-2-
2017 was both long and short.
Ten months, thirty days each month.
Turning over twelve times a day, massaging limbs five times, dealing with excretion four times, and feeding three times.
Then time passed.
Mei Shengyao, who had been taken care of all his life, used to throw his underwear and pajamas directly into the washing machine when living in the dormitory. It took him an hour the first time he helped Chi Ji change his pajamas.
Mei Heng couldn’t stand to watch, thinking he had neglected his son too much, so he joined him in learning how to care for the patient.
After two or three weeks, Mei Shengyao even learned how to inject nutritional supplements and regularly fed soups to observe any swallowing response.
Then he was able to turn Chi Ji over as if rolling together, refusing to let Mei Heng come over to help anymore.
Stubbornly like a child.
Mei Heng couldn’t accept it at first, but as time passed, he gradually got used to it.
He stayed home for nearly a year, then went out to inquire about Han Qu and others.
And regularly kept in touch with Pei Ruye, confirming the preparation progress and start time of the new plan.
Mei Shengyao was once again left in the vast and lonely mansion.
He would sit by the bed, murmuring about many things.
First, he talked about his anxieties and fears throughout the year, apologized for secretly watching his senior brother shower, and for his strange dreams.
Then he worried about Brother Ren’s mental state, whether the other brothers would misunderstand him, and inexplicably got angry at them.
And even more angry at himself.
So angry that there was no way to deal with it.
Chi Ji looked beautiful in his sleep.
His eyelashes were long, his face was pale without a hint of color, and his lips were a light peach pink.
But he no longer sang or danced, slowly being forgotten by the world.
For a while, Mei Shengyao mechanically turned, massaged, fed, bathed, and changed diapers until his brain numbed, relying on the sunlight to discern how many days had hazily passed.
Gradually, he became more proficient, having time to read books or pick pajamas and small accessories for Chi Ji after completing daily tasks.
“Senior brother, I really want to go out and play.”
“Senior brother, Jiang Jue went to visit graves again today, do you want to talk to him?”
“Senior brother, I want to eat fried chicken. Wake up soon, and we can go out together…”
“Senior brother has lost weight recently, I wonder if he can hear me talking.”
When Mei Heng returned home after finishing chores and saw his son, he almost thought two vegetative people were living there.
“No—” he declared firmly, “Mei Shengyao, listen carefully, you need to find someone to take turns caring for him, or you’ll really go mad.”
Mei Shengyao whispered, “I want to eat fried chicken.”
“And egg tarts.”
“Mei Shengyao, did you hear me talking?”
The young man looked up at him and shook his head: “I didn’t hear.”
“You need to protect your mental state,” Mei Heng took a deep breath, “otherwise, if Chi Ji doesn’t wake up and you break down first, I tell you, I don’t want to attend anyone’s funeral in my lifetime—whether it’s real or fake!”
Mei Shengyao paused for a while, then slowly said, “Does it have to be this way?”
“You must choose someone to take turns. I can come, or anyone you trust. I’ll go and explain to them—”
“Call Xie Lianyun.” The young man suddenly said.
“What?”
“He owes Chi Ji.” Mei Shengyao said indifferently, “No need to ask further.”
Mei Heng finally made it to 2018, relying on “The Chosen by God” to distract himself from the absurd insecurity of life for a few seconds. He had seen Xie Lianyun many times during meetings at the TV station.
He brewed over it for a long time, and at a sufficiently safe moment, he subtly spoke to Xie Lianyun about it.
“My son is taking care of a nightingale.”
“Could you please go and help.”
Xie Lianyun was stunned for a long time before standing up and leaving with Mei Heng.
He couldn’t shuttle between the Mei mansion and the TV station, so he left in a vehicle used by the company’s logistics team to buy groceries and fruits, changing vehicles three times, and finally disguised as a construction worker to enter the old mansion.
It wasn’t Han Qu he was guarding against, but the omnipresent paparazzi.
The existence of this place, the person hidden here, must not be known by any more people.
