CH 12

“Xiao Jie, why have you not visited me for so long?” Yang Youling sits on my lap, and says with a tone full of dissatisfaction.

Though we are nominally godfather and goddaughter, she never addresses me as one. It is always ‘Xiao Jie’, and I wonder where she has heard it from.

“Because I have to work to earn money.” I boop her tiny nose and park my wheelchair in front of the dining table.

“So hard-working.” The little girl kisses my cheek with a stuffed rabbit in her hand and adds, “Alright then, you’re forgiven.”

“Let’s eat.” Yang Haiyang walks out from the kitchen bringing the last course of soup, and when he sees his daughter sitting on top of me, he rushes over to get her down. One can tell by his expression how much he is afraid that Yang Youling will crush me.

Actually, I don’t think I’m that fragile. Since the stargazing with Shang Muxiao, I feel a little more physically and mentally resilient.

“Oh.” Yang Youling pouts as she hops out of the wheelchair and sits down in her own personal seat with the stuffed rabbit in her arms.

It is said that this pink stuffed rabbit is a birthday present from Shang Yunrou. The little girl likes it so much that she carries it with her everywhere she goes these days.

The dishes are all personally cooked by Yang Haiyang. Being home-cooked, they taste really good, way tastier than takeaways.

As we eat, Yang Haiyang and I carry on a casual chat, mostly about parental topics, how Yang Youling is doing in nursery school, the convenience store, him and Shang Yunrou…

“I like Aunty Yunrou, I want her to be my mom!” Upon hearing the name Shang Yunrou, Yang Youling looks up from her own rice bowl, a grain of rice still clinging onto her lips.

“But I have yet to ask Aunty Yunrou to marry me. You say, what do you think I should do?” Yang Haiyang picks the rice off his daughter’s lips and smiles with a doting fatherly look.

“Then you should put in more effort.” Yang Youling’s little brows furrow as she gives a serious proposal, “Act pitiful. Aunty Yunrou is so nice, she’ll take pity on you.”

I cannot help but laugh aloud and then say to Yang Haiyang, “Did you hear that? Act pitiful, she said. Mug up.”

Yang Haiyang is also at a loss, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “I cannot do that, I’m not Shang Muxiao.”

At the mention of Shang Muxiao, the smile on my lips fades a little. I then purposely change the subject by saying, “Have you already proposed?”

Yang Haiyang had also just mentioned it as a passing remark. He soon forgets about Shang Muxiao and starts talking about his proposal plan.

“I’m going to propose on Thanksgiving Day.”

“Thanksgiving Day?” Though it is also a holiday, Chinese people are mostly non-religious. One rarely hears of a proposal that is chosen specifically on that day.

Yang Haiyang says, “If the proposal is successful, that day will be my Thanksgiving day every year.”

I’m in awe and feeling deeply moved. I never thought that Yang Haiyang would have such a sweet and romantic side to him.

“I have booked a candlelit dinner in advance and have also bought the ring. I only hope that everything will go smoothly on that day, and no mishaps will occur.” A flicker of worry passes through his eyes, but it soon dissipates and he makes no more comments.

I think I know what he means by ‘mishaps’. Should Shang Muxiao learn of his proposal, it will be more than just smashing a glass plane. I am afraid he will be attacked by Shang Muxiao in a dark alley and have his head smashed in.

After the meal, Yang Haiyang then clears the table and goes to his bedroom where he takes out two tickets for an art exhibition and gives them to me.

“Mei Zixun’s solo exhibition?” I read the letterhead on the ticket, and the artist’s name sounds unfamiliar to me.

“It’s Yunrou’s mom.” Yang Haiyang says, “After her passing, her paintings were all managed by a foundation under her name, which holds regular exhibitions globally every year, with the proceeds going to charity in addition to maintaining the foundation’s daily run.”

