(1)
Splash splash came from the gravel beach.
At the edge of the waves was a bloody setting sun about to disappear.
The motorcycle was parked leaning against the guardrail. The three of them had their backs to the highway, leaning against the stone stele carved with red seal script.
Behind them rose a golden moon, with even a few sparse stars dotting the sky.
Night was approaching, and the dim light of the sunset became increasingly elongated.
Zhou Chao gulped down his Jiu gulp gulp, his face flushed red.
“Empty…” He dazedly lifted the brown glass bottle labeled “Three-Year Aged Jiafan Wine,” shook it woodenly a few times, then stiffly turned his neck to look at An Jing beside him. “Is there more…?”
“Don’t drink anymore, you’ve already finished a bottle.” An Jing covered her own Jiu, which she had only taken two sips of, with her palm. “You’re not a good drinker, you know.”
“It’s fine…! Today I feel… I can drink.”
“Come on, if you get too drunk and pass out, we’ll be in trouble. Taking a dead drunk back on a motorcycle is no easy feat.” An Jing shook her head vigorously. “What’s gotten into you? Back then… when your childhood sweetheart broke up with you, I didn’t see you drink this much.”
Zhou Chao looked at An Jing with calm eyes, then suddenly broke into a foolish grin.
First, he shrugged his shoulders, kept his mouth shut, and let out a few muffled laughs from his throat. Then he covered his forehead with his palm, his whole body shaking with laughter, looking as creepy as an epilepsy patient.
Then he suddenly opened his mouth, tilted his head back, and laughed loudly, unusually loud, but without any hint of cheerfulness or abandon.
“Heh… hehe… haha… cough cough…!!”
“Take it easy, are you okay?” An Jing lightly patted Zhou Chao’s back and shook her head helplessly.
Fang Qiang, on the side, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pressing the back of his head against his broad chest. “Bro, what the hell is going on with you? We came over, you opened the bottle and kept drinking, and when we asked you what happened, you wouldn’t say a word. You just kept drinking and drinking until the bottle was empty, and that still wasn’t enough. This isn’t like you.”
“Love… hehe… ah…”
“Dammit, man, pull yourself together!” Fang Qiang lightly patted Zhou Chao’s cheek. “You’re supposed to be a relationship master! How did you suddenly become like this? When you were giving others advice, you were always calm and collected. Logically, nothing related to love should ever stump you!”
“You… you don’t know shit…” Zhou Chao grabbed the Jiu from Fang Qiang’s hand, forcefully yanked it to his lips, and managed to gulp down several big mouthfuls before the other could take the bottle back. “People who treat others’ heart sickness… often can’t cure their own heart sickness!”
“Can’t you apply all those principles you have to yourself?”
“Bullshit principles… Everyone knows those damn principles. All kinds of magazines have all sorts of great truths, but who the hell listens? Who the hell… actually does them?”
“That means you don’t really understand them yet.” Fang Qiang patted Zhou Chao’s head. “You, kid… that mature act of yours is also just putting up a front, right?”
“Bullshit…”
“Zhou Chao! I get it now.” An Jing suddenly understood and smacked her palm. “This time, you hurt someone who loved you, right? If it were just a simple breakup, you wouldn’t be this upset. Unless… you did something wrong. Before you did it, you thought you were right, maybe even felt… good about it, but afterwards you realized you had struck out at someone who actually hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Zhou Chao, drunk, lifted his eyelids, slowly raised his right hand, which perhaps felt too heavy for him at that moment, and extended his index finger, waving it twice at An Jing. “Hey… you, kid… as usual, you’re playing dumb…”
“What the hell? What are you two talking about? Riddles?” Fang Qiang frowned. “Speak clearly, I can’t understand a thing with all this nonsense.”
“Haha… just what An Jing said.”
“So that’s how it is.” An Jing sighed, crossed her legs, held the bottle with both hands, and took a careful sip. “Remember that day we went for a ride by the seaside? I said something similar then. But at that time, I only had a vague worry.”
“I denounced her, I humiliated her to her face, but I never thought she actually loved me. Or rather, she had truly loved each of her exes. I never imagined there could be someone like that in this world. But… she might be wrong, but… how wrong was she?” Zhou Chao smiled bitterly and shook his head. “Her mistake was not being able to judge people. But was she wrong to put her heart into every relationship? She even gave me more, gave me everything. But I…”
“Oh… now that you put it that way, I kind of understand. You thought she was the same as Ninth Love, but it turned out she wasn’t. The vows she made to you were all sincere, right?” Fang Qiang rubbed his temples and sighed earnestly. “Zhou Chao, if you always walk by the river, you’ll eventually get your feet wet…”
“I don’t really know much about love.” An Jing leaned back again, pressing her head against the stele that still retained some residual warmth. “But if you always approach people with a vengeful attitude, that can’t be right, can it?”
