Sun Rain Chapter 47
byBack inside the house, Shi Meng felt extremely displeased, realizing his recent departure could only be described as fleeing in disarray.
He thought, it was all the fault of the bad rainy weather.
The cat bed was placed beside the bed in the upstairs bedroom, but the cat was unpredictable; today it might sleep obediently in its bed, tomorrow it might be perched atop the wardrobe.
Opening a can of wet food and mixing it with kibble, the cat ate heartily. Shi Meng squatted by the bed, watching it eat, resting his chin on the back of his hand. He wished people could be like cats—happy just by getting something good to eat. How wonderful that would be.
He opened his computer and saw a new email from Teacher Ma, asking if he would participate in a portrait painting competition held in Fengcheng at the end of the year. The email mentioned that the preliminary round was an online review, and he could use an alias, just making up a few characters.
Since Teacher Ma had even considered his reservations, Shi Meng had no reason to refuse. In fact, he wanted to participate. Winning a prize wasn’t important; he needed some motivation to push him forward.
That evening, Shi Meng leaned against the headboard, reading the letter he had just received. This time, a pair of gloves was included with the letter. They were an ordinary style, not even separated into five fingers; hands slipped in to become a round, fuzzy mitten. A string connected the two, making them the anti-loss type that children often wore around their necks in winter.
However, the knitting was fine and dense, the texture soft, and even the yarn ends were discreetly hidden. It was clearly not a mass-produced factory item.
He couldn’t recall seeing Li Bihan do any knitting in the past decade or so. She came from a scholarly family and had read many books, but the mundane chores of ordinary life were merely a pastime for her. She had certainly never engaged in such time-consuming, laborious work.
Not even Shi Mu had received a pair of hand-knitted gloves from her.
The letter read: My manual skills are poor. I practiced for over half a month and only managed to produce this one pair that is presentable. If you like them, wear them when you go out. If you don’t, just toss them aside. When my skill improves, I will knit you a new pair.
Shi Meng put the gloves on to try them. They fit perfectly and were not as bad as the letter claimed.
He took them off but didn’t discard them. Instead, he folded them and placed them by his pillow. Lying on his side, he could smell a faint orange scent—the bergamot aroma that was always present in Li Bihan’s room.
Closing his eyes, Shi Meng turned onto his back, facing away, fleeing, forbidding himself from indulging for too long.
He had stayed in a sealed, vacuum-like world for too long. He was still unaccustomed to receiving, still unaccustomed to others being kind to him.
The next morning, the black car at the entrance was gone. Shi Meng went out with his watering can to water the seedlings and ran into Aunt Pan, his neighbor, who was up early to buy groceries.
“Where did you go yesterday afternoon?” Aunt Pan asked, approaching him. “Wei from our house came by three times and couldn’t get the door open.”
“I went to Fengcheng,” Shi Meng said.
“Went back to your hometown? That’s good. No matter how strained things are with your family, you should still visit.”
“…Mhm.”
When Shi Meng first moved in, Aunt Pan had inquired about his origins. Based on his age and his tight-lipped attitude, she deduced that he had run away from home and was hiding here. She had earnestly advised him to go home for holidays, saying that after all, it was home, and those were the parents who gave birth to and raised him.
Shi Meng was too lazy to explain. Since Aunt Pan had neatly tied up the cause and effect, he simply went along with the ready-made “backstory.”
Older generations have strong family values. After offering a few more words of advice, Aunt Pan’s sharp eyes spotted the gloves Shi Meng was wearing and immediately understood what was going on.
“Oh, hand-knitted,” she leaned in to look. “Did your mother make them for you?”
Hearing the word “mother,” Shi Meng instinctively hunched his shoulders and let out a surprised “Ah,” as if he couldn’t react in time.
Aunt Pan took this as confirmation. She was happy for Shi Meng. “Your mother’s craftsmanship is really good. Look how beautifully these gloves are knitted.”
Not only Aunt Pan, but her son also complimented them.
On Monday morning, Pan Jiawei had no classes. He knocked on Shi Meng’s door with his guitar case slung over his back. Once inside, he first expressed his displeasure about Shi Meng not being home yesterday.
“Do you know I came by five times, a full five times!” Pan Jiawei held up five fingers. “I thought, since you never leave the house, you must have slept through everything at home. I was so worried you’d starve to death I almost climbed through the window.”
