sometimes he was even tired of dealing with Li Tang’s insistence on rituals during various holidays, asking where Li Tang got the energy for all that fuss.

Jiang Lou went to school during the day and fought in boxing matches every other night. He wore school uniforms year-round and hadn’t bought new clothes in years. He chose cheap options when dining alone, and despite his phone screen being cracked, he didn’t replace it…

Such a person couldn’t possibly have the time or inclination to indulge in fantasies. Preparing a bouquet of roses for his lover on Valentine’s Day was already the extent of his romantic gestures.

The second scenario seemed even more absurd to Li Tang.

Jiang Lou’s parents divorced shortly after his birth. His father never had another woman until his passing, while his mother, according to his aunt, “ran off with someone else,” perhaps forming a new family and having more children.

Li Tang cupped his cheeks, his brows slightly furrowed.

Could that child be me?

Li Tang knew little about the relationship between his parents. All he heard from his grandmother was that they had started living together before getting married. When he was born, Zhang Zhaoyue was still studying for her postgraduate degree in the capital.

As for what happened afterward, why Zhang Zhaoyue didn’t continue her studies and why she hadn’t worked outside the home in recent years, Li Tang guessed it had something to do with her health issues.

Why would a university student return to her hometown to have a child with a man?

What a ridiculous thought.

Li Tang almost laughed at himself. Modern TV dramas didn’t concoct such melodramatic plots of “lovers becoming siblings.” How likely was it to happen in real life, could the probability reach one in ten thousand?

Perhaps it was the wild speculation before bed that led Li Tang to have a night of bizarre dreams.

In the dream, he floated in midair, thinking he was a bird, but upon glancing left and right, he saw no feathers on his wings.

He kept flying, flying, through thickets of shrubs, dodging attacks from flocks of predators. He thought that flying out of this fog would lead him to the end, to the doorstep of his home, but instead, he encountered a massive net. The fine black threads enveloped him.

He struggled and wriggled, but the threads tightened around him.

He realized he was actually a butterfly, easily ensnared in the net, doomed to perish.

Who could blame him for his thin and weak wings, unable to soar over mountains or cross plains?

The next day, in a highly private screening room at the cinema, Li Tang recounted this dream to Jiang Lou, eliciting a light laugh from Jiang Lou.

When asked what he was laughing at, Jiang Lou leaned close to his ear, whispering in a voice audible only to the two of them, “Aren’t you a fox? How did you turn into a butterfly?”

Due to the level of development in Xucheng, the group date ended up being a movie outing.

But it was a private screening. Jiang Lou disliked crowded places, while Huo Xichen couldn’t handle silence, so they met halfway.

Initially, they planned to visit a private cinema, but Li Zichu informed them that many couples used those venues as hotel rooms, pretending to watch movies while engaging in other activities. Moreover, the sheets and blankets there might not be changed for a whole year… This frightened Li Tang into blacklisting all the cinemas on his list, fearing that he might catch a virus through the internet if he acted too slowly.

The theater they were now in was selected by Li Tang and Li Zichu together. It was an old cinema in the outskirts of the city with minimal foot traffic. In recent years, the theater had struggled due to competition from commercial complexes in the city center. To survive, they had to innovate, adopting a boutique small-screen approach, focusing on quietness, comfort, and privacy. They screened different themed movies each month and offered group-buy deals on apps like Meituan.

The theater owner had a rebellious streak, insisting on a “BE Aesthetics” theme in early spring. As soon as the four of them entered the screening room, the familiar melody of the Irish whistle played, and the word “Titanic” appeared on the screen. Li Tang was somewhat surprised.

It was his mother Zhang Zhaoyue’s favorite movie, which Li Tang had watched several times with her. It was also a love memorial for Jiang Lou’s parents, with a poster from 1998 hanging on the wall of their mountain cottage for many years.

But there were so many famous movies that could be considered “BE Aesthetics,” why this particular one?

Compared to Li Tang’s surprise, Jiang Lou remained composed, casting a glance at the screen before sitting down.

Li Tang followed suit, watching the plot he knew by heart while stealing glances at Jiang Lou’s reactions.

Did he hate this movie because of his mother’s heartless abandonment?

Later, he realized he had overthought it. Facing a movie renowned enough that everyone on Earth had seen it, less than half an hour into the film, everyone began doing their own thing. Li Zichu and Huo Xichen, sitting in the back row, whispered to each other first, then cuddled together. Over an hour before the end, they disappeared altogether.

Li Tang was the most considerate, staying until the very end. Even though the story was cliché and the ending unchangeable, he still felt moved and shed tears.

