Chapter 2
HIS MOM HAD SAID—
It suddenly occurred to Jiang Cheng that it might be a little absurd to refer to her that way, and this particular notion was so intrusive that it cut off his train of thought. He couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said.
In all of his seventeen-odd years, his parents and family were the only ones he’d known. Regardless of their relationship, Mom was always the woman named Shen Yiqing, and Dad was the man named Jiang Wei. And then there was the little brother whom he’d never been close with… But now, out of nowhere, he had an extra set of family members. Li Baoguo, and…some other names he’d already forgotten.
It was hard to accept.
His relationship with his family had always been tense, for sure. Whether it was his parents or his brother, every interaction with them came with a risk of explosion. It had already been about a year since he and his brother last spoke to each other. Even his mom, who was always calm, had lost her temper a handful of times.
But even though this atmosphere had lasted from the beginning of his middle school years all the way until high school, even though he was always thinking that he never wanted to go home again, never wanted to see his parents again, and especially never wanted to see that face that looked like it’d come from the same mold as their parents… When this moment had finally descended upon him like a wish fulfilled, it still completely blindsided him.
Yes, blindsided.
Extremely blindsided.
It all felt like a nonsensical dream which had started the moment his mom said, “There’s something I have to tell you,” followed by several months of cold silence and paperwork, all the way until now.
Most of the time he wasn’t too upset about it, nor was he in a lot of pain.
He only felt blindsided.
“It’s cold, eh?” said Li Baoguo as he turned to Jiang Cheng, coughing loudly. “It must be way colder than where you used to live.”
“Mhm,” Jiang Cheng answered behind his mask.
“It’ll be warmer once we’re inside,” Li Baoguo said, his loud coughs and equally loud voice spraying saliva all over Jiang Cheng’s face. “I tidied up a room especially for you.”
“Thanks,” Jiang Cheng said, pulling his mask higher.
“Well, there’s no need for that between father and son.” Li Baoguo laughed as he coughed some more, then clapped Jiang Cheng on the back. “No need for ‘thank you’ between us!”
Jiang Cheng wasn’t able to respond; the slaps were quite forceful. Breathing in the chilly air had already left a tickle in his throat; hearing Li Baoguo cough only made the urge for him to cough even stronger. Those two slaps made him double over in a hacking fit that almost had him in tears.
“You’re not in very good health, huh?” Li Baoguo watched him. “You gotta exercise. When I was your age, I was strong as a bear.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything, just gave him a thumbs-up, still bent over.
Li Baoguo laughed boisterously. “Exercise! I’m counting on you to take care of me in the future!”
Jiang Cheng straightened and looked at him.
“Come on.” Li Baoguo gave him another slap on the back.
Jiang Cheng frowned. “Don’t touch me.”
“Oooh.” Li Baoguo paused and looked at him with wide eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Cheng held his gaze for a few moments, then pulled down his mask and said, “Don’t slap my back.”
Li Baoguo’s home was on an old street lined on either side with various decrepit little shops overflowing with the flavors of life, selling food, clothes, and various sundries. Above these shops sat several stories of low-rise residential apartments.
Jiang Cheng looked up, sweeping his gaze over and past the countless cables that crisscrossed above their heads. It was tough to tell whether the outer walls were truly painted in such ambiguous colors or simply looked that way due to the darkening skies.
He followed Li Baoguo into one of the buildings, his heart a tangle of emotions. They passed through heaps of produce and junk crowding the short hallway on the first floor before stopping in front of a door.
“It certainly won’t be able to compare with what you had before,” Li Baoguo said as he unlocked the door. “But what’s mine is yours!”
Jiang Cheng stayed quiet. He stared back into the hallway at a cobwebbed lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and imagined the lightbulb must be suffocating.
“What’s mine is yours!” Li Baoguo opened the door and turned to give his shoulder a couple of hard thumps. “And what’s yours is mine! Now that’s real father and son stuff!”
“I said don’t touch me,” Jiang Cheng snapped.
“Whoa.” Li Baoguo entered the room and flipped the lights on. “Spoiled rotten you are, talking to your elders like that. Let me tell you, I never spoiled your older brother or sister. If you grew up here at home, I’d have beat you into submission long ago… Come on, you’ll sleep in this room. It used to be your brother’s…”
Jiang Cheng dragged his suitcase into the room, not bothering to listen to whatever else Li Baoguo had to say. He wondered how a whole family had managed to fit into this two-bedroom apartment in the past.
Without looking, he could tell by his nose alone that this “tidied” room probably wasn’t tidied often…or ever. The smell of dust mingled with a faint odor of mildew in the air. The room held an old wardrobe, a desk, and a bunk bed. The bottom bunk had indeed been cleared out, while the top one was still packed with junk. The sheets and covers were all freshly changed.
