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Past\nFor several days after that, Du Jing and Huang Ting didnât contact each other.\n
It was October, and Wan City was already cooling down. Zhou Luoyang didnât suggest that they go out, so Du Jing spent all day shut indoors, as naturally as when they were still living in the dorms. Since adding that âcaptain,â heâd been exchanging brief texts with him. Zhou Luoyang looked at Du Jingâs phone. âYouâre sure itâs him?â  \n
Du Jing gave an incommital hum as he looked through the âcaptainâsâ info. Changyiâs information networks had already tentatively gathered up some of his personal data.\n
The âcaptainâsâ name was Lu Zhongyu, single, from Shandong. He had a cat and used to work for a company that sold sports equipment but quit in March of this year.\n
âWhat are you guys talking about?â Zhou Luoyang asked.\n
âYou,â Du Jing answered. âHe asked what we do. He also invited us to go hiking or traveling together.â\n
Zhou Luoyang looked at Lu Zhongyuâs WeChat Moments. âHas he hooked up with the little priest?â\n
âNot sure,â Du Jing replied. âZhuang Li is keeping tabs on him.â\n
To this band of private investigators, keeping tabs on someone was a piece of cake. âHe keeps asking if he can add you. Do you want to add him?â\n
âNah, I donât want to accidentally ruin things,â Zhou Luoyang said.\n
âHeâs fallen in love with you at first sight. This might be a chance to make progress.â\n
âThatâs not funny.â\n
âLove at first sight is the only form of love, just like contracting cholera,â Du Jing responded.\n
Zhou Luoyang knew, of course, that Du Jing was referencing Love in the Time of Cholera. That book had always sat in their dorm room. It was also Zhou Luoyangâs favorite book. \n
Zhou Luoyang didnât keep the conversation going. He bit the end of his pen, stealing a couple glances at Du Jing, who was gathering information in preparation for Ho Chi Minh City.\n
His phone lit up with several new WeChat messages. Zhou Luoyang mulled it over. âIâll add him.â\n
Du Jing forwarded Lu Zhongyuâs WeChat ID to Zhou Luoyang. âYou couldnât keep away after all.â\n
âI just want you to focus on your work,â Zhou Luoyang sniffed.\n
Lu Zhongyu added him back almost immediately. Zhou Luoyang sent him a greeting, and his first response was to ask, Are you and Groot together?\n
Zhou Luoyang answered that they were not, so Lu Zhongyu invited him out for dinner. Zhou Luoyang asked, Just us two?\n
Lu Zhongyu didnât reply. Five minutes later, he finally texted back, Does Groot want to come along?\n
âThis guy hasnât set his sights on me, has he?â Zhou Luoyang wondered aloud.\n
Du Jing didnât answer.\n
âAre you jealous?â Zhou Luoyang teased.\n
In front of the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, Du Jing was doing sit-ups with the landlordâs workout equipment. Zhou Luoyang hadnât moved it out when heâd rented the apartment because Leyao could use it for some simple physical therapy. But heâd specifically reminded Du Jing not to work out when Leyao was home.\n
âNo, it just triggered a sort of self-defense mechanism,â Du Jing said.\n
âWhat defense mechanism?â\n
Du Jing did two sets of sit-ups. âWhen I was training at the FBI, we were taught this method of easing emotional strain in our psychology class. Agents are supposed to choose a âlightâ and build a mental defense around it. It can be a person, or it can be an object. It can be a family member, a child, a friend, a pet, or even a tree or a smell. Agents use this defense mechanism to block out anything that might cause psychological trauma.â\n
Zhou Luoyang didnât understand what he was talking about. He looked down at his phone and replied to Lu Zhongyuâs text.\n
âOh, and?â he said casually.\n
âFor example, if you choose your mother, no ordeal can rattle you while youâre out on an assignment. Because everything that you do is for the sake of returning home alive and seeing your mom again. In other words, your mom is your sole reason for living,â Du Jing explained.\n
Initially, Zhou Luoyangâs attention had been divided and he wasnât paying full attention, but Du Jingâs words piqued his interest.\n
âSo if itâs a lover,â he said, âthen everything that you do is for your lover?â\n
