WP 29

Chen Yi had vanished for several weeks. Jiang Yibai had sent him messages and called, but the kid never replied or picked up. With no other option, he contacted his parents. Chen Yi’s sharp-tongued mother had just said, “If he doesn’t want to learn, forget it. I’m not wasting money on him. What, does he think money grows on trees?”

From the sound of it, she was not planning to bring him back for lessons.

Honestly, Jiang Yibai had been thinking the same. Chen Yi didn’t have the patience or interest. There was no point wasting money to go in circles, playing the same finger exercises every week like some kind of haunted loop. If Chen Yi wasn’t sick of it yet, he certainly was.

He had figured the matter was settled. Plenty of his students flaked on lessons. Some disappeared before he even got to learn their names. But this kid actually came back on his own, and covered in bruises, no less.

“Not bad. Better than the last time when you were bleeding all over the place.” Jiang Yibai took out the first aid kit, pulled out antiseptic and cotton swabs, and began tending to the wounds. The kid sat there with a dead look on his face, lips tight, fists clenched.

Normally, whenever Jiang Yibai had students over, Si Shaorong would quietly keep his distance. But today his mind was elsewhere. He couldn’t focus on writing, so he simply stayed in the living room, half-watching the news.

The hum of the TV acted as ambient noise between the three of them. Chen Yi gradually relaxed. His clenched fists tightened and loosened again and again, until finally, he muttered, “My mom doesn’t want me anymore.”

He pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of his jeans pocket. Jiang Yibai frowned and glanced at it. The header was scrawled hastily: Agreement to Sever Parent-Child Relationship.

There was no need to read further. He already got the gist.

Chen Yi had grown up in a cushy life. His family was well-off. His parents had carved out a respectable place in the middle-upper class for him. Not rich enough to be untouchable, but well above what most people could dream of. Compared to the average person’s starting line, he was miles ahead.

But Chen Yi had always had a bad temper. Rebellious. Never listened. Did everything his own way. The kind of kid who gave his parents headaches every day of the week.

After finishing the last of the first aid, Jiang Yibai capped the bottle and looked at him. “All right. Tell me what you pulled this time.”

Chen Yi was about to protest indignantly when Jiang Yibai held up a hand. “Don’t start with your dad and mom again. From where I’m standing, your mom might be busy, but she’s never neglected you. Your dad might not be around much, but he’s never missed a birthday or holiday. Let me ask you, if you had to live through real hardship, would you even make it?”

Chen Yi frowned, unsure what Jiang Yibai was getting at, and stayed silent.

Jiang Yibai braced his hands on his knees and leaned forward slightly. “You’ve got no real concept of what hardship means, so let me put it this way. The sneakers you want? You can’t afford them. The phone, the computer, the game console you want? Out of the question. Treating your friends to a meal? Forget it. Want to go on vacation during winter or summer break? Keep dreaming. Hoping to join one of those study abroad programs your school organizes? You’ll be stuck watching others go while you stay behind.

“You’ll eat the same basic meals every day. No fancy pastries or birthday cakes. Even getting a cake for your birthday would be considered too expensive. Do you even know how much a custom cake costs these days? When I was a kid—”

He caught himself veering off-topic and quickly coughed to reel it back in. “Your parents will fight constantly over petty things, whether they spent too much on groceries, whether some relative needs to borrow money again. When stuff breaks, you patch it up and make do. Buying something new requires thirty or fifty rounds of deliberation. In summer, you wait till after nine p.m. to turn on the AC because electricity is cheaper. In winter, there’s no floor heating. If you live in an old complex, the water heater will break in the dead of winter, and within a few years, the stove will go too. If they don’t replace it, you’ll be lighting it with a spark igniter.

“All of that not even called ‘hardship.’ That’s just normal, lower-middle-class daily life—living carefully, watching every penny. None of it makes life impossible, but the question is, could you live like that?”

Chen Yi scoffed. “My family’s not like that.”

“Exactly. So what the hell are you throwing a tantrum for?” Jiang Yibai stared straight at him. “Your parents are human, not gods. You can’t expect them to cater to you emotionally every minute of the day and also magically earn you a hundred million on the side so you can have whatever you want, whenever you want.”

Chen Yi shot to his feet, pointing at him. “Then why did they even have me? I didn’t ask to be born!”

“Chen Yi.” Jiang Yibai looked him dead in the eye and calmly pushed his hand away. “If you think you’re grown, if you think you’re too good to be throwing tantrums just to get your parents’ attention, then man up. Let’s be honest here, heart to heart. The things you wanted, did they give them to you?”

Chen Yi clenched his jaw, hand dropping to his side. He couldn’t deny it.

“And the things you didn’t want, did they ever force them on you?”

“The piano!” Chen Yi snapped, pointing at him again. “And English! And chess! And taekwondo!”

“You learned taekwondo?” Jiang Yibai blinked, derailed for a moment. “With that scrawny little body of yours—”

Chen Yi’s face turned beet red. “Jiang Yibai!”

Jiang Yibai stifled a laugh. “You haven’t even been coming to my classes, have you? Or any of the others? So what’s there to argue about?”

Chen Yi snapped, frustrated. “So you’re just taking their side now?”

“I’m asking you to look in the mirror. What exactly did your parents do to deserve you throwing tantrums left and right? If you’re unhappy, then speak up. Tell them directly. Talk it out like an adult. And if that doesn’t work, if they ignore you or try to force you into something, then come tell me. I’ll talk to them.”

Chen Yi hesitated, fingers rubbing along the seam of his pants. “You’d… really talk to them for me?”

“Only after you try it yourself first.” Jiang Yibai gave him a pointed look. “You keep calling yourself a man, but you act all wishy-washy, expecting people to read your mind. What, you think your parents are mind readers? They’re working their asses off just to earn money for you.”

