Your Distance

Chapter 37

Many things in this world aren’t as their names suggest.

For example, the “discuss” that had come out of the great Professor Bai’s mouth——

That word had the component for ‘speech’, but it had the strong smell of ‘action’.(1)

It was around 6 o’clock in the afternoon on Monday. According to the plan, student Ting Shuang would pick Bai Laoban up from the train station at 9pm the next day.

Countdown to his death: less than 27 hours.

It was indeed his fault, so he deserved it. If he died by the hands of Bai Laoban, he wouldn’t feel wronged.

Ting Shuang, who was waiting to be slaughtered, dragged his tired body – that had gone through several hours on the train and held back a stomach full of anger in the hospital – along, walked to the bus stop outside the hospital to wait for the bus.

Under the setting sun, the traffic on the road never slowed. A fully packed bus stopped in front of him, and a crowd of people surged up the bus. A man in a suit was standing in front of the bus door, a trace of fatigue on his face. Smiling, he waved to the driver, saying that he’d just wait for the next one.

He didn’t know why. It was just someone who had nothing to do with him, yet that attitude made something in Ting Shuang’s heart shift a little.

He thought of Bai Changyi.

Even though Bai Laoban did not say it directly, nor did he actually express any dissatisfaction, he might have actually gotten upset over his behavior.

It seemed like he hadn’t done anything for Bai Laoban after they got together…

He was always adding on to his troubles…

Thinking about it, Ting Shuang felt that the great Professor Bai, who had always been solemn and respected, actually needed some spoiling by his man Ting Shuang.

Thus, before returning home, Ting Shuang dropped by Song Xin’s house to borrow his guitar.

Ting Shuang started learning the guitar when he was in high school. At that time, he just wanted to act cool. After entering college, he often played in school. After a while, he started working and didn’t have the time, so he stopped playing completely.

Song Xin also didn’t have much time to practice, and there was a layer of dust on the guitar bag. He passed the guitar to Ting Shuang, “Why did you think of playing the guitar all of a sudden?”

Ting Shuang thought: To pick up men.

You’d never understand, bro.

With the guitar slung over his back, Ting Shuang left Song Xin’s house and took the bus home.

The bus rocked and swayed as Ting Shuang looked out of the window. In just a moment, all the street lights in the city turned on.

It was a city full of longing.

Upon reaching home.

Ting Shuang took out his keys and opened the door. The whole house was dark.

He pressed the switch by the door twice, but the lights didn’t turn on.

Only then did he remember that because he was travelling, even if he was only leaving for two days, he had been afraid that an accident would occur, so he had turned off the main switch at home before going out on Saturday morning.

He put down the guitar, felt around for the main switch box in the dark and lifted the main switch up. The light in the living room finally turned on.

He was famished.

He planned to make a simple dish, practice the guitar for a while, read up on the content for the next day’s class, and then go to sleep…

The minute he pulled open the refrigerator door–

A pungent stench attacked him head-on, and a viscous, unknown liquid steadily trickled out. It quickly spread all across the ground, even reaching his feet.

Fuck.

When he turned off the switches, he’d forgotten that he couldn’t turn just off the main switch. Now, great, he had cut off the electricity for the fridge too.

In the current weather, the meat in the freezer couldn’t even stay at room temperature for more than several hours. Not only was the state of the refrigerator so terrible one couldn’t bear looking at it, but after he opened the refrigerator door, the rotten smell had also spread throughout the room. If he didn’t deal with it immediately and just let the smell dissipate out of the house, the neighbours who hadn’t seen him in the last two days would probably think that the foreign student from China, Ting something, had died at home.

Cleaning the refrigerator was a physical chore.

He threw away the remains of all the meat inside.

Removed all detachable built-in shelves, drawers, and boxes.

Then washed and dried them one by one.

…

It was already ten o’clock when Ting Shuang finished the laborious task. He didn’t even bother going out to find something to eat, he just fell asleep after taking a shower.

He thought that the whole electricity incident was already over, but when he woke up the next morning, he despaired to have found out that the electricity incident had a far greater impact than just the suffering from the previous night——

Ants had infested the area near the refrigerator.

It was probably because of the liquid that had flowed out of the refrigerator yesterday. His house was next to the garden, and the ecological environment had always overly facilitated the reproduction of all kinds of small, uninvited, creatures.

The ants were now in large numbers – a dense horde, moving extremely fast. The scalp of the only human in the house turned numb.

Ting Shuang had classes that day, so it was not until 6 o’clock in the afternoon that he brought back the pesticides he bought from the supermarket to deal with the ants.

Half an hour later, ant corpses lay all over the field, and Ting Shuang had lost half his life to the fumes of the pesticide.

He was about to go out for a breather when his phone vibrated. The screen lit up, displaying the words: Bai Laoban has once again returned to the mortal world today.

He’d changed his contact the previous day. You could call it a way of correcting all his mistakes.

Ting Shuang answered the phone, “Bai Laoban, you’re on the train, right? I’ll set off to pick you up in a while.”

Bai Changyi said, “I’m at your front door, I just parked my car.”

Ting Shuang said, “Why did you come back early?”

Bai Changyi’s lips tipped up, “Can’t I?”

“You can, of course you can…” Ting Shuang thought, could it be that because Ting Shuang wanted to have dinner together, so Bai Laoban came back early?

He couldn’t stop the corners of his lips from rising.

He was about to open the door for Bai Changyi, when he remembered the mess on the floor and the pungent smell in the house, “Don’t come in. I just finished spraying the pesticide in the house. The smell is so bad no one can stay inside. I’ll open the window to ventilate the house then come out to find you…” Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the guitar leaning against the wall, “Hey, Bai Laoban, how about this. You go into the yard and wait for me in the garden.”

Bai Changyi said, “What for.”

“Oh, just go.” Ting Shuang urged while pulling open the zipper of the guitar bag.

Bai Changyi gave an “mm”, and didn’t hang up. Ting Shuang didn’t hang up either. The two of them listened to each other’s breaths and the sound of his footsteps.

Ting Shuang picked up the guitar, pushed open the window facing the garden, and sat on the windowsill. In front of his eyes, yellow tulips, pink roses and white lingonberries swayed in the wind.

Bai Changyi witnessed this scene as he walked into the garden.

A boy in a simple white T-shirt and light-colored jeans bent his legs, holding an acoustic guitar. A smile danced in his eyes and the corners of his mouth.

“Ahem.” Ting Shuang cleared his throat loudly, quickly tuning the strings, “I’ll sing for you.”

Bai Changyi smiled as he said, “Okay.”

He hadn’t practiced for a while, so there weren’t many songs that Ting Shuang could still play except for one. Because he used to like it very much, he practiced a lot, so it had already become muscle memory. Now, he could start playing it as soon as he picked up the guitar.

Fingertips gently plucked at the strings, and the light sound of the acoustic guitar sounded in the wind.

He hummed lowly.

“When you are old, and your hair is gray…”(2)

As Ting Shuang played the guitar, he looked up to smile at Bai Changyi from time to time.

Yeats’s poems were really gentle.

“When you are old, and can’t walk…”

Hm?

Why wasn’t Bai Laoban smiling anymore…

“Love the wrinkles on your old face…”

Hm?

Why were Bai Laoban’s glasses lens reflecting a glint of light…

“When you are old, and your hair is gray…”