Wild Fire Bids Farewell To Summer Chapter 9

Before Grain Buds

The ceiling fan spun above the third-floor classroom of the Miluo Building. Its bearings, starved of oil, emitted a rhythmic creak with every rotation. A breeze brushed against the back of Wei Zhiheng’s neck, carrying away a hint of heat, but the collar of his white shirt was already soaked through. The fabric clung to his collarbones, sticking to his skin. His right hand gripped a 0.5 mm black gel pen, the tip hovering just above the bubbling-in box for question twelve on the answer sheet.

His hand was shaking. A subtle tremor in the muscles beneath the skin began at the inner wrist and traveled in pulses to his knuckles. The pen left jagged lines within the box, the graphite powder piling up.

From the back of the room came the sound of a pencil case hitting the floor. The plastic struck the terrazzo with a hollow thud. Li Min, sitting in a rattan chair by the podium, paused her red pen over an essay, leaving a single blot of ink.

A warm liquid surged inside his nasal cavity. Wei Zhiheng felt a sudden dampness on his upper lip. Blood had already flowed past his philtrum and was dripping onto the answer sheet.

The first drop struck the edge of the box for question eleven. The blood spread rapidly across the paper, forming an irregular circle of dark red with a hint of purple. It seeped into the paper fibers, touching Option B.

The blood continued to flow. A second drop hit the first, splashing tiny droplets, one of which landed on the back of his right hand, warm to the touch. A third drop fell onto the stem of question twelve, obscuring the word “curve” in “hyperbola.” The ink dissolved in the blood, the blue printed text blurring into a purplish-black.

Someone in the back was spinning a pen. The cap tapped against the desk—clack, clack, clack—creating a counterpoint to the creaking of the fan. Wei Zhiheng raised his left hand. He didn’t lift it directly; he let it hang by his side first, fingers splayed to let the sweat on his cuff dry for a second before finally raising it.

“Teacher.”

The word was squeezed from his throat, dry and raspy. Li Min looked up. Her eyes narrowed behind her gold-rimmed glasses, her gaze shifting from Wei Zhiheng’s face to his collar. The left side of his white shirt had already bloomed into an irregular red stain, shaped like a lake on a map with jagged, seeping edges. The blood was still climbing, crawling along the grain of the fabric fibers. It formed a red stream at his collarbone, spilling over the collar and hardening into a crust beneath his Adam’s apple.

“Go wash up,” Li Min said. Her voice was calm.

Wei Zhiheng nodded. Blood fell from his chin, dripping onto the terrazzo floor of the corridor. He walked toward the back door, his steps controlled and level, but his knees felt weak. He gripped the edge of a desk with his right hand, his knuckles turning white. The blood drops left a trail behind him—one on the third terrazzo tile of the corridor, another at the corner, forming a series of intermittent red markers.

One of the sound-activated lights in the hallway was broken. The tungsten filament had snapped, leaving a charred black spot hanging inside. Wei Zhiheng walked pressed against the wall, his left shoulder brushing the limestone tiles. The dampness of the wall left a white frost on his shirt, the powder embedding itself into the fabric fibers and mixing with the blood to form a pinkish sludge. His heart was beating too fast to count, the blood thumping against his eardrums.

He didn’t head for the restroom, but instead turned toward the stairwell landing. There was a window there, pushed open at a thirty-degree angle. Someone was sitting on the windowsill.

Huang Jinye sat there with his left knee bent, his foot resting on the inner tiles of the window frame, while his right leg dangled in the air. He wore his school jacket, the back printed with “Guixi No. 2 High School 055.” The zipper was only halfway up, revealing a black athletic tank top underneath. Beside his right hand sat a stainless steel thermos, its surface dented from impacts, silver metal showing through where the paint had peeled away.

He turned to look at Wei Zhiheng. His gaze was scattered at first, focused on the wall behind Wei Zhiheng, before slowly sharpening on his face and then moving to his collar. Huang Jinye’s mouth twitched—a slight tremor of the facial muscles. He jumped down from the windowsill, his right leg hitting the floor first with a dull thud, his left knee letting out a faint grinding sound as it bent.

Wei Zhiheng’s right hand left the wall. The blood had already soaked through three layers of tissues, seeping through his fingers and flowing down his wrist toward his sleeve. He leaned forward as his vision tunneled, surrounded by black rings with a circular bright zone in the center. Huang Jinye reached out and grabbed Wei Zhiheng’s left wrist, pulling him toward the window.

“Hand,” Huang Jinye said. His voice was hoarse and coarse.

Wei Zhiheng extended his right hand. Huang Jinye pulled a grey cotton handkerchief from his pocket—the one Wei Zhiheng had lost three days ago, stained with paint—and unscrewed the lid of the thermos. The sound of ice clinking against the walls of the flask was crisp and high-pitched. The thermos was filled with half-melted ice water, with several shards of ice floating on the surface.

Huang Jinye pressed the handkerchief into the mouth of the flask. The ice water saturated the fabric, and the handkerchief quickly grew heavy, its color turning from grey to deep brown. His fingers were shaking, his knuckles white. As he pulled the dripping handkerchief from the flask, he pressed it against Wei Zhiheng’s nose. His aim was off at first, pressing against the upper lip before shifting it to the nostrils.

The cold, wet cloth stimulated the nasal mucosa. Wei Zhiheng’s head tilted back, his cervical spine making a faint clicking sound. Ice water flowed down his philtrum and dripped onto his lips, freezing cold. His fingers were flushed red, his knuckles pale.