Chen Yi wanted to say, “Like I care,” but after thinking back on what Jiang Yibai had just said about being frugal, calculating every cent, he figured maybe his current life wasn’t so bad after all.

He gave Jiang Yibai a sideways glance. “You don’t exactly live it up, do you?”

Jiang Yibai narrowed his eyes. “You little shit.”

Chen Yi lifted his chin, smug now that he felt he had the upper hand. That tiny glimmer of superiority made him feel like he’d won somehow. He finally relented. “My dad’s work is sending him to the UK for a year. I didn’t want him to go, so I stirred up some drama.”

Jiang Yibai sighed. “And I bet it wasn’t anything good.”

“I told them I like boys.” Chen Yi actually looked proud of himself. “Worked like a charm. My dad delayed the trip… but…”

“But your mom nearly blew a fuse.” Jiang Yibai gave a cold chuckle. “Wow. What a brilliant move.”

Chen Yi curled his lip. Jiang Yibai gave him a sharp look. “And what about the injuries? No way your mom beat you up like that.”

“She gave me that paper, and I got pissed, so I stormed out. While I was wandering near the school, I ran into some old enemies…”

“Enemies?” Jiang Yibai clicked his tongue. “You’re a damn teenager. What enemies? What is this, a revenge drama over five hundred yuan?”

Chen Yi: “…”

Last time Jiang Yibai had rescued him on the street, he’d been getting cornered by some students for “borrowing” money. They’d mentioned five hundred yuan then. Now he just brought it up casually, but when Chen Yi didn’t argue, Jiang Yibai stared at him in disbelief.

“You’re serious? That five-hundred-yuan drama again? Are you kidding me? That’s still a thing? You haven’t let that go yet?”

Chen Yi huffed. “What do you know.”

Jiang Yibai didn’t bother arguing. He knew this kid was a walking disaster, constantly stirring up trouble, and that one day someone was going to knock him down a peg. Just like he himself had once been.

Jiang Yibai packed up the first-aid kit while Si Shaorong, still holding the remote in hand, never once shifted his gaze from the figure in front of him.

He was only half-watching the TV. The rest of his attention was fixed on what had just happened, and what he heard made his heart ache. The way Jiang Yibai patiently tended to that ungrateful kid, even defending the parents who had supposedly given up on him, how could he not feel something?

Rebellion. Si Shaorong remembered being rebellious too, back when he was a teenager. But his nature had always been a bit reserved. He was quiet, rarely expressive, and he kept most things to himself. Eventually, they just passed on their own. He’d never really fought with his family.

But Jiang Yibai?

From what little he’d gathered from Li Xun and Zheng Youli, along with the “stories” Jiang Yibai had written, he could roughly piece together the image of a once arrogant, overconfident youth.

And the image of that same boy, brought to his knees by regret, forced to grow up overnight.

But what was lost would never return. Whether it was family or brotherhood, he had paid dearly. No wonder he instinctively chose to see things from the parents’ side.

Si Shaorong sat in a daze for a while, then suddenly stood up and said, “I’m going out.”

Jiang Yibai jumped. His boyfriend, who had been all but silent on the couch, suddenly shot to his feet and left with a single sentence and a hurried gait.

Only when the door to the living room closed did Jiang Yibai come to his senses and call out, “Hey? You coming back for dinner?”

But the man was already out of earshot.

Chen Yi, refusing to go home, wore an expression that practically shouted, “I’ve already paid for this term, I haven’t finished my lessons, you can’t kick me out,” and made himself right at home.

Jiang Yibai snuck out to the balcony and called Chen Yi’s mom. The woman on the other end went quiet for a while after hearing her son was safe, then said, “Thank you, Teacher Jiang. That boy… sigh. His dad and I need to sit down and talk. We were going to send him to his grandfather’s, but now that I think about it, your place might actually be the better choice. Sorry for the trouble. If he’s really unwilling to come home, I’ll transfer some money over for his living expenses later.”

“It’s no trouble,” Jiang Yibai said, pressing his lips together. “But there’s one thing I feel I have to say. No matter how angry you are, saying something like ‘cutting ties’ isn’t something you should ever say lightly.”

Chen Yi’s mother went quiet for a moment. When she finally spoke again, her voice was choked with emotion. “I didn’t mean it. I was just so angry I lost my head… of course that paper doesn’t mean anything. How could I bear to…”

Jiang Yibai lowered his gaze. “You and Chen Yi both need to calm down. Find a time to talk things out properly. He’s about to start high school. He needs a healthier state of mind.”

The woman sighed. “Thank you, Teacher. Really.”

After hanging up, Jiang Yibai lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly.

The sound of Chen Yi’s mom choking back tears brought him back to years ago. His own mother’s red, tear-swollen eyes when he came out to his family. Back then, he thought his parents didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. He thought he was being suffocated by the pressure to be a “good son,” that he had no right to live for himself.

But maybe some things would never be mutually understood, never reconciled. No one could force another to change. Yet somehow, in the mess of love and pain, both sides still ended up hurting each other, stabbing away with the same knife, and bleeding the same blood.

There was no right or wrong, yet everyone still tried to declare a winner. But from the very start, they had both already lost.

Jiang Yibai closed his eyes, pressing his fingers against his brow. His face, for a moment, revealed a trace of exhaustion and vulnerability.

That afternoon, Si Shaorong finally returned home, carrying armfuls of shopping bags. Before Jiang Yibai could even ask, he announced that they were all gifts for him.

Chen Yi, watching the whole thing from the couch, was caught off guard and force-fed a mouthful of dog food.

Weren’t they supposed to be protecting the younger generation?