Chapter 34 – The Downfall of Powerlessness

188

Xiang Lei’s bloodshot eyes, swollen nose, and bruised chin didn’t begin to heal until a week later.

During that week, Xiang Lei never returned to school. He spent the first few days at Wei Tong’s place. On the fourth day, He Fei wanted to take Xiang Lei to see an apartment. He Fei said the place was only two buildings away from where Wei Tong lived.

For some reason, Xiang Lei didn’t show the excitement He Fei had imagined. He seemed reluctant to even go with He Fei to check it out, simply saying, “If you think it’s good, then it’s fine.”

He Fei asked him, “What’s wrong? You don’t want to move out?”

Xiang Lei replied, “Don’t get mad, but… I just feel like it’s a bit unreliable…”

He Fei wasn’t angry: “You don’t trust me?”

Xiang Lei quickly said, “No.”

He Fei reminded him, “Wei Tong’s boyfriend is coming back in a couple of days.”

In the end, Xiang Lei still went with He Fei.

The apartment had the same layout as Wei Tong’s place. They climbed to the sixth floor past a stairwell cluttered with all kinds of junk, entered through the door on the right, and found themselves in a narrow hallway. At the end of the hallway, next to a window, was a simple shelving unit. Two doors faced each other on either side—one leading to a tiny bathroom, the other to the only bedroom. The furniture in the bedroom had a distinctly ’80s vibe—old, but clean and tidy. The bedroom connected to a fairly large balcony, separated by a window that took up most of the wall.

He Fei asked Xiang Lei what he thought. Xiang Lei kept walking back and forth between the bedroom and the balcony, saying, “It’s nice.” Then He Fei signed the rental agreement, paid the deposit and rent, and the landlord handed over the keys before leaving with a few polite words.

He Fei kicked off his shoes and flopped onto the big bed in the center of the bedroom, sprawling out like the character “大” (big). He exhaled loudly and said, “Damn, I’ve been exhausted these past couple of days!” Xiang Lei sat on the edge of the bed and turned to ask, “How did you find this place?”

He Fei sat up, pulled Xiang Lei down onto the bed with him, rested Xiang Lei’s head on his chest, and wrapped an arm around his neck. He said, “By putting up flyers! I wanted to find something on a lower floor, but weirdly enough, every place I got calls about was on the fucking sixth floor!”

“Where did you get so much money? I thought we were just looking today,” Xiang Lei said.

“Don’t worry about that. Let’s go shopping this afternoon. The bedding from the dorm won’t be enough for a bed this big… Xiang Lei, this is the first time I’ve ever been a guy’s boyfriend.”

“Oh… How does it feel?”

“It feels… pretty challenging… yeah, kinda exciting…” He Fei laughed.

Xiang Lei didn’t respond. He just stared blankly at the ceiling.

He Fei tugged at Xiang Lei’s ear and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

“The future,” Xiang Lei answered in a weak voice.

“What kind of future?” He Fei asked.

“I can’t see it clearly,” Xiang Lei said.

He must feel like this is all a dream, He Fei thought.

In truth, He Fei himself was feeling a little disoriented at the moment.

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189

He Fei had expected Xiang Lei to ask whether he’d gone to see Zhang Wenwen.

But Xiang Lei never brought it up. Now, He Fei wanted to tell Xiang Lei that he had already broken up with Zhang Wenwen over dinner the day they left Zixuan Hotel.

When Zhang Wenwen heard He Fei say the words “break up,” she stared at him with sorrow for a full two minutes without saying anything. When the first tear rolled down her face, He Fei almost wanted to take it all back. He wanted to wipe the tear from her cheek and hurriedly tell her he was just joking.

As Zhang Wenwen started crying, she quickly lowered her head. While doing so, she asked He Fei why.

Every girl probably asks this question at a moment like that.

He Fei hadn’t actually prepared an answer. He stammered out several “because”s before, as if possessed, recalling something Xiang Lei had once said. So He Fei told Zhang Wenwen, “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

“You already have,” Zhang Wenwen said, then covered her face with her hands as her shoulders trembled.

Suddenly, He Fei was afraid that he might just be trapped in some kind of illusion. So, even as his heart ached for Zhang Wenwen, he quickly tried to sort out his feelings—whether he liked men or women, whether he liked Zhang Wenwen or Xiang Lei.

