Wild Fire Bids Farewell To Summer Chapter 6

Before Grain Rain

When the final echoes of the campus curfew bell were cut off by the iron gate, Wei Zhiheng was pressing the second knuckle of his finger against the sound-activated light switch in the third-floor corridor of Changgu Building. The plastic panel had a crack in it, layered with years of dust, and a frost-like powder rubbed off onto his fingertip, embedding itself dryly under his nail. The light hummed with an electrical overload as it flickered on, the vibrating tungsten filament stretching and flattening his shadow against the terrazzo wall, overlapping with student graffiti from previous years that read “422 days until the Gaokao.” The final stroke of the number “2” had pierced through the paper, carving a shallow, soot-filled groove into the wall.

He carried his art box in his left hand, its metal corners striking the terrazzo with a crisp, vibrating ring. Inside were a quarter-sized sketchboard, a box of Marie’s paints, and a plastic mineral water bottle repurposed for turpentine. The bottle was transparent, with a third of the pale yellow liquid remaining and brownish pigment residue settled at the bottom.

The sound of Old Zhou the security guard coughing drifted up from below—a dull sound squeezed from deep within his chest. Then came the heavy thud of the iron gate closing; a click as the bolt fell, the echo rolling through the stairwell three times before falling silent. Without warning, a loud crash of a chair falling over came from the adjacent classroom. Both of them held their breath simultaneously, waiting for the sound to pass.

Huang Jinye appeared from the corner of the stairs, a folding foam mat slung over his right shoulder—borrowed from the gymnasium, its canvas surface still flecked with red scraps from the plastic running track. His center of gravity leaned to the right as he walked, his left knee hesitant to bend, the tip of his shoe scuffing the floor with a faint friction. The mat was too large, scraping against the stair railing with a long, drawn-out screech.

Neither of them made eye contact. Wei Zhiheng fished a brass key from his trouser pocket; its teeth were worn down, and it was tied with a faded red string. He inserted the key into the lock and turned it clockwise. He met resistance on the first turn—the bolt was rusted, and the metal ground together with a dry rasp. It only turned smoothly on the second rotation, the bolt retracting with a click. The sound rippled through the empty corridor, hitting the opposite wall and reflecting back in a brief reverb.

Wei Zhiheng pushed the door open, the sharp corner of his art box scraping against the frame, leaving a shallow mark where wood met paint. Huang Jinye followed him in, closing the door behind him but leaving a crack. The gap was just wide enough for the corridor light to slice through, forming a bright, thin line on the floor that cut through the darkness of the classroom. Then he kicked the door shut. It hit the frame with a dull thud, rattling the window panes in a humming resonance.

Lock it, Wei Zhiheng said. His voice was dry, his throat tight, the end of the word trembling.

Huang Jinye twisted the lock from the inside, the metal bolt snapping out with a click. Then he dragged the easels over. The easels were made of pine, a tripod structure secured with brass screws. The rubber feet at the bottom shrieked against the floor. He stacked three easels in a triangular formation behind the door to form a barrier. The crossbars of the easels struck the door panels with hollow echoes.

The classroom was forty square meters, with eight drawing tables arranged in two rows. Wei Zhiheng walked to the third table by the window and set down his art box. The metal corners made a sharp clatter as they hit the floor. He opened the lid and took out a stack of about twenty sheets of quarter-sized sketching paper, their edges sharp and neatly cut. Pinching a corner of the paper with his left thumb and index finger, he flicked his wrist, the paper unfurling in the air with a rustle. He spread the paper across the table; the contact between the paper and the wooden surface made a faint friction sound, and static electricity caused the sheet to cling to the tabletop.

Huang Jinye stood in the center of the classroom and threw the foam mat onto the floor. The mat hit the terrazzo, compressing the foam inside with a wheezing sound before bouncing once and settling into stillness. He bent over to undo the straps, the sound of the Velcro tearing apart was piercing.

The mat, Huang Jinye said, his voice squeezed from his throat, raspy from exertion. Borrowed it from the gym. Said it was for drying.

He unfolded the mat, revealing old newspapers hidden inside. They were copies of the Guangxi Daily dated March 15, 2025, the ink on the front-page headlines smelling strong and pungent. He spread the newspapers out with rough movements, the paper rustling against the floor. Ink rubbed off onto the back of his right hand, the black powder embedding into his palm lines like wet stains. He pressed down one corner of the newspaper with his left hand and smoothed the creases with his right, his fingertips sliding over the surface. The musty smell of the newspaper surged up, lingering at floor level with the scent of damp, decaying paper.

Come here. Huang Jinye tilted his chin, pointing at the laid-out newspapers, the back of his hand already blackened.

