T/N: Qixi falls on the seventh day of the seventh month in the traditional calendar. In the myth of the cowherd and the weaver girl, the lovers are separated and can only meet once a year on this date. This extra was first posted on Qixi in 2018.
Yi Zhe lingered in Hainan, not leaving. Half a month later, he was finally dragged back to Beijing by force, the reason being his academic advisor required him to make a report. He initially thought that he only needed to make his report to the few teachers whose work were related to the subject but unexpectedly, his teacher told him that they were holding lectures aimed at higher-level educational institutions and the aerospace industry. Yi Zhe’s immediate reaction was to refuse but after thinking about it, he very quickly agreed.
In the evening, he told Xu Tangcheng about the matter. On the other end of the call, Xu Tangcheng was rather surprised. “You don’t like doing this kind of thing, do you?”
Yi Zhe speaking with ease and composure in front of hundreds of people was a scene Xu Tangcheng could not imagine at all.
“Yeah…” Yi Zhe muttered, then said, “It’s not a bad thing. I can give it a try even though I don’t like it.”
Xu Tangcheng suddenly felt those complicated emotions of watching a child grow up. He had actually never put any expectations on Yi Zhe to become mature and steady. He had always felt that the way this person was in the past and in the present was just right. Even if he wasn’t good at expressing himself, even if he didn’t like crowds of people, it was fine. There was no need for him to purposely change himself to adapt to something. After all, no one can be a superhuman and on top of that, he loved this person, so he felt that even his weaknesses were adorable.
Xu Tangcheng had to remain in Hainan to finish up his current work. But after finding out that the lecture was on Monday, he immediately booked a flight back to Beijing for the preceding weekend.
He didn’t tell Yi Zhe; it was to be a surprise. After disembarking, he furtively went to campus on his own and arrived at the door to Yi Zhe’s lab.
Yi Zhe chose his seat himself. It was in a corner near the window. Standing at the door, his eyes searching for him, Xu Tangcheng suddenly realised that they had clearly been together for so long in the past but he actually had no impression at all of how Yi Zhe looked in the lab—because in the past, every time it was time to leave, it was Yi Zhe who went to Xu Tangcheng’s lab and waited for him there.
With that thought in his mind, Xu Tangcheng stopped there, wanting to watch him carefully for a while more.
Yi Zhe shared the same habit as him: earphones in both ears. Who knew if the music that was playing was the “more rowdy” type of music he had mentioned in the past.
The person outside the room was letting his thoughts run wild. Meanwhile, for some reason, the person inside the room suddenly looked up. Xu Tangcheng quickly retreated behind the wall. After about a minute, he peeked his head out for a look.
How should he make his appearance to achieve his goal of surprising him? Xu Tangcheng didn’t have any ideas. Yi Zhe was facing the door, the plan to sneak behind him was not practical. This was also a lab with many people, he couldn’t possibly make any sort of ruckus. So, when he had looked his fill, Xu Tangcheng took out his phone.
Yi Zhe.
A few seconds after he sent the message, Yi Zhe was already replying.
Hmm?
Xu Tangcheng revealed half his body, looking at the person who was holding his phone with his head down.
Look up.
If Xu Tangcheng were to be asked which moment in the world was the most worth it to him, then it would be that very brief period when the expression on Yi Zhe’s face turned from calm to delighted. His eyes lit up at once; his mouth didn’t immediately break into a smile and instead, opened and closed randomly a couple of times before stretching out both sides to reveal his emotions at the moment.
Yi Zhe strode towards him. The earphones he pulled down were still tangled together, held in a careless grip.
“Why did you come back? Why didn’t you tell me?”
There were people passing by in the corridor. Yi Zhe’s voice gradually lowered as he spoke, but the urgency due to his joy could not be hidden.
“I came back to attend Dr. Yi’s lecture.” Xu Tangcheng took his earphones from him, untangled the cord, and slowly wound it around his fingers, loop by loop. “Are you busy? I’m thinking that either this evening or tomorrow, I’ll take you out to pick a set of formal clothes.”
