CH 78

Chapter 78 – Nighttime Fireworks

I want to preserve my own nature

Listening to the fans tell them about the fireworks there were to watch from across the street got Ling Yi suddenly excited. “Really? Do they look nice?”

“Very nice!”

So the six big boys went to the riverside to see the fireworks, but found more people there than they had thought there would be. They were within a shoulder-rubbing distance from everyone else, and wherever they stood, they would find themselves soon besieged by another group of people. 

“If we stay here any longer, it’s not going to be us watching fireworks.” Lu Yuan held a lollipop in his mouth. “It may become everyone watching us.”

“Is there no a place with a little less people?” He Ziyan turned his head to search for such a spot.

Jiang Miao opened up both hands. “I think it’s a bit risky. We’d better withdraw as soon as possible, since it won’t be good if we attract fans over here, gathering a crowd around us later.”

Ling Yi was holding onto the captain’s arm and groaning. Pei Tingsong looked at the river in the distance, knocked his shoulder against Fang Juexia’s, and asked in a low voice, “Do you want to see the fireworks?”

The tightly wrapped-up Fang Juexia raised his head, only showing a pair of beautiful eyes. Pei Tingsong immediately understood his intention after just two blinks of his eyes.

“Okay.” Pei Tingsong gripped his shoulder and then released it. “Wait for me here.”

The others were still wondering what was going on, but unexpectedly, Pei Tingsong returned after not too long. 

“Let’s go and see the fireworks.” He pulled on the sleeve of Fang Juexia’s sweater.

Ling Yi was doubtful. “Where are we going ah?”

Finally, they were brought in front of a big ocean liner. 

Lu Yuan whistled and walked in. He asked casually, “How many people are in here?”

“No one. I booked the whole thing.” Pei Tingsong pulled on Fang Juexia’s sleeve. “Didn’t you guys want to see the fireworks?”

He Ziyan put his hands behind his back, looking like an old cadre member, and repeatedly shook his head. “Look at this extravagance.”

Ling Yi asked, “Did you use that 100,000 from just now to book it?”

“Hahahahaha!”

Nighttime by the river was very beautiful, but for Fang Juexia, everything in his vision was still very hazy. Pei Tingsong quietly led him forward, step-by-step up the stairs, being both careful and considerate. They boarded the deck of the cruise ship with less than three minutes to go before the fireworks would bloom. The six people leaned shoulder to shoulder on the railing and looked up.

“Is it about to start?”

“Yes ba, we’re so close at this angle ah.”

“Right ah, we should be right below it when it explodes.”

Pei Tingsong leaned against Fang Juexia. The backs of their hands rubbed against each other, their skin pressing together before separating again. Secretively, in the dark and right by their bandmates’ side, they were hiding their hearts, which were about to stick close together. 

They heard the countdown from another boat full of tourists not far away.

Fang Juexia subconsciously accompanied them in counting down— three, two, one.

The night sky was originally silent and dark, until a flame shot up into the sky. With a bang, fireworks suddenly appeared and covered all of the originally dim sky; they were a cold white color, short and gorgeous, just like meteors gathered together. Fang Juexia suddenly discovered that when seen from a distance or across a screen, fireworks lost some of their vitality. Only when you were really immersed in the scene and watching it personally could you feel the brilliance that was emitted when the fireworks blossomed. 

Each piece of scattered shining white flowing fire hung in the air as it drifted down, seeming as if it would flow down into the midst of the audience, and ignite them all in a blaze in this carnival; but it didn’t, and these sparks simply disappeared mid-journey.

The fireworks in the air were engulfed by the night, and the fireworks reflected on the river were engulfed by the ripples.

The new ones replaced the old ones before they disappeared. The echo of the bursting fireworks  penetrated one’s body, and the vibrating sound wave overlapped with one’s heartbeat and pounded against the chest. 

That was the last sound the fireworks made before their lives ended. 

“Wow! So pretty!” Ling Yi pointed to the sky. “Look at that one, doesn’t it look like the shape of an ear of wheat?

