Chapter 44
What exactly did Xia Fengsheng mean by asking him to keep him company for the night?
What was he supposed to do by staying with him all night? In such a long night, were they supposed to eat a midnight snack or something?
Impossible. There was no way it was just about a midnight snack. Just a few days ago, Xia Fengsheng had domineeringly kissed his face without even asking, taking away his precious cheek-kiss.
That had been a cheek-kiss before, but tonight—
Shi Ye clutched his head, not daring to think further. He truly did not dare.
Wasn’t this moving a little too fast? They hadn’t even been dating that long. They had only just kissed on the cheek, and now they were already going to sleep together?
Other than sleeping together, Shi Ye couldn’t think of any other reason Xia Fengsheng would invite him to spend the night. After all, the other person liked him that much—liked him so much that even if he himself was unwilling, Xia Fengsheng still dug up leverage on him and insisted on being together. So wanting to sleep together now was perfectly reasonable and nothing strange.
A few days ago, Xia Fengsheng had taken his cheek-kiss and must have gotten a taste for it. Now he couldn’t wait to enjoy him further!
What were you supposed to do when your boyfriend liked you too much?
Walking down the street, Shi Ye was deeply troubled. Then something suddenly struck him, and his expression changed.
He hadn’t showered after playing ball today!
Shi Ye lowered his head and sniffed the collar of his school uniform.
It wasn’t that he had a cleanliness obsession, but he did care a lot about hygiene. After dancing or strenuous exercise, he showered. His school uniform was washed every day, and there was a dryer at home, so he always went to school in freshly laundered clothes.
When Shi Ye smelled himself, he didn’t notice anything, but he had sweated today, so he was dirty. And who knew whether the school dorm had a shower? Weren’t there schools where students had to go to special bathhouses outside campus because the dorms had no shower?
Before this, Shi Ye hadn’t cared much about sweating after basketball, but now the feeling of being grimy all over made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t possibly go keep Xia Fengsheng company without showering first, could he?
Would Xia Fengsheng think he was unhygienic and didn’t like being clean?
Wait, no! Since when had he so naturally accepted the idea of sleeping together with Xia Fengsheng?!
He had been forced into this!
The two of them were walking toward the barbecue place where Xia Fengsheng worked, and Shi Ye, following behind him, had his mind running wild.
It was all Xia Fengsheng’s fault for inviting him. Shi Ye hated being threatened more than anything.
If Xia Fengsheng tried to force him to sleep with him, he would definitely refuse.
But… but what if Xia Fengsheng threatened him with the matter of Ding Qizhen cheating?
Shi Ye fell into a painful dilemma.
“Shi Ye.”
Shi Ye snapped back to himself and put on a completely normal face, saying coldly to Xia Fengsheng, “Why are you calling me?”
“Nothing, just…” Xia Fengsheng pointed ahead of him. “You’re about to walk into a utility pole.”
Shi Ye: ……
Still stubborn to the end, Shi Ye said, “Oh. Actually, I saw it a long time ago.”
And then he walked around the pole and kept going.
After about another five minutes or so, the two of them arrived at the barbecue shop where Xia Fengsheng worked.
The barbecue shop stood at the corner of a street, in a busy area right by the school district, with dense foot traffic. Parents often brought their children over to eat there. The place itself wasn’t small, and business was booming. Evening was prime barbecue time, and the shop was so busy it could hardly cope.
The employees ran all over the place inside, wishing they could split themselves in two.
The back door of the shop connected to a small courtyard. From above, the shop looked like a square enclosure. Produce deliveries—melons, fruit, vegetables—were stacked in the courtyard. In the middle stood a big tree, and under the tree was a plastic folding table.
At the table sat a boy about the same age as Xia Fengsheng, hunched over a sheet of white paper and drawing on it with crayons.
Xia Fengsheng led Shi Ye into the courtyard and settled him into the chair beside the boy. “Wait here. I’ll bring you food in a bit.”
He still had to work that night, and Shi Ye absolutely had to stay with him, so since he couldn’t look after Shi Ye and work at the same time, he simply brought him into the courtyard and parked him there.
The summer night was muggy, full of cicada calls. A long power strip had been dragged over beside the table, with a fan plugged in and blowing their way.
The shade under the tree, together with the fan, made the humid heat a little more bearable.
The boy who had been bent over drawing all this time gave no reaction at all to someone suddenly sitting beside him, as if Shi Ye were just air and not worth a single ounce of curiosity. But the moment he heard Xia Fengsheng’s voice, he jolted upright with a sharp start, his overly bright eyes fixed on Xia Fengsheng.
Xia Fengsheng glanced at him. “Oh, you’re here.”
