Ferocious Dog of Old

Chi Ku really left.

On the day before Chinese New Year’s Eve, the twenty-ninth of the final lunar calendar month.

Their old village was so cold. That year, when Tao Huainan went back with his brother to bury their parents, it was bone-achingly cold. On such a cold day at the end of the lunar year, Chi Ku was stripped bare by his father and thrown out. He had snatched Tao Huainan’s cup of milk and poured it into his own mouth.

The milk that poured out of the cup had splattered over Tao Huainan. Those clothes it splattered over were worn by Chi Ku for many days. After that, that rank odour always seemed to linger vaguely in his nostrils.

–

Tao Huainan was taken by his brother to Tian Yi-ge’s house for Chinese New Year’s Eve.

Tian Yi’s parents were both there, even giving Tao Huainan a red packet.

Tao Huainan did his best to converse obligingly with everyone so he would look happy, but he knew he didn’t perform very well.

In the afternoon, he lay down in Tian Yi-ge’s room for a while, pretending to sleep. In reality, he kept his eyes open and lay down quietly the whole time.

It was his first time apart from Chi Ku. He couldn’t get used to it; he felt like nothing was right. Normally, in familiar environments, he and Chi Ku wouldn’t be stuck together the whole time anyway—they would mostly do their own thing. But with Chi Ku completely gone, Tao Huainan felt like he didn’t know where to sit or stand in this space.

His phone was in his pocket the whole time. Tao Huainan had turned on both the sound and vibration, but it never rang.

Before the evening meal, Tian Yi-ge came into the room and tapped the door.

Tao Huainan sat up. He cleared his throat and said with a smile, “I’m up.”

“Time to eat, precious,” Tian Yi-ge said. “Your Auntie Tian made milk-steamed treats for you, come try them.”

“Coming.” Tao Huainan clambered out of bed, then stood beside it, touching and folding the blanket he had just used. “I’m coming now.”

Tian Yi turned and exchanged a soundless look with Tao Xiaodong, mouthing, “Heat.”1

Tao Xiaodong nodded. And this was when they left the house; at home, he wouldn’t even say a word—he sealed himself off.

–

The situation continued for several days: Tao Huainan’s throat went completely hoarse. Later on, perhaps afraid that his brother would worry, he started to go back to normal, speaking more, but his rough, hoarse voice made one’s heart ache.

Chi Ku didn’t call him, not even once. One day, on the way to the shop with his brother, Tao Huainan asked in a small voice, “Is Chi Ku being beaten up?”

“No,” said Tao Xiaodong. “I called him yesterday.”

“Huh?” Tao Huainan turned to look at his brother in surprise. “When? I didn’t hear you.”

“During a break at work. You were having a lie-down,” said Tao Xiaodong. “He isn’t being beaten. His dad can’t even catch him.”

“He runs fast.” After a moment, Tao Huainan asked, “He picked up the moment you called?”

“Yeah,” said Tao Xiaodong with a laugh. “If you really miss him, just call. You keep carrying the phone in your pocket, but all you do is touch it. Why so awkward?”

Tao Huainan subconsciously touched his pocket again, feeling the phone through the cloth, but he never thought of touching the phone itself.

“I won’t call him…” Tao Huainan shook his head gently. “I’m not done being angry.”

“Don’t be angry with him, he had no choice.” Tao Xiaodong tried to reason with his little brother. “He’s not you. There are many things you can ignore, but he can’t. He has a lot on his mind.”

These were things Tao Huainan understood. The older he got, the more he understood. But understanding didn’t mean not being in pain. As he grew older, many feelings became difficult to distinguish.

There was a bit of anger and a bit of sadness in his pain, and even more worrying besides.

Tao Huainan was silent for a while. Then he couldn’t resist asking, “What if he doesn’t manage to escape one day? His dad might beat him to death.”

“No,” When the car came to a halt, Tao Xiaodong took the chance to pat his brother’s head. “Chi Ku’s very capable.”

Tao Huainan mhm-ed and nodded. “He’s very capable.”

–

The holidays were normally brief; each day would pass comfortably and happily, so they went by with a whoosh. But this year, the winter holidays were unusually long. It felt like many, many days had passed, when altogether it wasn’t even ten.

Morning to night, every day passed very slowly. Dusk and dawn didn’t while away as quickly as they used to.

