In the glow of the setting sun, I gazed at Mi Cai. Finally, I put down the racing car I was holding, smiled, and asked, “Why are you staring at me like that?”
Mi Cai didn’t respond. Instead, she picked up the down jacket I had laid on the ground, grabbed my arm, and helped me put the jacket back on. With a hint of reproach, she said, “Don’t you know how to catch a chill by yourself?”
“When have you ever seen me catch a cold? This great body of mine has been forged in the cold wind!”
Mi Cai smiled and said, “Stop being silly. Hurry up and adjust the racing car. I can squat here for a while.”
Looking at Mi Cai’s smile, I was briefly lost in thought. She hadn’t smiled at me much recently. Wanting to prolong her smile, I quickly squatted back down and resumed adjusting the racing car.
After a while, the car finally started successfully under my adjustments. I handed the remote control to Mi Cai and said, “Go ahead and play with it.”
Unexpectedly, Mi Cai shook her head and said, “It’s for you. I bought it for you.”
“What?! But didn’t you say it was a gift from your friend?”
“That was just something I said when I was angry. Who asked you to keep making me upset!”
I felt touched but still joked, “I know you’re still upset about that day, but there’s still a chance to make it up. Anyway, you’ll be coming back next month. I’ll go buy you a whole box then!”
“You’re so silly… Who wants you to buy me a whole box.”
I smiled awkwardly, feeling a bit embarrassed, because our conversation just now felt a bit like playful teasing between a young couple.
Seeing that I didn’t speak, Mi Cai turned serious and said, “Actually, I bought this racing car last time. I was planning to give it to you after dinner, but…”
“But I left you behind and went out, ruining your appetite for dinner, right?”
“You know that already.” After a brief pause, Mi Cai asked again, “Can you tell me who invited you that night? You looked so anxious!”
I hesitated for a moment but finally decided to be honest. “It was Jian Wei. She invited me that night.”
Mi Cai nodded. Her gaze no longer stayed on me, and she looked somewhat absentmindedly at the group of noisy children by the fountain.
…
When we came out of KFC, it had already grown completely dark. The three of us stood in the cold winter wind and faced the moment of parting.
I said to Mi Cai, “I’ll take Wei Xiao home later. You’ve been quite tired recently. Go back and rest early.”
“No, let me take him. It’s the weekend tomorrow, so it won’t affect my rest.”
Wei Xiao, holding a family bucket, suddenly interjected, “Big brother, referee sister, you don’t need to send me home. I can go back by myself, anyway, it’s not far.” He thought for a moment and added, “Aren’t adults who are dating supposed to watch movies on Friday nights?”
Mi Cai and I looked at each other, and finally I said, “You little brat, gossiping at such a young age. Who told you we’re dating?”
“Can’t be! Isn’t it so romantic to be in love?”
I was helpless against Wei Xiao’s simple logic. I looked at Mi Cai and then said to him, “We’ve already grown tired of being disturbed by happiness!”
Wei Xiao scratched his head for a while and turned to Mi Cai for help, asking, “Referee sister, what does that mean?”
Mi Cai smiled and said, “You don’t need to pay attention to him. He just likes to act profound and mysterious!”
Regarding Mi Cai’s denial and sarcasm, I didn’t argue back, but that absolutely didn’t mean I admitted to acting profound. The so-called weariness of being disturbed by happiness was indeed true, but it required time to understand its meaning. I was sure Mi Cai wasn’t in the mood to delve into it at this moment.
…
In the end, Mi Cai and I walked together to send Wei Xiao to his residence and chatted with his grandfather for a while before we finally left.
Walking along the narrow alleyways of the shantytown, the cold wind blew fiercely against us. Worried that Mi Cai couldn’t withstand the biting cold, I took off my down jacket again and draped it over her.
She still refused to wear it, but I forcibly wrapped her in the jacket and, with some reproach, said, “Have you forgotten how you caught a cold last time? If you have a weak constitution, don’t try to be tough!”
Facing my firm insistence, Mi Cai hesitated as if wanting to say something, but finally gave up struggling and said to me, “Just make sure you don’t catch a chill yourself.”
“For a man, catching such a chill is a kind of happiness!”
“You masochist.”
I smiled and said, “Wait until we get out of this alley to scold me. The wind here is really strong. Even this masochist is struggling to endure!”
Mi Cai nodded, but suddenly she put my hands, frozen red from the cold, into the pockets of the down jacket she was wearing, so my left hand was wrapped in warmth.
I stood still for a long time before following her steps toward the alley entrance. Our shadows were tightly pressed together, as if drawing warmth from each other to resist the bitter cold.
…
When I got home, I lay on the bed smoking after washing up, recalling every bit of my time with Mi Cai since we met. Suddenly, I realized we had already gone through two seasons of change together.
I still clearly remembered that rainy day in late autumn when I rudely threw her quilt and bedsheet downstairs, and how she tricked me to go to the remote countryside, making me suffer so much… Also, when she came all the way to Xuzhou to find me, I played the guitar for her while she leaned against me, crying.
It turned out that through the seasons’ changes, we had experienced so much. I only regretted not having Weiran’s high emotional intelligence. If I had recorded all these moments with a DV, maybe each night filled with memories would have made me feel fulfilled.
I stubbed out the cigarette and looked again at the cabinet in the distance where those stolen photos of her were placed. Although the dim light made it hard to see clearly, I could still sense her heart that needed comfort. But why couldn’t I be a brave person?
Perhaps I was really inferior. I was afraid I couldn’t comfort her deeply wounded heart. It seemed all I could do for her now was to cook a meal, give her a coat to keep warm, and occasionally do some annoying things to make her angry.
But could these small, insignificant gestures truly support a love so mismatched?
It was such an unsolvable question! But if I didn’t try, how could there be an answer? And if even after trying, I couldn’t support it, wouldn’t that only cause more pain for both of us?
And the above was already an optimistic assumption. Pessimistically speaking, I might not even get the chance to try, because by Mi Cai’s side was another attentive and considerate person, Weiran. If I were to compare myself to Weiran, I had no doubt I was just a weakling with a combat power of only 5.
So I really should go to bed and stop worrying pointlessly like this… Finally, I turned off the light and, in the dark room, repeatedly experienced the loneliness that lit up inside.
But this growing sense of solitude was suddenly interrupted by the abrupt ringing of my phone. Still, I waited a while before picking it up to check. It was a message from Mi Cai.
“Zhaoyang, I forgot to tell you just now. Tomorrow afternoon, please arrange a meeting with Fangyuan, Chen Jingming, and me.”
This message instantly made me forget the loneliness I had just felt, because it concerned Fangyuan and Chen Jingming’s job prospects. I was even more eager to see what decision Mi Cai would make tomorrow!
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