“Formal clothes?”
“Yeah.” Xu Tangcheng smiled and passed the coiled earphones to him. “Aren’t you going to give a lecture?”
Even though he had never seen Yi Zhe in a suit, just the thought of it filled Xu Tangcheng with anticipation. Yi Zhe’s physical frame was larger than his and Xu Tangcheng thought that just like that watch, when Yi Zhe put on a suit, he would definitely look more handsome than Xu Tangcheng himself.
Reality proved that his guess was not wrong. When Yi Zhe changed his clothes and came out of the fitting room, Xu Tangcheng’s hand that had been browsing through the clothes immediately stopped where it was.
“How is it?” Putting on this kind of proper outfit for the first time, Yi Zhe felt uncomfortable all over. He saw that Xu Tangcheng was standing there and staring blankly so he quickly asked, “Looks bad?”
“No. It…” Xu Tangcheng quickly shook his head. The compliment that followed was delayed a couple of seconds because he could not find the right words. “It looks a little too good.”
The result of that “it looks a little too good” was that Xu Tangcheng, in a fit of extreme irrationality, bought Yi Zhe an even more exquisite outfit at a price that was double his budget. When paying, Yi Zhe was still frowning and muttering in a low voice that it was too expensive.
“You’ll need to wear it frequently in the future. You’ll be looking for jobs soon, right? You’ll need to wear it for interviews. A lot of your friends should be married, right? You can wear it for weddings in the future.” After saying that, Xu Tangcheng came to an abrupt stop. He quietly considered that if Yi Zhe stole the groom’s limelight, it probably wouldn’t be good.
As he thought that, he laughed aloud.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I was just thinking…”
Perhaps due to a certain keyword, when he met Yi Zhe’s eyes, a thought suddenly popped up in Xu Tangcheng’s mind.
“Please sign here.” A gentle female voice interrupted Xu Tangcheng’s hesitation. He made a noise in response. When he lowered his head to sign, he still could not forget the thought he had just now.
Xu Tangcheng had not returned to their rented apartment for two years. Two years ago, before he left, when he looked for the landlord and said that he wanted to extend the tenancy for three years, the auntie had replied in amusement, “I’m not going to stop letting you two stay there. Why are you in such a hurry?”
How could he not be in a hurry?”
Even after such a long time, Xu Tangcheng still remembered how much he had fretted before he left. He really hadn’t known what he should do to make the two years easier for Yi Zhe to go through. Leaving a video message, extending the apartment rental, swapping bank cards—each and every one of these things that he had thought of seemed as effective as throwing a cup of water to put out a burning cart of firewood.
Fortunately…
The apartment door opened. Everything inside was unchanged from before.
Yi Zhe took out Xu Tangcheng’s slippers from the shoe cabinet and put them on the floor. Xu Tangcheng stepped on the slippers, then lowered his head to look. “The slippers are a little old now. Let’s buy new ones another day.”
“Okay.”
Spending hours in an airplane, then going to shop and eat without a break—he hadn’t felt anything when he had something to do but after showering and relaxing, Xu Tangcheng felt his entire body aching, completely out of energy. He towelled his hair carelessly, then lay down with half his head hanging over the edge of the bed. His mind fuzzy, the wet towel still in his hands, he closed his eyes.
Some time passed, and he felt something dry and soft covering his head. Xu Tangcheng opened his eyes and saw Yi Zhe sitting next to him.
“Fell asleep just like that?” Yi Zhe took the towel from Xu Tangcheng’s hands. As he thought, there was a large damp spot on the pajamas Xu Tangcheng had just changed into.
“Tired and sleepy.”
Hearing that, Yi Zhe got up and looked for the hairdryer in the bedside cabinet. “Even so, you need to dry your hair. I’ll help you.”
His eyes half-lidded, Xu Tangcheng let out a laugh. Then, he rolled a couple of times towards the top of the bed, crossed his legs and sat up.