Shi Meng didn’t understand the connection between starving to death and climbing through the window. After thinking for a moment, he said, “Aunt Pan said you only came three times.”
Pan Jiawei retorted sourly, “She misremembered. It was five times.”
Shi Meng said, “Oh.”
Pan Jiawei waited for a long time, eyes wide. “Just ‘oh’?”
Shi Meng was organizing his paints. He turned to look at Pan Jiawei, seemingly asking with his eyes: What else?
Just one look was enough to deflate Pan Jiawei. He scratched his head and looked away. “Nothing. Next time, next time don’t… Ugh, never mind. Let’s exchange WeChat contacts, so I don’t keep making pointless trips.”
Although Shi Meng didn’t understand the connection between adding WeChat and making pointless trips, he still added Pan Jiawei as a friend.
Immediately after adding him, Pan Jiawei clicked on his Moments, confirmed that no permissions were set, and stared at the empty page in astonishment. “This isn’t your burner account, is it?”
Shi Meng blinked. “What burner account?”
In contrast to Shi Meng’s sparse feed, Pan Jiawei’s Moments were colorful. From attending music festivals to eating a bowl of noodles, every detail was documented. He posted new updates almost daily with pictures and text, and the comments section was lively, filled with classmates, friends, and relatives offering congratulations.
Pan Jiawei scrolled down, showing Shi Meng. “See, this is what a normal person’s Moments looks like.”
Shi Meng learnedly said “Oh” again, picked up his own phone, switched to camera mode, and took a picture of the gloves resting on his lap.
“Your mom made these?” Pan Jiawei also recognized them as handmade. “They look pretty nice.”
Shi Meng was focused on figuring out how to post an update and ignored him.
Pan Jiawei asked again, “By the way, why did you come to Xuncheng? Did you really run away from home?”
Shi Meng still didn’t respond.
“Could it be that you came here to heal a broken heart after a breakup?”
At the mention of a breakup, Shi Meng first froze, then shook his head. “No.”
“Oh,” Pan Jiawei mimicked him, then concluded, “You’ve never been in a relationship.”
Shi Meng finally finished editing his content, clicked send, and casually hummed an affirmative “Mhm.”
Yes, I have never been in a relationship, nor do I understand what love is.
It was just an instinctual drawing near, followed by an instinctual retreat after being hurt.
Only now did he understand that love should be warm and soft, like these gloves. How could it be so painful that it left a person unable to cry?
Pan Jiawei’s visit this time was, as usual, to sing a new song for Shi Meng.
Shi Meng only listened to the rhythm of music, so he said every song was good. Just as he gave his assessment, the cat he had recently adopted came down from upstairs, letting out a lazy “Meow.” Pan Jiawei pointed at it and asked, “If this cat could sing, would you still think it sounds good?”
Shi Meng thought about it. “No.”
Cats don’t meow rhythmically.
Pan Jiawei, however, took this as an acknowledgment of his talent. He proudly lifted his chin toward the cat. “Defeated foe, state your name!”
The cat hissed at him. “Meow—”
So Shi Meng gave it another name: Meowmeow.
“That’s so casual,” Pan Jiawei suggested. “How about Meng…”
Shi Meng didn’t hear clearly. “What?”
Pan Jiawei instantly backed down, his fingers strumming the guitar strings to produce a pleasant sound. “Nothing, I said Meowmeow is quite good.”
Pan Jiawei had class in the afternoon, so before leaving, he habitually dawdled. First, he claimed he hadn’t performed well and missed a few notes, promising to send the video from the music festival to Shi Meng’s WeChat later. Then, he reminded Shi Meng to stay in at night, saying the area had been restless lately.
“Remember that out-of-town vehicle I told you about last time? This time I saw it clearly, it’s a Land Rover Range Rover,” Pan Jiawei said, pointing toward the parking lot. “I saw the person in the car this morning. It’s Monday, and they’re still idling around. They must be staking out the place.”
Shi Meng didn’t know how to respond to this well-reasoned analysis, so he remained silent.
He walked his guest out to the yard and saw a person leaning against the iron fence. The person was tall, but their back looked fragile and thin, as if they had just suffered a great disaster. Only Shi Meng knew it was because the illness was coming on fiercely.
Pan Jiawei saw him too. Such a large person standing right by the gate was hard to miss, especially since Fu Xuanliao, in both appearance and demeanor, did not look like someone who belonged in this urban-rural fringe, a trait he shared with Shi Meng.
