Chapter 12: Flowing Water

Within time, the monsoon races through my words ten lines at a glance, leaving every sentence disordered. I dare not imagine whether, over the course of a long life, my footsteps will ring out with conviction.

—Jian Zhen, “Running Script”

The surroundings were empty and silent. Even the slightest movement of a tree’s shadow produced an exceptionally clear sound.

Chen Zhiyu’s steps were slow and steady. His feet passed through the wild grass with a soft rustling.

Their breathing and pulses gradually fell into the same rhythm as his footsteps until, for a moment, it was impossible to distinguish one from the other.

Su Nan instinctively held her breath. Looking past the top of his head toward the night sky, she suddenly remembered her childhood.

Qicheng had not yet become the Qicheng of today. Green maples filled the city, and flowing water extended for miles. Barges rested beside the banks. Beneath the moonlight, someone’s mother carried a wooden basin to the river to wash clothes.

Her father carried her on his back, walking from one maple tree to the next.

She sang along with him:

The moon walks, and I walk too. I’ll see my brother to the village entrance...

Who was “brother”?

So she changed the words:

The moon walks, and I walk too. I’ll see my father to the village entrance...

Morning glories as large as bowls bloomed outside their door. Their elderly yellow dog lay snoring among the foxtail grass. Her father’s back was a small boat, swaying gently yet always remaining steady.

“Nannan, grow stronger when you’re older. Don’t keep getting sick and making your mother worry.”

“Nannan, learn from your sister when you study. Try to be a little cleverer.”

“Professor Chen...”

Chen Zhiyu’s steps paused. “Mm?”

“You really resemble my father.”

Chen Zhiyu laughed in exasperation. “I couldn’t possibly have a daughter as old as you.”

The person on his back weighed almost nothing, even less than he had expected.

He had noticed it when he embraced her beside the river that day. She was little more than a slender collection of bones. Yet there was no weakness within them, only resistance.

And, when she faced him, a silent resistance.

“If I hadn’t come looking for you, were you planning to sit here all night?”

“I was just preparing to get up and find someone in the village.”

“No one else in the class had a problem. You’re the only class representative who managed to create one.”

“A class representative should lead by example.”

Chen Zhiyu nearly choked on his laughter. “By taking the lead in causing trouble?”

Su Nan said nothing. She lowered her head and silently breathed in his pleasant scent.

I only cause trouble for you.

“If something had happened to you, how would I have explained it to your advisor?”

Su Nan froze.

With one sentence, he swept away her weightless fantasy as easily as someone tearing through a spiderweb.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He had nothing more to say.

His anger had already passed, leaving only lingering fear.

Apart from the friends he had made in his early years, Chen Zhiyu almost never formed relationships whose eventual separation would leave him melancholy. Two or three people who truly knew and cared for him were enough. Everyone else remained a passing acquaintance.

Life contained countless hardships, but none was more inescapable than impermanence.

Yet his foolish student was capable. Far too capable.

If all the ways he had “bullied” her amounted to sins of speech, then this feeling he could neither take up nor put down was probably his retribution.

“In all my life, the only person I’ve ever carried on my back was my three-year-old niece. Don’t you feel honored?”

“You’re indirectly saying I’m like a child. I understood.”

Chen Zhiyu was speechless.

“Professor Chen.”

“Mm?”

The person on his back pointed ahead. The darkness outlined the silhouette of an ancient tree towering toward the sky.

“Is tying red strips of cloth to trees a local custom?”

“That is a sacred tree. In the past, clans conducting ancestral rites would tie red silk to it, set out an altar, and burn incense.”

“There should be a deity guarding this place, shouldn’t there?”

“In the wilderness, anything possessing a spirit can be considered a deity.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Why?”

“I saw a grave mound in the distance just now. It was rather frightening.”

“So that’s why you were digging your fingers into my shoulders?”

The person on his back laughed. The sound was clear and pleasant.

He adjusted her weight upward. “Stop moving your legs around.”

“Oh.”

Chen Zhiyu sometimes felt that his life was not even as interesting as that crooked old tree near the entrance.

The old tree stood there year after year. Throughout decades of wind and rain, the one thing it never lacked was the stories of ordinary people.

For a very long time, however, his life had remained frozen at a particular moment.

He possessed an ordinary life and innumerable mundane responsibilities. The sun rose and set as usual each day, and spring brought life before winter extinguished it every year.

He had become like a clock rooted in one place, its hands moving from twelve back to twelve in an endless cycle.

He possessed everything except another story.

Throughout the mountains and wilderness, all things possessed a spirit. All were divine.

Before the gods, he did not dare deceive himself.

At this moment, the unknown extended beneath his feet. That concealed anxiety and bewilderment he dared not release, that longing and fear, truly resembled the beginning of every story.

