Tao Ling came out of the shower and saw Wen Qingying sitting on the edge of the sofa, holding the book he had been reading lately, Like Water for Chocolate, a Mexican story filled with passion and desire.
After seeing it, Tao Ling remembered a few lines from the story: If a powerful emotion should ignite all the candles in our hearts at once, they would produce a splendor so dazzling that it would illuminate far beyond what we can normally see, summoning us to regain the divine origin we had lost.1It’s a shortened version of the entire quote: You must of course take care to light the matches one at a time. If a powerful emotion should ignite them all at once, they would produce a splendor so dazzling that it would illuminate far beyond what we can normally see; and then a brilliant tunnel would appear before our eyes, revealing the path we forgot the moment we were born, and summoning us to regain the divine origin we had lost. The soul ever longs to return to the place from which it came, leaving the body lifeless.
Desire and violence were far beyond Wen Qingying. He was too pure, Tao Ling thought. Yet, he was the one who had set off waves in his heart, waves that were filled with contradictions.
But at least, the book seemed to talk about finding one’s place, suggesting that even the deepest desires seemed to be connected to the soul.
Tao Ling, feeling a sense of confusion, walked closer and, as if driven by some unseen force, squatted in front of Wen Qingying. He placed one hand on Wen Qingying’s knee and looked up at him.
At this moment, it was only from this angle that he could clearly see Wen Qingying’s eyes.
Wen Qingying set aside the book in his hand in astonishment, and their gazes met. Tao Ling was suddenly taken aback, realizing that he behaved as if he were possessed.
In a flash of inspiration, Tao Ling deliberately raised his hand, making a show of it. He took a small pair of scissors from the side table and showed it to Wen Qingying.
It was as if he had touched his knee to make it easier to grab the scissors.
Wen Qingying showed an understanding smile and gently pulled on his elbow, letting him stand up.
What would he do with scissors?
The gears in Tao Ling’s head quickly turned, and he suddenly glanced at the delivery box on the table, then immediately restrained his expression and brought it over.
Wen Qingying moved over a bit to make room for him. Tao Ling sat down, and had no choice but to open the box.
Because it had just rained, the box was soaked and soggy. He had thought that the contents might be damaged, but to his surprise, it was packed with protective foam. After peeling away layer after layer, it finally revealed a small dark blue brocade box.
Tao Ling was startled and turned to look at Wen Qingying. Wen Qingying had also been looking at the box, but noticing Tao Ling’s gaze, he smiled.
Gritting his teeth, Tao Ling opened the brocade box to reveal a platinum ring that was exactly the same as the one he was wearing.
He was extremely astonished, and after picking up the ring to examine it, he noticed that the back of the ring was engraved with a petal-like pattern. This was something others wouldn’t know. His own ring also had a similar engraving.
The individual rings had a distinct pattern, which seemed inconspicuous on its own. However, when the two rings were brought together, they would surprisingly form a complete petal.
They were a complete pair.
Almost instantly, Tao Ling recalled his first meeting with Xia Chaoyang. At that time, Xia Chaoyang hadn’t noticed the ring on his hand.
What’s going on?
Meanwhile, Wen Qingying had also seen the contents of the brocade box. Out of Tao Ling’s sight, his eyes were shadowed with a hint of gloom.
He had seen the name on the package before.
Tao Ling, puzzled and unable to make sense of the situation, put the ring back in the box and turned to look at Wen Qingying, who still wore that same gentle expression without any other reactions.
His mind was a whirlwind of confusion. With a message that urged him to send the report, Tao Ling had to set aside these thoughts for the moment. He typed a message to Wen Qingying: “I need to handle some work. Make yourself comfortable.”
Wen Qingying nodded, revealing his small tiger teeth, as if telling him not to worry.
Tao Ling grabbed the box containing the ring and went into the study.
After finishing his tasks, it was already past nine in the evening. Wen Qingying sat by the desk for a while longer, pondering how to casually explain to Wen Qingying that the ring from Xia Chaoyang had nothing to do with him.
The more he thought about it, the more agitated he became. However, he then recalled Wen Qingying’s calm demeanor earlier. He seemed to be completely unconcerned.
Right, why would he be concerned?
Taking a deep breath, Tao Ling left the study and saw Wen Qingying sitting at the dining table, facing his direction, with two bowls on the table.
As soon as Wen Qingying saw him come out, he smiled and straightened up, pointing to the table.
Tao Ling went over and sat down, noticing that the bowls contained noodles with the dishes from yesterday that hadn’t been finished. The meal looked much better than what he usually cooked and was undoubtedly more delicious.
“Sorry for the wait,” Tao Ling typed on his phone.
Wen Qingying gave a simple smile, lowering his eyelashes and looking at the bowl.
After the meal, which was neither dinner nor a late-night snack, Tao Ling felt it was inappropriate to let Wen Qingying do the dishes, so he took the initiative to clean the table.
He tidied up the kitchen, tossed the clothes into the dryer, and when he came out, he saw Wen Qingying was once again engrossed in the book from earlier.
Tao Ling initially thought about turning on the TV but decided against it. Instead, he sat down next to Wen Qingying and played on his phone.
Seeing how intensely Wen Qingying was reading, Tao Ling felt it wasn’t right to disturb him, so he only occasionally glanced over.