He Fei knew he wanted to see Xiang Lei every day. For over two years now, that had been the case, and the longing had only grown stronger with time. Then He Fei thought about Zhang Wenwen—over a year had passed, and the only times he’d felt a strong urge to hold her were when they’d first met and now, as he sat across from her, watching her cry helplessly, filled with guilt.

Finally, He Fei felt at ease.

He moved to sit beside Zhang Wenwen, put an arm around her shoulders, and softly said, “I’m sorry.”

When He Fei walked Zhang Wenwen back to her dorm, she took two steps away before turning back to ask, “I want to know—why are you afraid of hurting me?”

He Fei exhaled a puff of white breath, thought for a moment, and said, “Because… I’ve realized lately that I might like him more.”

Zhang Wenwen frowned and asked, “Xiang Lei?”

He Fei didn’t answer. In this situation, silence was confirmation enough.

“This world has gone mad!” Zhang Wenwen said, turning her face toward the distant sky before walking into the dorm building without looking back.

He Fei thought that Zhang Wenwen probably felt contempt for the sudden change in his and Xiang Lei’s relationship. Strangely, that contempt made He Fei feel a little lighter. Because the space for emotions and feelings must be limited—the more contempt there was, the less room there’d be for sorrow.

Xiang Lei probably hadn’t had time to check the campus BBS lately. “Wandering Cambrian” had started writing those sad words again. If Xiang Lei saw them, he’d surely guess what had happened.

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190

He Fei lay quietly on the big bed in their newly rented apartment, his arm around Xiang Lei’s neck. Both of them were lost in endless silence.

When Xiang Lei mentioned the future, He Fei didn’t need to think to know he was talking about their future together.

He Fei closed his eyes. Before long, he felt himself drifting off to sleep, but then a stirring rose in his chest—like a flicker of unease, or maybe an inexplicable excitement.

It was like boarding a ferry that had just left the shore, with nothing but the horizon where sea met sky in the distance.

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191

The first time someone personally furnishes a small home, it’s bound to be a little exciting. For several days in a row, He Fei lived in that excitement.

He Fei bought a rather flashy stereo system—one that could play cassettes on the bottom and CDs on the top, complete with a subwoofer. Xiang Lei said he was wasting money, but He Fei ignored him.

He Fei, in turn, said the things Xiang Lei bought were useless. Xiang Lei had custom-made a pair of floor-length curtains for the wall with the big window—a dark gray checkered pattern, thick burlap that plunged the room into near-darkness when closed.

He also bought a bunch of interlocking foam mats. He Fei had always thought those were just children’s toys, but after Xiang Lei laid them out meticulously across the bedroom floor, they had to take off their shoes before entering. He Fei kept forgetting and would stride in wearing shoes, leaving footprints behind until Xiang Lei yelled at him to go back and take them off. Then Xiang Lei would kneel on the floor, ass in the air, wiping away the marks with a damp cloth.

They cleaned the place thoroughly. The CD player blasted “With or Without You” at full volume. They cleared out the balcony, set up a small round table and two chairs, and shut the door behind them. If they stayed here until summer, sitting on the balcony with a beer under the stars after a rainy night would be pure bliss.

There was never anything good on TV, but with nothing else to do, He Fei kept flipping channels with the remote. Whenever he paused for even a second, Xiang Lei would immediately say, “Dude, please, just stick with this one.” But the moment Xiang Lei spoke, He Fei would change the channel again, muttering, “This is boring.”

Xiang Lei finally snapped and snatched the remote from him. He Fei tried to grab it back but failed, so he jumped off the bed, turned on the CD player, and cranked up the volume until it drowned out the TV. Xiang Lei, of course, refused to back down and turned up the TV to overpower the music.

And so the two of them engaged in a battle of escalation, raising the volumes higher and higher until both the TV and the stereo were blasting at full capacity. The electric guitar roared, the rock beat pounded, and the TV anchor’s voice pierced through, delivering the news in a shrill tone. Finally, neither of them could hold back their laughter. Xiang Lei surrendered first, lowering the TV’s volume. He Fei lifted his chin and loudly asked, “What’s wrong?” Xiang Lei pointed guiltily in the direction of the neighbors.

