CS - 50

The sound of thunder continued to rumble.

Raindrops fell like fragments of sharp stones, heavy and piercing.

Within just a few minutes, the rain intensified.

Lin Zhe Xia set down the cake, a faint sense of unease creeping into her mind.

“Hey, Dazhuang,” she called He Yang on the phone. “What are you doing?”

He Yang replied, “I’m at home. With this heavy rain, do you think I’d be out running?”

Lin Zhe Xia pressed on, “Are you having fun at home?”

“...Not really.”

“I’m doing homework. It’s not exactly fun.”

At this, Lin Zhe Xia realized Chi Yao wasn’t with He Yang either.

Sure enough, He Yang continued, “Today’s Chi Yao’s birthday. I spent a fortune buying him a new game skin, but he hasn’t replied to my message. I even knocked on his door, but no one answered. That guy… always so aloof, even on his birthday.”

He Yang added, “Did he reply to you? Are you two together now? Today’s an important day—should I come over for cake?”

Lin Zhe Xia responded quickly, “The signal’s bad. I’ll hang up.”

After ending the call, she glanced at the clock on the wall—it was already nighttime.

The hour hand had just passed ‘9’ and was heading toward ‘10’.

Eighteen.

That number felt as if it had been enchanted by God.

Back then, none of them realized that after turning eighteen, as life expanded into broader horizons, they would also begin to face more challenges. The simple, straight path ahead would suddenly twist unpredictably, branching off in countless unexpected directions.

About ten minutes later, Lin Zhe Xia made a decision.

She stood alone in the empty room, the thunder outside making her uneasy.

But at that moment, the sound of thunder seemed distant.

Her mind was singularly focused: she wanted to find him.

Even though it was storming. Even though it was late at night.

Even though she didn’t know what had happened to Chi Yao or where he’d gone.

She still wanted to find him.

Once the thought crossed her mind, she grabbed the umbrella by the door and walked resolutely into the torrential rain.

The residential area under the stormy night looked desolate.

She crossed through the community garden and stopped beneath the street sign.

Rainwater washed continuously over the road marker.

The blue-and-white sign for Nan Xiang Street, which had unknowingly aged over time, now appeared slightly different from how she remembered it.

Standing at the intersection, Lin Zhe Xia tightened her grip on the umbrella, unsure which way to go. The umbrella, weighed down by the heavy rain, pressed heavily against her hands.

That evening, Lin Zhe Xia braved the rain and searched many places.

Without any clear direction, she revisited all the spots she and Chi Yao used to frequent: the small convenience store, the breakfast shop, the arcade, and even the roadside barber shop where every haircut turned into a disaster.

The neon sign for “Meijuan Barber Shop” was lit.

The shop looked deserted.

Lin Zhe Xia’s luck with haircuts had always been terrible. No matter how much she communicated with the stylist—even bringing high-definition reference photos—the stylist’s inexplicable logic would leave her with a completely unrecognizable hairstyle.

So later on, whenever she went to get a haircut, she always dragged Chi Yao along.

“I’ll come with you,” Chi Yao would say, looking at her coldly. “But will my presence improve the stylist’s skills?”

“...”

At the time, Lin Zhe Xia clung to his shirt, saying, “Maybe not, but it makes me feel better. And besides, I’m afraid I won’t be able to hold back.”

“Hold back from hitting someone?” Chi Yao asked.

“Hold back from crying in the barber shop,” Lin Zhe Xia admitted.

Chi Yao would retort, “Then cry if you want,” but he still accompanied her.

He’d sit in the red single-seater sofa in the corner of the shop. Sometimes, if he waited too long, he’d drape his jacket over himself and fall asleep. There was a small white dog in the shop that occasionally nibbled on Chi Yao’s pant leg while he slept.

One time, Chi Yao’s overly relaxed sleeping posture led an elderly woman waiting for a haircut to mistake him for an apprentice. “Young man, I’d like a wash,” she said.

Chi Yao pulled the jacket off his face. “...For a wash, ask the staff.”

The woman with fiery red curls replied, “Aren’t you the staff?”

Chi Yao: “...”

That day, Lin Zhe Xia’s haircut still turned out disastrous, but before she could feel upset, she burst out laughing at this exchange.

“Ding ling ling—”

Lin Zhe Xia hurriedly pushed open the door to the barber shop, causing the bell above it to jingle.

She glanced inside, spotting the barber bent over sweeping the floor and the empty red sofa chair.

The male barber, who no longer looked as young as he once did, straightened up and immediately recognized her. “Isn’t this Xia? Come for a haircut?”

Lin Zhe Xia shook her head. “No, just checking in. Sorry to bother you, Meijuan.”

