Chapter 56

I didn't know what Yan Yang wanted to do. When I stood at the door, staring into the house, I felt even more lost than I had before.

This place had both changed, and not.

The old apartment that had once been like a rubbish dump had been cleaned up. The appliances that had fallen into disrepair long ago had also been fixed – yes, they had not been switched out, but instead fixed, then continued to be used.

The mottled floor, the cabinet whose paint was peeling, and the closet I often hid in that had one broken door were all still here.

I walked one round around the room, then stood in front of the window.

The window had been barricaded, every inch secured by iron railings.

Yan Yang stood next to me, lighting up a cigarette.

“I made dumplings.” He took a drag of his cigarette, “Wait for dinnertime.”

On his way out of the bedroom, with the cigarette clasped between his fingers, he picked up the remote and turned on the television.

This television was an old one, the kind used back in the nineties. It had always been sitting here, almost never turned on, because back then, the woman who lived here couldn't stand the sound of the television. She found it noisy.

This mental patient who could use her screams to kill a person, actually found the television noisy.

I didn't know this television could still be used, but he managed to turn it on.

The Spring Festival Gala[1].

On the screen was a scene filled with joy and happiness, while here on our side hung a stale, dead air.

I walked over and slowly lowered myself down, on the ground I had often slept on as a child.

I hugged my knees to my chest as I looked up at the television, watching the Spring Festival Gala I had absolutely no interest in.

All of a sudden, it felt as though I had been transported back to a time far back in the past, so long ago that I couldn't tell if this was a hallucination or not.

When I was a child, I think there was at least one year when Chinese New Year had passed peacefully. At the time, she had not gone that crazy yet. In a year, she could be clear-headed for at least half the time. That year, it just so happened that her condition was not bad during Chinese New Year. I leant against the windowsill as I listened to the sound of the television from next door, and she passed me a plate of dumplings.

More than twenty years had passed since then.

I pinned my gaze to the television screen, watching it. At the same time, I heard sounds from the kitchen.

I should be extremely familiar with this place. This was the place where I had been born. From the day I was given life, the black vines that grew from beneath the floor had already wound themselves around my feet. As many years passed, they crawled up my ankles to cover my entire body, encircling and tightening about my neck.

I had been born of them, and would die of them too.

But for some reason, at this instant, I found this place unfamiliar, because it had never been this clean before. It was so clean that it felt like even the vines that grew underground had been uprooted.

I got up and walked out of the bedroom, softly approaching the kitchen.

The kitchen here used to be covered in a layer of dust. Nobody cooked, and the cabinets were filled with rubbish.

This was the place I had always been most unwilling to enter, because people say that the kitchen is where the spirit of human life is found. You just need a single glance of someone’s kitchen to tell if their home had any life.

If that was the case, then back then, the lack of life had not been the only problem my home had. This place was essentially the crematorium of my soul.

But on this Chinese New Year’s Eve, with a white shirt on, the sleeves rolled up to his elbow and a cigarette held in his mouth, Yan Yang was standing in front of the stove, boiling dumplings.

He did not look at me, his eyes kept on the dumplings in the pot.

On the counter next to him, there was also a lump of well-fermented dough.

At first, I couldn’t speak. Even with my mouth opened wide, I couldn’t make a sound. It was only later, after he had turned off the fire and brought the dumplings out from the kitchen and stood in front of me, that I could finally use my voice again.

I asked him, “What’s all this?”

Yan Yang held a plate of dumplings with one hand, while his other hand held a cigarette.

He took a drag of it, smoke blowing out of his mouth and nostrils at the same time.

He closed his eyes, like he was basking in the feeling of tobacco filling his lungs.

“What do you mean, ‘what’s all this’?” He opened his eyes and turned to look at me, “Excuse me.”

I leant to the side to let him pass. It was only at this moment, when he walked by me, that I realised his arm was littered with many deep and shallow scars.

Yan Yang was very fair; he had been fair since he was a child. But back then, he had looked like a skinned peach, his skin a pinkish white, as though juices could seep out with a single touch. It was different now. He was a sickly white, appearing more like a dead person than I did.

This place had no dining table. He carried the plate of dumplings into the bedroom.

When I followed him in, the plate of dumplings had been put on the floor, and he was seated next to it.

“Come and eat the dumplings,” he said to me like an order.

Even at this point, I was still unsure if this was real, or just a hallucination. I had been made to fear this. Seemed like the mental hospital really wasn't suited for long-term stays.