âNot entirely. But when youâre faced with the task to kill or some kind of ethical decision, the existence of that light significantly alleviates the pain. If you just think to yourself that everything youâre doing is for the sake of protecting your child, then it becomes easier to put your hand to the task.â\n
âAh.â Zhou Luoyang understood now. âItâs like spiritual support.â\n
âYes.â Du Jing sat, absentmindedly lifting a dumbbell. âSpiritual support.â\n
After making a bit of small talk, Lu Zhongyu said, Groot brought you to the escape room because he wants to get together with you. Did he tell you that?\n
Zhou Luoyang didnât deign to reply.\n
Lu Zhongyu asked, Do you like Groot?\n
âWhatâs your support?â Zhou Luoyang asked.\n
Du Jing didnât answer the question. He switched the dumbbell over to his right hand. âWhat did the mercenary captain say?â\n
âHe asked if I like you,â Zhou Luoyang said helplessly. âWhat should I say?â\n
âJust tell him the truth.â\n
âThen Iâll tell him the truth,â Zhou Luoyang agreed cheerfully.\n
Again, Du Jing didnât respond. He stood up and began four sets of two-handed weight-lifting. Zhou Luoyang spent a brief moment thinking about what he wanted to say, and then texted Lu Zhongyu back.\n
Five minutes later, Lu Zhongyu pummeled him with a chain of messages. Zhou Luoyang didnât want to talk to him anymore.\n
Zhou Luoyangâs answer had been: Yes, I like him.\n
Lu Zhongyuâs reply was: But it doesnât seem to me that you like him very much. Back at the escape room, you were pretty standoffish to him. It didnât seem to be just an act.\n
Below that, Lu Zhongyu had written out an analysis of Zhou Luoyangâs contempt for Du Jing that day in the escape room, backed with evidence Lu Zhongyu had drawn from his observations.\n
Zhou Luoyang offered a weighty reply. Just because we arenât together doesnât mean I donât like him. Iâll tell you the truth: I like him. He doesnât like me.\n
Why do I feel itâs the other way around? Lu Zhongyu asked.\n
Believe what you want.\n
Zhou Luoyang didnât care what a murderer thought. If Lu Zhongyu was confirmed to be guilty, that would mean he had indirectly killed more than just one person. Zhou Luoyang was unable to stay as calm about death as Du Jing. There was nothing he looked down on more than using emotional manipulation to deceive people and commit crimes.\n
But the rational side of him kept advising him that Lu Zhongyu hadnât been convicted yet. What if he was actually innocent? First impressions might have been equally unfair to him.\n
So Zhou Luoyang swallowed down his disgust and replied, Do you like the little priest?\n
I donât feel anything for him. Heâs not my type, but I feel the need to look after him. The professor feels the same about that kid he brought along, didnât you notice? The professor feels something for you, too. Did you guys eat together afterwards? Lu Zhongyu wrote.\n
Youâre overthinking it. We were just getting to know each other as friends.\n
Can I ask you a question? Without waiting for a response, Lu Zhongyu barreled on. Why did you end up killing me that day? I donât know if Iâm misunderstanding.\n
âHow did you answer him?â Du Jing finally asked.\n
âDidnât you say I should tell the truth? I said I didnât like you. Because I donât.â\n
âWell, that is the truth. I donât like you either.â\n
âThen weâre even,â Zhou Luoyang said calmly. He got up to change his clothes. âI want to work out too.â\n
âDonât build too much muscle. You have the perfect figure now, rather androgynous. Sometimes it causes me to have misconceptions.â\n
âYouâre well aware those are misconceptions caused by hormonal imbalance.â\n
Heâd been like this in the past, too. Du Jingâs mania caused him to be in a long-term state of heightened sexual desire. After he went too long without being able to find relief, it would transform into a male animalâs desire to attack. But Zhou Luoyang was always able to placate him at just the right time. To be honest, he found it much easier to deal with Du Jingâs manic episodes than his depressive episodes. \n
Zhou Luoyang slipped into the bedroom and changed out of his pajamas and into workout clothes. Du Jing walked to the dining table to grab a towel, passing by Zhou Luoyangâs phone on the way, but he didnât pause to read his conversation with Lu Zhongyu.\n
Zhou Luoyang climbed onto the treadmill and looked at Du Jing.\n