There was something hard next to the pillow. Xu Tangcheng felt it and picked it up. He saw that it was their camera.
“Why did you leave the camera here?”
“Sometimes I want to look at it before sleeping,” Yi Zhe said softly. He stood at the side, holding the hairdryer.
Xu Tangcheng turned the camera on and put his video message on the screen.
“Have you watched this?”
Originally, there were a lot of words that would only be sincere if said face-to-face. But at that time, Xu Tangcheng’s heart was no calmer than Yi Zhe’s. If he faced Yi Zhe, he didn’t think he could control his emotions and say all that he wanted to say clearly. That was why he wrote a script in advance, and also recorded a video.
“I did. But I watched it too late. We came back from the South Pole and had a gathering. After I heard someone sing Love of My Life, I went through the camera and only then saw the video you left for me.” Yi Zhe paused. “If I had watched it earlier, I would have flown over to look for you without delaying even a single day.”
After saying that, he pressed the hairdryer switch. Amidst the lively noise, Yi Zhe continued to think. If he had flown to Hainan immediately after coming back from the South Pole, would he still be unaware now that the song Xu Tangcheng had hummed for him was not a birthday song from Ecuador or wherever?
“Tangcheng-ge…” After slowly blow-drying Xu Tangcheng’s hair, Yi Zhe suddenly called him in that way, like a docile child. Xu Tangcheng was still lost in Yi Zhe’s words just now; when he heard Yi Zhe calling him like that, he lifted his head rather sluggishly to look at him.
A pair of luminous eyes stared right at him. The owner of those eyes lifted the corners of his mouth a little, and asked, “Did you lie to me about anything else?”
Xu Tangcheng stared blankly, then denied at once. “No.”
Yi Zhe didn’t continue speaking. Instead, he put down the hairdryer and took the camera from Xu Tangcheng’s hands. He pressed the buttons a few times, then placed the camera in front of Xu Tangcheng’s eyes and said, “You did.”
Xu Tangcheng watched the scene playing out on the camera with his head full of doubts. He saw that it was from the time he was at Yi Zhe’s home to celebrate his birthday with him, and he was cooking.
“Remember now?”
Remember what?
Xu Tangcheng blinked and shook his head.
Yi Zhe thought carefully for a bit, then turned off the camera. “Never mind.”
Xu Tangcheng didn’t know when Yi Zhe learned this trick of keeping others in suspense. Even after Yi Zhe tidied everything up and went to turn off the light, Xu Tangcheng was still sitting on bed hounding him to hurry up and tell him. Yi Zhe pressed his lips together but still couldn’t stifle his smile. After turning off the light, he hugged Xu Tangcheng right away and lay down, then said, “Hurry up and sleep.”
“I realise that after two years of not seeing you, you’ve really grown up, haven’t you?” Xu Tangcheng turned his head away, avoiding his kiss. One hand pinched Yi Zhe’s face. He threatened, “Tell me. We’ll kiss after you tell me.”
Yi Zhe let out a couple of low chuckles and yielded. “The noodles. Do you remember?”
In the past, to Yi Zhe, the fridge in his home in City C was just a place for storing frozen dumplings. But before going to the South Pole, he found a pack of noodles that had been in there for who knew how long.
He had once been young and didn’t know how much noodles he should buy for two people, or how scary it would be if they cooked the entire pack of noodles. And it was also because he was young that he had not been the least bit uncertain when proclaiming those grand and bold words.
He had once faced the camera and made a vow, saying that he would finish all the noodles that Xu Tangcheng cooked. Meanwhile, at that time, Xu Tangcheng had faced the camera and smiled. He had not refuted him, he had not doubted him; he had only furtively hid half the pack, indulging his childish vow.
That was the kind of person Xu Tangcheng was. He did everything in silence, including loving him. Were it not for a fated coincidence, so much of his love would be forever hidden in their ordinary and unremarkable interactions. Even now, Yi Zhe knew that there must still be so much—too much—in the past that he didn’t know.
