The Scorching Sun - 19

 Fang Zhuo had countless questions in her life.

Why didn't she have parents? Why wasn't she allowed to be mischievous? Why did people laugh at her? Why was she so unlucky?

But none of those questions ever had answers. Eventually, all she learned was not to ask.

The first time she went to school alone. The first time she ran away from home. The first time she went somewhere completely unfamiliar. The first time she realized how vast and unknown the world really was.

Inside that overwhelming fear, no one cared whether she was doing alright. No one cared if she truly was okay.

All the questions kept piling up. The puzzles she thought growing up would solve had never been untangled. But she had stopped asking why a long time ago. 

Yet now, she still wanted to ask it one more time.

She remembered the summer just after elementary school graduation, helping her grandmother sell rabbit fur.

She had secretly hidden away a little money and taken a bus to find Fang Yiming.

Maybe her grandmother knew. Maybe she didn't. Either way, she hadn't stopped her.

In a corner of the city, Fang Zhuo saw that man holding his son in his arms, chatting and laughing with people on the street.

He smiled openly, warmly, the corners of his eyes curved with ease, the picture of an ordinary father. 

He bought toys for his young son and patiently taught him to greet the adults around him.

Fang Zhuo pulled up the hood of her jacket and walked right past him twice. He never recognized her.

She heard Fang Yiming's colleague say, "Sons are a handful. I've got a boy at home too. Whenever he acts up, I want to smack him."

Then he added, "Still, having just one kid is easier. Two, and you really can't keep an eye on them.”

Fang Yiming smiled and said, "Yeah. One is enough."

When he said that, Fang Zhuo was standing right behind him.

She was heartbroken.

She was devastated. It was the absolute limit of the grief her age could comprehend. But as though she had forgotten how to cry, she quietly turned and left.

That was the first time she ever got lost in a completely unfamiliar city.

Night fell. Fang Zhuo wandered the streets by herself, walking aimlessly.

Late into the night, someone noticed her and called the police. Before they arrived, Fang Zhuo got scared and ran first.

She walked more than ten kilometers along the dazzling neon lights, all the way into the next town, then asked for directions and finally managed to take a bus home.

Her grandmother was cooking porridge in the kitchen, acting as though nothing had happened.

Fang Zhuo didn't even stop to eat. She ran back to her room and collapsed asleep from exhaustion.

She cried through her dreams, wandering those same streets even inside her dreams, grieving so hard she couldn't tell what was real anymore.

Every time she questioned her terrible luck, she was always the one who lost.

She really was unlucky.

"Isn't that true?" Fang Zhuo bowed her head low. "I asked Fang Yiming before."

Why had Ye Yaoling left?

When Fang Zhuo first moved in, she had been very careful. She waited until Fang Yiming was in a good mood and nobody else was around before asking.

When Fang Yiming heard the question, his face fell immediately. He snapped at her icily, "Don't ask."

He seemed to detest Ye Yaoling. 

Or maybe he was just guilty.

"I don't know what her relationship with Fang Yiming was like," Ye Yuncheng said. "She's five years older than me. When she left, I was only in middle school. One day, she suddenly told me she had someone she loved, and she was going to leave with him."

Even now, the memory remains painfully clear in Ye Yuncheng's mind.

Because that was the first and only time he had ever seen Ye Yaoling cry so uncontrollably.

She held him tightly, apologizing over and over, saying she was sorry, then telling him she would never come back again.

They were supposed to be family. Or maybe they were only his family. Not hers.

Their parents' ugly curses lingered in his memories like background noise, blurred away by time until they barely seemed real anymore.

He never wanted to remember those things.

Only now, because Fang Zhuo had asked, did those memories resurface.

Ye Yuncheng frowned and said bluntly, "I never liked Fang Yiming. I always thought he was just a smooth-talking playboy. He promised my sister a new life, but he never really intended to take responsibility... Don't be upset."

"I'm not upset," Fang Zhuo said. "I curse him in my head all the time too."

Ye Yuncheng led Fang Zhuo back to the room she was staying in and opened the old wardrobe against the wall.

Inside were all of Ye Yaoling's old belongings.

He looked back at Fang Zhuo, uncertain how to begin.

Sometimes people's beliefs were stubborn and ridiculous, especially back then. Sometimes it all comes down to nothing more than gender.

His parents had wanted a son.

Instead, their first child had been Ye Yaoling.

It wasn't that they disliked daughters. They simply liked sons more.

Still, Father Ye hadn't been foolish enough to keep her completely uneducated. Nine-year compulsory education already existed by then, and he believed girls should at least go to school.

So before she was old enough to understand discrimination or favoritism, Ye Yaoling had lived a relatively carefree childhood.

"She never had new clothes. These are all old, hand-me-downs from other people." Ye Yuncheng took out the clothes, smoothed them flat, and folded them carefully along their worn creases. He chose his words with care. "She started taking care of me when I was little. We were really close."

More than his parents, Ye Yuncheng was more attached to that older sister who teased him and called him stupid.

Ye Yaoling was lively all day long, like a child king, unstoppable on mountains or in rivers. She had so many things she wanted to do, all sorts of wild and messy fantasies. 

If you told her to pluck the moon from the sky, she'd dare to go get a ladder and start climbing just to show you.

Ye Yuncheng worshipped and depended on her. He wanted to follow behind her everywhere.

"Summer had the smell of summer. Spring had the freshness of spring."

The seasons had been vivid and distinct.