âDu Jing?â Zhou Luoyang paused, wondering if heâd said the wrong thing.\n
âIâm fine.â Du Jing stopped what he was doing and went quiet for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling as he breathed. Zhou Luoyang wanted to exercise with him and take the opportunity to chat with him, but Du Jing said, âI might be having another episode. Let me be alone for a bit.â\n
It was very painful for him whenever he had mixed episodes. Zhou Luoyang didnât get in his way, and Du Jing left the room.\n
Depression, mania, depression, mania. In the short month since their reunion, Du Jingâs mixed episodes had already cycled back and forth four times. His disorder was more severe now than before.\n
Sometimes, an ominous thought would surface in Zhou Luoyangâs mind. Maybe Du Jing could sense it too. To put it more seriously, his time was limited. Maybe, like someone with a terminal illness, he could sense that time was running out, and precisely because of that, he came back to Zhou Luoyang.\n
No, no, that couldnât be. He would get better for sure.\n
Once more, Zhou Luoyang forced down that thought, which came to him more times than he could count. He put in his earbuds and started playing StanâDu Jingâs favoriteâon repeat. He thought of the summer of the second year after they met.\n
<hr class="wp-block-separator">\nAfter returning from their spring trip, Du Jingâs condition stabilized a lot. When Zhou Luoyang thought back on it now, it felt to him that something had occurred between them the summer after freshman year. But it was hazy, indistinctâhe couldnât quite grab hold of it.\n
Before summer break, Du Jing returned to Madrid to visit his mother over at his stepfatherâs house. At Du Jingâs invitation, Zhou Luoyang tagged along.\n
Du Jingâs house was quite big. He had a small manor in Madrid, as well as in Barcelona. His stepfather owned a winery. Du Jing had two younger brothers of mixed ethnicity, twins. In the generation above his stepfather, there was his step-grandfather and step-grandmother, as well as an elderly step-great-grandmother above them.\n
Du Jing introduced Zhou Luoyang to his large family very simply. âThis is my friend. Weâre planning on taking a ship to Corsica and Sicily for a few days.â\n
âChinese friend, welcome!â his stepfather boomed.\n
Du Jingâs stepfather was different from how heâd described him. He was a very entertaining conversationalistâthough Zhou Luoyang couldnât understand what he was saying most of the time and had to depend on Du Jing to translate. His mother did not have nearly as much to say, and she spent most of her time upstairs in her room with the twins. \n
âAre you same-sex lovers?â\n
One day, over a meal, Du Jingâs stepfather asked Zhou Luoyang this question in English.\n
Zhou Luoyang subconsciously glanced at Du Jing.\n
In Chinese, Du Jing asked, âWhat do you want me to tell him?â\n
âJust tell him the truth,â Zhou Luoyang dismissed.\n
Du Jing gave a very lengthy reply in Spanish.\n
Zhou Luoyang eyed him suspiciously. âWhat did you say?â\n
âYou told me to tell the truth, so I did.â\n
âBut you said so much. It didnât sound like a ânoâ to me. I can at least guess the meaning of simple Spanish phrases.â\n
âHe said that youâre friends, but youâre even closer than lovers,â Du Jingâs mother said in Chinese.\n
Zhou Luoyang grinned, and Du Jingâs mother continued, âThis is the first time Du Jingâs brought a friend home all these years. Thatâs why SimĂłn thought you were partners. Please forgive his lack of manners.â\n
âHas he been dating anyone at school?â she asked.\n
âNo,â he said.\n
Du Jing didnât contribute to the conversation from beginning to end. \n
âThank you so much for looking after him all this time. He seems to be doing a lot better than before,â she continued.\n
Zhou Luoyang nodded and nudged Du Jing with his elbow. But Du Jing didnât really want his family to talk about his disorder, and said, âIâm all better already. I havenât been ill in a long time. Letâs eat.â\n
Throughout the course of the meal, the entire family treated Du Jingâs existence as entirely inconsequential. His stepfather cordially gave him his regards and treated him like air after that. Du Jingâs attention remained on Zhou Luoyang for the majority of the time, sometimes answering questions his grandparents asked him. The atmosphere of that meal was quite pleasant, but Zhou Luoyang felt very ill at ease.\n