“No, I need to make a wish, make a wish quickly.”

“Are you a little girl? You’re even going to make a wish.”

Ling Yi didn’t care. “I just need to. Bless my parents with good health, and let me never get fat no matter how much I eat.”

Jiang Miao also said with a smile, “Then bless our Kaleido so things go more smoothly in the future.”

“Yes!” Ling Yi said again, “Bless us, bless us to make a lot of money to go to the Maldives for a holiday this year!”

His words left Pei Tingsong speechless. “You are so persistent. How’s this ba? This young master will take you there.”

He Ziyan and Lu Yuan began to coax Ling Yi, but he really showed his backbone on this issue. “No way, I just want the company to pay me to go!”

“Whatever you want.”

Ling Yi showed an appreciative expression again as he suggested, “Although, you can take me to Dubai.”

“Tch, dream on.”

“Juexia,” Ling Yi called out his name over the sound of the fireworks, and asked, “Aren’t you going to make a wish?”

“Me?” Fang Jue had been engrossed in watching the show, but after being asked this by Ling Yi, he hesitated. 

A wish….

When he thought of this word, the first name that appeared in his mind was actually Pei Tingsong.

It was too incredible, the fact that he would actually want to make a wish related to him.

Fang Juexia said with a smile, “I wish that everyone’s wishes will all come true.”

“Look, what kind of human angel is this?”

His bandmates joked around, but Fang Juexia’s hand stretched out from his long sleeve, groped along the length of the railing, and finally found Pei Tingsong’s hand.

While everyone was fascinated by the bright fireworks, he quietly grasped Pei Tingsong’s hand.

Pei Tingsong, who was still bickering with Ling Yi, was suddenly stunned. He then turned his head to see Fang Juexia’s eyes, which were filled with fireworks as his head was still turned towards the sky.

He also gripped Fang Juexia’s hand in return, holding on tightly. 

Apart from the fireworks, no one else witnessed this secret tryst.

More and more fireworks shot into the sky and lit up the whole night. Fang Juexia, who kept looking up the whole while, felt like a child, both excited and thrilled. Maybe it was because he had never seen fireworks this close up before.

Or perhaps he had never seen such a resplendent darkness.

A fireworks display was composed of innumerable fleeting objects superimposed on top of each other, but even if it was superimposed again and again, the whole thing was short-lived. The night grew calm once again, making it seem as if those magnificent blooms had never happened.

Even after it was over, everyone was still a little lost in reverie, and no one wanted to leave, so they just remained on the cruise ship as it sailed along, chatting and watching the night scene together.

It had been a long time since they had had such an opportunity. They were all tossed into different activities every day, and they ended their days with all their energy exhausted. When they woke up the next day, they repeated this routine again, so it was very difficult for them to gather together for a chat like this.

Jiang Miao told them the plot of the script he had been recently reading over, and Lu Yuan talked about the gossip in the hip-hop dance show he was taking part in. Fang Juexia listened silently, occasionally inserting a word or two in.

The river had grown calm again, and it gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity. When he lived in Guangzhou, he had been on cruise ships several times. He lay on the railing, closed his eyes, and felt the moist wind, and it was as if he had returned to his hometown.

“Sleepy?”

Upon suddenly hearing Pei Tingsong’s voice, Fang Juexia opened his eyes and shook his head. “I’m just…. a little homesick.”

This was the first time Pei Tingsong had heard Fang Juexia say that he was homesick. He put his hands on the railing and asked, “Because of the boat?”

Fang Juexia nodded. “There are night markets, roadside stalls, and all kinds of snacks here. It’s strange that when I was in Beijing, I wasn’t homesick, but now, when I come to another such lively city, I start missing home.” He turned around and leaned back against the railing as he continued, “The food in Guangzhou is very delicious. Whenever I was hungry after school, I would go to the roadside stall to buy fried rice noodles and winter-melon tea. It was a very old shop, and the proprietress would pack it all into plastic bags and stick a straw in the tea to drink with.”