Wei Zhiheng turned around. His right hand was still wrapped in medical tape from a cut he’d gotten sharpening pencils three days ago; the edges of the tape were peeling, revealing the dark red scab beneath. He walked toward the foam mat, his steps controlled and steady, though his knees felt weak. Halfway there, he nearly bumped into the corner of a drawing table. He stood at the edge of the mat, looking at the newspapers Huang Jinye had spread out.

He extended his right foot, testing the newspaper with his toe. The paper dipped with a crisp snap, like stepping on dry leaves. He lay down, and the moment his body touched the newspaper, the smell of ink intensified, mingling with the rubbery scent of the foam mat. He lay on his side facing the window, his left hand tucked under his head and his right hand at his side. Using the art box as a pillow, its leather surface felt icy against the back of his neck. His body temperature was low, like a stone pulled from water.

The chirping of sparrows came from outside the window—sharp, three-beat bursts followed by the sound of fluttering wings. In the distance, the steam engine in the cafeteria let out a low, continuous roar.

Huang Jinye pulled a white earphone case from his school uniform pocket; it was made of plastic and covered in scratches. He opened the case and took out a pair of white wired headphones with a 1.5-meter cord tangled into a mess. He tried to comb through the knots with his fingers, but his movements were clumsy, and the cord only tightened into a snarl. He pulled hard, and the wire made a faint snapping sound.

The wire is tangled, Huang Jinye said, digging his fingers into the mess, only for it to tighten further.

Wei Zhiheng reached out his right hand, fingers spread and palm up. Huang Jinye tossed the bundle over. It hit Wei Zhiheng’s chest, bounced once, and rolled onto the floor. Wei Zhiheng grabbed the end of the wire with his right hand and used his left to assist, his fingers weaving through to undo the dead knots. The wire felt smooth, like rubber. He plugged the jack into the MP3 player in the side pocket of his art box. The player belonged to his mother; it was black with a scratched surface and a cracked screen, but he operated it by touch. The metal plug ground against the plastic port with a faint friction.

The screen displayed the track: Moonlight Sonata, First Movement. Wei Zhiheng pressed the play button; the plastic key sank with a click.

The music surged out. First came the bass, heavy and vibrating in his chest. Then the melody, slow and fragmented.

Wei Zhiheng tucked one earbud into his left ear and handed the other to Huang Jinye. Huang Jinye took it and put it in his right ear. They lay on their sides, facing each other with a thirty-centimeter gap between them. The earphone cord stretched taut like a white string connecting their ears. The length was exactly 1.5 meters—no more, no less—forcing them to maintain that specific distance.

Wei Zhiheng closed his eyes. The music entered his ear canal, making his eardrum quiver. The first movement was an adagio, unfinished, like a canvas with only the base layer painted. He could hear his mother’s fingers moving across the keys, slow and hesitant.

Something was swelling in his waist. It wasn’t hunger, but something deeper, as if someone were stuffing cotton into the gaps between his bones—stuffing it so full it was about to burst. He frowned, the skin at his brow furrowing. His breathing became shallower and more rapid.

He rolled over, shifting from his left side to his right. The movement pulled the earphone cord. The wire wrapped around his neck, tightening. As he continued to turn, the cord yanked the earbud from his left ear, pulling on the lobe and causing a sharp pain. The wire continued to tighten, winding around his left wrist and biting into the skin, leaving a white indentation.

Don’t move, Huang Jinye said. He took out his right earbud and sat up. The movement caused the newspaper to rustle. He knelt on the foam mat, his kneecaps pressing into the paper, ink smudging onto the fabric of his black athletic shorts in gray stains.

Wei Zhiheng stopped moving. His left hand was ensnared by the earphone wire, which was cinched tight, cutting off his circulation. His fingers began to turn purple, starting from the tips and spreading toward the base. His nail beds took on a lavender hue. He spread his fingers, trying to break free, but the wire only tightened.

Huang Jinye reached out. His fingers were rough, his pads calloused. He pinched the wire wrapped around Wei Zhiheng’s wrist, his fingertips touching the skin, feeling the pulse—fast and erratic. He untied the knot slowly. As the wire loosened and circulation returned, Wei Zhiheng’s fingers turned from purple to pale, then flushed with a prickly heat, like ants crawling over them.

Pillow it here. Huang Jinye extended his right arm, his muscles tense, biceps bulging. There was a scar on the back of his right hand from a stone-throwing incident—a linear, dark red mark still stained with uncleaned ink, a mix of black and red. He slid his arm behind Wei Zhiheng’s neck, his palm open to cradle the back of Wei Zhiheng’s head.

Wei Zhiheng’s head sank down. The back of his neck touched the skin of Huang Jinye’s forearm; the temperature was high, contrasting with Wei Zhiheng’s own body heat. The weight of his head pressed against Huang Jinye’s ulnar nerve, a numbness spreading from the elbow to the pinky finger like an electric current, but Huang Jinye did not move his arm.

