Downstairs in Zhuang Xu’s apartment building, on a sofa in the lobby where the air conditioning was turned low, Li Shanqing sat for over an hour.
He chatted with the security guards and the front desk staff, and counted that there were a total of seventy-two crystal lamps, large and small, hanging from the ceiling. Later, tired from talking and his eyes weary, he fell silent and considered whether he should rent or buy an apartment here to be closer to Zhuang Xu.
As for why he wanted to be closer to Zhuang Xu, whether Zhuang Xu would despise him more if he rented a place, whether Zhuang Xu would even come back to Licheng this year, or if he would immediately move somewhere else because of Li Shanqing’s actions—he didn’t think about these specifics, as he strongly disliked recalling the look in Zhuang Xu’s eyes and his cold rejections.
In the past year or so when he hadn’t seen Zhuang Xu, if Li Shanqing sometimes missed him, he would construct different stories, plotting scenarios of their meeting in his mind.
Before discovering the pleasures of the body, Zhuang Xu had been a very thin, one-dimensional image in Li Shanqing’s head. This was because Li Shanqing had selectively extracted and preserved the most unforgettable moments from their two-month romance.
The Zhuang Xu composed of these moments, though not real, was truly gentle: after their reunion, Zhuang Xu would discover that Li Shanqing was not doing well and would send messages to show his concern, comfort him when he was tired, and silently compromise for him.
These were all very selfish thoughts on Li Shanqing’s part. He knew they were fake, so he just thought about them for the thrill.
After that new exploration in mid-November of last year, Li Shanqing often, in moments of passion, imagined Zhuang Xu as very domineering and ardent, imagined Zhuang Xu as having more needs than himself, in order to get into the mood better.
So today’s Zhuang Xu, having no connection to passion, had hurt Li Shanqing deeply.
Because only then did he realize that Zhuang Xu himself would not cooperate with a kiss at all. He wouldn’t push Li Shanqing away, wouldn’t put up any fierce resistance, but Li Shanqing’s advances had no effect on him. It was as if kissing, for Li Shanqing, was kissing, but for him, it was a handshake.
After a wave of disappointment, Li Shanqing found that he, on the contrary, wanted to leave Zhuang Xu even less. Knowing it was impossible, he still clung to a sliver of anxious hope, like gambling, hoping to get that low-probability new answer through many attempts.
Li Shanqing had been through a lot this past year. He truly believed he had completely grown up. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how very immature he was being now, but when faced with Zhuang Xu, he couldn’t help but be a child who cried and fussed when he didn’t get the gift he wanted. Only then did he realize he still had a pathological condition that couldn’t be corrected.
Knowing he shouldn’t, he still decided to do it.
After twelve o’clock, Li Shanqing got a little sleepy and gradually accepted the fact that he wouldn’t be waiting for anything—Zhuang Xu didn’t know he was downstairs, and if he did know, he would be even less likely to come down.
He stood up to leave, but then he heard a very soft voice call his name.
He turned around and saw Zhuang Xu, wearing what looked like pajamas—a casual outfit—with a jacket over it. At first, Li Shanqing thought he had fallen asleep in the lobby and was dreaming. He had seen that casual outfit before; it was Zhuang Xu’s old clothes.
Later, Zhuang Xu just stood not far away. When he walked closer, Zhuang Xu didn’t disappear. Only then did Li Shanqing confirm that he was real.
Li Shanqing felt very, very happy. Perhaps he was too happy, confusing imagination with reality. He boldly asked Zhuang Xu if he wanted to go back with him, just like the beginning of every sexual fantasy. Zhuang Xu didn’t refuse. He led this Zhuang Xu, who was like the one-dimensional version he had constructed, out of the lobby and into the car.
Li Shanqing was staying at a hotel in the city center. At one in the morning, the lobby was empty of guests. He led Zhuang Xu into the elevator. Zhuang Xu stood ramrod straight, not looking at him, not moving, as if he were sulking with someone. Li Shanqing again felt it was very much like his imagination, so he moved closer and very lightly squeezed Zhuang Xu’s right hand, which was pressed against his leg.
Warm and dry, a little larger than Li Shanqing’s.
Sensing no resistance, Li Shanqing took the opportunity to slide his five fingers in. At this moment, Zhuang Xu’s hand finally moved. He immediately tightened his grip. Zhuang Xu, sensing his strength, finally turned his head and glanced at him.