He gestured as he talked, looking at Pei Tingsong from time to time. He seemed afraid that Pei Tingsong wouldn’t believe it and stressed again, “That drink was really good.”

“Really?” Pei Tingsong put on a show of working hard to imagine it as he said to him, “But I can’t imagine what it tastes like.”

Fang Juexia was a little discouraged; he felt that his ability to express things wasn’t good enough.

Unexpectedly, Pei Tingsong then said, “You’ll have to take me there to drink it in person, seems that it’s only then that I will know how good it is.” He then began to count with his fingers, listing, “And there’s also your school, the food stalls you like to eat at, the paths you often walked, I want to go see all of them.”

Fang Juexia glanced at Ling Yi, who was not far away, and was looking up at the sky, before saying to him, “I didn’t say I would take you back.”

“You will.” Pei Tingsong’s tone was firm, as if it would definitely happen.

Fang Juexia couldn’t help laughing as he said, “You speak with such confidence every time, as if you think your judgment will never be wrong.”

“No ah, I was born confident, but I’m also clear that my judgment is often wrong.” Then Pei Tingsong explained, “For example, with you, I have made mistakes again and again.”

Fang Juexia took off his mask and said, “Such as with the hidden rules situation?”

Pei Tingsong openly laughed. “In fact, since a long time ago, I was skeptical towards that rumor, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t care that much about it.”

“But you still targeted me so much at that time,” Fang Juexia leaned closer to him, his posture declaring that he was bringing him to account, and he continued, “And you always held the hidden rules situation against me.”

Pei Tingsong raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t mean to defend myself.” He shrugged. “You may not believe it when I say it, but I was a little angry that you wouldn’t fight back at first. A rumor like that floating around the company, sometimes even getting gossiped about right in front of you, so why didn’t you ever bother to explain? It was like you were cut off from the world and indifferent to everything.”

Fang Juexia suddenly understood.

Sure enough, what Pei Tingsong really cared about weren’t the rumors themselves, but his attitude towards them. This was very in-line with Pei Tingsong’s personality, because he was a person born to rebel. If there was any injustice or anything that did not conform with his point of view, he would overthrow it without any scruple. A hot-blooded person naturally couldn’t stand a cold-blooded and indifferent person.

“But later, after I got to know you more, and then once I learned the truth from Liang Ruo, it was only then I realized that your attitude was because you wanted to help him hide this matter.”

Pei Tingsong shook his head and sighed. “You treat outsiders more gently than you treat yourself. Clearly you almost lost your bright future because of him, and yet you still wanted to protect his reputation.”

Fang Juexia instead replied, “I wasn’t protecting him, I was protecting myself.”

This statement made Pei Tingsong uncertain. “Protecting yourself?”

Fang Juexia bowed his head and said with a smile, “This circle is too complicated. Ever since my trainee days, I knew that talent, on its own, rarely determined anything. I’ve seen all kinds of ways people have gotten to the top, all kinds of deals being made. Many people who weren’t good enough to be singing and dancing artists could still make their debut as long as they were willing to change and exchange part of themselves. In that chaotic environment, the most difficult thing was not how to fight for a good future, nor was it not how to become an artist, but rather, how not to be affected by all this. 

“I couldn’t for the sake of my own future bring to light and fight about Liang Ruo’s matter, get involved, or clarify my situation, because I knew he was also a victim in this. I couldn’t do such things. So the only thing I could explain was that I didn’t do any of that.”

Pei Tingsong suddenly felt that he had gone back in time, to when he had first seen Fang Juexia. He was just like a straight, withered branch, stubborn and tough, and would rather break cleanly than be changed.

Maybe it was because he had seen his father’s good appearance when he was a child, a dancer who had been prosperous and growing steadily in his career and who had loved his wife and his life. Yet, he had also witnessed him go crazy because of his failure, then become another person, losing his original self entirely. That was why Fang Juexia had formed such laws of life. 

