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墨書 Inktalez
"Come home with me!" Liu Wenyi shot a glance at the butcher and ordered Li Li.
"Oh—" Li Li lowered his head in disappointment and walked toward the slaughterhouse entrance.
That night, Liu Wenyi leaned against Li Cheng, taking advantage of Li Li stepping out to urinate to glance outside the bed. She leaned closer to Li Cheng's ear and whispered, "I always feel like your brother isn't quite normal."
Li Cheng chuckled, "Are you saying that a fool isn't normal?"
Liu Wenyi pushed at Li Cheng's armpit, "I'm being serious here. This afternoon, when I got off the bus at the west end of town and passed by the slaughterhouse, I saw your brother staring intently at that butcher killing pigs. The look in his eyes was off..."
"Ha," Li Cheng pulled his arm from under Liu Wenyi's head and lit a cigarette. "Weren't you curious when you were seven or eight years old watching someone kill pigs?"
"But that's not curiosity..."
"I'm telling you, why are you arguing with a fool? His way of thinking is different from ours, so stop guessing."
Am I really just guessing? Liu Wenyi felt a vague sense of unease.
The next morning at work, Liu Wenyi was in a bad mood because Sun Bai had called in the middle of the night to say that Li Ming had a high fever. Li Cheng got up and left without any hesitation, which left Liu Wenyi feeling unsettled. After hastily eating breakfast, she went to West Town to wait for the bus. As she exited the courtyard, she saw several children with backpacks chatting as they walked toward the alley, with Li Li trailing behind them like an unshakeable piece of candy.
A boy turned around and angrily said to Li Li, "Fool, don't follow us. We're going to school; what are you going for?"
Li Li grinned foolishly, "Hehe, I'm going to school."
Another boy bent down to pick up a stone from the corner and threw it hard at Li Li's head. Following suit, other children began throwing dirt clods and stones at him one after another. Li Li covered his head and mumbled pitifully, "Going to school, want to go to school. My grades are good; I want to go to school."
"What’s wrong! Are kids nowadays so uncivilized?" Liu Wenyi shouted. The children looked at her with angry faces, made faces back at her, and ran off together. Liu Wenyi walked up to Li Li, who smelled foul from a distance. She pressed her right index finger against her nose and said half-disgustedly and half-sympathetically, "Hurry home; your mom has cooked for you."
Li Li lowered his arms from covering his head. His dirty face was framed by two bright and clean eyes that were now filled with tears—both timid and scared.
"Stop dawdling; hurry home. I have to go to work."
Li Li beamed brightly, "Wife is going to work—great—"
For a moment, Liu Wenyi felt an impulse to pat his head, but as her arm lifted into the air and she looked at his messy hair mixed with who knows what else, she reluctantly withdrew her hand. "Go on; I'm leaving."
Li Li stood there drooling slightly as he waved goodbye to her retreating figure.
Li Cheng didn't contact her all day. Liu Wenyi fidgeted at her desk until her supervisor popped his head out of the office and waved at her. "Wenyi, come here."
Liu Wenyi shrank her head, lost in thought, and was seen by her supervisor. Was there a problem with the report she submitted that morning? Her colleagues around her looked at her with sympathetic eyes. Liu Wenyi forced a bitter smile; during those few seconds walking toward the office, she felt inexplicably grounded. The reason was simple: her supervisor had shown interest in her, hinting at something both openly and subtly. However, Liu Wenyi did not respond at all. The supervisor was a married man, of average appearance, and there seemed to be little room for advancement in his career. Such a man was not worthy of her devotion.
Sun Bai emerged from her son's room holding a glass, and upon turning her head, she saw her husband Li Cheng lying sideways on the sofa, his head resting on a jacket, one leg dangling over the edge. Even in sleep, his brow was furrowed, as if he were troubled by countless worries in his dreams. It must be the moment he stepped into this house that bothered him, Sun Bai thought with a bitter smile. She gently set down the glass and returned to the bedroom to grab a blanket, tenderly covering Li Cheng with it.
Then she squatted beside the sofa without standing up, observing this man. How long had it been since they last met? About half a month? Humans are truly forgetful creatures; just half a month apart made him feel so unfamiliar to her. When he was away, she desperately searched for his face in her mind—his eyes were like this, his nose like that—she knew it all but could not piece it together. Now seeing him again made her realize: oh—so this is what he looks like; oh—so he always speaks with such impatience; oh—so he is filled with the scent of women's perfume.
Sun Bai's eyelashes fluttered as anger flared up within her, causing her hands gripping the edge of the blanket to tremble slightly. She wanted to lift the blanket, wake him up, and question him about that woman. She had given him a lively and adorable son; she had sacrificed her career to become a housewife for him. How could he do this? Did he no longer love her? But she had a son.
She quickly packed away her anger and let it fly out of her soul.
Li Cheng murmured softly and slowly opened his eyes. Suddenly seeing Sun Bai's face startled him, and he sat up abruptly. "Are you sick?" he exclaimed in surprise.
Sun Bai brushed her hair back and smiled. "You should go sleep in the bedroom; don’t catch a cold."
Li Cheng shook off his drowsiness and turned to peek through the window into Li Ming's room. "Has our son taken his medicine?"
"Yes, he has just fallen asleep," Sun Bai replied as she picked up the glass and walked toward the kitchen. Behind her came Li Cheng's incessant complaints: "You call yourself a mother? Is this how you take care of our son? Are you responsible at all? What do you think I'm working hard for out there? Isn’t it for you and our son?"
"Are you staying tonight?" Sun Bai turned around to ask.
Staying? It felt like a mistress asking her lover—both humble and pitiful.
Li Cheng paused for a moment, hesitating for quite some time before nodding slightly. "Yeah."
Sun Bai smiled gently and walked into the kitchen.
The torment of this period made Sun Bai realize one thing: besides her son, she had nothing else. She was like a vine clinging to a large tree; seven years of sheltered life had stripped her of the courage and ability to be independent, leaving her without confidence or hope for the future. She feared change the most; with both parents deceased and classmates out of touch, this was the only nest she had left. She could not afford to lose it, so she had to retreat until there was nowhere left to go. She didn’t even know where her bottom line lay.
But at least she had her son; she was like a kite, and her son was the string that held her up while her husband was the one flying the kite.
Thinking of this made Sun Bai feel somewhat fortunate; if it weren't for their son's fever, when would she have been able to see her husband?
After addressing the data errors pointed out by her supervisor, Liu Wenyi glanced at the time in the lower left corner of her computer screen: 9:34 PM. Rubbing her sore shoulders, she picked up her phone—there were no missed calls, only one text message: "I won't be coming over tonight; get some rest early."
It was sent a little after eight. Liu Wenyi puffed her cheeks in frustration as she put her phone away in her bag, turned off the office lights, locked the door, and walked briskly towards the elevator in her high heels.
She hailed a taxi along the way, and by the time she got home, it was already past ten. The yard gate was unlocked and opened with a gentle push.
Liu Wenyi secured the latch on the door and was about to step inside when she suddenly noticed how eerily quiet the yard was, though there were subtle sounds beneath the silence.
She glanced into the living room; all three rooms were dark with the lights off, but there was light spilling out from the small room where she and Li Li lived. She let out a sigh of relief and looked up at the sky. The moonlight tonight was bright and enchanting, illuminating everything in the yard clearly. Unfortunately, Li Cheng wasn't there. Feeling a bit disappointed, she lowered her head and suddenly felt a chill run down her spine; something seemed to flash through the darkness of the living room. She squinted in that direction but saw nothing.
Could it be that old rascal Li Weimin again?
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