Swimming fish, cicada songs, wildflowers, crimson leaves. Snow piling beside the steps, rain dripping from the eaves, stones by the roadside, corn growing in the fields.

Everything had been so bright and alive.

Like a series of oil paintings, they formed the most richly colored chapter of his entire life.

Ye Yuncheng sat on the cold floor, his fingers spasming, yet unwilling to rumple the clothes on his lap. His voice trembled. "I hated it so much. I really hated it."

If life could have continued like that, maybe everything would have been fine.

But when Ye Yuncheng was twelve years old, in fourth grade, an accident happened.

Back then, elementary school only lasted five years.

Their parents weren't home. Ye Yaoling had taken him out to play. While she was talking with classmates nearby, Ye Yuncheng stood obediently at the roadside waiting for her.

No one expected that car to suddenly swerve and crash into him.

In those days, compensation for traffic accidents was pitifully small, and there were no security cameras on rural roads.

His parents were uneducated. They didn't understand the law, and they didn't know how to hire a lawyer either.

The driver insisted Ye Yuncheng had been playing in the middle of the road, then intimidated and pressured the family into settling privately.

At the time, Ye Yuncheng was dazed and confused. He didn't understand much.

He only remembered that the final compensation money wasn't even enough to cover the medical bills.

And from then on, he became disabled.

Ye Yuncheng closed his eyes. His long dark lashes lowered, casting heavy shadows beneath them.

"I couldn't accept it, you know?" he said softly. "Back then, I really couldn't accept it. I became terrible. Bad-tempered. I ignored everyone. I didn't even want to go to school anymore."

"When I threw tantrums, my parents would indulge me and comfort me. But they also needed an outlet. They believed it was all my sister's fault. She hadn't watched me properly. She should bear the responsibility."

For a while, Ye Yaoling still tried to pretend nothing had happened.

She read books to him. Carried him outside for walks.

But back then, Ye Yuncheng understood nothing. He was trapped inside his own misery, convinced he was the most unfortunate person in the world.

Self-pitying. Selfish.

Only later did he realize how painful Ye Yaoling's life had actually been, while he had done absolutely nothing for her.

He had been a beneficiary, the heaviest shackle pressing down on Ye Yaoling.

Every one of her tragedies carried his name carved into it.

That was a fact he could never escape.

Ye Yuncheng thought that people needed a very long time to grow up.

But fate never gave them that much time.

By the time he finally understood and wanted to protect the family that had protected him, the person who had helped him stand again was already gone.

Ye Yuncheng sat there in a daze before suddenly noticing someone beside him.

Fang Zhuo had sat down next to him, pressing close against his arm. She took his hand and rested her face on his shoulder.

"She was scared too, she was still young herself. In that home, she received no fair treatment, and she had no one to confide her pain to. Nobody there understood her. Everyone thought the accident was her fault. The pressure on her must've been so heavy. I know."

She had been too exhausted.

All her vitality had been drained away by guilt toward her younger brother, her parents' favoritism, endless blame, and fear of the future.

Sometimes Ye Yuncheng thought it would've been better if he had never existed.

Then there wouldn't have been so many lost, helpless people.

Ye Yaoling could've done the things she loved and chased all her impossible dreams.

If she'd been given the chance, she definitely could've become someone outstanding.

Ye Yuncheng let out a very soft breath.

"And then she left."

Thinking about it that way, maybe Ye Yaoling hadn't loved Fang Yiming all that deeply after all.

All her headlong determination had simply been a desire to escape, and Fang Yiming happened to be the closest lifeline within reach.

Leaning against him, Fang Zhuo could feel the muscles in his shoulder trembling through the fabric of his clothes.

The burning warmth of his body and the violent rhythm of his heartbeat stung at her eyes.

Silently, she cried along with him.

Ye Yuncheng said hoarsely, "I'm sorry. Your mother's misfortune was really because of me."

"No," Fang Zhuo said.

Ye Yuncheng controlled himself for a moment, then asked, "Your mother left behind a notebook. Did you read it?"

"I didn't finish it."

"I knew you looked at it." Ye Yuncheng said, "Finish reading it. The last time she came back, and the last time she left, she seemed very calm. I think she'd finally figured things out. It's just... she ran out of time."

"Did you read it?" Fang Zhuo asked.

Ye Yuncheng replied, "I didn't finish it either."

The two of them laughed quietly at the same time.

Both of them believed Ye Yaoling would definitely love the other person.

Neither believed she would love them.

Because love felt so unreasonable.

Fang Zhuo didn't read it.

She dug out the notebook, but before she could decide what to do, she fell asleep with her head resting on top of it.

When she woke up, the sky outside had already turned dark.

A rhythmic tapping came from the window.

Outside, Yan Lie lowered his voice and whispered, "Hello? Anybody home?"

Fang Zhuo pulled open the window and looked at the person standing there. "Why haven't you gone back yet?"

Yan Lie grinned proudly. "Uncle said I can stay here. He even said once the sun comes out, he'll air out a blanket for me so I'll have my own room."

As he spoke, he glanced toward the cloudy sky and said expectantly, "When is the sun finally coming out? It's been overcast for days. Seriously. The great day of our motherland's independence and it can't even clear up."

Fang Zhuo felt a little more awake, though her head still felt foggy.

"Then what are you doing here?"

"It's the middle of the night. Going into a girl's room would be inappropriate." Yan Lie said, "Romeo and Juliet talked through a window. I came to hang out with you."

Fang Zhuo gestured at the less-than-half-meter distance between them.

"Were their windows this close together?"

Yan Lie laughed.

"Details aren't important."

---

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