“Head up,” Huang Jinye said. He pressed his left hand against the back of Wei Zhiheng’s neck, fingers spread, his pads pressing against the spinous processes of the vertebrae to force his head to stay tilted back. Their skin met; Huang Jinye’s palm was burning hot, while the back of Wei Zhiheng’s neck was cold.

Huang Jinye’s thumb brushed against Wei Zhiheng’s ear as he applied pressure. He missed his mark, his thumb touching the earlobe before he quickly pulled it back. The touch was light, inconsistent with the force he was using to stop the bleeding.

The blood was still flowing. The wet handkerchief quickly turned red, the ice water warmed by the blood. Wei Zhiheng stared at the sky, his gaze passing over Huang Jinye’s shoulder to see the silhouette of Lucen Mountain outside the window. He heard a ringing in his ears, a high-pitched scream.

The tendons in Huang Jinye’s neck tightened, his veins bulging. He didn’t look at Wei Zhiheng’s face, but instead stared at the area of blood spreading across the handkerchief. His breathing was heavy, puffing against Wei Zhiheng’s forehead with the pungent scent of eucalyptus candy.

“Ten minutes,” Huang Jinye said. He let go and took a step back, leaning against the windowsill. He poured a shard of ice from the thermos into his palm. The ice rolled in his hand, melting, water droplets dripping from between his fingers.

Wei Zhiheng held the wet handkerchief in place with his left hand, his right hand supporting him against the wall. The coolness of the limestone tiles seeped through his palm. The smell of blood was still thick, but it was now mixed with the dampness of the ice water and the scent of eucalyptus.

The handkerchief had turned completely red. Water mixed with blood and dripped from his chin onto the dried bloodstains on his collar, reactivating the color. Wei Zhiheng pulled the handkerchief away from his nose and looked at it. The cotton fibers were saturated with blood, heavy and sodden. He crumpled it into a ball in his palm; blood squeezed through his fingers, sticky and warm.

Huang Jinye turned his head. His gaze fell on the bloody handkerchief in Wei Zhiheng’s hand before moving up to meet Wei Zhiheng’s eyes. His eyelids flickered, and his gaze slid to Wei Zhiheng’s shoulder, then toward the distant playground.

Huang Jinye stepped closer. He reached out and pinched Wei Zhiheng’s left wrist, turning it over to inspect his palm. There were several new bruises there, a purple so deep it was almost black, with reddish edges. At the base of the thumb was a larger bruise, the size of a coin. Huang Jinye pressed down hard on one of them with his thumb. Wei Zhiheng felt a dull, diffuse, deep-seated pain. He winced and tried to pull his arm back, but Huang Jinye’s fingers followed, increasing the pressure until his nails nearly dug into the skin.

“Don’t press it,” Huang Jinye said, his voice kept extremely low. He let go and snatched the crumpled, bloody handkerchief from Wei Zhiheng’s hand. He stuffed the wet cloth into his school jacket pocket, placing it alongside a piece of eucalyptus candy. The cotton rubbed against the foil wrapper with a rustling sound.

Then, he placed the melting shard of ice from his palm into Wei Zhiheng’s hand, pressing it against the largest bruise.

“Hold it.”

Wei Zhiheng gripped the ice. It melted in his palm, the water flowing along the lines of his hand and dripping onto the terrazzo floor. He looked down at the ice in his hand; it was shrinking, its edges becoming smooth and rounded. Water and blood mixed in his palm, forming a pale pink liquid that overflowed from between his fingers.

Huang Jinye turned around, walked back to the windowsill, picked up his thermos, and screwed the lid back on. With his back to Wei Zhiheng, he looked out at the playground.

Wei Zhiheng walked toward the restroom. His steps were steadier now that the bleeding was slowing down. He pushed the door open and entered a stall. The metal latch was rusted, moving with a sticky resistance. He unbuttoned his collar, revealing the skin beneath his collarbone. There was a large patch of purpura there, its edges irregular, the color fading from a deep purple at the center to a pale yellow at the perimeter.

He looked down at the sink. The water from the faucet was powerful, turning white as it hit the back of his hand. He cupped the water with his left hand and splashed it onto the back of his neck.

The nosebleed had stopped. It was like a receding tide. Wei Zhiheng used a paper towel to wipe his nostrils, finding dark clots of blood on the paper. He flicked the water from his hands.

He walked back into the corridor. Huang Jinye was still sitting on the windowsill, his left leg dangling and his right knee bent, the thermos resting on his lap. He didn’t turn around, but simply raised his right hand in a “go” gesture.

Wei Zhiheng stood in the middle of the hallway, his right hand clutching the answer card—he had folded it and stuffed it into his pocket before leaving the classroom. The blood on the card had dried, turning from bright red to a dark brownish hue, the boxes for questions eleven and twelve completely obscured. He looked at the stain and tightened his grip, his fingernails leaving four crescent-shaped indentations in his palm.

The lingering chill of the ice remained in his hand.

Huang Jinye jumped down from the windowsill. This time the movement was light, his right foot landing with almost no sound. He walked toward the stairs without waiting for Wei Zhiheng, his gait slightly uneven as he headed down.

Wei Zhiheng followed behind him, maintaining his distance. His right hand remained in his pocket, gripping the blood-stained answer card, the sharp edges of the paper cutting into his fingertips. In his left palm, the water from the melted ice had mixed with the blood, leaving a faint pink trace.