Chapter 7: The Day of Calling Stars (6)

My parents’ room.

Actually I rarely stayed here for long.

The sheets on the bed were still the style from years ago, a blue base printed with birds and flowers.

The pillows were hidden under the quilt.

The wardrobe beside the nightstand was full of my parents’ clothes.

Opening the dark brown cabinet, a sharp smell of camphor balls drifted out from inside.

At the head of the bed sat a lamp.

A little dust had settled on its bronze shade.

I picked up a tissue from the side and wiped it gently, then lifted the quilt and lay down.

Aihua came from time to time, so I kept this room in a state that could be used at any moment.

I could never bear to throw those old things away.

It was as if by not throwing them away I was living in the past, living in the time when everyone was still by my side.

At some unknown point I seemed to have become someone who lived in the past.

This was just as a close classmate had said to me in junior high, so I was probably born this way.

These old objects, these yellowed things, had become what let me feel at ease.

My time seemed to have stayed forever on the day my parents and sister died, and only began to move forward when I met Lingyin.

And then, because I lost Lingyin, it became unable to move forward again.

I probably just did not want to admit it.

Did not want to admit I would never see them again, never see Lingyin again.

It seemed that only by waiting would I feel they would still come back.

Huff—huff—

It seemed that for a little while, amid scattered thoughts, I fell asleep.

It seemed I lost myself in some dream, as if it were an instant, and as if I had slept for a long time.

Huff—huff— Beside my ear, the feeling of a faint current of air stirring my hair made me turn my gaze toward the source of the sound.

The curtains had not been drawn.

Outside it was still a fine, continuous rain.

Rain threads flashed strips of shadow in the streetlamp light, landed on the window, and gave off little points of glittering brightness.

This faint light color seeped into the room.

It was not bright, but enough to see the face of the person beside me.

Strands of black hair hung from her cheek and fell at the corner of her mouth, beside her moist lips.

Aihua.

I could not help letting out a breath.

Actually if someone was next to me I easily could not sleep, but Aihua was just like this.

She was actually quite afraid of loneliness.

Unlike me, who had grown used to solitude, she needed someone by her side.

Even if what she said was so harsh, even if when they fought she flipped and refused to recognize anyone, after arguing with her parents she would show this fragile side.

She actually did not want to hurt anyone.

She also knew that many times she simply had not yet learned to control herself.

But whether parents or older sister, they were family bound by blood thicker than water.

No matter what, in the end they would still come back together and make up as before.

“A-jie…”

She was awake?!

Startled, I quickly rolled over and threw my gaze toward the tightly shut bedroom door.

Light from the hallway seemed to leak in from outside.

This brat had left the lights on again.

Yet just as I sat up ready to go turn off the light, I suddenly felt something tug my sleeve.

I looked back at Aihua.

“Jie, where are you going? Don’t go… I’m so scared.”

Whether she was awake or asleep I could no longer tell.

I only took her hand and set it beside her pillow. “I’m not going. I was only going to turn off the light.

“I won’t go anywhere.”

After hearing my words Aihua’s expression returned to ease.

This time she seemed truly asleep.

And I, turning to look at the ceiling, still could not understand what Aihua was worrying about, what she was afraid of.

Perhaps even though I had gone through that period myself, for a child in her rebellious phase, whether it was me standing outside or her parents, we simply could not guess it.

When I lived at Uncle’s, Aihua and I had also slowly gotten to know each other again from that time.

Before that we had only been ordinary relatives.

The relationship had always been pretty good; you could even say we grew up together.

But only when we truly lived together did we discover that what we understood about each other was actually very little.

Truly getting to know each other was after Lingyin disappeared, I supposed.

I no longer remembered at all how I had gotten through that summer vacation.

I only remembered the day I received the admission notice.

I had run alone to the university gate and watched the scattered few seniors who had stayed on campus over the summer.

Even I myself no longer remembered what I had been thinking at that time.

But Aihua back then seemed to have noticed something.

Often when I got up in the morning and pushed open the door of that garage, I would see her sitting on a little stool at the entrance feeding the stray cats in the neighborhood.

It was hard to say anything to your little sister.

It was also hard for a little sister to open her mouth and ask her older sister what had happened.

It was only day after day, until I went off to school, and slowly it became the way it was now.

At this moment Auntie’s words from the phone last night rose in my mind.

I could not help turning to look at Aihua.

In my eyes she was still the way she had been when she first started junior high.

Was she precocious?

Perhaps.

But the words she had said to Auntie on the phone tonight were words I had never heard before.

Did she hope I would become her real older sister?

Perhaps it was like that.

Perhaps it was not.

Actually in my view, whether I became her real older sister or not was the same.

Wasn’t she still running over whenever she felt like it, as if coming back to her own home?

Time passed bit by bit in a stretch of silence.

Unable to sleep, I opened my phone and tapped the comics app, flipped through it, and felt there did not seem to be anything good to read.

Then I opened the novel app and flipped the update list from beginning to end, all the way to updates from two days ago, yet… still felt there was nothing to read.

It was all the same.

I only wanted to read a fairy tale, a fairy tale full of warmth, written in innocent, artless words, telling a story that healed the heart.

Perhaps winding, perhaps full of crisis, perhaps with a great adventure, perhaps with blood and tears, but with an ending that warmed the heart.

On an ordinary day I would very likely have climbed out of bed at this hour to write and draw.

Yet without meaning to Aihua’s hand fell on my shoulder again.

What on earth was she afraid of?

***

[Jie: I went back to school. I bought you fermented rice wine and fried dumplings for breakfast. Heat them up yourself.]

When I woke again, this home had returned to the same quiet as always.

After brushing my teeth and eating the breakfast Aihua had left, I called Auntie to say Aihua had already gone back to school, and for that I listened to Auntie nag for another half hour.

I still thought the same.

Although in Uncle and Auntie’s eyes I was the older sister, the elder, and should talk Aihua more into being an obedient child, in my view I felt they needed more direct communication, communication that set aside prejudice and the distinction of older and younger.

As for that boy… if there was a chance I rather wanted to see him with my own eyes, although standing in her parents’ position that was most likely impossible.

I set down the phone and stretched deeply.

I had gotten up quite early today.

Especially when I thought that in a little while I planned to go to the library and look for the person Miss Administrator had mentioned, there was always a little irrepressible excitement in my heart.

I drew a deep breath, looked at myself in the mirror, and straightened the clothes on my body.

A beige woolen coat, a pair of black stockings paired with dark brown leather shoes—the me in the mirror looked in fairly good spirits.

Should be fine.

I hoped that when I saw her, I would be smiling.

The note Aihua had left on the table I picked up gently from the coffee table, intending to put it in the drawer.

Yet when I lifted it I found another line of small writing on the back.

The handwriting was Aihua’s as well.

She said: [The boyfriend thing was actually a lie to you all. I just felt that classmate in my class was pretty handsome, so I said it offhand.]

Is that something you can say offhand?…

That joke was a bit too big for your dad.

Then I… should I find a chance to explain to Uncle?

But when I imagined the situation where Uncle might get even angrier, I immediately felt exhausted and tongue-tied.

Forget it.

Another day.