“How many times do I have to tell you—I’m not Meijuan! Don’t call me that just because this place is called Meijuan Barber Shop. That’s my mom’s name!” the barber shouted behind her. “I have my own name—Daniel! Dan-i-el!”

Before leaving, Lin Zhe Xia noticed the shop’s dog was gone. “Where’s the dog?”

The barber paused mid-sweep. “It’s gone. It’s been years. It got old, and even going for a short walk left it gasping for breath. It passed away a couple of months ago.”

Finally, she found Chi Yao by the lakeside park.

The place she’d always retreated to since childhood whenever something troubled her.

Truthfully, this was the last place she could think of.

If she couldn’t find him here, she didn’t know where else to look.

Fortunately, as she approached the lake, she spotted a blurry yet familiar figure in the distance. She recognized him instantly—just by the way his hair looked.

There was some shelter near the bench, but the rain was relentless.

The boy was soaked to the bone, his hoodie drenched, one leg propped up on the edge of the bench. He resembled a defiant, stray animal caught in the rain.

“...”

Chi Yao lowered his gaze when suddenly, an umbrella appeared above his head.

Lin Zhe Xia held the umbrella, tilting it toward him to shield him from the pouring rain.

Raindrops pattered against the umbrella.

“Plop, plop.”

Through the haze of rain, he saw Lin Zhe Xia, breathless and slightly disheveled herself.

“So you’re here,” Lin Zhe Xia said, her heart finally settling upon seeing him. “I thought... I thought something had happened to you. I was so worried I wouldn’t find you.”

Chi Yao hadn’t expected her to show up. He looked up at her in surprise, his throat bobbing as he studied her for a long moment. In the end, he said nothing.

The lights from the streets blurred under the rain.

Through the dim glow, he saw her hand resting on the umbrella handle, her slender wrist, and her bright eyes.

Rain clung to Chi Yao’s eyelashes. He blinked. “Why are you here?”

“I texted you, but you didn’t reply,” Lin Zhe Xia explained. “So I went to your house to check.”

At this, Chi Yao glanced at his phone lying nearby. “I replied.”

“?”

“My message,” he clarified. “Probably didn’t send because of bad signal.”

Lin Zhe Xia froze. “You replied? What did you say?”

“I lied and said I went to my parents’ place.”

Chi Yao said this without a hint of guilt. He knew it was his birthday, and Lin Zhe Xia would definitely look for him. Using this excuse was the only way to avoid her—for a while, at least. After saying this, he picked up his phone and fiddled with it. “I didn’t wait for your reply—it died.”

He wanted to add, “How could I not reply to your message?”

But those words felt too ambiguous.

They lingered in his mind but ultimately remained unspoken.

The torrential rain, which had lasted for an hour or two, finally began to ease.

Lin Zhe Xia hesitated about whether to ask further. Eventually, she decided that if Chi Yao didn’t bring it up, she wouldn’t pry. Between them, explanations weren’t always necessary.

Instead, she said, “You had the audacity to criticize me last time. Look at you now—your symptoms seem worse than mine. Going out in the rain without an umbrella, sitting here in the middle of the night getting soaked. Couldn’t you have found somewhere with shelter?”

Yes, why had he come here?

Chi Yao wondered.

This secret hideout of Lin Zhe Xia’s had somehow become his subconscious refuge too.

Ever since he’d been stopped by those people, everything he’d done recently felt abnormal to him.

Chi Yao tugged at his collar as rain trickled down his jaw and into his shirt.

—You’re Chi Yao, right?

—Chi Hanshan’s son?

—We don’t mean anything else. Just that something’s come up with your family. I don’t want him living comfortably, so I thought I’d meet you in advance. If your dad can’t repay what he owes me, we might see each other often.

—Oh, and by the way, your mom fell ill because of this. You probably don’t know yet. You should thank me for letting you know.

At that moment, facing those people, he recalled the message his father, Chi Hanshan, had retracted on the bus two months prior, as well as that strange phone call.

—”Stay safe at home. Don’t talk to strangers…”

“Are you done?” he remembered saying.

“If you’re done, you can leave.”

The group opposite him was stunned. They’d expected this seventeen-year-old to panic or lose composure, but instead, he calmly said, “You’re quite calm for a kid.”

Chi Yao’s fingers curled slightly, his emotions carefully concealed. “I’ll figure out the details myself.”

“What I need to face, I won’t run from.”

“Something’s been going on at home,” Chi Yao told Lin Zhe Xia, skipping the specifics. He chuckled bitterly. “It’s been going on for a while.”

He mentioned “facing it,” but in this moment, “facing it” wasn’t easy for him.

Lin Zhe Xia said, “Uncle and Auntie probably didn’t want it to affect your studies.”

