The Road Home

Chapter 6

"You took that seriously?" Lu Chen brought his head down and gave a chuckle, using a somewhat frivolous tone to cover up for the absurdity of that one sentence.

Last time, his second shu[1] [paternal uncle] had also used words of this crude, dirty type to escape disaster. Lu Chen had been panicked so had not really thought things through this time, but he did know that those words truly had crossed the line.

"Not at all." Relaxing her fists, she acted as if nothing had happened.

He grinned again. "Don't take it to heart. My dad is an ass after he drinks. Last time, he beat Hai Dong, too. I was scared there would be troubles if he really did come in."

These two who had not even reached the age of majority, just two kids, were trying extremely hard to act nonchalant.

He felt inside the pocket of his school uniform—empty. His hand paused.

He touched the latch lock again. Only after he was certain it would not be kicked open did he turn and go over to the desk to rummage for cigarettes. Textbooks and practice exercise papers were scoured through until they were a mess. He wanted to find something, anything, but he found nothing. And so, he arbitrarily grabbed an English practice paper, crumpled it into a ball with both his hands, and tossed it into a corner.

After a dozen or so minutes, there was no more movement outside.

"I'm going to take a look. Lock the door."

He was gone for more than ten minutes and still did not return. Feeling unsettled, Gui Xiao furtively opened the door. Inside the service bay, there truly was no one, and all that remained were cars that were either dismantled, with their parts scattered, or repaired. Skirting around patches of water on the concrete floor, she discovered Lu Chen sitting on the floor beside the large, dark-green metal door.

His school uniform's sleeves were rolled high, revealing his bare, bruised forearm, which was resting on his knee. With his head bowed and his palm supporting his forehead, he blocked out all sources of light that could disturb him.

He was utterly motionless.

The wind blowing from the northwest was even fiercer than it had been this evening when she arrived. According to last night's weather forecast, there would be northwest winds of force 6 or 7 as well as a sandstorm.

As she simply stood in this tall, open garage, Gui Xiao felt there were sand grains colliding against her face and nose.

Many years later, Beijing had very few sandstorms, but she could still remember the scenes from that period when flying sand would assault her face and when she arrived home and washed her hair, there might be a thin layer of sand on the bottom of the bathtub...

"Are you all right?" Beside him, Gui Xiao squatted down slightly and asked in a soft voice, "Are you still feeling unwell somewhere? I'll go with you to the hospital?" She saw the injury on his arm, but what concerned her was that there might be more on his body.

He tilted his head to the side to look at her.

"You really do feel unwell?" Gui Xiao was intimidated by his gaze.

"How are you going to go with me? It's not like you can drive."

"I'll ride my bike and take you there."

As if even God was mocking her innocence and naivety, the increasingly fierce gale suddenly blew over her bicycle. Lu Chen narrowed his eyes and let them come to rest on that lonely little bicycle lying in the northwest wind. "With that bike?"