Wei Zhiheng lay on his side, his head pillowed on Huang Jinye’s arm, his ear pressed against the other’s skin. He could hear the sound of blood flowing—a rushing, low-frequency noise. His breathing was shallow while Huang Jinye’s was deep; their rhythms were out of sync, one rapid, one slow.

Huang Jinye used his left hand to pick up the fallen earbud and tucked it back into Wei Zhiheng’s left ear. As the earbud touched the ear canal, the music flooded back in. Beethoven’s piano bass was heavy, making their skulls resonate in unison. Huang Jinye remained kneeling, his right arm serving as a pillow and his left arm supporting his body, his weight shifted onto his left hip. His posture was crooked as he maintained that thirty-centimeter distance, but their body heat exchanged in the air—Wei cold, Huang hot.

Wei Zhiheng closed his eyes. Black dots appeared in his vision, pin-sized and fixed in place, not moving with his eyeballs. He blinked, but the dots didn’t disappear; instead, they multiplied. He heard the pauses in the music, the hesitation in his mother’s performance.

Huang Jinye stared at Wei Zhiheng’s face. Wei was pale, with dark, bluish-black shadows under his eyes. His lips were chapped, with a crack in the center of the lower lip and white flakes of skin at the edges. Huang Jinye smelled Wei’s breath—it wasn’t the scent of turpentine, but something sweet and decaying, like rotting apples.

He pulled a piece of eucalyptus candy from the pocket of his athletic vest. The foil wrapper was green-striped and had already softened and deformed, its surface sticky. He tore the packaging open with his teeth, the foil making a ripping sound. The candy was exposed to the air—amber-colored, translucent, and angular. He pinched the candy and moved it toward Wei Zhiheng’s lips.

Wei Zhiheng opened his mouth. The candy was pushed into his oral cavity, the pungent eucalyptus oil stimulating his taste buds the moment it touched his tongue. He closed his mouth and bit down; the candy was hard, scraping against his mucous membranes. He frowned—something was wrong with his taste buds; the sweetness had turned bitter, like medicine, like blood.

He opened his mouth and pushed the candy out with his tongue. It fell into his palm, wet with saliva, its surface still intact and unmolested. He reached his hand toward Huang Jinye, palm up.

It’s bitter, Wei Zhiheng said, his voice muffled, tongue pressed against his teeth.

Huang Jinye looked at the candy, then at Wei Zhiheng’s eyes. He reached out, not to take the candy, but to grab Wei Zhiheng’s wrist, flipping his hand over so the candy fell into his own palm. The candy was sticky and warm. He gripped it, his fingers tightening until the candy was squeezed and deformed in his palm, the edges of the foil cutting into his skin.

Then don’t eat it, Huang Jinye said. He pulled his hand back. The candy was stuck to his palm; he shook his hand, but it wouldn’t fall off. He had to use the fingers of his other hand to pry it off and throw it onto the newspaper. The candy rolled twice before stopping on a news photo about fuel price adjustments.

Wei Zhiheng closed his eyes. The swelling in his waist turned into a heavy sinking sensation, as if someone were pulling him down, dragging his spine with them. He curled his body, pulling his knees to his chest and arching his back. This posture caused the earphone cord to tangle again, winding between their necks.

Huang Jinye untangled the wire with his left hand, pulling it straight and laying it on the newspaper between them. Then he put his own right earbud back in, and the music synchronized once more. This time, he didn’t turn the music off; instead, he lowered the volume by one notch, because Wei Zhiheng’s breathing had become very faint, and he was afraid the music would drown it out.

Wei Zhiheng drifted in and out of sleep amidst the pain. His fingers dug into Huang Jinye’s arm, leaving five crescent-shaped indentations that turned from white to red. Huang Jinye didn’t move. Sweat slid from his forehead, dripping onto the newspaper and blurring the numbers.

Huang Jinye stared at the ceiling. The ceiling fan was spinning, its bearings lacking oil and creaking with every rotation, creating a counterpoint to the music. He counted the rotations: one, two, three.

Wei Zhiheng’s fingers loosened. His breathing became shallower and slower. Huang Jinye turned to look at him and saw Wei’s mouth slightly open, a trace of saliva glistening in the light at the corner of his lips. He reached out and wiped the corner of Wei Zhiheng’s mouth with the back of his index finger. The movement was rough, like wiping away dust, but after he finished, he realized his hand was covered in ink. He had left a black mark at the corner of Wei Zhiheng’s mouth, looking like a mustache or a bruise.

Huang Jinye froze for a moment, then tried to wipe the black mark away with the edge of the newspaper. The paper was coarse, rasping against the skin with a rustling sound. Wei Zhiheng frowned but didn’t wake.

