(1)
A faint floral scent drifted through the low tea mountains.
Winter in the south, after all, wasn’t too cold; it wouldn’t be as utterly silent as the north.
Because of this, one could see flowers blooming proudly in the cold weather.
“This orchid is good, it looks so vibrant.”
The burly Fang Qiang squatted down, immediately making the small area crowded.
“Even the ones my mom grows in the courtyard aren’t this good.”
“What? Oh, so this is an orchid?”
“Damn it, A Wei, you don’t know that, do you?”
“I don’t pay attention to this stuff.”
“Can someone hold these for me? Don’t crush the flowers. I’ll pick a few bouquets.”
“I will.”
Fang Qiang volunteered.
“Hey, Zhou Chao, come quick, what are these over here? Small, blue, also in clumps.”
“Where?”
“Over there.”
Sun Wei stood on the edge of the mountain path, pointing to the distant slope.
“That’s rosemary.”
“It’s a bit far, should we pick some?”
“I’ll do it.”
“Be careful.”
“Don’t worry!”
Rosemary looked like a large clump of grass, with many pine-needle-like leaves on each stalk, small and thin.
The flowers bloomed beneath the leaves, a dark blue, small and adorable.
“Zhou Chao, can you do it, or should I?”
Fang Qiang took the few bouquets of orchids Zhou Chao handed him, asking teasingly.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”
Zhou Chao casually shook his hand, stepped over the bushes, and slowly moved onto the hillside.
There was no path here, but it was covered in many plants.
One might step into empty space, and the loose soil was also very slippery, making it easy to lose balance.
So, they had to be extra careful, and the closer they got to the clump of rosemary, the steeper the slope became.
Sun Wei wasn’t worried at all, gazing blankly at the fiery clouds in the sky, while Fang Qiang picked up the cigarette resting on his neck and put it in his mouth.
“A Wei, got a light?”
“You better be careful not to set the mountain on fire, haha.”
Sun Wei joked, tossing the lighter over.
“You think I’m you, throwing cigarette butts around recklessly.”
Fang Qiang glared at him.
“You’re acting like you’re so civilized, you bastard!”
“Whoosh!”
Just then, a sound of loosening earth came from below.
Zhou Chao, who had been bent over, was now sprawled on the hillside, sliding uncontrollably downwards.
“Holy shit, Zhou Chao!”
“What’s going on?”
Sun Wei also quickly ran to the edge.
Luckily, the slide was only momentary.
Zhou Chao grabbed an oak tree growing on the hillside and slowly straightened up.
“You bastard—are you—alright—!?”
Fang Qiang yelled down to him, his voice echoing slightly through the mountains.
“I’m fine—!”
Zhou Chao laughed, covered in dirt, holding up the bouquet of rosemary in his hand.
“I picked it, ain’t I awesome!”
“Damn you, still caring about that at a time like this!”
Fang Qiang cursed with a laugh.
“Don’t move from there, I’ll come get you!”
“No need, you’ll slide too!”
“I’ll go find a stick!”
Sun Wei shouted, turning back and running along the path they came from.
He picked up a wooden stick that someone had left halfway.
Although it was a bit crooked, it was generally straight enough to serve as an extension of an arm.
“Zhou Chao, I’ve got the stick…”
“A Wei, I’ll do it.”
Fang Qiang patted Sun Wei’s shoulder, took the wooden stick from his hand, and walked down the hillside himself.
Then he grabbed a tough vine with one hand, tried to stretch his arm out, and handed the stick over.
“Still a bit short!”
“How about now!”
Fang Qiang, with a cigarette in his mouth, shouted.
Sparks were coming from the cigarette butt, but he had no time to take a drag.
“Got it!”
“Hold tight!”
“Don’t worry!”
Zhou Chao held the stick and was pulled up by Fang Qiang, while Sun Wei, standing higher up, reached out and pulled both of them up together—in fact, he didn’t exert much strength, just provided a balance point for the two, so they wouldn’t fall backward.
“Holy shit, that was dangerous.”
Sun Wei teased, “You said it would be fine, remember?”
“Just a small accident, no big deal if I fell. It’s a field below, not some ditch.”
“Let’s not pick anything like that again.”
Fang Qiang laughed.
“Alright.”
Zhou Chao handed the rosemary to Fang Qiang and brushed the dust from his clothes.
Fang Qiang and Sun Wei also helped brush the dust from his pants.
After a quick clean, he finally looked less disheveled.
“Anything else we need to get?”
Sun Wei asked.
Zhou Chao took out his cigarette pack, offered one to Sun Wei, and put one in his own mouth, “Let’s get a few more camellias. If there are no other flowers, we’ll go down—lighter.”
“Gave it to A Qiang.”
“A Qiang?”
“Cough, it fell down.”
“It’s fine, I lit this one.”
Fang Qiang held up the cigarette, its filter soaked with saliva.
“Come on, come closer.”
So, the three of them touched their cigarette butts together and, after a few puffs each, successfully lit their cigarettes.
The three of them inhaled deeply in unison and looked at each other under the orange sunset, then suddenly burst out laughing.
The boys didn’t know what was so funny, but they just felt exceptionally joyful at that moment.
On the moss-covered concrete block by the field, Zhou Chao flattened the kraft paper.
