Your Distance

Your birth year(1) is filled with misfortune, this saying was true.

On his thirty-sixth birthday, the great Professor Bai learned what it meant to be middle-aged. You had both older and younger people to take care of, and life was difficult.

Ting Shuang was a confident little boy, and from home in the morning to when they ate lunch outside in the afternoon, he never stopped complaining. “He always frightened me by acting like a professor” here, and “he said if I can’t pass my exams in early August, he won’t take me out to play during the autumn vacation, and will leave me alone at home” there.

Bai Changyi had lived for 36 years, and had never received more criticism and education than he had today.

In the afternoon, the great Professor Bai thought that going shopping with his parents and the little kid Ting Shuang, only involved driving a car and carrying bags, so there would be no disasters, but little did he expect—

“Ting Ting, it’s both your and Changyi’s birth year this year. Didn’t you want to go to the beach during autumn vacation? Each of you should buy a pair of big red swimming trunks.” Su Ping touched the fabric of the swimming trunks on the male model, thinking that it didn’t feel bad.

“I have swimming trunks.” Bai Changyi looked away.

Ting Shuang was also unwilling to wear red swimming trunks, so he followed Bai Laoban’s example and shied away, “Me too—”

“He doesn’t,” Bai Changyi said.

Shit.

Ting Shuang was angry. He didn’t want to wear red swimming trunks alone.

His mind churned, and he said to Su Ping particularly obediently, “Auntie… I want to wear matching swimming trunks with Changyi.”

Bai Changyi: “…”

Five minutes later, Bai Changyi held an additional shopping bag with two tight red swimming trunks of different sizes inside it.

After shopping all afternoon, Ting Shuang received a pair of red swimming trunks and new clothes that he could wear for at least three autumns, while Bai Changyi only received a pair of red swimming trunks.

In the evening, Su Ping and Bai Zhongyan were going back to Berlin. Before leaving, Su Ping wanted to speak to Ting Shuang alone.

The two of them walked up beside a fountain sculpture. Not far away, there was a roadside performer playing the guitar and singing a German folk song “The Final Night”.

The water gurgled. Strings were plucked softly. The song resounded strongly.

The lyrics went: “You are my treasure, you will always be my treasure…”

“Ting Ting.” Su Ping sat on the stone benches arranged in a circle around the fountain, the sun illuminating the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, the few strands of white hair that had just grown on her head, and the sincerity in her eyes.

“Mm,” Ting Shuang sat beside her.

“In the past two or three years, today is the day I’ve been the happiest.” Su Ping said with a smile, “Changyi really is lucky to have met you.”

“No, no…” Ting Shuang shook his head again and again, feeling as if he was not worthy of such a big compliment, “I am really lucky to have met him… I mean it, I’m not just being polite.”

“I’m not just being polite too.” Su Ping glanced at Bai Changyi, who was waiting under a tree in the distance. “He’s my son, I know all of his good and bad points. I’ve always been worried about how he has no care and passions in life.”

No passions in life?

Ting Shuang didn’t quite understand, “Auntie, I don’t think he has no passions in life… I think he knows very well how to live. He can cook all kinds of food, and learns new dishes almost every week. Sometimes when we take Vico out for walks, he’ll bring out a drone to take pictures. The pictures are very beautiful. We also bought seeds together, and planted new cranberries and blueberries in the yard. The ones he planted grew better than the ones I planted… …”

Su Ping smiled as she listened to Ting Shuang’s words, and the more she listened, the brighter she smiled, “He was not like this before. You’re right, he’s always taken care of people, but that’s because his expectation of himself is to be a gentleman. If you’d seen how he was like before, you’d know the difference. Changyi… is too smart. He’d determined the focus of his life early on, and then treats the rest of it as if it was food and sleep — not something he’s interested in, but something he has no choice but to do. Like today, he would do things like shopping with others, but he has never been so happy.”

Ting Shuang suddenly remembered the empty and tidy feeling in the house when he’d first visited Bai Changyi.

After they started cohabitating, the things in the house only started to increase. Ting Shuang sometimes felt like he had messed up the house, but now that he thought about it, it was just more activity taking place in the house.

“Ting Ting, many people think that Changyi’s doing well. They admire him, want to be him, or hope that their children will be him,” Su Ping’s eyes darkened a bit. “The truth is, if you admire him, like him, and respect him, then you’ll want him to succeed, but if you love him, then you’ll want him to be happy. I don’t know if he has told you some of his ideals… Maybe not, he is past the age where people talk about their ideals. He regards universities too romantically and too ideally. Maybe in this life, most universities in the world will not become what he wants them to become. Or, in more pessimistic terms, this world will not become what he wants it to become. At his age, he has already achieved a lot, but he seems to have a goal that is too far out of reach. I wonder, if he fails to reach that goal, will he regret it many years later? Would he be unhappy?”

“He told me about that…” Ting Shuang looked at Bai Changyi in the distance. Bai Changyi took a sip of the cold drink Ting Shuang had been drinking previously. It seemed like it was too sweet, for he frowned and stopped drinking altogether. “I can understand him. The people who walk ahead are different from the rest. Some may say that they are unrealistic. But… the realistic people make up the existing world, and the unrealistic people create the new world. There are always those few people. If everyone can understand them, then they wouldn’t be the ones who are walking ahead.”

“He actually told you about that.” Su Ping was a little surprised, but after a while, she felt that it made sense for Bai Changyi talk to Ting Shuang about it.

“He didn’t take the initiative in saying those things… I just happened to ask him about them.” Ting Shuang laughed, “I’m quite stupid. If I don’t ask, I won’t know what he’s thinking. If I don’t know, I’ll keep asking, and he’s still quite… patient. He’s willing to answer me all the time. I’ve thought about this for a long time, so let me talk about my opinion… it may be wrong. It’s just that, I think that the thing about ideals is that they are never too ideal, too unrealistic, or too inconsistent with things that have taken place in history. The people who set the trend do not follow the trend. They are the trend itself. People who are being lead would wait for the arrival of the trend, then follow it. Auntie… Although he is older than me by more than ten years, sometimes, I think he’s only just started living his youth. Many people… turn old early.”

Su Ping thought for a while and said, “It’s not that I don’t understand him, or that I disrespect him. I just don’t want his career to take over his life. A career requires results, but people only have countless moments. I wish to see him happy every minute and every second.”

“I also wish to see him happy every minute and every second.” Ting Shuang smiled, a little shy, “I will make him happy every minute and every second.”

Under the setting sun, the fountain water flowed, and the roadside performer was still playing and singing: “Eternal life, infinite happiness and joy, please have it all. I pray for it thousands of times.”

Ting Shuang stood up from the stone bench, smiled back at Su Ping, and ran to Bai Changyi.

“Happy birthday!”