Your Distance

Late at night, Ting Shuang woke up in the bedroom on the second floor. He padded barefoot down the stairs, looking for Bai Changyi by following the light. He vaguely remembered Bai Changyi calling him for lunch in the afternoon, but he couldn’t get up, so Bai Changyi had carried him upstairs to sleep.

He walked to the entrance of the study without disturbing him, and just quietly watched as Bai Changyi worked, until Bai Changyi saw him when he looked up.

“You’re up.” Bai Changyi put aside his work and stood up to see Ting Shuang barefoot. So he picked him off the ground and carried him into the kitchen.

Ting Shuang was placed on the cooking table, where he drank a bowl of seafood soup that had been left simmering to warm his stomach, while waiting for Bai Changyi to warm up his food.

The snow had stopped, and a thick layer of white had accumulated outside the window. The kitchen lights revealed footprints left by Vico in the snow.

Ting Shuang thought back to their first date, and countless other moments they had shared afterwards, much like now. But winter felt exceptionally different. Winter made him feel warm.

After drinking the soup, Ting Shuang ate the clams in the soup one by one, picking out the meat, and tossing the shells away into the trash can a distance away.

“There’s still more than three months until the start of the next semester.” As he ate, he talked about what he planned to do over the next few months. He paused every so often, talking very casually, “During this period, I plan to do what you did… Drive to different places by myself, go talk to different people… I’ve told you about this idea before. I think I should experience something like that.”

Otherwise, he wouldn’t know where to build that building of his.

He was in no rush to build that building in a place he’d already known, nor was he in a rush to. He just wanted to stray from the fixed path, to walk around, to stop for a break, and to pick up a brick or two.

He set off on his journey after spending Christmas and New Year with Bai Changyi.

He rented an ordinary jeep, filled it with gas, brought with him clothes for winter to summer, and then went to the barber’s for a haircut that was only a few millimetres shy from being bald, saying it was convenient.

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“Do I look a bit like a juvenile delinquent?” Ting Shuang looked in the mirror and touched the bristles on his head.

Bai Changyi wrapped an arm around his waist, lowering his head to kiss him, “Tell me which prison you’re assigned to.”

Ting Shuang returned the kiss and joked, “Why, are you going to break me out?”

Bai Changyi said with a low laugh, “I’ll be the warden.”

Ting Shuang nipped Bai Changyi’s jaw, “You want to lock me up so badly?”

Inwardly, Bai Changyi sighed. If only he could lock him up.

But children, they had to be released into the wild.

Before leaving the house, Vico pounced onto Ting Shuang, who was carrying his suitcase, and kept rubbing himself all over him. Ting Shuang patted his son’s head, “Good son, your father does look a bit like he’s leaving the house after a divorce… but he’s actually only leaving for less than three months. Take good care of the house. Look out for fires and thieves, and good-looking uncles.”

After saying that, Ting Shuang put the luggage in the trunk and climbed into the car.

Bai Changyi stood outside the car, and Ting Shuang rolled down the window, kissing Bai Changyi as the first snow of the new year fell.

The snow was very heavy. By the time they broke away, a lot of snow had accumulated on Bai Changyi’s head.

“Now I can imagine you with gray hair.” Ting Shuang brushed off the snow.

Bai Changyi said, “Don’t scare me by saying this kind of thing while you’re leaving.”

Ting Shuang laughed, then said seriously, “I will be back soon.”

Bai Changyi nodded, a gentle smile in his eyes, “Mm.”

Ting Shuang continued, “I will write you a letter or postcard from every place I visit.”

Bai Changyi: “Mm.”

Ting Shuang: “I will call you often.”

Bai Changyi: “Mm.”

Ting Shuang: “I will always miss you.”

Bai Changyi: “Mm.”

Ting Shuang started the car, “I’m leaving.”

Bai Changyi said, “Be careful.”

Ting Shuang looked at the road ahead for a few seconds, before suddenly pushing open the door and getting out of the car. He hugged Bai Changyi tightly, “… Thank you.”

Bai Changyi rubbed the spikey bristles on Ting Shuang’s head, “For what? Are you thanking me for letting you go crazy outside for three months after I’d just spent less than a few days with you?”

“Mm… Not just that, really.” Ting Shuang didn’t know what to say.

Bai Changyi smiled, “I get it, go ahead.”

Ting Shuang nodded, kissed Bai Changyi, and got into the car.

Bai Changyi stood still, watching the car tracks in the snow as they gradually stretched into the distance.

The courtyard gate was open, and Vico ran out, rubbing on Bai Changyi’s leg, and barking twice in the direction the car drove away towards.

Bai Changyi touched Vico‘s head, “Let’s go in, you left-behind child.” With me, the left-behind old man.

On January 7, Bai Changyi returned to school for work. Just a few days after he started work, he received the first letter from Ting Shuang. The stamps and postmarks were still from Germany.

In the evening, Bai Changyi sat by the fireplace, opened the envelope with a paper knife, and took out the letter to read it. Vico also leaned in and touched the letter with his nose. The light from the fire flickered, and with it, the words on the letter swayed–

Dear Bai Laoban,

I’m at the foot of the Alps.

I’m staying on a farm at the foot of the mountains, where I can see the snowy tip of Mont Blanc from a distance.

It’s night-time, and I’m writing to you by the fire. I cut the firewood in the fireplace myself. There is — don’t show this paragraph to Vico, lest he thinks I had an illegitimate child outside — a one-year-old shepherd dog by my feet.

Yesterday I familiarised myself with the farm. Today I herded sheep with others the entire day. When we could rest, I lay down on the grass. A great tit suddenly flew over and stepped on my face. I fought with it but ended up losing.

Leaving the city feels both intriguing and amazing.

The crowded place made me feel like a spare part that had to try its hardest to be compatible with its surroundings. I feel more like a human being in a place with fewer people.

During the day, I looked at the pack of sheep, trying to understand how they are different from humans.

I didn’t figure it out.

The sheep smell weird.

The stars you see in the mountains are very bright. There are a lot of them, just like what we saw in the mountains when we drove out of the city that night.

Ting

At the back of the letter, there was a sketch made with a pen, the few strokes an outline of the magnificent snow-capped mountain range. There were also a few dots that either represented the stars in the sky, or the lights humans had lit.(1)