When the male lead sacrificed his life to save the female lead, the passage of time was depicted through the wrinkles around her eyes. Li Tang heard the person beside him ask, “Romantic, isn’t it?”

Li Tang hesitated, then nodded, “Of course.”

One person willingly dying for another, the other choosing to live on, merging two into one forever inseparable, prolonging life. A symbolic representation of eternal love, how could it not be romantic?

After hearing this, Jiang Lou let out a nearly emotionless laugh.

Li Tang didn’t understand the meaning behind his laughter and couldn’t resist asking, “Then what do you think is romantic?”

Jiang Lou gazed at the screen ahead, where the heroine stood under the Statue of Liberty, drenched in the rain. Li Tang felt as if the rain was falling into Jiang Lou’s eyes.

Yet his eyes were so deep, bottomless, making it impossible to see the ripples caused by the raindrops falling into the depths.

“If it were me, I’d die with him.”

Said Jiang Lou, “Dying together, that’s what’s romantic.”

Hearing this vastly different interpretation, Li Tang involuntarily shivered.

After the movie, Li Tang went to the restroom first.

He usually preferred the innermost stall, but today, the door of the innermost stall wouldn’t open; someone was inside.

He had to use the adjacent one. Just as he wiped the toilet seat clean and was about to sit down, he noticed a shoe tip protruding from beneath the partition.

Li Tang remembered that before entering the theater, Huo Xichen had boasted to him about these shoes, claiming they were a limited edition from a certain sports brand.

With the rustling sound of fabric rubbing against each other, the other shoe appeared from below, a pointed heel with a fine, glossy black surface—a clearly feminine high heel.

Li Tang felt a shock of disbelief, his mouth agape on the way back.

He asked Jiang Lou if he had known about their interaction style, and Jiang Lou said no.

Li Tang still couldn’t accept it, “…Aren’t you at all surprised?”

Jiang Lou told him about someone at the gym who hit harder than anyone on the stage, once knocking out three front teeth of his opponent with a single punch. Off-stage, this person rented an entire locker room as a closet, filled with dresses of varying lengths and different styles of high heels. His favorite activity was taking a shower after a fierce battle, changing into women’s clothing, and going out for a stroll.

“The multifaceted nature of people, things, and events means that anything can happen,” said Jiang Lou. “Allow everything to happen.”

Moreover, there were signs that hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Recalling a scene glimpsed last year at the script-killing venue, Li Zichu had been wearing a dress and kissed Huo Xichen under the glass dome. Everything made sense now.

Since they were willing participants, why should I worry about it?

Soon, it was Li Tang’s turn to worry about himself.

He and Jiang Lou headed home together, but unexpectedly, the lock hole of the security door was rusted from rainwater. The key wouldn’t turn after several attempts, leaving only the handle in hand, with the key teeth broken inside the lock.

Previously, Li Tang had witnessed Jiang Lou struggling to open the door and had a premonition that something like this would happen. He had even advised Jiang Lou to change the lock, but Jiang Lou had been too busy to do so.

Well, fear of what you dread.

Li Tang sighed deeply, echoing Jiang Lou’s words, “It’s okay, allow everything to happen.”

Jiang Lou laughed and tossed the lonely handle into the grass by the roadside.

It was late, and the locksmith could only come during the day. The urgent problem was where to spend the night.

Li Tang suggested booking a room at a nearby hotel, but Jiang Lou said he didn’t have his ID card. Moreover, the nearest hotel was three kilometers away, a distance that was too far to walk but likely to be rejected by taxi drivers.

There were no relatives or friends living nearby. Jiang Lou was considering spending the night at a convenience store when Li Tang asked, “What about me?”

“Go back to your own home.”

“Why don’t you come back with me?” Li Tang suddenly recalled, “We talked about inviting you to my house before, how could I forget?”

Pausing for a few seconds, Jiang Lou spoke again with apparent hesitation, “Wouldn’t that be too intrusive?”

Li Tang reassured him, “Not at all, my mom should be asleep by this time. We’ll just have to be quieter.”

Another moment of silence.

Li Tang wasn’t sure why Jiang Lou was hesitating, whether it was the restraint of visiting a stranger’s home or the concern of their relationship being exposed.

“It’s fine, we won’t run into my mom,” Li Tang took Jiang Lou’s hand, “Even if she finds out, I’ll protect you.”

Jiang Lou smiled, unsure if it was for Li Tang’s words of “it’s fine” or his declaration of “I’ll protect you.”

Nonetheless, he was convinced. Jiang Lou closed his fingers, returning Li Tang’s grip.

“This is what you said.”