Walking Through Open Doors

Chapter 5 - Thick Skin Still Bruise

Wen Ke Xing wakes up feeling more well rested than he has in months, which is strange considering everything that had transpired the day before. Maybe it's because the mountain air is not polluted like the city air, despite the modern and smart air filters and humidifiers in his apartment. Or maybe it's because he always sleeps better during rain- and thunderstorms, and last night had been spectacular.

He had stayed up way longer than initially planned, just watching the lightning strikes throughout the valley and letting the thundering rain drown out his thoughts and embarrassment that were still swirling in his head. He had loved chaotic weather ever since he was a child and would stay up late with his parents. They would watch the storm clouds roll in over Heishan [1], and count the seconds between the lighting and the thunder to try and figure out how far away the storm was, and if it was getting closer.

The twist in his heart when he thinks about his parents has reduced over the years. From being so forceful throughout his youth that he had resorted to fighting as an outlet, to more like a vibration that slices at the innermost layers of his chest. His grief doesn't reach his eyes anymore. Not because it hurts any less, but because he has learned how to breathe around the sharp edges of his guilt.

One joy scatters a hundred griefs [2] was something he had learned from reading Swift Moving Steps. But no matter what he did, the joy he had found in his friends or his company hadn't been able to scatter more than bits and pieces of the loneliness that he carried inside him. Watching Gu Xiang find love and happiness had kick-started his own search for someone to spend his life with. Which brings him to the reason why he is actually here in the first place—the man behind the scholarship that had turned his life around.

He looks out his first-floor bedroom window. The world is shimmering, courtesy of the early morning sun peeking up from behind the mountain tops and illuminating the remains of the cotton-candy soft rainstorm mist. The view is spectacular in a way that compels him to open the windows. He breathes in the sweet scent and crisp air as he marvels at the endless peach blossom trees that cover the valley below.

It's not until the last shades of orange and pink turn sky blue that he reluctantly walks into the ensuite. He turns on the massage spray in the shower and stands for a long time under the geyser hot water, purposefully but delicately balancing the heat in favor of melting away the last of yesterday. He still needs to get through a few hours in a car with the man who had not invited him here, and he was not going to let it be as awkward as the drive yesterday. He's got thick skin. He's known for how shameless he can be. He can do this.

He turns up the heat to scolding and shakes the hair out of his eyes. Out of all the scenarios he had envisioned of the first morning on this trip—not that he had imagined that many different scenarios and they were all absolutely of him waking up by himself—this was surprisingly not the worst case. Although he's still unsure how he feels about having been tricked by a child to fly across half the country like some lovesick puppy, somehow, cooking dinner with the kid had relieved some of the uneasiness that was clinging to him like sticky bubblegum.

He had found Zhou Cheng Ling in the kitchen after he had changed into cat-vomit-free clothes—actively ignoring the fact that he was in Zhou Zi Shu's sweatpants—deep in flour and trying to flatten a noodle dough through a machine. The horror! So of course he had put on an apron and taken control of the situation. And the noodles. Whilst he had saved the dough and then repeatedly folded, twisted and pulled it into edible Shaanxi style noodles, Zhou Cheng Ling had apologized—repeatedly. It had been difficult to be even a little bit irritated with a boy that had such huge, solemn puppy eyes.

The kid had told him that he loves his dad more than anything in the world and that he is the luckiest boy ever to have met Zhou Zi Shu at the orphanage. However, the boy thinks that his dad would be happier if he met someone instead of focusing all of his life around Zhou Cheng Ling. Because what will happen in a few years when he leaves for university? Zhou Zi Shu had given up his work to take the boy back here and as far as the kid knew, Zhou Zi Shu hadn't written a chapter ever since. When Wen Ke Xing had emailed, it had been like kismet.