I walked over, but did not sit. Instead, I suddenly pinned him to the ground.

The floor was ice-cold. I gripped his neck with one hand, my other hand against the floor.

I thought of the first time we had made love. That time, I had almost strangled him to death.

The cigarette in Yan Yang's hand rested on the cabinet next to him. A black stain was left on the cabinet, and the cigarette was extinguished.

I straddled him, the grip of my hand intensifying. I asked him, “Am I hallucinating you?”

He did not resist, his face growing red. Those two eyes were pinned on me from the beginning to the end, making my hair stand up on end.

The sound of song and dance was being played by the television behind us. It really was noisy.

While I was still unsure of how to get out of this hallucination, Yan Yang suddenly raised a hand and gripped my neck as well.

This unexpected move made me freeze, and he swiftly gained the upper hand. Now, he was straddling me, his grip on my neck deathly tight.

The feeling of asphyxiation quickly struck me. He leant down, his lips almost touching mine.

He asked, “Do you think I'm a hallucination? Can a hallucination kill people?”

Right as I was about to lose consciousness, Yan Yang let go of me. I collapsed on the ground, coughing madly. This feeling was far too familiar; I had experienced being on the brink of death before.

He got off me and sat to the side, then picked up a pair of chopsticks and shoved it into my hand.

“Happy New Year,” he said, “Eat the dumplings.”

It took me a while to recover. Sitting up, I held the chopsticks, and suddenly I didn't know how the current situation had come to be.

Why had Yan Yang suddenly fetched me from the hospital?

And why was he here?

I was the mental patient, but all of his actions were even stranger than mine. He was no longer that carefree little boy who used to cling to me, hug me, and love me.

I had killed Yan Yang.

He sat next to me, ‘attentively’ watching the Spring Festival Gala. Once in a while, he would pick up a dumpling and put it in his mouth, slowly chewing it.

I sat up straight and looked at the plate of dumplings. Yan Yang, who in the past hadn’t known how to do anything, now actually knew how to wrap dumplings by himself.

Weren’t his hands supposed to be used for playing the piano?

I picked up one dumpling and bit into it. Its taste was unusual.

But I knew why it was strange. It was because there was melted candy inside this dumpling.

Back when we lived in Boston and celebrated Chinese New Year together, neither of us had known how to wrap dumplings. I learnt so I could wrap them for him, and that time I had put a piece of fruit candy inside one of the dumplings. I had told him that on Chinese New Year’s Eve, whoever ate the dumpling with the candy inside would have a sweet year ahead.

All of a sudden, my tears began to fall. I didn’t know what I was regretting.

One after another. That night, I ate more than ten dumplings, and inside every dumpling, a piece of candy had been put.

In the end, when the clock struck twelve, there was still one lone dumpling left on the plate.

Yan Yang said, “Let’s each take half.”

He used his chopsticks to snap the dumpling in half, then picked up one half and put it in his mouth.

Outside, someone was setting off firecrackers. Surrounded by the deafening sound of exploding firecrackers, we walked into the new year together.

That night, Yan Yang slept on the bed while I lay on the floor next to the bed.

I knew it was on purpose that he had brought me back to this place. I didn’t know if he wanted me to die or to be reborn.

I couldn’t fall asleep. I turned my head to secretly watch him.

His hand was resting on the edge of the bed. I couldn’t help myself, and reached out to hold it.

I greedily kissed his hand, like someone about to die of thirst in a desert finally catching sight of an oasis.

Whether the oasis was a mirage or not, it didn’t matter; let me hug him first, then think about it later.

Footnotes:

[1] ‘Spring Festival Gala’: Taken from Wikipedia - “The CMG New Year's Gala, formerly known as The CCTV New Year's Gala, also known as the Spring Festival Gala, and commonly abbreviated in Chinese as Chunwan (literally "Spring evening"), is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Media Group (CMG). It is broadcast annually on the eve of Chinese New Year on its flagship CCTV-1 and internationally through the China Global Television Network. The Gala has the largest audience of any entertainment show in the world, and is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's most watched television program. The 2018 edition of the Gala attracted more than one billion viewers.

The program is a variety show, often featuring music, dance, comedy, and drama performances. It has become a ritual for many Chinese families, including overseas Chinese, to watch the show on Chinese New Year's Eve. Many Chunwan performers have emerged as household names in China solely as a result of their recurring appearances on the program.”

I watch Chunwan on CNY eve too…LOL