The new house his family had built wasn’t lived in very often, so there wasn’t much inside. The living room didn’t even have a television, only beds and wardrobes in the bedrooms.
Mom had brought bedding from Grandpa and Grandma’s house. Fang Chi made the bed himself and didn’t even wash up, he just took off his clothes and flopped straight onto the bed.
Dad and Mom had both gone back to their room to sleep. Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve, and there would be a lot to do. Auntie’s family would also come back, so they had to get up early.
But Fang Chi couldn’t sleep. He knew he had to get up early, but after lying down for half an hour he was still resting his arm under his head, staring blankly at the curtainless window.
There were no stars tonight, and the moon was vaguely wrapped in clouds so its shape couldn’t be seen clearly.
Just like himself.
He rolled over onto his stomach, then rolled back onto his back. Fang Chi kept tossing back and forth under the blanket like this, feeling that if he were a sugar pancake, by now he would already have been fried golden on both sides and puffed up, about ready to be taken out of the pan.
He sighed, sat up and turned on the light, fished out an English book from his backpack, then burrowed back into the blanket.
Might as well memorize for a while.
Anyway, whenever he memorized things he got sleepy. Perfect timing.
After reading for a bit, the phone by his pillow kept beeping. He picked it up and looked, it was the class group chat, and quite a few people were talking.
Most of them were discussing going out to play during the next couple of days. The holiday was only a few days long. After that, until the exams, unless they took sick leave they would have to stay at school the whole time.
Just thinking about the days that were about to come made Fang Chi feel a wave of despair. Too terrifying, like being in prison.
In the morning he was woken by his phone alarm. When he opened his eyes he felt that the right side of his face had completely lost feeling. After struggling for quite a while he finally realized he had kept the same position as last night.
Under the right side of his face was the English book, and the phone was still lying by his left hand.
The way he slept, really no different from a pig.
Fang Chi yawned and slowly got up to put on his clothes.
Dad and Mom hadn’t gotten up yet. Their bedroom door was closed.
When Fang Chi finished packing his backpack and walked out the door, everything around was still quiet. The village streetlights were still on, and he could see broken leaves spinning on the ground with the little north wind.
Occasionally a bark or two from a distant dog drifted over, making his heart feel inexplicably empty.
Fang Chi tugged his hat down, put on his headphones, and started running along the road toward his grandpa’s house.
Running felt much better.
For all these years it had always been like this, when he ran, he felt his mood become clear and open.
The light in the courtyard was on, but no one was there. Only Xiaozi was wandering all over the kitchen floor looking for food. When he saw Fang Chi he jumped out, wagging his tail and barking twice.
“Good boy.” Fang Chi walked into the kitchen. A pot was sitting on the stove. He lifted the lid and looked, meat was stewing inside. He pinched out a piece and tossed it into the yard. Xiaozi jumped high and caught it.
Grandpa and Grandma were already up and were exercising in the backyard.
“So early?” Grandma came over when she saw him and rubbed his face. “Why not sleep a little longer? Is the bed at your house uncomfortable?”
“No. I made plans with Shuiqu to go running,” Fang Chi said with a smile.
“Running again?” Grandma slapped him lightly. “Didn’t he just twist his ankle!”
“That’s just what we say. We’re not really running, just going out for a walk and getting some air,” Fang Chi said.
“I think he shouldn’t get any air,” Grandma jerked her chin upward. “The light hasn’t been turned off all night. Did he not sleep?”
“Huh?” Fang Chi froze, then looked up at the upstairs window. Sure enough, light was shining through the crack in the drawn curtain. “Maybe he forgot to turn it off?”
“How could he forget? He always turns it off,” Grandma said. “Why don’t you go up and check. If he hasn’t slept, don’t let him go out getting air either, tell him to sleep a bit. Young people just don’t pay attention to their health.”
“Okay.” Fang Chi nodded and turned, running up to the rooftop from the stairs in the backyard.
