The Scorching Sun - 10

 With the holiday approaching, even if it was only three and a half days off, the students were getting restless.

Test papers for every subject had already been handed out. Judging by the sheer volume, the teachers hadn't left them much free time at all. Fang Zhuo squeezed in a few of them whenever she could, afraid she wouldn't have time once she was at Ye Yuncheng's place.

As Friday drew closer, Fang Zhuo found herself growing nervous. Mostly because she barely knew Ye Yuncheng. She'd left so abruptly last time, certain she'd never see him again. Now she had no idea what attitude to adopt.

Part of her felt she shouldn't waste so much mental energy on this, not with the college entrance exam looming. Ye Yuncheng might just be another Fang Yiming, holding only a token, perfunctory affection for her. What depth of feeling could possibly exist between two people who had never spent real time together? They weren't even the closest of blood relatives.

Yet another part of her couldn't suppress that faint, persistent itch deep inside, the one that kept imagining Ye Yuncheng as a truly good person. Lonely, similar souls always find themselves drawn together, like moths circling a lamp, even if it meant mistaking a cold flame for the scorching sun.

Fang Zhuo stood by the windowsill, using a battered plastic bottle to water the potted plants. She watched quietly as the light-scattered spray landed on the leaves, the droplets beading into round pearls before sliding downward. Her stray thoughts had wandered a thousand miles away.

Yan Lie came over and planted himself beside her like a stone, standing there for a moment before he spoke. "So you're the one who's been watering these flowers."

Fang Zhuo hadn't noticed him approach and jumped at the sudden sound of his voice. She righted the bottle in her hands. "Who else would it be?"

Yan Lie poked at one of the leaves with his fingers. "Never paid attention. Just noticed the plants in here kept multiplying. Figured someone must have brought them in."

Most were succulents, planted in repurposed plastic bottles with holes punched in them. What had started as a single plant had slowly multiplied into a dozen or more, quietly soaking up the sun in the corner under the care of a nameless gardener, now growing sturdy and strong.

Fang Zhuo said, "I scavenged them."

"You can scavenge flowers?" Yan Lie teased. "What, they were just growing in the dirt, minding their own business, and you did your good deed for the day by picking them up?"

"They really were scavenged!" Fang Zhuo said, annoyed.

Yan Lie couldn't grasp the critical distinction between picking wildflowers and scavenging wildflowers, but seeing how seriously she was taking it, he reached over and ruffled her hair, pulling his hand back before she could retaliate. "I know, I know," he laughed. "You scavenged them."

Fang Zhuo shook her head.

This guy's paws were clearly itching for trouble.

"What are you doing for Mid-Autumn?" Yan Lie turned and leaned his back against the windowsill, stealing a glance at her from the corner of his eye. "My family's not home. I'm thinking maybe I'll stay at school."

Fang Zhuo said, "I'm going home."

Yan Lie pressed his lips together. "To your uncle's?"

Fang Zhuo: "Mm."

Yan Lie let out a long, drawn-out "Oh..."

The sound pricked at her, Fang Zhuo couldn't help flicking a glance at his face, wondering what weird mood had seized him today.

"Is something wrong?"

"Nothing."

That's what he said. But he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked off, his whole expression clouded over.

***

On Friday, the students could leave after morning classes. Fang Zhuo didn't have much to bring: just homework and exercise books.

She shouldered her black backpack. Yan Lie was already waiting at the door. He said he'd see her off.

Fang Zhuo informed him of a decision she'd reached after long and careful consideration. "Thank you, but I need to go somewhere else first today. I have to buy something."

Yan Lie asked, "Where?"

Fang Zhuo: "The market."

Yan Lie thought he'd misheard. "Huh?"

In all his years of school, he'd never met a classmate who, when heading home for break, brought groceries.

A familiar tune popped in his head.

"A chicken in one hand, a duck in the other?"

"Yeah." Fang Zhuo nodded seriously. "That's the idea. Can I borrow your phone to check the map again?"

Yan Lie thought she was joking. It wasn't until she actually stopped in front of a poultry stall that he realized just how naive he'd been.

The vendor was selling chicks. Tiny, yellow-orange fluffballs huddled together in a large basket, cheeping boisterously, bursting with energy and cuteness.

Fang Zhuo asked the price, then crouched down to make her selection.

"You do farm work at home?" Yan Lie had never seen anything like this. Genuinely fascinated, he asked, "Can chicks this tiny actually survive?"

Fang Zhuo scooped one up and examined it in her palm. "Yes."

"What are you looking for? Do you judge chickens based on looks too?” Yan Lie's eyes swept over the sea of fuzzy little heads and then suddenly landed on his dream chicken. He grabbed it and thrust it toward Fang Zhuo. "I think this one's the best. Look, it's barely got any fluff on its head. Balding at such a young age. Now that's character!"

Fang Zhuo: "..."

She lifted her gaze and gave her deskmate a flat look, seriously tempted to pretend she didn't know him. The man running the stall couldn't hold back his laughter "That one just got plucked bald by a customer. Don't worry, it's not sick."

Fang Zhuo took it for a look but absolutely could not connect with the ugly little thing. She handed it back. "I want hens."

The vendor said regretfully, "There's no more. Only three or four free-range ones left."

Yan Lie asked, "Roosters won't do?"

Fang Zhuo: "Hens lay eggs."

Yan Lie said, "Roosters crow at dawn."

"People owns an alarm clock these days." Fang Zhuo was getting annoyed. "Hey, ge, stop messing around!"

Yan Lie blinked at the way she'd addressed him, then obediently shut up and crouched quietly beside her.