Once He Fei moved his computer over, these battles for control finally stopped.

He Fei’s backpack was stuffed full every day. He brought different things from home—big items like a DVD player, small things like a data cable or a software disc. Some of it was completely useless, like a flash drive without a cap that Xiang Lei only realized was broken when he tried to use it at the library. There was also a bath towel that, once hung in the bathroom, filled the space with a strong greasy smell. Xiang Lei asked He Fei what its previous job had been, and after some thought, He Fei said it had probably been sitting unused on his kitchen balcony for a long time.

He Fei emptied the drawers of his bedroom desk at home, dumping everything into his backpack. Each time he returned to the rented apartment, he’d toss the backpack at Xiang Lei and forget about it. Among the mess of items, Xiang Lei found the short story he’d written during his freshman year—printed on sheets of A4 paper, with each page’s content shifted two centimeters to the left, cutting off some of the text.

Xiang Lei started laughing as he read it, then called out, “Xu Menghu!” He Fei, engrossed in a game on his computer, only responded with an absent-minded “Hmm?”

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192

He Fei was dragged into a basketball game by his senior teammates and didn’t finish until late at night.

His underwear was soaked with sweat, and on the way back, He Fei couldn’t stop shivering. All he wanted was to get home quickly and take a hot shower.

When he got home, Xiang Lei was already in the shower.

He Fei knew this guy took ridiculously long showers, and he couldn’t wait, so he stripped completely naked and barged in without even announcing himself. Xiang Lei clearly hadn’t heard He Fei come home. When He Fei suddenly appeared in the bathroom stark naked, Xiang Lei yelped, “What the fuck!” and frantically turned his back to him.

He Fei immediately laughed, thinking, We’re already living together—why the hell are you reacting like this? But then he realized something was off. Over the past few days, He Fei had obviously overlooked something important: being Xiang Lei’s boyfriend and living with him should have naturally led to something unprecedented.

Yet all these nights sharing a bed had passed without incident. Xiang Lei had never hinted at anything, and He Fei always fell asleep quickly. Occasionally, he’d wake up to find their bodies pressed together, unsure whether it was his own unconscious invasion or Xiang Lei’s subconscious seduction. In any case, that thing had never happened—not even a kiss.

Now that He Fei was aware of it, he suddenly grew nervous. His heartbeat pounded so loudly it nearly deafened him, his ears burned, and as he stepped under the shower’s hot spray, he even felt his strength draining.

“Couldn’t you have waited a bit?” Xiang Lei muttered in complaint.

“How was I supposed to know how long you’d take?” He Fei forced a laugh.

“You didn’t even ask—you scared me… I’ll be done soon,” Xiang Lei said, still facing away.

“I was sweating from the game. If I waited any longer, I’d catch a cold,” He Fei replied.

The cramped bathroom was filled with steam, and the dim 40-watt bulb barely lit the space. The hazy atmosphere seeped into He Fei’s mind, leaving him slightly dazed. He stared at the water-beaded back just inches away and several times nearly reached out to touch it, to turn Xiang Lei around and ask him what they were supposed to do next.

He Fei felt that, when it came to that matter, Xiang Lei should have taken the lead without hesitation—because He Fei himself had no clue where to even begin.

Xiang Lei hastily rinsed off the soap, grabbed a towel, maneuvered around He Fei, and pushed open the bathroom door.

To keep it from getting wet, the bath towel was always hung outside the bathroom, so the one in Xiang Lei’s hand must have been meant to cover himself. Still, as he turned, He Fei caught an accidental glimpse of his uncontained excitement.

He Fei almost laughed, but when he looked down at himself, his own lack of response only made him more nervous.

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193

He Fei stayed under the hot water for a long time.

No soap, no shower gel—just pressing his hands against the wall, tilting his head back, letting the water pour over his face. Only when the temperature began to drop did he finally step out.

The bedroom light was already off. The bathroom’s glow filtered through the steam, scattering faintly across the foam mats on the floor. He Fei saw Xiang Lei lying on the inner half of the bed, his back to the door.

He Fei turned off the bathroom light and walked into the bedroom. It wasn’t until he was almost at the bed that he remembered he was still wearing his wet slippers. He quickly retreated, fumbled for a rag, wiped the floor haphazardly, and then climbed into bed.