Aside from the fact that he was unused to eating cold cuts and stiff bread with tomato sauce spread on top, he also kept feeling certain emotions ebbing and flowing throughout the meal, leaving him very uneasy.\n
When it was time for dessert, Zhou Luoyang finally figured out whyâthat feeling came from Du Jing.\n
From the moment Du Jing took a seat at the table, heâd begun to observe his familyâs body language, as if by habit.\n
This included his stepfather, grandparents, and even the butler. His politeness seemed somewhat cautious. When his grandparents looked in his direction, Du Jing seemed to want to say something, but his grandparents merely smiled courteously and turned away, continuing their own conversation in Spanish.\n
Zhou Luoyang had never seen Du Jing like this before. As he watched, a younger Du Jing seemed to overlap with this scene. At six years old, his mother remarried, and from then on, he had to work hard to learn how to survive in this household.\n
Everyone treated him as nothing more than a buy-one-get-one-free add-on to their eldest sonâs marriage. After raising him to adulthood, they let him leave and fend for himself; they no longer had to spare a thought for him.\n
<hr class="wp-block-separator">\nThat summer, a heatwave engulfed Europe, so ruthlessly scorching that it could have burnt farmersâ crops to a crisp. The car Du Jing drove stalled multiple times because its radiator kept overheating. The two Chinese guys set about fixing the car on the side of the road, annoyed. Du Jingâs face was covered in grease and filth and drawn in resignation, but Zhou Luoyang burst into laughter when he looked at him.\n
âDo you regret wrecking your Ferrari now?â Zhou Luoyang chortled. âYou spent a lot of their money on it. It looks likeâŚâ\n
âI bought the Ferrari with the money my biological father left for my marriage,â Du Jing replied. âHe left me a hefty sum. I still have plenty left over after buying that car, and Iâll take my time spending it in the future.â\n
Alright, whatever floats your boat, Zhou Luoyang thought. âWonât your mom say anything about you spending all the money?â\n
Du Jing pulled the hood of the car back down. âNo. No one likes to talk about him. Heâs a loon; I inherited my disorder from him. Itâs too hotâŚLetâs wait under the tree for someone to come fix it.â\n
The two of them sat beneath a tree by the road. Du Jing uncapped a boiling hot bottle of water and handed it to Zhou Luoyang. \n
âItâs too hot.â Zhou Luoyangâs shirt was soaked through, then dried, then soaked again.\n
âThatâs why I donât like summers here,â Du Jing said.\n
Zhou Luoyang thought back to the day they first cleaned their dorm together, the day Du Jing talked about his motherâs second marriage. Compared to summer in Madrid, Jiangsu and Zhejiang summers were more tolerable. No matter how hot it got, at least there were the shade of trees and gentle breezes.\n
âItâs about to rain,â Zhou Luoyang remarked. âMaybe itâll cool down a bit after some rain.â\n
âAccording to the locals, you canât say itâll rain just as you please,â Du Jing warned.\n
Zhou Luoyang was bewildered.\n
As soon as Du Jing spoke, the wind grew in force, bringing in dark clouds overheads. Du Jing looked up. âLook what you did. Itâs going to rain.â\n
âThis is taboo too???â\n
As silence stretched out between them, the rain began to come down. At first, it was only a drizzle, so the two of them stood and squeezed together as much as they could beneath the cover of the tree. But soon the rain fell heavier and heavier, and the tree could no longer shield them. The omnipresent water drenched them from head to toe. As the rain hammered down, Du Jing told Zhou Luoyang, âWe have to get out of this rain somehow!â \n
âLetâs go!â Zhou Luoyang cried.\n
Thus, they abandoned the car in a pool of mud and took off through the open fields towards the farms in the distance.\n
Du Jing peeled off his shirt and said to Zhou Luoyang, âYou can take off your clothes! This way! Donât run beneath the trees! Mind the lightning!â\n
Zhou Luoyang was soaked from his shirt to his black shorts to his sneakersâso he shed his shirt. Heâd planned on finding shelter under a bigger tree, but after being reminded by Du Jing, he jogged towards him instead.\n