He stroked the chick's head with his fingertip, watching it flap its wings furiously, trying to escape his palm. But even its cries and its strength were so feeble. Only its eyes, black as lacquer beads, shone brilliantly bright, as if desperately proving its refusal to surrender.

Yan Lie nudged Fang Zhuo again, negotiating in a gentle tone. "I'll pay. Let's raise it, okay?"

Seeing he was genuinely set on this, Fang Zhuo had no choice but to tell him the brutal truth. "This is a meat chicken. I'm raising it to eat.”

A shiver ran through Yan Lie.

The vendor fanned the flames from the side. "Anyone else who buys it will raise it for meat, too."

Yan Lie asked, "Can't it be a chick-en mascot?"

Fang Zhuo: "??"

Fang Zhuo felt like her brain was a ball of yarn a cat had gotten hold of. And that cat, fully aware it was being unreasonable, was now sitting there with its paws tucked neatly, gazing up at her with those innocent, pleading eyes.

After a brief internal struggle, Fang Zhuo took her little cardboard box and placed Yan Lie's chosen bald chick inside.

The boy was delighted. "Thanks, Zhuo Zhuo," he beamed.

Fang Zhuo ended up picking eight chicks in total. She figured she'd come back for more the next time free-range hens were available. After the chicks, she went to the shop next door and bought the cheapest bag of rice she could find to take home as feed.

The two of them hauled their purchases out of the market. Yan Lie strapped the bag of rice to the back of his bike and walked it toward the bus stop.

At the stop, he locked his bike to a nearby railing and helped Fang Zhuo carry the rice onto the bus.

When the doors closed, Yan Lie was still standing across from Fang Zhuo, the ten-kilo bag of rice at his feet.

Fang Zhuo stared at him with wide eyes.

Yan Lie said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "You're a girl. How are you supposed to haul something this heavy on foot? I've got nothing to do anyway. Might as well see it through to the end. I'll get you to the transfer bridge."

He was already on the bus, Fang Zhuo couldn't really say anything. And she had zero doubt that if she said "I'm fine" right now, he'd immediately fire back with "burning bridges after crossing the river," or some other bizarre accusation.

She gripped the overhead handrail and said quietly, "Thanks."

By the time Fang Zhuo and her little entourage reached the transfer bridge, it was already dusk.

The sunset clouds today held no brilliance. After the sun sank, all that left at the horizon was a layer of grayish-white mist. Dark clouds drifted above the ink-wash distant mountains, like a single, careless splash of ink thrown down by a painter lost in a drunken haze.

"It'll probably be dark by the time you get home. Take my flashlight." Yan Lie turned to rummage through his bag. "With all that stuff you're carrying, you should really call your uncle, have him come pick you up."

Fang Zhuo shook her head quickly. "I can manage on my own. I don't want to trouble him."

Yan Lie frowned slightly but didn't push it. He just tucked the flashlight into a small pocket of her backpack. "I'm putting it here. Be safe. You..."

He had been about to tell her to call him when she got home, but first, Fang Zhuo didn't have a phone, and second, they weren't at that stage yet. The thought trailed off. He lifted his eyes to find Fang Zhuo still watching him, waiting attentively, and was about to finish his sentence when a minibus pulled up in front of them, cutting his thoughts short.

Yan Lie quickly flagged it down. "Your ride's here."

Fang Zhuo got on and took a window seat. Through the dusty glass, she looked at the figure by the roadside.

The young man caught her gaze. He raised his hand, and waved at her through the murky twilight.

His handsome, smiling face blurred and receded as the bus pulled away. Fang Zhuo pressed closer to the window, straining to keep him in view. The words "Get home safe” sat in her mouth the whole time, but it never found their moment, and even when his figure vanished completely, she still hadn't spoken them.

As the vehicle lurched on, the last trace of sunlight was swallowed by the night.

Sporadic lights flickered past the window. The clamor of the city was thoroughly rinsed away by rural silence.

The driver called out the stop and pulled over at the village entrance.

Fang Zhuo hoisted the cardboard box under one arm and grabbed the sack of rice with her other hand, clumsily hauling everything off the van.

She'd only been to this village once. But she remembered the route being very simple. Go straight, turn right at the end of the paddy field, walked straight a bit more, and she'd be there.

Such a simple route. Yet night and day were two completely different worlds.

On that road that seemed to stretch on without end, the farther Fang Zhuo walked, the more unfamiliar everything felt, until finally she had to admit to herself that she was lost.

A thick, oppressive darkness closed in around her, a vast black cloth smothering her vision. The familiar suffocating feeling began circling in her chest. Even breathing hard couldn't push it down, and for a split second, she wanted to turn around and flee.

She wasn't really afraid of the dark. What terrified her was getting lost in it. Darkness turned any map into a maze, and she hated the looping repeating wrong turns, hated how it reminded her of being trapped in the hills as a child, unable to find the way out, feeling like the world had abandoned her, not making it home until dawn when she could finally follow the light.

She spun twice, trying to get her bearings. The chicks in her arms, jostled by the tilting box, began craning their necks and cheeping. Their small, fragile cries pierced the silence, the most human sound the night had to offer. And in an instant, it snapped Fang Zhuo's blood-heated brain back to clarity. 

She crouched down, set the box on the ground, and fished the flashlight from her backpack, shining it along the road and ahead.

Still no sign of the rice paddy. That meant she probably hadn't gone the wrong way.

The beam was still sweeping when, through the chorus of cicadas, the faint rasp of rolling wheels drifted through the dark. Then, from a distance, someone called out:

"Fang Zhuo!"

Fang Zhuo steadied her breathing, waiting. At last, she saw a figure up ahead, stumbling and striding toward her through the uneven dark.

 

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