While Ji Xu was driving, Cheng Yue carefully stuffed the piece of paper into his pants pocket. Still uneasy, he shifted in his seat and sat on the edge.
However, holding the urn containing his parents’ ashes made him unsteady. As the car made a turn, he leaned to the side.
Ji Xu, with one hand on the steering wheel, quickly slapped Cheng Yue on the head to push him back into place, his face showing cle
“What’s wrong with you?”
Cheng Yue, aware that the situation was dangerous, rubbed his head where Ji Xu had hit him and awkwardly adjusted his seating, his face flushed with embarrassment.
After Ji Xu drove into his father’s neighborhood and slowed down, he glanced at Cheng Yue and asked, “Is your head alright?”
“Ah…”
Cheng Yue, just beginning to doze off, straightened up immediately at the question but couldn’t remember what Ji Xu had asked. He didn’t dare ask again and just stared out the window.
“Are you dazed?” Ji Xu stopped the car and leaned over to examine Cheng Yue closely.
Although he couldn’t see any immediate harm, Ji Xu’s slap had been quite loud.
“Wha… what’s going on…” Cheng Yue swallowed nervously, shrinking back from Ji Xu’s intimidating presence.
“It’s nothing. Get out of the car. Aren’t you hungry?” Seeing that Cheng Yue seemed fine, Ji Xu said no more and got out of the car.
Cheng Yue looked around at the elderly people playing chess and the kids running around outside the car window.
After unloading the suitcases from the trunk, Ji Xu noticed Cheng Yue still sitting inside and frowned. He knocked on the closed window beside the car door.
“Get out.”
“Where are we?” Cheng Yue asked when he saw the suitcases in Ji Xu’s hands. “Is this your home?”
“Sort of,” Ji Xu replied casually, pointing to the backseat door. “There’s another suitcase. You handle it yourself.”
Cheng Yue struggled to lift the suitcase and, while holding the urn with one hand, found himself out of breath. Just as he managed to get everything sorted, he saw Ji Xu leisurely walking away with the suitcase, so he hurried to catch up, running a bit and asking, “What do you mean ‘sort of’? Is this your home or not?”
“Ji Xu!” Ji Shan, spotting the young man who was at least half a head taller than the elderly people, recognized him immediately as his son.
“Dad,” Ji Xu greeted.
“What’s in your hands?” Ji Shan reached out to take the suitcase but Ji Xu avoided him.
“I brought back a kid for you,” Ji Xu said, glancing back at Cheng Yue, who was struggling with the suitcase, and wondered how to explain the situation to his father.
The incident where Ke Miu ran off with that man had hurt his parents deeply, but the fact that his daughter, whom they had raised for years, had died suddenly made him worry his father might not handle it well.
“A kid?” Ji Shan was surprised. “Why are you interested in a child now? And… is she pregnant?”
“Dad, do I look like that kind of person?” Ji Xu said with some frustration, glancing at Cheng Yue, who was approaching. He called out, “Say hello to Grandpa.”
“Huh?” Cheng Yue was startled but obediently bowed slightly and greeted, “Hello, Grandpa.”
“Ah, hello, hello,” Ji Shan said warmly, moving closer to take the suitcase from Cheng Yue’s hands.
“No… no, I can manage,” Cheng Yue said, blushing and stepping aside.
“This is my dad,” Ji Xu said to Cheng Yue.
“Oh.” Cheng Yue blinked, unsure of what to say.
Having never interacted much with elderly people, Cheng Yue was unsure where to look as Ji Shan smiled warmly at him. Smiling back felt awkward, and not smiling seemed disrespectful.
“Let’s go upstairs, let’s go upstairs,” Ji Shan said cheerfully, guiding Cheng Yue into the building.
He didn’t know why, but he felt an inexplicable warmth towards the kid.
Once they were upstairs, Ji Shan wanted to ask Cheng Yue something, but Ji Xu ushered him into the study.
Sitting on the sofa with the urn in his lap, Cheng Yue looked around the clean and tidy room. Although it was small, the living room had several bird cages on the balcony, filled with chirping birds.
Cheng Yue glanced at the water jar on the coffee table, the colorful cloth on the sofa, and the old-fashioned television set on the cabinet. He sighed, feeling out of place.
Just as Cheng Yue was about to walk to the balcony to interact with the birds, the study door opened.
Ji Xu stepped out first and grabbed his coat from the sofa.
Ji Shan followed, looking at Cheng Yue with a sigh. He wanted to say something but ended up pulling Cheng Yue into a hug, patting his back.
Cheng Yue, feeling awkward, didn’t react immediately. The next moment, Ji Shan’s raspy yet strong voice spoke in his ear, “It’s alright! Grandpa will take care of you!”
Cheng Yue’s body slowly relaxed, and he returned the hug.
“A grown man should learn to bear things. It’s nothing serious!” Ji Shan’s eyes also turned red.