That counted as his greeting.
From inside the shop, the owner shouted through the window into the courtyard, “Xiaosheng! Hurry up! We can’t manage!”
Xia Fengsheng took off his school uniform so it wouldn’t get smoky from the grill, then casually tied on an apron and shouted back, “Coming!”
The red apron knotted neatly around his waist, cinching in the otherwise loose white T-shirt on him.
Xia Fengsheng went off to work, leaving only Shi Ye and the boy in the courtyard.
Shi Ye was an extrovert, bright and lively, the sort who could make new friends very easily.
The boy next to him was very pale, though not as pale as Xia Fengsheng. His hair was very black, though not as black as Xia Fengsheng’s. His eyes were very bright, though not as bright as Xia Fengsheng’s.
His features were fairly proper, his face round like an egg. He looked younger than Shi Ye.
Sitting there with nothing to do, Shi Ye casually tried to chat. “Are you part of this shop?”
The boy ignored him and kept drawing.
Shi Ye asked curiously, “What are you drawing?”
Still no response.
Shi Ye blinked. …Why was he being ignored?
And since Shi Ye never internalized things, he asked directly, “Why aren’t you answering me?”
The boy kept his head down and went on drawing, acting as if Shi Ye did not exist, treating him like air.
Before long, a girl in the same school uniform as Shi Ye came into the courtyard. As she walked in, she turned back and said, “I’ll be right there. Let me put my backpack down first.”
The girl also worked there. She wore the same school uniform as Xia Fengsheng and Shi Ye, meaning she was also from Wuhai High.
Shi Ye noticed there were an unusual number of students working at this barbecue shop. Other shops tended not to hire them, afraid of getting into trouble.
The girl put down her schoolbag, pulled out her apron, and then hurried in Shi Ye’s direction.
“Xingxing, what are you doing?”
She came over smiling, about to see what the boy was drawing, but the moment she spotted Shi Ye sitting beside him, she was startled silly.
“Holy crap! You’re Shi Ye, right?” The girl was pretty and adorable. The moment she saw Shi Ye, her bright watery eyes widened.
Shi Ye was famous at school.
Ridiculously handsome.
She never would’ve expected to run into him here. Come to think of it, why was Shi Ye here?
Shi Ye didn’t know why she recognized him, but he politely said, “Hello.”
The girl replied enthusiastically, “Hi, hi!”
She had no time to figure out why Shi Ye was here. She just glanced at Xingxing’s drawing, greeted Shi Ye, and hurried into the front to help with the shop.
She carried that vigorous, striving energy of someone fighting to improve herself.
After that, Shi Ye watched all kinds of workers pass in and out of the courtyard, busily coming and going.
There was one who limped, one who couldn’t hear or speak, one who had only one finger on one hand while the other hand was normal.
Each of them seemed to carry some disability.
At one point, a middle-aged aunt who couldn’t hear came into the back to move beer crates. She was about five foot three, slightly plump, with rough skin from the backs of her hands all the way to her forearms. The beer was stacked in cases, and she could carry three cases at once.
But as she stood up, the load wobbled unsteadily, and the top crate looked ready to tumble off.
Seeing that, Shi Ye quickly got up and went over, steadying the crate before it could fall.
“You didn’t get hurt, did you?” Shi Ye asked.
The aunt clearly hadn’t expected anyone to help her, especially with the shop so busy. She flashed Shi Ye a bright, simple, guileless smile, one full of pure goodwill.
Shi Ye returned her one just as bright.
Shi Ye: OVO hehe.
Not long after, Xia Fengsheng appeared again, now with a plate of egg fried rice and ten skewers of meat.
The skewers had just come off the grill. Since Shi Ye danced and had many dietary restrictions, Xia Fengsheng had specially ordered all lean meat. The egg fried rice was light on salt too, so Shi Ye wouldn’t feel burdened eating it.
Xia Fengsheng set the food on the table.
Half for the boy, half for Shi Ye.
The boy had already eaten dinner, so Xia Fengsheng ignored him.
Yet because there was food for Shi Ye and none for him, the boy—who had been quietly drawing—became dissatisfied.
He looked up, wrinkled his nose at Xia Fengsheng, and then, clearly annoyed, slammed his crayon down onto the ground.
The crayon was a wax crayon, taped around the middle. It was obvious it had broken once before and been taped back together.
This time it didn’t snap because the tape held.
There were plenty more crayons in the box, one of those large fifty-six-color sets. Usually only elementary school kids used those. On the packaging was the main character from the most popular cartoon of the moment, Super Cat Hero, so beloved that if roadside TVs were playing it, kids would freeze in place and refuse to move.