He was just about to open the door to his own room when he clicked his tongue, turned around, and ran back down again. Fang Hui was still sleeping in his room. At this time he might be giving a speech to all humanity in his dreams.
Fang Chi went around through the living room and went upstairs. When he stood at Sun Wenqu’s door and raised his hand to knock, he paused again and pressed his ear to the door to listen.
The room was very quiet. There wasn’t any sound.
Just as he was hesitating whether to knock or go in directly like Sun Wenqu had done last time to scare him half to death, the sound of a chair being dragged came from inside.
Up this early?
Or had he really not slept?
Fang Chi grabbed the doorknob and twisted it. The door wasn’t locked and opened right away.
But when he was about to step in, he glanced inside and stopped, still holding the doorknob outside the door.
The room was lit, and not just by one lamp.
Besides the ceiling light, the desk lamp was on, and beside the pottery wheel there was also a clamp lamp.
What stopped Fang Chi in his tracks was the pot on the wheel, already taking shape, its lines simple yet extremely eye-catching.
And Sun Wenqu, sitting at the wheel with his bare back facing the door, looked exactly like someone who hadn’t slept all night. He was even still wearing the same pants as last night.
On the table beside him were many tools still smeared with clay, long ones, short ones, thick ones, thin ones. Fang Chi didn’t recognize any of them, and he had no intention of looking at them closely.
Sun Wenqu, staring intently at the pot on the wheel, occupied all of his field of vision and attention.
Earphones were plugged into Sun Wenqu’s ears. He seemed not to have heard the door open. He stared at the wheel with full concentration, holding a thin, long strip of something in his hand.
Sun Wenqu was making pottery.
He had never seen Sun Wenqu like this before.
Clay-stained slender fingers, a slightly leaning body, and that expression of concentration as if in the entire world there was only himself and the half-finished pot in front of him.
Fang Chi felt that only today, only at this moment, did he truly understand what kind of state Sun Wenqu’s “seriousness” really was.
Before, when he explained problems to him or played the erhu, those had already been very different from his usual careless self. But only now did he realize that the Sun Wenqu facing the pot on the wheel was what could truly be called serious.
The kind of seriousness that made the entire room fall into his world.
The kind of seriousness that made Chief Huang freeze beside his leg.
At this moment Fang Chi suddenly felt a kind of distance.
Or perhaps some sort of gap.
But when he thought about it carefully, he couldn’t quite say what it was.
I’m afraid that if I’m not crazy I’ll scare you to death.
Grandma’s voice came from downstairs, and Fang Chi snapped back to himself. He stepped out of the room and gently closed the door.
He wasn’t naked while making pottery.
He was wearing pants.
…He said he wasn’t wearing clothes, not that he wasn’t wearing pants.
He walked two steps toward his own room before remembering that Fang Hui was still sleeping inside. After hesitating for a moment, he turned and went downstairs.
“Is Shuiqu asleep or not?” Grandma asked.
“…He’s not asleep, he’s working,” Fang Chi said. “Is there anything to eat? I’m hungry.”
“Go look in the kitchen yourself. If there’s nothing you want to eat, make something yourself,” Grandma said. “I’ve got a pile of things to do, I’m not looking after you.”
“Okay.” Fang Chi went into the kitchen.
There was plenty of food in the kitchen. Plates and bowls of cooked dishes were piled up, but none of them were suitable for breakfast. After walking around twice, he cooked himself a bowl of noodles and squatted in the courtyard sharing it with Xiaozi.
Looking at how completely absorbed Sun Wenqu had been, forget about going out for a walk, he might not even eat lunch.
He hadn’t expected this person to look like that when making pottery.
It was really hard to describe.
Once again he thought of what Sun Wenqu had said: I’m afraid that if I’m not crazy I’ll scare you to death.
It really was a bit frightening.
A snake egg could have a state like that.
Terrifying.
“Hey!”
A voice suddenly came from above.