Zhuang Xu’s features were handsome in a very gentle way, with no aggression. He looked mild-tempered and emotionally stable. When Li Shanqing read those media reports, some of the industry executives who had worked with Zhuang Xu also said he was gentle and refined, and that his work was concise and efficient, with no communication barriers.
If it weren’t for Zhuang Xu’s height, and probably to make his appearance more mature to command respect, Zhuang Xu had worked out to be slightly more built than before, the sense of pressure he exuded would likely be even less.
Zhuang Xu glanced at him, then looked away.
“Zhuang Xu,” Li Shanqing subconsciously called his name, wanting him to look at him again. He found that his clever brain couldn’t come up with anything to say, and then he very clearly felt his abnormal obsession with Zhuang Xu.
He finally, belatedly, began to wonder why Zhuang Xu would come to the hotel with him. Could it be that Zhuang Xu also wanted to do that?
That would be great. Li Shanqing understood nothing, with only this thought in his mind.
The elevator doors opened. There was no one in the corridor, so Zhuang Xu didn’t shake Li Shanqing off. Li Shanqing held onto him, needing to use a little bit of force to drag the Zhuang Xu, who was walking even slower than him, towards his room.
He swiped the card to open the door. The room was dim. Li Shanqing let go of his hand and walked a few steps forward, then suddenly heard the sound of the door being locked by Zhuang Xu behind him. His heart stirred, and he turned to look.
Zhuang Xu asked him with a deadpan expression, “Didn’t you say the room was leaking?”
Li Shanqing hadn’t expected Zhuang Xu to remember the contents of his texts with Zhou Silan so clearly. He was stunned for a moment, then was amused by Zhuang Xu’s question. “Are you seriously asking this? Are you here to check if I was lying, or can you fix it?”
Zhuang Xu didn’t speak. Li Shanqing, not giving up, said, “Instead of peeking at my chats with Silan, you might as well just give me your number.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Zhuang Xu suddenly moved closer to him, his hand pressing on his shoulder. The shadow cast by the height difference fell over Li Shanqing.
From the entryway all the way to the bedroom, the force Zhuang Xu used on him, the panic of being lifted off the ground, the heavy, unheeded dimness of the room, the overly moist, broken breaths.
Li Shanqing had thought he was very brave, only to discover that he, too, could be afraid. His heart, stimulated, beat as fast as if he had some acute illness.
When his back hit the bed, his limbs trembled weakly. He finally realized how idealized, how gentle his previous fantasies had been. He finally understood why the intimacy of real, bared skin pressed together was a wicked sin that should be nailed to a cross.
The temperature and shape his fingers touched made him even more terrified. Li Shanqing hadn’t expected Zhuang Xu’s body temperature to be so high as well, that it would be more than just a warmth that made it hard for him to distinguish between skin and room temperature. The surroundings were full of a scent that wasn’t his own. Just as he was feeling a danger that threw him into a panic, he heard Zhuang Xu call his name and ask, “Did you prepare anything here?”
Zhuang Xu’s voice was both low and strangely hesitant.
As the words fell, Zhuang Xu circled Li Shanqing’s wrist, then enveloped the back of Li Shanqing’s hand, sliding slightly to the end. The movement made Li Shanqing’s legs go weak.
But an ordinary opportunity, if not seized in time, will also disappear. The Zhuang Xu who had walked into the trap tonight was even harder to catch than hard to catch. No matter how dangerous this crime was, Li Shanqing would absolutely not miss it. “Is it not okay if I didn’t prepare anything?”
“I’ve seen some videos where they don’t have anything either…” In reality, he hadn’t seen many, nor had he seen similar scenes. Li Shanqing stubbornly spouted nonsense. “It’s not a must, right?”
Then he tightened his grip slightly and began to service him very autonomously and skillfully.
But after only a few strokes, Zhuang Xu pressed his hand down. His tone seemed a bit helpless as he said, “What do you usually do? I thought you were busy with school and work now.” Then, after a few seconds, he lowered his head and kissed Li Shanqing.
He kissed more gently than before. Li Shanqing’s heart, which had been beating erratically in panic, suddenly found a rhythm of stability. He wasn’t so afraid anymore, but his face flushed and his heart pounded even more. It was as if he saw a phantom of the Zhuang Xu from before, the one who was willing to be with him, who often let him take what he wanted. He thus greedily drank it in. Zhuang Xu, somehow, seemed to have changed his mind.