Even as he stepped into the Mei family’s old mansion, Xie Lianyun felt it could be a trap or some kind of prank.
He had personally touched Chi Ji’s ashes, spending the year like a madman asking people to conduct tests, to the point where he even started to see himself as a pervert.
Then came fingerprint recording, voiceprint registration, and pupil recognition.
After that, Mei Heng gave him a golden key.
It felt like the final reward after cutting through the thorns in a fairy tale.
Mei Heng patted his shoulder.
“This is between you two.”
“Remember to get more sun.”
Nearly four minutes after Mei Heng left, Xie Lianyun finally turned the key and opened the door.
He heard the pause of the heart monitor.
Mei Shengyao was bending over to change Chi Ji into a freshly washed pajama and, upon seeing Xie Lianyun, shouted, “Don’t look at my senior brother’s butt!”
Xie Lianyun abruptly stopped in his tracks, following the directive to take another look at the familiar butt.
Quite perky.
He just stood still about six meters away, watching Mei Shengyao change clothes, turn the patient over, feed nutritional supplements, and attach a bracelet.
The bracelet was adorned with a ruby little lion, the warning clear.
Xie Lianyun’s legs stiffened from standing, finally finding his voice.
“Mei Shengyao.”
“Hmm.”
“Who is he?”
“It’s Chi Ji.”
“Who is he?”
“Chi Ji.” Mei Shengyao looked at him with suppressed anger: “He had three surgeries, and the hair on the back of his head hasn’t grown back much. It wasn’t easy to fatten him up a bit!”
Xie Lianyun pressed his forehead, taking a while before asking again, “Do Ren Ren and the others know?”
“I hinted at it, but visiting is forbidden.” Mei Shengyao patted his hands, wiping the bedside table and the guardrail with a cloth soaked in disinfectant water, casually saying, “If I don’t go out for a walk, my dad will go nuts.”
“He hopes I find someone to take turns, Xie Lianyun, you owe him.”
The fox-eyed young man steadied himself, his gaze inching over the soft bedding, and finally resting on the peaceful sleeping face.
“Yes.” He spoke softly, “If I hadn’t gone to England that year, how good it would have been.”
Even if they had never met Chi Ji, allowing him to become an ordinary actor in another country, not shining brightly enough, how good it would have been.
They were all too greedy.
Wanting everything, yet unable to hold onto anything.
Mei Shengyao didn’t like such emotionally charged moments.
He neatly wrung out three cloths to dry in the sunlight, then meticulously instructed on the daily routine, just like when they made albums.
How to turn the body, how to massage the neck and key joints.
How to bathe and wash the hair of an unresponsive family member, how to handle urine bags and pads.
“Disinfect once a day, feed nutritional supplements three times,” he instructed, “Senior brother now has a swallowing reflex, meals can be pureed three times a day, but don’t feed too much.”
“And, senior brother doesn’t eat mustard greens, don’t feed him that.”
Xie Lianyun listened intently for a long time.
“Got it.”
Mei Shengyao stared at him for two seconds.
“I’ll stay here a few more days, then go out for about half a month.”
“I’ll handle the TV station stuff remotely or hand it over to President Su.” Xie Lianyun said calmly, “The day after tomorrow, I’ll record one last show, then there’s no need to appear again.”
“That’s unnecessary, don’t arouse certain people’s curiosity.” Mei Shengyao tiredly said, “My dad says SPF has been reshuffling these past two years. Although several executives have been cleared out, it’s still not completely stable.”
Xie Lianyun hummed in agreement.
“Alright, I’m going out to have dinner with my dad, he’s gotten so thin his cheekbones are showing.” Mei Shengyao pointed to the wardrobe, bookcase, and miscellaneous cabinet nearby: “Familiarize yourself with these, I’m too lazy to explain.”
“See you.”
The young man took a couple of steps, then turned back in the twilight.
Xie Lianyun stood still on the right side of the bed, he stopped on the left.