Fang Chi froze, then looked up and saw Sun Wenqu actually leaning on the windowsill, sticking his head out and looking at him.
“You’re still bare-chested. Aren’t you freezing to death?” Fang Chi said.
“Cook me a bowl of noodles,” Sun Wenqu said. “Just now Grandma said I should eat pork knuckle for breakfast. That’s too scary…”
Fang Chi laughed. “Wait. I’ll cook it for you after I finish eating.”
“Mm.” Sun Wenqu withdrew into the room and closed the window.
Fang Chi finished the noodles in a few bites, poured the remaining soup and vegetables into Xiaozi’s bowl, then ran into the kitchen and cooked another bowl for Sun Wenqu.
The setup in Sun Wenqu’s room had already been cleared away. The unfinished pot was still there, and the tools were in their places, but without him sitting at the wheel, the atmosphere that had drawn people in before had completely disappeared.
“You came and didn’t call me,” Sun Wenqu said as he took the bowl and sat on the edge of the bed to eat. “I’ve been hungry this whole time.”
“I saw you…” Fang Chi started to say, then suddenly remembered Sun Wenqu had said not to watch him work, and quickly cut himself off. “Your light was on, and I thought… my grandma said…”
“Alright, stop making it up. You’re stuttering as badly as Liangzi. Back when you followed Fang Ying to trick me you were right not to speak,” Sun Wenqu clicked his tongue. “I heard you talking to your grandma downstairs.”
“What?” Fang Chi froze, extremely surprised. “You heard it? How did you hear it? Weren’t you wearing earphones?”
“I was switching songs. There was no sound at that moment,” Sun Wenqu said while eating.
“I… then if you heard it, why didn’t you come out?” Fang Chi looked at him.
“I didn’t want to move. If I’m having fun I can stay like that the whole day without moving,” Sun Wenqu said, taking a sip of noodle soup. “Besides, you’re always jumping at everything. I was afraid if I suddenly turned around and said hi you’d get so scared you’d pee yourself, so I didn’t move.”
Fang Chi opened his mouth but couldn’t say anything.
“I’ll go out for a walk after I finish eating,” Sun Wenqu said.
“…Oh,” Fang Chi responded. After quite a while he suddenly remembered another question. “You didn’t sleep?”
“No,” Sun Wenqu said. “I only realized I hadn’t slept when I heard your grandparents talking downstairs.”
“That’s too… Grandma said staying up all night is bad. Don’t do that again,” Fang Chi walked to the wheel and bent down to look closely at the unfinished pot. “Aren’t you pretty delicate? Be careful you don’t get sick.”
“I haven’t been sick for a long time. The air here is good,” Sun Wenqu glanced at him. “Look at it after it’s finished.”
“Oh.” Fang Chi quickly straightened up and turned away, walking to stand beside the table.
“I’m making it for one of Liangzi’s clients. The request is too strange, it’s hard to make,” Sun Wenqu added, probably worried he might feel awkward.
“Mm.” Fang Chi didn’t quite understand but nodded anyway.
Downstairs Grandpa and Grandma were busy, and Fang Chi couldn’t help with anything. Fang Hui was occupying his room, so he temporarily had nowhere to stay. He could only keep watching Sun Wenqu eat noodles.
Sun Wenqu’s table manners were actually quite good, but it was obvious that after staying up all night he was both tired and hungry. He was eating with real enthusiasm.
Fang Chi watched for a while, then looked away. Even if someone ate nicely, you couldn’t stare forever.
Sun Wenqu’s MP3 player was on the table. Fang Chi picked it up casually and looked at it. After two seconds he froze, then shouted softly in surprise, “Holy cr*p!”
“Hm?” Sun Wenqu looked up with a mouthful of noodles.
“An AK380?” Fang Chi shook the MP3 in his hand.
“Yes.” Sun Wenqu continued eating.
