CH 22

Chapter 22: Method of Resolving Things

Song Yu’s words seemed to poke at Wang Jie’s sore spot. He turned to look furiously at Yue Zhishi.

What are you staring at, I still want to give you a punch back in the face. Yue Zhishi rudely glared back at him.

Song Yu walked towards Yue Zhishi, took back his watch and lowered his head to carefully put it back on. “If they bully you, you can hit them back to let them understand you’re not someone who can be bullied by just anyone. But if you keep punching them and I keep kicking them, then there’s no way we’ll be able to end things. Nothing is ever that simple.”

He gazed into Yue Zhishi’s eyes. “You need to learn how to handle and solve issues by yourself.”

Jiang Yufan had been seriously holding onto Yue Zhishi’s schoolbag in the corner, not making a single sound. As soon as he saw Song Yu come over, he very respectfully called out a ‘Senior Song Yu’. Song Yu gave him a slight nod and took Yue Zhishi’s bag from his hand.

Naturally, Yue Zhishi understand what Song Yu was trying to say. This matter couldn’t keep dragging on until it turned into something from a television drama, where each party tried to get revenge on each other until no one knew how the situation truly started. Even though Wang Jie bullied classmates, charged protection fees and even cursed people, the words he said to Yue Zhishi at that time weren’t truly aimed at him.

Yue Zhishi rubbed the tip of his noise, stealing a glance at Song Yu, and gathered up his courage to walk towards Wang Jie. Wang Jie thought he wanted to hit him and said, posture already hostile, “Don’t think I’m afraid of you just because your brother’s here! I…”

“Do you still remember the last thing you yelled at me that time in the bathroom?” Yue Zhishi looked at Wang Jie’s eyes.

The emotions in Yue Zhishi’s large eyes were almost imperceptible, but Wang Jie saw them and felt very uneasy. “If you want to hit then hit, what are you blabbering…” His words drawled away. He suddenly remembered what happened that day.

Yue Zhishi continued, “You were right. That’s why I was angry.”

“I…” Wang Jie’s words were caught in his throat. He got into fights, skipped classes, ran away from school, bullied classmates — he did everything teachers didn’t want students to do. He’d long grown numb to it all. These little things were nothing to him. He was just an uneducated, unskilled little punk who knew exactly what his future held: he would become a grown up punk who did nothing but laze around all day.

He never expected to feel guilt over something he’d yelled at someone in a fit of anger.

“But it was wrong of me to hit you.” Yue Zhishi lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

This was completely out of his expectations. Wang Jie was a bit lost. He’d only wanted to take some revenge on the meddlesome Yue Zhishi, so he slashed his tires and looked for people to give him a little scare, so that he would never again dare to pretend to be a hero. But after hearing Yue Zhishi’s words and seeing the traces of a bruise still on his face, Wang Jie was slightly flustered. At the end of it all, he was the only person trying to make himself seem stronger than he actually was.

“You… don’t give me that kind of pathetic look.” Wang Jie pretended to bluster, but his fingers were clutching his school pants. “Just look at your panda eyes. Since I’ve hit you as well, let’s just call it even.”

His voice weakened. “That… that thing I said, I didn’t mean it. I’m not that disgusting of a person.”

Jiang Yufan interrupted in a low voice. “But you still bully other students…”

“That’s because he talked shit about me first, he said my dad…” Wang Jie abruptly stopped. He looked very angry but also slightly awkward. “…He spread rumours about my family and even got our teacher to go through my desk and bag just by saying I stole from him. I may not have money, but I’ve never stolen his money!” He was a bit agitated by this point, eyes turning red, but he very quickly remembered he’d had issues with the people in front of him. His tone changed. “…If he wants to lie about something, then I’ll just go ahead and do it. What can he do? Cheng Mingming was asking for it!”

It looked like even he knew his words were unreasonable, as a flush spread across his face to his ears.

Yue Zhishi silently listened to him speak, his attention caught by his face. He suddenly realised the world was more complicated than he’d thought. Even he himself wasn’t solely a saviour filled with only courage and righteousness — it’s just that he’d heard the phase ‘no parents’ and had a part of his damaged heart stabbed. That was the only reason why he acted so unlike himself and rushed out to save Cheng Mingming.

The person being saved, the person doing the saving, and the person committing the violence — not one of them was as black and white as the characters in a shounen manga. At this point in time, he couldn’t tell whether it was Cheng Mingming or Wang Jie who was the victim in a case of school violence and who was the actual perpetrator. Maybe it was because they both played both roles that the violence and humiliation endlessly cycled between them.