Chi Ji was quietly sleeping in the middle, his cheeks as soft as the petals of a white rose.
The young man paused, returning to Chi Ji’s side.
Looking gently for a long time.
Mei Shengyao whispered, “I love him so much.”
He couldn’t clearly distinguish his own feelings.
Attachment, closeness, regret, fear, or perhaps the memory of the scent of daisies from his youngest days.
Blended with too many memories and times, impossible to label and categorize.
The young man leaned over and kissed his face, truly like kissing a flower.
He looked up at Xie Lianyun again.
“I’m leaving, see you later.”
Xie Lianyun suddenly spoke.
“For the sake of our many years of friendship, Shengyao.”
“Go talk to Dr. Wu, I can help you make an appointment.”
Mei Shengyao started to smile.
“My illness isn’t light.”
“Let’s talk about it after all these damned things are over.”
After the door closed, the dusk ended.
The last rays of sunlight slipped away quietly, with a few distant calls of the cuckoo.
The night light automatically turned on, hidden beside the bed in the partition, a warm yellow.
Xie Lianyun didn’t know how long he had stood there, his knees aching before he finally sat down.
“I just knew.” He murmured, “You wouldn’t leave.”
“Chi Chi, I’ve been like a fool these two years.”
“Ren Ren made it through, Bo Jue went to the conservatory to become a professor.”
“Long Jia is terribly busy, he got his stomach upset from a social drinking session, had to take an injection while hiding from the video call, scared of being seen by Bo Jue.”
“I haven’t written a song in a long time.”
“Ren Ren was in a rush this time, he had an album coming out at the end of July, I should have done more for him.”
“But sitting in front of the keyboard for a long time, my mind was just blank.”
Xie Lianyun raised his hand, wanting to touch the young man’s face.
He hesitated for too long, so by the time he finally did, it was almost like caressing a mandolin, confirming the other’s temperature.
In the past five years, he had hugged Huo Ren and Mei Shengyao many times, even embraced Bo Jue voluntarily after a heartbreak.
But contact with Chi Ji’s body had always been restrained and limited.
Looking back at everything, each performance, each new song, each time they looked up at the fireworks and endless lights together, it all had blurred like bubbles.
Perhaps it’s a human instinct to avoid pain.
“…How did you lose so much weight.”
Xie Lianyun lightly touched his hand with his nose, holding his right hand, his voice very soft.
He originally thought, the worst thing he ever did was to involve Huo Ren to the point of leaving a scar.
That incident would haunt him for a lifetime, never to be forgotten.
But that seemed only a wave before the tsunami.
He was swallowed and obliterated at the start of 2017, now living alone, just short of cooking vegetable porridge.
And then drinking it all in a daze.
“Mei Shengyao hasn’t contacted me for a long time, he said you’ve been slowly recovering, now able to swallow, occasionally moving your fingers.” Xie Lianyun leaned his head against his arm, explaining softly, “I’ve been searching the world for you, even had a friend write a program to search satellite images to find out where you were taken, how come you haven’t appeared in my dreams for so long.”
“Chi Chi…” He sighed dreamily, “So you were asleep.”
Author’s Note:
Mei Shengyao experienced severe trauma during his childhood/adolescence, which has been subtly highlighted throughout the story regarding identity and consequences.
———–
This chapter’s emotions are open to interpretation, including purely brotherly affection.
After reflection, the alternative storylines involving Xie Chi & Mei Chi will be developed by my friend, Da Qing Hua Fish, and will be available for free upon completion.
The main text will continue until Huo Ren awakens Chi Ji.
Ehhh an alternative story line? Where is it uploaded? Weibo? But haha ofc our main character will awaken Chi Ji. Thank you for the translation!
I understand that they feel guilty because guilt is the most common “defence mechanism” after a trauma. But I hope that everyone reading this story realises that none of the 6 members are guilty for anything. All of them are the victims here and it was never their “job” to do something different. I fact, they have already gone above and beyond.
yao yao…