From outside the window came the sound of Old Zhou’s footsteps downstairs, moving slowly from east to west. The heels of his leather shoes tapped against the terrazzo—tap, tap, tap—followed by a pause, a cough, and then a continuation. In the distance, the clamor from the dormitory buildings drifted over, muffled and isolated by the glass.

Huang Jinye adjusted his posture. His right arm was already numb, the ulnar nerve compressed until his pinky and ring fingers lost all sensation. He shifted his body, moving from a kneeling position to lying on his side on the newspaper, side-by-side with Wei Zhiheng but facing the opposite direction. He withdrew his right arm from behind Wei Zhiheng’s neck and instead placed it under Wei Zhiheng’s head as a pillow, with Wei Zhiheng’s head resting on his upper arm near the shoulder.

This position was more stable, but the earphone cord tangled once again. The wire wound around Wei Zhiheng’s left wrist, biting into the skin, and his fingers turned purple once more. Huang Jinye untangled the wire with his left hand, wrapped it around his own left wrist, and then took hold of Wei Zhiheng’s left hand. He bound their wrists together, wrapping the earphone cord three times and tying a knot—not tight, but impossible to shake off. The white wire left indentations like veins.

Wei Zhiheng looked at their bound wrists. His fingers were purple while Huang Jinye’s were red, a stark contrast. He moved his fingers, feeling the restraint of the wire.

It’s numb, Huang Jinye said. The blood wasn’t flowing in his right arm, and his entire hand had turned a pale color, like paper, like lime.

Wei Zhiheng didn’t speak. He tried to reach for Huang Jinye’s hand with his right, but he couldn’t reach it. He could only move the index finger of his bound left hand, his fingertip touching the back of Huang Jinye’s hand. It was icy, like stone.

The light outside was shifting. The sun was sinking in the west, the angle of the light changing from forty-five degrees to thirty, the shadows lengthening. The temperature in the classroom was dropping, and the afternoon light was growing thin.

Wei Zhiheng closed his eyes again. The heavy sensation in his waist remained, but it felt distant, like background noise. He heard Huang Jinye’s heartbeat conducted through his arm—heavy and slow, out of sync with his own, forming a sort of polyphony. His fingers were wrapped in the wire, which was wrapped around Huang Jinye’s wrist.

Huang Jinye didn’t fall asleep. He stared at the window, watching the light change from white to gray. His arm was numb, but his mind was clear. He felt Wei Zhiheng’s breath blowing against his arm, warm and light.

They stayed in that position until the bell signaling the end of the campus curfew rang. The sound came from far away, muffled and low. Huang Jinye untied the earphone cord with slow movements. As the wire came loose, the final loop of white line hung above Wei Zhiheng’s wrist like a drop of blood about to fall. Their wrists separated, leaving behind white indentations. Wei Zhiheng sat up. His head left Huang Jinye’s arm, and as the blood rushed back into Huang Jinye’s right arm, it stung like needles. He moved his fingers, his joints clicking. Wei Zhiheng looked at the scratches on his arm—five of them, already scabbed over, with a bit of sticky candy residue still clinging to the center.

Numb, Huang Jinye said again, his voice dry.

Wei Zhiheng didn’t say anything. He stood up, his knees making a grinding sound. He walked to the drawing table and gathered his sketching paper. There were indentations on the paper from where his head had pressed against it, along with sweat stains—his own and the dark circular spots where Huang Jinye’s sweat had dripped. He folded the paper once, then again, the sheets making a crisp sound.

Huang Jinye stood up and stretched his right arm. As the blood flow returned, the numbness faded, replaced by a stinging pain. He rolled up the newspapers with rough movements, the ink smearing on his arm and mixing with sweat to form a black sludge. He stuffed the newspapers into the layers of the foam mat and pressed the Velcro shut with a piercing sound.

Neither of them made eye contact. Wei Zhiheng picked up his art box, and Huang Jinye hoisted the foam mat as they walked toward the door one after the other. They moved the easels aside, the bottoms screeching against the floor. Huang Jinye pulled the door open, and the sound-activated light in the corridor flickered on at the noise, light flooding into the room.

The mat, Huang Jinye said, his voice muffled as he carried it. I’ll return it to the gym next week.

Wei Zhiheng gave a soft grunt of affirmation but didn’t look back. He walked down the stairs, his art box thumping against his hip. Huang Jinye followed behind him, the mat being so large that it scraped against the stair railing again with a long, drawn-out screech.

Behind them, the ceiling fan in the art classroom continued to spin, creaking until the power was cut. The sound stopped abruptly, leaving behind a total silence and the faint, crisp popping sounds of drying paint—short and sharp.

In the corridor, the white indentations on their wrists had not yet faded, looking like faint circles of scars. The black ink on the back of Huang Jinye’s hand had dried, resembling a bruise.