Zhuang Xu helped Li Shanqing first, and only then himself. In fact, Zhuang Xu did most of the work. Li Shanqing’s hand was just there. In the end, his wrist was still a little sore.
They didn’t go to shower immediately afterwards because Li Shanqing had no strength to get up. He leaned against Zhuang Xu’s embrace, listening to Zhuang Xu’s heartbeat, so healthy it could be sampled and put into music.
He didn’t care about the smell in the room, willfully pressing against Zhuang Xu’s chest. After a while, he hugged Zhuang Xu in a somewhat twisted posture.
Zhuang Xu’s hand had been resting heavily on his abdomen. After a while, perhaps as he sobered up, he tried to move it away. This was already embarrassing enough, but when his hand slid upwards to his rather prominent ribs, it suddenly stopped.
Li Shanqing had been too busy recently and had lost a little more weight. Feeling his pause, he opened his eyes in the darkness, trying to discern Zhuang Xu’s expression. In those few seconds of silence, he truly wished Zhuang Xu was the fake person who would say “Why have you lost weight?” according to his instructions. Then he wouldn’t be silent in a way that made him feel a rare displeasure.
Of course, Li Shanqing had, after all, grown a little in the past year. Not wanting to be so extreme as to ruin this rare, warm atmosphere, he smiled and asked, “What’s wrong, don’t like bones? Then touch somewhere else.”
He reached out to grab Zhuang Xu’s hand, wanting to pull it elsewhere. Zhuang Xu let him tug, but didn’t let it be moved. He pulled his hand out and placed it on the quilt.
This was truly humiliating. Even for Li Shanqing, it was hard not to feel a rare hurt.
The only saving grace was that Zhuang Xu didn’t push him away to shower. They remained in an intimate posture, half-embracing each other somewhat uncleanly. Li Shanqing thought about many things aimlessly in the darkness, feeling that his emotions had never been so complex and varied. Only by Zhuang Xu’s side did he feel this kind of deep-seated depression, and a happiness that was teetering on the verge of collapse because he knew it would be brief.
After lying there for a short while, Li Shanqing wanted to chat with Zhuang Xu. He pressed a finger on his chest muscle and said, “Zhuang Xu, I’m finishing my credits to graduate early. My graduation ceremony is in June.”
Zhuang Xu said “Congratulations” to him, and had no other reaction.
Li Shanqing’s grandparents couldn’t come to the graduation ceremony, leaving two guest tickets empty. If it were the old Li Shanqing, he would have already spoken up, either first expressing his feelings by saying “Zhuang Xu, I don’t want to leave you,” or directly demanding “Please come to my graduation ceremony.” At this moment, he couldn’t say it at all.
Because it was Li Shanqing himself who wanted the relationship, himself who proposed the breakup. And after this night of passion without commitment, Zhuang Xu’s voice had become ruthless again. Li Shanqing then discovered that he had, without realizing it, become fragile, to the point that endlessly demanding from Zhuang Xu and bearing Zhuang Xu’s infinite rejections had become a difficult thing.
After lying there for about another quarter of an hour, Zhuang Xu went to shower first. He didn’t spend the night at Li Shanqing’s.
Before Zhuang Xu left, Li Shanqing asked for his number again. Zhuang Xu still wouldn’t give it. Li Shanqing could only ask, “Then can you have Zhou Silan tell me next time you come to Licheng?”
Zhuang Xu asked him why. Li Shanqing said, “So I can prepare things.”
Zhuang Xu’s expression looked as if he thought Li Shanqing was hopelessly lost in debauchery, but he didn’t say anything harsh, just “No need.”
Li Shanqing asked him again, “Weren’t you satisfied? Can’t we do it next time?”
In the end, Zhuang Xu gave him a perfunctory “We’ll see next time” and left.
The room was too empty and cold. Li Shanqing didn’t sleep again the whole night. He hugged the pillow Zhuang Xu had slept on, then hugged the quilt from his side, busy hugging this and that, but he could never hug out the shape of Zhuang Xu himself.
It’s not that he hadn’t thought about his feelings for Zhuang Xu, why he always had such a great possessiveness, why he had to pester this person. But the right moment for confirmation seemed to have passed forever. If he were to admit it now, other than increasing the hopeless, endless waiting and emptiness, it would do nothing to help his mental state.
Although occasionally, when he wasn’t avoiding it, Li Shanqing knew that the only reason a person would repeatedly cast aside their self-respect to approach someone who was unlikely to respond could only be because of love.