After a while, Wen Qingying set the book aside and, picking up his phone, asked, “Sir, is there something you want to talk about?”
Tao Ling gently bit his lip and typed in his notes app: “I might need to go to Beijing sometime before the end of the semester.” To avoid a back-and-forth conversation, he immediately followed up with: “There’s a conference and a lecture. I remember you studied in Beijing before?”
Wen Qingying looked at the message, paused for a moment, and then simply replied, “Yes.”
Tao Ling had initially mustered the courage to ask if he wanted to visit Beijing, but seeing Wen Qingying’s reaction, he suddenly hesitated.
He typed again, “Is there anything you’d like to see? I can take pictures for you.”
Wen Qingying smiled gratefully but shook his head.
The conversation seemed to come to a halt, and Tao Ling suddenly felt very tired, unsure of what else to say. He ended up asking, “Are you going to sleep now?”
The room belonging to Tao Jun had always been kept closed. Tao Ling thought about squeezing onto the same bed with Wen Qingying, who responded on his phone, “Yes, sir. Can I borrow a blanket? I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
Well, he wouldn’t have to worry about being restless because of sharing a bed with him.
Tao Ling nodded and went to get a blanket from the bedroom.
At two in the morning, Tao Ling got out of bed.
Unable to sleep, he went to the living room, where Wen Qingying was sleeping soundly on the sofa.
Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he crouched beside the sofa and looked at him for a while before getting up and heading to the study.
He turned on the desk lamp and opened the door to the half of the bookshelf that belonged to Tao Jun. Tao Ling pulled out a book and, upon inspection, found it was Call Me by Your Name.
Having seen the film adaptation before, Tao Ling was familiar with the story. He habitually skimmed through the book, and as the pages fluttered past, a note suddenly flashed before his eyes.
He paused, quickly flipped back, and found a small passage underlined by Tao Jun:
“My entire life is left up in the air.”
What attracted Tao Ling wasn’t this sentence, but what Tao Jun had written next to it—
“He said we should break up. I said okay.”
Tao Ling’s fingers trembled. After continuing to flip backwards, he discovered that Tao Jun intermittently wrote in this book. Like a diary, but without any dates:
“I told Xiao Ling the wrong thing. I finally found out: what is real cowardice? Cowardice is that after this summer, I can never face summer2the Xia in Xia Chaoyang is “summer” again.”
“Walking on the same path from dusk, never able to reach the dawn3Chaoyang means “facing the sun”, “morning sun”.”
“Life is full of helplessness. I’ve known since I was young that becoming an older orphan who took care of a younger one was just the beginning of helplessness. Hiding my true self is the helplessness of becoming strong. Wanting to curse out my boss but swallowing my words in order to keep my salary is the helplessness within helplessness. The most helpless thing is that even though I clearly know some outcomes are inevitable, I still grieve over the inevitable.”
“When did I become a person who likes to sigh all the time? It’s so pretentious and annoying.”
“Humans are just creatures of vagueness and inexplicability.”
The lines were disjointed across the pages, yet it seemed like a protective layer in front of Tao Ling was suddenly torn away, revealing a side of Tao Jun that had been hidden from him all this time.
He put down the book and reopened the bookshelf, searching through each book one by one. It was only after examining over thirty books that he found another one with notes.
After searching for a while, Tao Ling decided to turn on the ceiling light and started pulling out the books in stacks, flipping through them one by one.
The more he flipped, the more his vision blurred.
Wen Qingying woke up in the middle of the night, groggy. After a moment, he noticed that the door to the study was ajar, with some light spilling out.
Checking his phone and seeing that it was almost 3 o’clock, he pulled off the covers and got up, heading towards the study.
Afraid of startling Tao Ling, Wen Qingying first knocked heavily on the door before pushing it open. When he entered, he saw Tao Ling standing by the bookshelf, holding a book.
In that first moment of looking over, Tao Ling lifted his head to look at him, his face covered in tears.
Wen Qingying’s heart wildly skipped a beat. He quickly moved to Tao Ling’s side, unable to ask anything, and instead, he raised his hand, hurriedly wiping away his tears.
The corners of Tao Ling’s mouth had uncontrollably dropped, a physical reaction to extreme sorrow and distress. With Wen Qingying’s touch, despair hid the skies and covered the earth4an idiom that means “earth-shattering”, but I think leaving it in its original form fits better, sweeping over Tao Ling like a tsunami.
He placed the book on the table, took a step forward, and embraced Wen Qingying, burying his face in his neck and crying out in an incomparably panicked manner.
Wen Qingying pursed his lips together and immediately tightly wrapped his arms around Tao Ling. His gaze, peeking over Tao Ling’s ear, fell on the book’s pages on the table, and clearly saw the words written there.
TL: Xia Chaoyang’s name 夏朝阳 can be interpreted as “summer’s morning sun” or “facing the summer sun”
Here’s something a bit more lighthearted:
With this chapter, 3 of our 4 main cast now has had the meanings behind their name revealed, so I also tried digging into Tao Jun’s name 陶君 a bit more. However, unless the author reveals anything in a future chapter, I don’t think(?) there’s any significance behind his name. The Tao last name is the same character that is used in pottery related words, and Jun is a common given name that stands for “ruler”, “gentleman”, “monarch”, and the like. Unless the author is saying that Tao Jun is the king of pottery, I don’t think there’s much significance here.