Maybe this was what Song Yu meant by being unable to end things.

“But that doesn’t mean you can bully classmates. That’s wrong too.” Even though the not very mature him couldn’t give them a way to break through the cycle, Yue Zhishi learned his lesson. He looked at Wang Jie’s eyes and very seriously said, “Just like how I shouldn’t hit people.”

Wang Jie was quiet for a few seconds, and Yue Zhishi gazed at him very directly, as if waiting for a response. Wang Jie had never met someone so strange before. He turned away his face awkwardly. “I can’t be bothered to argue with you. You’re an obedient baby, a good student. I’m not.”

He then glanced at Song Yu, who was not very far away. Song Yu was looking at him too with a cool gaze. He was a bit afraid, but at the same time there was a subtle stirring of emotion in his heart. It felt like envy.

It made him think of his most embarrassing childhood memories, and it made him slightly uncomfortable.

Wang Jie cleared his throat. “I’m leaving. I’m also sorry about today.” He pulled out a crumpled 20 yuan note from his pocket and slapped it into Yue Zhishi’s hand. “For your tire. I was saying how stupid this all was, but they were all egging me on. Now I even have to pay you back. Let me tell you, we’re clear from now on. Let’s pretend we don’t know each other at school and keep clear of each other.”

After finishing his words, he picked up his school coat from the floor, shook off some of the dust and turned around to walk towards the opposite alleyway exit. His steps paused right before he turned the corner, ultimately turning to the right before he disappeared.

Yue Zhishi lowered his head and looked at the note in his hand. There were some complicated feelings in his heart, but he didn’t know how to describe them. He’d originally thought it would be a grand and spectacular scene just like in television or manga series, him as the protagonist fighting back the bad guys before finally gaining victory.

But he now realised there were few invincible protagonists in real life, and it was very difficult to find truly evil villains. They were all clumsy and awkward children, who would unintentionally do things because of their own impulsive natures. There were some who could laugh away those actions, but there were also some who would tumble deeper and deeper until their various emotions carried them away from their original intentions.

If he’d initially ignored Wang Jie’s words, it was unlikely all these following things would have happened.

However, if Yue Zhishi was given a chance to redo it, he would still choose to get angry at those words. But he would then choose to explain everything clearly to Wang Jie and request for him to apologise to his mother.

The opposite alleyway exit was completely empty. Every single car on the street drove about frantically, but he didn’t keep watching and turned away.

He believed Wang Jie would’ve apologised.

Yue Zhishi arrived next to Song Yu while carrying those feelings. Song Yu passed over his bag and said, “Go home for lunch.”

“Are you coming too?” Yue Zhishi raised his eyes.

Song Yu faintly nodded, his face without a single trace of reproach. Yue Zhishi noticed and was very relieved. Jiang Yufan slid up next to him. “This didn’t develop the way I’d thought it would. I thought you guys would have another fight.”

“We can’t fight, fighting’s not good,” Yue Zhishi strongly stressed to him, and to himself.

Jiang Yufan patted his shoulder like a proud grandfather. “Very good. You’ve grown up.”

The three of them biked back to the restaurant, Jiang Yufan slowly riding next to him in the back. Yue Zhishi noticed Song Yu rode with only one hand on his bike handle and felt it looked particularly cool. Jiang Yufan kept praising Song Yu, asking Yue Zhishi where he’d learned his taekwondo because he now wanted to take lessons too — after adding everything together, Yue Zhishi thought Song Yu was cooler the longer he thought about it.

This was the first time Yue Zhishi brought a friend to the restaurant. Lin Rong was especially happy, and she set about filling a large table with food: rice flour steamed pork ribs with pumpkin, steamed Wuchang-style fish, stir-fried chicken giblets with pepper… Jiang Yufan was stunned.

“Are you still making more?” Yue Zhishi tried restraining Lin Rong. “I think it’s enough…”

“I’ve been waiting for you guys for a while. Here, try this steamed beef brisket with vermicelli and chestnuts. This is the last batch of chestnuts from autumn. After this, we’ll have to wait another year.” Lin Rong lifted the lid of the claypot, a heavy aroma wafting from inside. She placed a spoonful onto Jiang Yufan’s bowl of rice. “Hurry and eat, I’ve been braising this for three hours. It should just melt in your mouth.”

“Thank you, Auntie!” Jiang Yufan was a bit shocked and softly said to Yue Zhishi, “Auntie is such a good person. She’s so friendly and welcoming, not like Senior Song Yu at all.” His last words were particularly quiet.