A full fifty-six-color crayon set was exactly the sort of thing many children in a stationery shop could only dream of.
The boy’s movement was clumsy; even his head wobbled as he did it. Then he sat there, dazed and angry.
Xia Fengsheng watched the entire little fit with icy calm, not changing expression once. He simply pointed at the crayon on the ground and said coldly, “Pick it up.”
The boy didn’t move.
Xia Fengsheng ignored him, turned around, and went back into the shop to keep working.
The moment the boy saw Xia Fengsheng leave without paying him any mind, he froze in disbelief. He couldn’t accept it and started shouting, “Ah! Ah! Ah!”
Xia Fengsheng didn’t even turn his head.
At this point, even an idiot could tell the boy had some kind of condition. Shi Ye couldn’t say exactly what, but he looked very much like someone on the autism spectrum—he didn’t respond to people speaking, didn’t look at them, didn’t engage, fully immersed in his own world.
With Xia Fengsheng gone from the courtyard, the boy shouted a few times, then fell silent. Slowly, he took out another crayon from the box and went back to drawing.
Quietly immersed in his own world, with everything outside it separated from him by some invisible barrier.
No matter what anyone said, he wouldn’t respond. The blue crayon that had been thrown to the ground lay there alone on the paving stones.
Shi Ye bent down and picked it up for him.
When Xingxing saw him touching his crayon, he reacted—slamming the table hard in anger, though it wasn’t clear what he was trying to express.
After picking it up, Shi Ye went back to eating. The egg fried rice in front of him was golden, the grains plump and fragrant.
He took one bite, and his eyes widened immediately.
It was seriously good. A flavor he’d never tasted before.
Maybe afraid Shi Ye would have nothing to drink, Xia Fengsheng came back carrying a cup of plain boiled water in a disposable paper cup, clean and simple.
Shi Ye didn’t drink soda. The water had been specially boiled in a kettle by Xia Fengsheng.
“Careful, it’s hot,” Xia Fengsheng said.
He set the water beside Shi Ye. He had clearly been busy—there was a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead, and his pale cheeks were flushed.
“You…” Shi Ye looked at the rosy-faced boy, about to ask if he was tired, when suddenly the boy beside them made a sound again.
“Ah!”
The boy not making noise would have been one thing, but the instant he did, Xia Fengsheng noticed him. His gaze fell on the blue crayon that had been picked up and placed on the table.
“Who picked that up for you?”
The boy didn’t answer.
Without changing expression, Xia Fengsheng reached out and tossed the crayon back onto the ground.
Seeing it discarded again, the boy became even angrier and lay across the table, refusing to look at Xia Fengsheng anymore.
Xia Fengsheng ignored him. Most people, when they saw someone disabled, would be flooded with pity and feel sorry for them, speaking gently and treating them with special care.
Xia Fengsheng had none of that.
As if he hadn’t noticed the boy’s anger at all, he turned and left without even looking back.
His footsteps grew farther away. The boy secretly raised his head to glance after him. When he saw Xia Fengsheng had left and still wasn’t paying him any attention, his expression grew bigger this time. He made soft, frustrated sounds, trying to say something, but the words came out broken and stumbling, unable to form clearly. Then he pouted and looked pitifully at the crayon on the ground.
Shi Ye had watched everything unfold and didn’t understand why Xia Fengsheng kept throwing the crayon away. He wondered if he should help pick it up again.
The next second, as if after making a huge decision, the boy slowly got down off the chair. Standing up was, in fact, something he did smoothly enough. Then he crouched down and picked the crayon up himself.
And finally, for the first time that evening, he produced a clearly understandable word.
“Pick… pi… pick up.”
Shi Ye stared blankly at the scene.
It was the first time in his life he’d ever been this close to people from a special-needs group. Even though his parents donated every year to charities for disabled children, he had never before been in such close contact with people who lived with physical and neurological difficulties.
They carried hardship with them, but every one of them also carried tremendous life force and struggled hard to live.
Xingxing picked the crayon up, then carefully tucked the tape-wrapped blue crayon back into the crayon box.
“Xingxing hungry?” The boss lady came into the courtyard carrying a bundle of skewers.
Xingxing’s parents were the owners of the barbecue shop.
Xingxing looked up at his mother, but kept his mouth closed and said nothing.
The boss lady was already used to her child’s state. “Xiaosheng told me you were hungry. Why didn’t you just go to the kitchen and find something to eat?”
Usually if Xingxing was hungry, he’d either go into the kitchen himself or directly ask for food. Today he had been unusually stubborn.
The boss lady set the skewers down in front of him, then noticed Shi Ye sitting nearby as well.
“Oh my! You’re Xiaosheng’s friend, aren’t you? You’re so handsome!”