“That’s how parents are. If Mom or Uncle Wei encountered something at work, they wouldn’t tell me either. In their eyes, no matter how old I am, I’m still a kid.”

Lin Zhe Xia didn’t know what to say. In moments like these, she felt unusually clumsy.

And no matter what she said, it wouldn’t solve the problem.

Aside from wanting to stay by his side, she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

And perhaps, starting from this night, the word “kid” began to drift farther away from them.

Kids grow up eventually.

After a pause, Lin Zhe Xia asked, “Chi Yao, are you cold?”

“If you’re cold,” she continued, “you can borrow Big Brother’s coat.”

Chi Yao rarely appeared disheveled, even when drenched in rain. He still looked like the proud Chi Yao. “No need.”

Lin Zhe Xia carefully followed up, “...Is it because you’re trying to pull off this cool, rain-soaked pose?”

She added, “Your burden is really heavy.”

“Don’t pretend nothing’s wrong. Last time, you caught a cold after coming home soaking wet.”

“...”

This familiar exchange brought them back to winter break during their first year of high school.

That winter, in the same spot, Chi Yao had given her his coat despite wearing only a thin sweater, insisting he looked cooler this way.

The tension eased with her words.

Chi Yao seemed amused, leaning slightly on the bench and letting out a soft chuckle.

As they spoke, Lin Zhe Xia suddenly remembered something important. “What time is it now?”

Chi Yao reminded her, “My phone’s dead.”

She scrambled to pull out her own phone, pressing the screen to life. “11:58.”

“It’s almost midnight!” she said anxiously.

“What about midnight?”

“It’s your birthday! I wanted to wish you a happy birthday exactly at twelve o’clock!”

With only two minutes until midnight, her plan was completely disrupted.

Originally, she’d planned to present the cake precisely at midnight.

But now, not only was the cake missing, but she and Chi Yao were still out in the rain.

While Lin Zhe Xia pondered what to do, she felt something hard-edged in her pocket as she put her phone away. Through the smooth plastic film, she realized it was the candles and lighter the bakery owner had forgotten to include in the gift box earlier and had chased after her to give.

“I’ve got an idea,” Lin Zhe Xia said, handing the umbrella to Chi Yao. “Hold this for a moment.”

Chi Yao took the umbrella, his hands wet, subtly angling it to shield her.

“What, another magic trick?”

Years ago, Lin Zhe Xia had learned a clumsy magic trick for Chi Yao’s birthday.

The trick was supposed to make a rose appear out of thin air.

Though that day, her performance was riddled with mishaps, and the rose ended up slipping out of her sleeve rather than appearing magically.

Lin Zhe Xia remembered that forgotten, embarrassing moment. “This time, the trick won’t fail. Watch closely.”

With that, she pulled out the candles and lighter from her pocket.

A small flame flickered to life with a soft “click.”

In the dark, rainy night, a faint light emerged unexpectedly.

“Chi Yao, happy eighteenth birthday.”

“I had a cake prepared for you, but we’ll have to save cutting it for when you get home. Luckily, you don’t need a cake to make a wish,” Lin Zhe Xia said, holding up the candle burning brightly despite the wind. “Quick, make a wish.”

“Wishes made on your birthday are the most powerful,” she emphasized.

The umbrella was small, and the wind blew around them.

Chi Yao stared at the candlelight, momentarily stunned. “Where’d you get the candle?”

Lin Zhe Xia smiled mysteriously. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”

Chi Yao glanced at her again.

She gave up the act and confessed, “When I was leaving, the owner almost forgot to give it to me, so I stuffed it in my pocket.”

The rain continued to fall.

For a brief moment, Chi Yao’s eyes reflected the light.

He gazed at the tiny flame, which seemed to dispel the darkness of the rainy night, and at Lin Zhe Xia’s delicate features illuminated by its glow.

Before Lin Zhe Xia arrived, the hours had felt hollow.

After she came, time began to flow again.

Worried the candle might go out, Lin Zhe Xia reminded him, “You need to close your eyes to make a wish.”

Chi Yao’s throat moved slightly as he closed his eyes.

In that moment, it was hard for him to think of any specific “wish.”

He fell into a strange illusion—a feeling of having nothing, yet being surrounded by everything. The warmth emanating from the candle, soft and comforting, resisted the storm. It gave him the courage to face whatever lay ahead.

“Are you done?” Lin Zhe Xia asked.

Chi Yao murmured softly.

“What did you wish for?” she pressed.

Realizing her mistake, she quickly added, “Wait, you can’t tell me. Birthday wishes can’t be spoken aloud.”

Her sentence trailed off as Chi Yao opened his eyes and called her name. “Lin Zhe Xia.”

At the same moment, the candle flickered and went out.

“Let me hold you.”