Tao Huainan got himself a book of practice questions and did them, but didn’t know who could look over his answers. Tao Huainan’s hand reached for his trouser pocket again, pressing random buttons and listening to see if the phone was dead.

It wasn’t. Ge said that half the battery was left this morning. Since he just held it and didn’t do anything with it, it was even enough to last him another three days.

Tao Huainan took his phone out and put it on the table, next to his book of questions. Actually, there were many things his phone could do, but Tao Huainan wasn’t in the habit of playing with his phone, and the phone functions available to a blind person weren’t easy to use. Whenever he wanted to do anything, he would just tell Chi Ku; when he wanted to look something up or read something, Chi Ku could read it aloud for him.

When Tao Huainan couldn’t carry on doing his questions, he put on his earphones and touched his phone for a while. There wasn’t much to do. He was blind, so he couldn’t play the games, and even if he could, he couldn’t get into it—he wasn’t interested.

–

Another two days passed before Tao Huainan finally picked up a call from Chi Ku.

He said he was still angry and hadn’t forgiven him, but the moment the phone rang, he leapt off the bed with a thud to reach the charging phone. Outside, Tao Xiaodong even thought he’d fallen.

“Hello?” Tao Huainan picked up, holding his breath.

Chi Ku’s voice came through the phone, entering Tao Huainan’s ear. Suddenly, every part of him felt soothed.

“It’s me.”

Tao Huainan pursed his lips. “I know it’s you.”

“Your throat’s sore?” Chi Ku sounded like he was walking; he was panting slightly.

Tao Huainan asked him, “What are you doing?”

“Taking a walk.” Chi Ku laughed and said, “Avoiding Chi Zhide.”

“And you’re laughing…” Tao Huainan was unhappy at the sound of his laughter. “You were hit?”

Chi Ku said “no”.

After the call had connected and he heard Chi Ku’s voice, all was forgotten. At first, he still managed to feign annoyance, but after a few lines, Tao Huainan changed his tune—he couldn’t help but soften at last.

“When will you come back?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Chi Ku. “Chi Zhide doesn’t look like he’s leaving yet.”

Tao Huainan bit the inside of his lip. He said in a smothered voice, “I’m in pain every day. Nothing I do feels right.”

Chi Ku paused for two seconds, then chided him. “Fussy thing.”

“I’m not like you.” Tao Huainan dug his fingers into the back of the phone as he muttered, “You’re never fussy, you’re always straightforward, you say you’ll leave and then you leave. Aren’t you happy.”

Chi Ku laughed again, his voice full of mirth as he said, “I knew you’d be like this the moment I called.”

“Then don’t call,” said Tao Huainan.

“I’m hanging up, then,” said Chi Ku.

Tao Huainan immediately frowned and stopped him: “Don’t, don’t.”

Chi Ku had probably just been running; when he laughed, his intensely short breath was very audible. He laughed a lot on the phone, unlike his usual cold-faced demeanour at home.

“Is it cold there?” Tao Huainan sat on the bed. He sat upright as he spoke to Chi Ku.

“It’s alright.”

“Wear a hat,” Tao Huainan reminded him, “or your ears will freeze.”

Chi Ku admonished him a little impatiently, “Don’t nag.”

Tao Huainan shut his eyes hard and moved as if he was glaring; he was annoyed at Chi Ku, but at the same time, he treasured this rare call so much that he wrung the phone, unwilling to hang up.

–

One phone call, and it plodded along for half an hour. Outside, Tao Xiaodong laughed to hear them; normally, they never spoke this much, and now they were stewing over the phone call like they were making porridge.

Before hanging up, Chi Ku said, “Alright, I’m going back now.”

“Don’t go back, go over to my family’s old house to stay…” Tao Huainan had shifted from sitting to lying down on his front. “That place from when we were little.”

“I went there yesterday. Your uncle turned it into a warehouse. It’s all rats inside.” Chi Ku remembered something and said to him, “The window frame is full of izecles.”

Tao Huainan softly wow-ed, then said, “You’re not afraid of rats, though. Don’t go home.”

“Don’t mind me.” Chi Ku wasn’t going to chat with him any longer. “I’m hanging up.”

Tao Huainan let out a low “oh”.