The boss lady couldn’t stop praising Shi Ye the moment she saw him. It was her first time seeing such a handsome young man.
The boss lady herself was warm and kind. She looked to be about thirty-eight or thirty-nine, slightly plump, with gold bangles on her wrists and the shop’s standard apron tied around her.
“You’re really too handsome. Kid, come shoot a little video with auntie later, okay?”
The barbecue shop was run by a husband-and-wife couple from another place. Their relationship was very good. For years they had supported each other and never abandoned one another. Even after having a child with autism, they had never once given up on him.
Their child had been born from their love, and they wanted to use love to teach him, as best they could, to live positively.
The boy’s nickname was Xiao Xingxing (Xiao Xingxing). The couple liked to say he must have been a child born on another planet—coming all the way across the universe to them—so it had to be heaven’s arrangement, and thus they named him Xiao Xingxing.
Because the child was born with congenital difficulties, the couple had started doing good deeds from the day he was born. They did not ask that Xiao Xingxing become “normal” in this lifetime—they were willing to care for him all their lives. They only prayed that in the next life he would be healthy and grow up happily like other children.
To accumulate blessings for him, the couple only hired disabled workers who could not find jobs elsewhere in society. Disabled people were already a vulnerable group, and with no jobs and no income, life became even harder.
Perhaps their kindness had truly moved heaven. The barbecue shop’s business was booming. Some compassionate customers would intentionally come eat there once they learned the staff were disabled. Not long ago the shop had even appeared on television, with a station coming to interview them.
Though each of the employees had one disability or another, every one of them worked briskly and capably. Who said disabled people couldn’t do a good job? In their shop, they did outstanding work. If other employers knew how efficient they were, they’d probably fight to hire them.
Every month, the shop even selected one outstanding employee and awarded them a certificate—and one of Xiao Xingxing’s drawings.
Xiao Xingxing was very gifted when it came to art. Whenever he had nothing else to do, he liked to draw. When he was happy, he could go through more than ten sheets of paper in a single day without stopping.
The boss lady pulled out her phone, opened the photo album, and showed Shi Ye Xingxing’s drawings. “Look, he drew all these. Aren’t they nice?”
Shi Ye leaned over to look. Xingxing’s paintings were surprisingly strong. His color sense was astonishingly sharp, and the structure of his color use was enough to leave people amazed.
Without the slightest hesitation, Shi Ye said, “These could be displayed in a gallery.”
The boss lady had not expected him to say something like that, and she smiled so wide that only her teeth could be seen. “This child’s mouth is really sweet.”
She didn’t take him seriously—she assumed he was just praising Xiao Xingxing—but she was still very happy. What parent didn’t love hearing someone praise their child?
Shi Ye’s expression was entirely sincere. “I mean it.”
He had seen many famous modern artists’ works, as well as paintings by lesser-known creators.
If Xingxing’s work were placed in a gallery, there would definitely be people eager to buy it.
Shi Ye said, “I can help you contact one later.”
The boss lady simply thought the handsome young man was sweet-talking and funny. Saying he’d help contact a gallery—whether it was true or not, she loved hearing it. As long as it was praise for Xingxing, she wanted to hear it.
“You’re the same age as Xiaosheng, right?” the boss lady asked.
Shi Ye nodded.
“Then you’re one year older than Xingxing.” The boss lady patted Xingxing on the shoulder and pointed at Shi Ye to show him. “That’s older brother.”
There were very few people Xingxing responded to. His parents were part of that little circle. Hearing his mother address him, he looked up, but he neither spoke nor looked at Shi Ye.
He didn’t seem to like Shi Ye very much.
Earlier, when Shi Ye had picked up his crayon, he had slapped the table hard.
Even now, though his mother told him to look, he refused, only wrinkling his nose and staring fixedly at Shi Ye’s skewers and egg fried rice.
The boss lady explained, “Xiao Xingxing usually can’t really talk.”
Shi Ye said, “But I heard him say something just now.”
The boss lady’s face lit up with surprise. “Really? What did he say?!”
Shi Ye recounted what had just happened. “He threw the crayon, and Xia Fengsheng told him to pick it up. When he picked it up, he said the word ‘pick.’”
“Oh, so it was Xiaosheng.” The boss lady smiled. “Xiao Xingxing likes Xiaosheng a lot and pays attention to him. Xiaosheng bought those crayons for him, took him to the store and let him choose the set himself. Ever since bringing them back, he’s treasured them so much he even keeps them beside him when he sleeps. No one else is allowed to touch them.”
Shi Ye paused.
Xia Fengsheng had been cold as ice toward Xiao Xingxing, yet the crayons had been bought by him.