“Alright, Dad, take care of your heart,” Ji Xu said, pulling his father away and then patting Cheng Yue’s shoulder.
“Stay with my dad for now. If you have any problems, call me. Let me have your phone.”
Cheng Yue handed over his phone, still looking down.
Ji Xu frowned at the phone, feeling something was odd but unable to pinpoint it. He decided to save his number into Cheng Yue’s phone. “I have more things to do later. You can have dinner with my dad.”
Cheng Yue took the phone and glanced at the new contact and note saved on it.
– Ji Xu
He stared at the name for a while, struggling to figure out how to pronounce it.
Having been sent to study in the U.S. right after finishing elementary school, Cheng Yue had no trouble with everyday Chinese conversations. However, when faced with more challenging characters, he felt completely lost, unable to make sense of them.
As Ji Xu shut the apartment’s security door with a click, Cheng Yue finally looked away from his phone.
At that moment, Ji Shan came out from the kitchen with the food and cheerfully called out to Cheng Yue, “Hurry up, we have bitter melon stir-fried with bananas, it’s good for the lungs!”
“……”
Cheng Yue swallowed nervously and cautiously walked over.
After the meal, Cheng Yue felt uneasy, having barely managed to eat the strange dishes out of respect for the elderly man. He was now worried that something might explode in his stomach due to the unusual food.
“Cheng Cheng, come here!” Ji Shan called from the balcony.
Hearing the nickname “Cheng Cheng” the old man had given him made Cheng Yue’s eyes almost roll. He didn’t know why, but after the meal, his name had been changed from Cheng Yue to Cheng Cheng.
Although he thought it was a bit childish, Cheng Yue still stood up with a smile and responded, “Okay!”
Ji Shan, seeing him approach, pointed at a small black bird in an ornate wooden cage and asked, “What do you think of how I’m raising this bird?”
“It looks spirited.” Cheng Yue reached his finger through the cage to poke the bird’s plump chest.
“Yes, I’ll tell you that my bird is…”
The old man and the young man chatted about the bird until it was getting dark, and then Ji Shan urged Cheng Yue to go take a shower.
After showering, Cheng Yue, too lazy to dry his hair, simply flopped onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Cheng Yue thought about how he couldn’t stay here, and he didn’t want to stay here.
He was about to turn 17 and didn’t want to rely on an old man to support him.
When he was in the U.S., his mother used to send him money every month. If he saved, he could afford to eat.
Cheng Yue considered himself capable and not one of those useless people. He could support himself and make a living.
After an hour of lying in bed and thinking, Cheng Yue reached a conclusion.
He needed to go back to the U.S.
Not only were his friends there, but he also had a short leave from school. He had come back to celebrate his mother’s birthday, but instead, he ended up attending her funeral.
Life was so messed up.
With this decision made, Cheng Yue quickly got up and opened all four suitcases, spreading their contents across the floor.
He took out a colorful spray-painted backpack, selected a random set of clothes, and stuffed all the cash into the bag.
He didn’t bother with the other items; he had no use for so much stuff.
The main reason was that the old man in the next room would definitely not let him leave, so Cheng Yue decided to sneak out quietly.
He lay on the bed fully dressed, waiting for the alarm on his phone.
Set for four o’clock, the alarm would go off at the time when people were deepest in sleep.
With the lights off in the room, Cheng Yue closed his eyes, listening to the occasional chirping of the birds on the balcony outside.
After an unknown amount of time, when the phone in his pocket quietly vibrated, Cheng Yue opened his eyes, quickly rolled off the bed, grabbed the backpack from the corner, and put on a black baseball cap. He carefully hugged the urn with his parents’ ashes.
He pushed open the door and tiptoed out.
When he locked the front door with a click, Cheng Yue almost held his breath. After waiting for a minute and hearing only a few bird calls and no other sounds, he sighed in relief and quietly ran down the stairs.
Ji Xu liked to complete his tasks on time. His father used to say he was so punctual he might as well frame himself with a clock.
He got up precisely at six every morning, did a few laps around the neighborhood, and returned by 6:30 to shower and have breakfast.
After finishing his third lap this morning, his phone rang.
Ji Xu slowed his pace, took out the phone from his pocket, and was surprised to see that it was his father calling.
His father used to wake up around six when he was a teacher, but since retiring, he had stuck to a strict routine of getting up at eight and taking care of the birds at 8:30.
Hearing from him at this time…
Ji Xu instinctively thought something must have happened with the troublemaker he had left at his father’s place.
As soon as he answered the call, he heard his father’s almost shouting voice.
“Ji Xu!”
Ji Shan’s voice was frantic as he shouted into the phone, “The kid Cheng Cheng ran away! I went downstairs and asked around, but no one has seen him! He must have sneaked out in the middle of the night! He didn’t take any luggage and even left me a note saying he’s going back to the U.S.!”
