Under Clear Skies Chapter 63: Look Down

Chapter 63: Look Down

Translated by Fefe of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

That night, the Hushituo trio met up again at the barbecue. Tang Heng and Jiang Ya arrived first, while An Yun came later. When they saw her, both Jiang Ya and Tang Heng gaped.

“Holy shit,” Jiang Ya yelped, waving his chopsticks. “Why do you look like this?”

An Yun tugged her cap. “Shut your mouth,” she muttered.

When they’d met yesterday, she still had a head of medium-length straight brown hair. Now, it’d been dyed back to black and styled into a round bowl cut.

“What are you doing?” Jiang Ya asked in terror. “Not gonna be the hottest tomboy of Hongshan anymore?”

“I need to fucking be a TA,” An Yun cursed. “The old man told me to change my hairstyle.”

“TA? Why you gonna be the TA for—”

“Why do you have so many questions?”

“An-ge, I care for you.”

“Care for yourself.”

“Meanie.” Jiang Ya stuck out his forefinger and poked An Yun daintily. “Why are you being a meanie butt to me?”

Tang Heng waited before the routine fight ended before he asked, “An-laoshi agreed?”     

An Yun nodded.

“To be with Tian Xiaoqin?”

“Pretty much,” An Yun said vaguely.

So, Tang Heng didn’t say anything else. He did have some suspicions—it was just a TA position and nothing for An Yun to be so anxious about.

Perhaps it was because she had a crush on Tian Xiaoqin.

The three ate and drink their fill, and walked out of the restaurant together close to 8 p.m. They’d drank beer and Jiang Ya the most, so he was tipsy now.

“First of next month, is, s gonna be the official competition!” Jiang Ya yelled. “Hushituo’s gonna be famous!!!”

An Yun rolled her eyes. “We’re nowhere close.”

“We gotta practice this month! Tang Heng, you—” He suddenly grabbed Tang Heng’s wrist and slurred, “Stop fucking dating all day! Practice your singing!”

Well, this was out of the ordinary. “Coming from you?” Tang Heng retorted.

“Hey, I broke up with Lulu,” Jiang Ya said matter-of-factly. “You’re the only one who’s not single now.”

“Oh.”

“My son, don’t get so cocky!”

“Fine, I’ll get to practicing tomorrow.” Tang Heng pushed his hand off. “Go home and sleep early.”

“Sleep my ass. Can’t sleep!”

“How about Long Love?” An Yun kicked Jiang Ya. “There’s a show tonight.”

“Let’s go, Lao An, us lonely folks… Sigh.”

Jiang Ya walked into a convenience store to buy water. An Yun crossed her arms and gazed at the store’s entrance. “Is he in a bad mood?”

“Seems so,” Tang Heng said.

“I heard him answer a call after you guys left yesterday. I think it was his dad and they started arguing.”

“About what?”

“They talked in dialect and I couldn’t understand.” After a few seconds of silence, An Yun suddenly asked, “Tang Heng, are you still going abroad?”

“Yeah.” There was a gust of wind and Tang Heng shivered slightly. “Why?”

“Nothing. I just thought that since you and Li Yuechi are dating…” She didn’t finish the sentence and chuckled instead. “Go abroad. It’s pretty good.”

For some reason, Tang Heng was seeing An Yun be hesitant to speak her mind more and more frequently. He wasn’t sure if he was overthinking things, or if An Yun really was hiding something inside. Was it about their band? But their band was doing fine. Everything was going smoothly.

“If you have anything you can’t take care of,” Tang Heng said, “you have to tell us.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Anything.”

“Got it.” An Yun punched Tang Heng. “I don’t have any problems. Don’t worry.”       

“Then I’m leaving.”

“To see Li Yuechi?”

“Yeah.”

“Bye,” An Yun said with a laugh. “Be careful not to get fucked.”

 

Tang Heng was covered in the barbecue smell, so he went home first to take a shower and change into clean clothes. Then he put his ID card and bank card into his wallet.

He still couldn’t figure out why Li Yuechi had to wait for five days later. Five days later was next Tuesday. What was next Tuesday? It wasn’t a special day. But just in case… he decided to bring his ID card.

At 9:10, Tang Heng arrived at the South Gate of Wuhan University. Luoyu Road was right ahead and the dazzling Qunguang Square was across from it. The autumn breeze carried the fragrance of the late-blooming osmanthus blossoms. In 20 minutes, he’d be able to see Li Yuechi. They’d met yesterday night, but it still felt like he hadn’t seen him in a long, long time.

Twenty minutes, the length of a few songs.

Tang Heng put on his headphones and switched through songs with his head lowered. He wanted a longer song, as if this way, he could wait for fewer songs and therefore be able to see Li Yuechi sooner.

His screen darkened. Someone was blocking the streetlamp above his head.

Tang Heng looked up to see Li Yuechi standing before him, panting for breath.

Nine-thirty.

“How come you’re… early?” Tang Heng tugged off his headphones. He was caught off guard.

“I told the parent that I’ll end the lesson at nine from now on.”   

“Why?”

Li Yuechi gazed at Tang Heng and shook his head. “Let’s go,” he said.