“He’s not like Uncle Song either,” Yue Zhishi also quietly said. “Ge’s personality is a bit of a throwback, he’s like Lin Rong’s dad.”

“Oh~ that makes sense.”

Seeing Lin Rong focus her entire attention on the classmate he’d brought over, Yue Zhishi glanced at Song Yu, worrying he might get jealous, and wanted to serve him some food. He lifted his chopsticks and thought about it for a while before finally choosing the spare rib resting at the very top. It was a thick and juicy piece and looked particularly appetising. He was about to pick it up with his chopsticks when Song Yu set down a bunch of mixed shredded vegetables into his bowl.

“You should eat more vegetables,” Song Yu calmly said.

Yue Zhishi was very happy and quickly placed that piece of spare rib into Song Yu’s bowl. He even gave the piece next to it to Jiang Yufan, before he very delightedly put a piece of shredded Manchurian wild rice into his mouth. He felt like the most thoughtful person in the world.

After finishing all of her cooking, Lin Rong sat down as well. It was pretty much just her and Jiang Yufan conversing throughout the entire meal, gabbing about Yue Zhishi in school and even bringing up Yue Zhishi’s childhood. Yue Zhishi would occasionally say a few words, but he mainly focused on eating. To him, eating was very important, and people needed to focus on savouring their food.

“Auntie, I heard Le Le say he used to learn taekwondo when he was younger.”

Yue Zhishi lifted his head at those words.

Lin Rong nodded. “For a while. Gege took lessons for a longer amount of time.”

Jiang Yufan then said, “That’s too cool. Why didn’t I take any lessons when I was younger, my mom’s useless.”

“Pfft,” Lin Rong laughed at him. “I did think boys should learn some martial arts. I let them go because I thought they’d look so handsome, and they could even strengthen their bodies. Especially for our Le Le, his body was so weak frail as a child, always getting sick. I even have a video of our Le Le struggling to kick the wooden boards with his little legs. He was so cute.”

Yue Zhishi very seriously declared, “My legs are the longest in the entire class.”

“Yes yes yes. But who doesn’t have little legs to begin with?” Lin Rong continued, “It was quite difficult for him. In order to learn just basic skills, he needed to run ten laps around the training ground.”

Song Yu remembered something all of a sudden. He’d been silent the entire time, so his abrupt laughter, while quiet, caught everyone’s attention. The three of them looked at him, so Song Yu cleared his throat. “It’s nothing, I just remembered one time a certain someone couldn’t run, so the instructor had to punish him.”

Jiang Yufan could immediately tell he was referring to Yue Zhishi. “What’d he punish you with?”

Yue Zhishi thought for a while, frowning, before he suddenly remembered. At that time, he was the youngest out of the entire class, only six-years-old — there was no way he could’ve followed along. Running just one lap already meant his butt would fall to the ground, let alone ten laps. The instructor unsuccessfully tried all kinds of different ways to get him to run before he finally thought of a method: tying a traction belt around his waist. He attached the line to Song Yu, who ran in front of Yue Zhishi and pulled him along.

Even though Song Yu darkened his face and said he didn’t want to, he still listened to the instructor and ran, carrying the little package behind him. The two boys in their white taekwondo uniforms ran in tandem until they finished at sunset, wheezing and struggling the entire way.

The instructor laughed as he undid the traction belt. “Looks like it’s nice to have an older brother. You can keep going if your brother’s with you.”

Thinking about it now, Yue Zhishi found it extremely embarrassing. He brought up various conversation topics to try to distract Jiang Yufan from the punishment. Jiang Yufan never focused too much on one thing, and with other things to talk about, he completely forgot to chase up what happened.

“Gege continued taekwondo until first year of high school. Le Le’s body isn’t as strong, so he stopped after graduating elementary. He’s more suited to drawing classes anyway.”

“True, Le Le’s manga drawings are super nice. He’s always asked to do our blackboard announcements.”

Yue Zhishi relaxed after the conversation moved on. He pouted at Song Yu, who pretended he didn’t see him and calmly poured himself a bowl of soup. Song Yu didn’t eat much. He took a while to finish his bowl of fish soup and, right when everyone was about to finish, asked if there was any dessert.

Lin Rong was reminded by his question. “That’s right, I prepared a chestnut and taro cake today.” She got up and went to prepare, cutting the cake into pieces before she returned. “One slice each.”

“I don’t want it,” Song Yu said.

“Then why’d you ask if there was dessert?” Lin Rong asked. She then pushed his piece over to Yue Zhishi. “Le Le, you eat it.”