“The tickets were given to me by Yunrou to give to you. She said you look like a person who would very much appreciate art…”

Though aesthetics is also a branch of philosophy, I have always only researched and discussed it in class, but know very little about the works it exhibits. Still…

“Thank her for me.” Since Shang Yunrou especially gave it to me, I should at least show up, thus not disappointing her generosity.

There is only one person close to me who is definitely interested in an art exhibition, and that is Shen Luoyu, so I give her a call and she happens to be free this Saturday.

The exhibition is to take place at the National Gallery of Art from 08:00 a.m to 05:00 p.m. I have agreed with Shen Luoyu to meet at 03:00 pm at the entrance of the gallery, so that we can just go straight to dinner afterwards.

Prior to the exhibition day, I look up some information about Mei Zixun on the internet to have at least a basic understanding of her paintings, so I will not be at a loss to understand what I am looking at by then.

The internet is mostly focused on her exhibitions, awards and the like, while Shang Lu is only briefly mentioned, and not once does the words ‘depression’ or ‘suicide’ appear, only that she died of illness at the age of thirty-seven.

Her most emblematic paintings, mostly before the age of thirty, combine bright and brilliant colours with natural landscapes, which have created her unique personal style, and were once described by the famous art critic, Fan Feng, as ‘the number one Oriental impressionist’. Regrettably, after she reached the age of thirty, her paintings waned year by year due to illness, and eventually, she ceased to produce work in her last two years.

The ‘The Courtyard View’ marks the last of a set of three giant oil paintings she created in her thirties, each measuring 190 x 200 cm, and is arguably the star of every exhibition; even the tickets feature a part of this painting.

Come Saturday, Shen Luoyu and I meet up at the entrance of the gallery and enter together, then we split up and go our separate ways to look around the exhibition, agreeing to meet at the exit at five o’clock.

The exhibition hall is rather extensive, but not too crowded, and from time to time no one really bothers to look at a painting for a long time.

Mei Zixun’s work of colour is really impressive. It was already beautiful when I saw it online, but seeing it in person, ‘stunning’ is the only word to describe it.

I take my time wandering around, looking at each one, enjoying myself so much that by the time I get to the area where the ‘The Courtyard View’ is on display, it is already almost four o’clock.

The exhibition hall has only one entrance and one exit. Just when I am about to proceed, my eyes catch sight of a man standing in the middle of the hall, wearing a baseball cap and a black biker jacket. I do not need to see the entire face of the man, just his profile and I can tell it is Shang Muxiao.

He hasn’t been showing up before me the entire week. Following the call-off of the bet, it seems that all contact between us has also been cut off.

The wounds on my palm and leg have already formed scabs after a week of treatment, and I believe they will be back to normal after some time. I believe that Shang Muxiao will also be like these wounds, gradually fade out of my memory, and never cross paths again. But then coming across him here…

Oh yes, this is his mother’s art exhibition, there is no wonder that as a son, he also came to take a look.

I intend to make a quiet, hasty exit before he notices, when a sweep of my eyes catches sight of what he is holding. My heart suddenly pounds.

It is a box cutter, resembling a pen, retractable and a good hand for unpacking boxes. I know this because I have such a knife as well.

It is not as sharp as a traditional knife, but it is more than capable of cutting through the oil painting canvas.

Shang Muxiao is standing silently in front of the ‘The Courtyard View’, staring up at the very centre of it, his hand constantly extending and retracting the cutter, unaware of my arrival.

His visage is very sombre, and the expression he wears as he stares at the painting in front of him is faintly menacing. It is as if it is not a beautiful courtyard in his dreams, but a place of his darkest nightmares.

I have a feeling he’s going to do something stupid. He especially brings a cutter and passes through security — I don’t think he’s just here to collect a package.

Suddenly, he walks toward the painting.

“Shang Muxiao!” Before rationality takes hold, my body gives itself the go-ahead.

Shang Muxiao stops in his tracks and looks at me as if he’s seen a ghost, and I take that time to go over and grab his wrist.

