Chapter 232: IF Route 4 (Extra 6)
As they were leaving the shop, the waitress handed them two beautifully packaged bags of handmade cookies. Xie Chongyi didn’t take any and gave them all to Wu Heng instead.
Wu Heng tried one. It tasted really good.
“You seriously don’t want any?”
Xie Chongyi truly didn’t. He only asked the waitress for a bottle of water.
After noticing that Xie Chongyi hadn’t taken out his phone to pay and had simply recited a membership card number instead, Wu Heng finally couldn’t help asking once they stepped outside, “Do you always spend this much money?”
At school, compared to many others, the class monitor didn’t wear luxury brands from head to toe, didn’t collect rare handmade crafts, and didn’t have any expensive hobbies. Even Lin Mengzhi liked chasing niche subcultures, yet whenever Xie Chongyi spent money, he was shockingly generous.
“A little,” Xie Chongyi replied, wearing a rare expression of emptiness. “I don’t really have a concept of money.”
The two wandered aimlessly down the street. Wu Heng asked why. His own life had been terrible, yet he still understood the value of money very clearly.
“Because I’ve had a lot of money since I was little.”
“…” Before Xie Chongyi answered, Wu Heng had imagined many possibilities, but he hadn’t expected the real reason to feel so strangely sad.
Watching Wu Heng sink into thought, Xie Chongyi couldn’t help curling his lips into a faint smile. He reached out and lightly pinched the other boy’s arm, continuing in a calm tone, “And no one ever told me money was important.”
Wu Heng’s thoughtful expression slowly turned suspicious. “So all you needed was a lot of love?”
“You could say that.”
Wu Heng glanced sideways at Xie Chongyi, trying to judge whether he was telling the truth. Before this, in Wu Heng’s eyes, Xie Chongyi had seemed exactly like the ultimate believer in meritocracy. The pride carved into his bones was impossible to hide, and that pride made him seem like a machine coldly passing judgment on everyone around him.
“Are you the same as me?” Xie Chongyi tossed the question back to Wu Heng.
“I don’t know,” Wu Heng answered without hesitation. “I need it, but there are more important things my life needs too.”
“What things?”
Wu Heng didn’t answer. He didn’t let Xie Chongyi know that the more important thing was survival. People like Xie Chongyi could never truly understand that, even if they were friends now.
Yet Xie Chongyi seemed to have gotten his answer anyway, reaching out to ruffle Wu Heng’s hair.
Wu Heng shot him a strange look. Back at home, whenever Wu Zhi did something that made him feel especially warm or comforted, he would also rub Wu Zhi’s head like that.
Still, Wu Heng didn’t think Xie Chongyi was treating him like a puppy or like a “little sister.” He just felt the gesture was a bit too intimate.
But he didn’t dislike it, so he didn’t immediately pull away.
After the meal, they wandered through a flower, bird, and fish market. Everything there was cheap, and the two of them picked out huge bundles of fresh flowers and several plump little goldfish.
Wu Heng struggled to carry seven or eight Japanese enkianthus branches over a meter long, while Xie Chongyi was holding even more than he was—daisies, roses, delphiniums—so many flowers that they almost buried his entire upper body.
“You’re taking all of these home? There’s no room for them at my place.” Wu Heng stepped around a puddle as he spoke.
“Yeah. Come back with me.”
Wu Heng nodded, not thinking there was anything strange about it. The class monitor couldn’t possibly carry all this stuff alone anyway, even if he’d insisted on buying it himself.
The sun had already begun slipping down from the sky, turning into a hazy orange glow. It washed the worn-down streets of the old city in color until they looked like a photograph from an evening newspaper. Around them were voices, traffic sounds, and the cries of small animals, all transforming that picture into something alive and constantly changing.
Then a sudden shout, raised to full volume, tore through the beautiful noise.
“Are you f*cking stupid?! I spent tens of thousands buying you, and you still can’t even learn to say ‘welcome’?!”
Along with the shouting came the frantic flapping of bird wings, loud rustling sounds, and the bird’s furious cries of resistance. It had even bitten the man several times, because right after that the man shouted in disbelief, “You f*cking dared to bite me?!”
Wu Heng didn’t stop to watch the scene unfold. He didn’t even spare it a glance. Human or bird, everyone could only fend for themselves.
