Chapter 61

Sometimes, I even suspected that Yan Yang was deliberately saying piercing words to make my heart ache, but this method of pricking me was also hurting himself.

He constantly demeaned himself in front of me, like he desperately wanted to describe himself as a puddle of mud.

But the truth was, the mud was myself.

As we were in the thick of winter, during the second half of the night, the old apartment's heater was not very effective. Yan Yang was lying stark naked next to me, so I pulled him into my arms.

He didn't push me away and only said, “Pass me another cigarette.”

I buried my face in the nape of his neck, staying silent.

He got up to take the cigarette himself, but I held him down.

I turned over and took the pack of cigarettes on the table beside me, drawing out one cigarette.

In the past two years, I had barely smoked. During my days at the hospital, many things were more interesting than smoking.

While I had been battling both mine and others’ hallucinations, what had Yan Yang been doing?

I lit up the cigarette and took a drag of it, then handed it to Yan Yang, holding it next to his mouth.

During those days, he had probably been battling with himself.

“Yan Yang,” I called out his name.

He took the cigarette from my hand, then sat up slightly, his back against the ice-cold metal head of the bed.

I put a pillow behind his back to cushion it as I said, “I'm sorry.”

“You've said that too many times already,” he laughed at me, the cigarette clasped between his fingers, “Don't you have any other lines in your script?”

Yan Yang lifted a leg and rested it on my body, “Talk about something else, like…”

He pointed at his thigh, “Why this tattoo hasn't been removed.”

I put my hand there, lightly caressing his slightly cold skin. Not only was my name still on his thigh, the tattoo on his finger was also still there.

It had originally been a very sweet symbol, but now it seemed dreadfully mocking.

“Yan Yang,” I called his name non-stop, as though I was reminding both myself and him that he was Yan Yang.

I went closer and leant down between his legs, kissing his tattoo.

A shudder ran through him, then he looked away, out the window.

“Do you detest me?”

He let out a soft laugh, but didn't reply.

“I detest myself too.” I lay down, curling up between his legs, my fingers brushing the ‘Ming’ character on his thigh, “If time could be turned back, then I'd really wish there could be a do-over.”

I heard the sound of the clock ticking, and the sound of Yan Yang blowing out smoke.

“Maybe turn the time back to before you met me. Someone else can meet me instead. Actually, it would be best if we never knew of each other's existence at all.”

“What a fantasy you've got there,” Yan Yang said, “I don't believe that if you weren't brought back then, then we would never have met.”

Yan Yang had said this before. He felt that for some people, no matter how many twists and turns they took, they would still meet. This was fate.

He had raised a similar hypothetical situation in the past. If we never knew that we were brothers related by blood, there would still come a day when we would meet at some corner of the world, and we would definitely fall in love with each other too.

At the time, I had asked him why he was so sure of this. He said it was the mutual attraction of our blood.

I didn't know if this kind of hypothetical situation could ever happen, but I did know that our hypothetical situation would remain nothing more than hypothetical. At this point, we could not go back into the past anymore. None of the stories could be restarted from the beginning again, and all of the hurt had already been caused.

“I lived in this house for thirteen years,” I closed my eyes, my lips pressed to his thigh, coincidentally where his tattoo was.

I kissed my name, but more than that, I was kissing Yan Yang, who loved me. However, I felt like I didn't deserve to kiss him, because I had never properly loved him.

I loved him, I really did. I loved him so much that now that we had come to this point, I just wanted to stuff my life into his hands and let him handle it however he wished.

But this love had ruined him.

“I don't remember a lot about my childhood anymore,” I said, “The other time, at the hospital, your dad…”

I paused for a moment, then continued, “He told me about the past, about him and my mother. I don't have any memories from then, so I can't be sure of anything. He could have been speaking the truth, or he could have been lying, but either way, none of it matters to me anymore.”

I took deep breaths, recalling what he had said back at the hospital.

My thoughts were slowly pulled back here from the hospital. Time seemed to be going backwards. I saw myself, hiding inside the closet.

“As a child, I really hated it all. I couldn't understand why it had to be me living such a life,” I told Yan Yang, “I was living with a lunatic, picking up other people's food to eat, and picking up other people's clothes to wear. In an entire year, there were probably not even ten days when I could somewhat experience a bit of a mother's love. Most of the time, all I heard were insults and screams. For as long as I can remember, what I heard the most was ‘go and die’.”

That was all so long ago. When I brought these things up again, it felt like a layer of dust had already settled on them.

I had never mentioned these things to Yan Yang before. I didn't want to. I didn't want him to know about them.

“Back then, every day, I looked forward to her death. I was so vicious.” I hugged Yan Yang's leg as I continued, “Especially when I learnt I actually had a biological father who lived not far away. Heaven knows how badly I wanted to go with him. I wanted to go with him and live a normal person's life. I had always thought it was because of the hindrance of a lunatic that he never came to see me, but my fantasy was quickly torn apart. He didn't want me. He hated me just like how he hated that lunatic.”

For some reason, when I got to this part, I actually started smiling.

I grinned as I said, “But who was I? Just some smelly dog skin plaster[1]. The more he didn't want me, the more he absolutely had to take me with him, because I was a minor and didn't have a guardian anymore.”

I stopped, going silent.

Yan Yang had finished smoking his cigarette. I heard him take the pack of cigarettes again, and heard the sound of the lighter.

“Yan Yang, that was the first time we met. You were like a cute and pretty little prince, standing at the door, smiling as you looked at me. But do you know what I was thinking then?” My mind was full of the Yan Yang from that day, the 10-year-old boy who had smiled so brightly, “I was thinking, since he gave my old name to you, then I definitely had to seize it back. I was as evil then as I became later on, because back then, I was already planning how to snatch you away from them.”

A grandfather's clock in somebody's house monotonously reported the time. At two in the morning, it chimed twice like it was seeking your life.

Yan Yang said, “He lied to you.”

I lifted my head to look at him.

“Did he tell you that he originally wanted to take you with him, but your mother threatened him with death?”

Yan Yang laughed. He took a drag of his cigarette, then said, “He never wanted to take you with him. Of his own accord, he threw a child who didn't even know how to talk yet to a luna…to a sick person.”

Footnotes:

[1] 'dog skin plaster': 狗皮膏, a medicinal herbal plaster used in traditional Chinese medicine. Because it is very sticky, in context, he’s saying he’s difficult to be rid of.