The Road Home

Prologue

It was eight or nine years later when I ran into my first love again; it was at the gas station. Just like that, I watched him walk out from the convenience store. I fixed my eyes on him, not really daring to believe it. Tentatively, I asked, "Do you still remember who I am?"

Holding a bottle of water on his upturned palm, he looked at me and rather placidly answered, "Yes, I remember you. Even if I were to turn to ashes, I would still remember you."

This reminds me of a line of lyrics: "The promise of this lifetime is still missing a goodbye. And henceforth, that scar is unwilling to heal.[1]"

That day was actually not a coincidental encounter. There was a gathering of middle school schoolmates.

Gui Xiao heard her old classmate, Bai Tao, mention his name, saying that he was taking a short rest at the nearby gas station. After hearing that name, her mind was no longer rational, and not caring about anything else, she said she wanted to go see this "old friend."

Her old classmate did not read too much into this, so riding a bicycle, he brought her over there.

That five-minute journey seemed as long as an entire century. Before Bai Tao even braked to a halt, she had already hurriedly hopped off from the back rack of the bicycle and was fretfully casting her gaze around, anxiousness in her eyes.

When she saw him, dressed in a white button-up shirt and khaki-coloured, active-style shorts, striding out side by side with his comrades, who were also similarly garbed in civilian clothes, she stepped forward almost as if sleepwalking and greeted him.

Until he stated that one sentence—

Gui Xiao froze. Rubbing her right forearm, she remained silent.

Bai Tao was dumbstruck. What was going on here? Some sort of grievance from a past love?

But judging from Chen Ge's[2] open, unperturbed expression, it did not seem to be any sort of unforgettable debt of love that was engraved on his heart and into his bones, and rather, it seemed more like a joking sentence. Yet, the two involved parties weren't smiling either. Just how much of that was true and how much was not, Bai Tao, as an outsider, did not know. However, Bai Tao had, after all, been out in society for a long time already, and the skill of smoothing a situation over was something he did have. "Chen Ge, why have you been here all this time at the gas station? You're on some sort of mission?"

Lu Yanchen stretched out his hand and gave a smack to the back of Bai Tao's head. "What kind of mission can you have at a gas station? We're waiting for someone. Have your older brother come find me tonight."

Bai Tao breathed out in relief. "My brother's over in Laogou. I'll have him go find you in a couple of days."

"Then just forget it. In a couple of days I'll be heading back to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region."

Upon saying this, he twisted open his bottle cap and guzzled a couple of mouthfuls of mineral water.

When Gui Xiao heard "Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region," her mind started back. Summoning the courage in her heart, she brazenly stared at him, this person whom she had not seen in more than eight years, scrutinizing even the tiny detail of how his Adam's apple bobbed up and down because he was swallowing water.

He practically had not changed at all.

His pupils occupied a relatively larger proportion of his eyes than the average person, and combined with the outer corners of his eyes that turned upwards slightly, his slender face, and, back when he wore the button-up shirt of a school uniform, the fluid outline of his neck that showed, this face naturally was the type that exuded deviance and ostentatiousness. However, the lines of the corners of his lips were very soft and, pressed together slightly, always appeared as if they were smiling.

Now, with him dressed like this in a white, button-up shirt, it truly did seem as if they had returned to the past...

Since meeting him when she was thirteen years old, whenever anyone asked Gui Xiao, "What kind of boy do you like?" the words would always manage to blurt from her, "He has to have nice eyes..." It was as if rooted deep in her memory was the belief that a man had to have nice eyes in order for her to think he was handsome. She surmised that even after ten, twenty years, even thirty or forty years, she would still hold this viewpoint.

Bai Tao had originally brought Gui Xiao here merely to see an "old friend." Who would have known that this little kerfuffle would arise between these two? He could therefore only say a little of this and that to Lu Yanchen and just find random things to talk about. Lu Yanchen every so often would give a few words in reply. In the past, his words had been neither frequent nor many, and if he could speak less, he would.

Soon, two military off-road vehicles drove into the gas station and came to a stop in a spot near the several of them.

In the sweltering sun, the vehicle's exhaust fumes carried an unpleasant stench of burnt fuel and made Gui Xiao's eyes sting.

The person in the driver's seat told them to get into the vehicle. With a pat on Bai Tao's back, Lu Yanchen stated, "Going now."

He jumped into the front passenger seat of the Jeep first while the other people one after the other followed suit and got into the vehicles. From beginning to end, he never looked at her. By the time the two Jeeps had pulled out of the gas station, Bai Tao's entire back was soaked. In a low voice, he asked, "You and Chen Ge once dated?"

Gui Xiao shook her head and just brushed over this, not wanting to say anything at all.

That night, in Second Yi's[3] [Second Maternal Aunt's] house, she was restless and uneasy, as if she had lost her heart somewhere.

It was past ten o'clock already, but still she picked up the landline telephone and had the operator dial the Huang family's number.

"You saw my [older] guy cousin?!" When Huang Ting heard her brief account of what happened this afternoon, this surprised exclamation burst from her lips. "My mom didn't even know he was back. How did you manage to see him?"

Huang Ting was too stirred up. Her son, woken by the noise, began to wail.

"Wait a bit. I need to go pacify the little devil first." She set the phone receiver down. It was quite some time before she came back, saying, "I don't even know what I should say to you. Gui Xiao, why did you even want to go looking for him? Have you forgotten just how many times he begged you back then to make up and get back together again? Do you know how hard-hearted you were? It was so hard for him to get even one chance to come back, yet when he wanted to see you, you wouldn't. Gui Xiao..." She sighed. "Gui Xiao, what do you even want to do by trying to find him?"

[1] This is a line of lyrics from the song 《心术》 sung by Phil Chang and released in 2012. The song is the theme song of the drama serial of the same Chinese name (English name of the drama is Angel Hearts).

[2] 哥 "ge." The most literal translation of this would be "big brother." It is also a way to address a male acquaintance either older or more senior but generally still in the same generation as you. I have chosen to keep this in pinyin and not use "big brother" as that, to me, maintains the tone of respect and reverence more.

[3] 姨 "yi." This is how you would address the sister of your mother