But the boy walking beside him, Xie Chongyi, suddenly stopped, forcing Wu Heng to stop and wait too.
Only then did Wu Heng see that the one being beaten was a gray parrot. Its feathers weren’t especially glossy, but its strong frame was obvious enough. Whoever bought it had clearly spent a fortune on it. Yet the bird hadn’t provided the kind of return the man expected from such an expensive purchase, and so it had earned punches and kicks instead.
Seeing customers pause at the entrance, the man immediately stopped hitting the bird. He shut the cage tightly, hung it behind a curtain on a rope, pulled the curtain closed, then jogged out to greet them.
“What are you looking to buy? My tropical fish selection is the best in this whole market!”
Xie Chongyi unnecessarily wandered through the shop as if browsing, sounding oddly curious about the bird. “What kind of bird is that? I’ve never seen one before.”
“Heh, just an ordinary parrot. I’ve had it for months now, and it still can’t say a single word. Total waste of money.”
“Maybe you taught it wrong?” Xie Chongyi questioned casually.
“Impossible!” the owner immediately snapped, glaring furiously. “I followed the training guides exactly. I’ve been more patient with it than I was with my third wife.”
Hearing the man shouting inside, Wu Heng stood outside the shop wearing a deeply skeptical expression.
“Why not just sell it?” Xie Chongyi suggested.
“Sigh, easy for you to say.” The man rubbed his rough palms together, looking even more miserable. “That bird cost me a fortune. Finding someone willing to pay for it isn’t easy. And forget the money—it’s even harder finding the right buyer who actually knows how to care for birds. I mean, you can’t sell it to someone who abuses animals, or someone who abandons pets on a whim. They need compassion, patience, financial stability… Ah, forget it, forget it. Guess I’m just unlucky. Tens of thousands wasted for nothing.”
“Then just sell it cheaper,” Wu Heng said as he stepped onto the stairs, his long brows knitting together.
“I can’t exactly give it away for free.”
“Fifty. Can you accept that?” Xie Chongyi asked.
Wu Heng: “…”
Only then did the owner realize. “So you two aren’t here to buy fish—you want the bird?!”
Seeing the man’s face darken instantly, Wu Heng thought for a moment before saying, “We were just passing by. Wanted to help solve your problem. If you don’t want to sell it, forget it.”
Xie Chongyi also turned as if preparing to leave.
“Hey, hey!” the owner hurriedly called after them. “Sell it? Of course I’ll sell it! But there’s no way I can let it go for fifty. If you’re only paying fifty, I might as well pluck its feathers and stew it into soup.”
In the end, the gray parrot was sold to Xie Chongyi for 6,600 yuan.
At that point, Xie Chongyi was already carrying too many things to handle a birdcage too, so the cage ended up in Wu Heng’s hands. The cage swayed constantly as the gray parrot shifted its footing inside again and again. Stretching its head out between the metal bars, it looked from one human to the other, then suddenly blurted out a loud:
“Idiot!”
But by then they had already walked far away, so the owner never heard it. And because he never heard it, he never realized that the gray parrot’s refusal to speak had simply been because it didn’t want to obey him.
—
The birdcage and the goldfish were placed on the front passenger seat of the taxi. In the back sat the two boys, along with flowers and enkianthus branches taking up almost one and a half seats by themselves. They all looked terribly delicate; being squeezed together would bruise them, knock off petals and leaves, leave them battered and damaged.
So Wu Heng ended up almost curled into Xie Chongyi’s arms.
The scent lingering on the boy’s body and in his hair blocked out the overly sweet fragrance of the flowers that would otherwise have filled Xie Chongyi’s senses.
One of Xie Chongyi’s hands idly traced along the car window, while the other rested awkwardly against the back of the seat. If he didn’t look out the window and lowered his gaze instead, he would see the pale nape of Wu Heng’s neck, finer and whiter than white roses. A slight glance farther down, and there were Wu Heng’s lips, softer and more vivid than red roses.
Most boys probably wouldn’t want to be described as “beautiful.” Xie Chongyi knew that perfectly well, which was why he only kept the thought to himself. And after studying him again and again, he decided that even if he said it aloud, it still wouldn’t change his opinion.