A bolt of lightning split through the sky. Du Jing stopped briefly. When Zhou Luoyang caught up to him, he grabbed his hand, and together, they raced through the fields.\n
That wasnât their first time holding hands anymore, but of all the times they held hands, that was the one embedded most deeply in Zhou Luoyangâs memory.\n
Du Jingâs hand was drenched, but he clutched Zhou Luoyang tight. The blinding flashes of lightning illuminated Du Jingâs pale shoulders and back and the beautiful outline of his muscles.\n
In the howling winds and torrential rain, under the flashing lightning and cracking thunder, they bared their chests atop the fields of wheat, like two naked animals. In the space between the heavens and earth, they found their way to each other, and together, they fled.\n
Finally, they reached the end of the wheat-packed fields, where they discovered an unlocked granary.\n
Zhou Luoyang sneezed. âI remember reading this exact scene in a book. Now itâs finally happening to me.â\n
âJohn Christopher.â Du Jing wrung the water from his shirt.\n
Zhou Luoyang sneezed again. The rapid drop in temperature left him shivering uncontrollably.\n
Du Jing shook out his shirt and lay it on the ground. âSit here. Itâs warmer.â \n
As he spoke, he spread his long legs and patted the spot between them, like a child.\n
Zhou Luoyang was freezing. In his eyes, Du Jingâs bare chest was equivalent to a heater. Upon being granted permission, he promptly huddled close.\n
Their beds had always been connected back in their dorm room, and Zhou Luoyang never minded sleeping with Du Jing. When the weather grew cold, they would sometimes layer their blankets and burrow beneath them, and Du Jing would hold Zhou Luoyang from behind.\n
Now, sitting in front of Du Jing, he pressed back against his naked chest and rested his head on his shoulder. He could feel Du Jingâs heart thumping fervidly behind him.\n
Du Jing freed a hand to tidy up his sodden wallet. Zhou Luoyang looked at it and remarked with surprise, âIâve never seen this picture in your possession before.â\n
âI found it in a book the day before yesterday.â After returning home, Du Jing had reorganized his bookshelves. In the pages of a copy of Don Quixote, heâd discovered an old, yellowing photograph of a man wearing a fishermanâs hat and a child dressed up as a pirate and wielding a rapier. Zhou Luoyang knew it was Du Jing without having to ask.\n
Du Jing handed him the photo. He took it and studied it.\n
âYour dad?â\n
Du Jing didnât say anything.\n
Zhou Luoyang was amazedâDu Jing and his father were practically identical. You couldnât have told when Du Jing was still a child, but the grown-up Du Jing, minus the scar, was his fatherâs clone.\n
He thought Du Jing might not want to talk about his deceased father, so he changed the subject.\n
âI saw a church on the way here. Is it Catholic?â\n
âYes,â Du Jing said. âA lot of people here are Catholic. Catholicism opposes homosexuality, so I donât know what my stepfather meant when he suddenly asked you about that the other day.â\n
âDonât work yourself up. He probably didnât mean anything by it. He likely just asked because weâre so close. Come on, what era are we living in? Same-sex marriage is already legal in Spain.â Zhou Luoyang handed the picture back to Du Jing.\n
<hr class="wp-block-separator">\nTranslated by beansprout. Edited by opal.\n
<hr class="wp-block-separator">\nhello everyone *honks my little clown nose* after some agonizing, i decided to change âLittle Liâ back to âXiao Li.â sorry to switch on everyone again! gonna edit previous chapters when i have some time ;w; i think thisâll be my final decision. iâm also going back and changing âdollarsâ to âyuanâ and will be sticking with âXiaoâ and âyuanâ going forward!\n
also not to overshare but my family also has a history of mental illness and most of my family members in older generations tiptoe around the subject like itâs taboo, so what du jing said about his dadâŚhis familyâs quiet, insidious ableismâŚi felt that :â)\n
anyway!! the rainy field in spain is my favorite scene in this whole entire novel so pls enjoy some beautiful fanart with me! [1], [2], [3]\n
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