“From childhood to adulthood, we receive all kinds of education. Many people teach us what we should strive for, what we should achieve, and what we should work hard for. However, few will tell us what you should preserve. But what I want to do is to just preserve my own nature, nothing else.”

Fang Juexia looked at him. “I used to think it was easy, but as I grew up, I found it to be more complicated and difficult than I had thought. Human beings are such a complex polyhedron, and every face or even point are seemingly able to be brought out and represent a person. This is an external evaluation, one-sided and one-dimensional.” Fang Juexia shook his head slightly, refuting this practice. “But I know that the part of self that I want to preserve is the only thing that can truly represent me.”

He knew that he had said a lot of things that may seem strange in other people’s eyes. All this had been deeply buried in his heart, and he had never said it to anyone before. Seeing Pei Tingsong look at him with a kind of complicated gaze, Fang Juexia frowned, and felt a little strange. “Why are you looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong?”

Pei Tingsong chuckled and prefaced with, “I know that everyone’s knowledge bank is different, so the person I’m going to talk about next is someone you probably don’t know. He was a philosopher who lived in the 16th century. His name was Spinoza.”

“Spinoza…” Fang Juexia said the name again, before expressing that he wasn’t familiar with him. 

“His greatest achievement was to reconcile and unify the three categories of opposing ethics.” At this point, Pei Tingsong saw Fang Juexia’s puzzled expression. “Got off topic. To put it simply, he once wrote such a sentence in his book Ethics: ‘Everything, in so far as it is in itself, endeavours to persist in its own being, and the self that things strive to preserve is exactly the true essence of that thing.”

Hearing these words in the black of the night left Fang Juexia slightly stunned.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Pei Tingsong looked at him and slightly raised his eyebrows. “So, when I heard you say what you did just now, suddenly there was a kind of…. Across time and space, it’s very mysterious to see Spinoza’s philosophical pursuit reappear in you, but that really is the case.”

This was one of his favorite philosophers. He had calmly and self sustainably confronted the tragic fate of his life and never admitted defeat.

“Just now, I was very touched. You have never read his books or studied his theoretical systems, but you have naturally lived like this. At that moment, I was thinking that thoughts really can just exist in a kind of mysterious void-like space, ridding themselves of both body and time to achieve some kind of collision and resonance.”

Fang Juexia was actually also a rebel. Unlike Pei Tingsong, he revolted subconsciously, just to protect himself.

After listening to Pei Tingsong’s words, Fang Juexia had an indescribable feeling. On the one hand, he thought that it was intriguing, but on the other hand, he thought that Pei Tingsong was perhaps just being partial to him, and would only say this because of that. He was an ordinary person who wasn’t proficient in philosophy at all, but Pei Tingsong’s description had also made him curious. “Then… What kind of person was Spinoza?”

“How to describe him?” Pei Tingsong thought seriously before answering, “He was a man who was proficient in mathematics, so he pretty much used mathematical techniques to study philosophy. He was extremely restrained and advocated rationality. You don’t even know how he lived. He spent most of his time in his room doing research and didn’t see anyone for days.”

Fang Juexia asked again, “Then did he have any income?”

“Speaking of this, it was even more amazing,” Pei Tingsong said as he grabbed his hand and played with it. “He was originally a teacher, but later he changed to grinding lenses for work. He was skilled at it, but he didn’t really try to sell them. Every year, he would accurately calculate how many lenses he needed to grind just to meet his basic living and research costs, and he would recalculate it again every quarter, and he lived extremely accurately.”

Saying that, Pei Tingsong laughed. “You’re really like him.”

Fang Juexia thought about it and found it very interesting. Although Pei Tingsong was teasing him, he was still teasing him using a great philosopher, so he was in fact totally exalting Fang Juexia. “You shut up, I can’t be that.”

Pei Tingsong spoke from the bottom of his heart, “You can be anything.” He was very happy, because he had come to understand Fang Juexia a little more, as if he was now a little closer to his soul. Facing such a small, closed off ice-cube, this was a great leap indeed.