“Be good, do what you should be doing. Don’t be spoilt,” Chi Ku told Tao Huainan right before hanging up. Perhaps he was out of breath, or perhaps he was freezing—his voice sounded rather gentle. “There’s no point in you worrying over me.”

“Mm.” When Chi Ku spoke so nicely, Tao Huainan was well-behaved too, promising obediently, “Okay.”

–

This phone call was a little long. After hanging up, the ear that the phone had been pasted against the whole time was heated from the pressing. Tao Huainan put the cord back into the phone to continue charging. He put his slippers on and went to the living room.

On the coffee table were the fruits that his brother had cut for him. Tao Huainan felt around for a toothpick and speared a piece of pineapple to eat.

Tao Xiaodong came out of the toilet to find his brother holding the plate and eating properly. He oh-ed. “Someone’s in a good mood today?”

“Who says.” Tao Huainan ate another piece of pineapple. He lowered his eyes and said, “I’m just so-so.”

Tao Xiaodong laughed for ages. Children really were interesting. Sometimes he thought that, since his brother was blind from childhood, perhaps he saw fewer ugly and dark things, hence his unusual innocence. Maybe this was compensation: not being able to see made him purer and cleaner, seeming like a child no matter how old he grew.

–

From that day on, the two younger brothers would occasionally speak on the phone, once every two or three days.

This way, instead of awaiting school reopening, he awaited phone calls; time seemed to speed up quite a bit too. Tao Huainan even held his phone when he went to bed. Sometimes, he fell asleep before he remembered to put it down, then woke up in the morning to find a deep mark imprinted on some part of his body, hurting a lot.

Tao Huainan’s throat was hoarse the whole time. At first, everyone assumed it was the heat; afterwards, when it didn’t get better, Tao Xiaodong had a sudden realisation one day that the little cub’s voice was breaking.

Because of the occasional phone calls, though Tao Huainan kept saying he was still angry, he was visibly much happier. Talking about his voice breaking made him a little embarrassed—it made him think of the things they learnt in health class.

Chi Ku’s voice changed ages ago; it was done changing now, and his voice was very pleasant.

He didn’t know what his voice would be like when it was done changing, but Tao Huainan followed the train of thought from voice changes to other things—the mysterious changes of adolescence.

–

On this night, when the two were on the phone, Tao Huainan lowered his voice and said to Chi Ku, “My voice is breaking.”

“Oh.” Chi Ku said uncaringly, “Let it.”

“I haven’t had any dreams…” Tao Huainan scratched his face with one finger. Talking about this made him embarrassed, but he couldn’t resist the curiosity of adolescence; he asked Chi Ku in a small voice, “Have you?”

“Yeah,” Chi Ku calmly replied.

Tao Huainan was a little shocked. “Really?”

Chi Ku said “uh-huh”.

“What did you dream of?” Tao Huainan covered himself with the blanket and hid inside as he asked.

“I don’t remember, it was all a blur,” said Chi Ku.

It was an uncomfortable topic, so it passed after a few sentences. Tao Huainan was too embarrassed to talk about it with his older brother; he spoke about it with Chi Ku over the phone as if exchanging secrets, sneakily.

On this night, Chi Ku didn’t go home. He stayed in the Taos’ old house, finding an old box to sit on, chatting with Tao Huainan till he fell asleep. The hand that held the phone was so cold it was almost frozen, stuck in a phone-holding position and unable to move from it.

–

Perhaps it was because he had been thinking about it so often recently, or perhaps it was because he had just talked about it before going to sleep.

That night, Tao Huainan had a dream.

In the dream, Chi Ku carried him on his back as they ran from Chi Zhide, going around the lake in circles. Chi Zhide chased behind them like a dog. Tao Huainan hugged Chi Ku’s neck, so afraid that his heart raced, bathump-bathump.

They kept running and running. Just as they were about to be caught by Chi Zhide, Chi Ku leapt down from the slope, and the two of them tumbled down as one, rolling and rolling.

It was a tiring and frightful dream. When Tao Huainan woke in the morning, he let out a long exhale.

As he was exhaling, he felt that something was off. He reached out and touched. Then his whole body went stiff.

–

1 Heat in the traditional Chinese medicine sense—symptoms can include a sore throat and a dry mouth. May be the result of stress.