Zheng Yikun had once asked Yi Zhe why he liked Xu Tangcheng. Yi Zhe had never thought of that question and hadn’t wanted to answer at all. Back then when he held that half pack of noodles, crouching down in front of the fridge and taking on the blast of cold air, all he had thought was how fortunate was he to be the one who stayed opposite Xu Tangcheng, and how fortunate was he to be the one who could fall in love with Xu Tangcheng.
He had fallen in love with Xu Tangcheng. Meanwhile, other people could only have a superficial fate with Xu Tangcheng. Just thinking of that, Yi Zhe felt that his life was too good.
Both of them were lying in bed, their emotions whirling in circles. But Xu Tangcheng’s thoughts were different from Yi Zhe’s; the thing with the noodles was nothing special to him but there was something else that he couldn’t help probing into.
“Yi Zhe.”
“Hmm?”
Xu Tangcheng lay on his side, one hand resting on Yi Zhe’s arm. “You only saw that video after coming back from the South Pole? The one that I left for you.”
“Yeah.”
The down quilt was light, hardly any weight at all. Lying under it, the warmth was not as substantial as compared to having a padded cotton comforter. Xu Tangcheng couldn’t help shuffling closer to Yi Zhe. Feeling him move, Yi Zhe immediately turned around and put an arm around his waist.
“Cold?”
Xu Tangcheng shook his head. His ear rubbed against the pillow, and his voice sounded a little sticky.
“No. I’m just thinking, if you only saw that video after you came back…” In the darkness, Xu Tangcheng couldn’t see Yi Zhe’s eyes clearly so he brought his hand up to touch. Yi Zhe’s lashes quivered; then, his eyes closed under Xu Tangcheng’s fingers.
“Then, how did you get through the past two years?”
Without hearing him say “I love you,” without hearing him say “Wait for me to come back,” how did he get through the time?
Xu Tangcheng thought he had left Yi Zhe with a sense of security but it turned out that Yi Zhe had still pushed through the past two years on his own.
There was a kind of intertwined harmony tonight. Just like how Xu Tangcheng was not bothered about that half pack of noodles, Yi Zhe was also not bothered about this question.
“I got through it by thinking of you.” He kissed Xu Tangcheng and said, “And, no matter how I got through it, it’s already over, isn’t it?”
When he was on the verge of giving in to his sleepiness, a hand patted his waist lightly. The voice Xu Tangcheng heard was right beside his ear.
“Sleep.”
“Yi Zhe.” Very stubbornly, Xu Tangcheng forced his eyes open once more. “Do you want a wedding?”
Yi Zhe looked too good wearing that suit, so good that he could wear it to give a lecture, to go for an interview, to attend someone else’s wedding…
Then… actually, he could also wear it to his own wedding.
“Wedding?”
“Yeah.” Xu Tangcheng was too sleepy and finally closed his eyes. He sketched out the idea he had been brewing the whole night. “You’ll be preparing to graduate soon. By then, the project at Sanya will be almost done. I will change to a new job after coming back to Beijing so I can resign first and give myself a vacation. The two of us can go for a trip. We’ll find a place that’s very beautiful and hold a wedding… It would be best if it’s by the sea… You don’t like crowds, I don’t like them too. We don’t have to invite guests but the place must be decorated nicely, the wedding officiant must be an official one…”
The scene that appeared before Yi Zhe’s eyes was too beautiful, so much so that he stared into the darkness in a stupor, forgetting to reply.
“You’ll probably like that, I think.”
Xu Tangcheng wasn't fixated on having a wedding. Whether it was a Chinese or a western wedding, in his eyes, it was just a ritual that hoped for an eternal binding of hearts. But the true eternal binding of hearts actually had nothing to do with this ritual.
But he thought that someone who could think longingly of seeing the sea of lights at Blue Harbour with him would probably like this ritual.
They would solemnly say their vows. Then, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, the view of the other person’s back at the moment of separation would be a sight they would never see again.