They crossed through Jiedaokou subway station to get to the other side of Luoyu Road. The new Shiseido at the entrance of Qunguang Square was having a promotion sale and the speaker played Lana Del Ray’s new song Video Games. Her slightly raspy voice floated in the night sky, making people slow their steps subconsciously. Night on Jiedaokou always seemed to be full of colorful lights, whether rain or shine.

“Let’s ride the school bus,” Li Yuechi said.

The place to line up for the school bus was inside Normal University’s North Gate. This was the rush hour for students returning to their dorms. The two stood in line, other couples holding hands on either side of them. The school bus started and the lights dimmed. The osmanthus fragrance poured in from the open windows—this school had a lot of osmanthus flowers.

Li Yuechi subtly held Tang Heng’s hand. Nobody could see it right now.

“Have you come here before?” he asked softly.

“Yeah…” Tang Heng felt his heartbeat speed up. “I came to attend a lecture. I haven’t toured it.”

“I’ll show you around.” With that, Li Yuechi raised his voice and called, “Sir, stop by Building Nine.”

The driver was a cool guy who didn’t reply. Moments later, the bus made a turn, passing a garden full of speckled shadows. “Building Nine!” he said in Wuhan dialect.

Li Yuechi let go and the two got off the bus. They crossed a square and entered the building for the math and statistics department. The building was silent now and the sound-activated lights in the hallway turned on.

“Where are we going?” Tang Heng asked.

“Second floor,” Li Yuechi answered.

They climbed up to the second floor and was welcomed by a long glass display, showing the various awards that the department had received. Li Yuechi took a few steps and halted. “This is the one,” he said.

It was a certificate that said First Prize of National Undergraduate Mathematical Modeling Contest.

The winners: Pan Peng, Liang Ruihang, Wu Si, Zhao Jian.

Tang Heng’s heart sank.

 

“The certificate has been displayed here since they won it. I never dared to look when I passed by.” Li Yuechi’s tone was nonchalant. “I used to lie to myself and say it was because I looked down on them, but in the end, I had to admit that I just, purely, didn’t dare.”

Tang Heng looked at him and asked, “Why?”

“Wu Si pursued me at the start of junior year. She was very… active about it. Actually, I already had a feeling that I didn’t like girls at that time, but I didn’t think that was right. I’m a man. How can I not like girls?”

“So you accepted her?”

“Yeah, we started dating. Less than a month later, she dragged me over to join this contest with them. Wu Si studied chemistry, Zhao Jian and Liang Ruihang studied biology. The only people who worked was me and Pan Peng. After we finished everything, we had to go to Beijing for the evaluation, but the department wouldn’t reimburse the transportation fees. They said that I didn’t have to go, since I didn’t have money. It was just the evaluation and take a picture. They could represent me.”

Tang Heng’s eyes narrowed instantly. He looked at the certificate and his eyes darted away. He couldn’t bear to look at it either.

“They went to Beijing and got first place. The certificate doesn’t have my name on it,” Li Yuechi said calmly. “It was Wu Si and Pan Peng who did it. The other two just agreed by tacit.”

“…Why did they do it?”

“To take revenge. When I dated Wu Si, we rarely ever held hands. Once she used my library card to borrow books and saw my record.” Li Yuechi lowered his head and scoffed at himself. “I borrowed many books on research about homosexuality.”  

“Li Yuechi…” Tang Heng grasped his hand.

“I deserved it,” Li Yuechi said, word by word. “When I agreed to date her, I just wanted to try it out, see if I could like a girl, if I was gay or not.”

“You were scared of being gay?”

“I only heard of this word after I came to Wuhan for university. Tang Heng… there’s no ‘gayness’ in the countryside.”

“Even if you were in the wrong,” Tang Heng said through clenched teeth, “they still can’t do this to you.”

Li Yuechi had described it so lightly, but Tang Heng felt his heart clench and throb with pain. He imagined how Li Yuechi stayed in Wuhan because he couldn’t afford the transportation costs, while they went to get the award in Beijing. Li Yuechi must have wanted to go, right? Even if he couldn’t, he must have waited anxiously for the evaluation results, right? He was so hardworking and so smart. He must’ve believed firmly that their work would be rewarded.

But what did he get in the end?   

“Whatever, it’s all in the past. I was angry yesterday because I didn’t want you to know about this, but I can’t keep it hidden anymore.” He sounded like he was at a loss.

“Why?”

“Scared you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I… I believe you.”

He laughed and then, “And scared you’d look down on me.”

“Never.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Sometimes,” he trained his eyes on Tang Heng, “I even look down on myself. When I was applying for grad school, Wuhan University didn’t have more spots left in their math department. There were two other options: the math department in my original school, or Wuhan University’s sociology department. There’s a math teacher who really liked me and asked me to stay and work on a project with him—I could make money, but I rejected him. It’s not like I must study sociology and it wasn’t because I wasn’t broke anymore…”

“Li Yuechi.”

“It’s because I looked down on myself. I never dared to look at this certificate when I passed by. If I could face myself, maybe…”     

“Do you remember what you said before?” Tang Heng interrupted him anxiously. “You said that you think everything has a cost.”

“Mn.”

“Just, just see this as the cost of meeting me, okay? If this didn’t happen, you wouldn’t have chosen sociology, and you wouldn’t have met me. It’s not that you aren’t good enough… This is the cost of meeting me.”

“No,” Li Yuechi said sharply.

Then he lowered his eyes and said earnestly, “How can they compare to you?”