“Let’s go?” Tao Ling said. After he finished speaking, he remembered that Wen Qingying couldn’t hear him, so he pointed to the road in front of him and made a simple gesture of invitation.
Wen Qingying looked at him and nodded slightly, but did not move.
The path between the tombs is only wide enough for one person. Tao Ling paused and walked out before him.
The two of them walked silently through the cypress jungle, one behind the other, passing one grave after another. Stepping onto the illuminated road, Tao Ling politely slowed down, and Wen Qingying followed.
Going down the stairs built along the low mountain, it was already dark, and there was only the sound of wind around, as if the two of them live humans were the only ones left in the entire cemetery.
At first, Tao Ling felt a little uncomfortable. After all, he was a stranger. It was annoying to chat, but not to speak was strange. But after half a minute, he suddenly realized that Wen Qingying was deaf-mute. His quietness was different from other people’s quietness; at least it wasn’t awkward.
Thinking of this, Tao Ling relaxed.
When they approached the exit, Tao Ling habitually walked to the far right, far away from the room where the tombkeeper was on duty. Wen Qingying didn’t react and just walked with him.
It wasn’t until he stood on the side of the road that Tao Ling thought of a question.
A funny scene of Wen Qingying riding the subway appeared in his mind for no reason. Because he couldn’t hear the door closing alarm, he stepped in and got his shirt caught in the door. His long arms waved in vain in the air. He looked helpless and aggrieved.
It was a bit funny, and then Tao Ling gave himself a string of ellipses.
He stopped and took out his cell phone to type. Wen Qingying knew that he wanted to speak, so he just waited.
“Is it convenient for you to take public transportation?” Tao Ling put the phone in front of him and let him see it. It was at this moment that he suddenly realized that Wen Qingying was really tall—half a head taller than himself.
After Wen Qingying nodded after reading that sentence, he also took out his phone and wrote, “But I won’t go back to the city today. This is very close to Shengnuxiang. I will leave from here tomorrow morning after restocking the goods.”
Shengnu Township was the largest flower-planting base in the city. It was backed by an ancient town. There was a very large flower market in it, and it was also an interesting scenic spot. Tao Ling would sometimes go shopping after seeing Tao Jun.
He didn’t show any reaction on his face at this time, but his heart was already broken, only being held up by a firm spirit.
Wen Qingying seemed to know what he was thinking, so he typed another string of words and showed him the phone: “I’m fine, life is very convenient. Thank you, sir, for your concern.”
Tao Ling smiled meaningfully.
After this silent exchange, both parties waved goodbye.
Tao Ling went to take the bus and turned the road to the right. When he walked to the bus stop, he turned his head and saw Wen Qingying waiting for the red light not far away.
The youth stood under the lamppost at the intersection, his face was calm, his posture was tall and straight, and his whole body was shrouded in a shimmering light.
Back in the city, Tao Ling ate something hastily near his apartment. When he went home and turned on the light, he shouted, “I’m back.”
Naturally, there wasn’t anyone in the room to respond.
As usual, he dealt with his work email first, took a shower, and ironed his clothes for the next day. As soon as he lay down in bed, his phone vibrated.
It was a colleague who stayed in the same term and worked at the School of Foreign Languages. The other end said, “Brother Ling, can I borrow your ID and bank card number to file an account for the project?”
Tao Ling took one look at it and replied, “No.”
He quickly scrolled through Weibo and checked out his friend circle from beginning to end to ensure that he was still a modern person with access to information. Even though he doesn’t understand much of what he saw.
Then he turned off his phone and laid down.
Two hours later, Tao Ling opened the quilt angrily and sat up suddenly.
He was so sleepy that he burst into tears when he yawned, but he just couldn’t fall asleep.
He thought he could get some sleep after being so tired from going to the cemetery, so he wasted so much time talking to Tao Jun.
“Tao Jun, you suck.” Tao Ling cursed and turned on the wall lamp, put on his glasses, got out of bed, grabbed two books on the table, and shrank back into bed.
He didn’t even look at the cover, but casually opened one of the books and saw a sentence he had underlined before: “People will suffer if they follow the Dao, and if they don’t follow the Dao, they will also suffer.”
Nonsense.
Throwing it away and opening another book, another marked sentence came into view: “Or to be accompanied by loneliness in life.”
Tao Ling was stunned for a long time while holding the book and finally said helplessly, “Why do I love drawing lines so much?”