Still nervous.

Like during middle-distance running training when the coach would demand controlled breathing, He Fei deliberately steadied his breaths.

He pressed himself against Xiang Lei’s back, wrapping his arms around him, imagining time and space had rewound to that rainy night at the clinic—except now, it was Xiang Lei in his arms, not Wei Tong.

Xiang Lei’s body was rigid, unmoving.

He Fei tried kissing Xiang Lei’s neck in the dark, his hands wandering clumsily over his chest and stomach. Then, suddenly, Xiang Lei turned around, cupped He Fei’s face in his hands, and kissed him directly on the lips.

Then his hands ventured into uncharted territory without hesitation.

His nimble tongue persistently sought entry.

The stubble on his chin scraped against He Fei’s cheek, and He Fei, unaccustomed to the sensation, instinctively turned his face away.

And then Xiang Lei stopped.

In that moment, He Fei even felt a pang of inferiority—because his body hadn’t reacted the way his heart had hoped. No matter how turbulent his emotions were, his flesh remained eerily calm.

He Fei was sure something was wrong. Maybe it was nature’s mistake. No psychologist or surgeon could fix this.

The very thing he’d been dreading had finally come to pass, and now He Fei’s mind was in chaos.

Neither of them said a word.

But both knew they couldn’t just sleep like this.

He Fei squeezed his eyes shut until they ached, but eventually couldn’t take it anymore. He got up and turned on the computer to play games.

An hour later, Xiang Lei said, “Let’s sleep.” He Fei replied with an “Mhm” but kept playing. Two hours later, Xiang Lei said again, “Go to bed.” He Fei said, “After I finish this level.” Only when he was sure Xiang Lei had fallen asleep did He Fei carefully shut down the computer and tiptoe back to bed.

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194

The next night, as soon as He Fei lay down, Xiang Lei pressed close.

Just as He Fei had expected, Xiang Lei took the initiative in that matter—but the result was the same. When He Fei’s body brushed against Xiang Lei’s excitement, his self-loathing deepened, almost to the point of furious humiliation.

After a long silence, He Fei got up again to play games. Xiang Lei urged him to sleep two or three times before giving up and falling asleep on his own. Later, He Fei still shut down the computer and climbed into bed as quietly as possible.

For several nights in a row, He Fei simply kept playing games until dawn while Xiang Lei went to bed. When Xiang Lei tried to wake him for school in the morning, He Fei refused to get up.

At first, Xiang Lei found it amusing. He told He Fei, “I promise I won’t touch you again,” to which He Fei replied, “Stop talking nonsense. If I grind a few more nights, my account will level up. You sleep.”

Later, Xiang Lei started getting annoyed. Whether tossing and turning in bed or yanking the covers over his head, he made sure the movements were loud.

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195

Another identical night.

As usual, Xiang Lei urged He Fei to sleep three times, but He Fei ignored him.

Then Xiang Lei sat up, lit a cigarette, and stared at He Fei.

“What? Just sleep,” He Fei said, glancing at him without much conviction.

“How am I supposed to sleep with you doing this every night?”

“I’m not even making noise. I didn’t turn on the sound,” He Fei said defensively.

“Then let’s switch. You sleep, and I’ll stay up all night playing. I won’t turn on the speakers either—see if you can sleep soundly.” Xiang Lei started to get out of bed.

He Fei said nothing. He yanked out the computer’s power cord and climbed into bed without even taking off his clothes.

Xiang Lei remained propped against the headboard, smoking.

When he stubbed out the cigarette, He Fei suddenly asked, “So what do you suggest we do?”

“Do about what?” Xiang Lei snapped.

“Don’t play dumb. You know what I’m talking about,” He Fei retorted.

“Just leave it. I fucking give up!” Xiang Lei turned his back to He Fei, pulled the covers over his head, and lay down. Then, as if reconsidering, he slowly turned back, squeezed He Fei’s arm, and added, “Stop overthinking it and just sleep. You’ve been wearing me out these past few days.”

He Fei grunted an “Mhm,” stripped off his clothes in a few swift motions, and lay facing Xiang Lei. His raised right hand hesitated several times before finally settling on Xiang Lei’s body.