“Set your stuff down; you can unpack tomorrow,” Li Baoguo said. “Let’s have a few drinks first.”
“What drinks?” Jiang Cheng was a little taken aback. He glanced at his phone—it was almost 10:00 P.M.
“Alcohol, of course. It’s been more than ten years since we last saw each other. We gotta have some drinks to celebrate the occasion!”
“…That’s okay.” Jiang Cheng could hardly believe his ears. “I don’t want to drink.”
“Don’t want to drink?” Li Baoguo’s eyes widened by another degree, and he stared at Jiang Cheng for a couple of seconds before his eyes returned to their original size. He started to laugh. “Have you never had alcohol before? But you’re in high school already—”
“I don’t feel like drinking,” Jiang Cheng interrupted him. “I just want to sleep.”
Li Baoguo froze in place. “Sleep…?” After a long pause, he turned and walked away with a wave of his hand, saying gruffly, “Okay, okay. Sleep. Sleep away.”
Closing the door behind him, Jiang Cheng stood in the middle of the room for nearly five minutes. Then he opened the doors to the wardrobe. An overwhelming smell of mothballs rushed at him in a wave as he did, catching him off guard. More than half of this double-door wardrobe was stuffed with a variety of comforters, old sweaters, and blankets with edges so frayed they could have been tassels.
It was hard to describe the feeling. Jiang Cheng was certain he hadn’t started to miss his old family and home, which were hours away now. What he did miss, sincerely and madly, was his old room.
He pulled out some clothes from his suitcase at random and hung them up, leaving the rest in the suitcase, which he crammed into the bottom of the wardrobe. He pulled out a bottle of fragrance and sprayed it into the wardrobe a dozen times before he finally shut its doors and sat down on the edge of the bed.
His phone rang. The call display showed “Mom.” He answered.
“You’ve arrived?” came his mom’s voice from the other end.
“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng answered.
“The environment there isn’t as good as it is back home,” she said. “You might need some time to adjust.”
“No need.”
There was a pause, then, “Xiao-Cheng, I still hope you don’t think that—”
“I don’t.”
Her voice took on the usual stern note. “We didn’t treat you poorly over the years. Your dad and I never once let on that you were adopted, did we? You never knew.”
“But somehow, I know now,” Jiang Cheng said. “And I got thrown out.”
She raised her voice. “Don’t forget—it was your fault your dad had that fit and had to be rushed to the hospital on New Year’s! He still hasn’t been able to come home!”
Jiang Cheng said nothing. He didn’t understand what he had to do with his dad’s pneumonia-induced hospital stay. As to whatever else his mom had to say after that…amazingly, he didn’t catch any of it. It was his superpower: He could block things he didn’t want to hear from entering his brain.
Her severe yet hollow accusations and her completely ineffective methods of communicating with him were the catalysts for his own breakdown. He didn’t want to listen. The last thing he wanted was to get into a fight while he was in the middle of this unfamiliar environment that made him queasy all over.
By the time the call ended, he couldn’t remember the rest of the conversation. What his mom said, what he said—he’d forgotten it all.
Craving a shower, Jiang Cheng rose and opened the door. He peered into the living room—no one was there. He cleared his throat and coughed a few times. No one answered.
“Are…you there?” He walked into the living room, unsure of how exactly to refer to Li Baoguo.
It was a small apartment. Standing in the living room, he could see the doors of all the rooms with one glance: the bedrooms, the kitchen, and the bathroom. Li Baoguo wasn’t home. Must have gone off to play mahjong again, Jiang Cheng thought, since the man would steal a few minutes to play a few hands even when he was passing by on his way to pick someone up at the corner.
“Come now—play a few hands—got plenty of time anyway,” Jiang Cheng sang as he pushed open the bathroom door. “Come now—take a shower—got…”1
There was no hot water tank in the bathroom.
“Got…” He continued singing as he turned back to look at the kitchen next to the bathroom, but he didn’t see a hot water tank there either, only a small electrical heater attached to the top of the kitchen faucet. “…Got…”
He couldn’t continue. After doing a couple rounds around the apartment to confirm that there was indeed no hot water tank, he felt a stuffiness in his chest. He smacked the faucet.
“Fuck.”
He’d spent the whole day traveling; he couldn’t possibly fall asleep without a shower.
Finally, he had to reopen his suitcase and pull out a collapsible pail. Stripped down to his underwear, he carried the hot water from the kitchen to the bathroom one pail at a time, and finally managed to take a haphazard “shower.”