What people called the sudden stirring of the heart.

The kilometer to the parking area was drawn infinitely long by the deliberately slowed pace of Chen Zhiyu’s steps.

Nevertheless, they unknowingly reached the end.

Two-story buildings stood to the east, west, and north of the village committee compound. Their doors faced south, enclosing a courtyard.

Chen Zhiyu set Su Nan down and walked around the courtyard. In the northwestern corner, he found an outdoor faucet.

“Come here.”

Su Nan tentatively placed her injured left foot on the concrete. Agonizing pain shot through her ankle. She gritted her teeth and sharply inhaled, then began hopping toward him on her right foot.

Chen Zhiyu stared at her.

He walked over, supported her arm, and placed it across his shoulder.

“Thank you, Professor Chen.”

“You’re unbearably troublesome.”

She laughed quietly.

Chen Zhiyu turned on the faucet. Su Nan bent forward and extended her hands, but he abruptly caught her fingers and pulled them beneath the water with somewhat impatient roughness.

As water poured over them, he held her fingers and washed each one individually.

Moonlight shattered across the clear water and splashed over their seemingly intertwined fingers.

His fingers were slightly cool, just like hers.

When he finished, he turned off the faucet and gave her hand a barely perceptible squeeze.

“Your foot.”

“My foot...” Flustered, she hopped forward. The next moment, he caught her arm and drew it over his shoulder.

He bent down and took hold of her left foot. “Stand steady.”

“All right.” Her fingers pressed tightly into his shoulder.

He turned on the faucet. Cool water flowed from her calf downward and touched the wound.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“You deserve it.”

She said nothing but secretly smiled.

His fingers applied pressure as he rubbed the mud from her calf, ankle, and the top of her foot. He turned her sole slightly outward and examined it, then scooped up a handful of water and rinsed it roughly.

He could not see clearly in the darkness and was afraid of using too much or too little force, so he decided to leave the left foot as it was until they returned to the hotel.

“Balance on your toes and switch to your right foot.”

“Mm.”

When she lowered her left foot and raised the right, pressure fell upon the injured ankle, sending a sudden stab of pain through it.

Her body tilted.

Chen Zhiyu immediately straightened and caught her firmly with one arm.

Su Nan hurriedly steadied herself. Only after releasing a breath did she realize that both her hands rested against his waist while his arm encircled her back.

Her breathing stopped.

The warmth and scent of his body were only inches away.

At the possibility of something impossible, her heart abruptly collapsed like a mountain.

She dared neither breathe nor blink.

Time seemed to become still.

The faucet remained open, pouring water onto the ground.

Splash. Splash.

He slowly lowered his head.

Moonlight fell into her eyes, lending her clear pupils a damp and almost seductively vulnerable quality.

After a moment, his throat moved. He realized that his gaze was drifting downward toward her equally moist lips.

His desire was glaringly apparent, impossible to conceal and in no need of concealment.

Yet the thought lasted only an instant before he reined himself in at the edge of the precipice.

He lowered his eyes, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. “If you can’t stand, forget it. Let your classmate help you clean up at the hotel.”

The second hand began moving again.

Su Nan slowly released a deep breath, and her heart fell heavily back into place.

She could not tell whether she felt disappointed or relieved.

Chen Zhiyu turned off the faucet, supported her to the car, and placed her in the back seat.

Only then, beneath the overhead light, did he notice that her damp, half-dried white shirt had become somewhat transparent.

While he carried her earlier, her chest had pressed against his back. He had used every shred of his lifelong conviction as a respectable professor to reject the improper thoughts that arose.

Now, as he faintly discerned the shape of the equally white bra beneath her shirt, those thoughts showed signs of becoming a spark that could set the prairie ablaze.

His expression turned cold. He removed his coat and threw it at her.

Holding the garment, she stared at him blankly. “Professor Chen, I’m not cold.”

His voice was disdainful. “The coat is covered in mud. Wash it before returning it to me.”

She obediently nodded. “All right.”

Chen Zhiyu stopped looking at her and walked around to open the front door.

He closed it rather forcefully, startling his foolish student again and making her think he had become angry.

The headlights illuminated the road as the car slowly moved forward.

Chen Zhiyu took out his phone and tossed it to Su Nan in the back seat. “Call your classmate. She’s been waiting for you since six.”

Her voice filled the car as she made the call.

He raised his eyes and glanced into the rearview mirror.

Her gaze was slightly lowered, and an apologetic smile rested on her face. The tip of her nose was faintly red. In the hazy light, her entire face possessed an unusually gentle and fragile quality.

She resembled the first green bud, still covered in soft down, emerging from a branch one early morning.