“More than twenty thousand,” Fang Chi clicked his tongue at the player for a dozen times. “You’re too rich. If Fang Hui knew about this, he’d give a ten-minute speech.”
“I bought it just to show off,” Sun Wenqu said. “Anyway it doesn’t sound much different from yours to me.”
“Bullshit. How could my few-hundred-yuan one be the same?” Fang Chi looked at it again. “Let me listen.”
“Use your own earphones,” Sun Wenqu said. “Don’t use mine.”
“Why, are you a germaphobe?” Fang Chi unplugged the earphones from the player. “That can’t be right, you drank water from my cup before.”
“Wow, you really hold grudges. You still remember that after a few sips of water,” Sun Wenqu finished the noodles and started drinking the soup. “My earphones cost twenty yuan.”
“How much?” Fang Chi froze.
“Twenty yuan. The kind they grab a handful of and shout about while walking down the pedestrian street,” Sun Wenqu said.
“You pair twenty-yuan earphones with a twenty-thousand-yuan player,” Fang Chi simply couldn’t understand it. “Why are you like this? Didn’t you say you wanted to show off? If you wanted to show off you should buy ten-thousand-yuan earphones. You wouldn’t even need to buy the player, since you can’t hear the difference anyway. Just stuff the cable straight into your pocket.”
“Do you know this much about it?” Sun Wenqu started laughing as soon as he heard it. “Did you show off like that before?”
“Yeah,” Fang Chi nodded. “When the player hadn’t arrived yet but the earphones did, I went out wearing empty earphones, with the other end stuffed in my pocket.”
“You’re really cute,” Sun Wenqu said, walking out of the room with the bowl, still laughing as he went downstairs. “I’m being low-key. You wouldn’t understand.”
Fang Chi ignored him, unplugged that crappy twenty-yuan earphone of his, plugged in his own earphones, and randomly pressed a song to listen.
After listening to three lines he took the earphones off.
It really was quite good. Compared with his own few-hundred-yuan player, the difference could be heard immediately.
It was just that he couldn’t keep listening. He really admired Sun Wenqu for being able to listen to songs that sounded like someone screaming while being subjected to the ten great tortures and still make pottery.
This person really couldn’t be described clearly.
What kind of person he was.
There were too many sides, none of them seemed like the same person.
Thinking about it like that, he really did seem a bit like a lunatic.
Sun Wenqu had again put on that same cartoon tracksuit from the other day, with a down vest over it, but on his head he wore a Leifeng hat.
“…Why is the way you dress so confusing,” Fang Chi sighed. “Can’t you make it a bit more consistent? That big pom-pom hat of yours goes well with this outfit.”
“No,” Sun Wenqu pushed him out into the yard. “Look, hey, it’s snowing! It’s freezing cold. A wool hat can’t handle it.”
“Ah, it really is. When I came over it hadn’t started yet,” Fang Chi said, tilting his face up to look at the sky, then suddenly turned and pointed at Sun Wenqu. “Don’t bring Chief Huang! He’ll freeze to death!”
“Didn’t bring him. He’s curled up in the blanket,” Sun Wenqu slapped his back. “Let’s go.”
The snow wasn’t heavy, just scattered flakes drifting down.
The two of them, early in the morning, up earlier than the miser Zhou Bapi, headed to the back mountain for a walk under the falling snow.
Madness was contagious too, Fang Chi felt it was exactly like that. The key point was that even after catching it he was still happily strolling around.
“Are you sleepy?” he asked Sun Wenqu.
“Not sleepy,” Sun Wenqu said, yawning. “Just a little foggy.”
“Then we’ll walk around for a bit and go back. You should sleep for a while. Grandma will definitely call you to eat with everyone today. From noon until night it’ll be noisy, you probably won’t be able to handle it,” Fang Chi said, a little worried.
“It’s fine,” Sun Wenqu smiled. “You really underestimate me. I used to spend the whole night hanging around at Li Bowen’s bar.”
“That was before, when you were younger…” Fang Chi replied automatically.