Ling Yi ran back to show off the dialect he had just learned. “Does it sound like them, Juexia? Did I learn it right?”

Fang Juexia was about to nod when Pei Tingsong took the lead and snarked, “How does it sound like them? Everything you learn sounds like the Chengdu dialect.”

“You! I just speak the Chengdu dialect, so what’s the matter? A melon-like you can’t even learn it, tch.”

With that, Ling Yi ran away. Pei Tingsong looked at Fang Juexia with a confused expression and said, “He just cursed me out ba? He cursed me, right?”

Fang Juexia played dumb. “Really? I don’t know.”

“It must be. That little whelp.” Pei Tingsong rolled up his sleeves and was about to chase Ling Yi, but he was stopped by Fang Juexia. “Who told you to tell him that the dialect he learned doesn’t sound right?”

“But it was that way.” The irritable little overlord let out a long sigh. “Alright, I won’t lower myself to the same level as this single loveless dog.”

Hearing his words, Fang Juexia immediately kicked him. “Shh.”

Pei Tingsong chuckled and acted as if he was begging for mercy, and then soon remembered something. “By the way, you haven’t talked to me in your dialect. I want to hear you speak in Cantonese.”

“Didn’t I sing in it last time?” Fang Juexia pulled at his own hood twice. 

“That doesn’t count. Can’t you say a sentence to me?”

Fang Juexia excused himself, saying that he didn’t know what to say, and he was adamant on not saying anything. Pei Tingsong kept fussing at him, and also playfully threatened him, pretending that he would jump off the rail.

“Jump then. I can’t see anything, but I’ll at least hear the sound of you falling into the water.” Fang Juexia smiled at him.

“Too cruel.”

By the time they had played around enough, the cruise ship had also pulled into the harbor. They disembarked one by one, stepping on the ground, away from the river.

Pei Tingsong, like a big boss, pulled everyone in from left to right in a hug. “Had a good time, Geges?”

“Great time, thank you, group bully!”

“Then when you guys go back, take turns washing my clothes for me!”

“What did you say? The wind is too strong, can’t hear a thing.”

Fang Juexia, who was walking behind everyone, laughed as he stepped into their shadows. It was only when they scattered after the joke that he came up to Pei Tingsong, who was about to catch up with him. “Wait.”

“What’s the matter?” Pei Tingsong obeyed him and stopped.

Fang Juexia put his hands in his pockets and drew close to his ear. An unfamiliar language, in a voice softer than the dim light of the night, sounded—

“bb, I fancy you as all get out.”

—

The author has something to say:

Translation: “Baby, I like you so much ah.”

bb has that kind of feeling, of coaxing children and coaxing one’s love object, and it’s a very intimate kind of address. You can search Guangdong boys saying it, and it’s very Sue-ish.

Talking a bit more about Spinoza. If you are interested, you can listen to it as a story. Why does Pei Tingsong say that he revolted against his miserable life? Because Spinoza was a Jew, and he came from a merchant family, he was a child of a wealthy family. He studied religion and history with great talent and gradually headed down the road of philosophical studies. Because of his religious background, he considered many issues related to religion and philosophy, and also questioned some religious teachings at that time.

When he was 23 years old, he was arraigned by the Jewish church. It was said that he spread heresy. He was not willing to pretend to cater to them, so he was excommunicated and accepted expulsion. His father drove him away, and his older sister tried to cheat him out of his inheritance. He was almost assassinated with a dagger by a devout theological student when he was walking on the road, because he had violated their religious doctrine. Later, he rented an attic outside Amsterdam, going from his original comfortable existence to becoming fatigued and isolated.

However, many people admired him, and some even wanted to give him all their inheritance, which Spinoza refused.

At that time, Spinoza’s research was very dangerous. How dangerous was it? He had to finish his writing quietly and not publish it, otherwise his life would be in danger. He gave the landlord a key and asked them to help publish his  books after he died.

His life is also very legendary. If you are interested, you can search it~