When Pan Jiawei clearly saw Fu Xuanliao’s face, he swore under his breath. “It’s this guy!”
He stepped in front of Shi Meng, glaring, ready to go forward and question him, but Shi Meng stopped him.
“I know him,” Shi Meng said.
Fu Xuanliao probably never expected that his relationship with Shi Meng would one day be described as merely “knowing.”
Like business partners who had exchanged cards, or classmates from the next class whom one had met a few times—they simply knew each other, could call out a name, and had no other connection.
In reality, they were far more than acquaintances. They had kissed countless times, done the most intimate things in the world countless times. They had witnessed each other’s hidden dark sides and bad tempers, and seen each other at their most vulnerable.
Looking at the back of the young boy who could openly enter Shi Meng’s residence, Fu Xuanliao’s already bloodshot eyes immediately turned crimson. It was the panic of having one’s possession coveted, and more profoundly, the fear that something beautiful had finally been discovered by the world and would no longer belong exclusively to him.
Shi Meng closed the iron gate. Just as he was about to turn away, he heard a voice.
“Three more minutes.”
Fu Xuanliao’s voice was already deep, and now it was tinged with hoarseness, causing a slight tremor in Shi Meng’s chest.
“When that kid went inside, I thought, half an hour. If he wasn’t out in half an hour, I’d climb the wall, smash the door, and drag him out… Now, there are three minutes left until the half-hour mark.”
Shi Meng was used to handling his own affairs and hated involving innocent people. Hearing this, he frowned. “By what right?”
Having received a response, Fu Xuanliao felt slightly relieved. A smile stretched across his pale face. “By the right that we are more than just acquaintances, and by the right that last night… I dreamed of you.”
Shi Meng was startled.
What could he have dreamed of? Shi Meng thought. Nothing but those unbearable memories.
But Fu Xuanliao said, “I dreamed you were standing on that ship again.”
This was an experience unique to the two of them, a private code that only they understood. Even if Pan Jiawei were present, he couldn’t interject a single word.
“You looked at me, smiled at me, and pressed the lighter only to ignite fireworks, not… like you are now.”
Shi Meng thought he must be delirious with fever. “Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?”
I have already let you go. What more do you want from me?
A sense of helpless anger rose in his heart. Remembering everything from yesterday, and knowing he couldn’t win an argument with him, Shi Meng turned to leave. However, before he could take a step, his clothes were grabbed, and his body was suddenly pulled backward by a force.
A gust of wind swept past, and he heard a low, hoarse voice right next to his ear: “Good, good… you can still get angry.”
Fu Xuanliao let out a sigh of relief, carrying an unusual heat.
One hand held Shi Meng’s clothes, and the other reached through the gaps in the fence, tightly wrapping around Shi Meng’s shoulder.
It had been so long since they were this close, close enough to bring a sense of joy at recovering something lost.
Like a traveler walking through a dry desert who finally receives a ladle of clear water, he drank greedily, yet cherished it immensely, needing to hold it in his arms even in his dreams to feel secure.
“It’s good that you can get angry.”
Being able to get angry meant there was still hope, still room for possibility. No matter what, it was better than cold indifference.
Even though the little mushroom had turned into a little hedgehog, the pain it inflicted felt so familiar.
Fu Xuanliao asked, “Do you still remember the last three minutes of your birthday last year?”
Shi Meng, forced to stay put, froze completely.
He didn’t know why he wasn’t struggling, why he wasn’t running. Perhaps it was because the person behind him sounded weak, unable to stand steadily, as if he would collapse with a touch.
But what did that have to do with him? It wasn’t Shi Meng who made him stand in the rain, nor was it Shi Meng who made him sick.
As for those three minutes, those three minutes that once made him feel something akin to happiness and sweetness…
In a moment of urgency, Shi Meng answered, uncharacteristically without thinking, “I don’t remember.”
Unexpectedly, upon hearing his answer, Fu Xuanliao became even more certain. “Then you remember. I know you haven’t forgotten, and neither have I.”
The good, the bad, the sweet, the painful—all of it was etched in his heart.
Separated by a door that was effectively useless, Fu Xuanliao did not use excessive force with his arm. He leaned forward, straining to press close to Shi Meng, both confused and lucid.
His breath was scorching, and the look in his eyes was equally fervent. “We will have many three-minute moments in the future. All those three minutes, every minute and every second, will be yours. How about that?”