“Wait a second,” Sun Wenqu looked at him. “When was I what?”
“You… when you were little,” Fang Chi coughed. “Now is when you’re young. Before was when you were little.”
“Pretty quick reaction,” Sun Wenqu laughed, rummaged in his pocket, and pulled out a candy. “Here. A reward.”
Fang Chi took the candy. It was a milk candy, still carrying Sun Wenqu’s body warmth. He held it in his hand for a while before putting it into his pocket.
“What does your family usually do today?” Sun Wenqu took out a mask and put it on, then turned his head to ask.
“Hey!” Fang Chi glanced at him, the mask had a huge bloody mouth printed on it. “You really are… In the morning my aunt will come back, by noon everyone will be here. We make dumplings, eat, set off firecrackers, Fang Hui and I argue or fight, then all afternoon everyone prepares dinner. People with nothing to do, like you and me, play mahjong. At night we keep eating, drinking, setting off firecrackers, messing around until midnight. That’s about it.”
“Sounds pretty interesting,” Sun Wenqu nodded. “I want to play mahjong.”
“Go ahead,” Fang Chi smiled, then after thinking for a moment added, “There’ll be drinking tonight. My grandpa likes homemade liquor. My dad and my second uncle definitely bought other alcohol too. When you drink, pick carefully, don’t mix them. There’s nowhere around here to buy stomach medicine.”
“I’ll drink the homemade liquor,” Sun Wenqu said. “That’s the only thing I can’t usually get. The rest I’m already bored of.”
“My dad and the others love pressuring people to drink, and they’re especially rough about it. If you don’t drink it’s like you owe them three million. If you can’t handle it just tell me, I can drink for you,” Fang Chi rubbed his nose.
“You’re such a mother hen,” Sun Wenqu looked at him and sighed. “Are you like that with everyone?”
“Not really. Usually I’m too lazy to talk,” Fang Chi looked at him calmly. “I only turn into a mother hen with people who are especially delicate.”
Sun Wenqu laughed loudly and turned to walk ahead. After only a couple of steps, when Fang Chi caught up, he suddenly turned around and reached a hand toward Fang Chi’s face.
But before his finger could flick him, Fang Chi had already grabbed his wrist.
“Oh,” Sun Wenqu froze for a moment. “Fast reaction.”
“Average reaction speed,” Fang Chi clicked his tongue. “Mainly I’ve gotten used to your crazy patterns.”
“Really?” Sun Wenqu smiled, and his other hand suddenly lifted.
Fang Chi grabbed that wrist too. “Are you stupid?”
“Little bear and doll dancing,” Sun Wenqu sang a line, then shook the two hands Fang Chi was holding. “Jump jump jump, one two one…”
“I think I’m going crazy,” Fang Chi let go of his hands. After pausing a moment he couldn’t help laughing.
The two of them laughed at each other for a while. Fang Chi rubbed his face. “Hey, I think you’re a pretty unbelievable person.”
“What’s wrong?” Sun Wenqu put his hands in his pockets and walked slowly forward.
“When I went into your room just now…” Fang Chi sniffed. “I was kind of shocked. When you’re not crazy, you really scared me.”
“Really.” Sun Wenqu smiled.
“Yeah. You’ve got style,” Fang Chi nodded. “Showing off and actually being badass are not the same.”
“You’re praising me pretty hard,” Sun Wenqu felt in his pocket. “No more candy.”
Fang Chi took the candy from his pocket and put it in his mouth.
“Hey, let me discuss something with you.” Sun Wenqu bumped his arm against him.
“Mm. Go ahead,” Fang Chi looked at him.
“After everything’s over tonight, if you’re not sleepy,” Sun Wenqu said, “don’t go back to your house to sleep.”
Fang Chi froze for a moment and didn’t speak.
“If I drink alcohol,” Sun Wenqu said, “I might want to chat. Keep me company for a bit.”
Fang Chi hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”