“I heard that before putting flowers into a vase, you’re supposed to cut the stems diagonally,” Wu Heng said thoughtfully.
But Xie Chongyi didn’t catch it clearly. While Wu Heng was speaking, he suddenly heard a burst of static in his ears. He asked what he had said, and Wu Heng repeated himself. This time the static disappeared, but the air inside the taxi seemed to heat up, as if the sunset itself had leapt into the car and begun roasting them.
The warmth swept through Xie Chongyi’s chest, softening his heart, melting it, drying it out, until nothing remained but a pinch of dust.
His beautiful friend had absolutely no idea how attractive he was.
“Why?” Xie Chongyi realized that when he spoke, his throat felt tight and sore. The last time he’d felt like this had been one morning the previous week.
Completely unaware of the changes happening in Xie Chongyi’s mind, Wu Heng answered, “It helps them absorb water better.”
The moment he finished speaking, the taxi suddenly lurched forward and stopped hard. Up front, the birdcage and plastic fish tank crashed onto the floor with loud bangs.
In the back seat, Wu Heng pitched forward while clutching the flowers.
Xie Chongyi reacted quickly and caught him in his arms. In the process, the tip of his nose brushed lightly across the skin at the back of Wu Heng’s neck.
He didn’t mean anything else by it. He only wanted to confirm whether he truly felt desire toward the other boy—whether, inside and out, from top to bottom, he really wanted him that way.
Up front, after cursing several times in dialect, the driver finally restarted the car.
After that, Xie Chongyi kept a polite distance from Wu Heng for the rest of the journey.
Wu Heng only noticed that his class monitor seemed to talk less—starting somewhere halfway through the trip. By the time they were almost at their destination, the other boy had fallen completely silent.
—
Xie Chongyi changed into slippers first. After taking the flowers and the birdcage from Wu Heng, he bent down and pulled out a brand-new pair of slippers from the cabinet, unwrapping them and handing them over.
“No need for new ones,” Wu Heng said, thinking it was unnecessary to be so polite.
Xie Chongyi simply opened the shoe cabinet generously to show him: there were no spare used slippers.
Only then did Wu Heng put on the new pair. Once inside, he immediately felt a kind of emptiness in the house—just like the shoe cabinet.
“Are you the only one living here?”
“They’re all in the capital,” Xie Chongyi replied.
Leaning against the shoe cabinet, he opened the birdcage. The gray parrot shot out at once, flying wildly around the room before landing on top of a speaker.
“Help me trim the flower stems?” he asked.
Wu Heng walked around to the other side of the kitchen island. Xie Chongyi brought over a vase and scissors. Wu Heng unwrapped the flowers one by one, then glanced at the vase.
“You only have one vase?”
“Three, I think.”
“Even three isn’t enough. Enkianthus usually shouldn’t be placed in the same vase as other plants.”
“Then take the extras home,” Xie Chongyi said with a faint smile. “Just say a friend gave them to you.”
Wu Heng thought about it and nodded. People like Wu Shiming and the others were annoying, but they probably wouldn’t care where his flowers came from.
At that moment, a gray shadow flashed past—it was the parrot again. It landed between the two of them, tilting its head from side to side.
“Does it have a name?” Xie Chongyi asked.
The gray parrot paced back and forth.
“Eat.”
Xie Chongyi ignored him completely. With his eyes lowered, he thought for a while and said, “Since it’s become my bird, it should take my surname. Let’s call it Xiao Xie.”
The gray parrot looked as if it had just been crowned. It spread its wings and strutted around the kitchen island twice.
Wu Heng hesitated as if he wanted to say something, until Xie Chongyi asked what was wrong. Only then did he speak.
“Isn’t that your own name?”
“I’m Xie Chongyi. It’s Xiao Xie. Different things.”
Wu Heng didn’t think there was any real difference—it was still just a nickname.
“Call it,” Xie Chongyi said, setting down the scissors and roses, suddenly interested in turning it into a little game of teasing the bird.
It didn’t seem like a big deal. Wu Heng opened his lips, but no sound came out.
Deep down, he didn’t agree with using his surname for a bird’s name. A full name might have been acceptable, but just the surname alone—who could tell whether you were calling a bird or a person?