Yue Zhishi was very willing to eat a second piece of one of his favourite cakes. Most cakes in dessert stores were made with some form of wheat flour, and he could only look and not eat. He’d been craving cake for a long time, and Lin Rong had been busy lately, unable to make him a delicious cake he could eat.

The restaurant’s head waiter called away Lin Rong for some matter, leaving behind only the three of them around the little round table. Song Yu’s fingers tapped against his cup of black tea, and after a little bit of silence, he asked, “How come your cellphone’s turned off?”

“Hm?” Yue Zhishi’s mouth was stuffed full with cake. He doubtfully blinked his eyes before looking at Jiang Yufan, who only then remembered. “Oh yes, his phone’s with me.” He pulled out Yue Zhishi’s cellphone from his pocket. It really was turned off.

Jiang Yufan rubbed his hair. “Sorry about that, I must’ve used up all the battery during my phone call. My mom’s super long-winded.”

Song Yu glanced at Yue Zhishi in understanding. “That’s fine. Eat your cake.”

Before Jiang Yufan left, Lin Rong packed a few other flavours of cake for him to take home before sending him out. Yue Zhishi wanted to walk him out, but he was so full he could barely move. Seeing Jiang Yufan waving him away, Yue Zhishi happily sat down on the marble steps in front of the entrance and followed him with his eyes, pretending to see him out.

Song Yu walked out after a while and sat next to him with half an arm’s length in between them.

This felt very familiar, involuntarily reminding Yue Zhishi of the last time they sat here together as mascots. He almost couldn’t help but laugh.

He vaguely thought a photo of them may have been taken that day, but because of how ugly he’d looked, a younger Yue Zhishi had refused to let Lin Rong keep the photo in an album and clamoured for her to burn it.

Yue Zhishi pursed his lips and twisted his head over to look at him. “Song Yu gege, how’d you know we were there today?”

Song Yu knew Yue Zhishi would eventually ask. He was the most straightforward child in the world, unable to hide a single thing. He’d long thought of a way to divert Yue Zhishi’s attention.

He stretched out his right arm and showed Yue Zhishi his wrist.

Song Yu’s wrist was particularly red and looked like it’d been sprained and slightly bruised. Yue Zhishi immediately forgot to interrogate him, his two hands lightly, gently cupping against the red area as if he was afraid to look at it. He then asked in a slightly pathetic voice, “Does it really hurt?”

As if the one in pain was himself.

Song Yu didn’t say anything and simply watched him, observing him as if he was a little animal.

“If you don’t say anything, then it hurts.”

Song Yu flatly denied: “Doesn’t hurt.”

“If you say it doesn’t hurt, then it hurts.” Yue Zhishi got up. “I’ll grab you an ice pack!”

Song Yu immediately pulled him back to sit. “Just stop for a bit.”

Yue Zhishi could only obediently sit next to him before he abruptly thought of something else again. He lifted Yue Zhishi’s left arm and looked at his watch. “You’re going to be late.”

“I’m not going.”

Yue Zhishi didn’t dare believe him. “Not going? You’re going to skip an entire afternoon of classes?”

Song Yu bent one of his legs, rested his elbow on top and held up his chin. He then reached out and straightened his other arm, saying, his voice filled with a rarely seen laziness, “I’ve already gotten into a fight. Skipping classes is nothing.”

“You can’t.” Yue Zhishi held his arm. “Weren’t you just telling me it’s bad to fight, that it couldn’t solve anything? Then you fighting and now skipping classes…”

Song Yu interrupted him. “It’s enough for our family to have only one good child.”

The winds of late autumn blew up Yue Zhishi’s hair on his forehead, exposing a bright, clear forehead and that pair of clear and transparent eyes.

“But bad children will lead good children astray.”

Song Yu didn’t often have any interest in exploring what made someone behave the way they did, but sometimes he was very curious — where did Yue Zhishi’s many whys and buts come from, and what sustained his desire to frankly and candidly express his feelings? Was it an innocence that came from being overprotected, or was it an earnest foolishness embedded deep into his bones?

His eyes always carried a sincere flame that never flickered out, as if he was very afraid Song Yu wouldn’t be able to see it.

Pure and innocent things always caused two extreme emotions.

A desire to protect, or a desire to destroy.

“Then are you afraid of me leading you astray?” Song Yu asked, gazing at him.

The author has something to say:

Those who worried about pacing, don’t worry, after gege graduates and they’re no longer at the same school, I’ll speed up the plot! Very soon