Your Distance

87.0 - Roof (1/2)

Later, during a video call, Ting Shuang asked Bai Changyi, “Have you ever talked badly about someone else behind their back?”

Bai Changyi thought for a moment, “Like, calling the professor a stupid-ass behind his back?”

Ting Shuang: “…”

Ting Shuang: “Pretend I didn’t ask.”

After a while, he still couldn’t help but say, “What I meant was— though I know you won’t— If you want to complain about me, you can’t complain to others, you can only complain in front of me.”

He said so while observing Bai Changyi’s expression, “You don’t actually have complaints, do you? I’m so nice!”

“I know.” Bai Changyi said, “So I have no choice but to think of you often. You can take this as a complaint.”

Ting Shuang’s mouth curved up, “Mm… Then I have a complaint too.”

Bai Changyi also smiled, “Just say it.”

It was really difficult to complain about Bai Changyi. Ting Shuang thought for a long time, and finally thought of one. He said in a particularly seductive voice, “The pen you left me. Is. Too. Thin.”

The next day, while cleaning the bathroom, the auntie who cleaned the house found a very expensive pen beside the bathtub, still wet. She quickly wiped it and brought it to the nanny. The nanny then gave it to Zhu Ao, saying that it had been found in the bathroom next to Ting Shuang’s bedroom.

At dinner, Zhu Ao passed the pen to Ting Shuang, “Yours?”

Ting Shuang took a second to remember where he threw the pen the night before, and then replied without flushing or his heartbeat increasing, “Oh yes, I was thinking about some algorithms while I was in the bathtub last night. I was scared that I’d forget if I didn’t note it down.”

Zhu Ao nodded and turned to lecture Zhu Wenjia, “Learn from your brother.”

Since the trial, Zhu Wenjia had fallen into a state of self-loathing, and Ting Shuang hadn’t bothered to interfere. You had to rely on yourself for things like this. Zhu Wenjia could download an app to find someone for Ting Shuang, but Ting Shuang couldn’t download an app to find a mother for Zhu Wenjia.

He didn’t even want to know the verdict of Weng Yunyi’s case.

The day the sentence was announced, the lawyer had called him, but before they could tell him the verdict, Ting Shuang asked, “Say, would I be happy or unhappy after hearing it?”

The lawyer thought for a while, “It’s hard to say.”

Ting Shuang smiled and said, “I’d think so too. No matter the verdict, being in my position, being happy or unhappy would both be inappropriate.”

The lawyer paused, “Then, do you still want to hear the verdict?”

“No,” Ting Shuang said as if he was joking, “Redundant information takes up memory space.”

He did feel like these things were slowly becoming less relevant to him.

Like a person rising gradually from the depths of the sea, he just needed to wait for the last layer of water over his skin to crack and fall into the sea as droplets, then he could calmly go back under the sun.

Every day, he’d routinely woke up early to eat breakfast with Zhu Ao, before going to work, trying his best at the job that he, even now, still didn’t like. When he returned home in the evening, he’d once again accompany Zhu Ao for a meal and a walk.