“Let go.” He sounds frightening. He’s not dwelling on why I am here, but simply asking me to let go of him.

The more he acts like this, the more I don’t let go, instead holding on tighter.

“What are you going to do? There are surveillance cameras all over the place and every painting is equipped with an alarm, are you mad?” Although these are his mother’s paintings, they technically already belong to the foundation, something he cannot possess, let alone have the right to destroy.

“I repeat, let go.” He enunciates the last two words.

It would have been better if I hadn’t seen it in the first place. Now that I am here, how can I just do nothing?

He tries to set his hand free, but I hold onto it firmly to prevent him from taking any action. Both of us are tugging in the hall. He thinks I’m being nosy, I think he’s being too unruly, and both of our actions are marked with resoluteness.

I do not understand why he always has to do something out of the ordinary. He has a great youth ahead of him, but he is spending it so stupidly.

“Give me the knife.” I reach for the knife, which he dodges very fiercely. Between the struggle, a sharp pain assaults my palm, and the next moment, the knife falls to the ground and slides strongly to the foot of the wall.

“You…” He looks so enraged that I feel for a moment that he really wants to kill me. But he freezes on the spot as soon as he sees my hand, and so does his expression, leaving a numb face; this numbness does not dissipate for a long time.

My palm is bleeding from a cut sustained by the knife. Luckily though, it is not that deep; it’s just that this fresh wound adds to the old one, and I am afraid it will take a while to heal again.

I hold up my hand and pull a hankie from my pocket to pressure the wound, not looking at him anymore.

“You shouldn’t have stopped me.” The bitterness in his words is so obvious, but his voice veers to calm, in the sense that he has given up his intention to destroy the painting.

Clamorous voices can be heard from outside the hall, interspersed with the sound of intercoms. It appears that the security has detected something off in the hall from the surveillance and has sent the nearest security guard over to check.

I hurriedly look up at Shang Muxiao. I see him still standing, unbothered and unintimidated, and I frown as I urge, “Are you still not going?”

He gives me a deep look and then turns to ‘The Courtyard View’, looking rather reluctant, but the situation forces him to hasten and he can only leave so, thus, he exits through another door.

Immediately after he has gone, I pick up the knife from the foot of the wall, and no sooner have I put it in the storage pouch on the side of my wheelchair than the security guard arrives. He scans his eyes over me and checks around the hall, and after spotting nothing, he replies to his intercom and goes back to patrolling elsewhere.

I slump my shoulders and take a deep, deep breath, realising as an afterthought that I have been so nervous just now that I have forgotten to even breathe.

I no longer feel like strolling through the exhibition once more, so I simply head out early and buy some gauze from a nearby pharmacy to treat the wound. The gallery closes at five o’clock and I meet up with Shen Luoyu at the entrance, and she is quite surprised to see the wound on my hand.

“Where did you get this injury? Was it there before? Why don’t I remember.” She props up her eyeglasses and leans in closer to get a better look.

I withdraw my hand to hide it, not letting her see too clearly.

“It was there, you just missed it. It happened to me by accident last week, I have it on my leg too, but it’s almost healed.”

“You fell? How? Where? Is your leg okay?” She asks a series of questions, not in the least doubting the truth of my words.

“I’m hungry, let’s go to dinner now.” I deliberately avoid answering any of her questions, concentrating only on the number one most important agenda in life.

“Aiya, you…” She cannot pry me out. She is frustrated, but there is nothing she can do about me, and only a moment later she catches up with me. “Then how about eating at that place I told you about last time?”

I originally thought that after the art exhibition, my relationship with Shang Muxiao would be completely over. Apart from occasional encounters on campus as well as his sister’s in the offing wedding, there is unlikely to be a chance of meeting him again in private.

But to my surprise, I run into him again the next day, all the more so on my own doorstep.

He is soaked to the skin, blocking my way, rainwater dripping from the tips of his hair and sliding down the ends of his eyes, like a dog no longer favoured.