“Uh… even though I was once a victim of such women, it’s true. If you start out only wanting revenge, you’ll never receive sincerity. Even if you do, it will, it will…” Fang Qiang scratched his head, momentarily at a loss for words.
“It will be torn to shreds by the flames of anger. The one who hurt you was just Ninth Love, but you treated every new partner as Ninth Love to take revenge on. Maybe you deliberately sought out people similar to Ninth Love… but what’s the point? Once, twice, three times, so many times, even if you have a lot of anger inside, shouldn’t it have subsided by now?”
“Right, just like when you’re playing a game.” Fang Qiang tried to make an analogy in his own way. “If someone goes red name and kills you in the wild, takes your gear, then you also go red name and kill someone with a similar name, level, and equipment. In the end, you’ll get more and more red-eyed, gradually turning into indiscriminate killing, and then you become a public enemy in the game. When everyone gangs up on you, they won’t listen to the ‘hurt’ you suffered at first…”
Zhou Chao curled his lips and squeezed out a smile uglier than crying. “Heh… but since it’s already like this, how can I make up for it?”
“It’s never too late to make amends.”
“That’s right, a prodigal who returns to the pursuit of virtue is better than gold, okay.” Fang Qiang lifted Zhou Chao’s upper body, which had almost slid to the ground, by holding him under his armpits. “Honestly, your reputation is so bad. As your best brother, I often get misunderstood too, like ‘the friend of a bad man is also a bad man.’”
“Haha…”
“But I don’t really care. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been your brother for so many years.” Fang Qiang slapped Zhou Chao’s thigh hard, but the drunk latter seemed to feel nothing, just calmly looking at that angular face. “It’s just that it’s best that you’ve come to your senses. I was kind of worried that if you kept being such a ‘playboy,’ you’d never be able to turn back. A lot of men with loose morals end up getting involved with the mafia, gambling, and all that.”
“Who says? Don’t big shots also have loose private lives?”
“That’s a minority, you know. And they only became loose after making money.” Fang Qiang elbowed Zhou Chao in the back of the head. “It’s been three years already. Whether you’re taking revenge on others or yourself, isn’t it about time to end it?”
“To be honest, I always felt that what Zhou Chao was doing wasn’t taking revenge on others, but on himself… Like a person who, instead of letting a wound heal, morbidly keeps reopening it… Does that kind of stinging pain feel intoxicating?”
“Maybe… hehe. A slight sting in the heart gives me a genuine feeling of being alive.”
“How about now? Do you feel especially alive?” An Jing teased with a pursed lip. “You’re a glutton for punishment…”
“From now on, find someone sincere—if you still want to look.” Fang Qiang touched his hair. “But what if you’re sincere and the other person isn’t?”
“Sometimes it’s just that contradictory… That’s life, huh.”
An Jing glared at them sideways, stood up in annoyance, pressed the thick bottom of the bottle onto Zhou Chao’s head, and then slapped the other hand onto Fang Qiang’s head. “I think Zhou Chao should go back to her.”
Fang Qiang’s eyes widened. “Huh—? Go back?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you think she’ll forgive this kid?”
“Whether she forgives or not, you can’t just let a wrong thing slide. If you run away, what’s the difference between you and Ninth Love?” An Jing said seriously. “If the other party doesn’t forgive you, that’s their business. But if you did something wrong, you have to make up for it, apologize, and let her see your repentance. Otherwise, what was the point of doing wrong?”
“That sounds really weird.”
“Anyway, that’s the idea. Mistakes can be a good thing sometimes. If you get past the hurdle of doing wrong, you can often reach a higher level. If you keep running away, you’ll keep facing the same problems and keep making the same mistakes.”
Zhou Chao grabbed An Jing’s arm and stood up with difficulty. He breathed heavily, looking like he was about to throw up, but he forced himself to straighten up. “An Jing is right. Actually… I’ve been running away for too long.”
“That’s true…” Fang Qiang stood up as well. “No matter what kind of future awaits us, we have to face it. We have to believe—tomorrow will be better.”
“When you say stuff like that, it makes me want to puke…” Zhou Chao rolled his eyes, then leaned on the stele and let out a blaaargh, actually vomiting.
“Damn, was that necessary? Can’t I say something philosophical?”
“Blaaaargh—”