He thought for a while, threw the book back on the table tiredly, sighed, and pulled on his slippers to find sleeping pills.
The next day at work, he was still dealing with the graduate re-examination. After getting the compiled results, he had to prepare for announcements, send online notifications to students, and prepare to confirm the admission list and follow-up related matters.
Before going to work in the afternoon, Tao Ling went to the campus hospital first. A doctor familiar with the department of neurology only came to work once a week. He spent the rest of the time in hospitals off campus, too lazy to make the trip.
Unexpectedly, the doctor hadn’t come yet when he went there, so he had to line up for another one first.
Hearing him say that he wanted to prescribe sleeping pills, the young doctor waved his hand. “Teacher, the campus hospital is so big, I don’t dare prescribe sleeping pills to you randomly. How about you wait until Dr. Bai comes?”
Tao Ling: “I’m going to work soon, and her next visit won’t be until next week. You can prescribe it for me first, and I’ll tell her then.”
The doctor thought for a while: “How about I prescribe you some medicine to clear internal heat first?”1in traditional Chinese medicine, the body is a balance of Yin and Yang. Having either go out of balance is what leads to health issues. Heat is associated with yang, and one symptom of having too much of it is irritability. The doctor is calling out Tao Ling on being too irritable lmao
Tao Ling: “…”
Looking at the other party’s questioning look, he pushed up his glasses helplessly: “Then prescribe some cold medicine. I got caught up in the cold lately. ”
Finally, after a hard day’s work, Tao Ling went to the bathroom before getting off work. After coming out, he habitually walked around to the back of the religion department and looked out from the window at the end of the corridor.
The flower shop at the corner of the road was open. Just as Tao Ling looked over, a sports car stopped in front of the shop. A beautiful girl got out of the car and went into the shop on her stilettos.
As Tao Ling leaned against the window, he spun his ring around his finger while staring at the flower shop. This place was a little too high up, relatively. His sight was blocked by the awning in front of the store, so he could only see the lower half of the two people in there.
Wen Qingying was probably struggling to pack the flower for the girl now.
After standing there for a while, Tao Ling turned around and didn’t see what happened next— that girl got out furiously, knocking over some small pots of China roses in the front as she walked.
After packing up, Tao Ling walked downstairs with a handful of various different medicines. Then again, some teachers stopped him and asked him questions. He finally walked out of campus after 20 minutes.
Passing through the crosswalk on the street, he saw Wen Qingying squatting down in front of the flower shop.
Wen Qingying was holding a small shovel, moving a pile of dirt into the pot. On the side, there were China roses with roots out and some broken pieces of porcelain.
“What happened?” Tao Ling walked closer to him and asked.
Wen Qingying, expectedly, had no reaction, still facing him with his back, doing his own thing. His legs were so long that when he squatted down, his knees stood out.
Tao Ling lifted up his trousers and squatted down next to him.
Wen Qingying blinked as a shadow appeared. He looked up and saw him, paused for two seconds, and suddenly smiled.
This was the first time Tao Ling saw Wen Qingying smile.
He originally thought that people who looked good didn’t smile because if they did, they could break the perfectly balanced ratio of their facial features. In some cases, it was like a fairy becoming a peasant; in worse cases, it became the tragedy of a dream figure shattering.
But Wen Qingying was different.
When Wen Qingying didn’t smile, he looked peaceful but somewhat unapproachable. But for him at this moment, his eyes were squinted, his eyebrows relaxed, his mouth slightly opened, and he showed his two small canine teeth on the sides. He looked more approachable and innocent than when he didn’t smile.
Tao Ling felt like his eyes were blinded by lights for a moment.
That was it for their greeting to each other—very plain—but this was exactly what Tao Ling thought the most comfortable way would be.
Wen Qingying lowered his head and continued to work. Tao Ling’s eyes followed his movements. They had passed by the side of his neck very quickly, but moved back the next second.
On the side of his neck, there were a few scratch marks, and the skin in some areas was slightly scraped. Looking closely, there was even some blood; it looked like it was scratched by another person.
Fuck that internal heat-clearing medicine, I should have gotten some injury-healing medicine.
Tao Ling unconsciously moved his hand up in the air.
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Note: The phrase “for the Dao” is in the “Forty-Two Chapters Sutra” and also in the Shangqing Sutra. The sentence “Loneliness” comes from “The Legend of Immortals”.