Fang Qiang and Sun Wei helped hold down the corners to prevent them from being blown away by the wind.
They had picked a total of four kinds of flowers on the tea mountain.
The dark blue rosemary, the yellowish-green Jianlan orchids with purplish speckles, the camellias as red as a bride’s veil, and dark purple leaf flowers.
Clumps of rosemary were laid at the bottom, with some leaf flowers placed on top as filler, then the camellias were added, and finally, the orchids were used as an embellishment.
Zhou Chao skillfully wrapped the kraft paper—the back part was much higher, while the front was much lower.
“Holy crap, your skill is impressive,” Sun Wei exclaimed.
***
(2)
“I’m not kidding, okay? My family used to own a flower shop.”
“Why did it close later?”
“Later, we went to H City to open a wholesale market.”
“Damn! No wonder you’re so rich…”
“Just average, not super rich.”
Zhou Chao replied with a faint smile, wrapping the black and white spotted plastic paper around the bouquet, like dressing it in a thin veil.
“Hmm… tie the ribbon, okay, it’s done.”
“Quite a big bouquet, looks pretty good.”
“Really beautiful.”
Fang Qiang smacked his lips.
“This is good enough to use for a girl’s confession.”
“Exactly, isn’t it too wasteful to give it to that kid An Jing?”
Sun Wei also joked.
“What are you talking about? Brothers are much more important than women!”
***
(3)
By the time the three walked to the small square in front of An Jing’s house, the sunset was just a sliver of light, almost completely gone.
The moon in the sky had already risen, looking like a plastic film stuck to blue glass.
The sun had come out since noon today, and the dampness from several days of rain had receded significantly, making the small square lively again.
The man they had seen before was still busking, and the audience around him was still neither too many nor too few, just as before.
In his deep fedora, there were seven or eight coins and two or three banknotes, and beside it, a bag of steamed rice cakes, given by who knows whom—in small cities, this stuff was eaten as a staple.
Its status was similar to steamed buns in the north.
「These years, alone, through wind and rain…」
“Do you guys have any loose change in your pockets?”
Zhou Chao asked Fang Qiang, who was holding a large bouquet of flowers.
“What change?”
It was Sun Wei who answered first.
“Like ten-cent coins!”
“I do, let me see, I have a ton of ten-cent coins…”
“Why?”
“I buy egg pancakes at my doorstep every morning, damn it. They’re one dollar twenty each, and I always get three or eight mao back, and I can’t really spend ten-cent coins well, so they just pile up in my pocket.”
Sun Wei rattled his pocket noisily, pulled out a large handful of loose change, then picked out seventeen or eighteen ten-cent coins from it, putting them all in Zhou Chao’s hand.
“Damn, you really have a lot of ten-cent coins.”
“I have a few too.”
Fang Qiang laboriously dug into his pants pocket with his free hand and pulled out three ten-cent coins.
Zhou Chao himself couldn’t find any ten-cent coins, only a single fifty-cent coin.
He clutched the large handful of small-denomination coins and walked to the singing man, then “clattered” a large amount of money into his hat.
Although the amount wasn’t much, the gesture was quite grand.
The singing man also looked over curiously, then showed a helpless, bitter smile on his face.
Zhou Chao nodded to him, and he nodded back to Zhou Chao.
「Eventually there are dreams, eventually there is you, in my heart—」
“I finally know what these damn ten-cent coins are good for.”
Sun Wei chuckled.
“Speaking of which, last time I gave a few ten-cent coins to a beggar, and he even complained it wasn’t enough!”
Fang Qiang laughed loudly.
“Then he definitely wasn’t a real beggar.”
Zhou Chao shrugged.
“Look, the busker here doesn’t mind.”
“Do we have three yuan combined?”
Sun Wei asked.
“Maybe, maybe not?”
Fang Qiang looked uncertain.
「Friends walk together for a lifetime, those days are no more…」
Zhou Chao glanced at the young man still singing, and another girl walked up and put a five-yuan banknote into his hat.
He turned back, hands in his pockets, “Probably about that much.”
“So, how do we get to An Jing’s house?”
“This way.”
Fang Qiang turned around.
「Friends are never alone, a friend’s voice, you’ll understand—」
“It’s on the third floor, right?”
“Right.”
“Living here feels pretty good too.”
“It’s close to school, but I still prefer my courtyard at home.”
Fang Qiang smiled faintly.
“Even if the house is a bit run down.”
“My house is next to the market, damn it, that house is small and cramped.”
“A Wei, is your house yours?”
Zhou Chao asked.
“Rented. We’re planning to save money to buy a new one in the next few years. Haven’t house prices gone up again these past two years? The money we saved before isn’t quite enough.”
Sun Wei pouted.
“It’s fine, anyway, I can go back to my hometown. My family has a single lineage, everything is mine, it’s that awesome.”
“Let’s walk faster, maybe we can even mooch a meal!”
Zhou Chao urged.
“Haha, good point, let’s go!”
The three boys playfully, loudly laughing, rushed up the external metal staircase and vigorously knocked on the door.
The square’s clamor and singing intertwined, boiling in the sunset’s last glow.
「There’s still hurt, still pain, still gotta go, still—me—」
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